A few years ago a good friend set up an elaborate plan to commit suicide but stopped before pulling the string on her own trap. It took months for her to recover and as she languished in mental hospitals she was consumed by the illusion she was actually in hell. She had been raised Roman Catholic and thoughts of what she had longed to do filled her with guilt. I was angry that the church’s condemnation of suicide was now forcing her to pay a second price.
But it wasn’t her understanding of church doctrine that made her stop at death’s door, it was the thought of her children finding her. Later, when she was well, it occurred to me that if fear of “going to hell” dissuaded some from suicide, that’s not a bad thing. When one is trying to save someone’s life, anything is fair practice — even lying to them.
In the first centuries of the church many Christians martyred themselves by openly defying the Roman government’s prohibition of their faith. The penalty was death and these Christians eagerly pursued a trip home to be with Jesus. The early Bishops spoke against this practice, and maybe that was the beginning of the church’s injunction against suicide.
Last week a second friend did commit suicide. She said in her farewell note that she was going home to be with God and her father who had died when she was in her mid-20s. I found myself wishing desperately that I’d been given one last chance to talk her out of it. I would gladly have lied and told her she would go straight to hell if that would have stopped her. Of course, what I really believe is that God gladly welcomed her troubled spirit.
My friend’s suicide note also cited her crushing financial position. She was broke, jobless, effectively homeless and facing bankruptcy. She had just turned in her car. She’d been unsuccessfully seeking work for more than a year and wrote that she was “so tired.” I spoke with her bankruptcy attorney, who was saddened by the news. “I’ve seen so much of this lately,” she said. Shouldn’t it be clear that bankruptcy and financial failure are nothing to be ashamed of and suicide is not a logical response? Especially in times like these? Some of the biggest names in the American Parthenon, including Henry Ford, have suffered bankruptcy and started over.
One of the most debilitating mystiques of the American psyche is this belief in individual achievement often called “rugged individualism.” And if achievement is individual, so is failure. Taking failure as a personal fault can trigger suicide. Spurred by the Great Depression, FDR advocated a new vision, a social compact in which we share responsibility for each other, but the cult of the individual has fought it ever since. God also condemned the “I did it all myself” school of braggarts when the Israelites first entered the promised land, warning those inclined to boast that their achievements were not their own but were built on God’s actions and those of the people who worked the land before them.
Of course, remembering we’re not in this life alone is easier said than done when hard times arrive. Europe, we know, is more advanced than America in visioning a culture of shared responsibility, but even in Europe rising unemployment has been shown to increase a sense of isolation and the incidence of suicide. A study released earlier this year by researchers at Oxford University, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of California San Francisco, and other institutions in the UK and Europe proved that Europe is not immune to financial despair.
Between 1970 and 2007, 26 EU countries were assessed, providing more than 550 country-years of data. The observations revealed that for every 1% increase in unemployment level there was a 0.79% rise in the suicide rate among people under 65 years. When the authors looked at the effect of mass unemployment (more than a 3% rise), the increase in suicide rate among those under 65 years was 4.45%. This was potentially 250-3220 excess deaths across the EU. In addition, there was a 28% increase in deaths from alcohol abuse.
I wish I could wrap this up with wisdom to take the sting out of last week’s chilling news of my friend’s departure. We — her friends and family — will never fully understand. We do know she had lost hope, that she feared life more than death, that she was exhausted and wanted to go home to God’s peace. But if I know anything about God’s intentions it’s this: God didn’t create the world as a place of suffering. Our world is meant for joy and pleasure. Making it so should be our social compact. We are not alone. God is with us and we were created as social creatures, meant to live for each other. Let’s learn to step out of our individual skins and give God’s plan a chance.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Dreaming God's Dream for the World
Synchronicity. You may have heard the word. It means a coincidence of events that seem related but are not directly caused one by the other. People who experience synchronicity often walk away convinced something much greater than random coincidence is at work in our world. It’s not exactly the old “God has a plan for each of us” formula. It’s more like sensing a force of intention in which we all move and have our being. Difficult to put in words, but real just the same.
Spirituality is making a comeback in America. For many people the old salvation formula built on ancient Israel’s cult of animal sacrifice is no longer sufficient. Many people of faith, including Christians, feel themselves in harmony with a purposeful, optimistic and spiritual energy that flows throughout the world. That energy is always there for us if we will only open our eyes. When we do, synchronicity is revealed.
Spiritual presence is a continuum. It doesn’t come or go; it is always at hand, wherever you may be. Jesus called this spiritual dimension the kingdom of heaven and even Jesus resorted to metaphor and parable to describe it. I think of it as a river always in motion, always nearby, welcoming us in.
But we do have a choice. We can choose to stay on the river bank, to turn our backs and stare into the woods, or we can wade into the waters and see where they will take us. When we do, we find that much of what we dream is dreamed by others. In fact, the dream begins not with any one of us but in a greater dream shared by all. Synchronicity: Sharing in God’s dream for the world.
Of course, coincidence should not be dismissed. This is the trap believers fall into when they see God’s “hand” guiding every little event and outcome. On occasion a series of coincidental events will conspire to produce a predictable conclusion. This may be the case for me in this blog. But who knows? Maybe this is the time and place where these words are to be written, and I am the one given over to writing them. If you are a believer, maybe this is your time to hear them. If I look at it that way, there’s quite a responsibility to get it right, but also quite a force assuring I will. So here goes.
