A Couple Thoughts on Belief

Greta Christina is a sex-positive writer and atheist.  I get sent her writings through the list-serve Alternet, which is a progressive news portal.

Greta represents, in my view, the casual atheism of well read, urbane liberals.    Smart and usually thoughtful, they rightly rail with passion about injustice, and are particularly attentive when it comes to the crimes of the church.  They see the abuse that happens in religious communities and they want it to stop.  Religion, for them, is deception, arrogance and power.

I will admit that, predictably, I find her understanding of religion and belief remarkably shallow.  She offers a monistic view of the system of explanation called SCIENCE, and literal, mechanical understanding of Truth.   For this reason, she is positively baffled by what she considers religious behavior.  Granted, I feel the same bafflement when watching most music videos. Continue reading “A Couple Thoughts on Belief” →

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The Tea Party

I’m in the midst of doing some community organizing in my county, and I’ve been struck by the contrast between the work I’ve been doing and what is happening in the tea party “movement.”

Some interesting social analysis has been done about them.  Most of the tea party is white.  They don’t want to be told what to do.  It represents the hyperindividualism that reflects part of our cultural consciousness, and the more recently cultivated antagonism toward the behemoth that is The Government.

Reasonable people can critique the “therapeutic state” and its diminishment of civil liberties.   Institutions, after all, engineer cultures (did you know that the English propensity toward tea was based primarily on a conscious decision to prefer Tea corporations to Coffee corporations?).   Anger toward corporations, generally, is well placed, even if tea partiers aren’t that consistent.

But the tea party, which seems proud that there is little leadership or organization, seems to be blind about the nature institutions, government and the public.  Their view is of the mass, “taking over” which is more like the cultural revolution (choose any) than of getting work done.

The tea “party” ignores that politics is about people in institutions.  Joe Schmoe is just a dude spouting off about paying taxes.  He’s got some anecdotes, and he’s pissed, but just because he knows his car’s broken doesn’t mean he knows how to fix it.   It just looks like another narcissistic blowhard who doesn’t know who’s responsible for his lowered standards.

Good Government requires some leadership and management skills.  Politicians will make difficult decisions.  If tea partiers don’t want leaders, and don’t think government should manage, their task is going to be incredibly challenging as they get stuck in their internal bickering.   They will perpetually seek a consensus that will never emerge.

No government will make everyone happy.   Kenneth Arrow showed, in my view, decisively that there is no perfect government or economic system.  Someone will feel screwed.   Perhaps the rich will find some of their money confiscated; or the middle class will find their pensions cut.  Sometimes liberty wins, sometimes security.  But in a democracy we live together whether we win, or lose.   Although I talked, admittedly, about emigrating to the Netherlands after Bush won a second election.

Leaders will inevitably disappoint some people.  It’s the nature of leaders that they get hit, that they compromise, and choose between two bad, or two good, decisions.   A tea party that isn’t sure what it wants, besides being left alone, and resists any leader trying to compromise between the various publics, will find itself just another discussion group, a loud mob unable to accomplish anything.

I have not been worried about the tea party because they do not take organizing seriously.  In someways, they are like some parts (not all, of course) left – get people angry, hold a couple marches, find some politician who says what you want to hear. The hard work of engaging communities, discerning their values, discovering what keeps people up at night, and then acting upon it, is substituted for quick fixes.  Like corporations, politicians and even some progressives, the tea party thinks there is a quick fix, and that is to vote the bums out.

It doesn’t work like that.  It’s one reason I fell in love with the church. Granted, plenty of priests try to find quick fixes.  The daily life of church, however, resists it. Although I believe there may need to be a reboot of the church,  bodies of people coming together are what the church does.  Perhaps we have not done so well at that over the last 30 years.  We’ve not been able to manage within the new economy of attention.  I don’t think it’s hopeless, but I do think it will require a different kind of work.  The tea-party illustrates what we should not be doing.

I’m not hard on the tea party.  As a reformed anarchist, I’m actually sympathetic, aside from it’s loose resentments that stem from race populism.  I wish that there were some elected officials who would really challenge the economic system.  As it is, some of the tea party officials seem like stooges for state capitalism.    Which is a lot different than democratic capitalism.

