Year: 2022

How can one be patiently impatient?  Scripture encourages us to be patient as we wait on the Lord to act.  It reminds us that God works on God’s time, not ours.  The bible is filled with centuries between the announcement of God’s promise and its fulfillment.  

At the same time, the prophets and our Lord Jesus Christ command us to be aware of injustices in the world and act speedily to do something about them.  To paraphrase James, faith without works is dead, so get on with it.  Jesus has told you what to do, so do it.   It feels like God wants us to be patient with ‘him’, but snap to it in our own lives.

God is not slow to act, but when centuries pass before big things happen, it makes one wonder.  God is more actively engaged in our lives than we can possibly imagine.  What seems like slowness is the hard work of preparing the way for the time to be right for the big event to unfold.  Why so long?  Because God never compels but only invites, and it takes stiff necked humans a long time to get the idea.

It took Jacob fourteen years to mature from selfish, conniving young adult to responsible, God fearing leader of his large family.  It took the people of Israel four hundred years to be ready to venture from Egypt to the promised land of Canaan.  It took a thousand years of learning from the time of David for the world to be ready for the promised son of David and Son of God to be born in Christ Jesus. It’s been two thousand years since then and we are still unwilling to follow in the way of love that Jesus pioneered and commanded us to take as bearers of the good news of life in abundance for all.  We are slow, stubborn, willful creatures, are we not?

In the meantime God is more active in the affairs of the world than is easily recognized.  Miracles, if you will, are not rare but common.  Despite of our inclination toward greed, selfishness, and self righteousness; despite our desire to seek vengeance instead of justice; despite our abuse of creation without concern for what it will do to future generations; despite our willingness to kill one another in senseless wars and domestic violence; despite it all and more, humanity inches forward towards becoming more moral beings.

When is the time to act?, asked the apostle Paul. Now is the time for today is the day of salvation. Does that mean the end is near?  It’s not for us to ask, not for us to speculate.  It is for us to bear the light of Christ, however we are able, to shine the light of the kingdom of God that is right here, now to illuminate the way of love for others to follow, if they will.  That is our work.  No follower of our Lord Jesus Christ will be measured by how successful they were, they will be measured only by whether they bore the light as best they were able. 

And the end times?  The question still remains.  Are we in the end times?  Yes we are, as the theologians say, in the already but not yet; we who bear the light of Christ are already walking in the kingdom of God, though not in its fulfillment.  As Paul wrote, now we see through a glass darkly but then we will see clearly.  When is that?  I am in my eighties: for me the end time is visibly near.  It’s the same for all of us regardless of age, but youth sees the end as far away, of no immediate concern.  The elderly are not so naive.  It’s not ours to worry about the end of time, it is ours to be aware of our own time on earth, and the responsibility we have to point others to the way of love.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, or so the song says. It is for many.  For some it’s a time of grieving, loneliness, and guilt about failing to live up to the expectations of the season.  Nevertheless, the season remains a time when the sentimental ideal of good times, good friends, beautiful decorations, and wallowing in “the real meaning of Christmas.”

What is the real meaning of Christmas?  Hallmark Christmas movies offer one answer.  Sadly it’s an answer that satisfies only for the duration of the movie.  Another answer comes from equally sentimental stories of the prince of peace.  They remind many of what is desperately hoped for yet failed to achieve.  Sadly, it’s a hope that dissolves by New Year’s Eve, but it’s on the right track as far as it goes.

Another meaning stands well apart from all the other holiday declarations.  There is nothing sentimental about it.  It’s a scene set in a smelly stable where a young unmarried woman gives birth to the Word of God made flesh.  She and her husband to be are far from her home.  Although the heavens break forth with choirs of angels singing hymns of glory, they are seen only by a few shepherds keeping watch by night.  In that moment the history of humankind and all creation is changed forever.  Jesus’ birth, life, teaching, death and resurrection are one singular event proclaiming who God is. It is an answer to Job’s plea that God be present to him on human terms, as a friend and not a stranger, one who would destroy the power of death.  Jesus, the helpless baby, is the way of peace and life who opened the gates to eternity to all who accept it.  In Jesus, God responded to Job’s demand to confront him as one human to another by the Word being born in rough circumstances to live and die as one of us. In his resurrection he was finally and fully revealed as God incarnate.

