Thoughts on Aldersgate Day

Today is Aldersgate Day for those of us who follow in the tradition of Mr. Wesley. On May 24, 1738, Wesley had his heart warming experience at Aldersgate that would come to influence Wesley's view of our continual need for salvation, as opposed to the single salvation experience theology advocated by our contemporary evangelical brethren.

To commemorate Aldersgate Day I'm reposting something I wrote a few months back that came out of my attempt to better understand Wesley's Aldersgate experience, particularly the role that Martin Luther's writings played:

One of the most common jokes among Methodist preachers is about John Wesley's Aldersgate experience. After coming back from a stint as a missionary in America that can't be described as anything but a total failure, Mr. Wesley was quite depressed and wondering what God was up to.

In his journal Wesley describes going to a meeting of a religious society on Aldersgate Street in London (which no longer exists, and is now the entrance to a shopping mall), where Luther's Preface to Romans was being read. Wesley writes that as he sat there he had a sensation of his heart being "strangely warmed", and the claims that it was the first time in his life he felt completely assured of God's love and grace.

The joke, of course, is that Luther's Preface to Romans is probably the least heart warming document one can read. Some say this is evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit, because no one would feel warm and fuzzy listening to Luther!

I've read Luther's Preface to Romans a handful of times, and that's the conclusion I've come to every time. But recently I decided to read it again because I'm teaching a short term Disciple class at Bethlehem on Romans, and I became curious again what it was that so affected Wesley.

I saw something new this time. I do not now, nor will I probably ever experience Martin Luther's writings as heart warming, but I'm beginning to see how John Wesley might have. The reader understands, in no uncertain terms, that Luther believes they are a wretched, dirty sinner. So whose heart would this warm? Only a person who already felt like a wretched, dirty sinner!

I think John Wesley found tremendous hope in Martin Luther's writings because they gave voice to what he was already experiencing. Wesley himself may not have been able to describe it, but Luther was. So when Luther gets around to the good news (such as it is), Wesley was already hooked. Luther accurately described the problem as Wesley experienced it, so Luther's solution would be very heartwarming, indeed.

This is just further proof that God's grace works in all kinds of different ways, and just because I may not understand it doesn't make it any less real. I've certainly felt unworthy of God's grace, but probably not to the extent that Luther or Wesley did. So the way they articulate God's grace in the midst of our Sin is probably not going to resonate with me the way it will with someone who shares Luther and Wesley's anxieties.

I still don't experience Luther's Preface to Romans as heartwarming at all, but I can appreciate how someone else like John Wesley would.

Podcast Episode 6- Nationalist Religion

A new episode of the Truth As Best I Know It Podcast is up!

In this episode, "Nationalist Religion", Matt and Jessica reflect on the release of the "American Patriot's Bible" and issues that arise at the intersection of religion and national loyalties.

You can see the new Bible mentioned in the episode here.

Please feel free to comment on any issues raised in this episode in the comment section.

You can click on the title above to listen online, or listen at Podbean, where our podcast is hosted.

And, of course, you can (and should!) subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

A Trip to the Mailbox

I took a break from sermon writing this afternoon to go get the mail, and in the midst of all the junk mail (seriously, we have to stop this tree holocaust) I found two interesting pieces of mail. 

One was my renewed passport. The other was a letter from my District Superintendent, confirming that I was being appointed to Bethlehem UMC again for the coming conference year.

This struck me as a tad ironic, because although my passport allows me to go anywhere in the world, I'm staying right where I am for the time being.

Don't get me wrong, I love my congregation and I'm very glad to get to serve them for another year. I just thought it was kind of amusing.

PS- for those who are wondering, the next episode of The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast will probably be recorded later today and should be up sometime this weekend.

Funding for Metro General Hospital

Yesterday I was very privileged to take a tour of Nashville's Metro General Hospital with several dozen other pastors. The tour was organized by my friend, Jay Voorhees, who has been leading the effort to get Nashville's Metro Council to fully fund the hospital so that they don't have to cut back on services for the uninsured. You can find out more about the cause at a website Jay has set up, Nashvillians for Metro General.

I went on this tour having mentally prepared myself to see some pretty heartbreaking stuff. As a pastor I've visited a number of health care facilities run by tax dollars, and it's never been a pretty sight. Whenever state and federal budgets get tight, these are the first places to lose funds since there is usually no one to fight for them in budget meetings. So publicly run health care facilities are often underfunded, understaffed, and the staff they do have are overworked and underpaid. Thus the quality of care is often very poor. Whenever I've needed hospital care I've been very fortunate to be able to choose a private hospital like Vanderbilt or Gateway, but that's only because I have very good health insurance.

I went to Metro General expecting to see what I've described above, so you can imagine I was blown away by what I saw. The hospital has clean, well maintained facilities and is staffed by people who were extremely friendly and very dedicated to their work. Most of the first floor is taken up by various clinics that offer free services for the uninsured: everything from mammograms to orthopedic care to cardiological services. They even have an infusion center where people can receive cancer treatments in comfortable, private spaces.

At the end of the tour we had the opportunity to hear from the administrators of Metro General. I was amazed to learn that their budget is a fraction of what a place like Vanderbilt has to work with, and yet the level of care is just as good. Even more amazing is that Metro General has no reserve funds and no line of credit, which is unheard of for a multi-million dollar organization.

If Metro General's funding is cut, it will have to seriously curtail and eliminate services it provides to the poor, homeless, and others who don't have adequate health insurance. The 47 million uninsured people in this country have no access to preventative medicine other than free services such as the ones that are provided at Metro General. As a result, they end up in the emergency rooms of other hospitals once their conditions, which would have been treatable had they been diagnosed earlier, are beyond the point of no return. The free services offered by Metro General save thousands of lives every year. To cut the funding would ensure that these services would be eliminated, effectively sentencing thousands of people to early deaths. 

Adequately funding Metro General Hospital isn't just a nice thing to do if we can. It is a moral imperative.

I'm no longer a legal resident of Davidson County, so this blog is the biggest contribution I can make to the effort. To all Nashville residents who read this, please take a moment to send your council member an email and tell them not to cut Metro General's funding. You can do so quickly through the City Council's website. There is a rally at the Metro Courthouse at 4:30pm on Thursday, May 21, just before the budget hearing gets underway. Please come if you can to support health care for Nashville's uninsured through Metro General Hospital.

Podcast Episode 5- Better People?

In this episode Matt and Jessica discuss a Pew Forum study that suggests that participation in organized religion makes people nicer individuals and better citizens. We wonder aloud why that is, how that might actually look, if there are exceptions, and possible negative uses of this information.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

You can click the title above to download the episode, or listen to it in the player below:

Powered by Podbean.com

Thanks to the good folks at Podbean for hosting us.

