Thoughts from Philly

If you're reading this, I assume you already know me and what I'm doing. Since I started seminary here in Philadelphia almost a month ago (wow), I've had some time to work some things out in my mind. I'll get to that in a sec. To answer the usual questions, it's amazing here. That sounds a little canned, but it's true. I've been trying to get here for about two years, so now that I'm here I'm simply incredibly thankful and happy. Students at this seminary are from a huge range of backgrounds and from all across the region, so the diversity, of course, is thought-provoking. I'm taking Hebrew, the Old Testament (or Scriptures of Israel, if one would prefer that term), an intro systematic theology course and the history of Christianity. I've been given the blessing of doing field education at like the coolest church ever – University Lutheran Church of the Incarnation. I also just got a job at the Hotel Palomar working part-time at the front desk (paying bills is a good thing).

Since there is not really a unifying theme, I'll write in extended bullet points (also pardon the utter lack of planning or editing, I am not attempting theological sophistication below):

• (A) Just over two years ago now, God's Call to ministry began to “crystallize” in my mind, as I put it in my “Entrance Essay” for the ELCA Candidacy process. I say it came together or surfaced at that time because really it was me putting together tons of experiences, memories and self-reflections on strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes (all of which happened over many years) into a concrete path. I thought then maybe I had finally figured out that every plan I had ever made in my life ended going in an entirely unexpected different direction, one that was always much better than what I'd imagined. But no, I kept making plans – what seminary to choose (I thought Gettysburg, but Philadelphia was it), when I would enter (a year later than my plan), what I would do til then (3 diff jobs!). I've been straining my mind about the context of my future ministry (i.e. urban, rural, suburban), exactly where it might be, where I should do clinical education, internship, what I should concentrate in, what else I should be doing now to prepare, and on and on.
  
  No.
  
  God will reveal the way at the appropriate time. I have never been led astray. I will be open to the leading of the Spirit in me.
  
  The above is the spiritual place I would like to be, and where I think maybe I am now, finally. Case in point – I have traveled much of the Eastern U.S., usually wondering if one place or another is the right place for me to do ministry. I have done lengthy comparisons in my mind and yes, written as well. What I've come to realize is that it doesn't matter. Ministry is not about me, or the people I'm with, or the building we're in or what's outside the building. It's about God, the most Holy Creator of all that is. It's about God's Word active in our lives, made flesh in Jesus Christ. It is the light that darkness cannot (did not) overcome. God will send me where I need to go, and wherever that is will be good. Of course, ministry takes on different forms in different places, but the Word and the Sacraments are not defined by the place. They transform people and place wherever they are taken. As we talked about in my theology class, God's Word (not just Scripture, but all of God's self-revelation culminating in Christ) is “norma normans non normata,” or a norm that norms which is not normed by anything else.
  
  It seems so simple, but for someone who plans as much as I do, who has managed every detail to succeed in life, it is a big deal and a major retreat to stop doing so. I will relapse frequently, I'm sure. For me, it helps to restrict my outlook to today, following Jesus' direction (do not worry about tomorrow...) This brings me to my next point....
  
  

• (B) If you want to get a sense of my pre-seminary theology, just read the rest of this blog. It is steeped in social justice and the application of the gospel to our physical world. I'm not backing away from this gospel, but my view has been challenged and perhaps broadened just since I've been here. As a good Lutheran, I know how we apply the gospel message does not justify us, nor is it our responsibility or capability to “save” the world (that's all God). God has already won the victory in Christ, but not yet has the kingdom of God (please know I'm speaking very generally about all this) arrived in glory. We do see the kingdom as “inaugurated” in our time, and therefore our witness matters as we herald its final coming and learn to live as God intends us to. But, looking at the ministry of Jesus, I've realized it was not particularly results-oriented, at least as we typically define results. The gospel does not depend on the “effectiveness” of human witness, in other words. The power of the gospel is indeed made perfect in weakness, and when we try to witness using any form of human power, our witness is robbed of its divine, non-worldly power. It's tough to grasp the “otherness” of God. So, flowing from these thoughts and a brief exposure to Constantine's seizure of the Way of Jesus, my outlook on church and state has evolved a bit. Faith must speak, it must be made active in love, yes, but it must not take on human or worldly power. Faith is the Way of God, government is a tool that enables humans to live together. Faith should try to exert influence on government, but it cannot become like government. Faith is not conditional on anything of the world.

  
  So, my perspective on living out our faith is not changed, but it has gained a clearer understanding of its “otherness” with respect to the institutions and values of the world. It must not compromise its otherness, even if this means worldly “failure.” This is the Way of the Cross, I think. Jesus didn't put food in anyone's mouth when on the Cross, nor did he cure the plague or overthrow the corrupt, tyrannical Roman regime. He defeated the powers of sin and death that pervade all of us and everything of our world. He showed us that we can hardly even realize how much we are not like God. He didn't have a five year plan or a twelve step recovery model. He did show us who God is, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and he showed us how we ought to live, how we were intended to live. I don't think I can sum all this up, but maybe that's the point. That's why we need Christ, because we can't define what is Truth, we can't control God or God's Word. It is all so much bigger than us. We need it fed to us like the children we are, in small bites. Like the one I had this morning at the rail...
  
  

• (C) So I can't define my path and I can't say for sure what God intends for the world in concrete terms. Again, this sounds simple but we try to do this all the time, right? At least I do. We have glimpses and a simple Way of love – Love God, Love Neighbor. This seems manageable, but we can hardly manage it. One of the glimpses I have had from God is a type of Call that keeps coming back no matter how much I rationalize it away. It's a call to military chaplaincy. This is something I have not openly talked about, but I figure if you're reading this you know me so it's okay. I am a true believer that the Christian identity transcends national allegiances, that war is always bad, that all people are our brothers and sisters. I believe people of all faiths are God's people. But at the same time I grew up in the Boy Scouts (I'm an Eagle Scout) and while my experiences there are a huge part of my overall call to ministry, they also nearly led me to apply to the Naval Academy. My love of service, of regimented lifestyle, of defined relationships, of commitment to something greater than self, all of these gave me a strong inclination to join the military. That is, until it came in contact with my faith. These seemed irreconcilable. But I keep thinking of the nature of God and God's otherness. Guns, and bombs, and war and strife are not enough to cover up God's Word, are they? Of course not. I think about what I've just learned about in my Old Testament class...that in the beginning God was present in what is translated as “formless and void.” Is the formless void, the Hebrew words literally sounding scary and evoking feelings of shapelessness and the unknown darkness, a problem for God? Of course not! God created the formless void before he gave order to it. I think about what are for me some of the most comforting words of the Bible, from Psalm 139:
  
  “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”
  
  The way these words affect me, they also affect other hearers. Like, for instance, all those noble women and men who serve in the armed forces. They need to hear God's Word. They need to deepen their faiths, to have someone to talk to, to have the community of faith, to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, to be washed in the waters of Baptism and so walk in newness of life. In this my personal inclinations are irrelevant. If I am called to Word and Sacrament (I am), if I am called to serve here (I am), if others cannot (many cannot), if the service is needed (it is), what shall I say?
  
  My faith may rightly lead me to question and indeed fight against the use of military force as a means of policy in this world. But, as I reflected above, I don't run the world and I can't control it, God does. I don't make my plans, God does. And those people out there in uniform, they don't make the policy or the big decisions, they have simply committed their lives to something greater than self, something I admire in the core of my being, something to which I have always been called. God's Word is not changed by where it goes, it transforms everything it encounters. Who knows what God will do? I don't know, but I'm inclined to trust God. God has not yet led me astray.

Comments on the Corner Church

NOTE: What follows is my attempt to further disseminate an “emerging” view of Jesus Christ's church. I do not claim to have come up with this view nor is even half of this piece my original thought. I have added some of my own observations and pieced a few things together only. It is rather long, but that is because it seeks to explore the nature and purpose of the church of Jesus Christ. Much of the argument paraphrases Brian McLaren's argument in his recent book Everything Must Change. This is partially because I discovered that he gave expression to what I have been feeling exactly over the last two years. Of course, his research and synthesis are what led me to write this reflection and so he deserves his due. I reference his ideas throughout this piece, but I feel it is appropriate to blanket the whole with the note that where my ideas mirror his, I defer to his work.

