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!

Peace amidst the storm

Many of you all know how chaotic having a baby is, particularly for first time parents. I've blogged about it, I've preached about it, I've even published an article about how impending parenthood has given me new appreciation for the Advent story.

Jessica and I have been tremendously blessed through this pregnancy with only relatively minor discomforts for her such as nausea and heartburn. Sometimes it becomes very easy to take our good health and that of our baby for granted.

My dear friend and mentor Will Penner and his wife, Christine, just gave birth to their fifth child, and while everything and everyone is fine now, there were some very scary moments. You can read about them on Will's blog.

If you are inclined toward such things, take a moment to offer up a prayer for all parents who are uncertain about the health of their children. It can be a very scary thing, and they all need a special awareness of God's grace in the midst of their anxiety and fear.

The Shameless Self Promotion Continues

I've published another article on Worship Connection. This one is about the place of the Offering in the liturgy and an example of a creative way I've engaged it in the past. Comments and feedback are always welcome.

Indulging my inner child

I was born in 1980, so I was a child during the golden age of Saturday morning cartoons. Say what you want about classic Disney and Looney Toons, but nothing beats G I Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Thundercats. These were cartoons in the post-Star Wars era, so merchandising tie ins were standard. So my childhood friends and I had our favorite shows, and the massive collections of action figures that went along with loving those shows. I'm sure it was torture to our parents paying all that money for action figures, but we didn't care. We had guys with cool little guns, awesome vehicles, and karate chop action.

The coolest cartoon of the early 80s is without a doubt He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.

I spent my preschool and early elementary years thinking that He-Man was the coolest thing ever. And thanks to my generation's never ending appetite for nostalgia and things that are ironically cool, the old He-Man episodes are now online at Hulu. Watching these episodes 25 years later I have concluded that, yes, He-Man is in fact the coolest thing ever.

I had all the action figures and the playsets, I dressed up as He-Man for Halloween one year (my little brother was Orko), and I would run around yelling "I have the power!" I even loved the live action move with Dolph Lundgren, which was so cheesy that only a true He-Man devotee could sit through it. 

(Total sidenote: How cool would it have been if there had been a scene where Lundgren, playing He-Man, had stared down Skeletor and said "I must break you" Ivan Drago style?)

Yes, some if it is cheesy and unintentionally funny. He-Man himself is interesting. He has a blonde "Prince Valiant" hairdo, red fur topped ugg-boots, so many muscles that Jose Canseco thinks he does too many 'roids, and an outfit that would only be appropriate in a European sex club.

My favorite thing about these 80s cartoons, though, was that at the end of the episode, one of the characters would show up on screen and give some kind of moral message. The best was on G I Joe, where some kids would be doing something stupid like swimming when it was lightning out or playing with firecrackers. Then one of the characters would show up out of nowhere (insert inappropriate child molester joke here) and explain why that was bad. The best part, of course, was the tag line (say it with me): "Now you know. And knowing is half the battle!"

Cartoons today don't do that kind of stuff. But then again, maybe that's a good thing. I mean, what moral message could Sponge Bob give kids other than "I'm a lot funnier when you're on drugs"?

Anyway, this post is totally non-theological, but I and my fellow children of the 80s are enjoying reliving our childhoods online. Hopefully they will post other shows, too. I'm going to go dig around in my parents' attic and see if they still have any of these action figures. My inner child is loving this.

The Hermenutics of Newsweek

There's an interesting and unexpected new voice in the gay marriage debate: Newsweek magazine. While most mainstream media coverage of religious issues demonstrates a pathetically weak understanding of the complexities of the issues at hand (one would expect a business reporter to understand something about business, so why not religion?), this Newsweek article is surprisingly articulate.

The cover story (which you can read here) correctly points out that nowhere in the Bible is marriage explicitly defined as only between a man and a woman. It also rightly points out that many biblical marriages included multiples wives, children conceived with slaves, women stolen from guys you had murdered, and enough other scandalous things to fill several seasons worth of prime time soap operas.

