10-A and the future of the PC(USA)

Reactions to the passage of Amendment 10-A have in large part reflected the division of the vote. Many have cheered its passage, while others have bemoaned it. What is interesting and somewhat surprising is that the debate appears not to have boiled over, at least not yet. To be sure, feelings are running high, but so far both sides have acted with considerable restraint.  Supporters of 10-A have spoken graciously about their hopes that those on the other side will stay, and opponents have not, at least not yet, headed for the door en masse. What should we make of this?  Is it a hopeful sign of a new day or are Presbyterians simply acting pragmatically?

I want to suggest that competing visions of the church forged in the debate over ordination are now informing the prevailing restraint.  In the next months these visions will be tested and perhaps transformed, and in the process they may help remake the PC(USA) and perhaps American Protestantism more broadly. The competing ecclesiastical visions are 1) the church as a community of hospitality and 2) the church as the antithesis to the world. To see the power of these visions we need first return to their interpretations of 10-A, then to the current restraint, and finally to some future possibilities.

To read the entire post visit the The Presbyterian Outlook

Is It Time to Say Good-bye to Afghanistan?

istanWith Osama bin Laden dead, it is worth asking if now is the time for the United States to get out of Afghanistan. President Obama, however, has shown no sign of wavering from his commitment to delivering basic security and a functioning central government to Afghanistan.

Many have been slow to notice, but the president does not easily give up on his objectives and even less so on his commitments. Still, bin Laden’s death might give added momentum to a search for a negotiated end to the war.
Even before bin Laden’s death, a consensus appeared to be emerging that the war in Afghanistan could not be ended by military action alone. Negotiations with the Taliban are increasingly seen as a key part, perhaps the key part, in ending the war. There are, however, reasons to be skeptical of talks with the Taliban, especially when those talks are seen as the key to ending the war.
Read the entire article at PennLive.com

What the Hell? Rob Bell and the Puritans

It’s hard to recall a more anticipated book than Rob Bell’s Love Wins. The Twitter feed alone suggests the book has quite a few evangelicals seething at the suggestion that hell may not be a popular destination after all.  The dispute appears to have burst onto the scene from nowhere, but in reality, this is the latest in a long history of intense theological debates, dating back to the early modern world of the Westminster Divines.

To continue reading visit The Presbyterian Outlook 

Libya is Not Iraq

In Iraq Then, Libya Now Ross Duluth of the New York Times tries to slow the momentum toward our giving military assistance to the Libyan rebels. In doing so, he argues that we have failed to learn the lessons of the Iraq War.

One [lesson] is that the United States shouldn’t go to war unless it has a plan not only for the initial military action, but also for the day afterward, and the day after that. Another is that the United States shouldn’t go to war without a detailed understanding of the country we’re entering, and the forces we’re likely to empower. 

Libya is not Iraq. As simple as this construction seems, Duluth misses it. The debate about Iraq hinged on the existence or near existence of weapons of mass destruction. Everything else was secondary. In Libya we are talking about limited action for a cause clearly related to our national interests. 

I worry that Duluth is likely to find a receptive audience in a war weary public, tending toward isolationism.  Such a tendency, informed by Duluth's strictures, would prevent us from acting not only in Libya but also in cases like Rwanda.  In the face of madness the question is what we can do. Sometimes the hard truth is that we can do very little. At other times, however, we discover that limited action has a good chance of success, sometimes far beyond the risks. In such cases, the responsible nation does what it can.  This is the case with Libya.

A Politics of the Profound

This last week we have witnessed what may be the story of the year or even the decade. The dramatic scenes across North Africa and especially Egypt have captured the world's attention and reminded us of the vast scale of politics. Might this be the dawning of a new moment in the Muslim world, or will the protests give way to repression or extremism? 

Domestically these events have humbled all but the most partisan or idealistic. Different members of the Obama administration have issued their cautious statements, appropriately circumspect before what may be a historic moment.

Egypt has dwarfed all other events, including the administration's post-State of the Union media blitz. The State of the Union now looks rather paltry, but then so does most of our politics – when they are not sounding overwrought.