It’s a gritty story from beginning to end.  It’s also a story of the supernatural and natural realities becoming one. There is nothing magical about it.  When the question is asked why God, if there is a God, doesn’t do something about all the evil in the world, the answer is God has acted, and this is it.  Through God in Christ Jesus, the way of life and peace is made known, affirmed by all. 

For me, the holiday season can and should be celebrated in every way.  Let good times and good cheer abound.  Let tokens of love and gratitude be exchanged.  Let tears of sadness flow until there are no more.  Most of all, let the Prince of Peace be your guide and guard, not for a season but for life.

© Steven E. Woolley

What passes for political conservatism today is reactionary libertarianism favoring the wealthy and powerful through authoritarian rule.  The nation needs an authentic conservative movement to balance political decision making, but this isn’t it.  A more authentic conservatism was once self defined as modern day Jeffersonian belief in small government, imposing few regulations on business and private  property, but providing for a robust defense leveraged against the least possible spending on social welfare.  Low rates of taxation were axiomatic. Conservative performance wandered far from its professed beliefs but nevertheless were firmly held.  Conservatives envisioned an America of independent small businesses, family farms, and self reliant people whose property and liberty were secure. It was a Thomas Kincaid vision of a land that never was but remembered as if it had been and could be again.

In the real world of America as it is, the vision has been enthusiastically endorsed by voices of big business because they see it as an all you can eat buffet just waiting to be gobbled up; a reality that has been acted out episodically whenever oligarchs have managed to gain control of public policy.

Daily reality seems to keep the conservative ideal just out of reach for the masses. Yet with enough money one can live in the right neighborhood, or better yet, gated community.  Crime, street crime, not the bigger crimes called white collar, are portrayed as  growing, out of control everywhere.  Addressing problems of social and economic inequities is seen as a ploy to strip rights and privileges from some in order to give them to others who have not worked for them.  Only stern application of old time Puritan ethics can keep taxes from becoming confiscatory, the national debt ruinous, and nanny state socialism from emasculating the American people. At least that’s been the trajectory since the Reagan administration, a trajectory that has led to today’s corrupted far right conservative movement aspiring to what can only be called neo-fascism.  

A new conservative agenda would protect the rights and liberties of every American who desires to be as self reliant as they are able by fiercely regulating the anti competitive instincts of big business, evenn breaking them up if they become too monopolistic.

A more robust conservative ethic would expect local problems to be solved at local levels, with national problems needing national solutions. Issues having no regard for state boundaries such as health care, environmental protection, essential social welfare services, national infrastructure, and the protection of rights guaranteed to all by the Constitution, the least of these being the current popular beliefs about the second amendment, would be handled on a national basis.

A renewed conservative movement would retain the cautiousness that is its hallmark knowing that liberals can be tempted to leap before they look, and fail to calculate consequences accurately.  Too much centralization of government authority can be as dangerous as too much centralization of big business indicating caution best be shown. Conservatives know that the little guy can too easily become a pawn in a game played by the rich and powerful, so they must question what any course of action will have on that little guy. Sadly, recent decades of conservatives have played the little guy for a fool while big business interests called the shots. It’s time for conservatives to conform deeds to words.

Conservatives like equilibrium, especially social equilibrium.  They will always be uncomfortable with rapidly changing demographics, liberal immigration policies, and demands for less inequity in society.  It means disequilibrium that is unsettling will need to be tolerated until a new stasis can be found, and who knows what that will look like?

It’s not that conservatives dislike change; they’re fine with it if they can understand its need, purpose, and ways in which cherished American values will be strengthened.  In other words, they want some assurance that the new equilibrium will not create new inequities that will likely disfavor their primary constituencies                           

that always include the upper middle class.  The value this kind of conservatism adds to American democracy is its caution, requiring liberals to prove their case and restrain their ambitions in order to achieve a workable compromise.  It infuriates liberals who want to get on with it as quickly as possible, but it also leads to a more manageable pace of change that doesn’t end with change so abrupt that it paralyses needed systems of social and economic life.

