No More Faith
1 Corinthians 13:13This is not another song about the mountains,
Except about how hard they are to move;
Have you ever stood before them
Like a mustard seed who's waiting for some proof?I say faith is a burden—
It's a weight to bear;
It's brave and bittersweet.
And hope is hard to hold to;
Lord, I believe,
Only help my unbeliefTill there's no more faith,
No more hope;
I'll see Your face and Lord, I'll know
There's no more faith,
No more hope.
I'll sing Your praise and let them go,
'Cause only love,
Only love remains.Have you ever heard that Jesus is the answer
And thought about the many doubts you hide?
Have you wondered how he loves you
If he really knows how dark you are inside?I say faith is a burden—
It's a weight to bear;
It's brave and bittersweet.
And hope is hard to hold to;
Lord, I believe,
Only help my unbeliefChorus
So I will drive these roads in thunder and in rain,
I will sing Your song at the top of my lungs,
And I will praise You, Lord, in glory and in pain
And I will follow You till this race is won.
And I will drive these roads till this motor won't run
And I will sing Your song from sea to shining sea,
And I will praise You, Lord, till Your kingdom come
And I will follow where you leadTill there's no more faith,
No more hope;
I'll see Your face and Lord, I'll know
There's no more faith,
No more hope.
I'll sing Your praise and let them go,
'Cause only love,
Only Your love remains.
Hallelujah!
Words and music: Andrew Peterson
© 2001 New Spring Publishing (a division of Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing)
From the album Clear to Venus, by Andrew Peterson
Friday, February 02, 2007
Song of the Week
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Musings on the missional church
The reason this is so encouraging is precisely because "missional" is a hip thing to be, fashionable but ill-understood. The fact of the matter is, as Alan Roxburgh observed in the September/October 2004 issue of Theology Matters, while "almost everywhere one goes today the word missional or the phrase missional church is used to describe everything from evangelism to reorganization plans for denominations, to how we make coffee in church basements and denominational meeting rooms . . . [this language] is still not understood by the vast majority of people in either leadership or the pew. This is a stunning accomplishment: from obscurity to banality in eight short years and people still don’t know what it means."
Dr. Roxburgh should know, since he was one of the people, along with Darrell Guder, Craig Van Gelder, and George Hunsberger, who collectively wrote the book Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America, which kicked off the whole discussion back in 1998. The book was the product of a network of missiologists and theologians called the Gospel and Our Culture Network, or GOCN, who sought to build on the seminal work of Bishop Lesslie Newbigin. Their aim was to address "issues of Gospel faithfulness in North American culture," and it was in this process that the term "missional church" was born, to define the way the church needs to operate if it is indeed to be faithful to the gospel message in the context of Western (not merely North American) culture.
The problem, as Dr. Roxburgh notes in his article, is that until recently, this work has largely "remained a relatively theoretic and abstract academic conversation about the church. Its books and ideas have been shaped more by internal conversations within the missiological academy than attentiveness to the needs of the churches." Missional Church, for instance, is easily among the small number of truly essential Christian books of the last decade--but it's also very dense, not easily absorbed or understood, and primarily theoretical in its orientation, short on practical application. It's to this problem that the September/October 2004 issue of Theology Matters is addressed, as it features Dr. Roxburgh's article--a concise explanation of what it means for the church to be missional--followed by two pieces arising out of the efforts of College Hill Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati to remake itself into a truly missional congregation. The unfortunate thing is that Theology Matters, while an excellent publication, is little known outside the PC(USA)--or within it, for that matter. That's why it's so encouraging to see Leadership step up to address the same problem, and particularly to see it do the job so well. As College Hill's associate pastor, the Rev. Stephen Eyre, put it, “The missional process is the shift from the church as an institution in a Christian culture, to a community in mission in a non-Christian culture”--and that's a shift the American church badly needs to make.
Note: Theology Matters is a publication of Presbyterians for Faith, Family and Ministry; its website is http://www.theologymatters.com. I mentioned, a few posts back, the Covenant Network and their newsletter; PFFM is another affinity group within the PC(USA), in this case working the orthodox side of the aisle, and Theology Matters is another of those publications which is sent to every pastor in the denomination (and probably only appreciated by those who agree with it). In this case, it's a publication which I consider one of the real benefits of ministering in the PC(USA). I would note that a free subscription is available to anyone who's interested; just go here to sign up.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Inaugural Song of the Week
Wouldn't It Be Strange?I’ve got a question for your consideration;
I’ll make you privy to my contemplation.
Let me say in my defense, I know it goes against all common sense . . .
It’s not our nature, nothing we’ve been taught,
Flies in the face of every line we’ve bought.