Perhaps this is as it should be in the day-to-day, but the State of the Union is not just any other day. It is one of those high holy days in politics, a national ritual that reminds us that politics deals with the profound.

To continue reading, visit EthicsDaily.com.

Are We Asking the Wrong Question in Afghanistan?

With the agreement by Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to convene the recently elected parliament, a growing crisis appears to have been averted. As important as this decision is in the short term, however, it will not settle the larger question of whether we can win the war. 
 

Ask this question and you can expect three basic answers. A host of critics will try to convince you that the war can't be won. Advocates will insist that this is a war we can and must win. Then there are those Americans caught in the middle, fearing the worst but uncertain of how to proceed. 

Strong debate is crucial to the health of a democracy such as ours, of course, but this debate has gone on interminably and it appears to have contributed little to the war effort. The problem is that the debate is focused on the conditions on the ground, a complicated question given that the "the ground" covers a large and varying terrain and that conditions are often in a state of flux.

Even if we were able to answer this question with some sense of certainty, it is not the most important question. The decisive question is not can we win, but will the Afghanis fight.

To continue reading visit EthicsDaily.com

King the Pastor

This year Martin Luther King Day feels different to me, more serious and alive, but also more complicated. On the one hand my thoughts keep drifting back to Tucson, worrying that we may be re-entering a tragic chapter of our history in which a generation of leaders was taken from us all too soon.  This is not the 60s, but I can’t help but worry about where we are headed. I worry about our leaders and the hateful rhetoric hurled at them, and I pray that God will keep them safe. 

Martin Luther King would want us to take it a step further: to heed God’s call to boldly confront hate, to take creative action. The problem is that this doesn’t feel like the time for marches or boycotts or protests. It feels like the time for unity, prayers, and talk of how we can work together. In this time we need to hear from King the pastor, the one who cared for souls, both in his congregation and in the larger civil rights struggle. This is the King who preached funerals for the movement’s martyrs.  In wake of Tucson, one thinks of the eulogy he delivered for the four young girls murdered by the bomber of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. There the stakes were clear and dramatic, and King was direct in urging those gathered to avoid bitterness: “So in spite of the darkness of this hour we must not despair. We must not become bitter; nor must we harbor the desire to retaliate with violence.” 

In Tucson President Obama seemed to be channeling King, calling us to rise above the seething resentments of our politics.  “The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better,” Obama said, and then recalling Christina Taylor Green, “I want to live up to her expectations.  I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it.  I want America to be as good as she imagined it.  All of us -– we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.” 

Tucson is not Birmingham. In Birmingham King faced a well-organized terrorist movement committed to racist ideology in service to a Caucasian identity.  In Tucson the victims were shot by a crazed gunman whose motivations are still being determined.

In both cases, however, the attacks were felt more widely and they served to prompt the question of how to respond to the attacks, both personally and politically. This is where we most need to hear King’s wisdom that the greatest weapon against violence is not hate, but love.

King’s idea of love is a long way from contemporary notions celebrating love as an attraction that may come or go. He thought of love not simply as a feeling but as a virtue that depended not on the recipient’s appeal, but on the giver’s settled disposition. This word, giver, gets at King’s idea of love with its deep roots in the biblical notion of agape. The key to this form of love, as demonstrated by Jesus and Gandhi, is its strength, its stubborn refusal to yield to hate, indifference, or any of the other vices that would separate us from one another.  While racism is bound up with the urge to segregate, King understood love to be devoted to the creation of the beloved community in which all members are cherished as children of God.

In the aftermath of Tucson many of us feel a deep longing for some hint that together we might build something more than the fractious, hurried, and brutal society we fear we are becoming. King’s inspiring life and heroic death remind us that aspirations are not actions and that dreams are worth little unless they inspire a new reality. King offers us more, much more, than calls for a kinder and gentler society. I do not mean to criticize civility, far from it, but civility on its own is not enough. The duty of self-restraint is no match for the passion of politics. If civility is to endure for more than a season, it must be wedded to the virtue of love. As King said so many times, love can heal the broken; it can even transform enemies into friends.

