Good Intentions and the Road to Hell

I went searching for an image for the "road to hell" and came across, instead, the image here of the road to the Bahgdad airport. It is certainly a hellish route made that way by the intentions -- good or ill -- of the empire and its insurgent opposition in Iraq.
My own intentions had nothing to do with such a route -- just looking for an imaginative way of saying "sorry for being dark for a while."
I don't know if a week with a board meeting, a Presbytery meeting and a newsletter deadline can be called one of "good intentions," but it has certainly overloaded a few circuits, including the virtual ones of the blog.
But the show will go on again soon. I promise. Thanks for checking back.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's a Texas Turkey! Everything is bigger in Texas -- even the turkeys. You can insert your own political joke .

Reimagining Christianity 1.8

Affirmation 8 holds that loving ourselves means walking humbly with God, acknowledging our own shortcomings while honestly seeking to understand and call forth the best in others, including those who consider us their enemies.
Hm, seeking understanding and calling forth the best from ... our enemies? Sounds risky and naive to me -- a call likely answered with a suicide bomb (do I play the conservative fear card well?)
I'm reminded of something Tony Campolo wrote after 9-11: "What has made it the very worst of times is that it is becoming more and more difficult to get away with talking about Jesus within the church. If you dare to quote Jesus in some Christian gatherings, you are likely to encounter hostility. ... If, without the required apologies, you should quote what Jesus had to say about how to treat enemies, it should be expected that one or more in the congregation will stand up and walk out. This is not a time when there are ready ears for words such as, 'Love your enemies and do good to those who would hurt you.'" (In Strike Terror No More.)
I had lunch this afternoon with some folks from the Rumi Forum, an organization that fosters interfaith dialogue between Muslims and nonMuslims. They spoke of both the difficulty and importance of such work in the post 9-11 world.
At a moment when some in the Christian world consider Islam itself the enemy of the West, seeking deeper mutual understanding and calling forth the best from one another sounds a bit less like risky naivete and a bit more like practical politics -- as the Confession of 1967 suggested a few years back.

Reimagining Christianity 1.7

Affirmation 7: Loving our neighbors includes preserving religious freedom and the church’s ability to speak prophetically to government by resisting the commingling of church and state.
Last week, on a stunningly beautiful autumn day, we loaded up the kids and drove down to Charlottesville to visit Monticello. It was the perfect setting to contemplate the separation of church and state.
In 1802, Jefferson wrote, "Believing... that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."
Of course, Jefferson was wary also of the church mingling in the affairs of state. In 1815, he wrote, "Whenever... preachers, instead of a lesson in religion, put [their congregation] off with a discourse on the Copernican system, on chemical affinities, on the construction of government, or the characters or conduct of those administering it, it is a breach of contract, depriving their audience of the kind of service for which they are salaried, and giving them, instead of it, what they did not want, or, if wanted, would rather seek from better sources in that particular art of science."
Clearly, he did not think too highly of preachers!
But what happens when "lessons in religion" happen to turn on questions of justice? What is the role of the church in a time of war? What should the church say in the face of unjust economic structures? What of "love of neighbor" pushes us to an understanding of neighborliness that transgresses societal or even legal definitions such as Jim Crow laws, slavery, women's suffrage, same-sex relationships?
Just wondering ... that's all. And certainly no offense to Mr. Jefferson, who is one of my heroes.

Tending Hearts and Bending Arcs

I know many of our hearts are hurting this morning as a result of the passage of the marriage amendment in Virginia yesterday. But no result of a ballot measure – for better or for worse – is going to herald the coming of the kingdom. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Sometimes it seems longer than others, and this is one of those times for GLBT folks and their allies here. But this I know: our fundamental equality does not rise or fall on the result of any election, because each and every one of us is created equally in the image of a loving God.

Let our hearts be reassured by that unshakeable conviction, and let us tend to each other’s hearts with compassion.

While the news on this front was bad, the broader political picture is more hopeful as progressive voices were heard and progressive candidates elected in many places across the country. So maybe the arc bends a bit more today.

The image here -- note the arc -- comes from the Center for the Advancement of Nonviolence.
Now is the time for a season of nonviolence -- especially after the passage of an ugly and violent amendment.

