Justice, Silence, and Grace.

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

Racism, child abuse, slavery, the fate of the lost, abortion, poverty, war, pornography, doctrinal compromise, substance abuse, etc.

Which of these is the MOST important?

Which of these MOST deserves your "speaking out"?

If you had to rank them, which would come out on top?

Which is the one which demands the church's voice NOW more than ever?

If you are simply consulting yourself, you might be able to find a clear place for one or two, but I'm betting there'd be one or where you'd have trouble deciding which went where.

If, instead, you are consulting someone else, you might be able to agree on one or two, but I'm betting there'd be one or two where you couldn't find common ground.

If planning a course of action, you might be able to agree on THE correct policy for one or two, but I'm betting there'd be one or two where you and a friend come to diametrically opposed ways forward.

If one of you thinks that a quiet approach is better than confrontation, the other may think that a strong public statement is in order.

If you think contemporary events demands that X be emphasized, your friend may think that it is Y that needs more attention.

You may decide to dedicate your Twitter/Facebook feed to "raising awareness" about one of these real problems, but your friend may find that the "dialogue" is doing nothing to help.

You may find it incomprehensible that anyone could remain silent about one of these, while your friend finds your silence on another one just as morally baffling.

You may conclude that it is best to stand up to those who support an immoral activity, but your friend may decide that this will only feed the fire.

How many people today blame the politically active evangelical church of earlier years for driving away nonbelievers because of the church's attention to abortion?

How many people today blame the politically inactive evangelical church of earlier years for driving away nonbelievers because of the church INattention to racism?

Maybe in twenty years you'll decide that the church's focus today was too much on one issue, your friend will find that the focus was too little.

Maybe in twenty years you'll decide that it was you who had the focus too much in one place and that maybe your friend was right.

We may tell ourselves that each of these issues is valuable and that they each deserve equal attention, but we can never be as engaged with any one of them as we'd like, let alone all of them. With only twenty-four hours in the day, and the daily grind of providing for our families taking up most of those, we cannot be fully "on" for each of these all the time.

It is inevitable that members of Christ's body will disagree about what is the most pressing issue of the day. Sometimes this is a matter of disagreement, but sometimes it is a matter of discerning what was needed at that moment. James, at his time and place, found it necessary to warn the church against abandoning works in the quest faith. Paul, at his time and place, found it necessary to warn the church against abandoning faith in the quest for works.

Sometimes this is a matter of a particular sensitivity you have towards one or another problem. Perhaps the pain of that issue in your own life will lead you to focus on it. Perhaps the realization that the comfort of your life was not shared by others will lead you to focus on another. Perhaps, seemingly out of nowhere, God will have led you to care about one of these more than you do another. This is not a failing but the way God has led you to spread his kingdom in this particular way.

For you, in the place where God has called you to serve him, perhaps one of these very real problems will be the thing which dominates your thinking, either for just a season or perhaps your entire life. For your friends, in their places, perhaps it will be another one which will define their moral quest.

As we do this, as we seek to encourage Christ's kingdom in this world, let us keep a few things in mind. We must always make sure that it is Christ and his glory that we seek. Let us not be like Martha, whose tasks serving the Lord distracted her from waiting on the Lord and his leading as did her sister, Mary. We can, like the proverbial cart and horse, all too easily shift our focus from following Christ onto an path to following path whether Christ is there or not.

We must always make sure that we remember that just as we have been wrong before, as a church or as individuals, we may be wrong now. Much of the passion fueling the socio-political debates going on right now flows from the conviction that the church of the past got it wrong and we must now get it right. We look at the past and we say that they believed the wrong things or did the wrong things or didn't do the right things or didn't say the right things.

If we are able to look back fifty years, a hundred years, a thousand years, and say that they were wrong, then what are the chances that our little brothers and sisters in the Lord will not do the same? Will they not look back fifty years, a hundred years, a thousand years, into our time and say that we got it wrong, that we had the wrong emphasis, that we were silent when should have spoken or spoke when we should have been silent? We all like to think that the future will only judge others in this way. But, if others in the past, just like us, were confident that they had chosen the right path, just like us, what are the chances that those of the future, just like us, will not find some great failing in our lives as we have found fault in others?

Finally, we must be gracious with one another. Maybe your friend is wrong, but maybe it is you who is wrong. If you think that your brothers or sisters in Christ are wrong by their emphasis or inattention, by their actions or inactions, by the statements or silence, then by all means plead with them, argue with them, challenge them, try to get them to see it another way, but we must do it in a way that grants to them the grace that they might be right and the humility that we might be wrong. They might well be in the wrong. They might be failing to see how their choice is harmful, or they may even be guilty of supporting an evil in the world. This in no way releases us from the call to love one another.

Love doesn't mean coddling. There is a time for vigorous debate and a time to challenge one another. The Bible is full of prophets and apostles using strong language to condemn evil, but it also full of those same prophets and apostles speaking grace to those same sinners. Love can and, at times, demands confrontation. Love doesn't mean accommodation of evil, but love does mean love. If, in our disagreements with one another, we cannot see ourselves in the words I Corinthians 13, then what are we doing? If our passion for the work of Christ leads us to speak derisively of the Bride of Christ, then perhaps we need to reevaluate our priorities.

The Legacy of the Reformation

I was recently asked to "briefly" discuss the legacy of the Reformation, and that is just mean. Asking a historical theologian to describe the significance of the Reformation and its legacies briefly is a cruel and unusual punishment. Whether speaking of the general scope of “secular” history or specifically in reference to historical theology, the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century is one of the most significant events in all of the grand story of humanity. It was at one and the same time a great retrograde revolution which sought to turn back the clock and an integral moment in the creation of the modern world. Its legacies include both the good and the bad, the heroic and the villainous, the social, political, artistic, economic, and philosophical make-up of the Western world. Then, through the subsequent European conquest of much of the globe, it helped to shape the course of history since its time.

While there are a myriad ways to approach so overwhelming a topic, there is one moment which exemplifies so much of the era and all that flowed from it. In April 1521 Martin Luther was called before the Diet of Worms. There, he stood before the powerful man in the world and said, “No.” He had already been condemned by Pope Leo X, the spiritual head of Western Christianity. Now he told Charles V, king of Spain, Austria, the Low Countries, vast swaths of the Americas, and Holy Roman Emperor that he was wrong and Luther was right. In contrast to the inertia of human society which puts great weight in the consensus of numbers, Luther declared that he was willing to die for his beliefs unless he could be convinced by Scripture or simple reason. Echoing the words attributed to Athanasius so many centuries before, Luther stood against the world.

So very much of the Reformation and its legacies, both good and bad, are encapsulated in this moment. This is the manifestation of the previous few decades of protest against church corruption. This is the culmination of humanist tradition challenging the weight of custom by looking back before the prior few centuries. This is the declaration that the gradual accretion of church traditions could not overrule the Word of God and that there was a standard by which to judge all human institutions, whether church or state. This is the archetype of the bold individual standing for truth against all authorities, decades before Galileo was even born.

From this inspiration came the great explosion of protests against political and religious powers and a constellation of sometimes allied, sometimes warring Christian entities. Within the decade the German speaking world had Lutheran, Anabaptist, and Reformed denominations. Within three decades the French speaking world was fractured into Calvinist and Catholic factions and the British Isles were seesawing between Rome and Geneva. By the end of the century this second great schism of Christendom was recognized as permanent.

European society was shattered, and the age of religious wars that had begun in Luther’s day would not come to an end until 1648. Yet this story of division was not the only one to come out of the Diet of Worms. There was also the story of political liberty which, although it took quite some time and many wars to become realized, had its antecedent that one moment of defiance. In the following decades Puritans, Huguenots, Jansenists, and Dutch rebels would lay the intellectual foundation for liberty of conscience a century before Voltaire or Jefferson.

This focus on the Bible as the supreme authority had its great social and even effect in the breaking of the dichotomy of life into sacred and secular spheres. Suddenly butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers were possessed of as much dignity as any prince or prelate. Extra-biblical restraints on financial activities were removed and cash flowed and news means of production were implemented. The elevation of commoners in art begun with the Renaissance in Italy continued among the Dutch of the Reformation. The idea that consensus of the majority was not coextensive with the truth greased the wheels of the Scientific Revolution and set the stage for the technological advancements of the Industrial Revolution.

