Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Life Soundtrack 31
You Get What You Give, by The New Radicals
A little encouragement for those going through difficult times...
Thursday, April 26, 2012
The Turning Tide
The day after my last post went up, the Denver Post published this article on the changing political landscape within the evangelical church. It also highlights my church, as a nice bonus.
No, you can't see me in the Highlands Church worship service picture, though I was there when the photographer took it. Which is probably just as well, given the liberties cameras seem to like to take with my face...
No, you can't see me in the Highlands Church worship service picture, though I was there when the photographer took it. Which is probably just as well, given the liberties cameras seem to like to take with my face...
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Invocation
For as long as there has been government, rulers have sought to convince their subjects that they have a Divine mandate (or its nearest equivalent) to rule. This is little different in democratic societies, though in terms of the American political scene it hasn't always been as blatant (and polarizing) as it is today.
The religious right is the most obvious exemplar of this "God is on our side" mentality, with liberals continually framed as both anti-American and anti-Christian. But the religious left doesn't always refrain from playing the same game, even if it gets less attention for doing so. "Jesus was a socialist" is a commonly-heard catchphrase, often accompanied by verses like Matthew 19:21.
Inasmuch as such statements serve to jolt those who have come to associate the Gospel with laissez-faire economics, anti-gay politics and an interventionist foreign policy, the left does have a point. Jesus' advocacy for a self-sacrificial lifestyle with an emphasis on helping the poor and disadvantaged does in fact line up with socialistic ideals.
In the world we inhabit, however, the concept of socialism cannot be divorced from its political connotations. And in that regard, Jesus was not a Socialist - he never advocated government redistribution of wealth or, for that matter, any governmental system. Unless his statements on the subject all went unrecorded, Jesus seemed remarkably unconcerned with our politics and far more interested in how we treated others on an individual and community level.
Furthermore, while most would agree there is merit in government providing a social safety net for its citizens (though what that net should consist of is open to debate), the idea that Jesus would have been an activist for such a system doesn't add up any more than the idea that he would be standing with the Family Research Council against gay rights - it doesn't fit with the witness of the biblical authors who chronicled his life and ministry.
In contrast to what we see in the examples of Christ and the early church, government-run aid programs are the most depersonalized form of charity possible. In the early (pre-Constantinian) church, members gave not only their material resources but also their time and even their lives for the benefit of their neighbors. They were directly involved in each others' lives and knew (or got to know) the people they were helping.
When the government takes money from me via taxation, on the other hand, it doesn't matter whether I give willingly, or even whether I like of how it will spend that money; I can be as apathetic and self-centered as I want to be, as long as I care enough about avoiding a prison sentence to pay my taxes. I don't ever have to think about the poor people my tax dollars might be helping, and even if I do I can discharge my civic duty without ever having to actually meet any of them.
Similarly, the government employees who administer the aid programs my taxes help fund are seldom directly involved in the lives of the people they're helping. They have a list of rules (usually quite rigid) that they have to follow when determining who gets help and how much, and those arbitrary guidelines may or may not address the actual needs of those recipients. The government workers may genuinely care about they people they're working to help, but that concern is entirely irrelevant as long as they fulfill the minimum requirements of their job descriptions and do an adequate job of following and enforcing the rules.
And the recipients' attitudes are just as irrelevant. As long as they jump through all the right bureaucratic hoops, it doesn't matter to the government whether the aid they're receiving truly improves their lives, or whether it slowly hardens their hearts and smothers their own charitable instincts.
So to say that Jesus would be camping out with the 99 percenters, demanding higher taxes on the rich and agitating for a single-payer healthcare system is to miss the point of his message. Yes, it absolutely matters whether we help the poor and disadvantaged, but first and foremost it's about each of us engaging with our neighbors, living in community with them and addressing their needs as we become aware of them. Jesus instructed the rich young man to give away all of his possessions not because wealth is an inherent evil, but because it was what stood between the young man and God. As Christians we give to the poor in part for their sakes, but also in part for ours. No law or governmental program can ever transform the human heart or make a single one of us more compassionate.