In our time of 24-hour news cycles and professional provocateurs, we may think this naive, but neither the smallness nor meanness of our politics can defeat agape any more than Bull Connor could defeat King and his army of children.  It is those martyrs we remember today (not Connor), and it they who remind us that we are called to be witnesses to a love stronger than hate. 

Good Friday on Championship Monday?

Watching the college football championship game being played in Arizona last night, felt strange to me, sort of like returning to the scene of the crime to throw a party. There was nothing to be done--or I haven’t thought of it. We needed a good game, but why did it have to be in Arizona? It was almost as if the Fates had conspired to make us endure the tragic comedy in which old people and a little girl are shot down in cold blood and football players proudly cant their praise to the god of football. Who can blame those who curse this god and any and all faith? What kind of universe would this be if it were true that God was too busy deciding football games to bother with saving little girls from crazed gunmen?

To read the entire post on the Outlook Blog, click Good Friday on Championship Monday?

Does the Spirit of Christmas Live?

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

This year I wanted to write a kind of Christmas letter in praise of the Spirit of Christmas...as a way of saying thanks to E, A, and all of you who remind me of what Christmas is all about.

Does the Spirit of Christmas Live? (my title)
It’s become customary this time of year to hear concerns expressed about the loss of Christmas spirit. Sometimes these fears are more about one’s cultural identity — and the sense that one’s group is losing power and influence — than they are about the actual meaning of Christmas. At other times, one hears something that sounds less reactionary and more like a thoughtful question: Have our Christmas rituals lost some of their meaning? Have they become old and tired or do they pale in comparison to more novel inventions?

Questions like these may be prompted by our experience or by polls like this one by the folks at Gallop, “Christmas Strongly Religious for Half in U.S. Who Celebrate It.” These headlines, like all headlines, tend to be written provocatively, which appeals to the culture warrior in all of us as well as the thoughtful social critic who resides deeper in our hearts. The story seems to be one of a divided culture in which one half of us sees a profound meaning in Christmas and the other half is engaged in one long shopping frenzy. The reality is very different and as luck, fate, or grace would have it, a good bit more comforting.

To read the entire post, visit: Being Blog - The Secular and Sacred Spirit of Christmas

President Obama is the only grown-up in Washington

Part of being a wise politician – and an adult – is compromising with your ideological rivals sometimes, especially when it's for the greater good of a divided government and recovering nation. Lately, it seems President Obama is the only grown-up in the room.  

To read the full post click on CSMonitor.com

A holiday gift: principled civility?

This holiday season, there’s a special feeling in the air — acrimony.

It radiates from Washington, where almost everyone seems to feel betrayed by the tax deal or the angry reaction to it. Liberal Democrats complain loudest, but clearly, President Barack Obama is irritated by the left’s furious second-guessing. Republicans have also found a way to take offense — certainly at the president’s analogy of negotiating with hostage takers. If they are kidnappers, what are the House Democrats?

 

We are a long way from the new Washington that both Obama and his predecessor promised. But perhaps this is a gift of the lame-duck Congress: the reminder that all should abandon dreams of post-partisan politics and return to the core values of his or her party. Civility is important, but in politics — as in life — it is no substitute for a political party’s fidelity to its core ideals.

Read the rest of the post at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46502.html

A Thankful Nation?

This editorial resurrects an instructive piece of American history--Connecticut Governor Wilbur Cross' 1936 Thanksgiving Proclamation. Unfortunately, the Time's editors are too quick in their praise of Cross' persuasiveness and in their criticism of today's political orators. They suggest that Cross inspired a common hope in a troubled time, but they offer no evidence that his words in fact had that effect, and they also fail to consider today's very different circumstances. Can you imagine President Obama, whatever his words, evoking a sense of unity? Mr. Obama remains a masterful speaker, but there are simply too many on the Right who view him as a foreign agent and too many on the Left who think him a traitor to their cause.

