Month: January 2017

I’ve been thinking a lot about a couple of friends.  Not Facebook friends or casual acquaintances, but men I know well.  In their private lives among their peers they are men of trustworthy integrity.  One is a hard core teetotaling conservative evangelical who has a hard time moving away from the literal, inerrant truth of the Bible, but he will listen.  The other is a theologically conservative Episcopalian comfortably tolerating the progressive theology that dominates his parish.  Both are politically right wing conservatives.  One is a classic libertarian.  The other is a full fledged tea partier.  There is a difference, but in degree not kind.  Each is convinced that Democrats in general and Obama in particular were guilty of destroying the American economy, intent on consolidating power in Washington at the cost of states’ rights and individual liberties, unable to defend American interests overseas or protect freedoms at home, and deliberately working to transform the U.S. into a European style socialist state.  Neither has a clear idea of what socialism is, but it’s bad, that’s for sure.  Each imagines a more perfect America in which the federal government would be small, dedicated mainly to military defense and interstate transportation infrastructure.  Welfare would be relegated to localities and charities.  People would have to carry their own weight.  Taxes, in all their forms, would be low or non-existent.  Individuals would be free to act in their own interests in any way that did not harm another.  Social restraints about what that might mean would be drawn from norms associated with a vaguely understood idea about what middle class generic conservative Christianity holds to be true and acceptable.  Other religions would be tolerated as long as they did not violate those boundaries.

With that in mind, they both supported Trump’s candidacy.  One on classical libertarian grounds suspicious of Clinton’s Eastern establishment credentials, and memories of her husband’s immorality.  The other believing every crackpot allegation asserting her corruption and criminality.  Each admired Trump’s shoot from the hip, tell it like it is, tough guy style of making the complex simple, the present look as dismal as it was in their imaginations, and the future as appealing as he promised it would be in his competent hands.  So what now?

Going back where I started, they are men of trustworthy integrity.  Honesty is important to them.  Individual responsibility and accountability is important to them.  Truth telling is important to them, although immersed in truth according to Hannity, Limbaugh & Co., they have become inured to what others call truth.  Knowing them, maybe I should be surprised at their gullibility about that, but it conforms to their ideas about what a more perfect American could be, so it was believed as given to them.  The point is that at the personal level they have admirable standards of integrity and responsibility which must cause unbearable levels of cognitive dissonance as they witness the unfolding of 45’s administration.  Resolution seems to come in several forms.  Urge giving him a chance, certain that doubters would soon be enlightened.  Declare that the evil of a Clinton victory had been averted.  Celebrate his pugnacious militarism as the sign of a fearless patriot who will restore respect for America as the undisputed leader of the world.  And to declare that, after a week of catastrophic fumbling, he is being misunderstood and misrepresented by untrustworthy media and left wing protesters who do not speak for real Americans.  It can’t last.

Sooner or later my friends will have to have to come to terms with the humiliating recognition that none of the things that worried them the most from Obama ever happened, nor would they have.  Nevertheless, Trump has routinely violated every standard of personal responsibility and integrity they hold dear.  Our standing in the world has deteriorated to a level from which recovery will take years, if not decades, and the power of a coercively intrusive, liberty challenging federal government has grown exponentially in a few short days.  What then?  It’s hard to say, but I imagine they will simply become very quiet, recognizing that their moment of ascendency has come and gone.  Perhaps they will nurse their wounds with sad resentment that they are once again a misunderstood minority of real Americans ignored by the elites of their imagination.  What they, and others like them, are unlikely to do is rise up in brown shirts to seize control.  It’s unlikely because they have a greater allegiance to the ideals of American democratic republicanism bequeathed to them through history.  Perhaps more powerful, at least for them, will be the mitigating influence of their Christian faith.  One cannot claim to believe in and follow Jesus as God incarnate, and not be directed by his life and teaching. They stand in contradiction to another acquaintance, not a friend, but someone I know well, an unrepentant racist who would happily welcome a fascist regime masquerading as democracy because he would prosper in it.  Fortunately, he and his like are few.  In the meantime, I am relieved to witness the resilience of the American public that will not be cowed, and sorry for those so easily duped into following a dangerous megalomaniac in hopes that their lives would be made better.