Participating in the Civil Religion

image courtesy of the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle

(Notice how on the right side of the banner there is an image of the continental US with the word "God" in the middle. I'm assuming they didn't mean that America is God, but it's still a bit strange. Make of it what you will...)

Last Thursday was the National Day of Prayer, and I was asked to be part of the day-long observance at the Clarksville YMCA. Pastors of all different stripes (I'm assuming that non-Christian clerics were not invited, which is a shame) would take the microphone in the gym and pray for fifteen minutes. My particular time slot was in the middle of the afternoon, and there were about two dozen folks there. I left most of the time for silent prayer, because I figure if someone wants to hear me yammer on for fifteen minutes straight they'll come to my church.

Normally I get very uncomfortable about things like the National Day of Prayer. Not because I think prayer is a bad idea- I think prayer is great! Nor because I'm not a fan of our nation- I love America. (I don't like everything my government does, but I'm thankful for the freedom to say so without fear of persecution). Nor is it because I don't think we should pray for our nation- it needs a lot of prayer.

The idea is great. But the rhetoric about America being a "Christian nation" often implies that what is good for America is good for Christianity, and vice-versa. That makes me uncomfortable because I don't believe that this is always the case.

Hearing some of my clergy colleagues pray during their fifteen minute slots, I often heard phrases like "Lord, let your will/justice be done in this nation". While I don't know for sure what these individuals meant by that, I often hear such phrases coupled with ideas like "returning this nation to its former glory", which was presumably before sex, drugs, rock and roll, abortion, gay marriage, and Hillary Clinton.

But I have to wonder, do we really want God's justice in our nation? If God's will really is fulfilled, we might be in trouble here in the USA. Reading the Hebrew Prophets, one is lead to believe that God's idea of justice is everyone having and equal share of the resources, and an end to inequality and the idols of materialism. In Mary's Song in Luke (often called the Magnificat), she praises the God who lifts up the humble and brings down the lofty.

Do we really want that in America? We live in a country that has about five percent of the world's population, but we use a quarter of the earth's resources. According to the My Ecological Footprint Quiz, if everyone on the planet lived like I do, we would need 7.62 Earths! And I'm fairly conscious about my consumption compared to a lot of people I know!

I'm not trying to dump on my country or anything. My point is that we should be careful what we pray for. If God's justice was truly done in our country, then we'd be knocked down several pegs. We'd have to stop thinking that we are somehow better than everyone else on Earth be forced to live very simply, so that the 3 billion people who live on less than $1 a day would have a chance to live into what we consider "old age".

Let's be careful what we pray for, America. We just might get it, and we might not like it.

A Mother's Day Tribute

This is technically a date late, but yesterday was so busy it was hard to find a few spare minutes to blog.

So I'd like to wish a Happy Mother's Day to the best mom I know, who also happens to be the newest mom I know. She loves her daughter more than anything in the world and spends every moment with her she can. She's also a very successful career woman who is a great role model, showing her daughter that you can do anything you want. And on top of all that she's extremely beautiful!

The only complaint anyone could make against her is her choice of husbands, but that's just proof she's charitable, too.

So Happy Mother's Day, Jessica. You are the greatest wife and mother in the world, and I'm very proud to be your partner in life. I love you!

PS- Jessica posted cute video of Kate on her blog yesterday, which you should definitely check out.

Backtracking

It seems that in a post I wrote recently on how my church dealt with the Swine Flu issue, I accidentally contracted foot-in-mouth disease.

I was being a bit silly and sarcastic in describing certain ways of doing communion, and attempting to use that as a contrast to what I believe to be theologically better practices of the Lord's Supper.

However, it came across another way. Some folks thought I was being disrespectful of my congregation. That was certainly not my intent, and I apologize to anybody who was offended by my comments.

If anybody wants to talk about it (or anything else, for that matter), please feel free to contact me directly.

Grace and Peace,

Matt...

The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast- Episode 4: Church Shopping

After a number of technical difficulties, the latest episode of The Truth As Best I Know It podcast is available for mass consumption.

In this episode, Matt and Jessica debate the merits and drawbacks of the "church shopping" phenomenon, with the requisite straying into rabbit holes of other topics.

Now there are a few more options for listening.

If you want to download the file from this site, click the post title or below.

Download this episode (right click and save)

If you want to subscribe to our podcast in iTunes, click here.

And if you just want to check it out while you're here,

Thanks to the good folks over at Podbean for hosting us.

Powered by Podbean.com

The Danger of Supporting Torture

I saw an article today that disturbed me and made me angry, and yet at the same time did not surprise me in the least.

According to a survey from the Pew Research Center, Americans are more likely to think that torture  is acceptable if they go to church than if they don't. 

(Call it "enhanced interrogation" all you want, but the US defined these techniques as torture when they were used against our soldiers in WWII.)

This is a sad commentary on how much of mainstream Christianity has sold out to the political right. Because right wing figures like George W. Bush laced their speeches with enough Christian buzzwords and signed on to the Religious Right's two-pronged political agenda (opposition to abortion and gay marriage), many Christians supported him without looking further into his positions, policies, or actions. 

Because this particular political faction has passed the litmus test, many Christians have turned a willful bind eye to the abuses of said faction, and even after they are out of office, they go on defending said abuses.

The problem, of course, is that the abuses of the Bush administration fly in the face of the commandments of Jesus Christ- the man that George W. Bush claimed was his "favorite philosopher" during his run for the presidency.

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44) would seem to preclude using torture against anyone, even people who may have engaged in direct attacks against our country. Jesus prayed for those who murdered him, even in the moment that they were engaging in practices that would be considered torture by any modern standard.

At the risk of proof-texting, I can't help but think of Matthew 7:21, where Jesus says, "not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of God, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." 

We can give all the lip-service we want to the name of Jesus, but when we sanction the cruel treatment of God's children in the defense of the security of the nation-state, we are giving our first loyalty to something that is much less than God. The Bible has a word for that: idolatry. And the two major complaints of the Hebrew prophets were idolatry and injustice. We're clearly guilty on both counts.

My own denomination, the United Methodist Church (which is currently guilty of numerous injustices, by the way), has come out resolutely against torture. We have issued a number of emphatic statements condemning these practices.

I pray that we will, in time, repent of our idolatrous love for the nation-state and return to the kind of love for God that leads us to walk in the ways of peace, love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Then we will truly be doing the will of God.

Hunger und Durst

I was supposed to do this yesterday, but world hunger is still a problem today, and would be so even if I had posted this when I said I would.

A few quick facts from the UN World Food Program

-25,000 people die every day from starvation, malnutrition, and hunger related issues

-Every six seconds a child dies from hunger (that means several have died while you've been reading this post)

-The countries with the most hunger related deaths are also the ones most affected by HIV/AIDS

Some folks much smarter than I have crunched the numbers and estimate that if the United States reduced its defense budget by 10%, we would have enough money to produce an adequate food supply and distribute it to the entire world.

