Category Archives: culture

  • If we have no peace it is because we have forgotten we belong to each other

    Moving From “Me” to “We”

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    If you are an American Christian, odds are really, really good that at some point you have been told that as you read scripture, you should try inserting your name for the word “you” in parts of scripture where Israel or God’s people are being addressed. So, I could read, “Rebecca shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of her God. No longer will they call Rebecca Deserted, or name her land Desolate. But Rebecca will be called Hephzibah, and her land Beulah; for the LORD will take delight in Rebecca, and her land will be married.” (Isaiah 62:4) It’s not a terrible idea; sometimes we do need help personalizing scriptures and realizing that the love expressed applies to ourselves. Of course, if you do this, eventually you will end up with something like “Rebecca also took her beautiful jewels made of My gold and of My silver, which I had given her, and made for herself male images that she might play the harlot with them.” (Ezekial 16:17) Which is a little too personal maybe.

    Now, if your pastors/teachers are any good at all, they have probably also taught you that in nearly all of the places where God speaks to “you” or even where Paul and Jesus address “you”, unless a specific person is being addressed, the word used indicates a plural you. So it’s more of a “y’all” than “you, Rebecca, sitting over there eating jelly beans.” This ought to be obvious as usually the word “you” is being used to address the nation of Israel or an entire church or the group of people being spoken to. But we Americans are notoriously hyper-individualistic. So with or without a anyone’s encouragement, we do tend to read scripture as if it were speaking to us individuals rather than to a collective group.

    A while back, I became convicted that the hyper-individualistic programming of our culture isn’t compatible with Christianity. I matter as an individual, but I am also part of a larger body. My life is not for me alone, but for the good of God’s Kingdom – a Kingdom which encompasses all of creation. If I see my life and my faith as primarily about me, I am very much mistaken.

    What I came to realize is that countering hyper-individualism isn’t just a matter of prioritizing social justice or even church fellowship. Rather hyper-individualism hides very deep truths about our identities, our purpose and even the meaning of our lives from us. Because the truth is that my life isn’t about “me”. My life and your life and the life of every other human on the planet is about “we”.

    Now, that might sound like some new-agey, mumbo-jumbo, but it’s actually very deeply embedded in scripture. Go back to the very beginning. God made “adam”. That’s adam with a lowercase “a”. It means “man” as in “mankind”. God didn’t make A man. He made humanity. And he called humanity Adam. (The word “adam” is actually used several hundred times in the Old Testament. It really does mean mankind/men/people!) When God was dealing with Adam, he was dealing with humanity.

    Ages ago, my husband pointed out to me that with few exceptions, God judges nations – peoples – rather than individuals. I found this idea offensive, frankly. I should be judged on my own merits, not on what the people around me are doing! But the reality is that a culture and a society are made up of the individuals in it. Unless, I am like Abram and have followed God’s lead to come out from among a sinful people, I am part of the society I live in and will be judged as it is judged. Look at the story of Sodom. God agrees that if there are even 10 righteous men in the city, he will not destroy it. In the end, the city is destroyed because it was beholden to a culture of violence, depravity and inhospitality. Lot clearly is not an innocent (he offers up his virgin daughter’s to a mob, after all!). But he does at least stand up to the forces of the culture around him and for that God allows him and his family to escape destruction. We are responsible not just for personal morality, but for how we handle ourselves in relation to the culture around us.

    Shortly before his death, Jesus prayed over his followers and over us – his followers yet to come. In that prayer Jesus prays repeatedly that we would be one as he and the father are one. We often read this as being about church unity. But it goes much deeper than that. Trinitarian theology teaches that God is both one and three. Over the centuries, a great deal of time, hot air and ink has been spent trying to parse out what that means. But what we know is that in some way God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all one being, despite being three persons – for lack of a better word. When Jesus prays that we will be one as he and the father are one, this is the sense in which he is praying. That we would be both “I” and “we”. Both me, Rebecca and we, humanity, of which Rebecca is one individual. (Of course, theologically speaking, Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit are all of one substance which has its own implications for us – am I of one substance with you and just don’t know it? Many spiritual teachers have claimed just that. Our scriptures are largely silent on this beyond teaching that we retain our identities after death.)

    Or let’s consider it another way. Each of us has the same identity. Each human being was created in the image of God. It is, at the root, who we are. There’s an ancient rabbinical saying which Jesus would have known as well that says, “When Caesar puts his image on a coin, all the coins come out identical. When that One who is beyond rulers puts the Divine Image on a ‘coin,’ all the ‘coins’ come out unique.” Yet for all of our differences, we all have the same identity as image bearers. I recently read somewhere else that every person I meet is another version of me. That’s how deeply we are connected. And that’s what we are missing when we are working out of a hyper-individualistic mindset.

    As I started understanding these realities, I rather purposefully shifted my language to reflect the reality that I am not simply “me”, but am part of a larger “we”. It was an illuminating shift. I found that when I’m thinking in terms of “me” rather than “we”, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. But once I started using we language, I could see that the news was about the way we humans were behaving towards each other rather than about discrete events. Movies are the stories we tell ourselves about who we are or were or could be or wish we were or might have been. Our laws and policies are about the way we organize ourselves, set our priorities and treat each other. If I don’t like the way we are behaving, well, that’s an awful lot like when I don’t like the way I am behaving. If I don’t like the way I am behaving, I need to figure out why I’m doing things I know I shouldn’t be doing and set about fixing and unlearning and relearning. I don’t start a war with myself or engage in daily arguments with myself over it. I figure out what the problem is and make real, practically changes to address them. It works the same when we aren’t behaving the way we should.