America very much needs, and does not have, this kind of conservative movement.  While seldom producing effective executive leadership, it’s the kind of conservatism that’s at its best when serving as the loyal opposition.

Former Chinese “president” Jiang Zemin died recently at 96. While I was head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce NYC office, I had the unique experience of spending a few days with him and his entourage during a visit to the city while he was still Mayor of Shanghai but slated to become the next leader of China. Why I was seconded to him is something of a mystery, but it worked out well. Since I had no product or service to sell, no authority to speak for the government or any special interest, and no particular standing in the pecking order of corporate America, he seemed eager to ask many questions about ordinary life in NYC and America in general. Of special interest to him were explanations of homelessness, beggars, mental health issues, housing for ordinary people, the way local government operated, and the differences between urban and rural America.  I attended most of his meetings and social functions with corporate leaders, and he was always curious about my assessment of their products, reputations and quality of leadership.  Maybe he figured that since I had nothing to offer and nothing to request from him, that I would be a less biased voice than others he was hearing.  Who knows?

He was equally forthright in sharing his belief that Americans were technologically advanced but basically uncivilized.  Compared to China’s three millennia of history, culture and wisdom, Americans appeared to him to be semi barbarians who had only recently traded tribal warfare for cutthroat commerce. I have some knowledge of China’s own history of internecine warfare, but was uncharacteristically smart enough to keep quiet.

My few days of being a minor presence as he attended to more important matters and persons came to a pleasant, unceremonious end, and that was that.  He went on to prepare China for the 21st century with a booming economy, global trade interests, technological advancement, the building of a strong middle class, and a more relaxed political environment.  Leaving Marxism far behind, he established the pattern for Chinese state capitalism. China’s current leadership seems intent on undoing it all, but I have my doubts about being able to stuff the people back into Mao jackets. 

Years after Jiang retired, my wife and I were on one of our visits to China. Knowing about my brief connection with the “president”, our government guide asked if I would like to visit him.  I declined, not wanting to bother him with a visit from someone he would not  remember, the unknown staffer from NYC who had nothing to offer and wanted nothing from him.  I regret that decision.  I would love to have had an hour or two to ask more questions, and learn from him what he had learned during his long tenure on the world stage.

I have a couple of bones to pick about seemingly unrelated subjects, but I suspect they have connections stronger than one might think.  Let’s get started with the current flood of mathematical evaluations of the recent election, to which pundits confidently attach motives and trends.

Analysis of voting statistics is a good and valuable thing.  It helps us see how voting patterns have shifted in the present, but it is probably too early and a leap to then transform those shifts into trends that predict future voting patterns.  Rational analysis is seldom a reliable indicator of voter decisions that are more often driven by emotions rather than disinterested rationality.  Which is not to say that decisions driven by emotions are not rational, they are quite rational in their own way.  They are calculations based on personal values, vigorous defense of self interest against perceived threats, real or imagined, and desires for more of what they believe others have and they don’t. The American value of individualism is so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that it’s nearly impossible for many voters to conceive of a greater good, or common good, that doesn’t deprive them of one of their individual goods. In the same way, it suspects that any good provided to another must mean someone else is deprived of the full measure of what they have enjoyed.  The value of cooperative synergy, helping create a greater good for all may work, at times, in a local context, but it’s almost impossible to see how it might work for the nation as a whole.  

For deeper understanding of voting patterns, there must be a sharp turn toward exploring closely-held values and how they influence voting behavior. 

