Saturday, June 26, 2010

Social Justice FAQ

I was really ready to focus on something other than social justice for a while, but last week I received a call from a woman from another church who had read that I was developing a curriculum on social justice for the North Alabama Conference.

After asking me to define social justice, she asked, “but doesn’t that mean getting involved in politics?”
Yes, I replied.
“But won’t that jeopardize the church’s tax-exempt status?”
Well, I said, my first answer is no, because precedent indicates that churches can be politically active as long as they don’t endorse candidates. My second answer is, so what? Even if we lose our tax-exempt status we still have an obligation to preach the gospel.
“Well, I have a copy of the IRS tax code right here,” she said.

Ding.

In other words, she called in order to have an argument. So, I obliged. For the next hour and a half.

“...and it says that a church can be classified as a 501(c)(3) organization as long as ‘no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation.’”
First of all, I replied, there’s a lot of leeway in that statement. “Substantial part” would be what - 5%? And do you honestly think any judge in America is going to tell an African-American church that they can’t preach about civil rights, or affirmative action, or the historical importance of having a black president? Is any judge in America going to tell a conservative church they can’t campaign against abortion?

But I’m grateful to her, because I guess if she hadn’t called, I wouldn’t be sitting here on a Saturday working on a curriculum to educate Alabamians about social justice. A large number of United Methodists get more of their political theology from Glenn Beck and Mark Tooley than they do from John Wesley. So here is a draft of the Social Justice FAQ (which will go at the end of the document).

These questions are abstracted from that conversation. I’ll post a rhetorical analysis of the questions themselves at the end of this document.

I appreciate any feedback that helps me refine the document:

——————————————

Social Justice FAQ:
Doesn’t social justice mean getting involved in politics? What about the separation of church and state?

Women’s suffrage, Civil Rights, the abolition of slavery, and child labor laws were all the result of churches “getting involved” in politics. It is hard to imagine how many of these movements would have ever grown without the involvement of religious leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., Sojourner Truth, William Wilberforce, and John Wesley. The first Methodist social creed was written in 1908 as a direct response to the crisis of child labor in the United States. Churches have always been involved in politics, because preaching the gospel inevitably means creating political conflict. When Paul visited Ephesus (Acts 19:20-41) and preached against idolatry, the city’s idol-makers tried to stir up the city against him for economic reasons.

Many churches, especially mainline Protestant churches, try to be “neutral” on political issues for fear of alienating some members or creating conflict. Even during these historical crises and shifts in culture, some Christians insisted that churches should, “stay out” of the Civil Rights movement, or of child labor legislation. What would have happened if they had?

The separation of church and state does not mean the separation of religion and politics. Separation of church and state avoids excessive government entanglement in religion, and allows religious groups to operate freely without persecution. The separation of church and state has allowed religion to thrive in the United States (while state-sponsored churches have declined in Europe), and has allowed a rich tradition of churches who promote civic engagement among their members.

Because we live in a [representative democracy], churches not only can but should be involved in politics. Since we the people make the decisions, we the people are accountable to God for how our cities, states, and nation run.

Won’t being involved in politics jeopardize churches’ tax-exempt status?

As a 501c(3) organization, a church can weigh in on matters of social policy and particular political issues, but it cannot campaign for or against any candidates themselves (Rossoti v. Branch Ministries, D.D.C. 1999). A list of the kinds of activities a church can engage in is available from the IRS at http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=170946,00.html.

The IRS even allows the publication of “voter guides,” which often include lists of issues and a summary of a candidates’ position on those issues. The IRS code states that “...certain “voter education” activities, including preparation and distribution of certain voter guides, conducted in a non-partisan manner may not constitute prohibited political activities under section 501(c)(3) of the Code.” (page 2, http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rr-07-41.pdf).

The same rule even says that candidates may participate in a public forum or debate as part of a voter education event. Churches may allow candidates to speak at their functions and may participate in voter registration drives. Focus on the Family has provided a summary of church political activities permitted under the 501(c)(3) rules here: http://www.citizenlink.org/pdfs/PastorsGuidelines_summary.pdf. Obviously, the same rules apply to churches of any political persuasion.

Won’t being involved in political activity cause divisions in the church?

Maybe.

In 1844, disputes over slavery led to a schism in the Methodist church. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, split into their own denomination. They removed from their General Rules the rule against owning slaves. So there are certainly precedents for denominations and even individual churches splitting over contentious issues.

