Based on exhaustive research of the last 7 email forwards I’ve received, I’ve come up with this empirically-proven scientifically-tested taxonomy of email forwards, and I’ve already checked on Snopes and it’s true!
Fear (pathogens, technology, pedophiles, and Muslims):
Using your cell phone while refueling can cause an explosion.
Anger (liberals, government, and liberals in government):
Obama wants to make it illegal for preachers to preach against homosexuality. And he hates your religion. And your mom. And apple pie.
Fear + Anger:
Obama has a goat-head tattoo and sleeps on a pentagram surrounded by candles made from the fat of his human victims, and anyone who preaches against homosexuality will be forced to refuel their car while reciting the Koran into a cell phone.
Pity (usually involving children or animals):
Little 4-year old Cindy Lu has a gigantic tumor and asked her mommy “why is God making me die?” Forward this to all of your friends and pray to God to spare Cindy Lu.
Faith (usually involving prayer or deus ex machina):
An atheist professor challenged his students to prove there was a God, and was immediately struck by lightning and died.
Pity + Faith:
Cindy Lu adopted a puppy and the puppy turned out to be an angel and shot lightning at the tumor and saved her life!
OR
God skipped the whole tumor thing and struck Cindy Lu dead with lightning before she could fulfill her life’s ambition to become an atheist professor.
Humor (usually involving children, animals, or foreigners doing foreign things):
Cindy Lu drew a funny picture and gave it to her teacher and boy was her mommy embarrassed!
Glurge:
Jesus died for you which led someone to pose for a stock photograph for you with their arms outstretched in front of a sunset, because, really, life is precious so be sure to tell the people you love that you love them before God takes them to heaven with a tumor or lightning bolt.
Humor + Faith + Glurge:
Jesus died for you and boy were you embarrassed!
Humor + Pity + Faith + Anger + Fear + Glurge:
Cindy Lu, a 4-year old atheist professor, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She prayed to God and God was like, “why don’t you pray to Obama, you commie-loving Muslim lesbian atheist?” But Obama made her recite the Koran on her cell phone while pumping gas with her arms outstretched against the sunset because Jesus loves you more than anything and if this was a funny email you would forward it to your friends and don’t you love America enough to send this to everyone you know?
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.
Most Christians are not thankful. We’re excellent at thanking God for the weather (which happens to both the wicked and the just), and for food (while we’re sitting down before a meal), but we are abso-freaking-lutely terrible at thanking each other.
In fact, there are at least two sources of outright hostility toward the action of thanking people for their ministry, for the good deeds they do, or for just being who they are.
The first source pretends to be concerned about people. “We don’t want to publicly thank people for what they do,” goes the reasoning, “because we might leave someone out, and they would get mad.” There’s a pet phrase these people like to use. “It’s like giving a gift to one person, but giving everyone else a dead fish.”*
This statement assumes that the average congregation member has the emotional maturity of a two year-old. Sure, there are a small minority of emotionally immature people in the congregation. Imagine emotional maturity as a bell curve, and expect that the bottom 5% will get their shorts in a twist about anything. But, as with other issues in the church, are we really going to refrain from thanking people because someone might feel left out? This is just plain sick. It’s projecting - and replicating - the most dysfunctional family dynamic in the congregation: We must tiptoe around emotionally immature people so that they don’t blow up and cause conflict.
The other problem with this way of thinking is that it goes against everything we know about behavior change. If you want to shape the behavior of a group, you use positive reinforcement. My Dad points out that this is one of the best ways for teachers to manage a classroom. Rather than yelling at the class to be quiet or settle down, the teacher finds one person who is behaving appropriately and praises that person. The people surrounding that person will then imitate the behavior to earn the teacher’s praise. People who are skilled in this kind of strategy can manage a class without threatening, yelling, or scolding. Attention changes the behavior of a group. Thanking people for their service shapes the behavior of a community.
The other source of resistance to thanking people is philosophical. It suggest that we shouldn’t thank people for doing what they should do anyway. Like good soldiers, Christians should just naturally want to serve meals at shelters, give their money away, and do other acts of service. Some people carry this to the level of scorn. “You only go on a short-term mission trips to feel good about yourself,” goes the rhetoric, “and then you come back and do nothing.”**
Again, this goes against everything we know about behavior change. We learn best through positive reinforcement, not through stern lectures about what we ought to do, or through being guilt-tripped into action.