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Back to God, thank goodness, if only for my  own sanity.

Liturgical churches are entering a few weeks when the gospel readings in Matthew will be from the Sermon on the Mount.  I regret that it will be for a few weeks only.  Wouldn’t it be better to stretch it out to cover a little at a time over many weeks?  It’s so easy to let the deeply rooted revolutionary power of these words slip by as we gulp down whole paragraphs without giving them the thought they deserve.  As it is, we don’t even get the whole sermon.  We just fiddle around in the Fifth chapter before moving on.  Consider this Sunday.  It’s the Beatitudes, known to most parishioners as the part where Jesus says who God blesses in special ways.  What a relief to know God has done the blessing, taking a load off of our backs, one we weren’t really carrying anyway.  That may be a little harsh, but these beautiful words of blessing have a way, I fear, of becoming platitudes in their familiarity when they are meant to challenge us in radical ways.

“Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Let’s start with blessed.  If God is blessing anyone or anything, and we are followers of God in Christ Jesus, ought not we to be participating in extending God’s blessings right along with him?  Isn’t it a call to action as disciples, and not just a statement about what God is doing while we watch?  What would that mean in practical terms?  In part it means to become the people whom God blesses in special ways.  Amending behavior, and practicing it until it becomes a habit of the heart is not easy.  Nevertheless, says God, it will lead to ways of life that bring fulfillment beyond measure.  But what kind of fulfillment?  The lives of the martyrs don’t portray the fulfilling life I have in mind.  What about you?  Thankfully not many of us are called to be martyrs, and it’s reassuring to learn from those who have trod the path of discipleship before us that God’s promise of fulfillment is true and comes in many other forms, excluding the popular gospel of prosperity.  That’s half of it.  What would it mean to participate with God in extending blessings?  That’s even harder.  Our judgment about what others need and how to provide it is always well meant, but often condescendingly wrong.  Learning how to love others as Christ has loved us takes a lifetime, and that’s too short to get it right.  But we can try, and that’s what we are asked to do.  When Jesus sent brand new disciples two by two into nearby villages, they didn’t have to go far and didn’t have to do much.  They just had to proclaim the nearness of the kingdom of heaven and offer God’s blessing, which would flow through them, however imperfectly, into the lives of others.  Maybe we mess things up when we try to be the producers of the blessing rather than the communicators of it.

Turning to the first beatitude, who are the poor in spirit?  Are we supposed to become poor in spirit?  That doesn’t seem right.  As a young man, to the extent I gave it any thought, which wasn’t much, I suspected it meant people who are sad or grieving.  I wondered if Matthew wasn’t getting a little too maudlin compared to Luke’s version that leaves it a blessing of the poor, which is something I could more easily understand.  I’m inclined now to believe Matthew got it right, and understand it as those who are struggling with their faith.  Not only those of us who have our doubts, but those who are spiritual but not religious, and atheists who spend so much energy consumed with arguments about the God they don’t believe in.  We are to take them seriously with love, encouragement not condemnation.  After all, how much faith is enough?  The size of a mustard seed, we are told.  That’s not much.  And who are we if not among them?  “I believe, help my unbelief,” said the father who feared for his epileptic son.  Or Thomas who had learned the hard way not to trust what the others said.  Each waited to see and touch Jesus himself?  We are, if we are honest, among those who are poor in spirit.  We believe yet need help with our unbelief.  We’re a step or two behind the disciples of whom Jesus said “Good grief you guys are thick.  Are you never going to get it?”