But there are also churches and denominational bodies who are more united in how they engage the larger world. Conservative churches who protest abortion clinics and African-American churches who demonstrate against racism do not seem to worry about whether their activities divide the church.

Being politically neutral has not helped mainline Protestant churches grow in the last few decades. It has not helped them attract young people to church or lead people to Christ. Although we in the U.S. often describe ourselves in terms of “liberal” or “conservative,” there are often social justice issues that cross political boundaries. The environmentalism and creation care movement has seen churches across the political spectrum unite on important environmental issues.

Both “liberal” and “conservative” United Methodist churches have been struggling with declining membership in the last few decades. Ignoring social justice will not reverse that trend, and instead will simply make the church more irrelevant to a new generation.

Shouldn’t we just preach Christ, and Christ alone?  Isn’t the real message of Christianity about saving souls?

Jesus kicked off his ministry with a political statement: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ You can read the whole story in Luke 4:16-30.

The “year of the Lord’s favor” is a reference to the Jubilee year, when all debts were canceled and all slaves were freed (Leviticus 25:8-13). This commandment was supposed to be carried out every 50 years, but had long been neglected. Jesus was saying that his ministry was the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah, that God would reset the clock and bring justice to the world. (Some people say that Jesus never preached against slavery, but I believe his first sermon made explicit where he stood on the subject.)

Even before Jesus was born, people knew the messiah would bring social justice. Listen to his mother, Mary’s song from Luke 1:52-53: “He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

Jesus talked more about the “Kingdom of God” than anything else. The Kingdom was not just a place we go when we die - it was the reign of God on earth. The language he uses is firmly in line with all the language of the prophets. When Jesus preaches his famous prophecy about the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, he describes very clearly the kind of behavior he expects from his followers.

The people who heard his message would have known, when he talked about judging sheep and goats, that he was also referring to Ezekiel 34:17-19. This is one of the clearest examples in the Bible about God’s interest in environmental justice: “When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet?” So when Jesus talked about feeding the hungry, he wasn’t just telling his audience to be charitable; by using the language of Ezekiel he was also reminding them that they should be stewards of the earth.

So, preaching Christ means preaching social justice. There is no way to split one from the other. Evangelism, missions of mercy, and social justice go hand-in-hand

I understand that Jesus says we should individually help the poor, but he doesn’t say anywhere the government should. Isn’t it enough for Christians to help the poor individually?

Jesus also never said that there should be a separation of church and state, or that democracies are better than dictatorships. Making this kind of distinction between individuals and government puts modern ideas and words back into Jesus’ mouth. Roman Emperors and Judean Kings had no concept of things like “democracy” or “the consent of the governed.”

Amos told the nation of Israel that they were experts at acting individually religious, but that all their worship was worthless as long as they continued to oppress the poor. He called on the nation to let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (5:24). Is this a command directed at individuals? At governments? At whole societies?

God repeatedly holds entire cities and nations accountable for their treatment of the poor. Ezekiel 16:49 says “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” God punishes the firstborn of every family in Egypt for Pharoah’s reluctance to let the Hebrews free from slavery. The prophets accuse whole societies of idolatry and injustice to the poor. If God holds nations accountable for the actions of their rulers or even of a majority, would God not hold every [voting member of a republic] accountable for their nation’s actions?

In addition, as shown above in his reference to the sheep and goats, Jesus frequently cites the prophets in addressing how whole communities should behave. He assumed that his listeners would be Biblically literate enough to make the connection between the prophets’ words and his own. Jesus did not just come to save souls - he came to save the world.

Historical examples show us that it is impossible to address some injustices as individuals. As a slave owner in the 1800’s, you might be kind to your slaves and still believe you were doing what the gospel required of you. But even a slave owner who freed their slaves could not end slavery without government action. As a factory-owner in the 1900’s, you might refuse to hire children. But you could not end child labor through your hiring practices.

Some obstacles that keep people poor - lack of health care, poor education, bad neighborhoods, lack of access to healthy food, human traficking - can only be overcome by community or government action. Of course, others can only be overcome by individual action. The answer is for the church not to put all its emphasis either on individual or collective action.

I understand social justice for life and death issues like slavery and child labor, but what about others? How do you decide which issues are important?

One incredulous woman told me that she understood that slavery, women’s suffrage, and child labor were important. These historical issues were “life and death” issues. But she did not consider Alabama Constitutional reform, grocery taxes, and other such issues “life and death,” and thought the church should stay out of them.