One of the reasons I think that democracy, and capitalism, are fruits of some hard consequences of Christian morality is because, in the case of democracy, we learn to lose some times; and when we win, we treat the losers with respect.  Battling things politically is far better than fighting a civil war.  In capitalism, we coordinate desires, trusting in each other’s ability to share goods (I’m not talking about the system of high finance).  They are held in tension – sometimes they contradict each other.   And then we should be able to learn to choose.

The tea party needs to learn how to live within the former.

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A Clergy Glut: a Few Thoughts

A reality check!

The Episcopal Church did a horrible job of funding clergy education.  It’s why I went to University of Chicago rather than General.  It is one reason seminaries aren’t supported by their clergy after they graduate.  The Episcopal church, as a whole, does not fund clergy education the way other denominations do.

It might be that our jobs will change.  Churches fund benefits,  allow priests to be out in the world, doing other vocational work that they love.  As churches are organized, they can get benefits for their priests and fund a pension much more reasonably.  Priests can do what they love during the week, but fulfill their clear canonical expectations of teaching.  They can live in the rectory and throw parties for the church.   In essence, priests would work 1/3rd time.  It would be humane, force churches do develop lay leadership, and encourage some creativity in the clergy.  It shouldn’t be the only type of position, but a possible one.  Perhaps we would ordain people who were already lawyers, social workers and musicians with a steady profession.

But this also means that seminary education should change.  We could require masters in other disciplines, but require a steady three year reading list, consistent writing, and local apprenticeship.    Seminaries can do online education during the year, and host intensive 2-3 week training on-site, or weekend training for lay people; or offer training during the week training for clergy.

Not all residential three year seminaries should close.  But they should be competitive.  Let them turn people down.  But we should remind congregations that “we need strong lay people” and do a better job of rewarding them.  Clergy should have $15,000 hospitality budgets to spend on feeding and rewarding other people.

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Prolegomena to the Current Anglican Crisis

After a recent exchange on another blog, I’d like to address a few reasons why  reasserters and reappraisers do not understand each others’ arguments.  It seems to me that we see our current context with very different lenses, and thus our discussions easily veer off track.

What I’d like to offer are a series of broader issues, one that isn’t exhaustive,  that shape the conflict.  Perhaps by examining these descriptively, we can address our different prescriptions.

1.  A general crisis of authority.  Over the last 50 years, all our major institutions are not trusted by the laity.  There has been a crisis in the authority of scripture and the church.  This parallels a lack of trust in governments as well.

2. An alteration in the relationship between public and private.  Sex was once private, but is now ubiquitous, in part because it is used to sell products.  Public persons are not merely individuals representing institutions, but persons who’s private lives are also public.

3. The introduction of the market into institutions that had previously been sheltered from competition.  These include the church, social service organizations, and unions.

4. The immediacy of communication.  This undermines the virtues of reflection, prudence and even the Sabbath itself.  Videos and emails are exchanged quickly without consideration about their underlying meanings or the proper audience.   Although audiences are easily segmented, anyone can be a hearer, and may hear exactly the opposite of what the speaker intends.

5. The reconceptualization of place.  Cyberspace dictates the rules of civil engagement.  Geography has less of a hold on identity.  Much of our battle happens in cyberspace, and not in person.  However, it is still physical persons who make decisions and operate institutions.

6. The social engagement of more Americans with non-Christians.  This directly impacts how the average lay person thinks of heaven, hell and the uniqueness of Christian doctrine.

7. The diminishing consequences of sex outside of marriage.

8. The effect of capital upon churches and the liberation of desire for the sake of profit.

9.  Our lives and ideologies are generally fragmented, and we put them back together again sometimes in haphazard ways.

Until we can get an accurate description of our cultural context, it will be a challenge for us to even understand our proscriptions.

By and large, the progressive church has accepted the impact of liberal capitalism into the sphere of social relationships.  Some have some antagonism toward neo-liberal / libertarian economic policies, but by and large it accepts the colonial, bourgeois, world-view.   I am saying this as a description.