A frequent reader of Mr. B’s Christian Counter Culture took me to task over my most recent blog, criticizing me for too frequently picturing Jesus as a political activist standing up to the power structure of his day. Why not more of the compassionate, reconciling Jesus? Why not the Christ who forgives all, who rejects none? Fair enough. I won’t deny that also is a true picture of Jesus. Then Sunday in our worship service we sang the old standard Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus. If you’ve ever been a church-goer you know the hymn. One of our members felt its confrontational, almost militaristic tone was out of step with who we are. We are a reconciling, affirming congregation. Our motto is, “Wherever you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.” The hymn “sounds like the crusades,” the member complained. “It's all military and strength, not a thing about love, compassion, justice, forgiveness or even praise.”
"Depends on how you read the words," I replied. I was thinking of Barry Goldwater’s words: “…let me remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Shouldn’t we be militant in defense of the values Christ taught, values such as peace, equality, justice, mercy, compassion? Should we sit by in moderation, trying to be reconcilers while others reject and scorn reconciliation? Should we practice acceptance, accepting even those who refuse to accept anyone outside the mainstream? Jesus said turn the other cheek to those who slap us, but what if the one being slapped is not us but another too weak to endure the slap?
I thought again of that valued reader who said too often I dwell on the confrontational Jesus. What about Jesus the teacher who said, “blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth,” and “blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” And what about the mystic Jesus whose ministry began one day in the Jordan River when God’s Spirit descended on him like a dove. In that moment he was changed and became one with God’s great dream for the world.
Is it synchronicity or mere coincidence that when lessons are to be learned, teachers come along? Here in this place of thinking and speaking out that I call Mr. B’s Christian Counter Culture, we can take a lesson as well as give one. So here’s what I’ve learned: There are many faces to this Jesus of Nazareth, this Jesus Christ by whose name we are known. He is teacher, mystic, political activist. Some days it is good to sit and listen to his words, other days are good for feeling the calming peace of God’s spirit, and still others are good for putting on the armor of justice and taking to the field.
Spirituality is making a comeback in America. For many people the old salvation formula built on ancient Israel’s cult of animal sacrifice is no longer sufficient. Many people of faith, including Christians, feel themselves in harmony with a purposeful, optimistic and spiritual energy that flows throughout the world. That energy is always there for us if we will only open our eyes. When we do, synchronicity is revealed.
Spiritual presence is a continuum. It doesn’t come or go; it is always at hand, wherever you may be. Jesus called this spiritual dimension the kingdom of heaven and even Jesus resorted to metaphor and parable to describe it. I think of it as a river always in motion, always nearby, welcoming us in.
But we do have a choice. We can choose to stay on the river bank, to turn our backs and stare into the woods, or we can wade into the waters and see where they will take us. When we do, we find that much of what we dream is dreamed by others. In fact, the dream begins not with any one of us but in a greater dream shared by all. Synchronicity: Sharing in God’s dream for the world.
Of course, coincidence should not be dismissed. This is the trap believers fall into when they see God’s “hand” guiding every little event and outcome. On occasion a series of coincidental events will conspire to produce a predictable conclusion. This may be the case for me in this blog. But who knows? Maybe this is the time and place where these words are to be written, and I am the one given over to writing them. If you are a believer, maybe this is your time to hear them. If I look at it that way, there’s quite a responsibility to get it right, but also quite a force assuring I will. So here goes.
A frequent reader of Mr. B’s Christian Counter Culture took me to task over my most recent blog, criticizing me for too frequently picturing Jesus as a political activist standing up to the power structure of his day. Why not more of the compassionate, reconciling Jesus? Why not the Christ who forgives all, who rejects none? Fair enough. I won’t deny that also is a true picture of Jesus. Then Sunday in our worship service we sang the old standard Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus. If you’ve ever been a church-goer you know the hymn. One of our members felt its confrontational, almost militaristic tone was out of step with who we are. We are a reconciling, affirming congregation. Our motto is, “Wherever you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.” The hymn “sounds like the crusades,” the member complained. “It's all military and strength, not a thing about love, compassion, justice, forgiveness or even praise.”
"Depends on how you read the words," I replied. I was thinking of Barry Goldwater’s words: “…let me remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Shouldn’t we be militant in defense of the values Christ taught, values such as peace, equality, justice, mercy, compassion? Should we sit by in moderation, trying to be reconcilers while others reject and scorn reconciliation? Should we practice acceptance, accepting even those who refuse to accept anyone outside the mainstream? Jesus said turn the other cheek to those who slap us, but what if the one being slapped is not us but another too weak to endure the slap?
I thought again of that valued reader who said too often I dwell on the confrontational Jesus. What about Jesus the teacher who said, “blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth,” and “blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” And what about the mystic Jesus whose ministry began one day in the Jordan River when God’s Spirit descended on him like a dove. In that moment he was changed and became one with God’s great dream for the world.