For privileged and comfortable people, slavery, child labor, Civil Rights, and women’s suffrage were not “life and death” issues, either. Slave owners had a vested interest in saying that the church should stay out of politics. After all, they would argue, they treated their slaves well. 100 years later, white opponents of civil rights could claim - rightly - that white churches would drive some members away if they preached against segregation. Here in Birmingham, some of those churches never recovered from their principled stand. Earlier in this century, wealthy factory owners actually claimed that keeping children out of the workplace would deprive poor families of important income and drive up the cost of labor. All of these examples point to the fact that everywhere that churches preach social justice, they will encounter resistance from people who want to keep things as they are. People who benefit from injustice have all they need - money, political power, health care, a supply of cheap labor - and they don’t want the power of the gospel disrupting their lives.

For those who live in privilege, grocery tax legislation, Alabama Constitutional reform, public transportation, gambling, environmental justice, health care reform, and American foreign policy are not “life and death” issues. But for those who are struggling in poverty, those whose lives are affected by climate change or industrial pollution, those who do not have access to health care, these are “life and death” issues. Oppressed people long to hear the words of Jesus, that today is the day they will be set free.

Every injustice that keeps people poor, or voiceless, or that treats people as something less than human beings created in the image of God is an issue worth addressing in church. God is still at work in our world, freeing prisoners, giving people second chances, and transforming lives. God will continue to work, with or without your church. The question for your church is simply, “Will you get on board with what God is doing in the world?”

——————————————-

I think it’s worth pointing out that each of these questions is really intended to undercut the idea of preaching social justice. Let’s unmask the rhetoric operating in each question:
a) there is no need for it because the issues are not important enough (to me),
b) there is no Biblical mandate for using government or collective action to address justice; individuals should handle it on their own,
c) the issues may be important but avoiding conflict and retaining members is more important,
d) preaching social justice will divert attention from the more important task of saving souls,
e) preaching social justice is somehow against the law or will result in negative legal consequences

Folks, that’s really all they got. Learn to recognize when someone deploys these rhetorical strategies. They are pretty easy to refute if you know your Bible.

Saturday, April 03, 2010

Good News to the Poor (and Everyone Else!)

The bill to end the state sales tax on groceries is moving forward.

But there’s this amazing quote from Rep. Gipson: “The whole bill is a redistribution of wealth. Washington is doing such a good job of that I don’t know that we need to get involved with that.”

He’s already been taken to task in this editorial, but I thought this is an excellent example of the concept of privilege: the failure to recognize your own power, status, and position in society.

See, we already redistribute wealth with taxes. We just take it from the poor and give it to the rich. Alabama has some of the lowest property taxes in the nation, a fact that directly benefits those who own the most land. We make up for the lack of state revenue with sales taxes. The poor pay a greater percentage of their income in sales taxes than the rich. They are actually subsidizing farms, timber industries, and wealthy landowners every time they put food in their mouths.

Here’s another way to look at it: two to three weeks of groceries. Out of a year’s groceries, the government takes two weeks of food away from the poor and turns it into swimming pools and big lawns with automatic sprinklers for the rich. And board feet. And soybeans.

The fact that Gipson uses the kind of rhetoric worthy of FOX news to claim that this is unfair to rich people illustrates the concept of privilege: rich people are entitled to the money they earn. Poor people are not.

Last weekend I overheard a table full of elderly medicare recipients at church bewailing our country’s new “socialized medicine.” I heard from a friend that one senior citizen, after talking about her multiple extensive surgeries (all paid for with Medicare) said, “if those people can see my doctors, who knows how long I’ll have to wait?” The attitude of people in privilege is “I’ve got mine!”

Folks, if good news for the poor sounds like bad news to you, then you live in privilege. It may be the privilege of race, or class, or age, or some other system of power. But my faith says that good news to the poor is good news to everyone. The prophets proclaim a time when everyone who works for it will sit under the shade of their own fig tree (Micah 4:4), and live in houses that they built with their own hands. The idea is that in a just world, people get to enjoy the life they build for themselves and nobody will steal it from them and send them into exile, or turn them into debt slaves. City streets are safe, and there are plenty of public spaces for kids to play around retirees (Zech 8:4-5). These are not visions of streets paved with gold and towers of rubies. These visions are fairly tame: a just world where people live with some measure of security, and are able to enjoy the simple things of life. They plant their own gardens, build their own homes, and hang out with friends.

Monday, February 08, 2010

Dawkins, Literalists, and the 10 Scientific Commandments

Here is an excerpt of Salon’s interview with Richard Dawkins back in the fall:

You say in the beginning of the book that you would like to convince people that creationism is not a feasible or a viable belief system, but you also make it clear that you’re not a big fan of creationists.