Corner Church

After visiting a few different types of churches and thinking about some books I've read this summer, I have come across an issue I think deserves some attention. I'm not trying to call out any particular congregation, denomination or other church body, but it seems to me that for most of the end of the twentieth century and certainly the beginning of the twenty-first, the church of our parents and grandparents has been in serious trouble.

You know, the familiar church on the corner, with the big double doors, rows of wooden pews, stained glass windows and a steeple? The one where Mr. Jones would always let you win at the “too slow” hand game when you were five? Where you went to VBS every summer and played in the church yard? Where with great pride and fanfare you finished the confirmation class and were welcomed into the “adult” congregation? Where your Mom baked casserole after casserole for the weekly church dinners and where your Dad would go on the weekends to mow around the parking lot? Advent candles, the Christmas Pageant, giving up something for Lent, the Easter flowers, summer softball leagues, cookouts, after-school programs, any of these ring a bell?

The place where Pastor Joe preached for years about how much God loves you, how Jesus saved you from your sins through his death on the cross?

Well, actually, do you remember much of what the Corner Church meant to you when you were growing up? Did it impact how you treated your classmates at school? Did it help you as you struggled in your teenage years to define yourself, to figure out what, if anything, you were worth to anyone?

Did it shape your life?

Was it important enough for you, after the whirlwind of college, to seek out a church home to help define your young adulthood?

Thankfully, there are many products of the Corner Church, myself included, who can answer several of these questions positively. We are finding new ways to make the church, the Body of Christ, an integral part of our life. We are applying our many gifts to make a difference in our congregations and outside of them. But we are a dwindling breed.

Corner Methodist-Lutheran-Episcop

al-Presbyterian (and the rest of them too) Church has been bleeding young adults for decades and everyone knows it. The problem is that no one's been able to stop it. But we have to stop it and soon. We are missing the people who will shape the next few decades for this planet. These young adults who aren't going to Corner Church anymore are also having children – the next generation which may or may not be raised with any knowledge of the Creator and Redeemer of the world.

There are many reasons for the demographic changes impacting the Church these days. I'm not going to explore them all, because especially if you are one of these folks who has drifted away from Corner Church, you're well aware of them. I am going to talk about one line of thought that might be called an “emerging” view of the church as a whole.

This “emerging view” has many contributors, perhaps you've heard of some of them – Shane Claiborne, Jim Wallis and more. One pastor turned author and activist I've been following for a while, Brian McLaren, has summarized this view quite nicely in his recent book Everything Must Change.

In describing the drain of young people from the church, he talks about my generation's greatly increased awareness of global problems and diverse interests (something I'm quite familiar with). We're not frightened by the spectre of the Soviet Union and we're not sure that most or even much of what our government says is true. We don't believe a good job at Acme Corporation, three bedrooms and a two-car garage, two kids and a dog and keeping up with the Joneses is necessarily the pathway to happiness and respectability. We care about things like rising sea levels, our government's sale of weapons to countries we then unilaterally invade, a generation of young urban men in prison and starving children...well, pretty much everywhere.

Many of us have had the blessing of a pretty good education (by global standards) and all our lives we've been told to go out and make a difference. Well, now we are, and we want to find places to socialize where we can express these and many other interests. We're suspicious of people and organizations that don't seem to be aware that the planet and its people are on a highway to self-destruction. If only there was a place that proclaimed a different story, one of hope and faith that our world can be transformed from its destructive tendencies...

If only...hmm.

Oh, right, I was talking about the church! Here's what McLaren has to say about the exodus of the under 40 (and I'm quoting a lengthy passage because it's right on the money):

“These young people started caring about these issues, but they didn't find their fellow adherents to the Christian religion very concerned [...] even when Christians in recent decades concerned themselves with contemporary issues, they focused primarily on personal and sexual matters, simultaneously neglecting larger societal and systemic injustices that cause unimagined suffering. And even in regard to their narrow range of 'moral issues,' they were consistently effective in generating heat and conflict but consistently less effective in making a lasting, constructive difference. In so doing, they created an image of the typical Christian believer as tense, judgmental, imbalanced, reactionary, negative and hypocritical.”

Now, I realize this criticism of a certain brand of Christian political/social engagement is directed more at “megachurches” and “televangelists” than your average Corner Church, but what is significant is the Corner Church's total lack of political or social engagement at all. McLaren continues as follows:

“For the millions of young adults who dropped out of their churches in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the Christian religion appears to be a failed religion [...] it has specialized in dealing with 'spiritual needs' to the exclusion of physical and social needs. It has specialized in people's destination in the afterlife but has failed to address significant social injustices in this life. It has focused on 'me' and 'my soul' and 'my spiritual life' and 'my eternal destiny,' but it has failed to address the dominant societal and global realities of their lifetime: systemic injustice, systemic poverty, systemic ecological crisis, systemic dysfunctions of many kinds.”

Do you find yourself harboring many similar criticisms of the Corner Church of your youth? Or were you just bored? Did you just run out of reasons to get out of bed on Sunday morning?

Here's another question: are you as disgusted as I am that every time you read the newspaper and the word “God,” “Jesus,” “Bible,” or “church” is mentioned, it is usually followed by “abortion,” “evolution,” or “gay marriage”? There's a different reason for that issue, I would say, which brings me to...

Discipleship Community Church

Not all the Christians out there were asleep at the wheel as the exodus from Corner Church began. There were plenty of people who had a very simple answer for the apathy in mainstream Protestantism, and they created a bunch of large, nondenominational churches of which Discipleship Community Church (fictional name, in case you're checking) is typical.

They said, “if only you will return to the Bible, the supernaturally-inspired, inerrant Word of God, and have faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, then you will be born again and live forever in heaven.” This new, exciting, intense brand of Christianity presented a narrative that goes something like this (McLaren offers a similar characterization in his book):

“Humanity is afflicted with original sin and will be punished by God for its transgressions. The only way to save yourself from eternal separation from God, meaning damnation and torment in hell, is to believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. Only if you let Jesus into your heart and truly believe will you be born again. Then, you will be part of God's chosen elect who will have eternal life in heaven. You don't get this eternal life because of what you do, but it is the free gift of God for those who believe in Him correctly. Seek to purify yourself of bad behavior and it's best not to hang around people who sin a lot or who don't believe in Jesus as their personal Savior. We have to show everyone what it means to be God's chosen people. We must speak out against evil people and evil actions, like people who have abortions or gay people or people who don't believe everything the Bible says.”

It's a very simple formula, easy for everyone to understand without thinking too much. You just read the Bible and whatever it says comes straight from God, so that's what we're going to do. If you're one of us, membership benefits extend through all eternity! Meanwhile, you're engaged in a cosmic battle between good and evil, one in which you cannot compromise or be led astray by “worldly” or “New Age” thinking. This kind of struggle also nicely reinforces themes like patriotic struggles against distant evil Islamic terrorists, urban non-white criminals and pro-choicers, but I digress.

Along with clear, consistent theology that creates a deep sense of belonging and identification (something Corner Church did not provide), Discipleship Community Church doesn't look like any church you've ever seen.

It meets in a movie theatre or a converted warehouse, or if it's been around for a while, it has a gleaming new arena-like building on the outskirts of town. There may or may not be a cross up front, but there's definitely no stained glass windows, pews or elaborate sacred art. Where you would expect the choir, you will find a praise band with electric guitars, a bass, drums, keyboards and the like, making some exciting music that won't put you to sleep. Instead of hymn books there are LCD projection screens hanging from the ceiling displaying the words. There aren't any mumblers here either, rather everyone SINGS like they are moved by the Holy Spirit, with hands swaying in the air.