Is it synchronicity or mere coincidence that when lessons are to be learned, teachers come along? Here in this place of thinking and speaking out that I call Mr. B’s Christian Counter Culture, we can take a lesson as well as give one. So here’s what I’ve learned: There are many faces to this Jesus of Nazareth, this Jesus Christ by whose name we are known. He is teacher, mystic, political activist. Some days it is good to sit and listen to his words, other days are good for feeling the calming peace of God’s spirit, and still others are good for putting on the armor of justice and taking to the field.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
We Could Use a Dose of True Populism
Great peril comes with being the party in power. You immediately become the establishment even if you did run on a platform of change. Throw in a few errors like sticking a bunch of Ivy League elitists in the cabinet and other positions of power and you’re ripe for the kind of phony populist movement we’ve seen rising up whenever frightened citizens tune TVs to Fox News or radios to Rush’s rants.
Let’s be clear. This tea party nonsense is no populist movement and Glenn Beck is no populist leader. Beck is nothing more than a person of great privilege and wealth doing everything in his power to make sure he maintains his advantages. The sad legions that follow people like him and Rush are people of relative middle-class privilege duped into believing there must be losers for them to feel like winners. These false populist masses are more like the Southern whites, in fact some might be the very same people, who were told that allowing black people some scrap of dignity would somehow diminish their own dignity.
What is populism? It’s a political philosophy and movement that sees societal systems as broken or corrupt, and slanted toward people of privilege and influence. Fixing a broken health care system that awards billions to insurance executives while denying adequate coverage to 40 percent of the nation is populism in action. Trying to protect the broken system and the fortunate ones it benefits, is not populism. It is the exact opposite of populism. That the media insist on calling Beck and the tea partiers “populists” just proves that health care isn’t the only broken institution in our culture.
When I think of a populist, the late newspaper columnist from Texas, Molly Ivins, comes to mind. Molly understood that when it comes to advancing the cause of the powerless, it’s not a matter of siding with government on one hand or corporations on the other, the point is to break the conspiracy between them. Since we get to elect our political leaders, they are the ones from whom we can demand change. As Ms. Ivins once wrote:
“What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.”
She also argued, “It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.” Those two statements serve as a pretty good definition of populism. Trying to protect the privilege of those blessed by our cultural institutions is not populism, no matter how loud Rush screams into his microphone.
Populist leaders often come from modest backgrounds and know first-hand what struggle feels like. They’ve also seen how hard the poor and working class labor to survive or get ahead. They spot the lie when people like Beck and Limbaugh claim we all get what we’ve earned. What defines real populist leaders is they don’t look back and say, “I worked hard and made it, so can you. If you don’t it’s your own fault.” They look back and see that the game shouldn’t be so skewed, that fundamental systems need to be repaired. This tendency helped define the prophet Jesus. He could have used his fame and talent to claim fortune for himself. Could have said, you take care of yourself and I’ll do the same. But he didn’t. He was born poor and died poor after dedicating his life to denouncing the corrupt aristocrats of his culture who made deals with the Romans to feather their own nests and then betrayed their own people, using religious dictatorship to suppress them. They liked the order of things “as is.” Jesus answered with a resounding “No!” And that got him killed.
I see this same sensitivity to failed systems in President Obama’s drive for health care reform. The broken or corrupt system—take your pick—failed his own mother when she needed it most. You don’t forget something like that.
As for Beck and Limbaugh, they definitely are not populists leading a tea party rebellion like the one of Boston Harbor fame in the days of our revolution. They are King George, drawing to their flag those fearful of change.
Let’s be clear. This tea party nonsense is no populist movement and Glenn Beck is no populist leader. Beck is nothing more than a person of great privilege and wealth doing everything in his power to make sure he maintains his advantages. The sad legions that follow people like him and Rush are people of relative middle-class privilege duped into believing there must be losers for them to feel like winners. These false populist masses are more like the Southern whites, in fact some might be the very same people, who were told that allowing black people some scrap of dignity would somehow diminish their own dignity.
What is populism? It’s a political philosophy and movement that sees societal systems as broken or corrupt, and slanted toward people of privilege and influence. Fixing a broken health care system that awards billions to insurance executives while denying adequate coverage to 40 percent of the nation is populism in action. Trying to protect the broken system and the fortunate ones it benefits, is not populism. It is the exact opposite of populism. That the media insist on calling Beck and the tea partiers “populists” just proves that health care isn’t the only broken institution in our culture.
When I think of a populist, the late newspaper columnist from Texas, Molly Ivins, comes to mind. Molly understood that when it comes to advancing the cause of the powerless, it’s not a matter of siding with government on one hand or corporations on the other, the point is to break the conspiracy between them. Since we get to elect our political leaders, they are the ones from whom we can demand change. As Ms. Ivins once wrote:
“What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.”
She also argued, “It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.” Those two statements serve as a pretty good definition of populism. Trying to protect the privilege of those blessed by our cultural institutions is not populism, no matter how loud Rush screams into his microphone.
Populist leaders often come from modest backgrounds and know first-hand what struggle feels like. They’ve also seen how hard the poor and working class labor to survive or get ahead. They spot the lie when people like Beck and Limbaugh claim we all get what we’ve earned. What defines real populist leaders is they don’t look back and say, “I worked hard and made it, so can you. If you don’t it’s your own fault.” They look back and see that the game shouldn’t be so skewed, that fundamental systems need to be repaired. This tendency helped define the prophet Jesus. He could have used his fame and talent to claim fortune for himself. Could have said, you take care of yourself and I’ll do the same. But he didn’t. He was born poor and died poor after dedicating his life to denouncing the corrupt aristocrats of his culture who made deals with the Romans to feather their own nests and then betrayed their own people, using religious dictatorship to suppress them. They liked the order of things “as is.” Jesus answered with a resounding “No!” And that got him killed.