It’s hard to see it, harder to explain;
I know it cuts against the grain:
Wouldn’t it be strange if riches made you poor,
If everything you earned left you wanting more;
Wouldn’t it be strange to question what it’s for?
Wouldn’t it be strange?
I know we’ve got some interests to protect,
A set of dots we’re committed to connect.
It makes us nervous in light of how it’s been
To play a little game of pretend:
Wouldn’t it be strange if power made you weak,
Victory came to those who turned the other cheek;
Wouldn’t it be strange to welcome your defeat?
Wouldn’t it be strange?
Wouldn’t it be strange to find out in the end
The first will be the last and all the losers win?
Wouldn’t it be strange if Jesus came again?
Wouldn’t it be strange?
Words and music: Charlie Peacock and Douglas Kaine McKelvey
©1999 Sparrow Song/Andi Beat Goes On Music/Songs Only Dogs Can Hear
From the album Kingdom Come, by Charlie Peacock
Sunday, January 21, 2007
The parable of the three little pigs
The day of the Lord is like three little pigs who went out into the world to make their fortunes. Knowing the stories, they traveled until they found a place where no wolf had been seen for hundreds of years; then they settled down to build homes and earn their living.
The first pig just wanted to enjoy life, so he wasn’t interested in spending too much time building his house. “What’s the fastest way to get my house built?” he asked himself, and quickly settled on a straw house with no real foundation. In a short time, his house was finished; it was a little flimsy, but that didn’t bother him—he was rarely there, except to sleep.
The second pig sniffed with disapproval when he saw the first pig’s house of straw. “That’s simply not appropriate,” he said to himself. “Granted, there’s no need to go overboard—you shouldn’t take your house too seriously—but it’s important to have a nice, solid, respectable house, as befits a nice, solid, respectable member of society.” So the second pig built himself a house of wood, with which he was very pleased. “It’s no flimsy, disreputable shack like the first pig built, nor is it overbuilt like the third pig’s house; it’s just a good, practical house, enough and not too much.”
The third pig, meanwhile, wanted to build the best house he possibly could; he made sure he had the best possible foundation, then built his house of solid stone—top-quality granite, in fact—doing everything he could to ensure that his house would stand no matter what happened. He knew the other two pigs thought he was taking this whole house-building thing much too seriously, but he didn’t care; he wanted a house worthy of honor.
The three little pigs lived for some years in contentment, each pleased with the choices he had made, until one day a great wildfire swept unexpectedly through the area. The first little pig ran to his house of straw to save his valuables; but while he was in the house, the fire swept over it and it immediately burned to the ground, killing the little pig. The second little pig ran to his house of wood to save his valuables; but while he was in the house, the fire swept over it and it began to burn. The little pig dropped everything and ran; he escaped alive, but with everything he owned lost in the fire. He ran to the house of stone, where the third little pig let him in; while they were in the house, the fire swept over it—and passed on by. The house was scorched by the flames and smelled of fire and smoke, but was otherwise undamaged, because stone doesn’t burn.
For those who have ears to hear, let them hear.
Friday, January 19, 2007
The butterfly effect and the providence of God
Now, I don't know much about chaos theory, not being the mathematical type—I leave that to my brother-in-law the chemical engineer. Theology is more my line; and in that line, what I do know is that God works his will through chaotic systems as well as through obvious order, using small events at one point to bring about significant results at another point.
I was reminded of this, in a small way, over the course of the last several days. Last week, as I was sitting in my office planning the Sunday service, I wanted to doublecheck the lyrics to Charlie Peacock's song "The Harvest Is the End of the World" (from which I had pulled the title for that week's sermon). I didn't feel like going home to grab the album (strangelanguage), so I figured I'd look it up on the Internet. I found it, in the archives of two blogs I'd never heard of before, one called Mysterium Tremendum (scroll down to November 12, 2003), and its parent blog (for lack of a better word), The Thinklings. You'll notice the latter blog heading the links list over on the left; it's a great blog, and was a completely unexpected and equally welcome discovery.
In the course of exploring The Thinklings, I noticed a post headed "Pachelbel Is Haunting Me," with the YouTube video of an incredibly funny rant on Pachelbel's Canon in D, courtesy of a comedian/musician named Rob Paravonian. (If you check the January 2007 archives, it was posted on January 5.) I finally got around to watching it today, laughed hysterically, and played it for my wife, who did the same. She also suggested sending the link to a friend of ours. Said friend called us maybe 20 minutes later, declaring that it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen, that she'd had a terrible day which was now "a zillion times better." She's been having a rough couple of weeks, of which today was worse than average, and needed a boost; clearly, this was God's provision for her to lift her spirits. And it all began last week when I didn't feel like walking back to the house to grab a tape.