    Reverend Terry Hamilton-Poore has said:

    According to the Presbyterian Church’s Book of Order, when a person is baptized, the congregation answers this question: ‘Do you, the members of this congregation, in the name of the whole Church of Christ, undertake the responsibility for the continued Christian nurture of this person, promising to be an example of the new life in Christ and to pray for him or her in this new life?’ We make this promise because we know that no adult belongs to himself or herself, and that no child belongs to his or her parents, but that every person is a child of God. Because of that, every young one is our child, the church’s child to care for. This is not an option. It is a responsibility.

    If we have no peace it is because we have forgotten we belong to each otherThis is how it works – we belong to each other. This has always been true, but this moment in history is probably the first time we’ve been able to see the reality of it so clearly. If I eat chocolate, odds are very good that a child in slavery harvested the beans for it. Another version of me has the life they have because of seemingly innocuous things that I do. My engagement ring probably bought a gun that was used to kill someone. Someone made with the same image as me at their core. I am wearing clothing sewn by a woman in a sweat shop. A woman just like me, only in a different place. And if she were in my place, she’d be wearing a shirt made in a sweat shop too. It’s overwhelming, really to have to face the reality that we human beings can’t do anything without it affecting people a world away who we barely know exist. But if you take that reality and add to it the fact that we all belong to each other, hope appears. The idea that the $100 I was going to spend on a new lamp might actually have been meant for someone else is no longer so strange and incomprehensible. It starts to make sense to me that I was given that excess so I could make sure it got to someone who needs it. We really are all in this together.

    One of the amazing things about learning to think in this way is that rather than my own personal identity disappearing, as those still caught in hyper-individualistic thinking fear is the case, I actually matter more. Who I am is part of a larger whole. If I want the larger whole to be better, then I have to be better. That’s the part that I control. It’s my little piece of the puzzle to work on. And the healthier and more whole I am, the more I am able to tend to others. And as I tend to others, I run into those parts of me which are still broken or immature or neglected. The parts of me which are selfish or prone to dysfunction or scared. And as those are uncovered, I can bring them to God for restoration. Instead of becoming better because I’m supposed to or I want to, I am becoming better so that I can help humanity be better. As we all do it, the world starts to change.

    Despite suffering from Parkinson’s disease, Muhammad Ali sometimes given speeches in support of his social advocacy work. At the start he will hold up one finger and say, “me.” Then he will hold up a fist and say, “we.” Power doesn’t come from the hyper-individualistic me. Power comes from “we”. We are all in this together. We are Adam – mankind. We do belong to each other. And it was Jesus’ fervent prayer that the we would be one as he and the father are one.

  • jerkaboutit

    Why We Christians Suck at Loving

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    Is there something about Christianity itself which leads to the sort of oppression which its adherents have too often been guilty of? You know – the inquisitions, colonialism, slavery, pretty much every interaction we ever had with First Nations people in the Americas. To name a few. The standard answer for western theologians is that the Christian faith and its teachings are not the problem – people’s sinful natures are. It’s the, “well those aren’t real Christians” blow off. However, South Korean theologian Andrew Sung Park posits a more honest – and more helpful – answer to this thorny issue of the convergence of Christianity and oppression. The problem as Sung Park sees it is that we westerners see Christianity as the answer to the problem of the sinner. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, so Jesus came and died for our sins so we can be forgiven and all that. Our theology, Sung Park argues, elevates the needs and concerns of the sinner over the needs and concerns of the people sinned against. And therein lies the problem.
    This may seem akin to blasphemy for many Christians for whom the problem of sin and sinners is THE message of Christianity. However, compare our sinner-centered approach to Christianity to the words which Jesus actually spoke.When Jesus started his ministry, this was the text he chose:

    “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,to release the oppressed,to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ~ Luke 4:18-19

    Jesus’ most famous sermon – the one which many scholars believe was his “stump speech” – the oratory he gave when he traveled to a new place and crowds gathered to hear him centered on this:

    “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

    “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

    “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

    “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

    “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

    “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

    “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

    “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

    “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” ~ Matthew 5:3-12

    When Jesus spoke of the day of judgment, it wasn’t sinners who he focused on:

    “I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’

    “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’

    “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’” ~ Matthew 25:35-40

    Do you see the difference? Certainly, the forgiveness of sins matters. But Jesus’ life and teaching centered on the poor, the blind, the imprisoned, the mourning, the meek, the oppressed, the needy – not on the sinner. He spent far more time speaking of the need to forgive than about the need to seek forgiveness. I think Sung Park is correct in saying that we have erred in putting the sinner and not the weak, the oppressed and the suffering at the center of our faith.

    We see this distortion of our faith very strongly in American Christianity. We are very concerned both as a culture and within our churches with holding people accountable, morality, taking responsibility and upholding standards – all sinner focused activities. But we are far less concerned with lifting our fellow man’s burdens, offering solace to the suffering, refuge to the lost, freedom to the prisoner or liberation to the oppressed. In fact, when we do speak of the suffering, the lost, the prisoner and the oppressed, we use the language of accountability, morality and responsibility instead of the biblical language of solace, easing of burdens, refuge, freedom and liberation. We go so far as to tell people that those things will come through an embrace of accountability, morality and responsibility. But we have it backwards. The problem of the sinner is solved when the needs of the sinned against are met – not the other way around.

    The church is supposed to be a hospital where the sick go to be made well. But when the sinner and not the weak, weary, burdened and suffering are at the center of your theology, the church becomes at best a half-way house where people go to stay out of trouble and at worst a reform school where the way-ward are whipped into shape. And even worse than what it does to the church, is what it does to the way we relate to one another.

    I have known people who have mastered being responsible, who are active in their churches, volunteer in their community and haven’t broken any of the ten commandments in decades who have displayed breath taking cruelty to those near to them when they were weak, suffering and in need. And God-forbid that they had actually screwed up, fallen in the gutter or broken the rules. These supposedly good, Christian people wouldn’t piss on their fallen near and dear if they caught fire in front of them in a desert. Inevitably, their cruelty was justified in the name of demanding accountability, forcing responsibility and upholding morality. And often, the name of love (sometimes tough love) was given to what was nothing more than rank cruelty. When the problems of the sinner are your hammer, the weak, suffering, lost and dying look like nails sticking up out of the wood.