Reimagining Christianity 1.6

Affirmation 6 holds that loving our neighbors means standing, as Jesus does, with the outcast and oppressed, the denigrated and afflicted, seeking peace and justice with or without the support of others.
This is the heart of an authentic theology of incarnation. While classical Reformed understandings of the incarnation focus on the challenge of holding God and the human person, Jesus, in creative and saving relationship, this affirmation pushes us to think of incarnation as an unfolding reality in the world.
This affirmation pushes us to think about location: where do we stand, and where does Jesus stand? Taking the gospels seriously -- especially Matthew 25 -- makes it clear that Jesus stands with the outcasts and oppressed, the poor and the sick, those seeking peace and justice. If we want to stand with him, if we feel any desire to know him and be known by him, we have to go where he is.

Bending the Arc

Every once in a while progressive people of faith manage to get their voices heard above the cacaphony of the "religious loud." When 300 or so Virginia clergy came together over the past several weeks to craft, sign and present a public statement of opposition to the proposed Marshall-Newman amendment to the state constitution we did not come close to drowning out the loud, but we did manage to get heard. The voice we raised helped frame the issue for at least one editorial board that came out against the amendment today. If we do the work of love, we will bend the arc one degree at a time closer to justice.

blogging on ... the antichrist

Fifteen or twenty years ago, a Sunday Doonesbury comic showed college students bent over notebooks taking careful but mindless notes. Realizing that the students aren't actually listening to anything, he professor began spouting nonsense: "Up is down. Black is white. Left is right. Thomas Jefferson was the Antichrist." Without pausing in his notetaking, one student whispered to another, "I didn’t know any of this stuff."
Lecturing is a lot like blogging. Suppose I said, "Bush is the Antichrist"? Would anyone respond with a comment?

Vote No! A Pastoral Plea: Pass It On

On November 7, Virginian's will be asked to write discrimination into a constitution crafted in a spirit of "forbearance, love and charity."
In the name of a narrow and restricted view of marriage based on an impoverished reading of scripture, leaders of the Religious Right are encouraging their followers to support this amendment.
Marshall-Newman is bad law, and such support is bad theology. Bad law and bad theology make a dangerous and volatile mix that Virginia does not need.
Marshall-Newman is bad law because it fails the first measure of good law: clarity of purpose. When two of the commonwealth's statewide elected officials come to diametrically opposed and fundamentally incompatible conclusions about the effects of a proposed constitution amendment -- as Gov. Tim Kaine and Attorney General Bob McDonell have -- you have a recipe for clogged courts and judicial confusion.
Supporting such bad law in the name of one-sided readings of brief passages of scripture taken out of their historical contexts is bad theology. Blaming a loving, grace-filled God for our own human tendency to fear those who are different from ourselves is even worse theology. Acting on those fears in ways that will hurt others is nothing short of demonic. Just as we opponents of Marshall-Newman say "read the whole thing," a faithful response to scripture requires that we read fully as well. A full reading reveals a God in love with all of creation and humankind made fully -- each and every one of us -- in the image of the divine.
As the full text of the proposed Marshall-Newman amendment reads, the amendment could deny legal rights and protections to the more than 100,000 unmarried couples in Virginia -- roughly 90 percent of whom are heterosexual. Domestic violence protections have been threatened in Ohio under an almost identical constitutional amendment.
In other words, a vote for ballot question 1 (the Marshall-Newman amendment) will affect someone you know and it could well hurt them. Passage of the amendment will not help anyone.
That many Virginia families are struggling no one denies. That many Virginia marriages are strained is equally undeniable. Only 17 states have higher divorce rates. Ten percent of Virginians live below the federal poverty rate. Surely these are signs that point to real suffering.
But Marshall-Newman will do nothing to support Virginia families or strengthen marriages in the Commonwealth.
Rather, it seems a smokescreen designed to focus attention on scapegoats instead of on the poverty of ideas that plagues the commonwealth.
In my own Presbyterian tradition we say that we are the church Reformed and always open to being reformed according to the will of God and the movement of the Spirit. In other words, we share a deep conviction that God is not through with us.
Virginia has an opportunity next Tuesday to speak boldly from that very conviction. God is calling forth a new vision of the commonwealth.
God calls us to loving and faithful relationships. Marshall-Newman inscribes hate-filled discrimination into the constitution.
God calls us to be filled with grace and mercy. Marshall-Newman is full of judgment and condemnation.
God calls us to build a commonwealth of belovedness. Marshall-Newman rests on a poverty of compassion.
God is not through with us.
With that deep conviction, I urge you to vote No on ballot question 1.

