The other day I came across this quote from civil rights activist Bayard Rustin (probably most famously known as the organizer of the March on Washington where MLK delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech).

We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers. Our power is in our ability to make things unworkable. The only weapon we have is our bodies. And we need to tuck them in places so wheels don't turn.

As I've mentioned, during our family vacation Jana and I got to spend two nights at the monastery of the  Benedictine Sisters of Erie.

This was the first time Jana and I had stayed at a monastery and I think we used the time well. We enjoyed praying with the sisters and eating with them at mealtimes. We had a nice discussion with Sister Judith over one meal about the recent tensions between the Vatican and the female religious in America. (Jana and I are solidly behind the sisters.)

The Benedictines are known for their hospitality. A fun story along these lines. Jana was laughing with Sister Maurlene during one conversation when they had this exchange:

Jana: "Isn't there some rule that says you have to be nice to me?"

Sister Maurlene (reluctantly, though tongue in cheek): "Yes, I'm supposed to treat you as if you were Christ himself."

Jana: "That's Chapter 53, right?"

Sister Maurlene (shaking her head): "Yeah."

Sister Maurlene was a hoot.

From Chapter 53--"On the Reception of Guests"--of the Rule of St. Benedict:

Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say, "I came as a guest, and you received Me" (Matt. 25:35).

And that's why it's good to have a Rule of life.

I've been struggling for some time with how I should best stand up for gender justice in my local church context. A few years ago I made a decision which has recently become known to those in leadership at my church. In light of that, I'm sharing this here so that my views and decisions can be known more widely among my brothers and sisters at Highland in the hope that we might make more progress in this area. I also share this here to promote reflection, discussion and even action among others struggling with similar issues in their own church contexts.

To begin, I want to start with honoring those at Highland, and among the elders in particular, who disagree with me in calling for the full inclusion of women in our common life together. I am aware of those passages in the corpus of St. Paul that shape the consciences of many on this matter. I do not judge anyone for having their conscience so shaped. Nor do I claim to have the truth in this matter. I simply feel compelled to share with those in my church, as I already have to some in leadership, the vision of the Kingdom as I discern it to be manifest in the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

For those looking in on this, some background context about my church.

Highland is a part of the Churches of Christ. Historically, the Churches of Christ have been sectarian and fundamentalist, but recent decades have seen changes in this regard among many of our congregations. Many of our churches are now ecumenical and grace-oriented in outlook. Historically, then, Churches of Christ have been patriarchal in practice. However, some churches are making progress on this front and my church, Highland, has been a part of this progress.

About ten years ago Highland went through a discernment process that changed many of our patriarchal practices. I was a part of this, serving as the Chair of the Steering Committee who oversaw the process. After this time of discernment a variety of public worship roles were opened up to women. At Highland women--by themselves--can teach adult bible classes (in fact, my wife Jana teaches with me and is a better bible teacher than I am) and during our times of worship woman can lead prayers, read Scripture, welcome and call us to worship, and offer the communion meditation.

These have been wonderful changes. The voices of women are heard every Sunday. In calling us to worship. In prayer. In the reading of Scripture. In welcoming us to the Table.

My two sons are growing up hearing the voice of their mother from the pulpit on Sunday morning.

For all this the Highland elders--the pastoral leaders of our church--are to be greatly commended. They endured and suffered much in making these changes.

And yet, our progress on this front has been stalled leading me to make, as a matter of conscience, some decisions about my participation in the life of Highland. These decisions have, until recently, been private. But since I've now shared these decisions with our leadership I'd like to make a public record of them in the hope that Highland would reengage this conversation.

As a part of Highland's discernment process regarding women's roles two roles were left off the table. First, we did not consider if a woman could preach. Second, we did not consider if a woman could be an elder of the church. These two roles--preaching and serving as an elder--were to remain in the hands of men as they represented more formal roles of "leadership" and "authority." In short, women can do anything at Highland except these two things, preach and serve as an elder.

Let me pause here to also register a disappointment in this regard. During our discernment process it was determined, and publicly stated by the elders, that women could lead the praise/singing time during our assemblies. And yet, while this role was formally opened up, to date no woman has been asked to lead our worship. This failure to move forward on something the elders publicly committed to has been most discouraging and disappointing.

But to offer some clarifications. In many ways the roles where woman are--formally or functionally--excluded do have an egalitarian feel. Women sing on our praise team and sing solos. Our preacher can invite women up as a part of a sermon and allow them to share, though they have to be "hosted" onstage by the male preacher. Elders are often introduced as couples and the elder couples are often called onstage to pray over and minister to  people. Highland recognizes that the wives of the elders are carrying as much of if not more of a pastoral burden given the gifts of the particular couple (i.e., some of the wives, and this is often publicly acknowledged, are better pastors than their husbands). Still, there are many times when only the male elders are called forward and in the elder meetings only the men make the decisions.

I would also like to note that there are passionate egalitarians among our elders. These elders fight for gender justice within the larger group. So the elders don't speak with one voice on this issue. It's a live conversation among them.

In short, while patriarchal norms still govern how we see the preaching ministry, worship leading and eldership the lines are blurry and the conversation about gender justice ongoing.

Still, our progress on these fronts has stalled leading me to make some decisions that I've shared with the Highland leadership and now want to make public.

Specifically, about two years ago I decided that I could only be a part of Highland if I took concrete measures to express my solidarity with my sisters in Christ. To express this solidarity I decided that I would no longer participate in any activity at Highland where woman were excluded. (Let me pause to thank Jamey Walters for inspiring me with this idea.) This would mean that I would decline all invitations to preach at Highland as well as any invitation to serve as an elder.

Where women in our church are excluded I will stand in that same position.

Let me rush to say this isn't as heroic or courageous as it might be sounding. I've not been invited to be an elder. I don't sing well enough to lead worship. So these are pretty easy commitments to keep. And I'm not invited all that much to preach. I might preach once every year or two.

However, I have begun to decline preaching invitations. Because of this my commitment has now been made known to some of the Highland staff and eldership. I've let them know that I won't preach at Highland until we allow women to preach. I'm writing this make that decision more public.

Let me also clarify that this is not a criticism of Highland's ministers and staff. The staff is wanting to move this conversation forward and has, in fact, tried to extend invitations to women to preach. So the sticking point isn't with the staff or ministers. At the end of the day this boils down to how Highland needs to rethink how power and authority are to be used in the Kingdom.

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 

It should not be so among us, these exercises of power. It should not be so.

Let me end on a confessional note. We are all seeing through a glass darkly. One day, we will see Christ face to face.

Until then, may God have mercy on us all.

Update / February 2018

In the six years since I took this position with my church I've kept my promise. I've preached all over the world, but never for my own church, despite many invitations.

Last year, our church began the process of installing new elders. There was a big push to have women among those nominated and included as new elders. Unfortunately, if put to a vote right now, the current eldership would not vote for the inclusion of women. A compromise was reached. Install a new group of elders now, bringing new voices and perspectives into the eldership discernment process, and have another elder installation in two years. Between now and then, we'd have a fuller conversation about whether to include women at that time.

As a part of the current installation, I have been nominated and invited to be an elder. This has given me a choice.

On the one hand, I could decline, keeping true to the stance I've taken, and see what transpires in two years. Maybe women will be included then, but maybe not.

On the other hand, I can accept the offer to be a new voice in the room as we discuss the inclusion of women over the next two years.

I was very hesitant to back away from my stance, so I sought the wisdom of my wife and the women in our accountability group. What would they have me do? Stand in solidarity with them on the outside, or go inside to add my voice to a process that might bring about change? They told me to go inside to be a part of the process. So that's what I've decided to do.

I'll update this post, Lord willing, in 2020.

As regular readers know, I write here from time to time about my experiences in prison ministry. For those interested in this work of mercy and the current state of the prison-industrial complex in the US let me make you aware of a new resource.

And the Criminals With Him (Amazon link, Cascade link) is a new volume of essays edited by my friend Richard Goode that commemorates and continues the prophetic legacy of Will Campbell--Civil Rights activist, bootleg preacher, author (his most well known book is Brother to a Dragonfly), and prophetic gadfly.