The power of the individual to stand against authority had its great and positive effects and also its great and negative effects. The epistemological crisis sparked in part by the Reformation and the wars which followed led to the skepticism and overconfidence of the Enlightenment. Rather than standing against the world on the basis of Scripture and simple reason, now people stood against others and the universe itself on the basis of their flawed perceptions and limited perspectives. In our day this principle had devolved into the Magisterium of the transient moment, where all values and truth-claims shift as quickly the latest clothing fad, and the Protestant doctrine of the priesthood of all believers has mutated into the demand for all individuals to create God, the universe, and their own selves in their own image of themselves.

And yet, even with such dour results as some of these, the overall legacy of the Reformation is positive, indeed. In the 1950s movie on the life of Martin Luther, there was a scene where the then-monk Luther was speaking to his fellow Augustinians about the glories of the grace of God even as he was coming to an awareness himself. After he longs that the common people of the world could see such divine grace, a superior chides Luther, asking what would happen if all ordinary believers had the Bible in their own hands to interpret for themselves. Luther then broke into a broad grin and enthusiastically replied, “Why, then we might have more Christians, Father!” Through the efforts of Luther, Calvin, and many others, the gospel of Jesus Christ was set free and salvation came to many around the world who would otherwise have remained lost.

Loving Our Sinful Neighbors

In our current day we are confused as to how to treat those caught up in a scandalous sin. By scandalous sin I mean those sins that gain notoriety, rightly or wrongly, among Christians. So, someone who yells at his kids on occasion is seen as bad but not seen as extraordinarily so. However, someone who beats his kids is scandalized for life. Someone who drank too much at a party is not ostracized in the same way as the person who is a fully fledged alcoholic. The entire nexus of homosexuality and transgenderism is a scandalous sin in that its commission causes others to treat the commissioner differently. Some say our approach in the past has been too negative, too condemning, and simply too un-Christ-like. Others say that the nature of this scandalous sin make it so that we cannot approach these sinners in a way that enables their sin anymore than we ought to love our alcoholic neighbor by buying him a drink.

The clear message of the life of Christ is that he went and dined with sinners. He went and had fellowship with them. He did not avoid them but sought them out. He did not turn them away but accepted their invitations. He did this with those like the prostitutes whose sin was also their curse. They likely had no more desire to live that life than women caught in that lifestyle do today. He did this with those like the tax collectors whose sin involved the oppression and exploitation of others. He did this with those like the Pharisees whose sin blinded them to their own need of salvation. There is not a type of sin so grievous that it extends beyond the power of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. There is not a type of sin so scandalous that it alleviates us from our calling to follow Christ’s example in loving our neighbors and enemies. Towards those caught up in sins of sexuality our attitude must be the same as our stance towards the alcoholic or the white-liar or the anger prone. Christ died for sinners like us and calls us to love sinners like us.

My life passage for this sort of thing is in John 8. When the woman who had been caught in adultery is presented to Jesus to test him, he challenges her accusers to consider their own sin. This is a great mercy. He could have merely shamed them for their self-righteousness, but he invites them to look back on their own lives and wonder if their sins put them in a higher place than her. To a man they turned back, the older ones first. Did they turn back first because they had more to be sorry for? Or, being older, did they lack something of the innate self-righteousness of youth? Who knows? But this isn’t the end of Christ’s mercy to sinners. When the woman says that there were no accusers left, Jesus first said that he, too, would not condemn her. Stopping there it sounds like Christ did not care about her sin. Please note, there’s nothing to suggest that she was falsely accused here. Contrary to those who see sexual sins as old fashioned, it is clear that she had sinned. Christ then did two things. He forgave her for her sins and told her to go and sin no more. The contemporary-Christ would not have found her behavior a problem and so would not have had need to forgive her. Likewise, in his forgiveness he did not affirm her adulterous lifestyle but told her to change her ways.

In our current situation there are those who wish to use the practices of Jesus as proof that the Christ-like life will not speak against the newly popular homosexual or trans lifestyle. They say that love and guidance cannot go hand, but this goes against the very practice of Christ. He called sinners to himself for forgiveness and called them to leave their sinful ways in obedience to him. The women who left their prostitution to follow him did not continue to sell themselves, Matthew did not keep up his tax collection racket, and Paul did not remain in the Pharisaical path. Christ reached out to each of them and drew them to himself in forgiveness and love, a love that included drawing them into a new lifestyle, whether or not the contemporary culture affirmed that lifestyle.

Indeed, let us follow the pattern of Christ in our interaction with our neighbors and our enemies. The amazing thing about Christ’s life here among us sinners was not that he was nice to nice people. The amazing thing was that he was nice to awful people. The amazing thing about Christian grace is that it is offered to those who actively do not deserve it. When we reach out and befriend our sinful neighbor, whether their sins are scandalous or mundane, we do so with the pattern of the God who dined with the likes of us. When we reach out and befriend our sinful neighbor, whether their sins are the self-righteousness of the old school religious right or the self-righteousness of the too cool for school religious left, we do so with the pattern of the God who created the world with its glories and pleasures and called it “Good.”

Let us love the guilty around us with the love of the one who while we were still sinners, died for us. Let us convince them of his way not by shaming them for their sin nor by telling them that sin is no cause for shame. Let us invite into our homes those who have no right to claim our attention. Let us show them the love that has been shown to us and point them to the one who will lead us away from our sin and not merely accepts us as we are. Let us lead them to the one who calls us to love our neighbors and to obey his commandments. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Why Paris Matters

Yet again the world is in mourning for the City of Lights. First, there was the assault on the Charlie Hebdo offices by radical Islamists who killed 12 in Paris this past January. Now, on Friday the thirteenth no less, over a hundred men and women were slaughtered by those claimed by ISIS, a Muslim terrorist state with dreams of global outreach. Once again social media has erupted in support, even out in the normally Franco-phobic US and UK.

Nobody says that we should not mourn this day. How could they? People attending a concert and going to the café were gunned down or blown up for the offense of being free. Image bearers of God were butchered, all in the name of serving an imaginary God.

There have been, however, those who have offered quiet criticism of the outpouring of grief for France. Not unreasonably they ask why the world is so distraught about this tragedy when the other places are filled with many other events of equal or greater horror? Every other Facebook photo is emblazoned with the Tricolor of France within hours of this Parisian massacre when few in the West made similar symbolic tokens when terrorists attacked African or Near Eastern targets. Though not always explicit, there is the tacit accusation that the West cares less about the dark-skinned victims of Islamic terror than the fair-skinned denizens of Paris. While this is in many ways an understandable reaction, there is good reason for us all to cry, “Vive la France!”

We care more about France for the same reason we are more shaken by a loved one’s death than we are by the loss of a complete stranger. Crying over a friend’s death doesn’t mean that we think the stranger’s life didn’t matter. The stranger was just as much made in God’s image as our friend. It does means that the personal connection we have with our friend leaves a gaping hole in our hearts while the stranger’s tragedy brings us only a sympathetic sigh.

Despite our familial squabbles, France stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States and Britain against German Fascists and Russian Communists throughout the 1900s. We don’t always agree with those “cheese eating surrender monkeys,” but they have been a beacon and inspiration for human dignity and liberty since the end of the 1700s. Like anyone else their witness for freedom has been flickering at times, but French writers and thinkers have been the source of many great movements around the world for the general welfare of humanity as a whole. An attack on France is symbolically an attack on the liberty, equality, and fraternity of us all.

For Americans and those in the West in general, France is no stranger. We cannot keep their pains at an arm’s length the way we do with others. We are forced to see that in them the horror which could just as easily be ours. We share a culture heritage and mythic imagination with France in a way that we do not with others around the world. When we see terrorism in Paris or London, we are forced to see the reality of this war in the same way that a death of a loved shocks us the way a stranger’s death does not.

We are personal beings who have emotional attachments to everything our lives touch. To ask people to mourn for everyone’s death the same does not increase our humanity. It demeans it. If I were to tell you that I do not care for my own children any more than I care for a complete stranger, you would hardly compliment me on my great love for all humanity. In fact, you would wonder what kind of person could say such a thing.

Should we remember that death and destruction are unwelcome and all too common visitors to those outside the Shire of the West? By all means! We should all work to make ourselves more aware of the indignities which are tragically ordinary in our supposedly progressive age. The world is still with darkness filled, and the pain of God’s image bearers does not change by its association with us. Their deaths mattered. But, please, let us have no shaming of others for their pain for this shadow of darkness in the City of Lights. We take this attack personally because the people attacked matter to us personally. Our love of loved ones is not hatred of others.