That’s one bone down.The second has to do with crime.  The data indicate that many voters are deeply concerned about crime surging out of control and for some reason, think the GOP is better at doing something about it because Democrats are said to be soft on crime. Violent crime statistics are irrelevant to them.  Voter concern about crime is limited to violent street crime, not the bigger crimes committed on them by powerful and wealthy interests.  So called white collar crimes seem remote and hard to understand.  They have a point.  Street crime is immediate, sometimes fatal, and always traumatic. Conditions that nourish criminal behavior are of little interest – they look too much like excuses.  What voters want is a crackdown on criminals with punishment swift and certain.  It’s a utilitarian argument: get the criminals off the street and keep them off the street. There are neighborhoods where street crime is a real and present danger.  They get enough publicity to make voters believe it’s everywhere, even in their own neighborhoods, that have almost no street crime. Stoking the fear of crime has the added campaign benefit of rekindling every form of racial prejudice.  Throughout history there has never been a better way to mobilize the mob than to identify a minority population as the cause of every trouble, to be brutally persecuted as a way to cleanse society. More than other Western societies, Americans exacerbate the problem by making sure there are lots and lots of guns all over the place.  It makes it easy for anyone to blow off a little steam by shooting someone else.  At the same time, it holds out the illusion that a gun in every household is an effective defense against all the other guns in other households. I wonder if it has anything to do with Americans unwilling to give up playing wild west cowboy games.

So that’s the second bone.  The third is the economy.  I am baffled by voter tendency to think Republicans are better at managing a difficult economy. That we have an inflation problem is obvious.  The less affluent are having a hard time paying for essentials, much less anything else, and wages, while increasing, are not increasing fast enough to keep up with rising costs. It’s a bit scary to think we might be falling back into the raging wage/price spiral of roaring inflation experienced in the ‘70s.  Reagan’s solution was to cut taxes and regulations on business.  It’s been the GOP mantra ever since.  It didn’t work then, hasn’t worked since, and it can’t ever work, but still they hang onto it.  Promising a smaller, less expensive  government, Reagan blew the lid off defense budgets causing massive unfunded national debt.  Another standard ploy is to blame social service spending for  “out of control” federal spending. In Reagan’s time, the inflationary spiral was killed by the Fed shoving the country into a deep recession that threw millions out of work, and made the poor even more destitute. The data show that the economy does better, deficits are lower, and the national debt more under control when Democrats lead the nation.  It’s not a hard and fast rule.  They can make big mistakes, but their track record is a lot better.  The current administration is often criticized for trying to make the economy look better than it is. There is some spin to be sure, but it has also laid down the necessary steps for rebuilding our infrastructure, investing in future technologies, and reforming social programs that will assure a better economic future for all.  It’s the practical stuff of every day hard work that should appeal to conservatives. Maybe it’s out of sheer stubbornness that they keep on promoting the Reagan illusions.  

OK, I’m done picking bones for the time being.

A guest column on Country Parson is rare, so this is an exception. It is a short essay by my friend The Rev. David Hindman, UMC pastor and long time chaplain at William and Mary.

Considering this question has been prompted in recent days as I have heard claims from faithful Christians that Mahatmas Gandhi could not possibly be in heaven and is in hell because he was not a Christian. He is certainly the poster child for good people assigned to hell, but that company would logically also include Anne Frank, Abraham Heschel, Martin Buber, and any other remarkable person who had not said the sinner’s prayer or been washed in baptismal waters.

The concept of hell that precipitated these musings naturally presumes that there are those who are forever separated from God, from Jesus, or from the comforting presence of the Divine.  That company includes not only those many would consider worthy of hell (e.g., Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin) but also all non-Christians, regardless or their morality, virtuous lives or anything other than them claiming Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior. For our co-religionists shaped by the theology of John Calvin, those not elected by the grace of God as predestined for salvation are likewise consigned to this realm.

But what if Jesus continues to reside in hell? How is that possible? Why is that something to be considered? Is it something biblical, or at least theologically plausible?  How could this be? 

Jesus, in his ministry, always favored and had a profoundly merciful compassion for the dispossessed, the outsiders, the marginalized, those who felt abandoned and forgotten, and the suffering. Indeed, his crucifixion outside the walls of Jerusalem marks Jesus himself as an outsider; his only words from the cross in two gospels are lamenting cries of abandonment by God (Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46). He dies beyond the pale, beyond compassion care, seemingly on the far side of God’s presence. 

What community could be more abandoned, forgotten, dispossessed, marginalized, outside and suffering, than those populating hell? If such people are Jesus’ people, can we imagine that he has chosen to abide with them, to be among them, and to suffer with them, a quiet but faithful representative that even there, we cannot flee from God’s presence (Psalm 139:7-8). Is it possible that even there we cannot be separated from the love of God experienced in Christ Jesus; as Paul proclaims, “I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life…not height or depth, or any other thing that is created.  (Romans 8:38-39, my italics)? 