There's a guest information center helping orient seekers to this new way of doing and being Church. They ask you questions like, “would you like to find out more about a personal relationship with Jesus today?” There is an announcements video before the service begins, explaining all the church's most recent initiatives, all of which have logos, catchy titles and are well-explained on the church's homepage. Speaking of the homepage, you can log in to the church intranet and hook up with the closest small group which meets in a member's home, a place where people come together and learn about the Bible, not to mention enjoying some social time.

The preacher doesn't wear a collar and doesn't preach from the pulpit. He doesn't wear a robe or a stole. His sermon goes through today's Bible lesson verse-by-verse while everyone has his or her personal copy open to the passage and diligently takes notes as if jotting down directions to the pearly gates.

People here are engaged. You can easily tell that this church is the center of their lives and their social network. It is what defines them as individuals and it is a cherished identity. Everyone is involved in something other than just worship.

Oh, and did I mention that the average age in the room on a Sunday morning is probably 27? When I visited Discipleship, it felt more like the InterVarsity meetings I infrequently attended in college than any church I'd ever been to.

Let's recap – Discipleship Community Church provides its members with at least all these things:

• a clear, consistent message that explains the world and members' place in it


• personal identity and a strong sense of belonging


• integration with one's personal life


• constant opportunities to learn more, do more and the challenge to take advantage of them


• easy access to information about the church and its activities


• excitement and energy in worship


• a place to make friends with a lot of other people who look and think like you

A lot of this sounds pretty good, doesn't it? I honestly have to say it's a positive development for such vibrant churches to have sprung up. It's easy to see why nondenominational churches are the fastest growing in this country and why many young people feel much more at home in them. I recognize the many things they are doing better than the Corner Churches of the world and I plan to take their lessons to heart as I become a pastor. As I discussed at the beginning of this section, however, there's just that nagging issue of theology.

Corner Church might have said all very good and faithful things about God and Jesus, but it didn't (generally) engage my generation or the wider world around it. Discipleship Church came in and filled the gap, offering an easy answer and a place to belong, not to mention doing a much better job engaging young (and all) people.

So, where does that leave us? Divided. Polarized over a few touchy issues. Unsure if there's any hope for a church that has the courage and power to stand up to the systemic problems of our self-destructing society. Wondering if there's a church out there that opens its doors to all, that thoughtfully considers the story of the relationship between God and God's people [the Bible] and finds the hope contained within - a hope for a revolution of love leading to a new way of living that Jesus, the ultimate Word of God, called the KINGDOM OF GOD.

Well, there are at least a few people out there thinking, praying and striving for this kind of hope. As I mentioned, an “emerging view” of the church is being expressed ever more widely. First, I will examine its roots in the domesticated Corner Church and the fundamentalist reaction.

From Domestication to Dumbing-Down the Gospel

The “emerging view” of Jesus and the Kingdom of God, like fundamentalist Christianity, is a reaction or movement out of the complacent theology of the Corner Church.

The problem with the Corner Church, to which I've alluded so far, is that is doesn't ask anything of us. It doesn't challenge us or ask us to identify first as a child of God before we succumb to the many allegiances demanded of us by the dominant, self-destructive societal system. In fact, it completely ignores the problems of the world, emphasizing spiritual needs and spiritual solutions to the exclusion of our personal and collective political, economic and social needs. It fails to carry the standard that the Way of Jesus is the light of the world calling all people out of darkness. In so doing it can, in McLaren's words, “become a benign and passive chaplaincy to a failing and dysfunctional culture, the religious public relations department for an inadequate and destructive ideology.”

I know I keep talking about a “self-destructive societal system” and I will get to that later, but I hope a casual awareness of the state of global affairs would be enough to understand what I'm referencing. In the midst of the violence and redemptive violence, the decadence of the wealthy and the hunger of the poor and while our consumption machine runs on at the expense of our precious planet, the institution claiming to have a monopoly on “good news” has kept silent, leaving such problems to the “secular” authorities which created them.

The emerging view recognizes that it was in the context of precisely the same dysfunctional system that Jesus came to us and proclaimed “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mk 1:15). He didn't give in to any of the narratives of his day, whether they be imperial (Roman/Sadducee), counterimperial (Zealot/Pharisee) or withdrawal (Essene). He didn't play one group against another, in fact he consistently sat across the table from Roman collaborators, Law-breakers, the unclean and the foreign. He called disciples from “both sides of the aisle” and everything in between.

In contrast, the fundamentalists out there responded to Corner Church's complacency by cutting out everything that got between them and the direct teaching of God and Jesus, which they hold to be the words of the Bible alone. This is a noble goal and along the way the Discipleship Churches of the land have done many faithful things. These include an emphasis on an intimate, authentic relationship with God, praise and worship from the heart and building true disciples through lifelong learning and integration with peoples' lives in the real world.

The problem with their approach is that they have lifted the text of the Scriptures, words first spoken anywhere from about 1800 to more than 3000 years ago by hundreds of different people and applied them as an objective legal standard. The Bible is not the Constitution or the Internal Revenue Code, and its writers did not go to law school. They were human beings living through tumultuous times with deep cultural biases. Their writings are not, as McLaren observes, “timeless, placeless utterances coming from an arid, Platonic plane of universal abstractions.”

The Bible is a story of God's Creation and God's blessings of and interactions with His children. God never told us to turn off the brain we were given when interpreting the Bible. To ignore the context of Scripture or our own biases which color our interpretation is simply naive and it can yield painful results.

That the Bible must be placed in context makes it no less divinely inspired. As God created each of us to be precisely who we are, God also created the writers of Scripture. When we make the effort to understand what they meant, we discover the message God placed in their hearts and are able to see how it affected their lives and how it should affect ours. Ultimately, we view all Scripture through the lens of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

For all of its positive contributions which I do not wish to discount, the fundamentalist church movement has replaced complacency with oversimplification. The emerging view instead seeks to broaden our perspective of what Jesus taught and did. Unlike its domesticated and fundamentalist siblings, the emerging view affirms that Jesus came not only to save us on an individual level, but that Jesus meant to save our society from its captivity to sin and death.

The Emerging View of Jesus and the Kingdom of God

First, we must place ourselves in the narrative of God's Creation. We recognize that God created the universe, this planet and everything contained within it. God provided for our nourishment and tried to help us learn to live together and share the blessings entrusted to us [the first five books of the Bible]. God intended us to be the stewards of the Good Creation, loving God and each other and trusting in God's commandments. God is thus fundamentally concerned with our methods of managing our shared existence, or in other words our political, economic and social structures.

We affirm that all humanity is captive to sin and we are unable to free ourselves. We have rebelled against God and filled the world with evil, manifested in our personal actions and relationships as well as societal structures. Despite this, God loves all Creation no matter what and wants to help us fulfill His original divine purpose for us within the created order.

Jesus came to be with us as the Word, from the beginning, from which all things came into being (John 1). Jesus is how we come to know God. He came to show us a new way to live, both as individuals and as a society. He didn't say we would enter into this new life after we died or in some distant future, but he said it was available to us right now if we believe in it. He invited all people to repent and believe in the good news he was bringing, through which their lives would be transformed so that they could then transform the world. Living in or being 'reborn' into this new life, which in the gospel is called zoein aionian (often translated 'eternal life' but perhaps better translated as 'life of the ages' as McLaren points out), is to be saved from the law of sin and death. Jesus' death on the cross freed us from condemnation so that we do not need to be concerned with our own personal salvation. Instead, we can live by faith, or trust, that God has defeated evil and desires us to live a life based upon love, grace, faith, community and respect for all people and all elements of Creation.

This type of life, this order of things, Jesus called the Kingdom of God, as opposed to the empire of Caesar with which he contended.

This all sounds nice and it is the essential starting point for living in the Way of Jesus, but without concrete action any faith, any theology is meaningless. Our faith in the Way, as the first disciples called their movement, must form our core identity and move us to transform the world, starting with ourselves, our communities, our public institutions and eventually our global structures. I have below summarized McLaren's model for doing precisely that.