The Loyal Rebels

When faced with accusations of civil disorder and state corruption, Christians can be tempted to despair over our response. The cry for justice and the call to obey the state present a seeming contradiction for believers. Some want to revolt against the powers that be while others want to support the lawful authorities. It's a tricky thing, for sure, but we have reason to hope that the testimony of the Bible has not failed us here.

The beauty and the difficulty of the classical Christian view of the state is its complex realism. The endemic corruptness of humanity demands an agent of force to curtail the worst of our natures. Without security we cannot have even the limited human flourishing possible in a post-Fall world. However, as the state, like Soylent Green, is made of people, this same corrupted human nature adheres to those humans comprising the state.

We hear that we are not to put our trust in princes, yet we also hear that we are to pray for the peace of a Babylon, a state which was hardly the acme of enlightened rule. Paul can describe the state as the minister of God and Peter can call on Christians to submit to the government, all in the context of a Roman system that makes American cops look like a bunch of fuzzy kittens. Yet, that's kind of hard to say, isn't it? Saying, "You don't have it so bad as others," works about as well in this context as it does telling someone that their physical pain or loss of their liberty isn't as bad as so and so over there has it.

Christianity offers contingent support to the state because it recognizes what the state truly is, a stopgap measure for the post-Fall, pre-glorification world that was never intended as the final guarantor of justice. In this way Augustine of Hippo was able to offer robust support of state authority even as he railed against all governments as nothing more than bandits whose territory increased enough to be called a kingdom. Christianity offers neither an absolute support for the state nor suggests that our support for the state is conditioned on our political preferences.

Both the "Back the Badge" and the "No Justice, No Peace" crowds fail in the same way as they each assume there can be such a thing as an non-corrupt state. The first assumes that God's ordination of the state entails the inevitability of justice from such a pure source while the second believes that any sign of injustice means God has not ordained this state. Both underestimate the extensiveness of the Fall. Both absolutize the state in a way not found in the Bible.

While many think this is a problem, I don't think this is Christianity's great weak point but one of its great strengths. The Bible offers example after example of the need for a corrupted people to have a state to hem them in. Yet, it offers example after example of corrupted rulers making a mess of things. It offers, in the Fall, an explanation for the presence of injustice yet also, in the reality of a personal God who has created a good world and who is redeeming that world, it provides a hope for an expansion of justice in this world.

Despite its pretensions to the contrary, atheism offers no hope in the face of injustice and oppression. In a purely materialist universe human rights devolve into social conventions on the level saying "Excuse me," after belching, pleasantries with no enduring value. Christianity, on the other hand, offers someone to complain to. In his book, The Rebel, my favorite non-Christian writer, Albert Camus, said this, "The only thing that gives meaning to human protest is the idea of a personal god who has created, and is therefore responsible for, everything. And so we can say, without being paradoxical, that in the Western World the history of rebellion is inseparable from the history of Christianity."

Christianity provides the rationale for a state and the basis for strong opposition to that state.

An Evangelical by Any Other Name

I recently told my students that if they could manage to come up with a definition of “Evangelicalism” that everybody could agree on, they could make a lot of money. It is one of those terms that everyone uses but few have a handle on what it really means. Unlike its related but equally ephemeral cousin, “fundamentalism,” evangelicalism still retains an occasional positive connotation. Sadly, the once proud term fundamentalist has been largely reduced to a second and third person invective. “You” or “they” might be fundamentalist, but “we” or “I” hardly ever are. In much the say way, these definitions of evangelicalism say more about the speakers than they do about actual evangelicals. Pundits use it to describe Koran burners and televangelists, politicians use it to analyze a special interest group, and others ponder whether “Ee-vangelical” means something different than “Eh-vangelical.”

In the past it was fairly straightforward to the point that it was often quipped that an evangelical is simply someone who likes Billy Graham. Today it has become increasingly complex as no definition seems complete without an attendant hyphen, leaving us with “evangelical-feminist,” “the evangelical-left,” and even “evangelical-Catholic.” If Al Mohler and Jim Wallis, Joel Osteen and Tim Keller can all be evangelical despite mutually exclusive ideas, what on earth does it mean in the first place? We may soon find ourselves with a definition so diluted of content that we borrow from Francis Schaeffer’s “true truth” and say that an evangelical-evangelical is someone who actually believes in evangelicalism.

Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. We find now that we can turn to a paragon of subtly for a solution to our problem. Responding to the recent hullabaloo over religious liberty laws in Indiana, Steve “Stone Cold” Austin forwarded his two cents in a commentary heavy with the dew of profanity. Although you may enjoy a more full exposition of his thought here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/steve-austin-gay-marriage_n_5205212.html his terminology is somewhat more . . . colorful . . . than would be appropriate in this venue. We can paraphrase him to say that he objects to the idea that Christians think they have spoken to God and that Christians believe that the worst of criminals can go to heaven. Whether meaning to do so or not, the erstwhile wrestles pins on Christians two complaints which go to the heart of evangelical identity: revelation and redemption.

Evangelicals hold to a radical view of revelation. This is not, as Mr. Austin characterizes it, a matter of Christians going up and speaking to God, but, rather, that he has come down and spoken to us. Were Austin’s description accurate, this would be objectionable, as it would leave us dependent on the recollections of the few who made the trip to heaven rather than on the sure report of the self-revealing God who came down to us. But this is not so. The evangelical identity is built upon the idea that we have in the Bible God’s message to humanity and not merely the theological musings of people long gone. The evangelical identity is built on the principle that, as it is his message to us, we are not in the position of deciding which parts to believe or to obey, as though theological study were a middle school Bible study where we ask, “What does this mean to you?” It is to the pattern set by him that we are to conform our preferences and not the other way around. The word of God to humanity is not subject to the whims of a postmodern literary theory any more than it was limited by the preconceptions of a Medieval Magisterium.

Evangelicals also hold to a radical view of redemption. Mr. Austin objects that a murderer and molester should not be able to go to heaven after the life he has led. Implicit in Mr. Stone Cold’s complaint is the idea that heaven should be for those who deserve it, for those who have lived a life on earth worthy of a reward in heaven. It also implies that those of us who are not murderers and rapists can have the confidence that we belong to this latter group. We can know that our own merits will pave our road into the New Jerusalem. The cross of Christ becomes only an example to follow and not a necessity of life. It is the radical claim of evangelicalism that a sinner such as Mr. Austin described can indeed be saved. This view of redemption defining evangelicalism is that the sins of the best of us are so great that it required the death of God to save us, and, yet, the work of Christ is so overwhelming that it overcomes the vilest soul imaginable. There is no saint so pure or sinner so foul that the work of Christ is not the sole and sure hope of each.

Evangelicals are those who hope in the evangel of God. The message of God has come down to humanity, and the presence of God has come down to Earth. Evangelicals are those who base their lives on the hope that God has spoken and that God has acted. This good news of God both transcends and transforms our cultural moment and personal predilections. Our old traditions and new innovations cannot stand in between the word God speaks of himself and the people he saves for himself. We are able to speak into the controversies of life, not because we have access to God but because he has accessed the world through his word. We are able to hope for a changed world where all is made new, not because we have kept off contemporary society’s naughty list but because Christ died for the ungodly.

Presumably Mr. “Cold” did not intend on getting to the crux of the issue so pointedly as he did. Nonetheless, we find in his analysis an important reminder of the reality of God’s word and the centrality of the cross. We may, and undoubtedly will, continue to quibble over just what or who constitutes an evangelical. But, if we lose either of these points, that God’s word is not subject to our transitory impressions and that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the solitary and unmediated path to God, we can throw around any definitions we want to. If we lose the evangel of God, our evangelicalism becomes a meaningless anyhow.

Is There Virtue in Silence?

“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish.” Esther 4:14

“For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven . . . a time to tear, and a time to sew, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” Ecclesiastes 3:1, 7.

In moments of crisis and stress, the call often goes out for Christians publicly to take a stand about the issue, even if that stand is as simple as a social media posting indicating support or opposition. Obviously, the greatest portion of anger is directed towards those who chose to speak out in an inappropriate way, those who, by their word choice or basic position place themselves outside what is considered moral behavior and opinon. Yet these are not alone in incurring the wrath of those of us who see this or that as the defining moment when a prophetic call is needed. There are times when we condemn the absence of a statement as complicity with the evil of the day with nearly as much passion as we do those who speak wrongly.