Sadly, we know that's not going to happen, but it does show us that the problem of world hunger is one that can be solved. One organization that's doing a lot to solve the disease and not just the symptoms is Heifer International. They raise animals and give them to people in developing nations. They also teach them how to use these animals to build sustainable industries, thus empowering them to feed themselves.

The way Heifer structures charitable giving is really cool, too. You don't just give a dollar amount. You sponsor a flock of chicks, a goat, a sheep, or a cow. You can do shares of some of the higher dollar animals, since they can be pricey. Making the solutions tangible has enabled Heifer to be one of the most successful non-profits in the world today.

While I've got your attention, there's another cool way you can help solve some of these issues. The same countries that are affected by hunger issues and HIV/AIDS usually also suffer from access to clean water. Shawn Wood, one of Jessica's authors, created a campaign called 5 Days in May, where people pledge to drink nothing but water for 5 days and donate the amount they would have spent on drinks to Water Missions. 

Jessica and I are participating, and we haven't calculated the amount yet, but we'll probably be depressed at how much we spend on coffee alone.

If you only take one thing from this post, let it be this: the suffering caused by hunger issues and lack of access to clean water is horrible, but we have the resources to solve the problem. I'm trying very hard to be part of the solution. I hope you will, too.

Bloggers Unite!

On April 29, over 500 bloggers will be writing posts about world hunger and soliciting donations for Heifer International. If you'd like your blog to participate in this event, go to the Bloggers Unite website.

Podcast- Episode 3

A new episode of The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast is now online.

In Episode 3, Matt responds to Maxie Dunnam’s objections to proposed changes in the Constitution of the United Methodist Church dealing with issues of inclusivity.

You can also find the podcast on iTunes.

Links

The full version of the video excerpted in the podcast

The General Conference record of the amendment legislation in question.

A list of the amendments being voted on at this year's Annual Conferences.

More info on un-Christian

Why We're Baptizing Our Infant Daughter

Kate is being baptized this coming Sunday. We're very honored to have Rev. Dr. M. Douglas Meeks, a mentor and professor of mine from my seminary days at Vanderbilt, coming to preside at the baptism.

Over the years I've heard the argument more than a few times from my Baptist friends (and from a few Methodists who think they're Baptist) that infant baptism isn't biblical, valid, or anything else remotely good. (Jessica and I did a podcast about this issue last week, and Jessica wrote a really great blog post on the subject, too)

A cursory glance at the history of the Christian faith presents a different picture, however. In the 4th century St. Augustine (in one of his only major contributions to Christian theology that didn't turn out horribly) helped answer the question of what to do with people who came back into the Orthodox fold from a schismatic group called the Donatists. Augustine determined that the efficacy of baptism lay not in the holiness of the priest performing the sacrament (ex opere operato), but in the holiness of God.

In my own tradition, we view baptism as a sign of prevenient grace (a term Mr. Wesley learned from Jacob Arminius), which is symbolic of God's claim upon us. Kate doesn't understand the concept of God at three months old, but God's love for her and God's claim upon her life are no less real. In the same way she doesn't understand the concept of family, but she's no less a part of our family. Later she will be able to understand and claim for herself what has been true about her before she was even born.

Furthermore, baptizing an infant is an act of the church in which we are making a covenant to raise the child in the faith, provide a Christian example for them to emulate, and support them as they grow in their spiritual life. We are also reaffirming our covenant with one another and dedicating ourselves to emulating the divine life of perichoresis we see in the Holy Trinity.

So come to Bethlehem UMC this Sunday at 10am and celebrate with us!

Podcast- Episode 2

The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast Episode 2: Baptism is live online now. Thanks to the folks at Podbean for hosting the podcast.

You can also find us on iTunes.

Enjoy the episode and feel free to post comments on this blog.

Constitutional Changes

At the 2008 General Conference, about which I blogged quite a bit (hit the archives from April 2008 for my commentary), there were a number of changes to the Constitution of the UMC (found in our Book of Discipline) debated and adopted. Just like changing the Constitution of the United States, one entity can't make the changes on its own. The changes must be ratified by a majority (I can't remember if it's a simple majority or two-thirds) of Annual Conferences and the Council of Bishops.

Most of these changes have to do with altering terminology to put the Conferences outside of the US on par with the US Conferences, eliminating "jurisdictional" and "central" conferences, and making them all into "regional conferences". These are basically clusters of Annual Conferences in a given region, in which bishops are elected and itinerate. These seem to be a good idea because it gets rid of the notion that the conferences outside the US are somehow of lesser importance. We are a global church and this seems like the right move.

The Constitutional change I'm not so sure about, however, is the first one listed in the PDF linked above. The amendment would alter the language in paragraph 4, which concerns the inclusiveness in the church. The language of "without regard to race, color, national origin, status, or economic condition" has been removed and replaced with simply "all persons".

I am of two minds on this one. On the one hand this could be a good thing, since a number of rather intolerant individuals have used the aforementioned paragraph's lack of the phrase "sexual orientation" as an excuse to deny membership to persons of differing sexual orientation. I believe sexual orientation to be covered by "status", but that has never been tested in a case before the Judicial Council, to my knowledge. So the new phrase, "all persons", could make it harder for those who want to pick and choose who they want to let in to do so.

However, some other language in the new paragraph could possibly be used to exclude people based on a pastor or a congregation's particular beliefs. The sentence in question is "all persons, upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith and relationship in Jesus Christ, shall be eligible to become professing members in any local church in the connection."

What does it mean for a person to "take vows declaring the Christian faith and relationship in Jesus Christ"? For me it would be sufficient for a person to answer "yes" to the questions put forth in the liturgy of welcoming in our Book of Worship. But other pastors might say that if one does not repent of certain sins (as defined by the pastor, of course), that they are not truly able to "take vows declaring the Christian faith", and thus exclude them from membership in the church. This is exactly what happened in the case in Virginia where the pastor wouldn't admit a person because they were gay, because the pastor claimed they hadn't repented of their sin.

Hence my confusion. What should we make of this proposed change to our Constitution? Will greater inclusiveness be achieved, or will this new language end up being another weapon in the hands of those who do not want our church to be inclusive?

Discuss...

Podcast Update

The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast is now available on iTunes.

A new episode will be up in the next couple days.

The "Post-Christian" America

Last week,  Newsweek had a really interesting feature on "The End of Christian America".

The author of the article was not the one contending that such a thing was ending (or that it ever existed, which is debatable). The person making the claims was none other than Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. (Side note: every person I've ever met who went to Southern makes sure to say whether they were there before or after Mohler and the fundamentalist takeover of Southern and the SBC)

There were lots of interesting issues raised in the article, but one quote from Mohler near the beginning really stood out to me. "A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us. The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture."

Post-modern. Post-Christian. Post-Western. These are three distinct terms that are each in their own way problematically loaded, needing to be examined (perhaps I'll take a stab at doing just that in a future post). And while they are three distinct things, I can't help but wondering if Al Mohler is simply using them to say the same thing three times.