It is time to stop longing for an inspired political leader who will make us whole again. We are living through a period of significant cultural change, and while there is much good about this change it has also inflicted real harm and many people have a deep sense of loss.  This is a recipe for social struggle and resentment, not harmony. In our diverse circumstances of gain and loss, it is hard to imagine what we might be thankful for as a people, but surely one thing we can give thanks for is the continuing social stability that allows us to debate one another without resorting to violence. Such debate is not the deep sense of peace or solidarity that many of us long for, but it is not nothing. Indeed, this civil peace makes a place for us to pursue our dreams of peace and solidarity (and justice), and because of this we can be grateful for such artful statements as that of Governor Cross, not because they secure the peace, but because they witness to it.  Perhaps it's at a time of social dislocation and incivility that we most need reminding of the nation's gifts, including the founding aspiration that all our lives may be enriched by being members of this union.

Still, for many of us, the gifts of the nation ultimately reside in a greater reality that stands beneath and behind the many, and it is to this One, not ourselves, our party, or the nation, that we owe our ultimate thanks and our final loyalty.  It is this One that finally calls us to keep the Feast.  Many families have their own special and sometime crazy Thanksgiving traditions.  The same is true of the religious traditions, some of which dare to speak about the deep hospitality of a heavenly banquet, and it may just be that while at a Thanksgiving meal we enjoyed (perhaps unaware) a foretaste of that heavenly meal, and in this sense Thanksgiving may take on a deeper, even sacramental meaning.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanks Uncle Warren

Image via Wikipedia

This op-ed by Warren Buffet is a brilliant piece in several ways. To begin with it reminds us of the pivotal role played by the federal government in averting a second Great Depression. Secondly, it does so in a fairly measured voice. That is, it recognizes that government is far from perfect.  This is all very much in need of saying, especially by a prominent business person, but the real brilliance of the piece may be its return to the nomenclature of "Uncle Sam." In Buffet's hands this sometimes controversial image takes on the feel of the familiar, like a trusted friend of the family. As Buffet says, this uncle is a little different, sometimes painfully slow, and at other times domineering, but nevertheless this uncle is someone to turn to, especially in moments of crisis. How strange this image seems in our age of cynicism, and because it is so strange it is all the more welcome.  

Islam in Conflict with Democracy? A Response to Stanley Fish | Politics | Religion Dispatches

The State of Oklahoma overwhelmingly supported Measure 755 in last week’s elections, forbidding the use of international and shari’ah law in state courts. A week earlier, literary theorist Stanley Fish penned a piece for the New York Times exploring the conflicts that emerge when Muslim immigrants to Western nations “evidence a desire to order their affairs, especially domestic affairs, by Shari’ah law rather than by the supposedly neutral law of a godless liberalism.”

Fish is well-known for exposing the tensions between our political ideals and the practical demands of life in a pluralistic society. He does so in a way that is almost always entertaining and usually helpful, especially as a reminder that achieving justice is seldom as neat and clean as applying principles. Unfortunately, he also has a tendency to amp up the tension beyond all recognition of the actual conflicts we face. The results are like an overexposed photograph, interesting and provocative in that it helps us see things in a new way, but also distorting of our actual circumstances.

As is the case with a recent Times post, “Serving Two Masters: Shariah Law and the Secular State,” Fish has a tendency to pit liberal or secular theory against a strongly held religious conviction or practice. In this case, the philosophers John Locke and John Rawls are pitted against Islamic law or Shari’ah. Locke and Rawls are, of course, standard bearers for the liberal theory that, according to Fish, strongly informs our legal system, with its emphasis on individual rights. For evidence, he points to the Supreme Court’s 1990 decision, Employment Division v. Smith, the famous case in which a divided Supreme Court ruled against the religious use of peyote based on the general applicability of the law.

Fish writes:

The answer the court gave, with Justice Antonin Scalia writing for the majority, was that the religious believer must yield to the law of the state so long as that law was not passed with the intention of curtailing or regulating his or anyone else’s religious practice.

The lesson we should learn is that the law is a blunt force, especially when it comes to limiting the rights of communities, be they Native American or Muslims who practice Shari’ah. Rather than litigate such disputes Fish advises us to rely on political processes to find compromises acceptable to the parties involved. The argument is provocative and succeeds in raising important questions, but it also makes common cause with opponents of both secular government and Islam in reinforcing the assumption that the nation’s political theory is a poor fit with Islam. In doing so, he misrepresents the nation’s political theory, Islamic law, and the place of religion in our constitutional democracy.