The mystery of the incarnation is that in Christ, God has pitched the Divine Tent among us; “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth (John 1;14). If the glory of God is in our midst, would that also allow for the Incarnate One to live in the most godforsaken realm of all, where humans also exist?

In Ephesians 4:10, we read, “He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe (my italics).” Through Christ’s humiliation on the cross, Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians, “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (my italics, Phil. 2:10-11). John Wesley, spiritual forebear to those of us who swim our faith in the Wesleyan stream, believed that Christ’s power to confront and convert did not have to be limited by physical death; it was possible for humans still to be changed and blessed in the life beyond this life; is it not possible that such change could happen among those inhabiting the halls of hell? 

C. S. Lewis, in his novel The Great Divorce, envisions a bus connecting the realms of heaven and hell. The great horror of the story is that, upon experiencing the ways of heaven, many of those who arrive soon choose to go to hell. Using Lewis’ metaphor, is it not also possible that some would choose to depart hell for the joy of heaven?  (As a side note, the conservative and evangelical Lewis also envisioned a more expansive, hopeful, and humble image of God’s salvation; in Mere Christianity he opined, “We do know that no person can be saved except through Christ. We do not know that only those who know Him can be saved by Him.”)

Some will readily agree that Jesus, as affirmed in the Apostles’ Creed, did indeed descend into hell, but that “On the third day he rose again in accordance with the scriptures.” That affirmation, understandably so, may be considered a sequential statement: First Jesus dies, then he descends to hell, then he is raised from the dead, and then ascends into heaven. That makes perfect sense, especially for us humans who are bound by time and space.

But in eternity and in God’s timeless Being, time and space are irrelevant; they collapse into what Paul Tillich called The Eternal Now. If Jesus fills all things, and is Lord of all times and places, would not that Lordship include the realm of hell and those who would inhabit it? 1 Peter 3:18-19 boldly claims that Jesus was active in the season between Good Friday and Easter, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison…” This interesting phrase suggests the possibility that in God’s eternal economy of salvation, again there is no time distinction between Christ’s death and resurrection (“being put to death but made alive in the spirit”); so is it possible that the crucified One is also already alive in God even as he descends to hell and is present among them as the Risen One over whom death and hell no longer have ultimate power?

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul describes the resurrected life and looks to the final consummation of human history of universal salvation and deliverance. “All will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power….The last enemy to be destroyed is death….When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all (vv. 22-24, 26, 28).”   If death is the last enemy and if hell is the realm where God’s enemies are consigned, then in the end even hell and death will surrender and succumb to the marvelous love and presence of God, and God all will be all in all. There will be no place where God is not. If the resurrection of Christ is a promissory note and down payment on God’s final future for the whole creation, is it not possible that Christ is already there in the midst of those some think belong in hell, as a comfort, encouragement, and witness to God’s abiding eternal love and presence in the midst of the whole creation? Is it not possible and even plausible that already and even now, Christ continues bearing witness in that realm to the New Creation that is surely coming? 

What if Jesus remains in hell? Perhaps the better way to phrase it is, What if Jesus is already in hell, and will not leave or forsake those there because that is the nature of the God whose  steadfast love endures forever? That, it seems to me, would be good news for all. 

I hope we’ve all had enough of speculative reporting. I have.  It isn’t just cable news, it’s the major national dailies as well that have been obsessed with reporting on news that has not yet happened by speculating about what it might, possibly, probably will be, or not.  Reporting has been followed by op.ed. pundits ruminating about the possible meaning of future events, maybe, most likely, or not.

In the several weeks before the midterms, I gave up on cable news. For news about what was actually happening, or had happened recently, I kept to The Guardian, BBC World News and NPR.  A couple of local t.v. news programs did quite well with actual local events that mattered. Lester Holt did a pretty good job of sticking to the events of the day, not the potential outcomes of those yet two weeks off.