This article has, of course, made a lot of conservatives angry. Politico has a pretty good article surveying the reactions of several leading conservative voices.

While I thought the Newsweek article was pretty insightful, I do take issue with one of their conclusions. In the middle of the article the writer says that "religious objections to gay marriage are not rooted in the Bible at all, but in custom and tradition". The writer has very ably demonstrated that the subject of marriage between two people of the same gender is never specifically brought up in the Bible, and that homosexuality as an orientation is not, either. But just because a specific issue is not mentioned in the Bible does not mean that one cannot turn to the biblical text for guidance on it.

Let me pause for a moment and "out" myself, so to speak. Those who know me and/or read this blog can probably guess that I'm for marriage equality. I disagree with the official position of my denomination, even though I uphold the Discipline as part of my covenant as a pastor. The fact that I fall on the side of this particular issue that is usually labeled as liberal or progressive does not mean, however, that I don't see the merits in the other side's position.

The biblical texts are ancient documents written by ancient people and concern the issues of the ancient world. The modern/postmodern world is very different, and thus has very different issues and conflicts, yet many of the same human tendencies remain, so these ancient texts still have something to teach us. We have to understand the context in which they were written to understand what they might have to say to us today.

For example, I care greatly about the issue of climate change, which is also not specifically mentioned in the Bible, nor are any environmental issues, but that does not mean that the Bible cannot provide guidance for people of faith when dealing with the environment. In Genesis 2 God tells Adam that he is responsible for the earth. Some versions translate this as "fill the earth and subdue it", others say "care for it". The Hebrew words can legitimately be translated a number of ways, so an interpretive choice is involved. I choose the latter translation not just for the heck of it, but because I see in the broad scope of the biblical witness that God cares greatly about how we treat all the things God has created: people, plants, etc. So I take the "care for the earth" command as a kind of biblical support (but not a proof text) for the idea that we should be aware of and actively minimize our negative impact on the long term health of the planet.

All this is to say that those who oppose same sex marriage can certainly cite the Bible in their arguments even though the issue is never explicitly mentioned in the biblical text. Most people in this camp would disagree and say that it is explicitly mentioned, of course, and they certainly have the right to make that interpretive choice.

And that's really the point. We're all making certain interpretive choices when we read and apply the Bible. Let's be honest about that and say which choices we're making. That way we can discuss these issues on a level playing field instead of retreating into our trenches and lobbing rhetorical bombs at one another. We'll make a lot more progress if we will.

Prop 8- The Musical

I'm sure this is going to offend somebody, probably a lot of somebodies. But if we can't laugh at ourselves when we're the most heated in our disagreements, then we're really in trouble.

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Looking into a crystal ball?

The Episcopal Church is facing a split. This is not news to anybody, of course, since disagreements over doctrinal issues have been wreaking havoc in the Church for quite some time now. But it looks as though the split may be formalized in a matter of weeks. An article in the New York Times today reported how the bishops of breakaway dioceses are formally organizing a competing province in North America. The strange irony of this is that the formal announcement was made at an evangelical church in Wheaton, Illinois- hardly the place one expects to find a bunch of high church prelates. Strange bedfellows, indeed.

Since Anglicanism is the mother church of Methodism, I'm curious what this latest development has to say about my own church's future. The United Methodist Church also has a number of theological conflicts that, while they involve a plethora of issues, tend to separate into camps based on views concerning sexual orientation. Unlike the Episcopal Church, we have not yet consecrated an openly gay bishop, and our official stance on sexual orientation in ordained ministry is more clearly defined, but the disagreements are the same.

So what does the formal split along ideological lines in the Episcopal Church mean for the United Methodist Church? Will we, too, eventually have a small but significant minority split off from the connection and form a group that considers themselves to be an ideologically pure remnant? Or will we learn from the struggles of holy mother church and recommit ourselves to ongoing dialogue?

What do you out in the blogosphere think? Discuss...