I see this same sensitivity to failed systems in President Obama’s drive for health care reform. The broken or corrupt system—take your pick—failed his own mother when she needed it most. You don’t forget something like that.
As for Beck and Limbaugh, they definitely are not populists leading a tea party rebellion like the one of Boston Harbor fame in the days of our revolution. They are King George, drawing to their flag those fearful of change.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
When Church and Culture Merge, Goodbye Church
I had a chance to preach at the United Church of Christ in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, two Sundays back. I love preaching. It really fires me up to see people moved, to see their faith grow. If that’s an ego indulgence, I apologize.
In my sermon on claiming the fruits of grace, I quoted several luminaries of recent times going back into the 20th century: Paul Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Marcus Borg. I even had a Martin Luther reference. The subject was grace, you have to mention Luther!
The thing all four of these gents have in common is they were all, to one degree or another, counter-cultural. In Luther’s day the church was everything. Emperors bowed down to it. When the Pope said jump, people said “how high?” Talk about extraordinary rendition. Talk about torture. The Pope’s guys could make a secret CIA prison in Bulgaria look like a week at a Girl Scout camp. And yet Luther stood up to them in the name of the truth.
Bonhoeffer’s enemies were just as lethal. When Hitler’s Waffen SS got hold of you, it was time to put your last will and testament in order. And yet Bonhoeffer and what was known as “the Confessing Church,” that is the church that wouldn’t bow down to Hitler, were prepared at any moment to feel the iron boot on their throats. Their numbers were small but their hearts were large.
Marcus Borg plays an important role in championing the true confessing church of our time. He hasn’t faced torture and execution but, like Tillich, has been targeted as a heretic by entrenched forces within the traditional ranks of Christianity—the very people who have let the realm of faith shrink ever smaller. A leading voice among the often silenced ranks of progressive Christian thinkers, Borg teaches at Oregon State University.
Tillich, who died in 1965, was also a victim of Hitler, but unlike the executed Bonhoeffer, Tillich escaped to the United States and taught at Union Theological, Columbia University and the University of Chicago. He is considered one of the great thinkers of the 20th century and did his best to rescue Christian philosophy from shallow subservience to simple formulas of faith. But the continued dominance of the American Evangelical Church demonstrates that neither Tillich nor Borg have been as successful as we would have wished.
As much as I admire all these heroes of the faith, none of them ever became a household name like Billy Graham or, I hate to say it, Jerry Falwell. But I can live with that. Earlier this week I joined a meeting of an interfaith group known simply as The Theology Club. I’d been meaning to sit in on one of their sessions and this was my first. They are an intelligent, progressive group and I enjoyed the discussion immensely. As the 90-minute session was winding down, someone observed how sad it was that so many seats in the lecture hall were empty. Why weren’t people coming?
I told the leader, a wonderful gentleman known as JJ, that maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be. I recounted Jesus’ parable of the sower in Matthew 13. The sower tosses seeds in four locations, but only one leads to a harvest. Maybe that’s just how it is, I suggested, maybe those who embrace the truth will always be a small minority. That was not a welcome thought for JJ. “That could be true,” he said, “But if it is, I fear for the future of our planet.”
We have good reason to fear for the future of our culture and our planet. I’ve asked previously why the church after 2,000 years has been so unsuccessful in changing the world. One reason could be a devotion to amassing numbers, leading to such complete compromise that the church and the larger culture became indistinguishable. And being the same, who needs the church? The heroes I admire refused to do that. They were counter-cultural at every turn.
Many claim the truth, but not all truth is created equal. If truth is like a tree, you know authentic truth by the fruit it bears. We’re called to carry that fruit to all people and to feed our hungry world. The future may well depend on our success. But if the world won’t eat, we should feed those who will, small though their numbers may be. And we shouldn’t apologize for it. As the scripture says, “many are called but few chosen.”
In my sermon on claiming the fruits of grace, I quoted several luminaries of recent times going back into the 20th century: Paul Tillich, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Marcus Borg. I even had a Martin Luther reference. The subject was grace, you have to mention Luther!
The thing all four of these gents have in common is they were all, to one degree or another, counter-cultural. In Luther’s day the church was everything. Emperors bowed down to it. When the Pope said jump, people said “how high?” Talk about extraordinary rendition. Talk about torture. The Pope’s guys could make a secret CIA prison in Bulgaria look like a week at a Girl Scout camp. And yet Luther stood up to them in the name of the truth.
Bonhoeffer’s enemies were just as lethal. When Hitler’s Waffen SS got hold of you, it was time to put your last will and testament in order. And yet Bonhoeffer and what was known as “the Confessing Church,” that is the church that wouldn’t bow down to Hitler, were prepared at any moment to feel the iron boot on their throats. Their numbers were small but their hearts were large.
Marcus Borg plays an important role in championing the true confessing church of our time. He hasn’t faced torture and execution but, like Tillich, has been targeted as a heretic by entrenched forces within the traditional ranks of Christianity—the very people who have let the realm of faith shrink ever smaller. A leading voice among the often silenced ranks of progressive Christian thinkers, Borg teaches at Oregon State University.