Quality news journalism is more than “just the facts, ma’am,” although it must be grounded in them.  Relevant conditions, circumstances, known effects, and moral issues at stake are essential to presenting a full story to the public. That’s different from wandering into the morass of fortune telling pretending to be reporting.

In like manner, punditry from well informed observers of the national scene is helpful in assessing the deeper meaning of events, especially as they relate to history e.g. American values, the common good, and interests of various parts of society and economy.  Prognostications of potential meaning of possible future events is more harmful than useless.  It’s but one step away from falling into the conspiracy cesspool.  

Cable news has a lot of air to fill, but there have to be better alternatives to speculative reporting and opining.  What might they be?  Perhaps informed reviews of appropriate American history events that would help inform current events; or maybe segments on basic civics and the responsibilities of citizenship; what about segments covering the Constitution article by article, amendment by amendment? The same might be said for important court cases leading to current events.  Producers would no doubt object that they already do that. No they don’t.  Cable news gives the occasional expert fifteen seconds here and there to say a sentence or two, that’s it. They might say that if I want more, I should find Amanpour & Co., wherever she has been hidden on PBS. That’s evasion. I think they have the idea that if they don’t sensationalize the news, or add cliff hanger drama to it, the public won’t buy it. All of that on the grounds that it’s hard to underestimate the intellectual appetites of the American public. That’s arrogant snobbishness at its ignorant worst.

I wonder if reflection on the long, boring “news” run-up to the midterms will cause producers, publishers and editors to reevaluate their products, and resolve to give them more substantial value.  It seems unlikely.  Rats, there I go speculating. Let’s call it hope without much evidence of it being met.

Throughout the world there are churches that have been in continuous use as places of worship where centuries of warfare and destruction could not overcome them.  They stand in contrast to lovely old parish church buildings left abandoned and decaying, or, if lucky, converted into museums, inns, or homes.  Many church buildings in America are in rural, aging towns with too few people to support the dozen or so congregations that once thrived.  Too many more are the result of economic flight, and disregard for the need of a worshiping community to serve a changing neighborhood.  Sadly, some are the result of declining church attendance across all denominations whose clergy and lay leadership failed to teach and proclaim the gospel effectively.  Booming mega churches have succeeded, at least for now, by creating safe, non controversial social gathering places where comfort and encouragement is doled out in the form of promises that with just a little more cash to support the preacher, God will dump loads of financial blessings on the congregation.

I’ve been thinking about such things because we now worship at Bruton Parish Church, the oldest church building in America in continuous use for worship since it was built in 1711 to replace an earlier building dating from 1674.  Its interior is a replica of what it was like at the height of colonial elegance when  the king’s presence was represented by the royal governor whose canopied throne sat in the chancel, and the pulpit was two stories high.  In those days, College of William and Mary students were required to attend services, the rector was the president of the college, slaves sat in a gallery “reserved” for them, gentry sat toward the front, and the poor toward the back.  Any matter of importance to the town was debated and settled in the church.  The governor’s palace was around the corner, the capitol down the street at one end, the college at the other, and Bruton Parish Church anchored everything.

That elegance lasted only a few decades.  The War of Independence, War of 1812, and Civil War ravaged the land as armies attacked and retreated through Williamsburg.  Bruton’s interior was destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed again many times.  The building was used as a warehouse, stable, field hospital, morgue, and school, but always as a place of Christian worship.  The congregation ebbed from the wealthy elite of Virginia to the poorest of villagers left to pick up the pieces and start again.   It was not until the early 20th century that work began to restore its colonial grandeur.   Today it is again a large, active congregation, this time serving the whole community, a forceful voice for civil rights, with a broad mix of young, old, and economic status, and a smattering of racial diversity.  It also lives in harmony with First Baptist Church,  the oldest black congregation in Virginia.

At the other end of the spectrum, I served a tiny congregation in the rural West for many years.  The building could seat forty, but Sundays were usually ten to fifteen.  They could never afford a full time priest, but they had soldiered on for 120 years proclaiming the gospel, providing clothing, school supplies, summer funds for camps and pools, and participating fully in diocesan affairs..  Always small, always poor, always rich with God’s blessings, they will go on like that for as long as the town exists.  You don’t have to be big or wealthy to succeed.