Building Blocks of the Kingdom of God [synopsis of McLaren's societal model, directly from EMC]

McLaren points out that all societies are driven by their dominant “framing stories.” In the kingdom of God, Jesus gave us a new framing story for our life together. Much of McLaren's book is devoted to diagnosing the problems which plague our world and then showing how Jesus' framing story of the kingdom of God can move us to solve each main global crisis. While McLaren is not a social scientist, his research led to a very insightful model of how our society works. He conceptualizes three interlocking systems which control our activities, each of which is in crisis due to the self-destructive dominant framing story.

The Prosperity System/Crisis
The system of how we use resources to provide for our physical and emotional needs – to pursue happiness, if you will. Our economic system of global capitalism is driven by the basic assumption that more and faster are always better, so we are locked into the relentless pursuit of resource use and waste production, without any regard to planetary limits or global stewardship. We are in deep denial that our way of living is essentially unsustainable.

In the kingdom of God, we seek to creatively bear fruit with the resources with which we have been blessed, always seeking the common good. We respect our creaturely limits and those of the planet, mindful of our obligations to renew resources and avoid ecological impact. We enjoy, appreciate and give thanks for what we have, being satisfied with enough. We are accountable to each other and to God, seeking to build sustainable, healthy communities.

The Equity System/Crisis
The system of how we equitably expand prosperity, spread costs and ensure basic protections for individuals. Our societies legitimize inequitable disparities between the rich and poor and entrenched patterns of inequitable resource distribution around the world. The rich feel the poor are not taking advantage of opportunities or that the problem cannot be solved. The poor begin to resent the rich, trying to immigrate to areas of opportunity, or using their unjust poverty to justify crime, terrorism and the like. The rich grow ever more fearful of the poor, leading to conflict.

In the kingdom of God, we recognize that all blessings come from God and are to be shared. We respect the human dignity of each child of God. We use economics to encourage equitable opportunity and quality of life around the world. We seek equity in justice as well, protecting the rights of all.

The Security System/Crisis
The system of how we protect the prosperity system from interference. As the rich and poor come into conflict, as distrusting ethnic, social, economic or political groups fight an evil “other,” both sides come to trust the myth of redemptive violence. We grow ever better armed and more capable of inflicting destruction and suffering. The “tension between an anxious global empire of the rich and an angry global terrorist revolution of the poor” continues cyclically.

In the kingdom of God, we seek to recover from our addiction to war and violence with a craving for justice, a continual vigilance which seeks to defuse conflict wherever it stirs. We reject the myth that violence can create peace and we dismantle our ability to inflict catastrophic damage. We seek peace through forgiveness, reconciliation and grace.

The Implications of Jesus' Call to Societal Repentance – The Church as the Alternative to Empire

My concern in this writing is the nature and role of the church, particularly the Western or American church and how a fresh perspective on the gospel informs both. In the above section I very briefly detailed Brian McLaren's model for societal transformation based upon Jesus' message of the kingdom of God.

The subject of exactly what is wrong with the world and how to fix it is obviously vast and each little part of it deserves its own attention. My point here is that this effort is the macro-level of what Jesus came into the world to bring about. The church has always been concerned with the micro-level, or the transformation of individuals. I argue that somewhere between Jesus, probably about when Constantine turned the Way of Jesus into the institutional religion of the Roman Empire, and us, we lost sight of half the message.

But focusing only on the macro-level, trying to change the world without being personally and spiritually transformed, also misses the mark. If we still act like we have to go out and secure our own salvation – through money, status, domination, whatever – we won't be very inclined to follow Jesus to confront the twenty-first century Roman Empires of the world.

We ought not to miss the potential significance of the church's shift to embrace a more balanced set of priorities in the world. Can you imagine a church whose very reason for existence is to fight poverty, to combat injustice, to establish peace and to care for our planet as well as to invite souls into the forgiving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? A church in which we confess our collective sins of greed, idolatry, violence and indifference to suffering? A church which seeks to build a community of communities, globally connected, celebrating God-given diversity, all learning from one another?

In so doing the church would become the global alternative to empires of relentless greed, empires of political domination, empires of ignorance, fear and destruction. I wonder if then our numbers problems might cease?

And all it takes is to repent, and believe the good news – the good news that another world is possible.

A Glimpse of What This Might Look Like

There are some courageous believers and followers of Jesus out there who have accepted His challenge to live in a new way. They are not the only ones, but these people are from my generation, live right where I'm about to move and I happen to have heard one of them speak, so I'll talk about them. The call themselves “the simple way” and have taken up residence in one of the nation's poorest neighborhoods in North Philadelphia. Shane Claiborne, by virtue of his speaking engagements and a couple of books, has made their ways visible to many.

In his book The Irresistible Revolution, Claiborne talks about spending the nights with the homeless on the streets of Philadelphia, where the words of Scripture seemed to “jump right off the page.” He describes his trip to work with Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, where he cared for the dying and felt he was “meeting God” in their eyes. Through bringing these experiences to light, he argues that poverty and suffering can really only be dealt with when the rich and poor come together in love. It makes sense – if we create the community Jesus spoke about, we would fail to see how the present condition of our brothers and sisters is in any way acceptable.

He describes the early church has “a people on the margins giving birth to another way of living, a new community marked by interdependence and sacrificial love.” This is the model for their community which has the simple motto, “Love God. Love People. Follow Jesus.” It sounds pretty straightforward, but to do so authentically and faithfully requires following Jesus all the way to the cross. I really don't think I can describe their activities better than he can, so here's what Shane has to say:

“We hang out with kids and help them with homework in our living room, and jump in open fire hydrants on hot summer days. We share food with folks who need it, and eat the beans and rice our neighbor Ms. Sunshine makes for us. Folks drop in all day to say hi, have a safe place to cry, or get some water or a blanket. Sometimes we turn people away, or play Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who answers the door on tired days. We run a community store out of our house. We call it the Gathering, and neighbors can come in and fill a grocery bag with clothes for a dollar or find a couch, a bed, or a refrigerator. Sometimes people donate beautiful things for us to share with our neighbors; other times they donate their used toothbrushes.

“We reclaim abandoned lots and make gardens amid the concrete wreckage around us. We plant flowers inside old TV screens and computer monitors on our roof. We see our friends waste away from drug addiction, and on a good day, someone is set free. We see police scare people, and on a good day, we find an officer who will play wiffleball with his billy club. We rehab abandoned houses. And we mourn the two people who died in this property (where I am now writing). We try to make ugly things beautiful and to make murals. Instead of violence, we learn imagination and sharing. We share life with our neighbors and try to take care of each other. We hang out on the streets. We get fined for distributing food. We go to jail for sleeping under the stars. We win in court. We have friends in prison and on death row. We stand in the way of state-sanctioned execution and of the prison industrial complex.

“We have always called ourselves a tax-exempt 501c3 antiprofit organization. We wrestle to free ourselves from macrocharity and distant acts of charity that serve to legitimize apathetic lifestyles of good intentions but rob us of the gift of community. We visit rich people and have them visit us. We preach, prophesy, and dream together about how to awaken the church from her violent slumber. Sometimes we speak to change the world; other times we speak to keep the world from changing us. We are about ending poverty, not simply managing it. We give people fish. We teach them to fish. We tear down the walls that have been built up around the fish pond. And we figure out who polluted it.

“We fight terrorism – the terrorism within each of us, the terrorism of corporate greed, of American consumerism, of war. We are not pacifist hippies but passionate lovers who abhor passivity and violence. We spend our lives actively resisting everything that destroys life, whether that be terrorism or the war on terrorism. We try to make the world safe, knowing that the world will never be safe as long as millions live in poverty so the few can live as they wish. We believe in another way of life – the kingdom of God – which stands in opposition to the principalities, powers, and rulers of this dark world (Eph. 6:12).”

You can read the book for yourself, but I think all that helps present an authentic picture of the type of community they're building. As I think about them some more, I know I'm not much like Shane Claiborne personally. Different people will have different models of living in the Way of Jesus in the suburbs, mountains and farmlands as well as the inner cities. But I do think these people function as prophets in our midst and they have had the courage, faith and wisdom to create an experimental kingdom of God. They believe that it cannot simply be talked about but lived, presently.

Shane also has some words for those of us in the Corner Churches of the world:

“I think the world would be willing to listen to a church on its knees, a church that doesn't pretend to be perfect or to have all of the answers.”