OK, so maybe this doesn't seem like a big deal—but it was to my friend, and it was to me; and it's an illustration of how God weaves everything together to bring about the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes, even in the little things. To Him be the glory.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Umm, what was that about grace?
Now, some might read that and think I fault them primarily because of their advocacy of homosexuality, but that's really not the case. There are much deeper issues here, a point signaled by the slogan printed across the front of every CovNet publication: Toward a Church as Generous and Just as God's Grace. Anyone see a problem with that? For my part, I see two. The first is minor: while we want the church to look as much like God as possible, it is simply beyond human capacity for the church to be as generous as God's grace. Aim high, sure, but the fact that they so blithely take aim at an impossibility suggests to me that they don't realize it's impossible. That in turn suggests that their doctrine of God isn't high enough by a long shot.
The greater problem is that word "just." Who in the world ever said, or thought, that God's grace is just? The very idea is ludicrous. Justice is all about what we earn; God's grace is all about what he gives us that we have not earned and could never even begin to hope to earn. Confusing the two, as CovNet evidently does, is a major theological error, a fundamental misunderstanding of who God is and who we are (and pretty much everything in between). Attempts to set aside the Scriptural witness on homosexuality are symptoms; this kind of thinking is the true disease. Christianity isn't about our rights, or what we deserve; it's about the fact that all we deserve is Hell, and God gives us his kingdom anyway. Maranatha--come, Lord Jesus!
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Barack Obama and the case for faith in the public square
I most often vote Republican for a number of reasons. One is that as a whole, the positions taken by the Republican Party line up better with my own beliefs. Another, however, is the frequency with which the Democrats nominate people I find it hard to respect. Thankfully, that isn't the case in our congressional district, the 2nd of Colorado; unfortunately, it's all too often the case at the presidential level. I don't expect the national Dems to nominate someone I could be happy voting for, but I wish they would at least nominate someone I could respect. They're out there, politicians like Virginia's Mark Warner or New Mexico's Bill Richardson—or, perhaps most intriguingly (though not for 2008), Illinois' Barack Obama, who showed why in his recent keynote address to the Building a Covenant for a New America conference.
As Slate's Amy Sullivan writes, "Obama's speech, delivered to an audience of the frustrated religious left, . . . was, for the first time in modern memory, an affirmative statement from a Democrat about 'how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy,' as Obama put it. . . . [H]e doesn't defend progressives' claim to religion; he asserts the responsibilities that fall to them as religious people. Americans are looking, Obama said, for a 'deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country.' He started that conversation. A few others are joining in. It's time for everyone else to catch up."
I appreciate this speech (and Obama for giving it) because I consider the increasing secularization of the Democratic Party—and its concomitant effects on the Republican Party—unfortunate for the health of our nation. The increasing identification of our political parties with a sacred vs. religious split marginalizes the Christian Left (and while I may not agree with them on many points, that's unfortunate for the democratic process), while turning the demands of folks like the Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn for a thoroughly secularized public square into a fundamental plank of American liberalism. Which, in my point of view, it shouldn't be, because that privileges one religious outlook over all others. That's religious discrimination, which we all know is a Bad Thing.
Of course, Zorn and others would deny that. When he writes, "Speaking as a secularist—I don't like that word, really, but it'll do for now—and presuming to speak for them, what we ask of believers—all we ask—is that they not enter the public square using 'because God says so' as a reason to advance or attack any policy position," he doesn't believe he's "asking believers to abandon their values or beliefs as a prerequisite to engaging in political debate"; indeed, he writes that "the idea that this demand is hostile to religion is a common and popular strawman . . . it's also completely wrong. " Clearly, he understands his own secular presumptions as religiously neutral, rather than as a set of presumptions which compete with religious ones.
With this, I cannot agree; where Zorn writes, "Whatever beliefs or philosophies shape your values or guide your personal conduct are of no nevermind to us," I have to say that he's wrong. As any mathematician or philosopher could tell you, it's not just your conclusions which matter—your reasoning, which provides the foundation for those conclusions, matters just as much, and it really is significant if you get to the right place for the wrong reasons. It's significant because it means you're right as much by accident as anything, and that getting one point right is no indicator that you'll get anything else right. As such, the "beliefs or philosophies [that] shape your values or guide your personal conduct" do matter—they matter a great deal—and for people like Zorn to insist that people like me pretend otherwise is precisely to "ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square," as Sen. Obama put it.
So what's the alternative? Sen. Obama is completely correct when he says, "Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King—indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history—were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition." The problem, though, as any preacher knows, is application: what do we do with that? That's the tricky part, and I think the senator himself wobbles in saying, "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values." I understand his concern here, "their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason" (and on a side note, shouldn't that be "our proposals"?), and I agree with that; but who gets to define what values are "universal"?