In 1965 the Committee of Southern Churchmen began publishing, with Campbell and James Holloway at the editorial helm, the journal Katallagete: Be Reconciled. During its time Katallagete featured essays from, among others, Thomas Merton, William Stringfellow, Jacques Ellul, Walker Percy, and Daniel and Philip Berrigan. (For more on the history and theological legacy of Katallagete let me point you to this article by Steven Miller.)

In 1972 Campbell published an issue of Katallagete aimed at exposing the inhumanity of the US prison system. Now, forty years later, the essays of And the Criminals With Him, revisits and updates that seminal issue. From the book description:

In 1972, Will Campbell published an issue of the Committee of Southern Churchmen's journal, Katallagete, to shed light on the US prison system. None could anticipate how the system would expand exponentially in the next four decades. Today, the US operates the world's largest prison system, incarcerating nearly 1 in every 100 American adults. How did this expansion happen? What is the human toll of this retributive system? How might "ambassadors of reconciliation" respond to such a punitive institution?

Replicating the firsthand nature of Will Campbell's original Katallagete collection, twenty new essays pull back the veil on today's prison-industrial complex. The plea throughout this collection is not for some better, more progressive institution to exact justice. Rather, the invitation is to hear from voices of experience how the system functions, listen to what the institution does to those locked in its cells, consider what an execution involves, and, most importantly, contemplate the scandalous call to be in reconciled community with those whom society discards and the system silences. Our story is that there are neither good nor bad people, neither felon nor free world. We are all one. 

I have an essay in And the Criminals With Him entitled "On Fear and Following" taken from reflections I first shared here. For churches with prison ministries or for individuals engaged in or contemplating prison ministry let me encourage you to get And the Criminals With Him.

For introductions to Campbell's life and theology I also highly recommend Crashing the Idols and Writings on Reconciliation and Resistance, the two volumes that functioned as my own introduction to Campbell.

As I mentioned last Friday, it is an honor to share essays with Lee Camp--author, theologian, and host of the Tokens Show. 

Let me also mention Lee's amazing books. I encourage you to get Mere Discipleship and Who Is My Enemy? Lee has also written some great stuff for the Huffington Post (click here for those articles).

Many thanks to Lee for the essay reprinted below. I couldn't agree more with him. To those who have ears...

...    ...    ...

I had lunch this past week with one of the elders of my church; it was a great conversation, very enjoyable and lively. He had been a conscientious objector in the Vietnam War, based upon a selective Just War position, and so we shared some of our experience and convictions with one another.

Along the way he mentioned to me that his wife had had a meal recently with the mother of one of my university students. The mother said she was very upset with me: that I had turned her daughter into a pacifist, socialist, and a communist.

I laughed and told him that I hoped that I had in fact made the student into a pacifist, but not a socialist or a communist. I further conjectured that perhaps the student was not really a communist. Perhaps the mother had wrongly concluded that her daughter was now a communist due to the sharp partisanship that characterizes American culture these days: everything is so very polarized that it seems, at worst, that there are only two possible positions, or at best, that there is only a single continuum between two possible positions. If the daughter comes home talking about non-violence, and the mother is a supporter of her government’s wars, then the daughter must be a damn communist, too.

Thanks to Jim Wallis, it has been noted very often in the last few decades that “God is neither a Republican nor Democrat.” I have my suspicions that sometimes this mantra is actually a cover for self-righteous Democrats: “God is not a Republican, and all of us clear-headed Christians are Democrats; and I cannot see how a Christian can be a Republican.” Whether my suspicion is fair or not, it does seem to me that we need some helpful pegs or constructive theological starting points at which to critique both Republican and Democrat, or better, to provide a constructive alternative to them both.

The constructive alternative, of course, is “the church”—a real community that is characterized by a voluntary commitment to the way of Christ, including sharing, reconciliation, and non-violence. This is, obviously, neither Republican nor Democrat. What might such a community want to say to Republicans or Democrats or Socialists or Communists, then?

Increasingly, I tend to think that it is the New Testament notion of the “principalities and powers” that provides ground to say important things to such partisans. As has been increasingly noted in New Testament studies in the last half-century, the “powers” and “dominions” and “thrones” and “principalities” are an ever-constant element in the Pauline writings. Our enemies are “not flesh and blood” but the “powers of this present darkness.”

And as the theologians have increasingly explicated, “the powers” get made manifest in a variety of institutions, -isms, systems, and structures. “The powers” are created for good (per the letter to the Colossians) but overstep their bounds, and rather than serving humankind, get “hell-bent on their own survival” (per Walter Wink) and thence begin to enslave and oppress.

With this sort of starting point, we take an altogether different approach: our task, short of the full in-breaking of the Kingdom of God, can never be any partisan agenda. This is because anything short of the full consummation of the Kingdom of God will necessarily still be tainted, or worse, corrupted, by sin. All political activism then—in the sense of being active in talking to the contemporary powers-that-be in western culture—is always and necessarily ad hoc, never utopian, and never idealistic. We deal with each concrete question and issue as it arises, and seek to bear faithful witness as best we are able.

For example, to those who foolishly idealize “the free market,” we insist that the powers of darkness are cunning, baffling, and powerful, and that they do in fact co-opt the supposedly free market for purposes of greed and grasping which corrupts and controls as much as any tyrannical dictator. Or to those who foolishly idealize “the welfare state,” we insist that the powers of darkness are cunning, baffling, and powerful, and that the over-weening bureaucratic mechanisms of control do in fact limit creative human creativity, and create dependence.

This does not necessarily entail “withdrawal” or a “refusal to vote,” though such stances could be an exercise in faithful witness. Sometimes it seems to be a genuine human good when the government limits the power-hungry greed that drives the quest for monopolies—a quest as old as capitalism. But then, of course, such legitimate limits, before we know what hit us, can overreach and become a stifling even oppressive practice. And then will be good to call the powers-that-be to let go some of its control-freakishness.

The centralization enacted by Joseph for the good of the starving Hebrews provided the very bureaucratic tyranny that served to enslave those same Hebrews. History never sits still. Thus neither can our politics. If we find ourselves lumping together into one mass group of political enemies anyone who disagrees with us (as in the irrational conclusion that the pacifist must be a communist), then perhaps we have become enslaved to the powers which use a binary, polarizing view of the world to create enemies, stratify communities, and breed hostility, precisely for the good of the corrupt powers, but never for the true good of humankind.

--Lee C. Camp,  Professor of Theology & Ethics at Lipscomb University, in Nashville, Tennessee, is the host of http://www.tokensshow.com/, and the author of Who Is My Enemy?

Let me direct your attention to a guest post I have up over at the Tokens Show blog entitled "Accompaniment and the Sacrament of Mere Presence."

Some of you know that Lee Camp, beyond being an author and theologian, is host of the Tokens Show. If you are ever in the Nashville area the Tokens Show is a must see. Jana and I went the last time we were in Nashville. Absolutely amazing experience. Surf the Tokens website for reviews, upcoming shows, and downloads from past shows.

Look forward to Monday as Lee will have a guest post appearing here at Experimental Theology

I'm a mess when it comes to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Sometimes I say it. Sometimes I don't. Social context generally determines what I do, with the main criterion being not wanting to embarrass anyone or make anyone feel uncomfortable.

I also struggle with not saying the Pledge as I don't want to be taken as being ungrateful or dismissive of those who have made sacrifices for everything I enjoy in America.

So I'm trying to walk this line between being socially appropriate, respectful to others (particularly to those who have lost loved ones in war), deeply grateful, and yet holding onto the belief that the Pledge of Allegiance is inherently idolatrous. That's a tough line to walk and I don't walk it well or very consistently.

The problem is that it's a pledge of allegiance. If were a pledge of respect, love, or gratitude there wouldn't be a problem. I feel all those things. And I feel those things for our military personnel. I respect them. I love them. I want to express my gratitude to them. But as a Christian I can't pledge allegiance to a nation state. But by and large the only way are asked to show these feelings of respect, love and gratitude is through the Pledge. So it sticks a bit. I have a certain set of feelings I want to express but I'm being asked to express those feelings through a Pledge of Allegiance. Hence all the mixed feelings.

Can't I just say Love and Thank You without pledging allegiance?

You might be able to identify with all this or you might not. I suspect that my Christian anarchist friends won't like my ambivalence here very much. But nor will my conservative friends. I'm going to get dinged on both sides here.