Having said that, by all means vote your conscience, seek justice and allow your faith to inform your politics, whether you lean to the left or right (or in another direction). But invoking Socialist Jesus to browbeat others into accepting a social welfare platform as the Christian political agenda is only slightly less disingenuous than James Dobson or Chuck Colson conjuring visions of Sodom and Gomorrah to frighten the faithful into voting to oppress their gay neighbors. An iron fist waving a Bible is still an iron fist, no matter which page it's pointing to.
The religious right is the most obvious exemplar of this "God is on our side" mentality, with liberals continually framed as both anti-American and anti-Christian. But the religious left doesn't always refrain from playing the same game, even if it gets less attention for doing so. "Jesus was a socialist" is a commonly-heard catchphrase, often accompanied by verses like Matthew 19:21.
Inasmuch as such statements serve to jolt those who have come to associate the Gospel with laissez-faire economics, anti-gay politics and an interventionist foreign policy, the left does have a point. Jesus' advocacy for a self-sacrificial lifestyle with an emphasis on helping the poor and disadvantaged does in fact line up with socialistic ideals.
In the world we inhabit, however, the concept of socialism cannot be divorced from its political connotations. And in that regard, Jesus was not a Socialist - he never advocated government redistribution of wealth or, for that matter, any governmental system. Unless his statements on the subject all went unrecorded, Jesus seemed remarkably unconcerned with our politics and far more interested in how we treated others on an individual and community level.
Furthermore, while most would agree there is merit in government providing a social safety net for its citizens (though what that net should consist of is open to debate), the idea that Jesus would have been an activist for such a system doesn't add up any more than the idea that he would be standing with the Family Research Council against gay rights - it doesn't fit with the witness of the biblical authors who chronicled his life and ministry.
In contrast to what we see in the examples of Christ and the early church, government-run aid programs are the most depersonalized form of charity possible. In the early (pre-Constantinian) church, members gave not only their material resources but also their time and even their lives for the benefit of their neighbors. They were directly involved in each others' lives and knew (or got to know) the people they were helping.
When the government takes money from me via taxation, on the other hand, it doesn't matter whether I give willingly, or even whether I like of how it will spend that money; I can be as apathetic and self-centered as I want to be, as long as I care enough about avoiding a prison sentence to pay my taxes. I don't ever have to think about the poor people my tax dollars might be helping, and even if I do I can discharge my civic duty without ever having to actually meet any of them.
Similarly, the government employees who administer the aid programs my taxes help fund are seldom directly involved in the lives of the people they're helping. They have a list of rules (usually quite rigid) that they have to follow when determining who gets help and how much, and those arbitrary guidelines may or may not address the actual needs of those recipients. The government workers may genuinely care about they people they're working to help, but that concern is entirely irrelevant as long as they fulfill the minimum requirements of their job descriptions and do an adequate job of following and enforcing the rules.
And the recipients' attitudes are just as irrelevant. As long as they jump through all the right bureaucratic hoops, it doesn't matter to the government whether the aid they're receiving truly improves their lives, or whether it slowly hardens their hearts and smothers their own charitable instincts.
So to say that Jesus would be camping out with the 99 percenters, demanding higher taxes on the rich and agitating for a single-payer healthcare system is to miss the point of his message. Yes, it absolutely matters whether we help the poor and disadvantaged, but first and foremost it's about each of us engaging with our neighbors, living in community with them and addressing their needs as we become aware of them. Jesus instructed the rich young man to give away all of his possessions not because wealth is an inherent evil, but because it was what stood between the young man and God. As Christians we give to the poor in part for their sakes, but also in part for ours. No law or governmental program can ever transform the human heart or make a single one of us more compassionate.
Having said that, by all means vote your conscience, seek justice and allow your faith to inform your politics, whether you lean to the left or right (or in another direction). But invoking Socialist Jesus to browbeat others into accepting a social welfare platform as the Christian political agenda is only slightly less disingenuous than James Dobson or Chuck Colson conjuring visions of Sodom and Gomorrah to frighten the faithful into voting to oppress their gay neighbors. An iron fist waving a Bible is still an iron fist, no matter which page it's pointing to.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Upward
Sometimes the world reminds us that there's still good reason to hope.
1. Not all high school jocks are bullies, as this story proves. Sometimes they really are heroes.
2. As Nate Phelps' story shows, even the most radical extremism can be escaped. I'm thankful that my own escape from fundamentalism was considerably less dramatic.