The fact of the matter is, requiring religious folk to make arguments only on grounds of "universal . . . values" will be translated right back into saying "that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates." As a recent Christianity Today editorial noted, "What Obama fails to see is how often specifically Christian or religious reasoning has been at the core of social movements," and how often his test would invalidate precisely those reformers whom he praises. There needs to be room for people of all stripes to make arguments for their positions on the basis of their own values, rather than restricting them to arguing on the basis of values pre-approved by others. It should no more be necessary for Christians, Muslims, and Jews to pretend to be secularists than for secularists to pretend to be Christians, Muslims, or Jews. We should all be free to make our arguments on the basis of who we really are and what we truly believe.
Of course, if we do so without trying to establish common ground with those who stand in different places—if, for instance, Christians make political arguments without trying to connect them to values held by at least some secularists—then we wind up only preaching to the choir, building very narrow movements, and that's not a good thing. From a pragmatic point of view, then, while I don't think it's wrong to "enter the public square using 'because God says so' as a reason to advance or attack any policy position," if that's our only reason, we ought not expect to get very far. Christianity Today addresses this point in its editorial, arguing that "what Lincoln, King, and others did . . . was use a variety of reasons—some religious, some pragmatic—to motivate social change. Thus, listeners with or without a religious bent could find some reason to buy into the cause."
To be sure, there are those on the conservative end of American Christianity who would object to such an approach; but their objection, I believe, rests on their failure to take seriously Augustine's insight that all truth is God's truth. When we as Christians approach political issues from that perspective—and when we understand that God is not capricious, that he has reasons for everything he tells us to do and not to do—then we come to understand that "pragmatic" arguments which appeal to values we share with those who don't share our faith aren't merely pragmatic, but are in fact theological. We are never called to say, "Thus says the Lord," without explaining why "thus says the Lord"—what the reasons are, as best we understand them, for the commands God has given us—and this is no less true in the political realm than anywhere else. It isn't our place to "defend the ways of God to man," as Milton put it, but it's certainly our responsibility to explain them as best we can. To do so is both good theology and good politics; to fail to do so is arrogance, and nothing makes for worse politics—or theology—than arrogance. May God be glorified in our lives.
Taking off the plastic
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Electoral musings, theological edition
Monday, November 15, 2004
Electoral musings, attitude edition
And while it doesn't really fit the theme, consider this a sidebar, and go read David von Drehle's latest column in the Washington Post, "Take the Issues to the People, Not to the Courts." If the Democratic Party follows his advice, it will be bad for the electoral prospects of the Republican Party, but very good for the nation.
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Electoral musings, part V
"Even though Democrats would've helped [Midwesterners] more, they still voted for Bush because they think he’s a good old boy." (This from a Bostonian who thinks that just because he went to college in Indiana, he understands the Midwest. Sorry, bub, wrong culture.)
"It's clear that on conservative moral values, people voted for those values over their own economic interests. I don’t understand it, and I think we need to go back and look at it." (Leo Girard, president of the United Steelworkers of America)
Again, Perry Mason: "Objection—assumes facts not in evidence." Does it ever occur to liberals that perhaps conservatives actually don't believe that liberal policies are best for the economy? Mr. Union President, if you want to understand it, you might begin by considering the possibility that those of us who voted for Bush largely understood ourselves as voting both for those values and for our economic interests, not as voting for one over the other.
"Midwesterners don't really relate to Democrats. Especially Kerry, he was much more intellectual than Bush, and that's not what someone in Middle America relates to." (That was Carol Kolb, editor-in-chief of The Onion; she went on to accuse the Democrats of "a little bit of condescension." Pot, meet kettle.)
"That’s how [the GOP] creates divisions. You call them names. The right has done a very effective job at framing the left—they suck at responding." (That quote comes courtesy of the president of spinArt Records, whatever that is. Apparently, not a history major, or he'd realize that the GOP didn't start that war.)
The common thread in all these is the implicit belief that the Democrats lost because voters weren't smart enough to realize the truth. From my perspective, the revival of the Democratic Party as a national party will begin once they toss that ego-salving belief out the window and face reality: we knew exactly what we were doing when we voted Republican. (Well, not all of us; but as many as knew what they were doing when they voted Democrat. As the Rocky Mountain News' Dave Kopel points out, "Political ignorance plays no favorites.")