Al Mohler was one of the major forces in the rise of the Religious Right. Along with figures like James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, Mohler was incredibly successful at perpetuating a metanarrative to explain the problems of the late twentieth century. The metanarrative went like this: there was a time when things were good, when people believed and practiced what the Bible taught, resulting in an idyllic, "Ozzie and Harriet"-esque picture of the 1950s (which, of course, never really existed). But then along came the 60s, with its sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and the world went to hell in a hand-basket. The solution? Return to this earlier time and its values, and everything will go back to "normal" (whatever that is).

There are a million different versions of this metanarrative, of course, but it's a pretty consistent message that animates this particular brand of evangelicalism. So I can't help but wonder if Mohler's above quote is another variation on this particular metanarrative?

It's especially puzzling when one considers how Mohler is using the terms in contrast to the "Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium". Exactly what was this consensus?

Christianity isn't going away. We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of certain forms of Christianity, which is probably what scares Mohler and his constituency to death. But the birth of new forms of faith and practice is nothing new. A person from the eleventh century (the time in which this alleged Judeo-Christian consensus was formed) wouldn't recognize Christianity as it exists today, and a first century Christian wouldn't have recognized eleventh century Christianity. It's safe to assume that if we got into a time machine and went forward a thousand years we wouldn't recognize the way they practice Christianity.

The good news that Al Mohler and his cohort seem to forget is that God is not dependent on any particular cultural forms. God has spoken to people in every time and every place, and people have found ways to worship God and try to follow God's will for their lives in every society that has ever existed. Perhaps it's time we quit worshipping the idol we've made out of a society that never even existed and started looking for how God is speaking to the world we actually live in.

We're Podcasting!

Introducing the brand new The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast.

Just like the blog, the podcast explores how the Christian faith works in the lives of twenty first century people.

In the first episode, "Words, Words, Words", Matt and Jessica discuss the role of language, particularly certain religious buzzwords, in people's faith today. Have certain words and phrases outlived their usefulness or is there room to reclaim them into new contexts?

In this episode we reference a book by Susan Isaacs, Angry Conversations With God: A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir. You can find more information about the book and purchase it here.

Enjoy the podcast and leave any comments, questions, or suggestions for future episodes here on the blog.

(PS- we're working on getting the podcast on iTunes. If you're a tech savvy person and have any suggestions as to how to make the recording better, please share them.)

Same Sex Marriage, Democracy, and a flashback to High School Civics

There have been a couple of big news items lately on the same-sex marriage front. The Vermont state legislature overrode the governor's veto of a bill allowing same sex couples to enjoy the same rights and legal protections that heterosexual couples get. This comes only weeks after Iowa's state Supreme Court overturned a ban on same sex marriage on constitutional grounds. This has given hope to those of us who support equal rights; hope that was sorely needed after California voters passes Proposition 8 with the help of lots of outside money. (California's state Supreme Court may yet overturn the ban.)

Those who oppose equality for same-sex couples normally find their rationale in a particular reading of the Bible that assumes parts of the Levitical purity codes are authoritative, even as they enjoy pulled pork barbecue, shrimp cocktails, and polyester fabrics. But in their attempt to hold together the Reagan-era alliance with economic conservatives, they often couch their objections in "principles of democracy". They argue that the people have the right to decide what should and should not be allowed in society, and that it violates the Constitution when courts overrule the will of the majority. (No such luck in Vermont, though.)

(Quick disclaimer: yes, I'm a preacher and some folks get very nervous when preachers get political. But I also hold a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science. Take that for what it's worth.)

To that objection, allow me to take us on a trip back in time to High School Civics/Government class. One of the first things we learned in said class was a concept called "Checks and Balances", where each branch of government is able to keep the others from going too crazy. The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, but Congress has to declare war (at least, until the War Powers Act was passed). Congress makes laws but the President has to sign them. Most folks understand and appreciate that, but we tend to forget about the Judiciary Branch of government. It is this branch of government's job to interpret the Constitution, and they are empowered by said document to nullify laws and other actions of the other two branches of government if they are found to be in violation. Thus, the power of the people's elected representatives is checked and balanced.

The best example is when the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education in 1954, reversing its own ruling in 1896 in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson and declaring that racial segregation was unconstitutional. The decision in the Brown case was against the will of the majority of people in the United States at the time, but it was the right thing to do.

So before we start whining about "activist judges" and "legislating from the bench", let's take a step back and remember that it is the job of the Judicial Branch of government to check and balance the power of majority rule.

On the other hand, if you want to argue against same-sex marriage using the Bible, go ahead and do so. I would argue that there is nothing about the issue in the Bible, but that is a subject for another post. By the way, democracy is never endorsed anywhere in the Bible, and majority rule is treated with no small amount of contempt, particularly in the Old Testament.

Thoughts on Calling and Vocation

This past Wednesday I was honored to give the keynote address for the Center for Faith and Vocation's annual dinner at Butler University, my alma mater. I can't post my speech on the blog, since it included some anecdotes that are not my intellectual property, but I would like to reflect on one idea I shared there:

The folks at the Center asked me to speak on the subjects of calling and vocation. Recently I've reread Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain, and while I love the thoughtfulness of his prose and the gentleness of spirit that comes with the contemplative life, I've realized how much I used to think like Father Thomas when it comes to the subject of calling, and how much good evolving away from that type of thinking has done me.

Thomas Merton reflected back on his early years through the lens of a drastic and profound conversion to Catholicism. In fact, he wrote his autobiography in his cell at the Abbey of Gethsemani. So his take on the subject of one's calling from God is completely formed by his robustly Augustinian form of Roman Catholicism. Augustine owed a great deal intellectually to the "pagan philosopher" (his term, not mine) Plato, from whom Augustine learned to be very dualistic in his view of the world.

Augustine's Platonic dualism led him to define pretty much everything in oppositional, either/or categories. Things were either good or evil. One either pursued the things of body or the things of the soul. And one either had a specific, definite calling from God to a vocation, or one did not. Thomas Merton shared this view of calling and it is evident throughout his writing.

I remember thinking for a long time that I had to figure out whether God was calling me or not. That's how I heard it talked about in the church and by most people. But in college a professor of mine introduced me to Paul Tillich by having me read Dynamics of Faith, where Tillich refutes the idea of faith being a dualistic, either/or proposition. Everyone has faith in something, according to Tillich, and the question is in what we are ultimately concerned.

So I began to think that if faith isn't an either/or proposition, maybe calling isn't either. Maybe it wasn't a question of whether God is calling me or not, but a question of what God is calling me to. Specifically, when it comes to the question of vocation, what kind of job will allow me to live with integrity to who God is calling me to be?