3. Equality seems to be centuries away in much of the Muslim world, but even Islam isn't monolithically anti-gay, as this story demonstrates.
1. Not all high school jocks are bullies, as this story proves. Sometimes they really are heroes.
2. As Nate Phelps' story shows, even the most radical extremism can be escaped. I'm thankful that my own escape from fundamentalism was considerably less dramatic.
3. Equality seems to be centuries away in much of the Muslim world, but even Islam isn't monolithically anti-gay, as this story demonstrates.
Friday, April 06, 2012
Truth in Advertising
Sadly, this parody (which originated here) pretty much sums up the "Christian" approach advocated by groups like Exodus and Focus on the Family for engaging with LGBT individuals. While I can attest to the existence of Side B individuals who genuinely love and respect their gay friends and family members, the waters have been so badly poisoned by fundamentalist and religious right groups that genuine dialogue is difficult to initiate, much less sustain. And that's not terribly likely to change on the so-called Day of Dialogue...
Monday, March 26, 2012
Miscommunication, Part 1
I make an effort to avoid words like "hate" and "bigot" except where they're very clearly deserved; in many cases a more accurate description would be the tone deafness that comes from living inside an echo chamber (which the evangelical subculture most definitely is).
Take, for example, actor Kirk Cameron, who has found himself at the center of a controversy over his very tone-deaf comments about homosexuality. What he said was a simple articulation of the tenets of most conservative strains of Christianity (including the one he has devoted his life to); how he said it is quite another matter.
This post by Jim Burroway sums up the problem quite nicely, reversing Cameron's statements to clearly show how they would sound if directed at evangelical Christians. Suddenly Cameron's "I'm just as flawed" concession doesn't seem quite as gracious.
Given my own background I'm inclined to give people like Cameron the benefit of the doubt; they sincerely believe they're "speaking the truth in love" when they make statements like his. And throwing around loaded words like "bigot" tends to do more to shut down communication than to convince anyone of anything. Even so, the Kirk Camerons of the world need to be encouraged to think a little harder about how their words sound to those they're talking about; the compassion they claim to hold in their hearts requires no less of them.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Apocalypse
This week I came across news of a new book being published that takes a scholarly look at the Book of Revelation. It occurred to me that, for all the time I once spent studying Revelation, I actually know very little about the book's history and context, and even less about the apocalyptic genre that was popular at the time it was written.
Growing up I was quite fascinated by Revelation, which I had been taught was a literal prophecy of the violent end of the world that could begin at any time. I read dozens of articles and books and heard numerous sermons speculating on the meaning of every symbol in its verses and how they might match up with current events and people. Was the Antichrist a current politician? Was the European Common Market the beast with ten horns? Was the United States the great harlot? The conjectures were endless.
By my college years I'd heard enough false predictions about Christ's return ("88 Reason Christ Will Return in '88" was far from the first - or last) to dampen my enthusiasm for the subject. The final nail in the coffin was coming across a book in the university library's annual book sale, written in the late 1930s, that predicted that Mussolini was the Antichrist. By the time the first Left Behind book was published a couple years later, I was already done with the whole sideshow.
At that time in my life I still believed there would be a literal Tribulation (whether the Rapture happened at the beginning or end) and a literal Antichrist; I'd merely come to realize that God didn't mean for us to spend so much time and energy trying to pinpoint when and how it was all going to happen. Funny how so many Biblical literalists over the years have forgotten that Jesus himself said nobody would know when he was returning. Actually, it's more sad than funny.
Over the years since college, I've gradually come to see how a literal interpretation of Revelation has encouraged (or at least highlighted) so many of the worst traits that are commonly associated with American evangelicalism:
-A heavy focus on the next life (which we may be whisked away to at any moment) that leaves us disinclined - and even unable - to truly engage in this one.
-An "us versus them" mentality, in which "them" is everyone fated to take the Mark of the Beast.
-An arrogant attitude toward everyone in the "them" category.
-A view of Jesus as a macho, violent warrior with no qualms about killing anyone who doesn't believe the right things about him.
-An inclination to look for (and find) persecution around every corner.
-A lack of concern for making this world a better place, since we could be saying goodbye to it at any moment.