But that's not really why I'm writing this.

I was thinking the other day about just war theory. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that there is such a thing as a just war. That there are times when going to war is the lesser of two evils. Evil, yes, always evil, but the lesser evil given the choices before the nation.

If this is granted then it must also be granted that the nation could engage in an unjust war. That is, there are just wars and unjust wars and Christians should support the former, albeit reluctantly, and object and refuse to participate in the latter.

And it's this last bit that I'd like to talk about. That is, it must be granted by all Christians--pacifist and just war proponent alike--that Christians should refuse to participate in unjust wars. There are wars where pacifists and just war Christians are on the same side of the picket lines and in the same jail cells as contentious objectors. This, it seems, must be universally admitted as a theoretical possibility.

But the trouble isn't with the theory. The trouble is in the practice and implementation. Because it seems to me, if we look at history, that this theoretical possibility rarely, if ever, comes about in practice. If there is a war, any war, the just war Christians tend to go off to war and the pacifists conscientiously object. Just war Christians and pacifist Christians rarely move in concert, despite everyone recognizing that this should happen from time to time. And it might ought to happen most of the time.

So what's the problem?

Well, it could be one of two problems.

First, it could be the case that every war declared (and undeclared) by the American government has been a just war. That would explain why every American war has been supported by the majority of Christians, particularly politically conservative Christians.

The second possibility is that American Christians aren't spiritually capable of resisting the patriotic call in a time of war. That is, when the patriotic call comes it is so powerful that Christians will make any rationalization necessary to fit the current conflict into the mold of just war criteria. At the end of the day, all wars are just wars because they are American wars.

Now the point I want to make is that this last bit--that all wars end up being rationalized as just wars by patriotic Christians--is a real possibility. I think even the most politically conservative Christian would have to admit that this could be a real temptation. And if that is so, then we finally get to the point of this post and back to the Pledge of Allegiance.

My question is this: What skills do we need to practice--today--if we are to be ready to face this temptation?

Because it seems to me that when the patriotic fever starts to boil and the flags start to wave and the war drums start to beat that we're going to have needed to have built up some immunity to this sort of thing. Otherwise, it seems to me, we'll quickly fall for the rhetoric and the social pressures. War is a fever. And we might need to get vaccinated before it reaches our community.

What might such a vaccination look like?

Well, doesn't it have to look like a restless patriotism? Doesn't have it look a bit like my struggles with the Pledge of Allegiance? Doesn't have to look like some sort of reluctance, hesitancy and doubt about the righteousness and religious exceptionality of the nation? Doesn't it have to look like attempts to hold patriotism at arm's length?

Again, this isn't about being a pacifist or a liberal or a hippie. It's about emotional preparation. About building up a reservoir of spiritual antibodies. About creating a bit of sunlight between God and Country so that the two aren't mistaken for each other when the drums start to beat.

And to clarify once again. This isn't about saying there are no just wars. I've granted that part of the argument.

This is about something different.

It's about creating the ability to notice the unjust one.

I'm reading Jean Vanier's book Community and Growth. Vanier is the founder of the L'Arche community. Many will recall that Henri Nouwen famously joined a L'Arche community.

Reading Vanier's book I was struck by the following passage on what makes community so difficult yet so important. Though Vanier is speaking to communities living under the same roof, I believe his insights apply to all faith-based communities. Think, in reading this, about your church:

Community is the place where our limitations, our fears and our egotism are revealed to us. We discover our poverty and our weaknesses, our inability to get on with some people, our mental and emotional blocks, our affective and sexual disturbances, our seemingly insatiable desires, our frustrations and jealousies, our hatred and our wish to destroy. While we are alone, we could believe we loved everyone. Now that we are with others, living with them all the time, we realise how incapable we are of loving, how much we deny to others, how closed in on ourselves we are.

I think the reason I found this quote to be so powerful is that I've encountered many Christians who love people in the abstract. That is, they believe they love everyone. But when it comes time to loving flesh and blood people they remove themselves from the daily grind of simply getting along with others. (The classic illustration of this is liberal Christians talking a great deal about loving the poor but never getting around to being friends with any poor people.)

I used to think this was a failure of effort, of not wanting to put in the time and effort to be in concrete relationships with others. But in light of Vanier's quote I wonder how much of this might be driven by ego. The disciplines of community expose our selfishness, vanity, impatience, entitlement and our brokenness. Rather than face this exposure it's easier to withdraw and live with the illusion that we're awesome loving people.

I posted this a couple of weeks ago over at the Evangelical Universalist Forum. Here now for your theological and mathematical consideration:

I've been puzzling about something for a few weeks.

There seems to be something about the notion of hell not lasting forever that trips people up and I'm not sure what that something is. Let me try to illustrate this to flush the problem out into the open.

First, let's imagine hell as extreme conscious torment and pain. Basically, imagine hell as bad as any hellfire and brimstone Christian wants to make it.

Second, let's imagine two different visions regarding the duration of hell, the traditional vision where hell is eternal and another vision where hell is finite but very, very, very long.

How long? I searched "the largest number" and found this, the Googolplexian. From the site:

Googol: A large number. A "1" followed by one hundred zeros.

Googolplex: The second largest number with a name. A "1" followed by a googol of zeros.

Googolplexian: The worlds largest number with a name. A "1" followed by a googolplex of zeros.

If you want, you can go to the site and look at all those zeros. There's a lot of them.

Now I have no idea if the Googolplexian is the largest number with a name. But it doesn't matter, it's a big number that we can work with.

So here's the question, what's the difference--theologically speaking--between an eternal hell and a Googolplexian hell, a hell that lasts for a Googolplexian number of years?

And if a Googolplexian hell seems too short, then how about a Googolplexian x Googolplexian hell? Or a Googolplexian x Googolplexian x Googolplexian hell? Or, if you want, how about a Googolplexian exponent hell, raising a Googolplexian to a Googolplexian power?

You get the idea. We can keep going and going and going. Making larger and larger numbers. All the while imagining extreme conscious torment and pain.

And yet, the number is finite. There would be a moment of ending. And that's what I'm interested in.

What's the difference, theologically, between an eternal hell and this vision of a Googolplexian hell?

Let me ask the question this way.

When people debate about hell it seems that a lot of people who endorse eternal conscious torment worry that sinners (Hitler comes up a lot) might be getting off easy. But it seems to me that we could imagine some Googolplexian hell that would address that concern. That is, if you are worried about people getting off easy we can take care of that. We can dial up a Googolplexian hell of any size to satisfy that demand. In fact, we can double it, just to give us some wiggle room. We don't want anyone getting off too easy...

And yet, I wonder if all this talk about justice is really the issue. Doesn't the notion of a Googolplexian hell expose this? Because if punishment and justice or getting off too easy is a worry we can posit some Googolplexian number where those questions start to seem, well, a bit silly. So there is something else going on.

So I'm wondering: What might that something else be? What's the scandal about someone, even a Hitler, getting free after a Googolplexian number of years (and if you want more we can add more, just ask) of conscious torment and pain, the worst pain we can imagine?

When you are trying to live a simple life, trying to step away from the consumeristic traps set by our culture, there are, I suspect, a variety of practices and "rules" that one might adopt. Pondering this, I realized that I'd been living with an implicit, unwritten rule for many years now.

The rule has to do with when to replace clothing.

And the rule is this: Wear it until you get a hole in it.

It's the hole rule.

That's how I wear and buy clothing. I wear things until they get a hole in them and then I replace them. This goes for shoes, socks, jeans, pants, shorts, shirts, and most scandalously for my wife, undergarments.

(I know ya'll don't come here to learn about my underwear. But still, the hole rule is very much in effect for them. Drives Jana crazy. Particularly when we go from the singular hole to the plural holes.)

Sharing this isn't to pat myself on the back. In a world where people don't have enough to eat this all seems pretty trivial. I mainly just wanted to tell you about my underwear.

But seriously, I do think wearing things until they--literally--wear out is a good practice. In fact, I'm wondering about pushing this a bit further and recovering that old practice of mending. That's right, Richard, get out the needle and thread. I'm going to start trying to sew some of these holes up and keep the clothing a bit longer.

Though I think, upon reflection, I'll not do this for the underwear.

I can hear Jana breathing a sigh of relief...