Hmm, these are words that give me pause as I prepare to enter a Corner Church seminary next week.

The kingdom of God will find expression as diverse as the children of God. None of us can predict it or contain it or plan it all out. But we can turn to God in confession of our personal and corporate sins, receive His grace and enter the world as the transforming transformed, living in the courage that comes from faith and the grace that comes from love.

What the Corner Churches Need to Do
I humbly submit a few things the Corner Churches of the world could do to begin transforming themselves, their members and then the world. The order of my suggestions is intentional as some actions are preconditions for others.

1. Preach and teach the good news that Jesus Christ, fully man and fully God, came to be with us to redeem our lives and also to redeem all Creation from captivity to sin and death. Show how faith in this Jesus will transform lives and the entire world. Doesn't sound that different? We need to be sure not to forget “and all Creation” (i.e. the whole world) in these statements, something which the church has obviously neglected. The goal is to produce disciples who earnestly trust in God (have faith), identify as children of God above all else and are eager to begin Creation-transformation.
   a)Always seek reconciliation, mutual insight, ecumenism and unity. Do not start splinter movements but work from within, committed to the entire Body of Christ and what we can do together to faithfully witness to Christ and implement his Way to transform the world. We do not need more little churches which perceive themselves to have a monopoly on truth, not listening to one another. The “emerging” movement can learn from “evangelicals” (as if we're not all evangelical) and they from their “progressive” siblings.


2. Working first in congregations and communities, find ways to expose the fallacy of the dominant story and system. Write letters, publicly demonstrate, engage in spontaneous acts of grace and love and build community organizations to teach, to love, to serve, to build, to share, to seek transformation in governance and commerce at local levels. This, of course, includes all the things the church already does well in the area of outreach, like visiting the sick, running food drives and service projects and volunteering. It adds a voice to the church's outreach, reflecting the commitment that the very purpose of the church is to change the way we live together. The goal is for the disciples of Jesus to use their full range of gifts to present the Kingdom of God as the alternative to our self-destructive system and to begin working for such transformation.
   a)Seek partnerships with secular groups and institutions, and those of other faiths, to demonstrate how our love for God and all Creation leads us to seek community with all people. In such a community, allowing inequity and suffering to persist is simply unthinkable. Demonstrate our lack of fear of those society would depict as “others.”


3. These communities will work downward to impact the personal decisions of their members. This includes decisions about what to buy, what to eat, what to share, what to do, vocation, relationships and more.


4. These transforming individuals and communities will build momentum and increasingly exert influence upward on public entities and institutions of the dominant system. This could take the form of seeking legislative action at the local, state and federal level (like health care, for example), working with corporations or against them and nonviolent resistance (i.e. King, Gandhi). This type of engagement should also be directed toward international entities (such as the World Health Organization, the UN, and non-governmental organizations like ONE, Red Cross/Red Crescent, etc) to pursue global priorities like peace-seeking, development and combating climate change. The goal is to both effect change at the national and international level as well as to create a global network of relationships between people everywhere and institutions everywhere (a global “community of communities”). Existing national and global church structures can be extremely relevant in this work so long as they are willing to trust that Jesus is calling us to this type of worl.

Health Care Follow-Up, Role of Government

NOTE: Originally posted August 8, 2009

Well, this is a fundamental political question. Should the federal government provide for the welfare of its citizens? It seems to me our society has long since accepted the idea that Congress may legislate things not specifically enumerated in the Constitution (necessary and proper clause). The law is really not my specialty and I don't mean to invite a debate on the nature of the American political system, but from a pragmatic perspective a standard policy seems best so we avoid a situation in which citizens in Alaska get health care while citizens in Kansas don't.

I most often write about how our faith in the Way of Christ leads us to consider more than just rights under law but the type of community God has envisioned for us. God doesn't see some of his people as more deserving of basic human needs than others. Our system places most people in this world and in this country at an enormous disadvantage compared to others. This is not the fault of either the rich nor the poor, it is a consequence of our system which does not share the God's blessings of physical wellbeing very effectively. As disciples of Christ, we seek to help those who have less but no matter how hard we work or how dedicated we are, we will not succeed if we're fighting at every turn against a destructive system. Our faith compels us to influence and change the system to serve the needs of God's people.

This is my motivation and I recognize that others who seek universal health coverage are motivated by other reasons. I also realize that committed followers of Christ think government regulated health markets are a bad idea.

But, let's look at the way things work. We live in a world in which nation-states wield ultimate political authority. I believe our ultimate allegiance is to God, not nation-states, but nation-states are the agreements between humans which presently provide for our ability to live together. They regulate the market relationships which form our economy. How else would we effect change to benefit the condition of our fellow children of God than by working to change the economic realities which are governed by nation-states, including our own? Governments are tools to help us, and we should make sure they're actually helping us.

I also approach this issue with a belief that all physical sources of wellbeing – food, houses, clothing, health care, transportation, land – are blessings from God to be shared among God's people. I believe our system presently encourages the idea that we are not bound either to conserve and care for God's Creation or to share the benefits of economic activity equitably. We need to change these operating assumptions and believe that another way is possible and indeed, at hand.

So, for health care, I believe everyone should receive it, not that everyone deserves it or anything else because none of us do. The concept of what someone deserves is not even relevant. The way we provide for health care right now is through economic relationships which can be influenced to be more equitable by our federal government. I say federal government so that all Americans access these benefits, as they should. There are several components which I think ought to be included in the final plan which rightly should be the result of varied input, namely comprehensive, affordable coverage and cost-saving efforts.

Everyone's going to have to give something up for the good of all – that represents progress and it is faithful to the teaching of Christ who gave up His life for us all. The welfare of the least among us is paramount. For those of us who have plenty, is not the wellbeing of the poorest more important than a tax break we don't really need to survive? Our society tells us we always need more, but how about we trust God that we will be provided with enough.

Health Care and Human Dignity

NOTE: Originally posted on August 6, 2009

When it comes to the health care debate presently raging in our nation, I have become a 24-hour news junkie. At two in the morning when I return from work and whenever else I have the chance I have been checking the Post online for the latest updates. I hope to read that legislators have come to a compromise on key funding concerns or that the bill has passed another committee, but progress remains slow and incremental (not entirely a bad thing, as I say below).

This issue is of paramount importance to me, and not really even because I happen to be one of the 47 million (or so) Americans without health insurance. As a child of God, I am obliged to affirm the human dignity of all people as created, image-bearing brothers and sisters called to be the Body of Christ in the world and therefore we cannot deny them the benefit of physical wellbeing. That was a packed theological statement, so excuse me, let me break down all my assumptions.

I join with all Christians in seeing the whole universe and all people as creations of God. All Creation is therefore both purposeful and good – very good, indeed. God told us that we are made in God's own image, a humbling characterization. Our form, purpose and allegiance all originate from God. We belong to God, for God, we are of God. This means that each and every human being has enormous value, something attested to time and again throughout the Scriptures (Hebrew and Christian). In the advent of Jesus Christ, our humanity is further dignified by “the Word made flesh,” or God's choice to experience life as one of us. Jesus made it clear that the standard by which He judges is the manner in which we treat our fellow children of God, and that this manner should be above all, loving. He set the example of healing, feeding and comforting all our neighbors. His resurrection was the “first fruits” of the new bodily life we each will have when Christ returns. Until that time we proclaim our common identity as children of God who have become, literally and figuratively, the Body of Christ in the world. When we address and serve our neighbors, then, we address not merely a person, but also the very Spirit of Christ which resides within each one.

Ok, sorry for the long explanation, but I think it is necessary to set in context the sacred task which lies before us. From this perspective, I think it is impossible to distance those without insurance from our minds, for that is precisely what we do when we deny health coverage or housing or food or security to our neighbors. We deny them the dignity which should be afforded a child of God, one in whom Christ dwells. From the Christian point of view, merely as I understand it, there is simply no option but to extend the blessings of health care to all people. Of course, I could apply the same reasoning to the provision of all other components of physical wellbeing, not to mention emotional needs or people all over the world, not just in this country.