-A tendency to caricaturize every political opponent as a potential Antichrist.
-An all-absorbing fascination with scouring every world event for signs of the end times.
-A belief that our support for Israel requires absolute and unquestioned support for every action it takes even if it leads to endless preemptive war against the entire Muslim world.
-A mandate to proselytize aggressively in a manipulative, fear-based manner.
-A fixation on sin avoidance.
-A propensity to spend millions of dollars on mediocre books and fourth-rate movies and then praise them for their "message."
Not that Revelation itself (or John of Patmos) is to blame for the many ways in which our misinterpretations of its rich imagery have transformed the faith of many into a tragic parody of the message of Christ found in the Gospels. But in that same vein, perhaps Revelation does us a favor (even before we mine its depths for the riches we have overlooked for so long) by forcing us to confront the folly of interpreting the Bible in an overly literal manner rather than letting it speak to us on its own terms.
Growing up I was quite fascinated by Revelation, which I had been taught was a literal prophecy of the violent end of the world that could begin at any time. I read dozens of articles and books and heard numerous sermons speculating on the meaning of every symbol in its verses and how they might match up with current events and people. Was the Antichrist a current politician? Was the European Common Market the beast with ten horns? Was the United States the great harlot? The conjectures were endless.
By my college years I'd heard enough false predictions about Christ's return ("88 Reason Christ Will Return in '88" was far from the first - or last) to dampen my enthusiasm for the subject. The final nail in the coffin was coming across a book in the university library's annual book sale, written in the late 1930s, that predicted that Mussolini was the Antichrist. By the time the first Left Behind book was published a couple years later, I was already done with the whole sideshow.
At that time in my life I still believed there would be a literal Tribulation (whether the Rapture happened at the beginning or end) and a literal Antichrist; I'd merely come to realize that God didn't mean for us to spend so much time and energy trying to pinpoint when and how it was all going to happen. Funny how so many Biblical literalists over the years have forgotten that Jesus himself said nobody would know when he was returning. Actually, it's more sad than funny.
Over the years since college, I've gradually come to see how a literal interpretation of Revelation has encouraged (or at least highlighted) so many of the worst traits that are commonly associated with American evangelicalism:
-A heavy focus on the next life (which we may be whisked away to at any moment) that leaves us disinclined - and even unable - to truly engage in this one.
-An "us versus them" mentality, in which "them" is everyone fated to take the Mark of the Beast.
-An arrogant attitude toward everyone in the "them" category.
-A view of Jesus as a macho, violent warrior with no qualms about killing anyone who doesn't believe the right things about him.
-An inclination to look for (and find) persecution around every corner.
-A lack of concern for making this world a better place, since we could be saying goodbye to it at any moment.
-A tendency to caricaturize every political opponent as a potential Antichrist.
-An all-absorbing fascination with scouring every world event for signs of the end times.
-A belief that our support for Israel requires absolute and unquestioned support for every action it takes even if it leads to endless preemptive war against the entire Muslim world.
-A mandate to proselytize aggressively in a manipulative, fear-based manner.
-A fixation on sin avoidance.
-A propensity to spend millions of dollars on mediocre books and fourth-rate movies and then praise them for their "message."
Not that Revelation itself (or John of Patmos) is to blame for the many ways in which our misinterpretations of its rich imagery have transformed the faith of many into a tragic parody of the message of Christ found in the Gospels. But in that same vein, perhaps Revelation does us a favor (even before we mine its depths for the riches we have overlooked for so long) by forcing us to confront the folly of interpreting the Bible in an overly literal manner rather than letting it speak to us on its own terms.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Life Soundtrack 30
The Beginning, by Lifehouse
I've tried to avoid overusing any one artist, but Lifehouse just has a lot of songs that resonate with me. The Beginning is a track you could easily miss if it were playing in the background; you might think it was a pretty song and go on with what you were doing without another thought.
But when I pay attention to this song, it can evoke a wide range of emotions in me. At different times it can make me melancholy, hopeful, content, wistful or contemplative, sometimes all at once. And every now and then it strikes a deeper chord and gives me a hint of a glimpse of something transcendent - something that's never quite fully within reach, but that I know is there.
No wonder the longest book of the Bible is a songbook. Hello, from the world below...
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