Are there times when silence in the presence of evil is evil itself? Certainly. There are moments when silence is acquiescence. When faced with a grave injustice it is quite possible that we choose to say or to do nothing because we approve of the sin we see. We can think of the German Christians, saying nothing as their Jewish neighbors disappeared, one by one. If we are greedy ourselves, we may refuse to condemn those who exploit others for financial gain. If we are gossips, we may turn a blind eye towards the slander done by others. If we indulge in pornography, we are unlikely to condemn it practice in others. If we carry hatred in our hearts towards another branch of Father Adam’s family tree, we may well find reasons to avoid comment when racial injustice stares us in the face.

Are there times when such a silence, though not malicious, is still the sign of a hard heart, apathetic to the plight of others? By all means. Fiddling while our own Rome burns, we can’t be bothered by the misfortune affecting other people. We in the West with our ample refrigerators and even more ample waistlines shake our heads about the starving peoples of the world, and then head back to our gluttony. We see the suffering of the persecuted church, and then think only to thank God that we’re American. We may dislike the idea of abortion, but we can’t be bothered to rock the boat by saying so publicly. We who are white see the lack of opportunities and hostility endured by ethnic minorities, stoop only offer a prayer that Jesus would come soon, but then go back to our trust funds and friendly policemen.

For many who have raised their voices in protest about a social or moral problem, this is where the story ends. We look with disdain at those who do not take the stand we do or, perhaps, who do so in a different way. When we hear their silence, we can see no alternative but that either acquiescence or apathy rules the hearts of our taciturn neighbors. Is this so? Rarely do we ask ourselves if there might be more going on in our brother’s or sister’s souls than what we will allow for them.

There is another reason for silence, although it is rather less dramatic than the other options. It is a reason which even those who speak boldly concerning situation “A” might find appealing when it comes to situation “B.” It is the silence born of prudence. It is the silence we share when we decide that, whatever the merits of the crisis at hand, speaking out at this moment would not be wise. It may be as private as dealing with an unbelieving coworker involved in some obvious sin and asking ourselves whether the more constructive approach is confronting or ignoring. It may be as public as supporting a political party for the sake of one part of their platform even though we know full well that this means implicitly supporting another part of their agenda which makes our conscience squirm.

Perhaps it is a situation which we think all Christians should avoid addressing publicly. Perhaps it is one where we think that only we ourselves should stand back. We may be glad that the discussion is going on, and that others are speaking up. Yet we still may decide, at times, that we are not pleased with the way it is progressing and that our own particular contribution will not be constructive, for one reason or another. Any of us may imagine a moment, and more likely we have experienced a moment when we, too, have decided, for whatever reasons, that godly wisdom entails silence in the face of sin.

This will be of small comfort to those who have concluded that this moment or this crisis is the time to speak. What is more, we may be right. The moment we see today or tomorrow might well be one of those times when it is irresponsible of any Christian to refuse to let their voices be heard. It might be that to stay silent now makes us culpable of accommodating sin. Yet, when we say that there is no moral option other than the one we have chosen, we must be on our guard that we have not limited wisdom to what we can imagine in our finite and fallen minds.

The combination of life’s complexity and human frailty entails that there will be disagreements in this life. We will not all agree on all issues. Even if we do agree on the goal, we will not all agree on the best course of action towards that goal. For some this will mean deeds, while, for others it will mean words. For others still it will mean silence. Before we start accusing our brothers and sisters in Christ of sins of omission, we must ask whether it is us who have left something undone which we ought to have done. Have we gone to them with a humble spirit and asked them if their silence has some purpose we have not considered? Let us make manifest grace to one another by assuming that our fellow members of the Bride of Christ are not acting according to our worst imaginings of their silence until forced to do so by their words. Let us do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Thoughts on the Iraqi Blame Game

As the world stumbles from one crisis to another with alarming frequency, we are reminded once again that ours is not stable planet. Conflicts once forgotten have roared back into our consciousness. Even those no longer leading the evening news, if there is such a thing in today’s 24/7 media world, have lost their places not because they have become more placid but because another equally or more intense conflict has gripped the imaginations of journalists and politicians. Ukraine screams back into view with yet another Malaysian Airlines disaster, Israeli incursions into the Gaza strip remind us of the unending war in the Levant, and Syrian war dead have long since lost their significance as the numbers climb ever higher.

The ongoing crisis in Iraq is particularly keen in this regard. In the last decade-plus we have seen one President declare “Mission Accomplished,” and another pronounce that the United States could leave Iraq a stronger and more stable place. A brief glance at any news website will disabuse you of any such thought. Rather than the stable democracy acting as beacon of American goodwill or as the happy results of a less unilateral Yankee foreign policy, we see monks expelled from centuries old monasteries and Christian homes marked in a chilling echo of similar signs on Muslim homes in the Balkans of the 1990s. Where we once were promised a democratic peace would engulf the region with the Arab Spring, we  now see new dictatorships in Egypt and a Caliphate established encompassing Syria and Iraq. Many are left asking, "How did we get here?"

In our hyper-polarized political world it is a rare moment when a joint opinion is held by President Obama's fans as well as his most ardent foes. One of the more popular answers to this questions is to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of President George W. Bush. Doing this is made all the more easy by the fact that the former Commander in Chief has answered any such criticism with a clear "No comment." This vacuum is enthusiastically filled by President Obama's defenders, restating their regular refrain that any problems in the world are only the residue left by his hated predecessor and joining them are the pseudo-isolationists of the Libertarian movement who say the world would have been better had US troops stayed at home. Though they disagree on nearly everything else, these two groups, the "America is evil" Left and the "America first" Libertarians, stand united in their belief that the world would be a far better place had Bush not led the nation to war.

To this way of thinking, Operation Iraqi Freedom upturned the apple cart of the Middle East, inciting rage against the West in the "Arab Street" and radicalizing millions in one fell swoop. Whatever peace had been maintained in the volatile region became unbalanced as Iran, once hemmed in by a hostile and powerful Iraq, was now freed to instigate chaos at will. No matter how evil Saddam Hussein might have been, removing him cannot have been worth all this, right?

Anyone who knows me at all will be aware that this is not an interpretation I share. My first reaction was to think that this is rather like blaming Roosevelt and Churchill for the decades-long tyranny of Central Europe by Communist rulers. This is true, to a point. Had the Allies not bothered to confront the Germans in 1939 and afterwards, the Communists would have been checked in their ambitions towards Europe and their moves in China and Southeast Asia may have been curtailed as well. Tens of millions would have avoided death in political concentration camps and hundreds of millions could have retained their dignity as free people in the wake of the post-World War II settlement.

However, this analogy does not hold as the American and British leaders in the 1940s were aware of and accepted the consequences of their deal with the devil, Stalin. They didn't want it, but they saw no alternative, given the global situation at the time. Oh, we can quibble and suggest that US forces could have pushed on to Berlin instead of stopping in central Germany or maybe the Allies could have followed Churchill's advice and invaded southern Europe and thereby prevented Soviet troops from occupying everything from Poland to Bulgaria, but the point still stands. The Western Allies knew that their choices would lead to the domination of half of Europe by radical forces intent on remaking humanity in their own image, an image carrying a cost in human lives which makes the efforts of Al Qaeda and the ISIS look like child's play. In contrast, even though the leaders of the Iraq War are accused the world over of being somewhere between dangerously incompetent and maniacally evil, no one is yet claiming that Bush and Blair knew and accepted that today's headlines would result from their actions the way Roosevelt and Churchill countenanced Communist oppression.

Instead I think the better parallel would be somewhere been bad cooking and worse medical practice. If you decided to make dinner one evening and set about to collect your ingredients and follow your recipe, your plan might work well or it might not. If left to yourself and your meal turned out to taste like rotten skunk, it would be fair of others to blame the cook. If, however, I came along and told you that you were doing it all wrong and proceeded to change your recipe and alter your ingredients, it'd be rather odd if I then complained about outcome.

Or, to use a more visceral illustration, suppose two doctors disagreed about the proper procedure for a given patient. One thinks that an invasive procedure like surgery is the best course of action, while the other feels a milder, more indirect approach is better. Let's say the first doctor succeeds in performing the surgery, but complications arise. Some of these are expected, but others are not. The second doctor now takes over and not only institutes his preferred treatments but also works to undo the work of his predecessor. He removes the stitches put in place earlier and alters the medication to what he wanted before the surgery occurred. Inevitably and tragically the result would be that the patient would likely now be in a far worse situation than before any intervention. 