The point is, that faithful Christians, even those supporting the cause of slavery or the forceful submission of American Indians, continued to worship, whether many or few, rich or poor, in good times and bad.  I can’t imagine that any of the dramatic changes these congregations faced were easy or comfortable.  It must have often seemed that God had abandoned the church and the people who worshiped there.  Yet they persevered.  

I wonder sometimes if so called dying, aging congregations fade away for lack of commitment to follow Jesus by proclaiming by word and deed the Good News of God revealed in Christ Jesus.  I’ve read the same articles you have, about changing demographics, poor marketing, etc.  There are good excuses for towns that have grown so small they can no longer support a dozen churches, but there is no excuse for handing rural America over to Christian nationalists and their ilk, or to preachers more in love with the devil than Jesus – they’re the ones who open and end sermons with scary stories about how the devil has taken over the land, and stick Jesus in the middle with the threat of being sent to hell if He is not accepted as one’s personal lord and savior, according to the terms and conditions set forth by the preacher.  Some congregations drift into oblivion because they become little more than social clubs to which those who should belong, already do belong.  Maybe it’s too many pastors who are more ritualists than proclaimers of the Word, offering healing and hope in the Eucharist.  Sometimes it seems to be timidity in forceful proclamation of God’s love, for fear of alienating the wrong people.  After all, there are enough troubles in most people’s lives that being urged to reflect more deeply on God in ways that will change everything, might be too much to ask. The hymn “Just as I am without one plea…” is true enough, but when through it one is led into Christ’s presence, just as I am, it is the beginning of transformation into a new being in Christ Jesus.

And so I grow weary of tears of woe from priests and pastors, lay leaders, and the gamut of religious writers.  If Paul had done that, we would have burned his letters long ago as worthless drivel from an evangelical failure. The same can be said of James, Peter, John and others such as Augustine, who continued on as Rome fell and Carthage was attacked.  Maybe that’s what Bonhoeffer was driving at when he wrote enigmatically about religionless religion.  Religion is the ritual through which faith is expressed.  When religion becomes its own end, what’s the point?

© Steven E. Woolley

It’s been a little over a year since I lost a good deal of my eyesight and the learning curve is a long one. I remain grateful for peripheral vision good enough to allow me to “see” sidewalks and nearby objects.  I also have a variety of gadgets that read things out loud. It means listening is the main way I keep up with things.

I’ve discovered a hoard of university lectures available on the internet and have the pleasure listening to some for an entire semester, and some for a few lectures only.  Among the them have been a handful of religion cynics in general and Christianity specifically.  For them, Christianity is fanciful, superstitious, magical thinking.  If you strip the Christian story of all its supernatural silliness, they say, what’s left is a bunch of nothing built around an itinerant teacher no different than any other, and an institutional church interested only in power and money milked from the gullible.  Their understanding of Christian theology appears to be based on paintings in the Sistine Chapel and televangelist sales pitches..

In a sense, they are right.  If you strip away all that is supernatural, there isn’t much left, leaving too many believers with childish ideas about who and what God is.  Sadly, too many self proclaimed christians also tend toward magical  thinking. But, and it’s a huge but, the supernatural cannot be stripped away from Christianity.  God is supernatural.  The Word of God made flesh in Jesus is supernatural. The kingdom of God that is near is supernatural. The supernatural presence of God in the natural world of creation is the unshakable reality in which Christians live.  There is nothing magical about it. Anyone can deny there is such a thing as the supernatural and are free to do so.  Yet, we have three thousand years of testimony of those who experienced it first hand.   

What about all the religious wars waged in God’s name?, the cynics demand to know.  They are an abomination to God and one of the great sins of the church that belie the central teachings of the law, prophets, and our Lord Jesus Christ.  The same goes for the various forms of oppression, subjugation, and racism that have plagued the nations, often in God’s name. Our sins, individual and collective, may demean the faith in the eyes of others, but they don’t abrogate it. 