    What is particularly insidious about this distortion of our theology is that not only does it not solve the problem of sin; it creates and perpetuates it. It’s exceedingly rare to find someone raised with kindness, gentleness and tenderness who was cruel to those near to them like this. Back when I did prison ministry, I never met an imprisoned kid who hadn’t been egregiously abused. Hell, on pretty much every episode of Intervention, the addict suffered some trauma prior to starting their downward spiral. Sin creates damage to those who are sinned against. To stop the sinner, you must heal the damaged – they are usually one and the same. Offering forgiveness to the sinner lets them know that they are welcome in the hospital, but if you then stick them in the half-way house or the reform school and tell them to man-up, the cycle of sin will likely just continue from generation to generation.

    The truth is that it is a cruelty to give a starving man fishing lessons. It’s hard to learn anything with an aching, empty belly. Feed the starving man and when he is ready, he can learn to fish and teach his children to as well so that they won’t have to suffer as he did.

    Proverbs 16:25 says “there is a way which seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” Our sinner-centered theology seems right to us. A good number of people have achieved great success by sticking with the tenets of the half-way house or reform school. Or hope to one day. And a great many think that others would also be successful if they’d just get their crap together. But look around – people are suffering. Half of children in America are being born into broken homes. In certain income brackets, more marriages end in divorce than not. There’s a picture going around the internet of a little boy in African laying flat on the ground to drink from a muddy puddle with the caption “so you want a new iPhone 5?” The selling of poor children into slavery is commonplace in some parts of the world. If they are little girls, their slavery is often sexual slavery and it happens before they’ve even gone through puberty. Our way isn’t working. It seems right to us, but keeps leading to death. Even if it’s worked for you – we can’t wait for everyone else to catch up.

    Last night I found my 8 year old awake long after her bedtime. When I asked her if something was wrong, she told me, “I just keep thinking about the kids in my class who are mean to me who I have to give a valentine to even though I don’t like them.” I talked for a while with her about Jesus’ teachings about loving and doing good to our enemies and God’s perfect love. At the end of the conversation she asked me, “how come we have one way that we think we should do things but God always has a different answer that’s better? It’s like we can think of one thing to do and God has thousands of other ways of doing things that you’d never think of.” I told her it was because God made the game – he knows how it’s supposed to work.

    And that’s the deal – God knows how it works. And when he was here walking among us, sinners were a part of a much larger whole. The needs of the sinned against took center stage. I think the time has come for us to repent of having made sinners the center of the faith and set to work repairing the damage created by this error. For that to happen, we make Jesus’ priorities our priorities and his concerns our concerns. To do that we must stop trying to get everyone to act right and simply tend to one another:

    If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

    Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. . .

    Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody.

    Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

    Our Scriptures tell us that if you see your enemy hungry, go buy that person lunch, or if he’s thirsty, get him a drink. Your generosity will surprise him with goodness. Don’t let evil get the best of you; get the best of evil by doing good. ~ Romans 12: 6-10, 13-21

  • black faces 1224_s31

    Stuff I Appreciate About Black Folks

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    Hey – want to watch me stick a fork in an electric outlet? ‘Cuz that’s pretty much the same thing as being a white person who talks about black folks, right? Or at least some would have you think so. But I’m going to do it, because African Americans are forever getting dumped on in our society and are rarely called out for all the things that are great about them.

    Now, before I get started, allow me to provide proper cover for myself. For those not in the know, I’m married to a black man. I have 5 mixed race kids and two African American stepsons. So if nothing else, my “I have black friends” creds are actually solid. (I’ve written more about my experience with race here and you can learn more about my $.99 ebook on race in American here.) Of course, there is as much variety among black folks as among any other group of people. I’ve known sweet, shy, reserved black women and loud, sassy, confrontational black women. Macho black men and nerdy black men. And the things I’m going to list here aren’t universal. There are always people who go against the grain. But as a general rule, these are things which I have observed to be common among black folk I have known that are not nearly as prevalent among the white folks I have known.

    Of course, every positive trait has a dark side when pushed to far. My goal isn’t to idealize African Americans, but like I said, we continually dump on black folks and discuss problems in the black community. For this post, I’m just focusing on things which I personally appreciate about black folks I have known. So having properly covered my ass, here goes:

    1. They respond to your problems with grace and understanding.

    Probably because black folks have had to deal with so many really serious, awful problems for so long, they aren’t particularly phased by your problems. Usually they’ve heard or seen it all before – and worse. And if your life is going to hell because you did something wrong, well, the black folks I’ve known probably disapprove of your dumb choices as much as anyone else. But they also know that you’re the one who is going to have to live with the consequences of your dumb choices, so there’s really no point in piling on. Better to help you move forward than waste time berating you much less exacerbate the problem by turning you out. In my experience, if your life goes all to shit, you’re much better off going to your black friends or a black church for support than to your average middle class white person or church.

    2. They tend to be more tolerant and less put off by people’s quirks and oddities.

    It could just be the particular black folks and the particular white folks I’ve known, but I’ve found that black folks seem to be more willing to just accept people as they are without feeling the need to express disapproval or pressure others to change. “That’s just the way he/she is” is a very common sentiment. Not only that, but I’ve seen a real willingness to not simply tolerate, but enjoy people’s oddities and quirks. To laugh without being mean or even be challenged by people’s differences. To understand that sometimes negative traits are the very things which also produce positive abilities (“stubborn’s just the other side of determination”).