Finally, there's this: "Ask [Republicans] what Jesus said about the difficulty of a rich man getting into heaven. What does this say about tax cuts, about cutting funding for schools, health insurance and apparent favoritism for the wealthiest contingent of our country?" The chap responsible for this quote is a schoolteacher in Austin, TX. I'm sorry to have to tell him, but he's unqualified to do biblical interpretation. The point of that parable is that Jesus' fellow Jews regarded the rich as the likeliest to get into heaven, for a combination of reasons, and thus that if the rich would have such a hard time, what hope did anyone else have? Hence Jesus' comment, "What is impossible for human beings is possible with God." In other words, salvation is utterly impossible by any human effort; it's only possible through God's action in Jesus Christ. That is the point of this parable—it's nothing at all about "tax cuts . . . cutting funding for schools, health insurance [or] apparent favoritism for the wealthiest contingent of our country." To be sure, the gospel does bear on these issues, but this passage doesn't; and just as importantly, the Bible shouldn't be applied so simplistically—by either side.
Friday, November 12, 2004
Electoral musings, moral values edition
Still, it was entertaining to watch the reaction of many liberals to the importance of moral values to this election—Ellen Goodman's column is one example: they essentially said, "What we have to do is explain that our issues are moral-values issues too—that poverty is a moral-values issue, and opposing the war in Iraq is a moral-values issue, and raising taxes is a moral-values issue," and so on and so forth. Such an approach fits the Democratic Party's preferences for simple solutions (Want more revenue? Raise taxes. Want to address poverty? Give poor people money. Want to address international crises? Call the UN.); it's also remarkably condescending, assuming that folks voted Republican out of ignorance, and that all the Dems need to do is set us straight and we'll vote donkey. The truth is, as Mark Steyn and David Limbaugh point out, we know those are moral issues, and we think the Democrats are on the wrong side of those, too—and that the Democrats won't succeed in winning back voters they've turned off until they set aside that condescension.
BTW, for a fairer Democratic perspective on this, check out Gary Hart's column in the New York Times.
Monday, November 08, 2004
Electoral musings, Canadian edition
Electoral musings, NYC edition
Kristof had the gall to title his column "Living Poor, Voting Rich," and to talk about "the millions of farmers, factory workers and waitresses who ended up voting—utterly against their own interests—for Republican candidates." Excuse me? How Marxist, and how condescending! Even if one grants his economic analysis that Bush has been and will be bad economically for those he mentions (which I most emphatically do not), who is Kristof to define people's "own interests" for them? Who said we viewed our own interests in purely economic terms? Perhaps his view of the world begins and ends with his checkbook, but mine certainly doesn't, and I'm not alone in that. For a great many of us, our "own interests" have a great deal to do with what sort of country we want to live in; to accept a country which is far less than what we believe it should be in exchange for a few more dollars in the pocket is a deal many of us wouldn't want to make.
On this one, Kristof would do well to read the rest of the NYC media; Newsday columnist Joseph Dolman pegged him pretty good when he wrote, "National Democrats . . . keep thinking their losses stem from Republican demagoguery or from a misunderstanding of their message by voters in the hinterlands or—let's be totally honest—from an epidemic of stupidity among the people whose minds they want to win.
"In short, they haven't a clue."
Dolman's right, which is why, as he put it, the Democrats are "whistling Dixie after another defeat."
On the flip side, Friedman was perceptive enough to realize this, though I think he was overstating things to declare us "two nations under God." When he writes, "this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do—they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is," he's absolutely correct. My problem with his column is where he goes next:
"Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences and the marriage unions they want to make? Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body? Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate? Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science? And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us—instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?"
Let's take this piece by piece, shall we?
"Is it a country that does not intrude into people's sexual preferences . . ."
Umm, two problems with this statement. One, this country always has intruded into such preferences, both at the level of who can marry whom (polygamy, for instance, is out) and at deeper levels (isn't pedophilia a "sexual preference"?). Two, since I know Friedman isn't really talking about "sexual preferences" generically (unless he surprises me by coming out with defenses of pedophilia and incest), last I checked, the federal government does nothing whatsoever against homosexual sex.
". . . and the marriage unions they want to make?"
Again, our government has always defined marriage, and to define is by definition to set limits. There is nothing new about this, nor is insisting on the current operating definition of marriage anything the slightest bit new; what's new is that some people want to change that definition. This isn't about giving people of homosexual preference the same rights as everyone else, because they already have the same rights as everyone else: the right to marry anyone who is legally available to be married to them. What they want is to expand that definition, to change the rights which are available to anyone, and if the argument works for homosexuality, it logically works for pedophilia and incest as well. Friedman's cast of the argument is simply a canard.
"Is it a country that allows a woman to have control over her body?"
No doubt; but this begs the question of whether or not her unborn child is in fact part of her body. I used to watch Perry Mason when I was a kid, and Perry was always objecting that Hamilton Burger's questions "assumed facts not in evidence." Friedman's guilty of the same thing here.
"Is it a country where the line between church and state bequeathed to us by our Founding Fathers should be inviolate?"