That’s putting it mildly, yes.

Doesn’t that make it difficult for a creationist to read this book without feeling insulted? Won’t that hurt your goal?

No, I’m not really aiming it at creationists. I don’t think they read books anyway, except for one book. It’s aimed at the intelligent layperson who does read books and who vaguely knows a little bit about evolution and who vaguely knows that there are creationists and maybe even vaguely thinks that he’s a creationist himself, but who is curious and wants to know the evidence.

The part that rankled was “except for one book.” What Dawkins doesn’t understand is that most creationists don’t read the Bible. In fact, I’ve found that literalists of any stripe do not read the Bible much because they believe they already know what it says. What they tend to do is read the same collection of inspirational memory verses over and over again.

It used to bother me that so many people show such a stunning lack of curiosity about the Bible. But then I realized that curiosity takes work, and requires a scientific openness to seek answers. If either Biblical literalists or Dawkins took the time to actually read the creation accounts in Genesis:
1. They would notice that the creation orders are different.
2. Their curiosity might lead them to look for other differences (language, style, etc.)
3. They would seek out sources that might be able to explain the differences (pastors, commentaries, scholars)
4. They would look for dissenting opinions
5. They would formulate their own reason for the differences in light of the available evidence (e.g., these stories were written by two different authors for two different audiences).

As I said, curiosity takes work. Literalists dismiss their curiosity by simply saying, “it’s the Word of God, sometimes it’s hard to understand, but I’ll just accept it on faith.” They just don’t think about it.

Dawkins doesn’t have such an excuse. He is supposed to be a scientist, for crying out loud, but he just accepts the literalists’ interpretation of the Bible. He even thinks they read it! If there is anything like a list of scientific sins, I think one of them would be lack of curiosity.

1. Thou shalt not be incurious
2. Thou shalt make thy methods discernible to all
3. Thou shalt not falsify evidence or results
etc.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

All Language is Political: “Negro Dialect” and the Power of Words

One of the neat things about studying social linguistics is the way it makes explicit the things everyone already knows. Harry Reid’s tone-deaf comment about Barack Obama is a great example. He chose an inelegant way of saying something everyone knows is true: “Obama doesn’t talk black.” Others have made similar offensive observations. “He is articulate,” which is a coded way of saying, “he sounds white.” But it isn’t really enough to say that he sounds white. He sounds like a certain kind of white person, one who has been educated and has not grown up in a rural or poor environment; which is, in fact, true about Obama. Which brings up all kinds of questions about what it means for someone to sound “white.” 

If only Harry Reid had spent a couple of semesters studying sociology or linguistics, he could have put it in a much less offensive, more academic-sounding way. Instead of using the phrase “negro dialect,” he could have said: “One of the reasons the president is popular across racial and class lines is because he doesn’t use African-American Vernacular English.” He could have even sounded more legit (isn’t that a “black” word?) by using its acronym, AAVE.

The irony, of course, is that in his comment about Obama’s use of language, he himself made a sociolinguistic blunder. He demonstrated by his failure to use correct language that he is morally and intellectually deficient. He is not one of “us.” These are exactly the kinds of judgments racists make when they hear AAVE, what some call “ebonics.”

What is so delicious about the whole brouhaha is that it demonstrates the way language works. Language is not merely the communication of ideas. It is the communication of social status, power, and group fidelity. When we deploy language, we advertise to which groups we belong, what values we accept, and what kinds of persons we are. If I drop the g’s off of my words: “listenin’ and learnin’,” I can show that I am folksy or populist or one of y’all, the way George W. Bush and Sarah Palin do. If I borrow words from popular black culture, I can demonstrate that I’m hip - unless I deploy them incorrectly or in an incongruous style, in which case I’m revealed to be a poser. These are all “social discourses,” ways we use language to pull off being a certain kind of person. 

White people often misunderstand AAVE as being incorrect or improper English. But even if we look at language as the communication of ideas, vernaculars often use much more elegant and consistent grammars than (implicitly white) Standard Academic English. One common example is the pair of sentences “she late” and “she be late.” The first is a perfectly correct grammatical construction in many languages. The verb “is” is implied. “She late” means she is late. “She be late” is a grammatical construction which implies a continual action. To translate it into SAE, you have to add cumbersome words: “She is habitually late.” You don’t have to do that in AAVE. You just say, “she be late.”