I am pleased that Congress has largely moved past the question of whether we should provide health care for all and on to the question of how. There even seems to be consensus, within the Democratic legislators at least, on some broad principles including maintaining a choice of plans, including a public insurance option, expanding Medicaid eligibility and guaranteeing coverage by linking premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses to household income [these are precisely the principles being promoted by Sojourers and the PICO Network from a faith-based perspective as well].

The complications remain centered on the nature and extent of the public option and, above all, how to pay for it all. I join with Sojourners and PICO in supporting “shared responsibility for the costs of reform,” meaning a combination of eliminating some tax breaks on employee benefits, alcohol/obesity taxes, “comparative effectiveness” research and holistic, preventive care. I also think setting standards on Medicare/government reimbursement rates is a good idea.

I could discuss this in more detail, but that is not my object here. I am not committed to anything but comprehensive, affordable care. I am fully open to listening to all perspectives and I agree with many moderates and some conservatives that we need to take our time in crafting this legislation. I am concerned, however, by those who would argue for extra time in an attempt simply to drive the legislation into the ground or to hope that we will eventually grow tired of the effort. We must not lose sight of the goal or stop our progress toward it.

As I have developed above, my primary concern in all this is that as Christians, our identity compels us to work for dignity for all our brothers and sisters. This means this issue simply cannot be ignored or written off as too difficult. We CAN do something about it. It is likely that any solution will impose new costs on certain people and perhaps some form of higher taxation for many people. Of course, it can be argued we are already paying such taxes in the form of insurance premiums (my mother pays more than $400 per month). The point is that many of us giving up a little is a small price to pay to prevent people in this country from going without the medical care our society is fully capable of providing.

There are other facets of our lives together in this country in which vast swaths of our neighbors are being denied essential human dignity. These include widespread unemployment, unequal police enforcement, limited educational opportunities, a lack of basic municipal services and rampant drug use, all of which characterize the urban slums of our nation and many poor rural areas as well. These deserve their own treatment, however the cause is the same. Our society is built around the insatiable pursuit of material things and it does not adequately spread the resulting physical benefits to all people. Such disparities give rise to the security issues which threaten all of us [these last two sentences are basically Brian McLaren's articulation of our societal machine in his book Everything Must Change and they are his ideas, not mine].

Jesus taught us that our world doesn't have to be like this – that it can be marked by mutual, sacrificial love, the sharing of blessings and the extension of respect and dignity to all people. There is no question whether anyone “deserves” anything because none of us do. Everything is a blessing of God, and ultimately everything belongs to God. He called this way of living “the kingdom of God” and he tried to show us how to “enter” into it. This is a bigger discussion encompassing everything about how we live together as a society, so I'll stop here. There will be more posts soon.

Musings on Being "Saved"

So this morning in the shower I was thinking about the nature of salvation (of all things) and I thought I should share a little bit.

The normal formula goes something like this:

A person repents before God, is baptized, and thus enters into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, resulting in the forgiveness of sins and eternal life after death in heaven.

Pretty simple, revolving around the personal decision to follow Christ. Very black and white.

Based on my agreement with N.T. Wright's view of resurrection and my lifelong faith that God embraces all of God's good Creation, I have (over time) come to understand salvation more like this (as part of the narrative of God's Creation and God's relationship with us, hence the length):

God created the universe, the earth and everything else. God put people on the earth to be stewards of creation, but there was this little problem - sin - which got in the way of all that. So God entered into a covenant relationship with Israel and gave them laws to follow (Torah). This didn't work out too well either, since sin continued to present issues for law-following. Through the prophets, God foretold of a new law and a new covenant that would not be written in stone, but written "on our hearts." There would be salvation not just for Israel, but for all nations.

And so, amazingly, God's Word became flesh - God stooped down low to experience life with us in the person of Jesus Christ, representing the in-breaking of God's kingdom in the world. Jesus told us the kingdom of God was not in the distant future, but it was/is immediately "at hand." Kingdom of God = Salvation. Jesus told stories and performed miracles to show us what life is like in the kingdom. Jesus revealed the eternal love and faithfulness of God. Jesus' death was the sacrifice of atonement for our sins and his resurrection is God's victory over sin and death. This is just the beginning of the story, though, not the end.

Like Jesus, we are also to die "to the world" i.e. follow Jesus in the Way of the Cross, or leave behind the ways of the world which draw us away from God. Like Jesus, we will also be bodily resurrected at the time of the final consummation of God's kingdom. Resurrection, in the true meaning of the word, denotes new life following the end of death as a state (N.T. Wright). It refers to when all Creation will be reconciled to God and it is the time for which all Christians hope. It does not mean "going to heaven for eternal life there." There will be an intermediate stage between our death and the final resurrection, which very well may be in a cloudy place like we imagine heaven, but who knows exactly what it will be like?

Now, getting back to the here and now, let's not forget that when Jesus came to live with us, God's kingdom entered the world even though we're still waiting for its final consummation. In fact, Jesus' life, death and resurrection serve to reconcile us to God (here's the important part) so that we can fulfill our original purpose as the stewards of God's Creation. Just as we have been created purposefully, we have been reconciled to God purposefully. To help us with our new job of creation-stewardship and kingdom-building, God gave us the Holy Spirit. "Help" really is not a good enough word, since it is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives which reveals God to us and which produces faith (Luther).

And with this we arrive back at baptism, which is God's action through the Holy Spirit to name and claim us as his own, as children of God. In baptism we enter into the new covenant and take our place in the Body of Christ (Paul's wonderful image of the people of God). This does not mean we are suddenly no longer sinful people, nor does it justify us before God as compared to non-baptized people. Rather, each day the Holy Spirit works in our lives to wash us anew, to guide us in our baptismal vocation and to produce genuine faith and trust in God. Through baptism we are indeed "saved" in that we enter into the kingdom of God in its present form and through the Spirit working in us we also enter into the task of building that same kingdom. So I do believe that we, through baptism, enter into salvation presently. I do not believe, and this is a crucial distinction, that when Jesus returns to bring about the resurrection of all Creation that there will be any difference between me and people who are not or were never baptized into the church. I realize there are many Scriptural passages supporting the idea of a final judgment, notably in Matthew's gospel. However, I am of the belief that the love of Christ on the cross did/does not extend only to those in whom the Holy Spirit has produced faith. Again, the importance of Spirit-produced faith cannot be overstated. Other Scripture which points me in this direction includes Isaiah's visions of international salvation as well as Paul's assertion that in Christ there is a place in the kingdom for both Jew and Greek. Is his distinction of Jew and Greek any different than our present distinctions of Christian and Muslim, Jew and Hindu? In the end, perhaps all will become Christians by the time Christ returns, or maybe not. In any case, I don't think time is a limitation for God. Those who have died, those who presently live and those who have not yet been born will be embraced by our loving God upon His return, or at least I hope.

Why is this topic so important to me? By this discussion I mean to emphasize that there is no difference in status between Christians of any sort and Christians of another sort, nor between Christians and non-Christians. I think we employ these distinctions more in an attempt to self-justify than for any other reason, when justification is precisely through Christ alone. I do not mean to de-emphasize our identity and purpose as the Body of Christ, but only a sense of spiritual superiority deriving from such identity. Our identity is, as I mentioned above, deeply purposeful. It is this divine vocation to be shaped by the Holy Spirit and to live now as heralds and even builders of God's kingdom that is the central mission and purpose of Christianity, in my eyes, and it is the definition of salvation. It is in my so limited eyes the most essential "point" of our faith. What this kingdom-building looks like in practice is another topic entirely, but it would be incomplete to point out that its central character is love. And I can't think of a better way to end this topic than with love.

Marriages, Pastors and the ELCA - Is Change in Sight?

I have wanted to write this for a very long time. As a prospective pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) who socializes in a predominately homosexually-oriented group of friends, I have more than a few thoughts concerning my church's ongoing engagement with this topic. The million-dollar questions of whether the church will find a way to publicly recognize and hold accountable lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships and if so, to allow them to serve as rostered leaders (pastors, diaconal ministers and more) are important. However, a singular focus upon them will obscure the greater things our faith has to say about the blessing of human sexuality.