Right now the critics of Bush's policy are saying "I told you so!" but I would suggest it would almost be better if they said, "We made it so!" Both the Leftist and Libertarian factions claim that had their advice been followed, the mess of the Middle East would be far more bearable than it presently is today. They look to the 2003 invasion as the first domino setting in motion the current crisis. Few are so foolish as to think the Arab World would be a picnic, but they see the Iraq War as making it all far, far worse.

But they are forgetting something here. To continue with the domino analogy, they are forgetting that the tiles have been rearranged in the past few years. They are forgetting that starting in 2009 a new recipe was followed and a new procedure was put in place. The plans and protections enacted by Bush were drastically altered or even removed. Rather than acting as a proactive force in the world which could be relied upon, US policy became far less engaged with the world and far more likely to withdraw in the face of hostility.

The foreign policy of the Obama administration has hardly been akin to what Libertarians would want in the world today. They're not even what his fellow Leftists would have wanted. And they certainly aren't what the conservatives among us longed for. Reversing TR's adage, this administration seems prone to talk loudly and carry a small stick, make big speeches but signal withdrawal from the world. However, what is pertinent to this question, the question blaming Bush for the debacle in Iraq, is that the strategy employed in the last five years has been nothing like what Bush himself would have wanted.

Does Bush bear some of the blame for the mess of the last decade? Certainly. What is more is that he admits as much. Specifically he admitted as much in action in 2006 when he reversed his emphasis on a light footprint and a reactive force in the face of intense terrorist attacks in Iraq. Sacking much of his command staff, he worked to take the fight to the enemy. As a result violence in the nation slackened dramatically. A real hope of peace was on the horizon, only to have these hard-won dreams dissipate with hope and change. Bush took the blame for his actions and then worked to reverse his errors. The champions of withdrawal pass the buck for their choices and double down on non-intervention.

Liberal Logic

Conservatives like myself are often puzzled when they hear their Liberal friends rail against the manipulative nature of Talk Radio and Fox News while they listen raptly to the latest NPR or CNN broadcast as if the latter two were pure as the driven snow. To help aid us in this confusing paradox, I’ve developed a list of rules that we must understand if we’re ever to fathom the ways of our fellow man (or woman).

A. A boisterous Conservative rally is “angry.”

B. A boisterous Liberal rally is “passionate.”


A. Conservative legislation that doesn’t achieve its goals is proof that it shouldn’t have been the law in the first place.

B. Liberal legislation that doesn’t achieve its goals is proof that the law didn’t go far enough the first time around.


A. Conservative politicians who play the system to stall a vote are “obstructionist.”

B. Liberal politicians who play the system to stall a vote are “principled.”


A. Conservative Presidents who use Executive privileges to enact policy are “setting aside the Constitution.”

B. Liberal Presidents who use Executive privileges to enact policy are “getting things done.”


A. Conservatives who point out the dangers of policy X are “fear mongering.”

B. Liberals who point out the dangers of policy Y are “raising awareness.”


A. Conservative candidates who call attention to their opponents’ foibles and unsavory associates are “distracting from the issues.”

B. Liberal candidates who call attention to their opponents’ foibles and unsavory associates are “demanding accountability.”


A. A Conservative politician whose de-regulation measures foster a dramatic decrease in the unemployment rate is “captive to business interests.”

B. A Liberal politician whose regulation measures foster a dramatic increase in the unemployment rate is “devoted to the common man.”


A. A Conservative President who goes to war with Congressional authorization, a multinational coalition, and tries to get UN approval is “a dangerous unilateralist.”

B. A Liberal President who goes to war without consulting either the Congress or the UN is a “global leader.”


A. Speaking derisively about a Conservative politician is a wonderful example of America’s freedom of speech and anyone who objects needs to get a sense of humor.

B. Speaking derisively about a Liberal politician is a sign of what’s wrong with America’s political discourse and anyone who objects needs to stop being so hateful.


A. An ambiguous statement by a Conservative politician should be assumed to have the most egregious meaning.

B. An ambiguous statement by a Liberal politician should be assumed to have the most innocuous meaning.


A. When Conservatives invoke the Bible to support their cause they are “religious” and are confusing the line between church and state.

B. When Liberals invoke the Bible to support their cause they are “spiritual” and bringing morality into the political realm.


A. Agreeing with a Conservative politician’s actions is to display your inability to think for yourself.

B. Agreeing with a Liberal politician’s actions is to display your ability to think outside the box.


I’m sure that some of my more liberally minded friends (or those who’d prefer to think of themselves as moderate) will object that 1) Conservatives are guilty of the same things and 2) Conservatives are guilty of other things. That is all well and good, and if you feel like coming up with your own list of Conservative failings, that’d be fine by me. There’s plenty of material for you.

But let me ask you, how does the myopia and inconsistency of Conservatives negate in any way the myopia and inconsistency of Liberals? One of my biggest grievances with Liberals is that while they go about making such a big deal about how tolerant and open-minded they are, anyone who spends any time around them will soon discover that they are anything but.

In my own experience I have heard as much (if not more) examples of intolerance of dissent, demeaning of opposition characters, and Lemming-like activity from Liberals than I have from their Conservative neighbors. To this is added their audacity to preen about their unbiased attitudes, respect for others, and independence of thought.

So long as any of us keeps pretending that we are without flaws today and without the potential for flaws tomorrow, then so long will discourse, political or otherwise, be tainted with rancor and self-righteousness.

Doing the Math

Perhaps someone else can correct my "math" and I simply haven't seen it correctly, but there have been a couple of rather interesting implications in the news in the past week that have made me wonder. It is not so much the events themselves, though they are compelling enough. It is more what they say about an apparently discredited political philosophy.

It has become axiomatic in popular culture and in the media that if George W Bush had been for a thing it must have been bad. Often following hard upon this point is the corollary that if something is bad that W must have had something to do with it. I'm not planning on arguing here that everything he did was good or that nothing he did was bad. However, we can't very well say that we've thought the matter through if we don't take into account what would otherwise have to be some rather remarkable coincidences recently.

The first is rather subtle. The North Koreans, for reasons that never seem apparent to anyone, occasionally go on saber-rattling fests where they challenge the rest of the world with utter destruction like some odd combination of Dr Evil and Cobra Commander. Its most recent incarnation has involved the threat of launching of a new missile that could possibly reach out as far as the Aloha state. Since they have apparently acquired nuclear weapons, this poses a more serious threat than their past ramblings.

Yesterday, on MSNBC, a local newswoman was interviewed about the attitude of the Hawaiians in the face of the newest danger. She reported that the people weren't particularly worried in part because of the assurances of President Obama about our military capabilities and the increased presence of said military forces. As an example MSNBC showed pictures of one of the United States's giant domed radar ships watching and waiting for any incoming threat.

The other oddity has been splayed all over the news for the past week and more. The Iranians have presented Americans with a gift. A riot in the Middle East where we are not the object of hatred or even have much to do with the argument. Young people who've grown up under a theocratic tyranny are risking (and losing) their lives in a demand for democracy that soon could be more of a revolution than a simple protest.

Here's where I get puzzled. During his administration President Bush (43) was railed at unceasingly for his cowboy, unilateral tactics. Exhibit 'A' was early in his first term when his abrogated the Ballistic Missile treaty with the Russian Federation enabling him to establish at long last a mini-me version of President Reagan's so-called 'Star Wars' defense program. Instead of a massive, space-based missile shield, the United States would now field a few dozen anti-missile missiles in the Pacific and in Europe designed to counter limited threats from 'Rogue Regimes.'

In the same way W was decried for his naive proposal about challenging hostile states by enabling democracy in Iraq. His proposal was that when the populations in neighboring countries saw the Iraqis practicing free elections that this would lead them to wonder why they couldn't have such rights too. Then, with more opportunities for free expression in their own lands, the people would have less need to express themselves violently overseas.

So now, in the past week or so, we have seen Obama tout Bush's missile defense program and the protection Bush claimed it would despite the fact that the Democrats swore it never could, and we've seen a Middle Eastern tyranny be rocked by protests from its people demanding free and fair democracy just as Bush promised and not as the Democrats long denied.