History lesson, Mr. Friedman: Not "Founding Fathers," but "Founding Father," as in, one of them: Thomas Jefferson—and he wasn't around when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were being drafted. The "line between church and state" is in fact a constitutionally dubious interpretation of the religion clause of the First Amendment, one which has been used to deny the actual sense of that clause: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion [in other words, it isn't allowed to do anything about the establishment of religion one way or the other], or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." There's been a heck of a lot of "prohibiting the free exercise thereof" done in the name of "separation of church and state," which ain't even a constitutional principle.
"Is it a country where religion doesn't trump science?"
That's not really the issue. The issue is competing religions—one particular branch (or collection of branches) of Christianity versus the religion of scientism, which is aggressively atheistic. For most on the Christian side of these battles, all we're fighting for is a level playing field.
"And, most important, is it a country whose president mobilizes its deep moral energies to unite us—instead of dividing us from one another and from the world?"
When those who oppose this president and everything he stands for have done everything in their power to mobilize the country against him, why is it that our divisions are suddenly all his fault? In my experience, it generally takes two to be divided.
Given these questions, it's probably no wonder that Friedman goes on to declare, "None of the real problems facing the nation were really discussed." Personally, I'd disagree. Fortunately, we do agree on this:
"Meanwhile, there is a lot of talk that Mr. Bush has a mandate . . . . Yes, he does have a mandate, but he also has a date—a date with history." Yes, indeed; and following Friedman's motto, "Never put yourself in a position where your party wins only if your country fails," I know we'll both be rooting for President Bush to meet that date honorably and well.
Friday, November 05, 2004
Electoral musings, part I
Anyway, courtesy of sites like RealClearPolitics, I think I've read most of the major stuff that's been published on this election the last couple of days. There's been a lot of great analysis; as usual, the basic primer has already been written by the indispensable Howard Fineman of Newsweek ("A Sweet Victory . . . and a Tough Loss"). Fineman is right to make the point that Kerry in many ways ran a poor campaign, a point also made well by the LA Times' Matea Gold (though with no help from a grammatically-challenged headline writer: "Kerry Failed Boldly to Portray Himself") . There's also been, in general, a pretty thoughtful and respectful spirit, marked by the understanding that the worst that could happen isn't Our Guy Losing, but another case of election-by-litigation reminiscent of 2000 (see Anne Appelbaum's column in the Washington Post, "Accept the Verdict"—registration required, but it's free).
Unfortunately, there have been exceptions, and they haven't all been limited to blogosphere eruptions like Altercation. To be sure, from the more liberal parts of the blogosphere, one can only expect statements that "The problem is just this: Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the 'reality-based community' [i.e., liberals] say or believe about anything"—a statement breathtaking for its arrogance and contempt. What is concerning is that this same attitude has shown up in the more respectable print media.
The editor of The New Republic, Peter Beinart, for instance, felt justified in opening his latest column, "What Went Wrong?" with this paragraph: "The other side may be euphoric, but the intensity of their happiness can't match the intensity of our despair. Honest conservatives, even those who admire President Bush, know he didn't earn a second term. They know he staked his presidency on a catastrophe, and that, by all rights, Iraq should be his political epitaph. Their victory, while sweet, can't be fully enjoyed because it isn't fully deserved." Excuse me? The presumptuousness in those sentences is nothing short of breathtaking. It reminds me of arguing with my younger brother when we were kids—he would say, "I know I'm right, you know I'm right, you just won't admit it." Apparently, Beinart believes that just because he thinks Iraq is "a catastrophe," therefore everybody else must think so too. As it happens, there are other views of the situation.
Later on in his piece, Beinart declares, "Cultural sensitivity is one thing; principle is another. . . . The fact that [gay marriage] is widely unpopular cannot obscure the fact that it is morally momentous and morally right." Uh-huh. A flat assertion, "I'm right and you're in the wrong." Why do I have the feeling that he would consider an equal but opposite assertion ("The fact that gay marriage is widely popular among the elites cannot obscure the fact that it is morally momentous and morally wrong") to be the worst form of bigotry? What, in his view, makes his beliefs right and his opponents' bigoted except who holds them? I'm a firm believer in moral absolutes, but it does seem to me that for those of us not wearing the prophetic mantle, the language of absolutes needs to be spoken with just a little more humility—we need to speak and write out of the awareness that our perceptions are always, at best, fuzzy around the edges, and that our understanding is never equal to the truths we perceive. As such, even if he were correct (which I don't believe he is), that statement would be hubristic.