    3. They’re often quick to offer praise and encouragement.

    I guess when your chances to shine have been limited by society and the culture at large is only willing to reflect negative messages back at you, you have a greater appreciation for the value of building people up. The world hands black folks enough criticism and critique, so it seems that a lot of black folks have chosen to respond by doing just the opposite and focusing on the positive they see.

    4. Black folks have a willingness to be open and real.

    I have white friends who I have known for years who have almost certainly had terrible things happen to them but would never share them. But most of the black friends I’ve had, once they’ve sized you up and decided that you’re good people, are open books. Which means it’s OK for me to be an open book as well. I don’t have to worry that I’ll share something which leaves me thinking I’ve revealed too much or which is so shocking that it makes the other person uncomfortable (see #1).

    5. Good instincts.

    I was raised, like a lot of white women, not to trust myself. I was taught to discount things that made me uncomfortable as probably making too much of nothing and to think that other people could probably see me better than I could see myself. The black folks I’ve known don’t do that. Instead, they have learned to rely on instincts to stay safe in a hostile and capricious world. And having practiced using their instincts to size up people and situations from childhood up, they tend to have really good instincts. My husband’s family is more than a little bit crazy, but if they tell me that someone is good people or that a person is no good, I trust them.

    6. Comfortable with sexuality.

    Vilifying black sexuality has practically been an American pastime for several centuries now, but this is actually something I really appreciate about the black folks I’ve known. Pretty much every white person I’ve known has joked that their parents had sex exactly once for each child they had. I don’t know any black person who harbored (or even wanted to harbor) any such delusions about their parents. People have sex. Old people, ugly people, fat people, poor people, nice people, mean people, smelly people. It’s just part of life and something we all do. And while I was caught completely off-guard the time my sister in law asked me if I thought my husband was sexy and stammered like an idiot in response, I think that this frank acceptance of sex is a healthy, positive thing.

    7. Creativity with words.

    My husband and the friends he grew up with would do something they called “playing the dozens” which was basically an insult competition with each person engaging in spontaneous wordplay to come up with the most biting and creative insults possible. Which may not be the kindest pastime ever invented, but creating good insults is its own art form. Doing it regularly will teach you to use words creatively far better than any writing course ever could. As a writer myself, I particularly like and enjoy words. And black folks habitually find ways to use language creatively and often unexpectedly. I get comments fairly often on my writing style and part of that comes out of having spent time with African Americans and having absorbed some of the idioms and patterns of speech which I’ve heard there. Plus, my degree is in literature, so I am semi-qualified to declare that the very best literature of the 20th century was written by African Americans.

    8. A spiritualized view of life.

    Black folks are a bit notorious for their tendency to embrace superstition and conspiracy theories. But the other side of this is that many black folks understand their lives and the world in spiritual terms which really resonate with me as a spiritual person. They are more open to recognizing the ways that the Spirit works and moves. Making choices for reasons which aren’t entirely rational, but are spiritually driven is something which is accepted and respected. Whether it’s man-made or God driven or demoniacally empowered, there’s more to life than what’s apparent on the surface and most black folks seem to know and respect that.

    9. The economy of black folks tends to line up fairly closely with God’s economy.

    I’m not so much talking about economy in terms of money here. Rather, I mean the economy of what is valuable, desirable, worthy, etc. God’s economy is rather upside down. The first are last, the last are first. You give up your life to gain it. When you are poor, you are blessed. Rejoice in suffering. Those of us who enjoy living in a system which was created largely by and for us can often avoid being last, losing our lives, being poor and suffering excessively. But African Americans have never had that luxury. Which I think means that they have been in a better position to embrace God’s economy. To accept the upside down nature of God’s ways more deeply than people who can avoid being last if they want to can. They know that being last, being poor, having your life taken from you and suffering don’t necessarily mean that you’re failing at life. And it’s certainly not the final word.

    10. Black folks are usually quite good at understanding how other people are going to perceive them.

    I am terrible at this. I cannot tell you how often I have been caught completely off guard by someone who responds to me in a way that I didn’t anticipate. I’m really good at putting myself into someone else’s shoes right up until it comes to anticipating how they are going to experience dealing with me. Then I’m clueless. I make an observation that I think is neutral or even positive and it gets taken as an insult. I’ll think I’m being nice and trigger the other person’s every insecurity. On the other hand, my husband and most of the other black folks I know are quite aware of and tuned into how other people are going to experience and respond to them. I’m sure it comes from moving around in an often hostile environment and the often heavy price black folks pay for getting it wrong. I sometimes get irritated with my husband for saying it, but as a white person I’ve been able to walk through life being pretty clueless. But the flip side is that my husband is an absolute master at navigating social interactions in a way that I will never be. Some of that’s personality, but some of it really is the difference between being white and black in this country.

    So, there’s my list of stuff I appreciate about black folks. I’m sure I could think of more items to add if I thought about it, but I think this is a pretty good start. Hopefully I haven’t inadvertently insulted anyone.

    Now, I’m not simply sharing these things here to give my white person stamp of approval to beleaguered black folks. Rather, actively seeking, noticing and valuing the gifts which people different from myself bring is part of my job as a functioning part of the body of Christ. It’s no secret that the body of Christ is shockingly divided by race. Scriptures describe the church as a body. Too often, we read that as applying to our own particular congregation and our giftings. As if each one was its own body, having within it all it needs. But really, the body is much bigger than that. And it does have many parts. It has different nationalities and races and classes which make up those parts. As such, learning to integrate the church is going mean learning to appreciate the particular gifts and strengths that these various and differing parts bring with them.

    Too often, we want to homogenize the body – find a way to make black folks more like white folks and Asian Christians more like American Christians. But really what we ought to be doing is looking out for what other parts of the body have to offer that we’re lacking. What bit of truth they have a more solid grasp of than we do. What they know and understand that we’ve been blind to. We need to be actively looking for these things and expecting to find valuable gifts that God has brought forth among all different sorts of people. So take my little list as a starting point.