The same thing applies to Southern and Rural English as well. “Y’all” is a perfectly good word that often serves as a class or regional marker in our language. It’s a word shared by southerners, rural whites, and speakers of AAVE. There is no second person plural in Standard Academic English except “you.” “Y’all” makes clear who is being addressed: “all of you.” “Ain’t” is likewise a perfectly good word which has been in use for centuries as a contraction of the words “am” and “not.” The only reason to shun it is for class prejudice: people who say “ain’t” have not had it educated out of them.

Now, I think it’s really important to be careful about what we say and how we say it, especially if your vocation (like mine) is built on words. But the reality of human communication necessitates a measure of grace. You have to give folks the benefit of the doubt. Rather than react to someone’s socio-linguistic failure with glee or schadenfreude, we should ask how it could have been said better, and then ask if it really makes a bit of difference. When Reid said “negro dialect,” you knew what he meant. And chances are, you’ve thought the same thing.

And if you’ve thought the same thing, perhaps that’s where the real discussion on race, language, and how we treat each other could begin. There are no absolute lines around what constitutes AAVE, and no rational reason why Standard Academic English is considered “white,” or why what is “white” is considered more proper than what is not. Yet we make these kinds of judgments all the time at an unconscious level. We even modulate our dialect, sliding into one kind of vernacular or another depending on who is around us.

All language is political, because we are always indicating through it to which groups we belong, what our values are, and where we call home. Had Harry Reid said something like this, I doubt anyone would argue. Obama uses the language of power, and it is in part his artful use of that power that won him the election.

————————

[edit 1-23-10]: I should have pointed out that President Obama obviously gets some of his excellent speaking skills from black preachers, and I think he demonstrates a skill at “code switching” - the ability to “pull off” multiple social discourses at the same time. For a great movie about code switching (and its perils), I recommend Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Playing Whack-a-Mole

I realized some time ago that if I spent my energy smacking down every instance of bad theology I encountered, I’d be playing Whack-a-Mole the rest of my life. The assertions are too frequent, too outrageous to deal with them seriously on a regular basis. For example, I think it’s pretty clear that Fred Phelps is pretty wrong about who God is. His church’s music video “God Hates the World” is a flat contradiction of one of the most basic tenets of Christian faith, found in John 3:16.

I feel a little awkward even linking to the above video - as though by the very act of posting it I’m raising it in the global consciousness, when that’s actually the last thing I want to do.

It’s much the same with Pat Robertson’s and Rush Limbaugh’s comments. Should I even acknowledge that they exist? Or, like the braying and barking of barnyard animals, should I just consider their words background noise? Their breath vibrates vocal tissue, and the fleshy movements of their tongues give shape to their exhalations. Commenting on the supposed meaning of those noises, I feel a bit like I’ve called attention to the fact that someone farted.

The difference, of course, is that flatulence cannot always be helped.

Still, giving them attention almost lends them credibility in the eyes of their followers. I would prefer to let them talk themselves into irrelevance if it were not for the fact that in recent years they seem to have gained an even larger audience.

The Bible acknowledges this dilemma. The book of Proverbs is ostensibly written to teach “wisdom.” The idea is that by examining its aphorisms, readers can come to a greater sense of who God is and what God’s wisdom looks like. But some of those aphorisms are contradictory because wisdom involves the recognition of paradox. Here is the relevant passage:

Do not answer fools according to their folly,
  or you will be a fool yourself.
Answer fools according to their folly,
  or they will be wise in their own eyes.
Proverbs 26:4-5

So what’s the answer? Do you answer a fool according to their folly? Or do you let them blather on? Do you descend to the level of folly? Or do you upbraid the fool in the hopes that he or his hearers will see wisdom? Does Socrates spend time arguing with idiots? Or does he seek out conversation with peers? The wisdom here may be that dealing with fools is a no-win situation. If you answer them, you become a fool. If you don’t answer them, they think they are wise. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It’s just damned foolishness.

There are a couple of other aphorisms that follow these that may be appropriate:

The legs of a disabled person hang limp;
  so does a proverb in the mouth of a fool. (v. 7)

Like a thornbush brandished by the hand of a drunkard
  is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. (v. 9)

In other words, even these proverbs, aphorisms of the wise, can be misapplied by fools. It is not the sayings themselves that indicate wisdom, but the context in which they are applied.

It is like binding a stone in a sling
  to give honour [or a television or radio program?] to a fool. (v. 8)

My addition may sound cheeky, but the fact is that giving honor to someone in the ancient world often meant giving them time and space for a speech. To give a fool honor, or money, or a forum to spew their vomit, creates a situation in which someone is going to get hurt.