Tillich, who died in 1965, was also a victim of Hitler, but unlike the executed Bonhoeffer, Tillich escaped to the United States and taught at Union Theological, Columbia University and the University of Chicago. He is considered one of the great thinkers of the 20th century and did his best to rescue Christian philosophy from shallow subservience to simple formulas of faith. But the continued dominance of the American Evangelical Church demonstrates that neither Tillich nor Borg have been as successful as we would have wished.
As much as I admire all these heroes of the faith, none of them ever became a household name like Billy Graham or, I hate to say it, Jerry Falwell. But I can live with that. Earlier this week I joined a meeting of an interfaith group known simply as The Theology Club. I’d been meaning to sit in on one of their sessions and this was my first. They are an intelligent, progressive group and I enjoyed the discussion immensely. As the 90-minute session was winding down, someone observed how sad it was that so many seats in the lecture hall were empty. Why weren’t people coming?
I told the leader, a wonderful gentleman known as JJ, that maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be. I recounted Jesus’ parable of the sower in Matthew 13. The sower tosses seeds in four locations, but only one leads to a harvest. Maybe that’s just how it is, I suggested, maybe those who embrace the truth will always be a small minority. That was not a welcome thought for JJ. “That could be true,” he said, “But if it is, I fear for the future of our planet.”
We have good reason to fear for the future of our culture and our planet. I’ve asked previously why the church after 2,000 years has been so unsuccessful in changing the world. One reason could be a devotion to amassing numbers, leading to such complete compromise that the church and the larger culture became indistinguishable. And being the same, who needs the church? The heroes I admire refused to do that. They were counter-cultural at every turn.
Many claim the truth, but not all truth is created equal. If truth is like a tree, you know authentic truth by the fruit it bears. We’re called to carry that fruit to all people and to feed our hungry world. The future may well depend on our success. But if the world won’t eat, we should feed those who will, small though their numbers may be. And we shouldn’t apologize for it. As the scripture says, “many are called but few chosen.”
Monday, July 27, 2009
Walking Through a Wall of Fire
Ask most people to describe what an “apocalypse” is and they're likely to paint some kind of frightening picture. You have the dark Vietnam War film “Apocalypse Now,” which was a takeoff on Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness.” You also have the various “end times” scenarios popular with foggy-minded Christians that begin with a worldwide calamity or apocalypse. Some might even mention the closing book of the Bible, Revelation, which is also known as “the Apocalypse.”
Apocalypse. Apocalyptic. Since noon I’ve been trying to launch this July 27 edition of Mr. B’s Christian Counter Culture. It’s now almost 6:30 p.m. I’ve been stuck because I gave myself a daunting task: write something that takes an optimistic view of our future. I even put on some smooth jazz to help myself break free and ride the evening breezes that blow off the ocean here on Florida’s Atlantic coast. It worked, and now I’m underway and the first thing I come up with is “apocalypse.” You might be temped to ask, “What’s up Mr. B?”
Well, it turns out that an apocalypse is as optimistic a vision as I can manage right now and that ain’t all bad because most people are pretty balled up in their understanding of what an apocalypse is all about. But before untangling that twine I want to mention that I just came back from visiting my family in Detroit.
You might be thinking, “If you want to talk about apocalypse as most people define it, Detroit is a good place to start.” Here’s the scoop on Detroit, which just might be the canary in the coal mine for the entire country: Not long ago Detroit had 1.8 million people in the city itself, not counting the suburbs. Now it’s down to 900,000—roughly half. They’re working on a plan to raze large areas of the city, moving the few people still living there to other sections. Right now these neighborhoods look like those post-apocalypse movies where desperate scavengers suddenly discover some isolated enclave of survivors holed up in an urban desert. Detroit’s new idea is to group the people and cut expenses for public safety and other municipal services. The land would be restored to its natural state and hopefully farmed. Of course, some older people don’t want to go.
I suppose there’s something positive in creating urban farms from man-made blight (I don’t think women will object to the gender-specific adjective), man-made blight in neighborhoods which not long ago housed families enjoying good paying jobs and a clear path to upward mobility for their next generation.
The New York Times recently reported one of the saddest stories coming from our current depression in places like Detroit: the death of the black middle class. This nation’s major industries had provided the jobs that fostered upward generational shifts for black American families, just as they had for working class whites. My own family is a good example. You don’t get that in second- and third-world countries because all family members have to pitch in just to survive. Those industries—autos, steel, building trades—created the tremendous wealth that made America powerful, and expansion of the middle class possible. As they slipped away we’ve continued to prosper by recycling that same wealth. But now those days are coming to an end. What’s next? No one seems to know. Thomas Friedman of the Times offers vague and nebulous visions of technological advances and new vocations for the clever. There’ll be some of that but I can’t see tweeting and social networking as wealth-building substitutes for our great manufacturing industries.
Oh yea, I almost forget. I promised an optimistic vision of the future and to explain how it connects with the word “apocalypse.” Well, it turns out apocalypse understood as an end time is misunderstood. Apocalypse is actually a time of transition from an era of strife to an era of peace and tranquility, a wall of fire we must walk through to find a better world. It’s even that way in the New Testament book of Revelation. Check it out.
But don’t get me wrong: A time of apocalypse is a time for extreme vigilance. We are in such a time right now and those of us able to love our neighbors as we do ourselves must make sure that the selfish hoarders don’t have their way as we move toward a new, more inclusive economy.
What will the world look like on the other side of our wall of fire? I can’t say for sure. I know it will be different. Perhaps less materialistic, less object-oriented, a place that celebrates the pleasures built into creation, into our own bodies.