The conservatives generally accept, however, the place of the US as an empire, but are unwilling to adapt a pre-modern understanding of cosmology and the role of the church.

There seems to a be some link between social conservatism, political conservatism and theological conservatism, but I don’t think the links are intellectually necessary.   One can be a theological conservative and an economic progressive; a theological liberal and a libertarian or neo-conservative.  I can say that I share a cultural identity (bourgeois, private college, suburban/urban, Yankee) with people who call themselves “liberal.”  What that means on a daily basis changes.

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John Wooden, RIP

I’m not a sports fan, except I will occasionally participate in the madness and enjoy the periodic live game.  I admire skill, but I think amateur sports a re lot more entertaining.  So to read about John Wooden has been interesting because I knew so little about this sports hero.

Although I am usually skeptical of the advice given by coaches, businessmen or celebrities, I find the following a reasonable creed.

John Wooden’s Seven Point Creed.

  • Be true to yourself.
  • Make each day your masterpiece.
  • Help others.
  • Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible.
  • Make friendship a fine art.
  • Build a shelter against a rainy day.
  • Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

Personally, I think clergy could learn from good coaches.  It is one of the skills that should replace pastoral care.

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Pentecost

Fifty days after Easter, the spirit gave the apostles the power to speak in the languages of all the peoples.

It is a reversal of the story of the Tower of Babel. In that story, we tried to become like Gods by building a tower to the heavens. We were cursed to misunderstand and mistranslate. We would be caught in perpetual confusion, a consequence of our audacity. The source of violence in human culture was named: pride and misunderstanding – competition with the Gods for power.

Yet in this week’s reading, the spirit brings people together. Language to understand and comprehend rather than divide. The most holy work, in this case, is one of translation. And translation requires charity, because no translation is ever perfect.

Our age, however, has so compressed time and space that comprehension becomes very challenging: in part because there is too much to comprehend; and our words move exceptionally fast. Add that the same youtube video seen by people of two completely different cultures may be translated completely differently.

What characteristics do we need to handle our contemporary problems of “translation?”

First: we should remember that church – or any institution – should be an adventure. Charting new territories is fun and rewarding. Safety, quick solutions, and fads just postpone the inevitable.

Second – Tenacity: keeping attentive to the different ways we can improve. It means, also, plotting out small steps. A big vision is very useful, but it is also to map our small successes along the way. tenacity is how one learns a language – we are willing to keep speaking, even if we make a mistake. We listen carefully so that we can be sure we understand.

Last: listening. It is perhaps most true that the apostles were not just speaking in the language of the people, they were listening to the world.

There are immense difficulties here at St. Barts. And yet, there are also great opportunities. Let it be an adventure; and may we be both steadfast and resilient in the days ahead.

Blessings,

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Keeping the Word

Yesterday Jesus said in the Gospel (John 14:23) that “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”  It’s one of those conditional statements that bugs me.  If you don’t love Jesus you won’t, but if you do you will.

When I think of promises, I also think of contracts and laws.  Contracts as in written agreements with the power of force; laws as in cosmic natural laws such as gravity.  Law makes the world ordered; as do promises.  They allow us to plan, to have expectations.  We have subconscious promises, ones we don’t articulate, but are present in our assumptions and habits.

We can see all sorts of ways people break promises.  People leave their marriages.  Governments lie about war.  Police are on the take, extorting criminals rather than turning them in (I just saw the movie Serpico).  Churches can’t extricate the criminals within their orders.

Often people’s words do not fit their actions.  Perhaps that’s the truly religious person:  one who’s words always match their actions.  And maybe that’s why truly religious people are silent.

Some philosophers have argued that hypocrisy is wherever you look for it.  It’s the nature of public life that our public proclamations don’t match our private lives.  A male politician might be great about supporting women’s issues, but be vile to their spouses.  Johnson was a racist, but the president who did the most to change institutionalized racism.

And the brokenness we experience in the natural world happen when different cosmic laws engage.  When someone falls to their death, we wish, perhaps, that gravity might not take hold.  But then, what would happen if we could not rely on such certainty.