Like a dog that returns to its vomit
  is a fool who reverts to his folly. (v. 11)

Just in case you thought my use of the word “vomit” or “fart” was harsh or un-Biblical.

Do you see persons wise in their own eyes?
  There is more hope for fools than for them. (v. 12)

And that’s really the problem, isn’t it? Because I can recognize fools, does that make me wise? Or does it take one to know one? I also have a forum in which to use my words. I have a pulpit and an audience. I pray that God will help me to use it wisely, that I will not be like a drunkard with a thornbush, or a fool shooting his sling into a crowd, or a dog that returns to its vomit. The desert fathers and mothers used to pray, “Oh Lord, him today, me tomorrow.” I hope that when (not if) I mishandle my words, I only look like an idiot, and that it won’t cause others to get hurt.

Friday, September 11, 2009

In Alabama? Seriously?

I was a bit stunned by Nate Silver’s blog post on the data on Obama’s approval rating in Alabama. According to the survey, Obama’s approval has gone up at the end of August among white voters in Alabama. 

You could never tell it from the chatter I hear. Of course, I spend most of my day around white middle-class people. Mostly it’s parenthetical, politically-loaded statements like, “if we still have medicare,” or “if inflation doesn’t get us.” But I can tell that there’s an undercurrent of fear for our country’s future, anxiety about national debt, etc. I would have figured that if anything, overall support for Obama would have gone down, given the tenor of media coverage. I live in Homewood, which in some ways is a model of the dynamic of Whitopia (people here even refer to it occasionally as “Mayberry”). There is plenty of diversity here, but there is also significant class and geographical segregation within the community.

So for you Alabamians and southerners - regardless of your political orientation - I’m curious about why you think this might be. 98% of black men and men voted for Obama back in November, and only 10% of whites. Yet according to the above survey, Obama’s approval rating is at 28% among white voters at the end of August.

Now, I know that approval ratings don’t always carry a lot of long-term significance. I’m just curious why. Thoughts?

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Bono’s Open Letter to Italy and the G8

Great quotable bits from Bono’s letter:

This agitation on the subject of extreme poverty comes mainly from mothers, school teachers, students, churchgoers. When it comes from spoiled rotten rich rock stars it gets more attention, but it’s much harder to take — particularly when those rock stars are Irish. We know that’s an absurdity. But so is a child dying of a tiny mosquito bite in the 21st century.

Love thy neighbour is not advice — it’s a command.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Of Money, Asses, and Idiots

One passage of the Talmud, concerning how to carry a purse if sunset on Sabbath eve overtakes one who is traveling, runs thus:

If there is a Gentile with him, he must give his purse to the Gentile.

Why not put it on the ass in the first place? Because concerning the ass there is a commandment to let it rest, but no such commandment exists for a Gentile.

How is the case if the man had accompanying him an ass, a deaf-mute, an idiot, and a minor? To whom must he give his purse in that event? He must put it on the ass.

Why so? Because the deaf-mute and the minor are human beings, and he might by accident give it to an Israelite who was not a deaf-mute or a minor.

How is it if he had with him a deaf-mute and an idiot only? He must give it to the idiot, because a deaf-mute has more sense than an idiot.

How is it with an idiot and a minor? He must give it to the idiot.

And so to this day we continue to give our money to asses and idiots.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Living the Sermon on the Mount

You may have seen this story making the rounds on the internet. It was on NPR the other day: A Victim Treats His Mugger Right

I post it for three reasons:

• First, it’s a good story.
• Second, it even showed up on Boing Boing.
• Third, I know it’s abundantly obvious, but I have yet to see any journalist point out that this guy was basically living out the Sermon on the Mount.

I don’t know what the guy’s religious beliefs are, but he gets it.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Words and Power

You may or may not have seen this video:

I’m always a bit cynical, a bit skeptical. I know enough about how language works in the human psyche to understand the power of engaging the emotions. So there’s a piece of me that always regards inspiration with a critical eye. And whenever celebrities get on a bandwagon, that piece of me folds its arms and says, “humph! Bah, humbug!” After all, remember “We Are the World?”

Obama is not a savior. He is a man. And like everyone else in the world, he is an ordinary sinner. If he is elected, he will disappoint. He will fail. He will make wrong decisions, and he will have to endure the projected self-hatred of an entire nation when he does.