I keep picturing those urban farms and pastures they’re dreaming of in Detroit, of man-made decadence returned to natural beauty. Who knows, maybe on the far side of that apocalyptic wall, Detroit’s “canary in the coal mine” which signaled the end of our 20th century expansion will become a dove carrying an olive branch of hope.
Apocalypse. Apocalyptic. Since noon I’ve been trying to launch this July 27 edition of Mr. B’s Christian Counter Culture. It’s now almost 6:30 p.m. I’ve been stuck because I gave myself a daunting task: write something that takes an optimistic view of our future. I even put on some smooth jazz to help myself break free and ride the evening breezes that blow off the ocean here on Florida’s Atlantic coast. It worked, and now I’m underway and the first thing I come up with is “apocalypse.” You might be temped to ask, “What’s up Mr. B?”
Well, it turns out that an apocalypse is as optimistic a vision as I can manage right now and that ain’t all bad because most people are pretty balled up in their understanding of what an apocalypse is all about. But before untangling that twine I want to mention that I just came back from visiting my family in Detroit.
You might be thinking, “If you want to talk about apocalypse as most people define it, Detroit is a good place to start.” Here’s the scoop on Detroit, which just might be the canary in the coal mine for the entire country: Not long ago Detroit had 1.8 million people in the city itself, not counting the suburbs. Now it’s down to 900,000—roughly half. They’re working on a plan to raze large areas of the city, moving the few people still living there to other sections. Right now these neighborhoods look like those post-apocalypse movies where desperate scavengers suddenly discover some isolated enclave of survivors holed up in an urban desert. Detroit’s new idea is to group the people and cut expenses for public safety and other municipal services. The land would be restored to its natural state and hopefully farmed. Of course, some older people don’t want to go.
I suppose there’s something positive in creating urban farms from man-made blight (I don’t think women will object to the gender-specific adjective), man-made blight in neighborhoods which not long ago housed families enjoying good paying jobs and a clear path to upward mobility for their next generation.
The New York Times recently reported one of the saddest stories coming from our current depression in places like Detroit: the death of the black middle class. This nation’s major industries had provided the jobs that fostered upward generational shifts for black American families, just as they had for working class whites. My own family is a good example. You don’t get that in second- and third-world countries because all family members have to pitch in just to survive. Those industries—autos, steel, building trades—created the tremendous wealth that made America powerful, and expansion of the middle class possible. As they slipped away we’ve continued to prosper by recycling that same wealth. But now those days are coming to an end. What’s next? No one seems to know. Thomas Friedman of the Times offers vague and nebulous visions of technological advances and new vocations for the clever. There’ll be some of that but I can’t see tweeting and social networking as wealth-building substitutes for our great manufacturing industries.
Oh yea, I almost forget. I promised an optimistic vision of the future and to explain how it connects with the word “apocalypse.” Well, it turns out apocalypse understood as an end time is misunderstood. Apocalypse is actually a time of transition from an era of strife to an era of peace and tranquility, a wall of fire we must walk through to find a better world. It’s even that way in the New Testament book of Revelation. Check it out.
But don’t get me wrong: A time of apocalypse is a time for extreme vigilance. We are in such a time right now and those of us able to love our neighbors as we do ourselves must make sure that the selfish hoarders don’t have their way as we move toward a new, more inclusive economy.
What will the world look like on the other side of our wall of fire? I can’t say for sure. I know it will be different. Perhaps less materialistic, less object-oriented, a place that celebrates the pleasures built into creation, into our own bodies.
I keep picturing those urban farms and pastures they’re dreaming of in Detroit, of man-made decadence returned to natural beauty. Who knows, maybe on the far side of that apocalyptic wall, Detroit’s “canary in the coal mine” which signaled the end of our 20th century expansion will become a dove carrying an olive branch of hope.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Pope Declares World Capitalism "Obsolete"
Once again, proof that it’s always dangerous to stereotype. Pope Benedict XVI, the conservative Roman Catholic pontiff I was about to blast for Vatican inquisitions against American sisters (nuns if you will) for activities as mainstream as practicing Reiki, came out this week with an encyclical on the world economy that is literally earth shaking. The radically progressive declaration was the biggest news story of the week, maybe of the year, and almost no one covered it.
Titled Charity in Truth, the encyclical was so radical in its renunciation of prevailing economic wisdom that it made Bush vs. Obama and Olbermann vs. O’Reilly look like locker room squabbles between Ivy League teammates. And almost no one covered it or gave it the weight it deserved.
What did the Pope have to say? The catchphrase of the 144-page document is ethical capitalism and in the words of economics professor Stefano Zamagni, a consultant on the encyclical, the phrase is more than the kind of “sentimental” porridge fed to business school students. According to Zamagni, as reported online by Time/CNN, the Pope believes “that capitalism as such is now effectively ‘obsolete’ and must be replaced by a new form of market economy whose driving force is not the maximization of profits.”
Quoting Benedict directly, the idea most Americans were fed from childhood — that the pursuit of individual profit magically works to the benefit of all — is a falsehood. It is not “ethically neutral,” Benedict writes. “Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”
Introducing the long-awaited encyclical on behalf of the Pope, economist Zamagni says, “Capitalism is an old idea, where the market was supposedly morally neutral … where efficiency became an ethos. … If we can instead incorporate the idea of the social element into the economy, the market itself becomes a force for civility.”