Perhaps the point here is that we make promises not denying that they get broken, but in spite of them.  We are given, because we have faith in God’s deep promise – that we know through his cross and resurrection – the power to continue building trust, to continuing uttering words, to continue acting, even though our everyday confidence is a little less arrogant, a little more modest, and little more humble.  We might find ourselves in positions where we do break our promises.  But if we love one another, if we maintain our honesty, if we do not flee from the consequences, and if we accept our flaws with generosity, and trust that we can each do better, we may still taste how God continues to have confidence in us.

In the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan makes a promise to the Witch.  But the altar is broken due to the deeper promise, one based on sacrifice, which is known in the world.  By raising it, God reveals his trump card.  We can trust in Jesus.

But what does this obscure code mean?  I suspect it means something like this:  we don’t give up.  We don’t give up on one another.  We don’t give up on our families; we don’t give up on our communities; we don’t give up on our governments or our churches.  In spite of our diminished expectations we find ways to move, to act, with the confidence we have.   Whatever promises are broken shall always be trumped by the promise we believe God has made in us.  And when our words match our actions, it may not merely be silence, but also the expression of our vitality; the simple witness that He Is.

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Ernesto Cortes, Jr.

I was recently reminded about this fellow.

When one woman asks him to explain how he “motivates” people to support a cause with actions as well as words, the storm rolls in. Cortés can scarcely conceal his impatience. “Perhaps I prejudge you unfairly,” he begins, “but when I hear your question, what I think you’re really saying is, ‘How can I convince people to do what’s good? How do I get them to do what’s right? How do I get them to follow my agenda?’ ” He pauses, frowning. “That’s not organizing. What I mean by organizing is getting you to recognize what’s in your best interest. Getting you to recognize that you have a child, that you have a career and a life to lead, and that there are some things that are obstacles to the quality of your life. I need to get you to see how you can affect those things through relationships with other people. And it’s only going to happen if you engage in some kind of struggle.”

He pauses to let it all sink in. “We organize people not just around issues, but around their values,” he says. “The issues fade, and people lose interest in them. But what they really care about remains: family, dignity, justice, and hope. We need power to protect what we value.”

In churches, we call this asset based congregational development.  Begin where people are, not where you think they should be.

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The Pygmalion Effect

One aspect about church life is that when a congregation believes it can accomplish great things, they are more apt to do the work necessary to get there.  This is not the Law of Attraction, or The Secret.   But such confidence allows goals to be broken down into manageable tasks.    It is not a quick fix, nor is success guaranteed.  New challenges arise even in the midst of success.  We’ve done a great job at St. Barts at balancing the budget, but there’s always another pipe that needs to be fixed.

This idea is called The Pygmalion effect.  Expectations orient results.  Leaders who trust and enable their congregation will have greater success than those who withhold authority.   Students do better with teachers who believe in them. Children respond differently after getting hurt with a parent who expects tears, and a parent who expects tenacity.    It affects creativity as well – feeling like a sucky writer will not make one a better writer.  Writing with encouragement will get the work done.

Not to say that there aren’t times people truly get hurt.  Sometimes we need… improvement.  But a perspective that allows for opportunity and openness is frames our choices we see before us.  It’s not a matter of promoting optimism:  but if I trust my volunteers, we’re likely to do more than if I don’t trust them.  People can rise up to each other’s expectations.  There can be a great transformation.

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False Memories and Resilience

The NY Times reports there is a bill to extend the statute of limitations for cases of sex abuse.

Although I believe that the church should take a zero-tolerance rule regarding sexual abuse, I have two nagging anxieties.  One is that human beings are often prone to suggestion and false memories.    It is possible that people, in the hunt to figure out the root cause of their personal challenges, invent stories.

Secondly, I also wonder what it means to say that being sexually abused ruins someone for life.   This intimates that one’s life is worth less because of the abuse.   Is there merit if someone says, “this horrible event happened to me, but I’m not ruined”?   Must we assume that healing is always beyond our reach?  Resilience is a worthy, admirable virtue, even if it may not be mandated or expected.   Throw the offending priests in jail.  Let’s also, however, expect the truth and hope that the victims lives are still considered worthy rather than damaged.  Let us resist saying a victim is “damaged goods.”

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