And yet… grace is that free, unmerited loving action of God, that sometimes gives human beings the right word at the right time, so that, flawed as we are, we sometimes speak the truth just by trying. The Bible is full of flawed heroes who were heroes not because they were perfect, but because they were the right person doing the right thing or speaking the right action at the right time. So it isn’t too far off for Obama to invoke the image of Moses looking into the promised land, just as it wasn’t wrong for Martin Luther King, Jr. to do so.

Everyone… everyone recognizes that truth has power. I thought today’s Doonesbury captures the idea well: every candidate is talking about change, even the Republicans, but nobody articulates that truth as well as Obama.

And why the cynicism? Isn’t it simply a kind of learned helplessness, a resignation that every election must be choice between the lesser of two evils, that democracy only serves the interests of wealthy and powerful people, that politicians cannot be trusted?

Let me ask another question: who benefits from our cynicism? Who counts on it? Who profits by it? Who wins when young people stay away from the polls? Who benefits when we believe that all rhetoric is spin, that all government is bad, that nothing we say or do makes a difference?

You know the answer.

So optimism and helplessness are not mere reactions. They are political choices with political consequences. They are the difference between going back to eating the thin gruel of Egyptian slavery or pressing on to the Promised Land.

To those of you who haven’t been to church in a while: this is good preaching. This is why people invoke religious language when talking about Obama. Words have power, and the Powers fear the Word.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Why Obama Will Win: Learned Optimism, Hope, and the Power of Words

Martin Seligman is a behaviorist. He is best known for his experiments exploring the idea of “learned helplessness.” Dogs were exposed to repeated, unescapable electric shocks. When they were given the opportunity to escape the shocks, simply by leaping over a barrier, they did not. They simply stayed there and took it. They had learned to be helpless. I’ve seen it often enough in the eyes of people who come in to my office to talk, to pray, to cry.

What is less known is his related idea, “learned optimism.” He explores the idea in his book of the same name. His operational definition of an optimist is someone who attributes success internally (due to one’s own good qualities, hard work, etc.) and attributes failure externally (circumstances beyond one’s control like the weather, other people, etc.).

One of the most fascinating chapters is on optimism’s influence on presidential elections. Seligman and his assistants analyzed the speeches of all of the presidential candidates in the 20th century. They came up with a way to score how optimistic a speech was by how often success was attributed internally, and how often failure was attributed externally. Without exception, the candidate with the highest optimism score won. Seligman’s findings reminded him of an idea from science fiction, Isaac Asimov’s “psychohistory,” the scientific way of predicting the behavior of societies.

It doesn’t take long to think back over recent elections and simply ask, which candidate was most optimistic? Remember these pairings? Bush vs. Kerry. Bush vs. Gore. Clinton vs. Dole. Clinton vs. Bush. Bush vs. Dukakis, Reagan vs. Mondale, Regan vs. Carter, Carter vs. Ford. In every single pairing, the president who seemed the most optimistic won. As you look back over the names of the men who lost the elections ask yourself - did any have a compelling vision of the future? Did they sound optimistic?

When I’ve mentioned this theory to other people, sometimes they will roll their eyes and say something like, “oh no, you mean all someone has to do is sound positive? What if they’re positively wrong?” But I think that question misses the point. One thing people look for in a leader is their ability to articulate a vision and chart a course for the future. They don’t want someone who uses phrases like, “economic malaise” or “inconvenient truth.” Or, if a leader does use phrases like that, they’d better have something equally positive to counterbalance it. “Audacity of hope” has a nice ring to it.

And although his opponents often sneer at Obama’s persuasive and empowering rhetoric, the fact is that little unites a country like a great orator. Words are ideas. They influence the way we think and act. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” “I have a dream.” “We will fight them on the beaches…” In Christian theology, the Word is a big deal: the word creates the world, becomes flesh, and brings life. We’ve been starving for good words for eight years. The words we’ve heard instead are about redefining torture or our civil rights or the mission in Iraq. Some people’s actions make us lose faith in words. Others use words to restore our faith.

Anyway, Seligman didn’t apply his theory to primaries (as far as I know), but I think in the Obama/Clinton pairing, Obama wins. Again, you can see the same problem with Edwards - although he speaks the truth, and his message sounds prophetic, he doesn’t sound optimistic. As for the Republican candidates and optimism: McCain, Guiliani, Huckabee, Romney - well, it’s just painful. Can any of them articulate a vision?