The rest of this post may be found at Islam in Conflict with Democracy? A Response to Stanley Fish | Politics | Religion Dispatches

Longing for a Messiah

A recent survey by Gallup shows that only one in 4 Americans thinks has Congress accomplished more than usual this year. Given the high number of significant pieces of legislation, Gallup wonders aloud why this might be:

This question is particularly relevant this year because the current Democratically controlled Congress has passed a series of high-profile legislative bills, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and others. Nevertheless, the large majority of Americans do not perceive that what Congress has accomplished is more than it has done in previous years.

They point to the obvious reasons, beginning with partisan differences over what a significant piece of legislation is. Politics is an arena in which values and loyalties clearly shape how we see the world.  There's nothing unusual about this, except its extent.  Many Republicans see Obama (and his allies) as a kind of anti-Christ.  One might insert a number of other despised titles here, but "Anti-Christ" gets at the supposed hidden purposes of Obama that animates so many Americans.

The term "anti-Christ" is also helpful because on the flip side are or were the rather large expectations of Obama supporters, many of whom are now disaffected.  For them, Obama was a messianic figure who promised to remake the country, so much so that all signs of the their anti-Christ, George Bush, would be completely removed.

For some of these folks, Congress is to blame for Obama's "failures." I tend to think there's something to this, but Congress has almost never been as "sexy" as the office of President. This is true even of those Presidents almost totally lacking in charisma. The rare exception means the President has screwed up royally--think Watergate and Tricky Dick.  

It has almost always been easier for us to get excited about one leader than about a group of leaders, especially one representing a diverse and contentious bunch like us, the American people.  In today’s culture of celebrity, there is good reason to believe that Congress is destined to be overlooked and downright despised, even in a year of significant achievement. 

Beneath this is the reality that the recent laws and their effects are not radical in nature.  For one thing, they take time to go into effect, often by design. This is especially the case with the health insurance reform act, but it is true with other pieces of significant legislation as well.  Once in effect, however, we are likely to hear only faint praise for even the positive effects, because the effects are reformist in nature. As significant as some of them are—and there are some very important reforms, they do not serve to remake our landscape into a place we no longer recognize. 

In light of our economic troubles, this is a recipe for political disaster. If the Republicans do not win both the House and the Senate, they will have failed. In an era of over-sized personalities, partisanship, and expectations, we long for a political messiah that will remake our society in some shape or fashion. The Tea Party folks claim they want their country back. Progressives want the truly tolerant, multi-cultural America they can see in the distance (in the form of projections). As different as the visions are, they both speak to a longing for BOLD political action or at least they think they do. It may be that what they really speak to are the range of frustrations our society feels with these changing, troubled times. We long for the stability of the familiar and the justice of tomorrow.

But we are still living in the wake of bold, even rash action. It was bold action that led us not just into Afghanistan but also Iraq after we had approved massive budget-busting tax cuts. Our very different visions of CHANGE strongly suggest that our political representatives will continue to struggle along, fighting over our visions and occasionally settling for pragmatic compromises, at least until a new consensus emerges.

I wonder if this would have struck the Founders (and their generation) as such a bad thing. It was they, after all, who set up this democratic system with it checks and balances, including a central place for the legislative branch. The great difference between them and us on these matters is that they believed that this a bold experiment. We "know better" and instead long for a messiah to deliver us from such labors.

Might it be that what we need is not a bold political savior, but the courage and self-control to engage in the messy business of politics?  

Being Awake to Fear (Mongering?)

Would the video below pass the civility test urged by John Stewart, Jim Wallis, or James Calvin Davis?  







On the one hand, it seems like a typical sound-bite video meant to inspire fear, and yet on the other hand....I tend to think it's got a point...there are some scary folks on the Right who seem to be dominating the Republican Party.  