Failure to thank people kills communities. In John Gottman’s research on marriage and relationships, he found that couples who did not thank each other for doing chores, taking care of the kids, or basic loving actions did not stay married. It’s not that they thanked each other because cooking dinner or changing the oil in the car were somehow extra or unexpected. They thanked each other for doing their duty because they were grateful. They knew how to appreciate the simple things in life. They cultivated their own culture of gratitude.
And are do-gooders supposed to refrain from feeling good about the work they do? Are they supposed to remind themselves constantly not to be proud of the house they built, the money they raised, the people they comforted? Are those good feelings dangerous, and should we quash them lest we become prideful and think we are God-like in our beneficence? Posh. Posh, I say! Sure, Jesus admonishes his followers to beware practicing their piety in front of others in order to be admired by them (Matt 6:1), but he specifically refers to giving, praying, and fasting - “religious” behaviors to show others how good we are. Altruistic behaviors, in contrast to “religious” ones, release chemicals in our brain that make us feel good. God wants us to feel good about doing good. Actively working to suppress good feelings in ourselves or others is not just counterproductive in changing behavior. It’s sick.
Which brings me to the theological problem with thanklessness in churches. I’m going to be uncharacteristically supernaturalist here: I think the real source of both these attitudes is the devil. Satan. Ol’ Scratch. See, the devil is really good at disguising snarky, self-aggrandizing and selfish attitudes with philosophical and benevolent language: “We’re going to be thankless so we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings. We’re going to be thankless because thanking people is morally questionable.” The evil powers of this world do not want people to change their behavior, and so they have infiltrated the church and infected all our efforts at service and good deeds with theological suspicion, poisoning the pleasure of making human contact and doing human ministry, de-carnating our acts of pleasurable service into Platonic, abstract shoulds and oughts. This is the same attitude of ascetic Christians in times past toward sex: “just close your eyes and think of England.” So now, instead of just overcoming middle-class classism, racism, and fear to go downtown and work in a homeless shelter, you have to do so without feeling good about yourself. Yeah, good luck with that.
So thank people all the time because it changes their behavior. Thank them all the time because they are gifts from God, put here to do Kingdom work. Thank them and thank God for them.
“Y’all are the light of the world… let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matt 5:14, 16)
—————————————-
*Dead fish? Where the heck did a dead fish come from? I’ve heard this particular expression countless times, but I don’t even know where the metaphor began. Has it come detached from a story somewhere?
**I’m still looking for reliable empirical data on the effectiveness of missions projects or trips at changing behavior. Anecdotally, at least half of the people I travel with on mission trips or participate in projects with say things like, “I should have done this years ago. I should do this more often. I’m going to resolve to do this once a week.” They talk about the relationships they build and the humility that comes with being served by the poor. I cannot measure follow-through, but I do know that praise and giving thanks for those activities will increase the odds that the behavior will increase. That’s basic behavioral science.
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.
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.
The art of fitting lyrics to a melody is tough
You have to have a certain sense of timing
If you must stre, eh, etch your word for half a measure more
please find a better phrase to fit your rhyming.
If you want a congregation’s tongues to follow with your tune
And sing and sway and give your song their best
Consider where emPHAsis on sylLABles will fit best
And avoid using… ... rests.
Don’t string clichés together and then call that a song;
Let metaphors connote a kind of grace.
So if you’re writing lyrics and you must rhyme “eyes” with “skies,”
I hope you stab your pencil in your face.
I’ve posted before that one of my favorite online comix artists is Carol Lay. I especially enjoy her one-strip parables, like this one.
A parable is a story which, instead of making a point, describes a parabola about a point. Truth is slippery, and you can often tell the truth better by coming at it indirectly. In this case, Lay says something powerful about relationships and decision-making and human nature, but you cannot summarize it without reducing the truth to a set of facts or clichés.
Speaking of “palling around with terrorists,” did you realize that King David hired himself out to the bad guys? When David was on the lam from Saul, he realized he couldn’t hide forever. So he became a mercenary in the army of King Achish of Gath - the Philistines! When I first read this passage several years ago, it stunned me. David actually worked for the Philistines. What a strange fate for the boy who killed Goliath of Gath.