A colleague of mine once told me about a special service at his church when he was growing up where anybody who felt God was calling them could come up for a special blessing. Previously he had talked about his sense of calling with his pastor, telling him that he felt called to serve God, but he knew preaching wasn't for him. So when he came forward for the blessing, his pastor turned him away, saying, "God only calls people to the preaching ministry." This person later ended up getting ordained as a deacon in the United Methodist Church and served as the Director of the National Christian Educators Fellowship. So much for his pastor's dualistic, either/or view of calling.

Over the years since I've gotten a clearer sense that God is calls me to preach, teach, and write, so the job of a local church pastor is a pretty good way to live out that calling. But I know lots of people who are living out very faithful lives in all sorts of vocations, and frankly their example is probably more powerful than mine, because they serve in places people don't often expect to meet God.

I hope that people who are exploring what they want to do with their life will view the question of calling not as an either/or proposition, because doing so leads to a lot of anxiety about getting a particular question right or wrong, and the possibility that the wrong answer could have eternal consequences. If instead we believe that God calls all people to live faithfully wherever they are, then we can choose a vocation based not on whether it's right or wrong, but on how we can best live out our gifts and graces. In doing so we will find our life's calling.

Our Screwed Up Priorities

A bill currently before the Tennessee State Legislature would make "low-riding" your pants a crime. 

This is what the Tennessee Legislature feels is worth its time and energy.

Even though Tennessee has the tenth highest poverty rate in the nation.

Even though Tennessee has the third worst high school graduation rate in the nation.

Even though Tennessee has the eighteenth highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation.

Even though poor, rural communities in Tennessee have raging meth epidemics.

Even though Tennessee has some of the worst health care in the nation, including over 200,000 people having recently lost access to any kind of healthcare through cuts in the state health care system, Tenncare. We have no idea how many people have died as a result of these cuts, but some estimates put the number in the hundreds.

I could go on. I could cite lots of different studies with conflicting statistics, but the overwhelming consensus is that our state has major problems: problems so huge that only entities like state and national governments are equipped to handle them. And our elected representatives feel that the best use of their time and our tax dollars is to debate whether kids low-riding their pants like gangster rappers? Imitating silly fashions from rap videos is now an offense against the state?

Is it really any wonder that our state is so behind? Is it any wonder that our region of the country is a national joke?

Please pray for the state of Tennessee. We have a very long way to go.

March Madness!!!

The best sporting event of the year (except when the Titans are in the Superbowl) starts today. My alma matter, Butler University, plays LSU in the first game today. Everyone cheer for the Bulldogs, if for no other reason than President Obama picked them in his bracket.

My condolences to all the employers who are losing countless hours of productivity today and tomorrow. You can be comforted by the fact that your customers are as distracted as your employees.

The Latest "End Times" Scare

Warning: a rant is about to ensue:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It seems that due to one of the sillier accusations lobbed at Barack Obama during the campaign, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jones have been dragged out of the moth balls to once again repeat their tired interpretations of the apocalyptic texts of the Bible as if they were somehow new or relevant.

There are a number of ways that one could critique what these guys are saying. One way would be to point out how radically inconsistent is their application of scripture, especially since their entire argument rests on a "literal" (a concept we can and should spend some time deconstructing) reading of the Bible. One could also dismiss them entirely based on their extreme ignorance of any political categories. Please, someone ask them to define socialism!

But today I feel like picking their argument apart on the grounds that they're not saying anything that hasn't been said in regarding Dispensationalist eschatology (their particular brand of road-map for the end of the world) for at least thirty years.

That by itself isn't necessarily a bad thing because it could be seen as evidence of consistency and faithfulness to their doctrinal system. The problem, however, is that they keep pointing to current events as evidence that the Rapture (an interepretation of 1 Thessalonians 4:12 that was invented in the early nineteenth century by an Irishman named John Nelson Darby) is just around the corner.

Hal Lindsey has been doing this same kind of thing ever since he published The Late, Great Planet Earth over thirty years ago. LaHaye and Jenkins have taken advantage of that same fear and fascination with Nostradamus-type prophecies of calamity and leveraged it for immense profit. The activities of the Soviet Union were "evidence" that the Rapture would happen next Thursday. When the Soviet Union collapsed, that was "proof". So was the first Gulf War. So was Y2K. So is every incident of Arab-Israeli violence that comes up in the news.

(Sidenote: the fascination with Soviet-Arab relations stems from a very wacky reading of Ezekiel 38-39)

The latest excuse to dreg these guys up was the attempt to scare religious voters in 2008 by not to subtly suggesting that Barack Obama was the Antichrist. LaHaye and Jenkins wisely backed away from that particular accusation, but they weren't shy about selling their ideas or their many products.

I really like Rachel Maddow because she's pretty much the only pundit who is respectful of all viewpoints while being unapologetic about her own. She's a Rhodes Scholar and an Oxford PhD, so she knows that of which she speaks! Her interview with LaHaye and Jenkins is posted above.

It's easy to simply dismiss these guys as hucksters and mindless ideologues. They clearly are, but their book sales and a number of surveys have shown that a lot of people believe what they're saying, even though they don't bother to open the Bible and see if any of it makes sense (it doesn't).

We would all do well to remember that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' books are in the fiction section of the bookstore for a reason. If you want to know what's actually going on in the world, pick up a newspaper.

OK, my ranting is done. Everybody have a good Monday.

Why I Stay in the UMC

Jennifer Smith started a conversation on her blog where she gave her reasons for staying in the UMC. Like most young clergy, I have spent a significant amount of time wrestling with the question of whether to stay in a declining mainline denomination that has as many problems as we do. Ultimately I have decided to stick around, and a few of the reasons are listed below.

1. The UMC in my home. I mean this in several senses. I was baptized, raised, and confirmed in the UMC, and my parents have been active members of the same congregation for nearly twenty years. But theologically I also find myself at home in the UMC because our doctrinal standards always fall back on a very broad sense of God's grace.

2. The UMC is a big tent. United Methodists inhabit the entire spectrum of Protestant Christian theology. We have gung-ho environmentalists, crusaders for all kinds of social justice issues, people who openly wrestle with the divinity of Christ, and people who believe Adam and Eve rode their dinosaurs to church. While we don't agree on much, we do continue to create space for transformational dialogue, and we're the better for it.

3. Connectionalism. This one is a bit of a double edged sword. One of the downsides of a connectional system is an itenerant system that is unsustainable in its present form. But the upside is that pooling our money and other resources together allows us to accomplish more good than any individual church could do. Whenever a disaster occurs, churches are able to put together relief supplies and put them on a truck, knowing they will get to those who are most in need. About a third of every dollar we put in the collection plate goes around the world for various ministries. The whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

4. We're always trying hard to do better. Some folks wonder why I stick around in a denomination that has such regressive policies toward people of differing sexual orientations. But I can see how far we've come in empowering women in ministry (we still have a very long way to go on that one, though), and I see the changing attitudes in my generation, so I have faith that during my career we will be able to truly be welcoming to all of God's children, and stop discriminating based on traits we can't choose.