Reimagining Christianity 1.5

Affirmation 5: Loving our neighbor includes engaging people authentically, as Jesus did, treating all as creations made in God’s very image, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability, nationality, or economic class.
So, is this the gospel or just a manifesto for identity politics? Do we have to treat meanies as creations made in God's very image? Does that mean no more "mean people suck" bumper stickers? How about those with whom we profoundly disagree? Beyond praying for those who persecute us, do we have to engage them authentically? What might that look like?
The rubber hits the road here, and I'm not so sure I like it. It might require me to hold in my heart people I don't like very much, after all, not every neighbor is loveable.
In fact, last night -- Halloween -- some of them stayed hidden behind closed doors, and missed out seeing my middle child trick-or-treating dressed up as ... me! Clerical collar and all. Pretty scary, I assure you.

Yea, Rick!

Rick Ufford-Chase is at it again. Way to go, Rick!
Arizona Daily StarPublished: 10.30.2006
Guest Opinion: Rick Ufford-Chase -- No on Prop. 107
Proposition 107 would explicitly deny any "marriagelike" benefits to persons who are not married and would constitutionally define marriage as being available only to persons of opposite gender. Like the broader society, the faith community is deeply divided on this issue.
My experience as the highest elected official of the Presbyterian Church (USA) from June 2004 to June 2006 gave me a glimpse into the passion and divisiveness of this debate. Though it is clear that there is currently no consensus in our churches to broaden the definition of marriage, our denomination has been clear that we will not become unwitting participants in any movement to isolate gay and lesbian persons as a group, nor will we condone discriminatory practices against the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender community from our legislative, executive or judicial branches of government.
This is entirely consistent with our denomination's historic advocacy for women, persons of color, undocumented persons, and those who live with mental or physical disabilities, all of whom also face the possibility of discrimination because of who they are.
I long for the day when all who desire to make a lifelong commitment to one another are able, as I am, to do so within the bonds of the covenant of marriage. Someday, it could happen. After all, the biblical story is full of examples of God's people being surprised by what God had in mind for them.
We Presbyterians believe that God is constantly being revealed to us in ways that challenge, trouble and occasionally delight us. For that reason, I will continue to be in dialogue with my sisters and brothers with whom I disagree about this matter.
As people of faith, all of whom are struggling to be faithful to their understanding of God, we must find respectful ways to wrestle with this and many other issues that divide us. However, what we must not tolerate are laws motivated by hate or discrimination, or that single out an entire class of people to be treated differently from the rest of us.
Prop. 107 would take away domestic-partner benefits such as health insurance from public employees. It would remove domestic-violence protections from unmarried persons. It makes simple things like the right to visit a loved one in the hospital impossible.
Questions of how marriage is defined will continue to be debated within our faith communities and across our society. In the meantime, let's assure that our laws embody the best of what our country has always been: a safe haven for those who might be targeted elsewhere because of who they are or what they believe.
Let's honor our country's history as a place of tolerance, mutual forbearance, care and concern for all members of our communities. Those are values that all of us, both in and out of the church, ought to be able to affirm.
Please, vote "no" on Proposition 107.
Rick Ufford-Chase was the Moderator of the 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). He now serves as the Executive Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship. Write to him rickuffordchase@gmail.com.

Reimagining Christianity 1.4

Affirmation 4: Loving God means expressing our love in worship that is as sincere, vibrant, and artful as it is scriptural.
What might that entail for a community that calls itself progressive, inclusive, diverse? What, to begin with, constitues "sincere worship"? If you Google the phrase, you get more than 16,000 hits. Now that probably says as much about the search engine as it does about the interest in worship, but clearly a lot of folks are writing about this from perspectives that range from evangelical Christian to Muslim to Native American spirituality to Budhism.
My favorite Biblical definition of worship comes from Paul's letter to the Romans, where he says, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect."
Sincere worship, it seems, has to do with discernment -- with listening for and coming to understand how God calls us to live transformed lives.
There are just as many hits on "vibrant worship," and just as much confusion over what it means. Perhaps any worship in which people come to hear and understand something true, powerful and transformative is, by definition, vibrant.
There are far fewer hits on "artful worship." Why do you suppose that is? What would such worship look like? feel like? sound like? I hope it would be full of beauty, which is why I snagged the painting above for all to look at. It's called Creation.