Well, I've been hiding from you the big news in the Beck house.

I got a tattoo!

It's a half sleeve on my left arm that goes all the way around, halfway up the forearm to the elbow.

A warm Thank You to my talented friend Travis Eason for the beautiful design and execution. For Abilene locals, you can find Travis at Travis Eason Designs. Dear Travis, I love this piece of artwork you've done for me.

The tattoo is of Rublev's icon of the Trinity, pictured here.

Rublev's icon may be the most well known of all the Orthodox icons.

The icon is actually of a scene called "The Hospitality of Abraham" depicting the events in Genesis 18 where Abraham offers hospitality to three angelic victors--collectively identified as "the Lord"--under the oak trees of Mamre. In some Orthodox icons of this scene Abraham and Sarah are also depicted. In Rublev's icon (and in others) only the three angelic visitors are seen.

If this is an icon of the events in Genesis 18 then why is the icon called Rublev's trinity? Well, the Orthodox iconographers were not allowed to depict God directly. That would be making a graven image. So the iconographers would use the hospitality of Abraham as an indirect way of depicting God as the Trinity, with the three angelic visitors described as "the Lord" in the text representing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the icon the Son, in brown, is the central figure. The Spirit is on the right of the picture in green. The Father is on the left in red. All also wear blue to represent their divinity.

So that's my tattoo! Why this choice?

Two reasons, one theological and the other aspirational.

The theological reason is that for the Orthodox the Trinity is the theological articulation that God is a relational, communal being. Ontologically, God is loving community. So I picked this icon to simply say "God is love." God is loving community and relationship. This is the theological bedrock of everything I believe about God. God is love. That belief is now written on me. (And written is the right word as icons are "written" rather than "painted." An icon is the Word being proclaimed.)

The aspirational reason for this tattoo is related to the fact the hospitality of Abraham is the primal text in the bible that points to welcoming God in the stranger. The icon represents hospitality and welcome. In this the icon is aspirational. I look at the icon and am reminded to welcome the person in front of me as I would welcome Christ himself. Matthew 25. Welcoming the little one. As the Benedictines say, Hospes venit, Christus venit. "When a guest comes, Christ comes." I want to live my life that way. Rublev's icon reminds me of that. So I wanted to always have it with me. And thanks to Travis, now I do.

If you'd like to see it, pictures of the tattoo are below the break.

Continue reading...

we are bubbles.
fragile
precious
colors on the breeze.
each one of us
floating
and our time
variable, unpredictable.
some lasting, persisting
holding on.
others ending.
and i wish
we were made
of more sturdy stuff.
glass perhaps.
lasting until
cracking
upon touching
each other.
steel then.
our contact
a sliding by
frictionless
unchanging,
all safe
and metallically frozen.
still
this is not
what we have.
but this:
a rainbow
a membrane of shape
held momentarily in the sunlight.
and someone
you and i
beautiful
watching
loving
and suffering
inside of it all.

I mentioned a few months ago that last fall I got to sit down with Kevin Miller for an interview for his upcoming documentary Hellbound? Keep an eye out as Hellbound? is coming out in a few weeks. Check here for viewings in your area.

Kevin has a post up over at the Huffington Post entitled "Why We Need the Language of Hell." In the piece Kevin wrestles with the religious language of hell and how, even in our modern age, it might be doing important work for us in describing cases of horrific evil and catastrophic suffering. The start of Kevin's essay:

James Eagan Holmes allegedly slaughters 12 people at a movie theater in Colorado. Survivor Stephanie Davies describes the event: "We were laying there, literally in the mouth of hell."

Anders Behring Breivik kills 69 people at a summer camp in Norway. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg seeks to capture his grief: "It was a paradise of my youth that has now been turned into hell."

A tsunami devastates the Tōhoku region of Japan, killing thousands. Daily Mail reporter Alex Thompson describes the scene as "Hell on Earth."

Two planes hit the World Trade Center in New York City. Brian Williams describes the event 10 years later: "It was a day when hell rained down on earth from the skies and changed all of our lives forever..."

As these and numerous other examples demonstrate, when seeking to describe a natural disaster or manmade tragedy, hell is often the first word that springs to mind. And we don't just use "hell" to describe the event. We also demand it as punishment when human perpetrators are involved.

As a part of Kevin's essay there is some footage from our interview together:



Just a head's up that my footage will be showing up on the DVD in special features video. I'll let you know when the DVD comes out. For now, check out Kevin's article at HuffPost and look for Hellbound? coming to a theater near you.

Over the last year I've really fallen in love with Dorothy Day. I came to Day because of my continuing interests, personal and professional, with expressions of Christian hospitality and you can't get very far into this without engaging with the Catholic Worker's houses of hospitality.

During our family vacation last month I was reading Day's book Loaves and Fishes, her account of the beginnings and history of the Catholic Worker movement. And during our vacation we were going to be visiting Jana's sister in New York City where Day started the Catholic Worker and opened the first house of hospitality.

For those who do not know, the Catholic Worker is both a movement and a paper. Centered mainly around houses of hospitality, the Catholic Worker movement is comprised of communities who, are, in the words of the Worker website:

...committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken. Catholic Workers continue to protest injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms.

Founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933, the early focus of the Catholic Worker was on poverty and practicing the works of mercy. The community later became known for its pacifism. These remain the defining features of the movement. The first Catholic Workers around Day and Maurin shared a common life and practiced voluntary poverty. Many Catholic Worker communities continue this tradition. Many decades before a movement called "new monasticism" there was the Catholic Worker.

But The Catholic Worker is also a paper. Day was a journalist. So the first thing she and Maurin did was to publish a paper. Working with a shoestring budget they published their first paper on May 1, 1933, selling copies in Union Square (the picture above is of people reading the paper in Union Square in 1937).

The paper cost 1¢. And to this day The Catholic Worker costs 1¢.

Of course, having become a fan of Day I wanted to subscribe to The Catholic Worker. But being a very low tech operation--voluntary poverty and all that--you can't sign up for a subscription online or shoot them an email. You have to send a letter through the post. Yeah, like write a letter, get an envelope and buy a stamp. That kind of post.

But since I was going to be in New York this summer I figured I'd just drop in.

The family and I were in Chinatown. St. Joseph House--the location of The Catholic Worker--was about a mile away. Day's first house of hospitality had moved around the Bowery a few times, but it eventually settled at St. Joseph House were it remains to this day. Leaving the family to do some shopping along Canal St. I walked to St. Joseph House to see about getting on the mailing list.

The house was busy when I arrived. The workers living there were preparing food in the kitchen and they were also in the middle of giving out some clothing. You know, works of mercy.

I've forgotten the name of gentleman who welcomed me, but we chatted while he supervised those who were going in and out of the clothing room. He was pretty busy so I didn't stay long. I just told him I was fan of Day and wanted to make a donation and to get on the mailing list. He could identity with being a fan. He told me he'd met Day as a young man in that very house and that, as he described it, she blew him away. Changed his life forever. He's been a part of the Catholic Worker movement ever since.

After our brief chat I headed out, needing to catch back up with my family. Outside I turned and took a picture of the hospitality house started by Dorothy Day. Still practicing the works of mercy here in the year 2012.

St. Joseph House--Founded by Dorothy Day--And Still Practicing the Works of Mercy

In light of yesterday's post I was struck the other day by similar themes in this poem from Czeslaw Milosz. It's one of his last, from Selected and Last Poems (1931-2004):

Sanctificetur 

What is a man without Your name on his lips?

Your name is like the first breath
and first cry of the newborn.

I utter Your name and I know You are defenseless,
since the power belongs to the Prince of this world.

You rendered things created unto the rule of necessity,
saving for yourself Man's heart.

A man who is good, hallows Your name,
whosoever desires You, hallows Your name.

High above this earth of indifference and pain,
Your name shines resplendent.

A note: 
The title "sanctificetur" appears to be reference to the Lord's Prayer. In the Latin version of the Lord's Prayer sanctificetur is translated "Hollowed be" from the line "Hallowed be Thy Name."

Last week Tony Jones asked for progressive Christian bloggers to write a post about God.