These are a few very broad reasons why I stay in the UMC. We're in some very tough days right now, but I believe our best days are ahead of us. God never stops speaking, and I'm hopeful that we'll listen and follow.

Agree? Disagree? Think of some things I left out? Discuss...

update- I got good news today. I will be commissioned as a Provisional Elder at Annual Conference in June. I was turned down two years ago, so being accepted feels very good. More details later.

What is the real role of the clergy?

I've had one of those weeks. You know, one of those weeks where seemingly nothing has gone right. Without going into details or naming names, my week has largely consisted of having to scramble and cover for the fact that other people either didn't do what they were supposed to do or backed out of something they agreed to do. There's no real sense getting mad about it. That's life. Besides, I know for a fact that I've been the source of this same kind of consternation for people on innumerable occasions in the past, so perhaps it's karmic justice.

During times of high stress such as these, it's very comforting to talk to other clergy, who all have similar stories. At the very least, it helps me to know that I'm not the only one with problems. The fact that most other pastors I know spend most of their time planning the ideal way for things to do, then altering those plans when something inevitably goes wrong, makes me wonder about our theological understanding of the role of the pastor.

When you get right down to it, most denominational groups have a rather high ecclesiology (theological understanding of the nature and role of the church), especially when it comes to clergy. High church denominations focus on the sacramental authority of the clergy, whereas low church denominations focus on the pastors' role in bringing the gospel to the masses. Either way, they all have fairly high views of the set apart and unique nature of the role of pastors.

But is that really what clergy spend most of their time doing? One of the most meaningful things I do is presiding at the sacraments of baptism and Communion, but these things take up a relatively small portion of my working hours. I also treasure moments of evangelistic encounter, but again, if I were to categorize my work week, evangelism would only claim a small percentage of my time. At the risk of painting with too broad a brush (I have yet to hear of a preacher who doesn't have that nasty habit), this is more or less true for everyone who is called to ministry as a full time vocation.

So what is it that consumes most of our time? What label gets slapped on the biggest piece of the pie chart? I suggest that it is personality management. To have any kind of success as a minister, you have to have some skills in working with people and knowing how to interact with different personalities.

I heard someone say one time (I can't for the life of me remember where or when) that if everybody just did what they were supposed to do, then we wouldn't need leaders, so the job of a leader is to deal with those (frequent) times when people don't do what they are supposed to. We could pick apart that statement in all kinds of ways, and yet there is a real truth to it. 

If everybody did their work on time, if they all understood their roles and never needed any guidance, if nobody did anything they weren't supposed to, then leadership would be pretty easy. If churches actually functioned that way, the pastor could show up once a week, preach a sermon, and be done. I have a fantastic congregation with many gifted and responsible lay leaders, so some of my best weeks are almost that easy!

But anybody can lead when things are going smoothly. The measure of any leader, clergy leaders included, is shown when nothing is going right. Fortunately, clergy leaders don't just have to rely on the depth of their own gifts and graces. We are called to rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit all of the time, and particularly in those moments when chaos seems to reign supreme.

Perhaps my musings here run counter to the rather high ecclesiological views of the role of the clergy espoused by most denominations, but I wonder if our understanding of said role isn't somewhat clouded by these grand, largely esoteric statements. Perhaps an understanding of clerical leadership as personality management would help us better discern the gifts and graces of those who feel the call to vocational ministry.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Alexis!

Kate's Aunt Alexis' (Matt's brother, Andrew's, wife) birthday is today, so we thought we'd record a video greeting for her and everyone to see.

We love you, Alexis!

Ashes

Last night I officiated the Ash Wednesday service, marking the beginning of Lent. I've done a number of these, but this particular liturgical holiday is always amazing to me. Jessica wrote a post about why it's so meaningful to her on our joint blog, The Parsonage Family. I share many of her feelings.

I guess this particular year was extra special since it was the first time Kate got to participate in the imposition of ashes. Smearing a cross of ashes on my 1 month old daughter's forehead and telling her to remember that she is dust was quite surreal, and not just because she has no concept of dust, mortality, or even self yet!

In a very strange way, it was comforting to perform this ritual that reminded us that Kate is mortal. Normally parents don't like to think about the fact that their children will one day die like everyone else. But it serves to counter-balance the tendency that all parents, especially parents of babies, have where we assume that our child is the center of the universe and that the fate of Western civilization hangs on whether we follow every proscribed step and make our child the most functional human being that ever lived.

Jessica, Kate, everyone I have ever known and loved, and I are all just tiny specks in the grand scheme of the universe. And yet we are deeply loved and cherished by God. That means we are freed to pursue our dreams and to do everything we can to make this world a better place. If we fail, the sun will still rise tomorrow, and if we succeed, all the better.

Let us remember that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Thanks be to God.

Thoughts on Lincoln/Darwin Day

Today is the 200th anniversary of the births of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. Call it a nod to the infinite nature of the universe actualizing the one in a million chance that two significant historical figures are born on the same day (OK, "Dumb and Dumber" fans, say it with me: "So you're saying there's a chance!"), call it the result of some cosmic alignment that will result in tons of births nine months from now, call it whatever you like, but these are two significant figures who deserve some consideration.

What strikes me about both Darwin and Lincoln is how they have become such transcendent figures in the years following their deaths that the actual persons get lost in our rush to define their legends. Both men are claimed as icons by those advocating all kinds of different causes, so much so that they have practically become blank screens upon which we project our hopes, fears, ideals, biases, etc.

Charles Darwin has become a superstar from people like Richard Dawkins with agendas that could legitimately be described as "evangelically atheist". Darwin has also become a convenient straw man for those who wish to use him as a via negativa argument for their notions of biblical innerrancy. 

The truth, of course, is somewhere in between. Darwin believed in God, was a member of the Church of England, and is buried in Westminster Abbey; but he did not have any major commitments to the theological controversies of his day, so how much less would he care about the theological controversies of our day where his name so frequently comes up?

Abraham Lincoln is rightly viewed as the "great emancipator", but the fact that he enacted policies that were highly progressive for his day does not necessarily mean that he would support policies that those of us who consider ourselves progressive advocate today. We can't simply say "Lincoln would have agreed on (policy X)" as a factual proof when it's just conjecture. Perhaps it's because of Lincoln's hagiographic portrayal as the paragon of progressive virtue that some scholars have began to push back and show us the "real

Lincoln. Some of these scholars have described him as a "partisan hack" and a "white supremacist", the latter due to the fact that he advocated for the federal government paying to relocate emancipated slaves to a colony in the Caribbean where they could build their own nation. 

The truth is that while Lincoln was certainly progressive for his day, he had to have been relatively centrist or he couldn't have been elected President. His notions about the fundamental superiority of one race over another were hardly uncommon in his day, and they didn't prevent him from seeing African-Americans as human beings and realizing that slavery was a moral wrong.