So the Pope, the leader of the world’s largest Christian body, has declared our current economic system “obsolete,” and not “ethically” or “morally neutral.” Praise God! How long have we waited for someone from the spiritual realm, someone charged as a truth teller — someone outside the sphere of politics, economics or government — to step forward and speak with forthright courage. Now it has come from one of the most conservative religious leaders we have known, which I suppose gives it even more weight. It is the most dramatic challenge to economic powerbrokers at least since FDR’s New Deal. The Pope steps up and says for the sake of social justice the rule of world capitalism as we know it must end. It’s time for a radically different economic system.
The entire Christian church, itself in danger of becoming obsolete, has needed this moment. Now we should run with it. Jesus never shied away from telling the truth, but the church has. Is it not obvious why this is so? And when Benedict stepped out and declared the emperor naked, isn’t it just as obvious why the mainstream media on both the left and right ignored him and refused to cover the story?
Titled Charity in Truth, the encyclical was so radical in its renunciation of prevailing economic wisdom that it made Bush vs. Obama and Olbermann vs. O’Reilly look like locker room squabbles between Ivy League teammates. And almost no one covered it or gave it the weight it deserved.
What did the Pope have to say? The catchphrase of the 144-page document is ethical capitalism and in the words of economics professor Stefano Zamagni, a consultant on the encyclical, the phrase is more than the kind of “sentimental” porridge fed to business school students. According to Zamagni, as reported online by Time/CNN, the Pope believes “that capitalism as such is now effectively ‘obsolete’ and must be replaced by a new form of market economy whose driving force is not the maximization of profits.”
Quoting Benedict directly, the idea most Americans were fed from childhood — that the pursuit of individual profit magically works to the benefit of all — is a falsehood. It is not “ethically neutral,” Benedict writes. “Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”
Introducing the long-awaited encyclical on behalf of the Pope, economist Zamagni says, “Capitalism is an old idea, where the market was supposedly morally neutral … where efficiency became an ethos. … If we can instead incorporate the idea of the social element into the economy, the market itself becomes a force for civility.”
So the Pope, the leader of the world’s largest Christian body, has declared our current economic system “obsolete,” and not “ethically” or “morally neutral.” Praise God! How long have we waited for someone from the spiritual realm, someone charged as a truth teller — someone outside the sphere of politics, economics or government — to step forward and speak with forthright courage. Now it has come from one of the most conservative religious leaders we have known, which I suppose gives it even more weight. It is the most dramatic challenge to economic powerbrokers at least since FDR’s New Deal. The Pope steps up and says for the sake of social justice the rule of world capitalism as we know it must end. It’s time for a radically different economic system.
The entire Christian church, itself in danger of becoming obsolete, has needed this moment. Now we should run with it. Jesus never shied away from telling the truth, but the church has. Is it not obvious why this is so? And when Benedict stepped out and declared the emperor naked, isn’t it just as obvious why the mainstream media on both the left and right ignored him and refused to cover the story?
Saturday, July 4, 2009
By This They Will Know You Are My Disciples
Some six months ago I launched a Friday night coffee house called The Spirit Café. Our tag line is “where all paths come together,” and my desire was to attract people who are spiritually thirsty, whether or not they have a practice of faith. We all know people who claim to be “spiritual but not religious,” and it was my plan to give them a place to feel spiritual without hitting them between the eyes with whatever it was that drove them away from organized religion, usually sometime in their youth.
I had—and still have—a vision of bringing together people who know there is something beyond us, what many faiths call God and theologian Marcus Borg calls the dimension of “More.” Every practice of religion or spirituality, east or west, recognizes this dimension beyond our mortal limits. That common thread is what separates faith from simple philosophy.
It’s my experience that most people who claim an affinity with Taoism or Buddhism—the two most popular among the eastern faiths admired by westerners—don’t actually practice their faith in an active way. Of course, that’s also true of many Christians. But being the social creatures we humans are, I counted on an innate desire to validate “truth” by sharing it with others. And so I opened the doors of the Spirit Café to any and all who wanted a place to express their sense of spirituality, to say, “Yes, I feel the force of goodness that flows through the universe and it’s flowing in me.” I knew that bringing together individuals in whom a spiritual force was present would increases the flow for all, and each would benefit from the strength of the other.
Not surprisingly, most of the people who come to the Spirit Café are Christians, but they are Christians who feel comfortable sitting next to someone who honors Jesus as a great prophet but sees the Buddha the same way. As I said, the Spirit Café is a place where all paths come together.
I have a purpose in telling this tale beyond describing the Spirit Café experience. When I first launched the Café I sponsored a thorough publicity campaign that included visits to many local churches and news releases to local media outlets. Among those were Christian radio stations. A day before the Café was to open I received a call from a pastor who hosts an interview show on our most conservative Christian radio station. Along with our “all paths” tag line the press release had included words like “inclusive” that tipped him off I was dealing from the same Christian deck he usually played with. He called, purportedly to determine if I might make a good guest for his show, but I think he already had his answer on that. What he wanted was a debate. “Do you mind if we talk awhile?” he asked, “I get lots of opportunities to talk with people who agree with me but not many to talk with someone who doesn’t.”