Reimagining Christianity 1.3

Affirmation 3: Loving God includes celebrating the God whose Spirit pervades and whose glory is reflected in all of God’s Creation, including the earth and its ecosystems, the sacred and secular, the Christian and non-Christian, the human and non-human.
Perhaps that is another way of asking "WWJD?" -- what would Jesus drive? One would think that this affirmation would be essentially noncontraversial, what with evangelicals joining the conversation and even the green movement.
Of course, when one affirms that the glory of God is reflected in the non-Christian as well as the Christian one is treading dangerously close the the radical Paul -- in Christ there is no Jew or Greek. At its deepest level, Paul's call for unity is not a call for "conversion" to Christ but rather an affirmation of Paul's faith that the reality of Christ marked God's decisive "yes" to all the world, not simply to the small part of the world that related to God through the community of practice gathered around the traditions of Judaism.
I suppose, though, that a call to reflect our deepest convictions in the way we actually live -- what we drive, what we purchase, how we tread on the planet -- is probably a far more difficult challenge for most of us that grappling with the theological implications of this affirmation. So, how do we make these decisions? What are we driving? What toys are we using right now, to read and comment?

Pastors & Politics

It's not surprising, but it's still worth reading about how the so-called Christian Right is pushing voters toward the Republican party. I particularly love the advice to tell folks that Jesus would be more concerned about gay marriage than about war and peace. Now there is no endorsement of any party or candidate implied here, but I do think it's time to be afraid, be very afraid. There's an election coming and the "Christians" are on the loose. (The cartoon comes from the blog of Bill Sanders, retired cartoonist from the Milwaukee Journal.)

Midweek Despair

The news is never good these days. War and rumors of war. Climate catastrophe in the making. Scandal. Violence. Injustice. The Braves missed the playoffs. It is enough to bring despair.
We rest uneasily between two countervailing pressures. One imagines a way out of the present malaise by longing to go back to an imagined past that never was. The other longs to imagine a way forward. Yet the work of imagination necessary for that way forward is blocked by the desolation of the very institutions necessary for that imaginative work.
For example, take Congress ... please. The people's house will not or cannot not tend to the people's work. It will not because too many of its members are beholden to those who long to go back to that imagined past. It cannot because its structures are corrupted by money and vested interests that do not want a way forward.
For another example, take the church ... again, please. It will not or cannot cast a vision and do the work of imagination necessary in these times. It will not because it is too timid and too tepid to shake the foundations of the status quo. It cannot because, again beholden to or cowed by those who long to go back, it no longer attracts those who have been graced by the prophetic imagination so crucial for such a moment.
At such a time as this ... well, it's a good time for a mystery novel and a doughnut.

Reimagining Christianity 1.2

Affirmation 2: Loving God includes listening for God’s Word which comes through daily prayer and meditation, through studying the ancient testimonies which we call Scripture, and through attending to God’s present activity in the world.
Perhaps this stuff seems tame. Maybe it's old hat. Or perhaps it is, in its own subtle way, so powerful as to be overwhelming. Certainly the first affirmation, that the way of Christ is not the only way to God, is heretical according to a traditional orthodoxy. Next to that, this second affirmation does not seem to say much.
On the other hand, as Karl Barth observed, "to clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world."
Indeed, prayer is not seeking to bend God's will to that of the world, but rather seeking to bend ourselves to God's will for the world. If we pray that God's will be done "on earth as it is in heaven," then we are calling forth a social order of love and justice out of the chaos and disorder of a world in which power flows from the end of a gun or the bottom line of a bank statement.
Daily prayer and meditation are the power practices of an alternative community of compassion that casts a vision for a politics of justice. There is, indeed, a politics of prayer and it runs counter to the prevailing politics of empire.
Affirmation 1 may challenge the orthodoxy of Christian theology. Affirmation 2 challenges the orthodoxy of empire.

About Last Night ...