The debates over the legacies and legends of men like Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln show us lots of things about who we are as a society. One of the important lessons we learn from these debates is that we have to be very careful not to judge people who lived in the mid-nineteenth century by early twenty-first century standards. These men were formed by the times in which they lived, with all their vices and virtues. The fact that each of them in their own way helped to shape the course of history, thus helping define the times we live in, does not obscure the fact that Darwin and Lincoln were men of their time. 

Future generations will no doubt judge us to have been correct about certain things, and unbelievably wrong about others. If we hope to be given a fair hearing by history, then we should set the example and do the same for our own historical giants.

Update: On "The Colbert Report" tonight, Stephen interviewed a scholar who has written a book comparing Lincoln and Darwin as historical figures. I'll catch the replay later and link to the book. It sounded like an interesting read.

The 1:28s

I know a lot of people of the Christian persuasion that have a "Life-verse" or some similar title, more or less referring to a Bible verse that defines or somehow shapes their life. I think this can be kind of cool, even though I become highly suspicious any time individual Bible verses are quoted with no reference to context. Blame my Div School education for that particular quirk.

I don't really have one, myself. I have a tattoo of a cross over my heart, with the citation "Romans 8:38-39" under it, so I guess that might count.

My wife, Jessica, says that Matthew 11:19 should be "my verse", because my name is Matthew and I was born on November 19. It's oddly appropriate because it says "The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." ' But wisdom is proved right by her actions."

Read into that what you will. Those that know me (especially my college friends) can tell some stories.

Going on the "birthday verse" theme, I've been considering a particular Bible verse for my daughter, Kate, who was born on January 28. This isn't quite as easy as mine, since there is no biblical book called Kate or Katharine or anything like that. Blame patriarchy, I guess.

But nonetheless, I've been scanning through the Bible for books with a chapter 1, verse 28. Here are some of the cool ones I've found.

Genesis 1:28 "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'" (them being the man and woman, who are given the names "Adam" and "Eve" in the second creation story in Genesis)

1 Samuel 1:28 "'So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD.' And he worshiped the LORD there." (Is this good or bad for a preacher's kid?)

Ezekiel 1:28 "Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking."

Mark 1:28 "News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee." (if it said "region of the Internet" it would be perfect!)

Luke 1:28 "The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."

Colossians 1:18 "We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ."

Of course, not every book of the Bible has a verse 1:28. Maybe a quarter of them do. And of those, there at least a half dozen that would be inappropriate or just weird. (Those of you with too much time on your hands can go look for the ones I'm talking about)

OK, so what does everyone think? I have two or three favorites, but I won't bias the discussion by saying which ones. Maybe I'll create a poll tomorrow.

Thanks again for all those who have left comments on Jessica's and my joint blog, Facebook, MySpace, sent emails, flowers, cards, visited, brought food, and everything else folks have done. We are truly grateful for and humbled by the outpouring of support from our friends and family.

Introducing Baby Kate!

Katharine Barry Kelley is here! She was born at 2:07 pm on January 28, 2009, weighing in at 7 pounds, 15 ounces, and 20.5 inches long.

Pictures and a narrative of our journey of labor and delivery are at the joint blog Jessica and I keep together: The Parsonage Family (http://mattandjesskelley.blogspot.com)

Your prayers are greatly appreciated!

Baby Kate!!!

We're at the hospital now, and we're getting ready for Baby Kate's arrival. Frequent updates will be at our joint blog: The Parsonage Family (http://mattandjesskelley.blogspot.com)

Thank you for all the prayers and well wishes. Pictures and news will come soon!

Further Insight into "English Only"

According to a story in today's Tennessean, the recent attempt to make English the only allowable language for official government business in Nashville was almost entirely funded by an outside group: ProEnglish of Arlington, Virginia.

For those that didn't follow the story, when the deadline came to report fundraising for and against the amendments in the special election, the side in favor failed to file their report. It now seems that we know why.

Furthermore, the fact that the English Only effort was almost entirely funded by sources outside the state helps explain why Eric Crafton, the Nashville Councilman who sponsored the amendment, was so nonchalant when it failed. 

According to the Tennessean story, Crafton was contacted by this nativist special interest group who wanted to use Nashville as a test case and were willing to fund the campaign in favor of the effort. He put the wishes of this special interest group ahead of the needs of the people of Nashville who elected him. 

Some estimates have put the cost of the special election on these amendments at over a quarter of a million dollars. This money could have been better spent improving Nashville's schools or funding efforts to help immigrants better assimilate into the community.  How many ESL classes could that money have funded? And yet Councilman Crafton thought it would be better to spend Nashville-taxpayers' money on a test case for a special interest group.

The effort against "English Only" helped motivate compassionate, progressively minded people to get involved in local government. I hope that they will stay involved and that people who actually have the best interests of Nashville's residents, especially the immigrant population, in mind will run for seats on the Metro Council so that abuses like the one Mr. Crafton was all too happy to enable do not happen again.

Vote

A reminder to all Davidson County residents to go out and vote against the English Only Amendments. If you're still on the fence, or need to figure out where to go vote, all the relevant info is on Nashville for All of Us.

And since you're in a voting mood, click over to Jessica's blog, The Parsonage Family, and vote on when Baby Kate will be born. Your prize if you guess correctly? BRAGGING RIGHTS! What could be better than that?

Thoughts on Transition

I'm writing this post just as President Obama has finished his inaugural address. There aren't too many folks who didn't stop to watch and or listen to this historic moment.

At this moment when we're looking forward hopefully to all that President Obama will do, many are also taking time to reflect (and some to argue) on the presidency of George W. Bush. Many of my colleagues in the clergy are inclined to defend Mr. Bush, if for no other reason than the fact that he wears his Christianity on his sleeve and so comfortably tosses around many "Christian" buzz-words.

Personally I think that while President Bush is probably a very good man, he was a very bad President. I disagreed with a number of his policies, but ultimately that's not why he was a bad President. George W. Bush was a bad President because he never stopped to ask if what he was doing was right.

In his farewell address the other night, President Bush illustrated his highly dualistic view of the world when he said "good and evil are present in this world, and between the two of them there can be no compromise". This is a wonderful theological statement but it can't serve as a governing principle in a world that is infinitely more complex than he was willing to admit.

President Bush always assumed that what he was doing was good and that those who opposed him were on the side of evil. He demonstrated this view time and time again, beginning after 9/11 when he told foreign governments that they were either "with us or against us".  He never asked if the things his administration was doing were good or evil because he assumed that he was right and that the ends justified the means. It never occurred to him that one could do evil in the pursuit of good. This lack of curiosity and reflection was what made George W. Bush a bad President.