As I read his post I thought of this post I wrote about a year ago:

As a college professor interested in the psychology of religion I'm sort of an anthropologist of young adulthood spirituality. That is, I listen a great deal to how my students talk about faith, God, Christianity, and church. I'm particularly interested in listening to what moves them spiritually.

One of the things I've noticed in this regard--something, to be sure, not unique to this age group or generation--is the prominence of a focus on God's bigness. Worship that seems to move my college students, and many other Christians, tends to focus on God's transcendence and awesomeness. "Awesome" just might be the most common word my students, and many other Christians, use to describe God.

This focus on God's bigness is often used in worship to create an acute sense of our smallness in relation. Ecstatic worship is often triggered by a felt sense of God's transcendent power, size, and greatness. I leave such worship psychologically stunned and overwhelmed by God's bigness. My sense is that a lot of contemporary worship is explicitly aimed at trying to create this experience. And that makes sense. Worship means "to bow down." Thus, it seems straightforward to many that worshiping God means to "bow down" before God's power and size.

And yet, I wonder about all this. Particularly from a missional perspective. Specifically, I struggle with how the felt sense of smallness I experience in worship is supposed to transition into Christian mission. I do see how an acute sense of our smallness works as a trigger for ecstatic worship, but find it hard to see how that sense of smallness helps Christians learn to eat with tax collectors and sinners.

Put bluntly, I'm wondering this: How does an experience of God's awesomeness help you learn that God is love?

In light of this, here's what I want to say to many Christians: Your God is too big.

Here's what I think. I think too much focus on God's awesomeness leaves us ill-equipped to see God's smallness in the world. Perhaps we'd be better able to transition from worship to mission if we started focusing on God's smallness rather than on God's bigness. Isn't it one of the purposes of worship to help us see aright? To see God more clearly? If so, perhaps we need to start worshiping God's smallness. Our God has gotten too big.

Let me try to illustrate what I'm talking about.

See the smallness of God in this famous section of Night, Elie Wiesel's memoir of the Holocaust:

I witnessed other hangings. I never saw a single one of the victims weep. For a long time those dried-up bodies had forgotten the bitter taste of tears.

Except once. The Oberkapo of the fifty-second cable unit was a Dutchman, a giant, well over six feet. Seven hundred prisoners worked under his orders, and they all loved him like a brother. No one had ever received a blow at his hands, nor an insult from his lips.

He had a young boy under him, a pipel, as they were called--a child with a refined and beautiful face, unheard of in this camp...the face of a sad angel...

One day, the electric power station at Buna was blown up. The Gestapo, summoned to the spot, suspected sabotage. They found a trail. It eventually led to the Dutch Oberkapo. And there, after a search, they found an important stock of arms.

The Oberkapo was arrested immediately. He was tortured for a period of weeks, but in vain. He would not give up a single name. He was transferred to Auschwitz. We never heard of him again.

But his little servant had been left behind in the camp in prison. Also put to torture, he too would not speak. Then the SS sentenced him to death, with two other prisoners who had been discovered with arms.

One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around, machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains--and one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel.

The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual. To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter. The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him.

This time the Lagerkapo refused to act as executioner. Three SS replaced him.

The three victims mounted together onto the stairs.

The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.

"Long live liberty!" cried the two adults.

But the child was silent.

"Where is God? Where is He?" someone behind me asked.

At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over.

Total silence throughout the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting.

"Bare your heads!" yelled the head of the camp. His voice was raucous. We were weeping.

"Cover your heads!"

The march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive...

For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.

Behind me, I heard the same man asking:

"Where is God now?"

And I heard a voice within me answer him:

"Where is He? He is--He is hanging here on this gallows..."

This is a powerful story, with particular resonances for Christians, a people who worship a God who hangs dead on the gallows. And I wonder, when I read stories like Wiesel's, if contemporary Christian spirituality, a spirituality so focused on God's bigness, is able to train us to see God in the figure of that little boy.

How can we learn to see God's smallness?

Perhaps no one described God's smallness better than Dietrich Bonhoeffer did in one of his letters from prison:

God lets himself be pushed out of the world onto the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.

It is true that God is awesome. But, as Bonhoeffer observed, "God lets himself be pushed out of the world and onto the cross." God "is weak and powerless in the world." God helps us "not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering."

God is small.

God is that little boy hanging from the gallows.

God isn't powerful and mighty.

God is weakness and powerlessness.

So this, again, is what I'm wondering. Might a spirituality of God's bigness and awesomeness be hindering our ability to see the smallness and weakness of God? Is not the triumphalism associated with worshiping God's bigness hindering our ability to see God as the child hanging on the gallows? Hindering our ability to see God in the body of the demented mental patient. In the craving addict. In the senile old person in diapers. In the starving child. In the drooling retarded. In the street walking prostitute. In the homeless man on the park bench. In the queer kid being bullied on the playground.

Might our God be too big? Too big for us to see the smallness of God?

Where is God?

God is here--weak and hanging on the gallows.

My appreciation to Kyle Roberts writing over at the Cultivare blog for reviewing my book The Authenticity of Faith and putting some of its ideas to good use.

The start of Kyle's review:

In Richard Beck’s recent book, The Authenticity of Faith, he considers whether a truly authentic faith is possible. Freud had dealt a heavy blow to Christianity by offering up scientific explanations for what motivates religious belief. Believers are drawn to religion because it functions to repress our existential anxieties. Afraid of death? Don’t worry, there’s an afterlife. Need some meaning and purpose for your life? Christianity gives you plenty (God loves you and has a wonderful plan…). Feel insignificant in this big bad world? You are one of the elect! Struggling with the problem of evil and suffering? God’s in control and has a plan for everything. Christianity (and other religions too) helps you repress your fears and deal with your anxieties. That, said Freud, is the reason for religious belief.

Read the rest of Kyle's review here. 

As for putting the ideas of the book to good use, Kyle wrote a fascinating post about the Olympics as existential narcotic.

Well, my family and I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight Rises.

Some theological thoughts on the movie.

(Some spoilers ahead.)

There's been a lot of discussion on the Internet about the politics of The Dark Knight Rises with many arguing that TDKR espouses a conservative politics with a repudiation of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The evidence for this line of argument has to do with the actions and speeches of Bane, the antagonist of the movie. For example, one of Bane's early targets in the movie is the Wall Street trading floor (or whatever Wall Street is in Gotham). In addition, Bane uses class warfare as warrant for his actions, actions that espouse a populist, anarchist vision of society.

It is true that TDKR has a fairly positive view of social institutions and the order they provide. For example, the Gotham police force are cast as heroes and protectors of law and order. We also long for a judiciary with integrity after witnessing the actions of "the people's court" under Bane (the Scarecrow is back as judge!). In this sense--a high view of social institutions--TDKR has a conservative sensibility.

That said, I don't think TDKR is a repudiation of the concerns of the 99%. Bane isn't extolling class resentment, he's exploiting it. Cynically so.

It seems clear to me that TDKR sees economic inequality as a problem. Catwoman, a sympathetic figure, sees it this way. Where she parts with Bane and begins to side with Batman isn't in the diagnosis of the problem but in how the two propose to address the problem.

To be sure, Bruce Wayne our hero is a billionaire, a part of the 1%. But he's repeatedly described as a "philanthropist." We also find him acting in very non-capitalistic ways. We learn that he's actually damaged his company by refusing to pursue technology that would be globally dangerous. We learn about his interest in investing in clean, sustainable energy. And at the end of the movie he gives Wayne Manor for the care of orphans.

The point being that Wayne has a strong social and global ethic guiding how he handles his wealth, and he seems more than willing to make financial sacrifices to promote the common good. All that looks sort of "liberal." And that seems to be the ruling ethic of the movie. Wayne gives everything he has to save the city. Toward the end of the movie Catwoman asks Batman why he keeps giving to Gotham. Hasn't he already given them everything? His response is that he has one last thing to give. His life. And he goes on to give it away so that Gotham might be saved. In this, he's a sort of Christ figure.

TDKR is liberal in another sense as well--its view of humanity. Throughout the Dark Knight trilogy there is a running debate about human nature. The trilogy starts with the dim view of humanity offered by the League of Shadows and Ra's al Ghul. This is the view that humanity--epitomized in the life and ways Gotham, a sort of Babylon--is depraved and beyond redemption. That view is continued in the second movie with the Joker, who cynically wants to demonstrate this to Batman by getting two ferrys of Gotham citizens to blow each other up. In the final movie Bane brings us back to the League of Shadows as the views of Ra's al Ghul make a return.