If people want to go on thinking that Bush was the worst President in history, that is fine, but what will they make of this? Bush said he wanted to create a missile shield, and the Left said it would make things worse. Now, we have the protection and the Left thinks its all a great idea. Bush said fostering democracy in Iraq would lead to democracy movements in neighboring, hostile regimes. Now we have a massive democracy movement in neigbhoring, hostile Iran. Am I missing something here? or did maybe, just maybe, W got his math right?

by Timothy Padgett

Reasons and Romance

A lot of the time when I tell people that I am not among the horde planning on voting for Senator Obama, I am greeted with a quizzical expression. Apparently, the fact that I come across as mildly well-informed and somewhat well-intentioned doesn't equate in their minds with voting for Senator McCain. So as to alleviate some of their disequilibrium, I thought I'd offer some of the reasons I have for my irrational choice.

For one thing, I just don't get it. I'll grant anyone that he's a charming speaker, but if a pleasant persona were the criteria for the Presidency we'd all be voting for Tom Hanks and be done with it. Beyond this, I'm just not seeing what sets him apart from the rest of the gang. His policies, when he isn't off writing yet another autobiography and shows up to vote, are a part of the same Left-wing as a whole gaggle of others. He is a consistent Left-winger who votes with the Left-wing and hangs out with an even more Left-wing. I'm a conservative, ergo, I don't want him for the job.

I can understand the Left in America liking him, considering that he is one of them, but I don't get what the Center sees in this guy. What bothers me about so many of these Centrists is that they don't seem to know what they see in him either. They tell me that he'll bring the change we need to Washington. When I ask them to tell me what part of his record demonstrates that he even can bring about this change or that it is the change we need, they come up short on specifics. Now we can't be too hard on them. It's not their fault that he's done so little.

I'm told they want him in the White House because he understands their values. Really? How do you know that? He says so in his speeches? Call me crazy, but isn't that kind of what politicians are supposed to do? It's not like there's someone out there saying that you should elect him because he doesn't feel your pain. I haven't seen anything in what he's done to support all his pretty rhetoric, and no one who supports him has told me much either.

I'm not quite sure how to handle those whose first justification for supporting my Senator is that anything will be better than what we have now. Am I supposed to take that comment seriously? You think anyone would be better? If so, why don't you vote for me? I'm different! Aside from the fact that I won't be old enough until April, you'd be crazy to vote for someone so unqualified as me for the Presidency no matter how nice a guy you thought I was.

I am amazed about one thing concerning Obama. Apparently, it is impossible to have a valid criticism about him. It seems that anytime anyone brings up a point where he looks bad it turns out that that person is all about destructive politics. What an amazing coincidence! Obama can't be held accountable for going to a racist church for 20 years, but the unsolicited endorsement of an anti-Catholic pastor says something disturbing about McCain. When his supporters say spiteful things about the GOP candidates it's because they are passionate, but when angry words come from the Right, then they are just being hateful.

Now my final excuse for avoiding logic is one that a lot of his conservative supporters seem to want to push to the periphery. They tell me Evangelicals, like myself, need to show our independence as a group from the GOP by voting as a group for the Dems. They tell me that we need to get beyond single-issue voting choice and examine the whole range of issues.

Fair enough on the surface, but tell me this. If a candidate had consistently voted to maintain the privileges of companies willfully responsible for deaths of huge numbers of children, how would this affect your vote? If the police or military were systematically using kids as target practice and seemed to favor doing so with minorities, would you say this was the way to go? Senator Obama has consistently supported such a scheme that has killed not 4,000 or 40,000 but 40,000,000 plus. Is this the change you can believe in? Is this your hope? If this is not a single issue worth making or breaking your support, what would it take?

I don't want him for the job because he is spectacularly unqualified for the position, I don't think his policies are well-founded, and he is promising more than I see he has reason to vouch for. My question for the Centrist is this: What is it in Senator Obama's policies and record (and I mean record, not rhetoric) that distinguishes him from the rest of the crowd? Disagree with me if you want. If you're convinced he's the man for the job, then more power to you. If you agree with his voting record, then you should vote for someone who agrees with you. We ALL want a better world. Who's has the better chance of moving towards that right now?

Finding Yourself at Church

Like most American church kids, I grew up going to Wednesday night church each week. For much of this time it was all an unmitigated misery as we were compelled to participate in choir activities and then rebuked for not displaying the proper enthusiasm. Granted, there were plenty of us who somehow enjoyed spending the evening singing songs when we could have been playing hide-and-seek or other pleasant diversions, but I just thought those folks were weird.

Needless to say I was greatly pleased when we finally reached the age when we were deemed worthy of activities more interesting than becoming cannon fodder for off-key “show off to your parents” performances. One of the first times where I recall my own individuality being taken into consideration was when they gave us a “Spiritual Gifts” test. For those who don’t know, these tests are basically personality tests that help you figure out what sort of things you are best at or interested in. Armed with this knowledge you can then know how your particular skill set can contribute to the overall community. I can spend my life looking up obscure points of historical interest while my friend Sarah Catherine can continue to enjoying singing as much as she did when we were in choir together twenty-five years ago.

On the one hand, this whole approach makes a whole lot of sense. Taking these sorts of tests helps you distill out from your own desires and the expectations of others what kind of role you can play in the church as you grow up. This is an integral part of the Christian message. Any group of people will have a mix of gifts within it that each will be necessary for healthy growth and life and none of these gifts can be seen as fundamentally greater or lesser than another since they all depend on one another. To put it fancily, what is functionally hierarchical is ontologically egalitarian. (Big words are fun!)

On the other hand, there are some ways in which this focus on an individual’s own interests and practical abilities is open to a peculiarly American form of misunderstanding. We Americans are a very practical people. We are very good at getting things done. It might not be the right thing all the time, but we sure are going to find a way to do it, dammit! Our focus on functionality and the bottom line is one of the key things, for good or ill, that has made us so influential in the world.

In addition to this we are incurable romantics. We believe wholeheartedly that deep down in our hearts we can just know what we need to do. If I have a longing to do this or that, then surely this is what God wants me to do. We have trouble with the idea that it could ever be a good thing to do something as our life’s work that does not resonate with something deep within. Our love for the individual’s quest to find himself in the world leads us to pay attention internal impressions and the practical ability to do given task.

I begin to get antsy when I wonder how consistent our connection between interest/skills and calling is with examples of calling as seen in the Bible. We tend to seek for ourselves and suggest to others that their proper role for God in this life can be found by looking to our practical abilities and within our hearts at what we most enjoy doing. How often in the many biblical accounts of someone being called to an office or even a temporary role is that person’s practical qualifications or even desire to perform the thing in question even mentioned?

The focus in the Bible is much more on the incompetence and unwilling nature of the “hero” than on his ability and eagerness. Even when, with our 20/20 hindsight, we can look back and see how a Moses or a Peter was able to accomplish some great deed for God, is there any mention or real expectation at the time of their calling that they could even do the thing asked of them? Is there any suggestion that an Abraham or an Amos enjoyed the tasks given to them? Or that they had always felt the call towards it? If these things are not the priority in the Bible, then should we really put so much focus on them ourselves?

A Souring Sensation

When I was growing up in Nashville the people living next to our house were rabid fans of the University of Tennessee. As anyone who’s met a UT fan can assure you, there is something about such fans that can go well beyond mere mania. My neighbors were so incredibly excited about their boys in orange that they have forever turned me against my native state’s most prominent college team. Having their fight song Rocky Top screamed at you is somehow not endearing.

It’s not as though I now intellectually believe that there is something wrong with the Volunteers. They are neither more nor less moral a sports franchise than any of the other “amateur” athletes. But after years of their garish insistence on the superiority of all things that lovely shade of orange I cannot emotionally bring myself to side with them. The obnoxiousness of that advocacy has forever soured UT in my mind.

Years later I encountered another sort of fan. This kind is not nearly so annoying but still manages to turn my allegiance away from the focus of their team-loyalty. It’s like this. Have you ever been watching a game with some friends where you go into it not caring who wins? You could be just as easily persuaded to go along with your friends as to root to the other guy. Yet the more you listen to your buds, the more you want the other guy to win.

I remember one particular time watching a college basketball game. Neither team was “mine” so I was content (at first) at least not to cheer against my friends. Tragically, my resilience was not strong enough to withstand the temptation. By the end of the game I was actively going for the other team. Unlike my UT fanatics these friends weren’t throwing their team colors in my face or even pressuring me to join them.