And so we talked for maybe two hours. He pressed me the whole time with his literalist understanding of scripture and I responded with my comprehensive context approach. “What do you do with this scripture,” he would ask, quoting some stalwart text in his literalist lexicon, and I would respond by trying to help him understand it in the context of Jesus’ mission to open doors to the kingdom and not to close them—especially for those most in need of God’s love.
Finally I began to tire of it all and said, “Pastor Mel, if you decide to have me on your show I promise I won’t come on and deliberately say anything to make your listeners uncomfortable. On the other hand, if you feel I’m not the right messenger for your show, I won’t judge you, I won’t feel you have the love of Jesus in your heart any less than me.” For the first time in two hours I had caught him off guard. That wasn’t my intention, but I could tell he didn’t know how to respond. Finally he said, “Well, that’s big of you.” “Not really,” I replied. “That’s just me doing what Christ calls me to do: opening my arms in love to my brothers and sisters. God bless you pastor,” I concluded. He was quiet for a moment and then replied, “God bless you.” We said goodbye and the conversation ended.
I tell this story because there’s so much pain in the world and so much hunger for spiritual healing. Some, in their honest desire to get it right, will follow paths that by their very exclusiveness run outside of God’s intentions. We should smile on them and assume their good will. My own pastor recently wrote in her column for our local newspaper that God casts the net of love wide enough to take in all of creation, wide enough to take in all people regardless of any of the particulars by which we humans in our limited understanding might define them, such as sexual orientation.
Many churches, denominations and individual Christians in their blindness to God’s true nature still struggle with this issue. Another pastor, at a more conservative church, wrote the newspaper asserting that God’s net had some limitations and one of those is homosexuals. How do we respond? By condemning the condemner? No, God’s net reaches every corner of creation. We respond by opening our arms in love to all our brothers and sisters. “By this,” Jesus said, “they will know you are my disciples.”
I had—and still have—a vision of bringing together people who know there is something beyond us, what many faiths call God and theologian Marcus Borg calls the dimension of “More.” Every practice of religion or spirituality, east or west, recognizes this dimension beyond our mortal limits. That common thread is what separates faith from simple philosophy.
It’s my experience that most people who claim an affinity with Taoism or Buddhism—the two most popular among the eastern faiths admired by westerners—don’t actually practice their faith in an active way. Of course, that’s also true of many Christians. But being the social creatures we humans are, I counted on an innate desire to validate “truth” by sharing it with others. And so I opened the doors of the Spirit Café to any and all who wanted a place to express their sense of spirituality, to say, “Yes, I feel the force of goodness that flows through the universe and it’s flowing in me.” I knew that bringing together individuals in whom a spiritual force was present would increases the flow for all, and each would benefit from the strength of the other.
Not surprisingly, most of the people who come to the Spirit Café are Christians, but they are Christians who feel comfortable sitting next to someone who honors Jesus as a great prophet but sees the Buddha the same way. As I said, the Spirit Café is a place where all paths come together.
I have a purpose in telling this tale beyond describing the Spirit Café experience. When I first launched the Café I sponsored a thorough publicity campaign that included visits to many local churches and news releases to local media outlets. Among those were Christian radio stations. A day before the Café was to open I received a call from a pastor who hosts an interview show on our most conservative Christian radio station. Along with our “all paths” tag line the press release had included words like “inclusive” that tipped him off I was dealing from the same Christian deck he usually played with. He called, purportedly to determine if I might make a good guest for his show, but I think he already had his answer on that. What he wanted was a debate. “Do you mind if we talk awhile?” he asked, “I get lots of opportunities to talk with people who agree with me but not many to talk with someone who doesn’t.”
And so we talked for maybe two hours. He pressed me the whole time with his literalist understanding of scripture and I responded with my comprehensive context approach. “What do you do with this scripture,” he would ask, quoting some stalwart text in his literalist lexicon, and I would respond by trying to help him understand it in the context of Jesus’ mission to open doors to the kingdom and not to close them—especially for those most in need of God’s love.
Finally I began to tire of it all and said, “Pastor Mel, if you decide to have me on your show I promise I won’t come on and deliberately say anything to make your listeners uncomfortable. On the other hand, if you feel I’m not the right messenger for your show, I won’t judge you, I won’t feel you have the love of Jesus in your heart any less than me.” For the first time in two hours I had caught him off guard. That wasn’t my intention, but I could tell he didn’t know how to respond. Finally he said, “Well, that’s big of you.” “Not really,” I replied. “That’s just me doing what Christ calls me to do: opening my arms in love to my brothers and sisters. God bless you pastor,” I concluded. He was quiet for a moment and then replied, “God bless you.” We said goodbye and the conversation ended.
I tell this story because there’s so much pain in the world and so much hunger for spiritual healing. Some, in their honest desire to get it right, will follow paths that by their very exclusiveness run outside of God’s intentions. We should smile on them and assume their good will. My own pastor recently wrote in her column for our local newspaper that God casts the net of love wide enough to take in all of creation, wide enough to take in all people regardless of any of the particulars by which we humans in our limited understanding might define them, such as sexual orientation.
Many churches, denominations and individual Christians in their blindness to God’s true nature still struggle with this issue. Another pastor, at a more conservative church, wrote the newspaper asserting that God’s net had some limitations and one of those is homosexuals. How do we respond? By condemning the condemner? No, God’s net reaches every corner of creation. We respond by opening our arms in love to all our brothers and sisters. “By this,” Jesus said, “they will know you are my disciples.”
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