In response TDKR articulates a more positive view of humanity. In the first movie Batman rejects the anthropology of Ra's al Ghul. In the second movie the people of Gotham refute the Joker--they don't blow each other up. In TDKR the themes are about collective hope and social trust. In short, the optimistic view of humanity espoused by liberalism is on display. The more pessimistic view of humanity espoused by conservatism is rejected.

But not completely. Again, when "the people" are left on their own in Bane's anarchical experiment the outcome isn't pleasant. Under Bane we long for social order and stable social institutions. These are conservative themes and values. So in my opinion, the series is a bit of a mixed bag on this score. The trilogy is a mix of both liberal and conservative themes--politically, economically, and anthropologically.

In the end, though, I think the final film isn't about about liberalism or conservatism. I think the film is about love. That might be a bit too sentimental, but I think it's a defensible point. At the end of the day, Wayne loves Gotham and is willing to give her everything. I think that's the main theme of the movie, love and the sacrifices love requires. In a similar way, Alfred loves Bruce and is willing to risk everything, even their relationship, in order to save Bruce.

Other love themes are also present. When Catwoman and Batman are fighting together he says, "no killing." We see (Robin) John Blake, who will become the next Batman, kill two men in the movie. Disgust overwhelms him. We see in his face how he will adopt the "no killing" ethic in taking up the mantle of Batman. We also see Blake willing to sacrifice his life for a group of orphans. And as mentioned above, in the end Bruce Wayne gives Wayne Manor for the care of orphans. True and undefiled religion.

And in giving it all away we see a sort of death and resurrection played out in the movie. Batman gives everything to Gotham and he finds a sort of resurrection on the other side. Batman dies so that Bruce Wayne and Gotham might live.

At the end of the movie we see a statue of Batman unveiled in Gotham. A symbol of the soul and spirituality of a city reborn, a people rescued from chaos and death. A sign of one who gave his life so that others might live.

This is Installment #2 of my William Stringfellow Project where I read through all of William Stringfellow's books in their first editions and in order of their publication.

The second book published by Stringfellow is a curious little book entitled Instead of Death. My picture of the cover of the first edition is seen here. Instead of Death was published by Seabury Press 1963. The back cover states that the book cost 95¢.

I say Instead of Death is curious as the first edition of the book is more like a pamphlet. It's a short paperback that has staples for the binding. This is due to the fact that the book was initially published as a youth church study, aimed mainly at older high school and college-age students. The back of the book has a study guide--"Suggestions for Group Study"--that leaders and participants of the class can use for group discussion. The study guide was prepared by the Youth Division of the Department of Christian Education of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Instead of Death was eventually republished (Amazon link here) with additional material making it more of a proper book. But we are going through first editions of Stringfellow's books in chronological order. So we are starting with the first edition of Instead of Death where it was published to be used as a youth study.

Stringfellow opens the book with his standard argument that death is the great moral force at work in human affairs. The opening lines of the book:

This book is about death.

It consists of some essays about the specific reality of death in contemporary life: about the vitality of the presence and power of death over human existence and, indeed, over the whole creation. The suggestion here is that the power of death can be identified in American society--as well as elsewhere for that matter--as that which appears to be the decisive, reigning, ultimate power. Therefore, for an individual's own little life--yours or mine or anybody's--death is the reality that has the most immediate, personal. everyday significance. In this life, it seems as if everyone and everything find meaning, when we really come down to it, in death.

Can't you just imagine the faces of the high school kids in the class? Too awesome. Flipping to the Study Guide at the back of the book we read under the heading "Recommended Age-Groups":

This book can be used in a group comprising tenth-, eleventh-, and twelfth-graders. In its entirety it will probably be a bit steep for tenth-graders...

Come on high school sophomores, pick up your game! Yes, "this book is about death." Put on your big-boy and big-girl pants and deal with it! And don't be distracted by the cover. Yes--oh yes--we did put a skeleton--along skulls and crossbones--on the cover. What did you say? That's not normal for youth bible study materials? Well, suck it up. This is Mr. Stringfellow's sandbox and it's existential time...

Honestly, I would have loved a study like this in high school. But I can't imagine this going over too well with your typical teen, in 1963 or in 2012. Still, gotta love that skeleton cover. Are you seeing this Christian Book Industry?

More skeleton covers please.

Anyway, Stringfellow goes on in the book to discern the work of death across variety of issues of particular interest to young people in Christian communities. (Yes, masturbation is discussed.)

In the chapters of the book Stringfellow discusses loneliness, sex, work, and evangelism.

On loneliness...

Loneliness is the experience in which the fear of a man of his own personal death coincides with his fright of the death of everyone and everything else. Loneliness is not a unique or an isolated experience; on the contrary, it is the ordinary but still overwhelming anxiety that all relationships are lost...[L]oneliness so vividly anticipates the death of such other lives that they are of no sustenance or comfort to the life and being of the one who suffers loneliness. 

And yet...

You are not alone. Do not be so proud any more of your loneliness. It is only the shadow of your death, and your death, your loneliness, is like the death of every other person. But your death is overpowered in the patience of God's love for you. Your fear that you are not loved does not negate the gift which God's love is. Your loneliness does not avoid God's love, it only repudiates His love for you. You cannot flee from God's presence. You are not alone.

We know this because Christ descended into the death that is loneliness and in that event showed that God is present in loneliness and has taken that loneliness into God's own life:

Unwelcome, misunderstood, despised, rejected, unloved and misloved, condemned, betrayed, deserted, helpless--He was delivered to death, as if He were alone.

Christ descended into hell: Christ is risen from death.

A great line from this section:

The secret of prayer is God affirming your life.

On sex...

The power of sin permeates the rituals of sex, in all their varieties--in marriage and out of marriage, among young or old, among male and female--just as it does for all other affairs in this world. Thus it becomes and is a tribute to death, a sign of the imminence of death in this life.

Concretely, of course, the vitality of sin in sex is seen in situations where manipulation, punishment, humiliation, or violation of one by another of one's own self is made obvious because of physical or psychological coercion, or of willful enticement, or of false promises, or fraud, or the exchange of money or other consideration, or of lust or possessiveness.

And yet, the sacramental possibility of sex...

[T]he Christian more than recognizes the reality of sin in sex of all sorts. The Christian knows, beyond that, that this--sex--which is so full of death, may also become and be a sacrament of the redemption of human life from the power of sin which death is.

Take home point:

That which is sinful in a radical sense in sexual behavior is the failure, refusal, or incapacity to acknowledge and treat your own self or another or both as persons.

On work...

The legend, in America anyway, is that in either the product or the reward of work a person can find his or her life morally vindicated.

The great temptation:

Make work your monument, make it the reason for your life, and you will survive death in some way, until the monument itself is discarded or crumbles in some other way.

Work is the common means by which we seek and hope to justify our existence while we are alive and to sustain our existence, in a fashion, after we die.

And yet, the sacrament of work as service for the world...

For a person to be free in work or in non-work--free from merely working to death, free from enslavement to the principalities and powers--he or she must be set free from the bondage to death. It is the work of God in Christ for the world that frees us from this bondage and that enables any secular work to become and be a witness to the work of God.

In other words, where Christians take seriously the work of Christ for the world, the question of work is not simply or even essentially ethical, it is confessional. The problem is not the moral significance of the daily work of individuals in the world, but, instead, the meaning of the work of God for the common work of humanity.

On evangelism...

Evangelism is the act of proclaiming the presence of the Word of God in the life of another, the act of profoundly affirming that person's essential identity and being. And such an affirmation given by one to another is love.

 On the vocation of the baptized (and the final paragraph of the book)...

Thus the vocation of the baptized person is a simple thing: it is to love from day to day, whatever that day brings, in this extraordinary unity, in this reconciliation with all people and all things, in this knowledge that death has no more power, in this truth of the Resurrection. It does not really matter what exactly a Christian does from day to day. What matters is that in whatever the Christian does it is done in honor of the triumph of Christ over death and, therefore, in honor of his or her own life, given by God and restored to each in Christ, and in honor of the life into which all people and all things are called. The only thing that really matters is to live in Christ instead of death.