Last evening on the campus of George Mason out in Fairfax, the Commonwealth Coalition had a rally to encourage students to vote no on the constitutional amendment concerning marriage that will be on the November ballot in Virginia. The rally began with a prayer vigil at which a number of clergy spoke.
Here's what I said.
For too long, those who oppose acceptance and equality of LGBT people and their families have misappropriated the terms pro-marriage and pro-family in the service of an anti-gay agenda. Too often they have based their theft of these terms on midguided, selected reading of scripture. But somehow they missed the part about "letting justice roll down like a mighty water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
Right here, right now we reclaim the language of marriage and family, of justice and of righteousness, as our own.
Authentically pro-marriage laws extend the rights, responsibilities and values of marriage to all adults in committed and loving relationships regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Authentically pro-family laws sustain, uphold and protect the diversity of human families throughout God's good creation.
We call on all those who support justice and equality to reclaim the true meaning and values of marriage and family, and to let the justice waters roll down across the Commonwealth on Nov. 7.
The journey to justice is often long and seldom smooth. But when we do the work of love, we shorten the journey and smooth the way. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. We are the ones to bend the arc. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your energy and your hope. Now go and bend the arc a little closer to justice.

Reimagining Christianity 1.1

This week the blog returns, off and on, to the joyous work of being site of an on-line adult Christian education conversation. CW will continue to interrupt with random comments on whatever happens to strike his curious brain, but "major" posts will focus for the next six weeks or so on topics related to Reimagining Christianity. The jumping off point for the conversations comes from the Phoenix Affirmations.
Affirmation 1 says this: for Christians, loving God includes walking fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitamcy of other paths God may provide humanity.
For a long time now, there has been a kind of "lazy lay liberalism" that affirms this point. It has been liberal in accepting the validity of other paths. It has been lay in that the attitude is broadly shared "in the pews." Alas, it has been "lazy" in that it has been articulated as a doubt concerning orthodoxy rather than as a principle of Christian theology based in scripture and in our understanding of God.
The image above -- found when I googled "salvation" -- should tell you all you need to know about what conservative evangelicals think about affirmation 1. If not, then, imbedded in an otherwise obnoxious article, First Things provides a helpful description of what conservatives think of lay liberalism. They pretty much think we need to be saved from our own thoughts and that they are the ones to do it.
So, for the sake of beginning a conversation, a few questions:
First, what's your "first-blush" response to affirmation 1?
Second, where might you turn in scripture to support this view? (In other words, how might this affirmation transcend the label of "lay liberalism"?)
Third, how might such an affirmation change the church?
And for those of you spying on progressive pastors and looking for grounds for heresy charges let me just help you out: I absolutely believe that following Jesus does not mean salvation for all can be found only in Jesus. God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts. God's ways higher than our ways. There is nothing more human than imagining that our way is the only way.
At the risk of "truthiness" and with appropriate cautions, there is an informative piece on universal salvation on Wikipedia.

Proud, for once, to be Presbyterian

There are times -- many times -- when I am angry at the denomination in which I serve. There are time -- many times -- when I am saddened by it. And there are times -- many, many times -- when I am simply bored by it.
But today I am proud of the church, or, at least, of the immediate past moderator of our General Assembly. Elder Rick Ufford-Chase was arrested in DC this week leading a witness for peace and protest against the war in Iraq. The picture here is from the "die in" in the rotunda of one of the Senate office buildings. Way to go Rick!

Feeling American

I am feeling so American this week. First, we took a trip -- very American -- over the weekend. We wound up driving a big-butt SUV (full-size Dodge Durango, a testosterone machine if ever there was one) because our minivan died an untimely death last week. Driving an SUV makes you want to squish things -- like small cars, especially hybrids!
While on the road we heard from our mechanic. He told us about the van using the same tone a doctor might in saying, "sir, you've got a malignant mass in your brain."
Or, as Dr. McCoy would say, "it's dead, Jim."
So, still feeling very American, we went car shopping. Actually, being 21st-century Americans we managed this entirely on Craigslist, quite likey the greatest invention ever.
Of course, something about Craigslist is quite un-American -- or, at least not too much like America has become in the post-war years. As you enter the marketplace -- perfectly American -- you also enter a community -- not so American anymore. I've met some of the most interesting people in buying guitars, bikes and furniture and in selling or giving away books, TVs and assorted things we've outgrown.
This time, we met a woman who works for EPA. She was selling a hybrid Honda. Car selling and buying is most American. Working for the common good through a public agency ... highly questionable. Hybrids? Well, maybe not so much, yet.
So now we've donated away to public radio the washed up van and we're the downsized drivers of one hot little Honda. God bless America!