The ELCA has recently published two documents expressing itself on these issues. The first, entitled “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust,” sets forth how the ELCA understands human sexuality in the context of our “baptismal vocation to love and serve the neighbor.” The second, “Report and Recommendations on Ministry Policies,” more specifically sets forth four decision points for the church to follow which could result in the recognition of same-gender relationships and GLBT Lutherans openly serving as rostered leaders (many already serve quietly).
I would encourage all those interested to read the statements for themselves, however since I agree with them completely, I will consolidate my church's arguments. Our understanding of human sexuality is grounded in our identity as God's image-bearing people, living within the narrative of God's activity to create, to reconcile and eventually to transform the whole universe. Here's the essence of the Lutheran point of view in Cliffs Notes format:

• God's Creation is GOOD, very good! All the world in its great diversity has been created by God for God's purpose. We believe God loves human life so much that “the Word became flesh.”
• This world is deeply and irrevocably sinful. However, God decisively acted in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to reconcile all Creation to Godself.
• In the future, all of God's people will also be resurrected and all Creation will be transformed in the fulfillment of God's original purpose.
• As the created, baptized people of God, we are set free from the law of sin and death, meaning we no longer live under the fear of condemnation by God. As such, we are called to live out our vocation as heralds of God's coming kingdom, giving tangible expression to our faith in lives of love and service to God and neighbor. Such action is not intended to save ourselves, but naturally follows from faith in God's love and in God's purpose for us within the created order. It is what God made us to do.
• As we anticipate the consummation of God's kingdom and the abolition of sin and death (what Luther describes as the spiritual realm of God's action), we currently live within the created world (Luther's worldly realm) using the gifts of law and reason, forgiveness, mercy and trust to love and serve each other and to facilitate our shared lives.

Human sexuality is one component of human relationships, which are clearly integral to our worldly existence. We are designed by God to be in relationship with one another. As sin is a reality of our world, our relationships are frequently damaged by selfish, irresponsible behavior toward others. How we order and approach our relationships reflects our best effort, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to live as God's people in a broken world. This means that disagreements concerning human sexuality “do not threaten the center of our faith, but rather require our best moral discernment and practical wisdom in the worldly realm.” In other words, gay marriage and gay preachers should not tear our church apart or distract from our greater mission.

Our church specifically affirms trust as the foundation for all healthy, faithful relationships. Human sexuality is an extremely powerful element in our lives. It allows us to express deep intimacy and commitment to another, but when motivated by self-serving purposes can exploit others with devastating results. As we are most vulnerable at times of sexual intimacy, such intimacy also requires the deepest trust and commitment based on mutual, self-giving love.
We identify marriage as “a context of love, trust, honesty and commitment within which a couple can express the profound joy of relationship.” It is more than just this, however, it is a microcosm of the greater Christian community. It models “durable communion for the good of others.” Marriage is built upon the same trust and commitment that we seek to foster among all members of the Body of Christ. This is why the public accountability that marriage offers is so important to our faith. Marriage provides for the couple to be surrounded with prayer, support and guidance as they strive together to live out their faiths. The greater community enriches the couple as they enrich the community.

This is a point that is often missed by some commentators on marriage and the same-sex marriage debate. My friend writes for a blog, The New Gay, where another writer has posted a series of comments about the ELCA's discussions of human sexuality. He does a fairly good job of reflecting our church's position (as I may or may not be doing right now!), however one of his readers rather wholly missed the point in a way that is distressing to me because it portrays the church as a bunch of people requiring submission by gays to a set of arbitrary beliefs. This commentator writes about gay Lutherans:

“They’re just begging for acceptance, and for no good reason that I can
think of. If their faith tells them that their god does not consider them
“sinful,” then why do they need buy-in from people? Is their god the center of
their faith, or is it the human beings within the faith? If it’s their god, then
no problem — they’re free to worship their god any way they want. But if it’s
the acceptance of human beings they’re really worried about, then their pathetic
supplication gets them what they deserve: degradation and table
scraps.”

I see this as a fundamental divergence of worldview. As I summarized above, as Lutherans and more importantly as Christians, we see all humans as irrevocably sinful with no distinction between anyone. At the same time, all are forgiven and justified because of the covenant faithfulness of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no difference between gay Christians/Lutherans and straight ones, just as there is no difference between male and female Christians or black and white Christians. The church is not requiring anyone to submit to our judgment for acceptance. Rather, ALL people are welcome at God's Table to experience the grace and love of God and the fellowship of the Body of Christ. Here's the point that is being missed:

As baptized children of God, our faith compels us to be obligated and accountable to God and to each other! To live out our faiths, to give them tangible expression, is to exist in community and to exist for God and for others, as Christ modeled in His life. Again, this is not to save ourselves since we have already been justified. This is simply what it means to be a follower of Jesus. So, we rightly challenge the individualistic idea that we exist independently of others and that our actions do not have consequences for the greater community.

Marriage is the institution which our church sees as the best way to help a couple be accountable to each other in love in the midst of our sinful worldly existence. As I mentioned above, it is an example of the relationship we have individually and communally with God and the relationships with other children of God. Within the covenant of marriage, human sexuality has its role as God's gracious gift to be thankfully enjoyed.

Because of the capacity of human sexuality to damage ourselves and others when it is not accompanied by trust and commitment, our church believes that levels of physical intimacy should be matched with levels of commitment by the couple. For example, the highest levels of intimacy (intercourse) ought not to be practiced outside of marriage. Casual sex misuses God's gift often for self-gratifying purposes with great potential consequences.

Based on the understanding I have attempted to outline above, it is therefore natural that we seek to provide for a way to recognize and surround with prayer publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships. I personally feel comfortable simply referring to such relationships also as “marriage.” Tradition and certain interpretations of several passages of Scripture have long prevented this church (well, all churches) from doing so. This entry would be considerably longer if I entered the exegetical debate concerning these passages, however I will just say I am of the opinion that they condemn not homosexual individuals but rather harmful and exploitative sexual behavior on the part of same-sex-oriented individuals. This condemnation applies also to the behavior of heterosexually-oriented individuals.

Another argument frequently advanced has to do with the “natural law” of God's created order, i.e. that men and women can procreate and people of the same sex cannot and therefore they should not be married. I would observe that love and procreation are not one and the same thing. As all loving relationships including homosexual marriages/partnerships demonstrate, procreation is not a prerequisite for love. Likewise, procreation can obviously occur in the absence of love between a heterosexual couple. I am living proof of this – my mother wanted children and so my brother and I are products of artificial insemination. And so I ask the question, is our church blessing the physical act of procreation or the covenant of love between two individuals?

Also, I believe completely in my heart that God has formed each of us with a purpose as God has formed all of Creation in its great diversity. All such Creation, most certainly including homosexual individuals, is good as our faith proclaims. I thank God for the diversity of the created universe and I have faith that God's will shall be done. I cannot question God's purpose or intent in directing the nature and course of the universe.

There is a substantial group within the ELCA and in the midst of all Christianity which more or less would agree with this understanding of the place of homosexual individuals within God's Creation. However, there is also a group which feels strongly that we must hold to our traditional approach based on their reading of Scripture and other concerns.

This “conscience-bound” disagreement is where the ELCA task force has done a wonderful and faithful job. As some outside the church may not understand, our obligations to God and to each other and our mission as the Body of Christ are more important than being “right” or winning a debate over this issue. We recognize that people of faith can and will come to differing conclusions on this topic and are bound by their consciences to adhere to their discernment. In order to allow for the bound consciences of all to have open expression in this church, the task force has recommended the following four steps for our church (to be decided upon at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August):

1. To decide whether or not we are “committed to finding ways to allow congregations and synods that choose to do so to recognize, support and hold publicly accountable lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships."
   
2. To decide whether or not we are committed to finding ways for people in such relationships to serve as rostered leaders of the church.
   