During our family vacation Jana and I got to spend two nights at the monastery of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie. Incidentally, this is the home of Christian author Joan Chittister. Sister Chittister gave a public lecture the evening we were there, which was a real treat.

We weren't there for a directed retreat with a program. We were simply on our own, enjoying the hospitality of the Benedictine sisters and left to fill the day for ourselves.

When you have that much time on your hands, along with being electronically unplugged, you can start to get bored. Or at least I can get bored. I'm not a natural contemplative. But the boredom made me think of something the author and theologian James Alison has written about worship in a violent world. At one point in his analysis Alison makes a point about why the Mass is boring (Alison is Catholic). He says this:

When people tell me that they find Mass boring, I want to say to them: it's supposed to be boring, or at least seriously underwhelming. It's a long term education in becoming un-excited... 

Alison is making the argument that the world tends to function as a Nuremberg rally where everything around us--from political discourse to advertising to social media--is trying to whip us up into a frenzy. A frenzy that, more often than not, is directed against others. Cable news, talk radio and political blogging are basically a Nuremberg rally, an attempt to anger us and excite us with propaganda. In the face of all this excitement and frenzy Christian worship, according to Alison, should function as a sort of counter-propaganda, a place where we can become unexcited. Where others are whipped into an anxious or angry frenzy Christians should be bored.

This line of argument reminded me of a recent article I read by Carl McColman entitled "A Contemplative Revolution." McColman makes the argument that contemplation can be a form of resistance, a way to fight against the principalities and powers. The idea here is similar to the one Alison makes, a "dropping out" of the frenzy:

[C]ontemplation represents a way to disengage from the toxicity of our current world order, not in terms of supporting violent revolution, but in an opposite move: by embracing a revolution of humility and love. We cannot beat the greedy, violent, unjust enemy-that-is-us with weapons or military might. Only by "dropping out" of the system can we hope to overcome it with a new way of living. What is this new way? A way of reconciliation rather than violence, of shared resources rather than enforced inequity, a way of simply and quietly living rather than getting caught up in the ever-increasing frenzy of acquisition and competition. Such values are the fruit of contemplation. They are the values that monasteries embody, if imperfectly. They are the values of resistance.

Along these same lines, I also recently read Eric Anglada's article for Jesus Radicals entitled "A Contemplative Anarchism: Re-Introducing Gustav Landauer." I don't know Landauer, but I found Eric's description of a "contemplative anarchy" to be very interesting. Eric writes,

Landauer did not believe that we need to wait for ‘The Revolution’ to topple ‘The System.’ Instead, it is something we can begin now by “relating to one another differently.” Rather than ‘smashing the state,’ Landauer sought to ‘opt out’—that is, refuse to give any positive energy to the state through voting, lobbying, or paying taxes.

Whatever you think about refusing to vote or not paying taxes, the part that interests me is the notion of opting out and refusing to give any positive energy to the system, all in the effort of relating to others more humanely. This contemplative "opting out" is similar to McColman's contemplative "dropping out" and Alison's liturgical boredom. And each is described as resistance, anarchism, or as counter-propaganda.

So in light of all this I'm thinking about being a part of a boredom revolution. This election year, as Nuremberg-levels of propaganda and mass hysteria escalate, I'm working on cultivating "the values of resistance"--opting out, dropping out, and expressing boredom with it all.

I was talking with a friend last week about all the dust up regarding Chick-Fil-A and the Christian response to it. Specifically, we were talking about the big Christian turnout for Mike Hukabee's Chick-Fil-A "Appreciation Day" and Matthew Paul Turner's post about how the church failed that day.

Matthew talks about hate in that post, which brought to my friend's mind my review/response to Bradley Wright's book Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...And Other Lies You've Been Told.

I'm reposting (slightly edited) that review/response here as some of what is discussed--particularly the section toward the end about Christian attitudes about gay persons--seems relevant to the events that unfolded around Chikc-Fil-A over the last few weeks.

...     ...     ...

One of the most discussed posts I've written on this blog was The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity.

That post was a meditation on how we tend to use "religion" as a replacement for being a more decent human being. We'd rather have "quiet time with God" or "get into the word" than forgive our enemies or spend time working at a homeless shelter. In making that observation I made this sweeping statement:

"Christianity" has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed "spiritual" substitute.

I stand by that statement. As would, I think, most of the Old Testament prophets. And Jesus.

But maybe I'm wrong.

I say that because I found myself quoted at the start of Chapter 7--"Do Christians Love Others?"--in Bradley Wright's book Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...And Other Lies You've Been Told.

Bradley is a sociologist from the University of Connecticut who blogs over at Black, White and Gray. Bradley's book Christians Are... was, I think, somewhat in response to the book unChristian, which used survey research to describe how Christians behave, well, unChristianly. Bradley's book seeks to take a second look and wants to correct some of the exaggerations and negative stereotypes regarding Christians, particularly Evangelical Christians. Hence the title "Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...And Other Lies You've Been Told."

Toward that end, at the start of each chapter of Christians Are... Bradley begins with quotations selected to illustrate a negative stereotype about Christians. A stereotype that is, presumably, a "lie." Starting with those quotes/"lies" Bradley goes on to review data, mainly survey data from the General Social Survey (GSS), to evaluate these negative stereotypes/"lies." As you might guess from the title of the book, after surveying the data in each chapter these stereotypes come to be seen as exaggerated, overblown or outright wrong--the "lies" from the title. Chapter titles include "Are We Losing our Young People?" and "Have Christians Gone Wild?" And one of the chapters is entitled "Do Christians Love Others?"

And that's where my quote comes in. At the start of Chapter 7 in Christians Are... you read, with two quotes from others, my assessment that "'Christianity' has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed 'spiritual' substitute."

As you might imagine, I was, in turn, startled, flattered and then worried to find my quote at the start of the chapter. Everyone likes to be quoted. But not in this manner! I've never met Bradley and hadn't known he had selected my quote as an illustrative "lie." So after my surprise I was a bit anxious and keen to read the chapter.

Maybe I'd overstated my case. Had I lied?

What I want to do, for the rest of this post, is to walk through the evidence Bradley cites in the chapter "Do Christians Love Others?" to see how my quotation fares. I'm going to break my analysis down by the Chapter 7 subheadings.

Do Christians Love Others?

Summary:
The first section of the chapter is entitled "Do Christians Love Others?" In this section data is reviewed from the GSS about how religious groups responded to two questions: 1) how often the respondent feels a selfless caring for others and 2) how often the respondent accepts others when others do things the respondent thinks are wrong. Overall, "Black Protestants, especially, and Evangelical Christians score highest on these measures, with about 40% or more agreeing that they selflessly care for and accept others. In contrast, only about 25% of the religiously unaffiliated report doing so."

The section goes on to look at other items on the GSS assessing "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me" and "When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective toward them." Again, Evangelicals score high on these self-assessments: "Eighty percent of the Evangelical respondents reported being concerned for those less fortunate, and 86% reported feeling protective toward those taken advantage of. In contrast, the religiously unaffiliated group registered the lowest scores, with 68% reporting concern and 75% feeling protective."

The section also reviews three other GSS questions similar to the ones above and the results come out the same: Evangelicals rate themselves higher than others.

Analysis:
So, what can we say about this? Hard to say, right? This could be good news or bad news depending upon behavior. Particularly when the label hypocrisy is in play. It's clear that Evangelicals see themselves as loving and caring. But are they? If they are, this is all good news. But if they aren't this is very, very bad news. In fact, this would be the news I delivered in my chapter-leading quote: religion is making Christians feel better about themselves at the expense of actually being better.

So is this a case of self-description or self-deception? For my part, to pick one example, I have some serious reservations about Evangelicals rating themselves so high (the highest!) on accepting people who are doing something Evangelicals think is wrong. Seriously? Evangelicals are the most accepting people when, say, they are dealing with a woman getting an abortion or gay marriage? There's not a wee bit of self-deception in play here?

Do Christian Actions Reveal Love?

Summary: Acts of Charity
In this section we move away from self-assessment to behavior (though even these "behaviors" are still self-reported survey items on the GSS and, thus, still prone to bias). The GSS asks two charity-related items: During the last twelve months how often have you "given food or money to a homeless person?" and "done volunteer work for a charity?" (Bradley focuses on those who said they have done either of these at least twice a year.)