Just the same, we can be, however imperfectly, the presence of Jesus for those who yearn to hear him, see him, touch him, keeping in mind that we are care givers, not cure givers.  What we are able to bring is a flicker of the light of the kingdom of heaven.  If theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and we have been instructed to proclaim that the kingdom is at hand, then it is through us that its presence will be made known.  Through us, not because of us, not by our own doing, but because of our intentionality to be bearers of the light.  As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “…we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”

Well, those are a few random thoughts about the first beatitude.  You can see why I wish we could spend more time with them.

I was determined to get off of politics and back to theology, which I will do tomorrow, but the chaos of our current political environment keeps bringing up new subjects.

Once I had a colleague who, in every meeting about whatever public policy issue we were working, found a way to announce that “What you don’t know is… .”  It was arrogantly rude, and slammed the brakes on useful conversation because the rest of the group was primed to resist, deny, or obstruct whatever pathway this bit of previously unknown information might open up.  He never changed, and I’ve often wondered how much better things might have gone if he had said something like, “I’ve learned something that I’d like to share,” or “Here’s something you may not yet have heard.”  “What you don’t know” said to a small group of well educated, well informed professionals was heard by them to mean “Not only am I smarter than you, I’m privy to essential information of which you are ignorant because, well, you are ignorant.”

That was a long time ago, but his method of asserting his expertise by demeaning the expertise of others lives on, and never more so than in the political discussions going on among those of us who consider ourselves to be progressives or liberals of some stripe.  Framed in a slightly different way, it comes off as asserting the righteousness of one’s position by demeaning those of others as being critically ignorant or morally corrupt.  I don’t mean those like my far left friend who can barely tolerate my center left pragmatism because it’s not liberal enough for him.  I mean those who, using the newly popularized phrase ‘intersectionality,’  confidently assert that ‘what some entire other population doesn’t know is… .’  And what it is that they don’t know is what is undergirding the systemic racism or oppression of particular interest.  It is a moral failure of those who don’t know for which atonement is possible, but unlikely and only through an acceptable form of groveling in the presence of righteous indignation where they admit their moral failure.  Moreover, individual members of said populations can be accused of personal failure by virtue of being in that population.  No more need be said.  It sometimes looks like what I imagine a watered down Americanized version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution might look like.  It also has disturbing similarities to the tea party movement, something others have noticed as well.

It’s a curious oxymoron, at least as it occurs in the online streams of discussion I’ve looked at.  Intersectionality has been a topic in feminist thought for thirty years or more.  It tries to describe systemic oppression as it is experienced by persons, and groups of persons, whose multiplicity of experiences and conditions in life mean that they cannot be lumped into generalized categories such as gender or race, but must be recognized for the unique ways in which many conditions of life intersect to create the experiences of systemic oppression that is itself a product of many intersections.  More recently, it’s been used to help understand how bridges of cooperation can be built between persons and groups through more appreciative understanding of each other.  So, using the tools of intersectionality to talk about systemic oppression while accusing entire categories of persons as morally responsible for it is just plain wrong.  Moreover,  failure to use the same tools to build connections for mutual benefit suggests that self righteous anger is preferred to progressive resolution, especially if it means having to give up one’s own deeply rooted prejudices.

It may be that there are essential facts and important understandings that are unknown by many outside a particular community of shared experiences and interests.  Making them known in ways intended to build connections is how greater justice is gained.  Can they be made known to everyone?  No!  Some have not yet learned to listen, and yelling at them is unlikely to help.  Some are so loaded with their own prejudices that they cannot be moved.  Some are so burdened by intersecting conditions in their own lives that they have no more carrying capacity.  Some are distracted in another direction and aren’t paying attention.  Some are not distracted, but intentionally focused on something else.  That’s life.  There are others ready to listen and learn, a process that always goes both ways.

It’s unlikely that any of those involved in the online streams I’ve looked at will ever read this short article, but I can imagine a few who would hop up and down like Rumpelstiltskin that an old white male would dare to speak at all.