In midterm elections, national ads can't help but generalize about an array of candidates.  So for the Right, the campaign is bound to become about Obama & Co, and for the Left, the election is sure  to focus on the angriest voices in the Tea Party.  The irony is that the Left is schooled in the danger of stereotyping, which would seem to make it more difficult for them to engage in these kind of slash and burn ads that are supposedly necessary to win mid-term elections. They depend, it seems to me, on Republicans becoming so scary that they just roll tape.


It is easy to be critical of this kind of tactic--especially when practiced by the other side, but in a world of mass media, huge campaign budgets, and an ill-informed electorate, it's hard to imagine another way, especially in mid-term elections, especially THIS mid-term.  


In this context, might communities of faith and good will have an special opportunity (and responsibility) to generate forums and conversations that consider issues and elections in depth? Of course, in our current political climate, talking about politics is risky business.  Perhaps Martin Luther was right when he advised that we must be content to act with courage. Knowing that we will err, we should "Sin boldly!" rather than timidly avoid our duties. 

Rethinking Church

Several articles have recently reported on the alarming number of clergy exhausted by their work. Large numbers report that they are always “on.” It seems that in a work-obsessed society, pastors tend to be among the hardest workers. Too often they find themselves and a small cadre of their parishioners working themselves into exhaustion, while a much larger number enjoys the free ride (Michael Walzer). The solution seems obvious: clergy and their communities need to rethink the work they do together. They might begin by agreeing that clergy will work no more than five days per week.

As momentous a change as that would be, rest alone will not solve the problem for many pastors. Workplace burnout typically involves not only overwork but frustrating work, when individuals feel their work is in vain. Ironically, the problem for many clergy is not in trying to reach the larger world, but in dealing with their own congregations. In Congregations Gone Wild Jeffrey MacDonald complains that many clergy feel torn between their callings and their congregations. While MacDonald writes of this as a recent trend, in some sense it is nothing new. The book of Exodus, for example, famously records Moses being worn out by his “stiff-necked” congregation. This long history may only add to a pastor’s sense of futility, but the ancient story may also help explain why it is that so many pastors and parishioners feel alienated from one another.

To read more visit the Presbyterian Outlook at Rethinking Church.

The Irony that is Afghanistan

     Image via Wikiped

"Soldiers try to talk to villagers. They try to build this trust, but it it isn’t really working. The Afghans know that we will eventually pull out and they will be left to deal with the Taliban, who will chop off the hands of those that collaborated. And that’s why they are so afraid, even though they may not necessarily be happy about Americans being there in the first place. They know that it is only going to be some temporary measure, and that we are not going to stay there long enough to defeat the Taliban to the point that they will not come back.

It shows in every face, and every look that I encountered from Afghans. And of course soldiers see that. They pretty much follow their orders, but I have a feeling that they are lost, in a way."


These words by photographer Dima Gavrysh speak to the tragic irony we face in Afghanistan.  We have been their nine long years but those years have nearly exhausted support for the war at home while gaining us little trust among the people of Afghanistan.  President Obama has re-focused and intensified our efforts in a serious way, but there is now too little time for our efforts to meet with the success they might have almost a decade ago.  Our efforts are haunted, so to speak, by the ghosts of a forgotten war. 


There is a double irony, however, in that the photographer focuses on our troops, but the goal of our troops is to handover responsibility to Afghani soldiers. The outcome of the war, finally, is in their hands. 

Who’s to Blame for BP?

Even as the disaster in the Gulf continues to unfold, so do our efforts to understand how and why it happened. But while concerns over environmental degradation and the billions in lost revenue occupy much of the news, the question of responsibility remains central. And who is responsible? Who is to blame? Unfortunately, the two most popular interpretations offer little help. They do, however, provide useful illustrations of the kind of thinking that helped create the crisis in the first place and they also suggest a deeper interpretation in light of faith in God.

The first interpretation I will call a version of the ‘Great Man’ theory of history....read the full post at Religion Dispatches

What could be more American?

Do you support the building of a mosque at Ground Zero? I wouldn't be surprised to hear this question or a similar one asked during a 2012 Presidential Debate.

The full post can be read at the Presbyterian Outlook blog.