That’s also when I realized that the history of David’s rise to power is certainly propaganda. It is not an objective history. It argues a particular perspective. Just think about what someone who didn’t like David would say: here’s a guy with no kingly bloodline. He rebeled against Saul. He was a traitor to his nation who worked with the Philistines. After the Philistines killed Saul (and who is to say that David didn’t do it himself?) he usurped the throne. He proved himself a murderer and an adulterer, and he should never have been king.
In response, the author argues that David had a claim on kingship both by blood right (he married into the family) and because he was chosen by God (in a secret ceremony with Samuel). He had multiple opportunities to kill Saul, but spared his life because he was God’s anointed. True, he did work for the Philistines, but he never actually raided Israelite cities, and he wasn’t anywhere near the battle in which Saul was killed. And sure, he had his faults, but he repented. All in all, he was a man after “God’s own heart.”
To me, reading the Bible this way makes it much richer. If you play detective and don’t take everything the author says at face value, you begin to get into some of what makes history fun. There is always more than one side to a story. Characters are much more complex than the propaganda would have us believe.
Frankly, this kind of reading actually buildsmy faith more than the approach that says, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” There are some scholars who question whether David ever even existed. My response is that nobody writes propaganda for someone who didn’t exist. You don’t try to salvage the reputation of a legend. What I see going on in the text is a deliberate attempt to cast history in a certain light, to explain away some of the real problems that some people may have had with David.
I’ve also just finished Havanna Nocturne, by T.J. English, which is about how the mob took control of Cuban politics and casinos, and how Castro and the revolution ended the “golden age” of organized crime there. Although I wasn’t crazy about English’s writing style, I enjoyed getting to know these complicated characters like Santo Trafficante, Meyer Lansky, and even Fidel Castro. Why do we love reading about these criminals and politicians? Why do we enjoy stories about heists and con men? I think it’s at least partially because we get to see that people are complicated. They are not purely evil or purely good, but a compelling mix of the two. Good guys can do terrible things, and bad guys can have moments of transcendent beauty. Convicted felons can pray like angels, and pillars of the community sometimes have sordid secrets.
It also reminds us that stories are always told with a perspective. You cannot look at the world without an interpretive lens. When I watch campaign commercials, for example, I wonder how the mud-slingers of Jesus’ day would have portrayed him. Here was a guy who had known associations with two, possibly three radicals: James and John, the “Sons of Thunder,” part of the extremist Zealot faction; and Judas Iscariot, an alleged member of “The Daggers” terrorist cell. He included among his disciples at least one Roman collaborator, a tax collector, a traitor to his people. Jesus also attended parties with prostitutes. He rode into Jerusalem while his followers chanted revolutionary slogans. Can you imagine the campaign commercials? “Who IS Jesus of Nazareth?”
What amuses me is that the same people who will yell “kill him!” in reference to Obama at a political rally, the same people who forward me hysterical emails about how “dangerous” he is, will wonder on Good Friday how anyone could kill Jesus. I’m not making comparisons of Obama to Jesus. I’m merely pointing out how powerful perspective can be. (I have yet to receive any hysterical emails telling me that McCain is “dangerous”). When we read of the mob shouting “crucify him!” is it that difficult to see how we could be among them, yelling at the top of our lungs?
Whether you see David, or Jesus, or Fidel Castro, or Che Guevara, or Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, or Barack Obama, or John McCain, as sinner or saint, as good or evil, as inspired leader or dangerous radical, depends quite a bit on where you stand.
Not only are we going to make every sentence eighteen words too long so that when it is read out loud it must be chopped up in unnatural places before the speaker runs of breath, but we will also finish as many sentences as possible with a triad like this next one so that our declarations will sound authoritative, well-reasoned, and final. We are going to use passive verbs at every opportunity, even when an obvious active verb is at hand, and we will fill each sentence with fluff, redundancy, and repetition to help us reach our target word counts.
I’m enjoying teaching the short-term Bible study “The Bible, Uncensored.” If you’ve visited this blog before, you probably know this is a theme of mine. I think we get more of a sense of the radical nature of the Gospel when we translate passages that are meant to be shocking into their shocking English equivalents. By noting the vulgar aspects of Biblical language, we also get a better understanding that these stories are often about real life, and not just some idealized heartwarming Christian version made for the Family Channel.