    But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” . . . So that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. ~ 1 Corinthians 12:18-21, 25-26

  • salt and light

    The Christian’s Role in Society

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    Perhaps it’s inevitable, but the older I get, the more radical I seem to be becoming. It all comes from thinking that Jesus really meant all those crazy things he said and, you know, actually wants us to do them. I mean a lot of effort has gone into trying to put the Jesus stamp of approval on the comfortable American dream and a lot of people are happy with the result. But the red letters are still there in the bible. And all it takes is to try to follow a few of them for a person to be changed and their American dream to be upended – or for them to end up with a really screwed up life if you’d rather see it that way. I’m not sure exactly why we are so convinced that a good and comfortable life is what we get when we follow in the footsteps of a man who was tortured, killed, betrayed, abandoned and mocked. It’s a bit of a disconnect to be sure. But then again, who wants a screwed up life? Better to just sign up for your “get out of hell free” card and sit tight ’till you kick the bucket, I suppose.

    But anyways, what I was saying – or meant to be saying – was that I’ve become more of a radical as I’ve gotten older. And part of being a radical is that you’re prone to being rather unrealistic. Like maybe you embrace pacifism. Or you decide that you shouldn’t have sex with anyone you’re not in a permanent, covenant relationship with. Or you’re going to take what you need to exist on from your paycheck and turn the rest over to people in need. Or you’re going to forgive and be in relationship with the man who murdered your daughter. Being a radical makes you a bit of a lunatic, really.

    Part of the way you protect yourself from becoming a radical is to point out the obvious; if we embrace pacifism, then people who are violent and evil will be able to run amok. And people aren’t going to stop having sex outside of marriage – especially when the average person doesn’t get married until their mid 20s – if at all. And if some people work and give away their earnings willy-nilly, some people won’t work and will just take advantage of them. And some things are just unforgivable – the damage can never be undone and some people will never repent. Which are all good, rational reasons not to be a radical and to continue on your merry way with your comfortable American dream. After all, surely Jesus was talking about spiritual truths, not things you’d actually do for real in real life, eh?

    But I realized something not too long ago which has been making it hard for me not to lean towards being radical. It’s about salt and light:

        “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

    “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.” ~ Matthew 5:13-15

    Now, clearly Jesus is using salt and light as metaphors. My family already objects to finding my hair in their food. I don’t think they would appreciate me adding skin flakes a la Rebecca to season their dinner. And my husband doesn’t use me to read by at night in bed. Metaphors do have their limitations. But let’s look a little closer at this one.

    First, a couple of questions; when was the last time you tucked into a nice, big plate of salt for dinner? Or set a room on fire to read by? See, most Christians start with the assumption that we’re supposed to be bending the culture such that everyone conforms to the teachings of Christianity. By the force of law, if need be. And if everyone’s not going to conform or if everyone conforming would cause its own problems, well then either the culture is hopelessly degenerate or the teaching needs to be turned into a merely spiritual one which demands nothing of anyone in practice.

    But it’s a bit like when I scold one of my children for hitting and she responds by telling me all about what the other person did wrong. The response is always the same – “Who are you responsible for?” If we claim to follow Jesus and our faith teaches us to behave in certain ways, then that’s our responsibility. What other people do or don’t do is neither here nor there.

    So yeah – some of Jesus’ teachings are unrealistic and have little chance of being universally embraced – at least right now. But the metaphor Jesus used to describe his followers are salt and light. It only takes a sprinkling of salt to season the dish. And one lamp to light a room. The fact that a plate full of salt is unappetizing and a room lit on fire is dangerous is completely besides the point.

    It’s also why I’m not in the least bit concerned about the apparent decline of the church. Who cares if the herd’s being sorted and it turns out that there are more goats than sheep? Jesus started with the disciples and the women – probably two dozen really devoted followers. Those radical instructions are for those of us who claim to follow Jesus. They are our sacrifices to make. And it’s our privilege to make them.And by doing these things, we change everything around us. Our flavor will seep into every bite of the dish and our light will illuminate those sitting in the dark. It’s the purpose we are called for. But what do I know? My life’s pretty damned screwed up. You might not want to take advice from the likes of me!

  • Sound Doctrine

    About Those Tickled Ears

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    “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” – 2 Timothy 4:3-4

    As a general rule I do my best to adhere to the policy that one ought to promote what one loves rather than bashing what one opposes. But today, I feel the need to warn y’all about the ear ticklers. “Have their ears tickled” was something of an idiom in ancient Rome which meant that a person was listening for things which were pleasing to them rather than the truth. What people looking to have their ears tickled really had a preference for were ideas which were new or novel. Paul warned young Timothy that the day would come when ear ticklers would be all the rage in Christian circles. And people being people, the accusation of tickling ears has probably been thrown around among Christians who disagree with each other ever since.

    Now, I must be upfront and let y’all know that I have myself been accused of being an ear tickler on more than one occasion. If you can believe it. And I’ve noticed that whenever I’ve encountered someone warning about ear ticklers, the underlying assumption is always that ear tickling starts with rejecting a wrathful, condemning, harsh God. For some reason these people seem to be under the impression that it is a common problem that human beings would desire a nice, squishy God whose motto is “I’m OK, you’re OK.” Only I’ve yet to see any evidence of any such thing. Just the opposite, in fact.

    Any clear headed assessment of the evidence would lead one to conclude that there’s nothing more common, more universally accepted and more fervently defended than angry, wrathful deities. You can’t throw a stone in a history book or at a map without hitting a religion or teacher which says that God is good and pissed all the time – especially at those guys over there – and that to be faithful to him, one must be a good rule follower, willing to be belligerent, rude and  unbending in dealings with others – sometimes even to the point of violence. This isn’t just a Christian thing either. You see it in Islam, in Judaism, Hinduism, some tribal religions, and believe it or not, even among some Buddhists in central Asia.