Of course, anyone who feels justified in describing "Tom DeLay's America" as "craven toward the economically powerful and vicious toward the economically weak, contemptuous of open debate and thuggish toward an increasingly embittered world" clearly has never encountered the concept that one should always give one's opponents credit for good motives until proven otherwise; he truly does seem to believe that conservatives, deep down, must logically share his view of the world, and thus that conservative opposition to his favored policies must stem from base motives. Not fair, not just, and not right. Wasn't stereotyping supposed to be a bad word?
Note: in his column of 11/12, Beinart wrote this: "In my last column ("What Went Wrong," November 15), I wrote, 'Honest conservatives, even those who admire Bush, know he didn't earn a second term.' That was a poor way of expressing my point: that, judging from the president's low approval rating and the large percentage of people who felt the country was on the 'wrong track,' Bush had not convinced most Americans he deserved a second term. They gave him one because of their reservations about Kerry. My argument was a political, not a moral, one. I have no doubt that many honest conservatives believe Bush is a good, even great, president, and that, in their eyes, he has earned a second term." I still disagree, but the restatement does take the arrogance of the column down a notch.
Monday, November 01, 2004
Under the bright (Liberal) red maple leaf
Oh, and a side note: in the article, Canadian Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie is quoted as calling the Charter of Rights and Freedoms "the glue that holds the country together." Silly man; every true Canadian knows that Tim Hortons is the glue that holds Canada together . . .
Thursday, October 28, 2004
The mystery of redemption
But it's not just that they did it after 86 years of falling short, it's how. Eleven days ago, Boston was down 0-3 and 8 innings, with the greatest closer in the game, Mariano Rivera, coming on to close out a New York sweep; the Yankees were already preparing for their 412th World Series appearance, or some such ridiculous number. And what happens? Somehow, the Red Sox punched through, launching an eight-game October winning streak that might be the most incredible thing I've ever seen happen in baseball (which is saying something). They became the first team in baseball history to come back from an 0-3 deficit to win a playoff series—finishing the sweep in Yankee Stadium! (and leaving millions of Yankee fans wandering around like Esau, wondering where their birthright just went)—then went on to sweep the team with the best record in baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals, on the biggest stage of all, gaining some measure of payback for their WS losses to the Cards in 1946 and 1967. The mind boggles. (Fortunately for one's sense of sanity, despite the fact that they now have the NFL's dominant team and baseball's reigning champion, Boston fans are still Boston fans.)
I don't just mention this as a baseball fan—that day will come if my beloved Mariners ever manage to climb this mountain (which could easily take 86 years in its own right); I'm also struck by the theology of this moment. If one believes in the sovereignty of God as I do, that Jesus Christ is Lord of everything, then that includes baseball. Which makes sense, because God is the giver of all good gifts and baseball is definitely on that list (yes, even in years when the M's go 63-99—this postseason made up for a lot of those losses). And if that includes baseball, then the Red Sox' accomplishment has a lot of things to teach us about the improbable providence of God, and about redemption, because God isn't only concerned with our "souls," he's concerned about all of life. And maybe, just maybe, in the case of the Yankees, this has some things to teach us about humility as well.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Right for the wrong reasons
The first problem I have with the Rev. Sparks' editorial is its smug, condescending, self-righteous leftism. I was struck, for instance, by his complaint that "factions within the church catholic are trying to capture U. S. government for religious purposes: restoring prayer in the schools, posting the Ten Commandments in public places; outlawing all abortion, and permitting or restricting gay and lesbian civil unions or 'marriage.'" I have three problems with this statement. First, "factions" is a loaded word--by connotation, it marginalizes those groups and labels them divisive. Second, "capture" is a biasing word: it implies that the U. S. government rightly belongs to those who hold other positions (no prayer in schools, no Ten Commandments, unrestricted abortion license, same-sex "marriage") and that anyone who challenges those positions is trying to steal our government from those who properly own/control it. Third, this sentence paints those with whom the Rev. Sparks disagrees with the broadest possible brush, assuming unanimity of opinion which in fact isn't present. In short, it appears that in his understanding, when liberal Christians argue for liberal political positions, that's fine, but when conservative Christians argue for conservative political positions, this is somehow sinister and inappropriate; only liberals, then, have the right to claim that their politics are supported by their faith. Such a conclusion is not only biased, it's ridiculous.
My second objection to the Rev. Sparks' argument is his apparent belief that our government exists to protect the rights of religious minorities but not those of this country's Christian majority. This would have come as a great surprise to James Madison, who was just as alive to the dangers of the tyranny of the minority as he was to those of the tyranny of the majority. (See Federalist #10.)