3. If the church proceeds positively with regard to steps one and two, the church is asked to “commit to doing so in such a way that all in this church bear the burdens of the other, love the neighbor, and respect the bound conscience of any with whom they disagree.”
   
4. Assuming steps one, two and three, the task force recommends a process for “structured flexibility” in decision-making, reflecting that neither a continuation of the status quo nor unqualified change would be a faithful response to the lack of consensus in the church.

This process basically would allow congregations, candidacy committees (groups that approve candidates to be pastors), synods or bishops to go either way in the case of a particular person or call setting. It also allows congregations or synods to follow their consciences regarding “marriage” processes for same-gender couples. If the resolutions are passed this summer, the various responsible offices within the ELCA would make the appropriate changes to the candidacy process for rostered leaders as well as develop new guidelines for liturgy and process surrounding same-gender “marriages.”

After recent legislative and judicial successes for same-sex marriage in Vermont, Iowa and the District, I view it as increasingly possible that the Assembly may vote to go forward with the task force recommendations in August. More significant to the church's discussion may be the recent endorsement of both task force documents by the Rev. Herbert W. Chilstrom, the first presiding bishop of the ELCA. He cites shifts in opinion on the inclusion of minorities, female pastors, and children receiving communion as examples that the church can change its mind “about some conscience-bound stances.” With many in the church, Chilstrom does not accept the current reality that some bishops are enforcing current policies and some are simply looking the other way.

I am especially interested in how our actions this summer may affect the perception of the church in an American society which is so heavily engaged at present with this topic. While the most important issues here, for our church, are our commitment to a faithful journey together in our vocation as the baptized people of God and the potential for the blessings of marriage and pastoral call to be extended to more brothers and sisters in Christ, a perception that we are not too inflexible to change when appropriate would be most helpful I think.

Perhaps above all, a faithful resolution to the question which has followed the ELCA for two decades and which continues to embroil and nearly define all Christianity would allow us to shift the public eye to our true mission – to open the doors wide for all to experience the love, forgiveness and grace of God and to take their place in the fellowship of the Body of Christ. How many have hesitated to approach the Lord's Table over this persistent debate? I hope and pray, not too many more. May God show us the way through this and all wildernesses of our lives, and may we listen with patience and proceed faithfully and without hesitation.

Foreign Policy - A "Christian" Perspective

As President Obama's foreign policy has begun to emerge through his initial responses to the challenges facing our nation, various commentaries have begun the process of analyzing and characterizing his philosophy. An “Obama Doctrine” has perhaps not yet been so straight-forwardly articulated, but one can identify certain principles taking shape.

In The Washington Post, Richard Cohen describes Obama's approach as a new realism born of the reality that the United States lacks the capacity to unilaterally intervene to establish our moral principles at times and places of our choosing around the world. He cites Obama's summary of the ideas of the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr as insight into Obama's outlook on foreign policy. Obama wrote that although “there's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain [...] we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction.”

I thank Mr. Cohen for providing a nice segway into my topic of discussion, which is how the Christian faith can inform American foreign policy in the early twenty-first century. Now, I am no expert on the subject of American foreign policy, but after a quick read-through of the current issue of Foreign Affairs I can at least bring up what its editors consider to be the top issues of the day.

The overall picture is one of a shifting role for the United States in the international arena. Rather than remaining the world's sole superpower, America's new place is described as a still-predominant power playing a stabilizing and standard-setting role in key regions and institutions around the globe.

I find that this shifting role nicely parallels the mission entrusted to Christians to live out our faiths in love, service and witness to the world. It is fair to say that Christians have in the past, and occasionally in the present, viewed their mission as an imperative to save the world from variously defined and personifed evils as well as to “convert” all peoples to a particular tradition of the faith. It strikes me that this outlook places an excessive amount of faith and responsibility on weak, sinful and often misguided human beings and not enough faith in the Creator and Savior of the universe. If we truly believe that all the world is created by God and rests comfortably in God's hands, then we are called to trust and submit ourselves in faith to be used as God directs.

We must always guard against complacency, of course. As Luther directed, faith must be made active in love, or it is no faith at all. We do what we can, but we are not responsible for setting the world aright. In fact, we believe that all Creation has already been reconciled to God through the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have faith that the activities of Creation will occur as God directs. The burdens are lifted from our shoulders and we are made free in Christ to become a new creation, living lives of witness in response to the grace of God.

I would offer another frequently-quoted piece from Mr. Niebuhr which reflects this outlook far more eloquently. This prayer he composed deals with our spiritual lives whereas Mr. Obama invoked some of his same ideas in the context of politics.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that you will make all things right,
If I surrender to your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

If we can find the courage to change the things we can change, then the contributors to the most recent Foreign Affairs offer us several insights as to a starting place. Without completely summarizing their thoughts, they reveal several opportunities for American Christians to make their voices heard regarding U.S. foreign policy.

For instance, as Bennett Ramberg discusses, a withdrawal from Iraq shows the Muslim world that we are not bent upon dominating their societies. Our soldiers policing their streets are merely the latest in a centuries-long string of occupying armies and their presence only feeds the claim of radicals that Americans seek to extend the rule of imperial Western powers over their people. Let us allow them to assert their own will in remaking their societies, knowing fully that chaos and bloodshed will continue for some time. This is the reality of sin in the world.

However, this should be only the beginning of a new engagement with their societies as equals. If we wish to see democracy, the rule of law, womens' rights and peace in the Muslim world, then we ought to do everything we can to encourage economic development and build relationships which cannot be torn apart by extremist propaganda. We must show that we are concerned with the education and health of their children, the reign of justice and peace and the eradication of abject poverty. Our soldiers are courageously and tirelessly working toward many of these goals now, however how can they be successful if their very presence is resented? We must take our time and work with the peoples of the world on their terms, not on ours. Our call is to serve and to love, not to impose our will.

Another trend making headlines is the world's emerging multipolarity. The Cold War is long past and the United States is no longer unchallenged in its ability to project power anywhere on the globe. India and China are the two massive states on the rise, Russia is asserting itself once again and we cannot forget about Brazil, Japan, Germany and many others I'm leaving out. America cannot be the world's policeman nor act alone as the arsenal of democracy. It must allow others to play a role and it would simply be overexerting itself to its own peril to continue to attempt unilateral action on a consistent basis. It is both smart and necessary to allow others to share the load while maintaining a balancing role. Robert Kaplan discusses how the U.S. Navy will play just such a role in the Indian Ocean in the coming decades, managing the rise and inevitable head-bumping of India and China.

To return to my theme of the Christian outlook on foreign policy, I would like to emphasize several key principles that should guide our advocacy. Underlying everything is a basic respect for all peoples, societies and cultures everywhere as invaluable parts of the Body of Christ. God created us in all our diversity and we are called to treat all people with dignity and seek their contributions to the well-being of humanity. This principle reveals our common citizenship in Christ and the sovereignty of God over all Creation. It reflects the artificiality of our political structures and structural relationships that divide God's people. Through building lasting relationships that cut across these divisions at the most basic human level, Christians can work to unite the Body of Christ (that is, the whole world).

What types of activities does this outreach prescribe? It means community building through meal sharing, burden bearing and feet washing (I speak figuratively, although these literal actions are good too!). It means distributing the material blessings of Creation more evenly across God's people. It means that we reject coercion, violence, exploitation, injustice, prejudice and mistrust, standing against them wherever they appear. More than anything, we must start with tearing down the walls that divide us, those of stone as well as those erected by ignorance and fear. By living together, working together and striving in faith together it will be impossible to ignore the status we all share as children of God. It is this common identity we must sow around the world.

“Christian foreign policy” is never implemented from the top-down but from the bottom-up, something all missionaries surely understand. We should seek not to change people but to serve them, not to rule them but rather to learn from them. We can't afford to be naive in this very real world and we won't change everything according to any plan we establish. We can only live as we are called to live and leave the rest to God. Although this is another story entirely, I think many Christians including myself have found this to be true in their personal lives. It is certainly also true for our American society as we interact with other peoples. From my own experience I can say that when we allow God to lead, what follows is always better than anything we could have imagined on our own :)