    On the other hand, spiritual teachers have been trying to convince us that the most important things are love, compassion, mercy, forgiveness and humility since time immemorial. Clearly that message has struggled mightily to really take hold, although I think we’re making progress. So, based on the evidence, I think that it’s reasonable to assume that the ear ticklers probably aren’t those who err on the side of grace and love over condemnation and judgment. Rather. there seems to be something very deep in the human psyche which is drawn to wrath and condemnation and fear. And I think that the people Paul is warning Timothy about are those who appeal to this darker, uglier side of human nature.

    In fact, Paul specifically says that these teachers and their adherent will not tolerate sound doctrine, but prefer to substitute myths. Like say, the teaching of eternal hell. Or horror story sermons like “Sinners in the hands of an angry God”. Or the rapture. Or the entire Left Behind series. None of those are sound doctrine, but rather depend on myth, folk tales and 15th century poetry and the like. All of them appeal to humanity’s deep seated desire to believe in whoop-ass deities. And tellingly, all of them are Johnny-come-lately teachings. In fact, the very idea of the Rapture is less than 150 years old! Even the teaching of eternal hell took 6 centuries to gain traction in the church. But try telling someone of the ancient teaching of universal reconciliation or that the new heaven and new earth and going to be part of the normal development of life on this planet or that God’s not going to come down and stomp the place to bits while throwing fireballs and you are quite likely to garner an accusation that you’re just an ear tickler.

    The truth is that while only a fool would say that God is happy for us to be as self-indulgent and undisciplined as we want – such things being destructive in and of themselves. But beyond that, it is actually impossible for us silly, wicked humans to exaggerate just how loving, kind, compassionate, forgiving and good God is. And that’s the sound doctrine which many people simply can’t endure. The God who would pay the lay-about hired just before quitting time the same as the man who worked all day. The God who would praise the man who stole from his master and then ingratiated himself to the community rather than relying on more money to save himself when he was caught. The God who would praise a prostitute for accosting him with public acts of indecency. The God who isn’t going to throw masses of humanity into the fires of hell for all eternity. We humans can be an evil, wicked lot and so simply cannot endure a God and a universe which works like that rather than according to the myths of wrath and destruction we consistently turn to over and over again.

    In the chapter prior to his warning about ear ticklers, Paul describes the sort of people who lead others astray. And it’s not the sinners or the social justice types or the soft hearted and squishy brained Paul warns of. Instead it’s quite a different sort of person Paul warns against. A sadly familiar sort of person, I’m afraid:

    “lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

    Doesn’t that read like a list of traits which many people would attribute to Christians? People who are more concerned about making sure they get what they think they have a right to than about another’s suffering. People who are clearly unloving, yet cannot be brought to repentance because they have redefined love to suit their own desires. People who believe that their cause is important enough to justify reviling another or gossip or dishonesty. People with short tempers who turn on their own fallen and wounded and will not be reconciled to them due to their supposed virtue. People who are not grateful to practice their faith without threat of death, violence and destitution yet somehow think they are being persecuted and oppressed when they can’t get their way. People who would rather consign masses of children to fatherlessness and families to destruction than teach self-denial. People who resent being forced to provide for the poor through the government more than they care that some people don’t have enough to live without help from the government. In short, people who look and behave nothing like the Christ they claim to follow.

    Paul goes on to say that these people have “a form of godliness, although they have denied its power”. Like, for example, claiming that Jesus is savior and Lord and yet does not have the power to save the majority of humanity from eternal suffering. Or who claim that God can be kept out of places where forced prayer is not allowed. Or that scientific discoveries can discredit God and must be denied and fought.

    Like I said at the outset, I general avoid pointing to the darkness in favor of reveling in the light. But I regularly hear from people who are struggling to come out of legalistic, harsh and condemning environments. Good people who love God and want to follow his ways. And a continual stumbling block which for them is the idea that maybe God really is angry all the time. Maybe humanity really is that bad. Maybe they just aren’t strong and faithful enough to cut it among the “true believers” and they are taking the easy way out. So for all those who are finding their way out of the darkness and into the light, let me assure you – there are ear ticklers in this world. They have enjoyed their power and influence by appealing to the worst of human nature and calling it of God. But here’s sound doctrine: God is good. Better than you can imagine. In him there is no dark. There is no suffering. All has been forgiven and paid for on the cross. There is no fear in his presence. There is nothing that can threaten him. He doesn’t need our protection. He is love. If you want to follow him, learn how to love. No matter the cost. Over and over. And his kingdom will come. That’s the truth as it was at the beginning, is now and ever shall be to the age of the ages. No ear tickling needed.

  • 414612_4359910869558_2071656243_o

    For the Woman at the Post Office Who is Reporting Me for Child Abuse

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    I gave her my name, so I’m kind of hoping she googles me. Cuz that’s how cool I am – if you google my name, it brings ya here. As long as the cops never figure that out, I’m good. ;p

    Anyhow, the reason I hope she googles me and finds this is because like her, I care very much about the proper treatment of children. In fact, I care so much about it that I even care about the damage which is done by those who see something very good – caring about how kids are treated – as an opportunity to tear vulnerable people down, be self-righteous and judgmental. (Sound familiar? It’s ugly behavior outside of a Christian context as well!)

    So what happened was I was at the post office with my 3 year old daughter Olivia. The one who was walking at 8 1/2 months. The one who we couldn’t let Great Grandma hold when she met her at 5 months because she was too squirmy for an old woman to hang onto. The one who can scale our refrigerator by holding the handles. The one who can hoist herself up to your waist and onto your back and onto your shoulders all by herself as you struggle to peel her off before she’s sitting on your head like an ill behaved cat. She climbs on counters and tries to launch herself onto your back as you pass by. That one. Up there in the picture looking all abused. Because she got into my lipstick and gave herself a plum unibrow.