The results for the first question: "Forty-eight percent of Evangelical respondents had given food or money to the homeless twice or more in the previous year. This put them at the low end of the observed range, for 60% of the Black Protestants gave to the homeless as did slightly over half the Catholics and members of other religions. The Evangelical rate of giving is similar to the 44% of Mainline Protestants and religiously unaffiliated."

The news was a little better for Evangelicals on the question about volunteering for a charity (does teaching Sunday School count here?): "Mainline Protestants were the most likely to volunteer (43%), followed closely behind by Evangelicals (37%), members of other religions (35%), Catholics (33%), Black Protestants (31%), and, lastly, the religiously unaffiliated (25%)."

Analysis:
Hmmmm. So let's get this straight. Evangelicals see themselves as very loving. And yet, when it comes to, you know, helping homeless people they aren't any different from the religiously unaffiliated (a group that could include, say, Satanists). This isn't good news for a group claiming to follow a Lord who taught:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

So I'm wondering. Might this disjoint between self-assessment and behavior be the thing that's grating outsiders about Evangelicals?

Summary: Small Acts of Kindness
This section of the chapter goes on to discuss GSS items that assess more workaday acts of kindness: How often in the past year have you "looked after a person's plants, mail, or pets while they were away"; "offered your seat on a bus or in a public place to a stranger who was standing"; or "carried a stranger's belongings, like groceries, a suitcase, or a shopping bag?"

For my part, as huge advocate of kindness, I'm very interested in this sort of behavior. The results: "When it comes to looking after other people's stuff, Mainline Protestants and Evangelicals were the most likely to do so (52% and 46% respectively). But with offering a seat to others or helping them carry their stuff, on the other hand, Evangelicals and Mainline Protestants scored low. Members of other religions are the most likely to do both (35% and 40% respectively)."

Analysis:
This seems pretty damning. Looking after people's stuff is a nice gesture. But it doesn't assess acts of kindness to strangers, a key teaching for Christians: "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it." But on this key criterion, kindness to strangers, other religions and the irreligious do better than Evangelical Christians.

Attitudes Toward Other Groups

In this section Bradley turns to attitudes about social groups: social class, race, and sexual orientation. I'll summarize each in turn.

Summary: Attitudes toward Rich and Poor
Bradley remarks that he couldn't find a good measure of attitudes regarding justice-related issues. As he notes, positive or negative feelings about a government program aimed at helping the poor conflate "a concern for the poor with attitudes toward government involvement in social programs." Still, I would really like to see the numbers on this. If care of the poor is a top priority wouldn't you feel more, rather than less, positively about your tax dollars being spent in this way? If Christians don't mind the government building bombs why would they mind it building, say, schools or health care clinics?

Bradley eventually settled on two "feeling thermometer" (1 to 100) ratings about the rich and poor from the 2006 Social Capital Community Study. The results aren't all that interesting, likely due to the measure: "Each of the four religious groups [Protestants, Catholics, Other Religions, Unaffiliated] stated warmer feelings toward the poor than the rich...In terms of the gap between poor and rich ratings, there wasn't a lot of difference between groups."

Analysis:
The rich can't catch a break! It's nice to see the preferential option for the poor found among just about everyone.

Summary: Attitudes about Race
The actual title for this subsection is "A Disappointing Discovery About Race." Bradley only looks here at data for White respondents. His opening salvo: "The analyses that I present here constitute, in my opinion, bad news for Evangelical Christians..."

The analysis starts with data from a 1-8 point "feeling thermometer": "In general, how warm or cool do you feel feel toward Whites, Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics." Every religious group liked themselves (fellow Whites) the best. The data on those Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics: "There is some variation in feelings toward minorities, however, with members of other religions having the overall warmest feelings toward Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics." The highest ratings came from Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated. The lowest ratings? Evangelicals.

Bradley goes on to look at another question: Would these religious groups hold race against a political candidate? The results: "A full 19% of Protestant respondents would hold a Hispanic candidate's ethnicity against them, as would 11% of Catholics and about 9% of members of other religions and the religiously unaffiliated. Similar proportions hold for Black candidates, albeit at substantially reduced levels. Seven percent of Protestants would be less likely to vote for a Black candidate, compared to 6% of Catholics and 3% of the religiously unaffiliated and members of other religions." For some reason, the Protestant group here wasn't broken down to reveal the particular feelings of Evangelicals. But as Protestants they are the religious group most likely to hold race against a person running for political office.

The final question examined in this section had to do with attitudes toward inter-racial marriage within the family. The question: How do you feel about "having a close relative or family member marry a ____ person?" with the blank being filled in with Black, Asian-American, or Hispanic-American. The results: "According to the survey, opposition to marrying a non-White person varies widely by religion, and, overall, Evangelicals were the most opposed to it." Guess who were most accepting? You guessed it. The religiously unaffiliated.

Analysis:
To start, let's be clear that most Evangelicals are not racist. But based on this data Evangelicals are more likely to be racist compared to all the other religious groups, including the irreligious. And that's just embarrassing. Beyond embarrassing. When non-Christians are more Christ-like we have a problem.

Summary: Attitudes about Gays
No surprise that Evangelicals don't approve of gay sexual relations. This is expected given their views that this activity is sinful. But what about the "love the sinner, hate the sin" dynamic? And let's remember the finding from above: Evangelicals report being the most accepting of people (compared to other religious groups), even when those people are doing things they disagree with. So, do Evangelicals separate their feelings about gay behavior from their feelings about gay persons? The results from another "feeling thermometer": Of all the religious groups Evangelicals score the lowest with the most negative feelings toward gays as people.

What about a GSS question regarding freedom of speech and Constitutional liberty: "If an openly gay man wanted to make a speech in your community, should he be allowed to?" As Bradley says, "Denying anyone the right of free speech seems particularly harsh." So how do Christian groups fare? Bradley's summary: "Evangelical Christians show relatively high levels of this form of intolerance." Higher than all other religious groups, including the irreligious.

Analysis:
Not surprisingly, Evangelicals are the most rejecting of gay persons. Willing, even, to scrap the Constitution and First Amendment rights.

Some Good News: Young People & Church Attendance

The chapter does end with some better news pointing to more positive trends among younger Evangelicals and among the most church going Evangelicals.

Overall Conclusions: Did I Tell A Lie?
So, what are we to make of all this? Are Christians hate-filled hypocrites? And what about the status of my quote in light of all the data?

Let's start with the label hypocrite. I take this label to mean a disjoint between self-appraisal and behavior. Do we see that in the data Bradley presents? I think so. Recall, Evangelicals rated themselves the most "loving" of all the other religious groups. And yet, when we look at the ratings of actual behaviors and attitudes toward others, Evangelicals are no better, and often worse, than others. The word hypocrisy could be applied here.

What about being hate-filled? Well, hate is a pretty strong word. In social psychology it's a word to describe feelings toward out-group members (though each of us can hate particular people for a variety of reasons). So how to Evangelicals look when we examine their feelings toward out-group members? What we find is, in Bradley's own estimation, the most disappointing findings in the entire book. Compared to all the religious groups, including the irreligious, Evangelicals are more prone to hate when it comes to out-group members (e.g., Blacks, gays). This is not to say that Evangelicals are more hate-filled. But the seeds of hate seem to be more deeply sown in the soil of the Evangelical heart than anywhere else in American society (or, at least, among the groups examined in Bradley's book, which did include the irreligious).

Let's now turn to my quote. Is "Christianity" a mechanism for allowing people to replace being a decent human being with an endorsed "spiritual" substitute? If we examine the overall group means from the chapter we are left with the conclusion that Evangelicals aren't any better, and are often worse, than others. And yet, they seem to feel pretty good about themselves, morally speaking. What can account for that disjoint? I think my hypothesis of "religiosity" creating an illusion of morality is a plausible explanation. (For more on the psychological dynamics of this "replacement" effect see my discussion of the Macbeth Effect in Unclean.)

All in all, then, I think I'll stick by my original analysis. I didn't see anything in Chapter 7 of Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...And Other Lies You've Been Told that would make me change my mind.

In fact, I might have been telling the truth.