President Obama has demonstrated that he is a very reflective person with tremendous curiosity about what we are doing and why we are doing it. He believes in good and evil, but he does not assume that any nation or even any person can fall completely into one category or another. 

He illustrated this in his inaugural address when he said, "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our values". This is not a man who sees the world as black and white (in all the different senses of the term), even though he believes in right and wrong. He is able to see the "both/and" possibilities without being overly relativistic.

Regardless of our political affiliations, I hope we can all be happy that we now have a President who asks difficult questions of himself and those around him and who doesn't automatically assume that he is always right and that the ends always justify the means.

Best wishes, Mr. President. Our prayers are with you.

Thoughts on MLK Day

The world is pausing to remember the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. this year as perhaps never before, since we are less than 24 hours away from inaugurating our first black President, Barack Obama. Most of the MLK retrospectives we encounter focus on the "safe" King. They play clips from the "I Have a Dream" speech and celebrate how legalized segregation is now ended. But very little attention is paid to the Martin Luther King who is still dangerous and threatening to our society today, 41 years after his death.

In the last few years of his life, King began to broaden his focus from issues of segregation to large issues of justice, particularly war and poverty. This shift in focus did not exactly sit well with many of his supporters, but King understood that justice is justice, and he didn't back down from his call for justice no matter what form it took, no matter how unpopular it might be.

In 1967, King gave a speech at Riverside Church in New York City called "Beyond Vietnam: Time to Break the Silence", where he called for an end to the Vietnam War, among other things. The speech was controversial then, and there are certain parts of it that challenge us today as we are involved in two wars abroad and witness an ever widening gap of economic inequality at home. You can read the full text of the speech here. The audio file is embedded in the page. I've posted an excerpt below:

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

This speech was about Vietnam, but it could easily be about Iraq, the global economic shift, and the post 9/11 world. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. is still a prophet, challenging us to rise up and make a better world than that which has been handed to us. He is still a threat today. We can be sure that he would still be assassinated today.

***

Update:

Here is a very powerful video that includes audio form the aforementioned speech. Thanks to gavoweb for bringing it to my attention.

It Might be Heart Warming After All

One of the most common jokes among Methodist preachers is about John Wesley's Aldersgate experience. After coming back from a stint as a missionary in America that can't be described as anything but a total failure, Mr. Wesley was quite depressed and wondering what God was up to. 

In his journal Wesley describes going to a meeting of a religious society on Aldersgate Street in London (which no longer exists, and is now the entrance to a shopping mall), where Luther's Preface to Romans was being read. Wesley writes that as he sat there he had a sensation of his heart being "strangely warmed", and the claims that it was the first time in his life he felt completely assured of God's love and grace.

The joke, of course, is that Luther's Preface to Romans is probably the least heart warming document one can read. Some say this is evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit, because no one would feel warm and fuzzy listening to Luther!

I've read Luther's Preface to Romans a handful of times, and that's the conclusion I've come to every time. But recently I decided to read it again because I'm teaching a short term Disciple class at Bethlehem on Romans, and I became curious again what it was that so affected Wesley.

I saw something new this time. I do not now, nor will I probably ever experience Martin Luther's writings as heart warming, but I'm beginning to see how John Wesley might have. The reader understands, in no uncertain terms, that Luther believes they are a wretched, dirty sinner. So whose heart would this warm? Only a person who already felt like a wretched, dirty sinner!

I think John Wesley found tremendous hope in Martin Luther's writings because they gave voice to what he was already experiencing. Wesley himself may not have been able to describe it, but Luther was. So when Luther gets around to the good news (such as it is), Wesley was already hooked. Luther accurately described the problem as Wesley experienced it, so Luther's solution would be very heartwarming, indeed.

This is just further proof that God's grace works in all kinds of different ways, and just because I may not understand it doesn't make it any less real. I've certainly felt unworthy of God's grace, but probably not to the extent that Luther or Wesley did. So the way they articulate God's grace in the midst of our Sin is probably not going to resonate with me the way it will with someone who shares Luther and Wesley's anxieties.

I still don't experience Luther's Preface to Romans as heartwarming at all, but I can appreciate how someone else like John Wesley would.

Against "English Only"

For the last few weeks, the proposal to amend the Metro-Nashville charter to mandate that no metro government business can be conducted in any language other than English has been, at worst, a local embarrassment. But recently the issue picked up national attention with a front page article in the New York Times, making this issue a national embarrassment.

For once, the official voices of the United Methodist Church are on the right side of the issue. Our Bishop, Richard Wills, has spoken out against the amendment, as have a number of pastors in the Nashville area. Jay Voorhees, pastor of Antioch UMC and master of the Methodist Blog Roll, has set up a website called Nashville for All of Us that explains why this amendment is a bad idea. 

Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen and Nashville Mayor Karl Dean are also against this amendment, and neither of them are what most of us would call "progressives".

If this amendment were to pass, Nashville would become the largest city in America to restrict government business to one language. It would send a message to the rest of the country and the world that Nashville is not a place that is welcoming or tolerant of diversity. Currently our city enjoys such a reputation, even though we are not in an area of the country where diversity is appreciated.

Perhaps even worse than the damage to our reputation would be the message that it would send to our own immigrant population, who already work extremely hard to integrate themselves into the Nashville community. I hope and pray that all thoughtful people that are registered to vote in Davidson County will make the right decision and vote against Motions #1 and #2 so that Nashville can continue to be welcoming place for all people.

TN Conference Publicity

Below I've pasted the article from latest edition the TN Conference Review, which included an article about the Trace Adkins video filmed at Bethlehem UMC a few months ago:

Adkins, Baldwin film at Bethlehem Methodist

By Beth Liggett Cogbill and Chris Smith, reprinted from the September 10, 2008, Leaf Chronicle, Clarksville, Tennessee.

Country music star Trace Adkins and actor Stephen Baldwin created a stir in Montgomery County Tuesday filming at Bethlehem United Methodist Church on Gholson Road.

A few dozen people were at the scene, including camera crews, a crew from CMT filming the shoot and spectators from the church.

Trace Adkins and Stephen Baldwin with Bethlehem UMC pastor Matthew L. Kelley

Filming took place inside and outside the church, and at Big McAdoo Creek for a Baptism scene.

During some shots, police held up traffic on Gholson Road for a few minutes at a time.

Adkins' many hits include "Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk" and "Ladies Love Country Boys." Baldwin appeared in "The Usual Suspects" among other films and in recent years has been outspoken in Christian ministry.

The two were among 14 contestants this spring on NBC's "The Celebrity Apprentice," hosted by Donald Trump. Adkins made it to the final two.

An anecdote from Bethlehem UMC pastor Matthew Kelley:
The person who played the pastor in the video is a longtime Nashville songwriter, so the director asked me (Matt) to coach him and Mr. Baldwin on how to accurately do an immersion baptism. They told me later that I would be credited as a technical consultant for the video. The things they don't teach you in seminary!