    So anyways, I admit that I give my kids a free-er reign than a lot of people. I won’t let them be excessively loud or climb things or tear anything up. But I do let them move around freely as long as I can keep an eye on them. So Olivia, being Olivia was being extra squirrelly and trying to play “keep away from mom”. I’m 100% certain a few people were wondering why I didn’t grab her and get her under control. But she wasn’t being bad or hurting herself or being a nuisance. Plus she is very, very strong and can throw her body weight around like a pro. So I waited until I was at the counter to force her to stand by me. She got away a couple of times and I just calmly brought her back. But when she stuck her head between my legs, I took the chance to catch her and tightened my legs so she couldn’t easily pull her head back out. Trapped! Bwahahaha! Evil mommy strikes again!

    So anyways, I honestly wasn’t paying as much attention to her as it sounds. I have 5 kids. I’m on autopilot and talking with the postperson anyways. Olivia made a very half hearted attempt or two to escape, but mostly settled down to look around from her novel position. She’s really strong – if she had really wanted to, she could have escaped. So, I was a bit surprised to here a voice behind me say, “am I really seeing you restrain you child by holding her head between your knees?” I turned around to the fashionably dressed woman who spoke and said, “yes. Absolutely.” At which point she told me that she was a mandatory reporter and had to report me. I told her to go ahead. In fact, later after getting Olivia into her coat, hat and gloves (she was doing her limp noodle routine), and picking her up off the ground where she was doing her dead weight routine and slinging her over my shoulder because she was doing her “I’m going to throw my weight around with great force and see if I can tip you over” routine, I went over to the woman and gave her my name and address. She said thank you. And like I said, I do hope she looks my name up because I wasn’t going to force Olivia to wait while I explained some things to her.

    I want her to know that I know something about child abuse and the damage it causes. My husband was brutally abused as child. I spent 3 1/2 year volunteering with boys in prison – all of whom had been abused. I know quite vividly the damage it causes. And I also know how hard it is to overcome and not pass on to your own children. Parenting is hard. Parenting when your only example is to use violence to control your children is immeasurably more difficult. You don’t know who you are talking to. You don’t know how much effort has gone into raising our kids without relying on violence and authoritarian control. If this woman had a brain in her head, she would have observed that I was not angry, I had not raised my voice or even been irritable, I certainly didn’t pinch, hit, smack or otherwise accost my daughter, shame her or scare her. She clearly wasn’t in any distress. I was being a good parent to a challenging, hyper-squirmy child.

    This woman, on the other hand, was very deliberately trying to shame me. If I were a bit younger, a bit less experienced or unsure of myself or otherwise vulnerable, she would have succeeded in causing me shame. A shamed parent is no better than a shamed child. It’s a potentially harmful thing to do to a person. And if a parent is harmed and feels shame, guess who ends up paying the price? The kid. Shaming a parent in public is the opposite of helping a kid. You might as well walk up to a kid and stomp on their toes for all the good it does. If you are really that concerned about a child’s wellbeing, you offer to help the parent. You could say, “boy she looks like a real handful. Would you like me to amuse her while you finish what you’re doing?” When you just want to be indignant and self-righteous, you do what this woman did.

    And when someone does something like what this woman did today – publicly reprimand and threaten a parent engaged in nothing more serious than restraining their child – it doesn’t just affect that parent and that child. Other people saw it. A man came up to me in the parking lot outside the post office to tell me that I did nothing wrong and express how angry he was at this woman. As he talked phrases like “bleeding heart liberals who think they know every damn thing” came out of his mouth. Do you suppose that the next time he runs into someone talking about the benefits of gentle parenting, he’s going to be more or less open to the idea? Do you suppose that his obvious disdain for “bleeding heart liberals” became more or less entrenched today? Do you suppose his trust in his fellow citizens and our government’s ability to deal with abusive parents was strengthened or weakened a bit today?

    Not only is shaming a parent and threatening them wrong and potentially damaging to the parent and their child, it helps to rip this already fragile fabric of our society apart just a little bit more. It makes us believe that our neighbors are not only idiots, but dangerous to our wellbeing. With your “mandatory reporter” status announced, it creates the impression that our government is a danger to parents and children rather than a support. There is no good thing which can come from what this woman did today.

    So, if the woman who saw me at the post office today and was so appalled at my treatment of my daughter did look up my name and find this, please, look around my blog. Here’s the link to my page on “Spiritual Parenting”, in fact. And if you want to contact child services and tell them that this Christian mom who advocates gentle parenting and is working hard with her husband to break numerous generational curses for their kid’s sake needs to dealt with, go right ahead. I have nothing to fear. You, on the other hand, will have exposed yourself as arrogant, foolish and one of the people responsible for making this world I’m raising my kids in a worse place for all of us.

  • Happiness-Hands1

    Happiness and Starving People

    December 8, 2012

    21 Comments

    People starve to death. It’s a thought which haunts me, although I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that it’s not for the reasons you might think. It’s a reality that haunts me every time someone tells me that things have to turn around soon. Or when I want to comfort myself with the idea that eventually spring comes, the sun returns and nothing lasts forever. “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning.” People starve to death. Tell a man or woman who watched their child starve to death that spring comes again each year. And that’s what haunts me – if people starve to death, then there’s no reason to think my in-comparison small problems will ever right themselves.