Friday, January 20, 2017, perhaps not a day that will live in infamy, but a sad day for the nation just the same.  Consistent with everything the past year has given us to expect, his inaugural speech was rich with bombastic distortions that gave fact checkers plenty to work with.  His supporters though, steeped in a brew of assurances that America is in horrible shape because of the disastrous policies of the last eight years, are primed to cheer any Trumpian move as a sign that good times are here again.  I suspect they are partly disappointed, and partly relieved, that they have escaped the confiscation of their guns, the imposition of Sharia law, and the humiliation of being led by a corrupt woman.  It’s going to be a rough four years.  It’s made rougher by the violence of anti-Trump protesters whose behavior confirms everything Trump supporters believe about “the Left,” and undermines the hard work of protecting the nation from the bottom up that lies ahead.  The inauguration saddened me deeply, and the protest violence angered me beyond measure.

I, like many others, believe the years ahead will be roughest on those who have put their trust in Trump.  How will they react to the dawning recognition that they’ve been had by a world class huckster?  There is a chance they will deny that they have been had.  It’s too humiliating to admit.  The timing of their deliverance may have been off a bit, but it will come.  Of course hucksters work best when in control of the arena, and a number of commentators have noted that Trump’s arena has just become, using his favorite word, huge.  It’s so huge that large parts of it are controlled by people placed in charge by Trump, but who appear to have little respect for him, regardless of their public pandering, and little time for taking his inarticulate ramblings seriously.  My guess is that they are (mostly) men who figure they can play Trump the way he plays others.  It’s hard to predict where that will lead.  Historians might think of inept Byzantine or Ottoman rulers and the intrigues that brought down their empires.  I’m more inclined to think of Mel Brooks without the jokes, but I’ve said that before. Again I’ve digressed.

A more honest recognition of reality from Trump supporters may be possible if center right and center left progressive leadership can learn to talk to them without insults or condescension.  Joe Biden has been quoted in the recent press as saying that he wished he had stayed on message when he spoke directly to working class America about their own welfare, instead of getting sidetracked into blasting away at Trump.  It remains to be seen whether others will recognize how important that is.  I have no feel for how it might work in the nation, but members of our local Democratic Party, to which I belong, are skilled at talking with each other about how to organize for the next election, but largely ignore what is needed to communicate effectively on issues and candidates with the region’s conservative majority, who tend to swing reflexively to the far right.  They are abetted by a regional movement to “dump” our member of congress that sends out daily memos about how bad she is.  It makes all the liberals feel good, but does nothing to address the desires, fears, and needs of the majority who keep reflecting her.

Predicting what might happen is always dangerous.  It seldom works.  What we can do is reveal what is happening in a clearer light.  What has happened is that lies, distortions, and phantasmagorical illusions have prevailed in the election.  There is no reason to believe they will not continue to be employed, at least from the Oval Office.  What I know from my conservative and right wing friends is that they are convinced that their liberties have been taken away, that those remaining have been put in jeopardy by Obama, that public policy tilted toward the undeserving has stolen their birthright, and that regulation of business and industry has strangled economic opportunity, especially for small businesses and family farms.  Trump said he would save them.  Progressives said they would work for greater justice, which they read as code for more of the same.  It’s time to change the terms of the conversation.  

“Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear,” so wrote St. Paul to the church in Ephesus.  It was good advice then and is now, however regularly ignored.  What is evil talk?  Some of the fundamentalists I know claim it is anything blasphemous, by which they mean whatever is inconsistent with their understanding of holy truth.  Popular entertainment often casts evil as a caricature of the devil, vampires, zombies, or Lord Voldemort, in such a way that ordinary human beings are excused from the guilt of evil, no matter what they say or do.  They may be in error, naughty, or just plain bad, but not evil.  I’m more inclined to believe that evil is whatever is cruel, hurtful, deceitful, or unjust, and that the evil that comes out of our mouths is as damaging as any act.