For example, when Saul, angry with his son Jonathan for helping David, calls him a “son of a perverse and rebellious woman,” who is “a shame to [his] mother’s nakedness” (NRSV, 1 Sam 20:30) some translations choose to make this into a propositional statement. The Good News Bible says, “How rebellious your mother was! Now I know you are taking sides with David and are disgracing yourself and that mother of yours!”
Taken literally, Saul’s statement makes no sense. How could Jonathan’s shameful acts shame a shameful woman? But Saul’s statement is not meant to be taken literally. It is an insult. Eugene Peterson gets it better in The Message when he writes, “You son of a slut! Don’t you think I know that you’re in cahoots with the son of Jesse, disgracing both you and your mother?” I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call someone else a “son of a slut,” but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen. Also, like the Good News, he leaves out the crude reference to his mother’s reproductive system.
I’ve said before that my understanding of Hebrew is only slightly worse than my understanding of html. In other words, if I sit down with a dictionary, a grammar, and several translations, I can more or less figure things out. So I confess that my grasp of this particular passage may lack some nuance. But I think it’s pretty clear what Saul means. He is using an almost universal kind of vituperative rhetoric which every child learns on the playground: when you really want to insult someone, you do not insult them. You insult their mama.
The NRSV and JPS have almost identical language. My Oxford Study Bible has this helpful scholarly-sounding footnote:
By calling Jonathan the son of a perverse, rebellious woman Saul means to brand Jonathan as genetically disloyal, but the choice of words points the insult at Jonathan’s mother; his mother’s nakedness refers euphemistically to her pudenda, which are shamed by his having entered the world thereby.
I love it! In the future, when someone cuts me off in traffic, this is what I will do: I will honk, shake my fist and yell “you son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Your mother’s genitals are shamed by your having entered the world thereby!”
The Access Bible has a similarly helpful footnote: “Nakedness is a euphemism for the genitals. Saul’s remark is coarse and insulting. He accuses Jonathan of treason and says that he is a shame to his mother’s genitals.”
Okay. Granted, there is a theme here of genetic disloyalty. Saul cannot believe his own son would act to divest his family of power. So genetic disloyalty, treason, or whatever you want to call it is wrapped up in this statement. But that’s where the actual relevance of Jonathan’s mother ends. Saul is not primarily concerned with Jonathan’s mother. He is not giving his son a stern talking-to, saying, “your mother would be very disappointed in you.” This is coarse, vulgar, your-mama kind of language. We have a similar phrase in English that English-speakers use when they want to level an insult at someone which involves their mother’s reproductive system. Samuel L. Jackson has perfected the delivery of this versatile noun/adjective/verb to such a point that thousands of high school and college boys across the nation practice it at least four or five times daily in front of a mirror. Again, this compound word may be colorful, but it is in no way descriptive of any actual state of affairs. When Jules in Pulp Fiction refers to himself as “a mushroom-cloud-layin’ m*****f*****,” this is not a propositional claim about nuclear weapons reproducing in incestuous ways. It is colorful and vulgar. But it has nothing to do with his mother.
So, although “M.F.S.O.B.” may not be the most accurate translation of this lengthy phrase, I think it captures the intent a lot better than the alternatives. I’m also not suggesting that Bibles actually use this vulgar phrase, but I think Bible students ought to realize that ancient kings used language that was no more regal or dignified than street punks. And if Saul sets the precedent, other kings follow suit. David and Rehoboam also use stereotypically macho vulgar language.
Why is this important? It’s important to me because the Bible has been censored so long, and in so many ways, that one of the big arguments in church is about “relevance.” We’ve got some sincere preachers desperately trying to make the Bible relevant to their culture, and other Barthian preachers stiffly arguing that the culture should be made relevant to the Bible. It’s a bunch of crap. Relevance should be a non-issue. These things are already relevant to each other, and it’s our M.F.ing preaching that’s created the supposed “homiletical gap” between the world of the Bible and the culture we think we know so well. What we have is not a relevance issue. What we have is a credibility issue.
I want to blow up the whole equation. The Bible doesn’t say what we think it does. The culture doesn’t mean what we think it does. Rather than trying to make one relevant to the other, we should immerse ourselves in both.
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?
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.
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.
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 