    Yesterday my husband told me about a story he had read about a horrific attack on a little boy in Bangladesh. The boy was terribly maimed and the family had to go into hiding at a military installation due to ongoing threats from the local gang leaders responsible for the attack. My husband said one of the most striking things about the story for him came from the boy’s devastated father. Bangladesh is a poor country and the family lived in a one room tin shack in a slum. And the father told reporters that his family had been happy. They had been happy together and in their little community even though they sometimes didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. Today, money is pouring in from around the world to help the child and his family – there next many meals are guaranteed. But the father told reporters that his family had taken everything from them. And my husband said, “I read that and thought, I want to be like that guy. I want to be able to live in the middle of squalor and with nothing and be happy.” Is that a trade you would make – to live in squalor and extreme insecurity in exchange for happiness? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Continue reading »

  • spain path

    Ways to Make a Christian Faint

    November 12, 2012

    16 Comments

    “Christians have always tended to transform the Christian Revelation into a Christian religion. Christianity is said to be a religion like any other or, conversely, some Christians try to show that it is a better religion than the others. People attempt to take possession of God. Theology claims to explain everything, including the being of God. People tend to transform Christianity into a religion because the Christian faith obviously places people in an extremely uncomfortable position that of freedom guided only by love and all in the context of God’s radical demand that we be holy.” –Jacques Ellul

    We Christians really are a faithless bunch. Want to send the average Christian – particularly a Christian like a pastor or church elder – into a nervous sweat? Tell them, “Jesus said the world would know his disciples by how loving they are” without adding any qualifiers at the end. No mention of morality or the need for correction. In fact, if you want to send them into a dead faint, point out that the biblical definition of love doesn’t include correction, purity or virtue.

    Or tell them that you’ve decided to take Jesus’ instruction not to judge literally. From here on out you’re just going to take a live and let live approach. A person’s choices are between them and God so you’ll just leave the judging to God. You may want to bring smelling salts. If they’re still standing, you can add in that Jesus said we should be perfect like God who causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine on the good and evil alike. So you think we should help anyone in need without regard to whether they deserve it or not. And no making loans – if you’re going to help someone, you need to do it without expecting repayment. That should finish the job.

    You could suggest that instead of fighting to protect our rights, Christians should follow Jesus’ teachings and example and refuse to fight. Let the other side defeat us without resisting it. They’ll either give you a blank, uncomprehending stare or quickly escort you off the premises.  On the way out you could add in that God doesn’t really care if you receive or keep what you’ve earned through hard work. Just to make sure you’re never invited back.

    Of course, not all Christians are like this. There’s a growing segment of Christians who already have a live and let live attitude. They work hard to be loving, accepting and willing to lose. Not that they have it all together either. Try telling them that no one has a right to inflict the horror of fatherlessness on another human being, so Christians are morally obligated to refrain from sex outside of marriage and to encourage others to do the same. Tell them its a matter of social justice. Be prepared to witness much equivocating. Continue reading »

  • faces-vase

    “What is truth?”

    October 25, 2012

    7 Comments

    So, are you sick of the arguments yet? You know the arguments – Romney vs Obama. “Job Creators” vs Inequality. Creationism vs Evolution. Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life. Old Fashioned vs New Fangled. Text Speak vs Grammar Nazi’s. Toilet Seat Up vs Toilet Seat Down. Whatever it is, if we can figure out two ways of looking at an issue to divide ourselves into, we do it. And then we argue and argue and argue. We refine our arguments and wonder what the hell is wrong with the people who don’t agree with us. But aren’t you sick of it?

    I remember years ago an older, wiser friend told me, “arguments don’t work. You never change someone’s mind through arguments.” At the time I was a bit flabbergasted. If we didn’t argue, how would the other person know they were wrong? And if we can’t get everyone pretty much on board, how do we keep the world from going to hell in a hand basket? I mean, what was the alternative?

    Of course, today we have reams of research and endless gigabytes of internet conversations to prove that what my friend told me was true: arguments don’t work. They rarely change anyone’s mind. And I think all but the most die-hard believers are starting to get sick of them.

    So what is the alternative to argument? Do we just agree to disagree – you have your opinions and I’ll have mine? And what about truth? Aren’t some things just true and shouldn’t we stand up for and advocate for them? If we can’t argue and persuade our way into some consensus about what’s true how can we function together to get anything done? The live and let live concept sounds fine until we need policies to get the economy going or fix serious social problems. Then what? Continue reading »

  • yahoo_tebowing

    Tebowing ™ – Harmless, Faithful or Whore of Babylon Stuff?

    October 23, 2012

    4 Comments

    So, just this morning, I was explaining to my husband that I feel pretty strongly that my blog is not the place for me to engage in criticism or debate. Rarely, if ever, will you hear me weighing in directly on the latest debate or controversy. And I engage in direct criticism of others next to never. I’d rather make a positive case for what I think and allow it to stand or fall on its own rather than use other view points as a foil. Yup. That’s what I was saying just this morning. Now watch as I throw all that out the window for a moment in order to discuss a news story that embodies a serious error in the way many of us practice our Christian faith.

    So, in case the title of this post didn’t clue you in, the news story I’m referring to is that American football player Tim Tebow has filed a trademark on the word “Tebowing”. ‘ (For those of you who don’t keep up with such things, Mr. Tebow is an outspoken Evangelical Christian football player. He is known for dropping to one knee on the field after successful plays/touchdowns for a quick “prayer”. The gesture has been called “Tebowing”. He’s seeking a trademark on the word, not the gesture.)

    Now, I should stop right here and make a few things clear. First is that I have no idea what the quality of Mr. Tebow’s faith life is. I cannot possibly say whether he has a genuine faith, an actual relationship with God or what his heart is. By all accounts he is a good man. Secondly, I am picking on Mr. Tebow here, but his actions don’t exist in a vaccumn. Rather, they are an entirely consistent playing out of the values, beliefs and practices of a large segment of the American church. His actions just provide an unusually high profile case study. So, that being said, allow me to explain my issue here. Continue reading »