This past election season reveled in cruel, hurtful, deceitful talk that became acceptable, even honored, among a large sector of the population as a legitimate expression of public discontent.  With evil talk legitimatized, the ubiquity of unrestricted social media encouraged many to shrug off whatever social constraints had held their words in check, unleashing floods of cruel, hurtful, deceitful talk beyond measure.  Freed from the tyranny of political correctness, all manner of vile words and deeds have been let loose on society with impunity, and sometimes applause.  

If what is clearly evil talk has become more common place in the public arena, including among  leadership, what some declare as evil has also been dumbed down.  What I mean is that if your social and political values are not consistent with mine, then I can label them as evil; evidence not required.  Having glued the label on, any accusation you make of verifiable social or political evil can be excused as just your opinion against my prior assertion, and, therefore, unworthy of further discussion.  Decades ago Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote an essay on “Defining Deviancy Downward” that criticized the erosion of standardized social values of the post war years.  He had the right idea but aimed too many of his barbs in the wrong direction, trying to defend values that had been used to oppress whole classes of citizens, and was unable to accept redefinitions that would accommodate demographic changes and a more expansive understanding of social justice.  What he had right was the sowing of seeds that would mature into a field of weeds in which evil talk itself would be the deviance defined downward.

So let’s go back to the top.  “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.”  It’s not only about constraining evil talk, it’s about speaking only what is useful for building up as needed.  Is what I am about to say useful to others for building up as needed?  Building up what?  From a Christian perspective it means building up a more just, less exclusive community working together for the well being of all.  Within the Church it means building up communities of faith.  Emanating from the Church it means building up the communities in which we live, heeding advice from the prophet Jeremiah that in the welfare of the city where we live lies our own welfare.  Building up as needed.  What is needed?  Therein is room for a lot of debate, but debate that must be framed in language intended to build up, not language that is cruel, harmful, deceitful.  Let your words give grace to those who hear, and let it be so.

It’s something to work on because it’s not an easy thing to do.  The tricky part is that we are not excused from confronting evil talk when we hear it, but must do so boldly without falling into it ourselves.  At the same time, we are not given warrant to accuse someone of evil talk without verifiable evidence that can withstand informed scrutiny.  We cannot subtlety imply that another is an enemy simply because they are not doing or saying what we think is best for building up.  We cannot label ordinary incompetence as evil, though we must confront the evil that it enables.  We can call ignorance ignorance and stupidity stupidity, but only if we make clear what knowledge and intelligence means given existing conditions.  It takes a degree of humility I often lack, so don’t be quick to take me as an example.  For that matter, St. Paul wasn’t a very good one either.  Best bet is to stay focused on Jesus.

 

If we will accept it, our competencies, however modest, are infused with gifts of the Spirit, that we too often think of as limited to evangelism, preaching, or something to do with church.  It’s too narrow.  We are not called into church. We are sent out from it to serve the world in God’s name.  The gifts we are given are innumerable, and have more to do with trades, professions, and daily tasks than they do with evangelizing.  What makes the difference is, that as followers of Jesus, the gifts are holy.  They have been made holy by grace through faith.  They are to be employed in holy ways in which we each use our competencies with compassion for the well being of the community about us.  That’s who we are. That’s what we’re here for.  It’s what enables us to share, however little, in the power of the one whom even the wind obeyed, bringing with it the strength to endure storms and heal their wounds. 

• Destruction of an enemy’s food supply
• Betrayal of treaties and covenants of friendship between peoples
• Encouraging civil violence
• Robbery
• Disrespect for legitimate civil authority
• Manipulating the working class into the bondage of debt
• Cheating the poor out of the necessities of life
• Usury
• Systemic injustice for the poor
• Oppression of the poor
• Temple prostitution
• Promiscuous sex
• Drunkenness
• Commanding God’s prophets about what to say, or not say
• The idle rich displaying contempt for the poor
• Meaningless religious ceremonies and practices
• Presumption of God’s favor while oppressing others
• Corrupt courts and judges
• Unfair taxation of the poor
• Gaps too large between the rich and poor
• Undue pride in nation or family
• Lack of compassion for the suffering of others