I must confess, I’ve learned a bit of helplessness myself after these last two national elections. Part of what will determine the outcome of this election is if Americans have learned helplessness, and stay home instead of voting. It is possible that people, like Seligman’s dogs, have learned that nothing they do makes a difference. It takes a significant infusion of hope to get people to see the possibilities, to help them learn that they don’t have to lie down and take the abuse.

Listen to an Obama speech. Can you hear the influences in his rhetoric? There’s some black preaching. There’s a bit of Kennedy and some King and maybe even some Reagan. As a preacher, I believe in the power of the right word at the right time. Given Seligman’s research, I will be shocked and amazed if he doesn’t win the primary next week, and the election in ‘08.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Manufacturing Dissent

Maybe it’s just because I don’t watch much television, but I’m amazed at how the mainstream media can turn a handful of comments into a “bitter, racially-charged fight.” It’s a great way for people to pretend concern while managing to avoid any substantive discussion about race.

Heavens above, I wish someone would have a bitter, racially-charged fight. This wasn’t it. But the argument we need to have involves payday loan and cash advance establishments, public transportation, universal healthcare, poverty, education, social capital, and media bias.

And that’s why this is the perfect smokescreen for the real bitter, racially-charged fight that nobody is willing to have.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Clobbering Clergy Clash over Christmas Cleaning

That’s the headline they wanted to write.
Here’s the story.

This story isn’t surprising. While were were in Bethelehem, we learned that the Christian priests do not trust each other with the keys to the building. So when they lock up for the evening they leave the keys with…

(can you guess?)

...a Muslim family.

Oh yeah. That’ll preach.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

U2charist Wrap-up

I was nervous about doing a U2charist, becuase we only got started a month ago. Our Outreach Team at trinity had planned on doing one social justice event in the fall. Last spring we had a viewing of It’s A Thick Book, and brought in a panel to talk about Alabama Consitutional Reform. We had planned on doing an immigration event in October, but one of our members suggested partnering with some other churches and doing the U2charist.

A week before the event, I still didn’t feel prepared. We had decided to go with multimedia and recorded music rather than a live band, since we had limited prep time. Would people sing with recorded music? Was the liturgy too long? Would we have enough seats? Would anyone show up?

The Friday before, SIFAT called. They had 22 international visitors from places like Rwanda, Cameroon, Guatemala, and Ecuador. They said their students would love to come to participate in our service. Some of their African students could sing an African chant, and they had a beautiful harmonic version of SIFAT’s song, Change the World. In one 20 minute phone conversation our worship service had gone from being about the developing world to involving the developing world. How cool is that?

The service went better than I possibly could have expected. Wednesday morning we had an interview on a local station. The media showed up again before the event.

People kept trickling in. Several youth groups showed up. We were late getting started because people kept coming through the doors. The SIFAT participants started with their chant, making the occasional animal sound effect, and the congregation hushed and listened in awe. We followed their chant with Where the Streets Have No Name and When Love Comes to Town. The SIFAT participants returned to pray for each of the Millennium Development Goals, after which we had more U2 songs. Max Blalock preached a sermon on the Good Samaritan, we took an offering, and Deb Welch and I led the Great Thanksgiving. After Holy Communion, we stood and The SIFAT participants closed with Change the World.

In all, we had 232 people stand against poverty, and contributed over $1500 to Nothing But Nets. People did sing, and clap, and shout, and although there are fifty little things I would have liked to have done differently, God was at work. I certainly did not expect the response we got, or for the worship service to move people the way it did. The Holy Spirit got under people’s skin. I should have known. She Moves in Mysterious Ways.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

U2charist

[UPDATE] - Here is some local press coverage of the event, in which I use up 1 of my 15 minutes of fame.

Tomorrow night we will be hosting a U2 Eucharist (or “U2charist”). This is one of those things which, if you had told me I’d be doing when I was 15, I would have thought you were nuts. I grew up with the music of U2, and their lyrics spoke to me much more powerfully than usual church fare.

It’s funny to me to see the press about the U2charist and hear folks talking about how this will reach “young people.” 15 years ago this would have been cutting-edge. Now it is merely the natural result of people my age being in ministry. Still, I’m excited to see this movement. Bono has been a prophetic voice, criticizing the church but also calling it to action. There’s something profoundly Biblical about the outsider/insider calling God’s people to faithfulness. Ruth, Moses, the Syro-Phoenecian woman, Nehemiah, all represent those figures on the boundaries who remind us that God’s intention in choosing a people is to bless the world.

Our event will take up a collection for Nothing But Nets. I’m looking forward to it.