The problem this time was the unhinged irrationality coming from people who I could otherwise count on for their solid sensibility. Every time a ref would make a call in their favor was “about time!” since it was obviously only their due. Every time that same ref made a call against their team it was just as obviously a bad call flowing from the ref’s bias. My otherwise rational friends were sincerely convinced that the powers that be were actively working to prevent their team from winning.

From my neutral perspective I found this baffling. Despite their insistence to the contrary there simply was no greater amount of calls going against their team than those going for them. I simply could not bring myself to support their guys when they had such ephemeral reasons for doing so. If going for that team left my friends bereft of their faculties I didn’t think that was the course for me.

This sort of counter reaction spills out from sporting events into the real world combat of politics. Jogging through my neighborhood I have repeatedly come across a van that I really wish wasn’t there. Despite being several hundred miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line this vehicle sports a collection of Confederate flags. Whatever positive connotations the Rebel flag might have in some people’s minds there is a far more common negative feeling associated with it thanks to the boys in the KKK. For most Americans this flag is connected with ignorance and hatred.

If this were all the van was emblazoned with then it would simply be a matter of either a racist or someone unaware that everyone around him thinks he is a racist. Unfortunately for my political sympathies, this guy also has bumper stickers supporting the party and some of the particular candidates that I usually go for. I am sorely tempted to scrape off the pro-Republican stickers since I don’t want the people in this largely Hispanic neighborhood to think that to be conservative is to be racist. This guy’s obnoxiousness, just as with the UT fans, would be enough to keep me from voting his way had I not my own reasons for going for the GOP.

This souring sensation also explains part of my opposition to my Senator’s quest for the Presidency. Like with my otherwise reasonable sports fan friends, I am disturbed by the nature of some of my friends support for Obama. It is not so much that they give me reasons for doing so that I then disagree with as much as it is as they offer so little reason for supporting him in the first place.

I have heard all sorts of reasons why he should get the top job, but none of them has any specific substance to them. All I hear are platitudes about how great a communicator he is, or what a great moment it would be to have an African-American in the White House or how we all need to believe in hope. No one goes into any detail about how his words of hope and change are going be translated from rhetoric into reality. No one seems to think its important that they can’t cite anything he has done in the past as proof of what he can and will do in the future.

People talk about how he is not a part of the DC political machine, but they don’t notice that he’s been in thick with the Chicago machine. (I hope I don’t have to explain how Chicago stands in terms of political sanctity.) People talk about how he is above partisan politics and will be his own man, yet they fail to mention that his voting record shows him voting as entirely allied with one party. People say anything will be better than what we have now, but they don’t explain how this golden age is to be achieved.

A friend of mine who was for the Senator long before it was popular to do so was talking to me back at Christmas. With glowing excitement he told me of a mass message he received from the campaign. Obama, his wife, and their children were shown sitting by a warm fire. After a few holiday greetings from the candidate, the two kids then in turn said, “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays.”

My friend was so enthusiastic about the cleverness of the message that for a moment I thought I’d missed something. I thought that surely my friend was not being so carried away by something no more clever than found on a greeting card. But that was it. There was nothing else. Like anyone else infatuated he had seen something amazing in the innocuous.

I can fully understand not wanting to vote for the Republicans. If I thought there was a worthwhile alternative who could actually get elected I just might do the same thing. What I do not understand is the enthusiasm of Obama’s fans. He is indeed charming and great at giving speeches that convey all sorts of happy feelings. He has a knack for getting you to want to please him. However, I’d like more reason to vote for someone to be the most powerful man in the world more substantial than a slightly more sophisticated version of “He’s just so dreamy!”

Love Your Neighbor

“When I think of a soldier fulfilling his office by punishing the wicked, killing the wicked, and creating so much misery, it seems an un-Christian work completely contrary to Christian love. But when I think how it protects the good and keeps and preserves wife and child, house and farm, property, and honor and peace, then I see how precious and godly this work is.”
– Martin Luther

War causes conflict. While it is obviously true that war itself is conflict, it is ironically true that war, as a concept, causes incredible conflict. Few issues cause people in the church to get more agitated than questions of war and peace. For some, there are few ideas more reprehensible than the suggestion that anyone could knowingly seek another’s death regardless of the circumstances. For others, it is just as disgusting to propose that mortal injustice be allowed to progress unhindered. To the Pacifist a “Just War Theory” makes about as much sense as a “Just Rape Theory.” To his opponent Pacifism is nothing less than complicity with evil through neglect.

While it might be earnestly hoped by all that the subject of war would simply be a matter for historians, violent conflict has a nasty habit of intruding its way into the present. A few minutes in any bookstore will reveal that war has been a part of history as long as histories have been written. A few minutes in a newspaper will likewise inform anyone that battle does not seem to be a passing fad. War is far too common a human practice for the church to maintain some kind of respectful neutrality.

If the church is going to be the church then she must establish her positions based on what God’s word says about this issue. With such a central issues that cuts to the core of justice, humanity, and love we cannot simply rely on our fallen dispositions to tell us where to go. Whatever logical or pragmatic reasons can be marshaled by either side of this debate ultimately account for nothing if the Bible does not speak in accord with that position.

As nice and straight-forward as that might sound, finding what the Bible teaches in this matter is much more complicated. There are people who believe the Bible who are on either side of this issue. There are those for whom Pacifism is the fulfillment of prophecy in the Bible that the lion will lie down with the lamb and Christ's first coming has changed everything. On the opposite end are those who would argue that the Just War perspective takes the Bible seriously since it does not place a false dichotomy between Israel and the church or forget that Christ has not yet returned.

It would be helpful if somewhere in the book of Hezekiah or in III Peter we could find a list of circumstances under which war was allowed or perhaps where it stated in no uncertain terms that war is never allowed. Since there is no such verse we are left to infer from what is said what God would say to his church. While this can seem quite intimidating there is a potential short-cut to the truth. Since Pacifism is necessarily absolutist, any exception to a total prohibition on warfare in the Bible can be its Achilles' Heel. That is to say, one cannot be a half-Pacifist. If it can be shown that the Bible does not condemn war in all situations, then the debate has moved from Pacifism vs. Just War into an in-house debate within Just War Doctrine about whether this or that war is in fact just. Pacifism could fail by a simple process of elimination

Granted, this is a negative argument in that we’re looking for a passage where something does not happen, but the point still stands that if there is any place where the Bible does not prohibit war entirely then Pacifism cannot then be said to be biblical. Putting aside the Old Testament for a moment since many Pacifists would reasonably object that the wars of ancient Israel do not apply to Christianity, are there any places where the New Testament does not condemn war wholeheartedly? Or, are there any places where soldiers or a government’s use of lethal force is not treated as sinful?

In Luke 3 John the Baptist is asked by a series of people how they can properly repent as he is calling them to do. Some average Joe’s are told to practice generosity. Tax collectors are told to stop taking more than they are allowed to collect. Some soldiers also come to the prophet to ask his counsel. If the Pacifist position is correct, then this would be a perfect place for God to speak into the lives of these men (and to us as well) to turn them from their entirely wicked profession. Yet the man whom Jesus said was greater than any other born of women tells them only to stop oppressing people and be content with their pay. This is hardly a solid rebuke of their job choice.

Later on in Acts 10 we find the dramatic first inclusion of Westerners into the church with the conversion a Roman soldier named Cornelius. This man had already been follower of God, but in this passage the Apostle Peter brings the message of Christ. Once again, if the Pacifist position is the biblical view then here was a perfect moment to hear that the arrival of Christ had so transformed the situation that while soldiers were a part of the Old Covenant there was no longer any place for them. Yet Peter says none of these things.

None of these soldiers in the gospel or in Acts are shown as men like the Pharisees who needed to change their hearts or like the tax collectors who needed to change their jobs. Whatever sins they might have been guilty of there is no mention here that what they do for a living is incompatible in and of itself with the biblical message. Prostitutes, idolaters, fornicators and all sorts of other sinners are called upon to repent of their actions. Soldiers are never issued such an order.

Later on in the epistles we find both Peter and Paul addressing the place of the state in human society. In contrast to the Pacifist position, not only do the Apostles not condemn the government for using lethal force, they call such a state the minister of God. In I Peter 3 we are told that as Christians we are to be subject to the state as it is sent by God to punish evil. Peter offers no side-bar to tell us "except when they use force." Likewise in Romans 13 Paul specifically states that part of the government's role in being God’s minister is that it “bears the sword.” You don’t use swords to gently chide someone. Swords kill. If Pacifism is biblical then this passage makes no sense.