Some cynics express real animus toward Christianity, blaming it for every evil perpetrated on the people of Europe and indigenous people of the “New World”.  The institutional church bears some culpability but these evils were driven more by ordinary greed and lust for power of monarchs and adventurers. .  To the contrary, Christianity’s  central theme about life on earth is that we can choose to live in peace, reasonable harmony, and a general degree of prosperity by following God’s way of love articulated clearly in the prophets and confirmed by Christ himself.  What’s to object? It’s true that we are inclined to look over God’s ways, declare that they sound good in theory, and go about making our own way.  We are free to do so, but the unhappy results are predictable. Humans have proven it again and again with the same results.  Followers in the way of love, commanded by Jesus, have contributed much to the moral advancement of humanity. Christian cynics endorse for themselves, ad which have indeed made life progressively better for humanity despite humanity’s error prone stumbling forward.

The cynics can’t seem to tell the difference between what it means to follow Jesus, and sinful behavior sometimes perpetrated in the name of the church.  It’s nothing new.  It’s been going on for a long, long time.   Just keep following Jesus as best you can.

© Steven E. Woolley

The Holiday Season is almost here. A century ago it began on Christmas Eve. Then it moved to Thanksgiving and now it begins even before Halloween.  Of course that’s not counting the early September Christmas displays at Home Depot. Much of the holiday madness is driven by advertising promising more than can possibly be delivered.  The public is enticed to spend more than they should or to bemoan that they can’t meet spending expectations. In the end, the season can never quite live up to its hype.

Hallmark movies, advertising and oral mythology promise it to be a season of non stop parties, fabulous decorations, joyous reunions of friends and family.  It’s supposed to be the season of peace, joy, generosity, reconciliation, and gleeful greetings to strangers. Magic is in the air and on the air but somehow it never seems to come down to earth. Few of us experience the season in that fanciful way which can make it a season of anxiety about not getting it, not getting in on what others have, and not doing enough to reach Martha Stewart perfection.  

I’m not a humbug Scrooge. Why not relax and enjoy the frivolity in whatever way works for you?  Don’t get caught up in the excesses, anxieties or over indulgences that the season promotes.  It is a season of beautiful decorations that, whether yours or someone else’s, can be enjoyed just because it’s there.  Beautiful music can be heard in the streets, at concerts and on the air.  Enjoy it just because it can be heard.  If not end to end parties, there are always opportunities to get together for warm friendly conversation with neighbors, friends and family. Exchanging modest gifts given from the heart offer rich rewards for the one who gives and the one who receives. The key to the Holiday Season is to not make a big deal out of it, relax, enjoy what is enjoyable to you, avoid what is not, and let the insane ad driven frenzy pass you by.  If it is a season of grieving for you, don’t hide to grieve alone.  Share your grief with loving friends to rediscover the depth of consolation that grows from it. 

Christians should feel free to participate in the season as seems right for them.  It’s too bad there are some disturbed by the intrusion of so much paganish behavior in the holy season of Christmas, but they need to give it a rest.  Harvest festivals and midwinter celebrations have been a part of human society far longer than the Christian Christmas, and they’re not going away.  

It would be better for Christians to pay more attention to Advent, the four week preparation for the celebration of the nativity of our Lord on Christmas Eve and Day.  It’s a time for solemn remembrance of the events and prophecies leading to the birth of Jesus.  It’s a time for reflection on how to renew our intention to live more fully into the way of Christian love in the new year. It’s unfortunate that  some Christians skip Advent altogether, start singing Christmas Carols as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes are done, and take down the tree before New Yaar’s Eve.

Advent is the prelude to Christmas that separates glitzy holiday stuff from the great need of the world for a Messiah bringing good news to the least and being born as one of them.  The Word of God made flesh in Jesus came as a baby dependent on his mother for human life and in need of his parents’ loving care to survive into adulthood.  Born in a stable in a time when Herod’s displeasure meant instant death, he was announced only to shepherds, animals, and probably some unknown women who came to aid the new mother, even though she was a stranger. The rest of the world slept on unaware and uncaring that in the nativity of Christ, the reconciling love of God was poured out for them. 

Observing Advent is preparation for the joyous celebration of the nativity from hearts filled with praise singing Glory to God in the highest and peace to everyone. And why not enjoy a few parties, decorations, food, and gifts as well, modestly, not to excess.