Third, there is the Rev. Sparks' seeming position that the Western church should have connived at the efforts of communist governments to keep their slaves from reading the Bible, rather than trying to smuggle Bibles behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains. In making this point, he interprets Paul's argument in Romans 13 to mean that a) no "subversion of the authority of [any] government" is permissible, that b) trying to smuggle Bibles into countries which were attempting to suppress Christian faith is such subversion, and thus that c) Paul would argue that the church should support that effort rather than trying to share the gospel message with people in those countries. Given that this conclusion is in direct opposition to Paul's own actions (see Acts 13-28), it is, to say the least, questionable. For Paul, subjection to the governing authorities had definite limits, and certainly didn't include acceding to their demands to stop preaching the gospel. (See also Acts 3-5 for the consensus of the early church on this point.)
Fourth, I cannot see how the Rev. Sparks reached his evident conclusion that if the Soviet government were still in place, we would never have seen the rise of radical Islam and all would be right with the world; this position is frankly ludicrous. Given that the rise of bin Laden and radical Islam was one of the major factors in the failure of the Soviet adventure in Afghanistan, on the one hand, and the fact that the Putin government is no less authoritarian or ruthless than the Soviets--in this area, it can fairly be said that there is no significant difference between the two--on the other, how can this argument possibly stand?
Fifth, I have serious objections to the Rev. Sparks' rather Erastian understanding of the proper relationship between the church and the state. In defining "the real business of the church" as "prayer, listening to the memories of the apostles in the light of scripture (still for them only the Hebrew Scriptures), and baptism, holding all things in common, almsgiving, and the breaking of the bread," he is speaking of the earliest Christians, but if that was "the real business of the church" then, how can it be significantly otherwise now? While he does admit that Christians should call our politicians to be moral and just (well, at least liberal Christians should), his argument makes government dominant over religion and the proper arbiter of religious disputes. Why he puts greater trust in government to act in accordance with the gospel than he does in the church is an interesting question; more importantly, for all that he talks about "the deeply Calvinistic, Reformed understanding of government written into our nation’s founding documents," this ain't it (being neither Reformed nor present in the aforementioned documents).
Sixth, it seems to me that at various points in his argument, the Rev. Sparks is a little casual with the facts, that he simply hasn't taken the time to do the necessary research; my second and fourth objections, above, would be examples of this. Perhaps the most egregious example, however, comes in this statement: "Most religions, including Christianity (though not Sikhs) harbor intolerant, angry factions hell bent on oppressing and killing on behalf of their god/gods." Excuse me? Though not Sikhs? I can only conclude that the Rev. Sparks lives in the wrong Richmond.
You see, I've never been to Richmond, VA, but I spent three years in Richmond, BC, part of five years in and around Vancouver, BC, Canada. As it happens, the metro Vancouver area has quite a large Sikh population, from which came the first Sikh premier in Canadian history, Ujjal Dosanjh (a good man whose time in that office was brief, thanks to the malfeasance of his immediate predecessor). As any Vancouver-area resident who bothered to follow the news could tell you, violence broke out in the area's Sikh temples on more than a few occasions as extremists and moderates fought for control. Further, one of the reasons why this was such a concern to the BC government was the strong linkage between those extremists and Babbar Khalsa, the Sikh terrorist group responsible for the bombing of Air India Flight 182 and a bombing that same day at Tokyo's Narita Airport (which was supposed to have been another mid-air bombing, but the bomb went off prematurely). Babbar Khalsa is the largest and worst expression of the militant strain in Sikhism which is also responsible, inter alia, for the assassination of Indira Gandhi.
I don't offer this to bash Sikhs in any way, shape, or form, or to blame the Sikh faith for the embrace of terrorism by some of its adherents; my point isn't to single Sikhism out, but rather to point out that the Rev. Sparks did so wrongly, in ignorance. Sikhism as much as any religion may be said to "harbor intolerant, angry factions hell bent on oppressing and killing on behalf of their god/gods," and he should have done the research to find that out before off-handedly declaring otherwise.
In general, I don't think this editorial did The Outlook credit, which is too bad; not only does the publication deserve better, but I think the Rev. Sparks' thesis is important for Christians to keep in mind. Unfortunately, while he's right in his main point, he's right for all the wrong reasons.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Still here
One of my aims this winter is to read Solzhenitsyn's The Red Wheel--I started the first book, August 1914, years ago but was sidetracked before getting very far. It may seem like an odd ambition, but I was spurred to it by Daniel Mahoney's recent piece in First Things, "Traducing Solzhenitsyn," which is a brief consideration of the various ways in which Solzhenitsyn has been misrepresented and slandered in the West. It's no surprise, really; he's a true prophetic voice, and the established order doesn't like prophets much. It never has. (Though if you listen to debates in the mainline churches, you'll hear a fair number of people claiming the prophetic mantle for themselves--usually followed by yet another spiel as to why God supports the Democratic Party agenda. Funny, that.)