I have no illusions that this little essay will spell an end to this question. Christians have been debating Pacifism vs. Just War since the time of the early church so I’m quite sure there is a way of explaining away the lack of comments in the passages mentioned here. However, the question then must be asked as to why such a lack needs to be explained away in the first place. If Pacifism is biblical, then why, among the many times that biblical writers spoke to or about soldiers or a government’s use of lethal force did no one tell them to stop? If war is sinful at all times and there is no place for it in Christ’s kingdom, then why did none of the inspired writers feel it necessary to tell anyone about it?

War is dreadful. There is no question about that. But just as the Fall of Adam has brought in disease, and God has raised up doctors to keep it from running amuck, so has the Fall brought in chaos to human society and God has likewise raised up the state as his minister to prevent our more tragic impulses from running the tables. To stand for justice in the face of wickedness by taking up the sword is not contrary to loving my neighbor but its fulfillment.

Auto-Compassion

I’m sure you’ve been in this position. It's rush hour or some other heavy time on the road, and you need to cut into traffic. Maybe you’re trying to enter the main flow from a parking lot or it’s that you’re in the north bound lane and you need to cross the SUV infested south bound lane to get to your destination. All you want is for some kind soul to see your predicament and give you the space to get through. Particularly if you are running late already the anxiety of being stuck and the relief at being let through are palpable. When a sympathetic driver finally does slow up to let you through you are able to send a genuinely grateful wave and smile to your savior.

Now let’s spin things around a bit and say that you’re not the one trying to get across traffic but the one in the position to help. You can see the stricken face of your fellow commuter, and you fully understand his plight because it was just yesterday that you were trying to do the very same thing. With mercy on your mind you slow up and let the distraught soul cut through your lane full of the knowledge that a little sacrifice on your part has helped out with another’s day immensely. The wave and smile you get in return is more than enough to drown out the sounds of ungrateful honking from those behind you less interested in compassion. Despite their impatience, you know you’ve done the right thing.

One more time let’s change the perspective. This time you are not the driver in need of help, nor the gracious commuter who gives the help. This time you are the guy stuck in traffic behind this sweet affair who gets the short end of the generosity stick. Just like the person cutting across traffic, you have places to be. Perhaps like the first person you too are running late. While you sympathize with situation you’re not too certain how it is that the one person’s need outweighs your own. Maybe you are one of those who lets out a not so subtle honk of displeasure, and the smug smile on the face of the benefactor does not then raise in you thoughts of mercy or compassion. The plans of yourself and the dozens of others similarly trapped in line are being held up for the convenience of one and the self-satisfaction of another as two or even three lanes of traffic are held up long enough for the single car to make it across.

Like I said, there is not a one among us who hasn’t been in each of these places. Sometimes there is just no way to get where we need to be without doing some serious Frogger reenactments, and sometimes we are the one stuck with the consequences of the Good Samaritans among us. If we are one of these two then we can only play with the hand we are dealt. Our decisions at that point are dependent upon others. However, if we are the second sort of person, then we are deciding for the rest where the line between compassion and functionality should run.

While I applaud the desire to help the person in need, I have to wonder if when we reach out like that who it is that we are thinking of. If our desire is to help others get where they need to go, then how much are we paying attention to those who are impeded by our own good works? By what standard are we deciding that helping the person we can see is worth hurting those we can’t see? Sure, we all feel great when we are able to see that smile of gratitude on the face of those we help, but what about the frustration we cause to those now inconvenienced? Particularly when we feel righteous indignation when we hear the honks of those less merciful and understanding, are we motivated by the pleasure we get from “doing the right thing” or by actually working for the common good? In our driving habits, in our daily lives, and in our political choices, how often is our determination centered not so much upon the actual good accomplished, but upon the short-term feeling of enlightenment and superiority found in the easy good work of being nice rather than the hard choices that often come with doing the real right thing?

Senatorial Choices

The other day in class one of my professors was talking about the religious consequences of the American Revolution. Like any of the rest of us I knew that when the Founding Fathers established the new government with the US Constitution they made sure that there would be no National Church to which everyone would be compelled to belong. Not only this, but there would be no tax money going support otherwise struggling organizations.

What I hadn’t thought of was how this would encourage all sorts of religious diversity. Think of it like this. When everyone has to go to a particular church, the pastor is going to get paid no matter who shows up so there is little incentive for the leaders of that group to tailor their message or presentation to suit the desires or needs of the people in the pews. However, once the First Amendment was enacted your American Everyman or woman could go to whatever church, synagogue, or matinee movie they felt like. If ministers wanted people to come to their church they would have to be offering something that the people wanted to hear.

Every Sunday my wife and I put this freedom into effect. We get up earlier than we’d otherwise have to so that we can travel the half-hour across Chicago to go to the church of our choice. Now there are a lot of options for us that are a whole lot closer to where we live. We go to all the extra effort because we can find at our church those things that we want to hear. Thanks to the religious freedom enshrined in the Constitution we are able to live according to our own choice.

I say all this because apparently my Senator is not aware that this freedom exists. He seems to be under the impression that you cannot choose where you go to church. Just this morning he gave a beautiful speech in which he responded at length to the many questions arising from the unusual sermons of his former pastor. I truly mean that it was a beautiful speech. The man is a master of his craft. Senator Obama’s craft is, like that of any other politician, is to tap into the emotional undercurrents of his audience and carry them along with the vision he lays out.

Today the vision he hoped to impart was that while his longtime spiritual mentor had indeed said some drastic things, the Senator strongly disapproved. In the midst of some specific criticisms, Senator Obama refused to completely abandon his longtime friend whom he said was “like family.” To illustrate his reasoning he told the audience of his white grandmother. He said he knew she loved him dearly, but at the same time it caused him pain when she occasionally used ethnic slurs or confessed to fearing black men. Just as he could not deny his grandmother simply because she sometimes said regrettable things, he, for the same reason, could not now abandon his pastor.

Now this was powerful rhetoric. The Senator deftly connected with his audience by getting us all to consider how many family members or friends we have that go around saying things that we really wish they hadn’t. Anyone reasonable listening is forced to concede that they wouldn’t kick granny to the curb no matter how loony she might sound sometimes. If we think it’s okay that we continue to associate with those who “transgress” taboos, then we have to grant the same consideration to the candidate.

However, before we all jump on the Obandwagon, let’s think about this a minute. Senator Obama has gotten things a little bit confused. He has confused the nature of his relationship with his grandmother with the one he has with his pastor. His grandmother is his grandmother because she is his mother’s mother. His pastor is his pastor, however, because Senator Obama chose him.

As the candidate suggests we all put up with all sorts of nonsense from those around us. From our families we don’t really have much choice. We don’t get to decide who we spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with. Sometimes we are lucky in this respect and sometimes . . . not so lucky. Yet even in this sacred space there are limits to what we will tolerate. If Cousin Luigi shows up on Turkey Day and starts ranting about how “the Jews” are out to get him most of us are going to be hoping that he doesn’t get invited next year.

The same principle goes for our friends or other social relationships. The only difference is we have a choice when it comes to them. We have an acceptable level of disagreement within which we will tolerate, but beyond which we’ll cut off the relationship. Each person’s line is going to be in a different place, but once it’s crossed we will go our own way. For most people this applies to our use of religious freedom.

Senator Obama has said that Rev. Wright is like family to him. If this were literally the case then his association could be excused. As it is, he has used the same religious freedom that I use each Sunday to go to the church of his choice. If I were to show up one Sunday morning and my pastor were to launch into openly political advocacy, as Rev. Wright has of late, I would seriously question my continuing attendance. If he were to shout to the cheering crowd, calling on God to damn America, as Rev. Wright has done, I would never darken their door again.

Of all the churches among what must be the hundreds available in the Chicagoland area, Obama has chosen one whose beliefs are drastically inconsistent with the vast majority of the American electorate. He says this is not something we need to be concerned about. He wants us to believe that the pastor who ministered to him for a decade or more does not represent his views. He wants us to believe that just as we put up with the unfortunate remarks of our friends and families, he puts up his mentor’s raging against Israel and America for the same reason he continued to love his grandmother. Apparently, he also wants us to believe that his pastor’s desire that “God Damn America!” is an acceptable disagreement. Somehow I am not comforted.