All posts by Rod White

Alternativity in the era of Trump, Kid Rock and Charlottesville

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Deactivating creates some alternativityMy Twitter account is dead. It was compromised somehow and I started following a growing collection of interesting, and unknown people. I did the first steps of repair – changed my name and password. When that did not work, I discovered other repairs to try. Instead of trying them, I hit the “deactivate” button. You probably have done similar things by now that provide a strange sense of liberation from the web.  I will miss my connections with the Congo and the Middle East; we’ll see if they lure me back. But I won’t miss fame-seekers, marketers and hackers.

I have twinned my Twitter experience with last week’s exploration of alternatives to COBRA health insurance. Gwen retired from her job, so our health insurance was deactivated. We could no longer ignore what had been hidden in the gobbledygook of her pay stub. I plunged into the indignities of the AHCA website for the first time. I was hit, again, with the realization that the one percent has, indeed, managed to extract an extraordinary entry fee for the privilege of using their medical system.

 

Image result for kid rock for senate
Wants to be alternative

My twin experiences end up being a parable for this new era in which we live: the hopefully brief era of Trump/McConnell, Bannon/Kid Rock, the era of survival of the fittest effectively applied to the state-run economy, the era of scarcity among the wealthy and lack of community among the inextricably connected. I fled to prayer this morning when I woke up to it all. We are up against a lot.

False scarcity

Big communicators, like the Koch Brothers, convince people that there is not enough to go around, so you have to fight hard for what you get and protect it. Their evil message trickles into everything, as if we were not sinful enough to think it anyway. People are scared of losing their jobs, their homes, their future retirement money, so they give whatever it takes to stay afloat.

Fear mongering

Now it is threats against North Korea and Venezuela that the mouth-in-chief is piling up in the airwaves — and his approval rating actually goes up! Perhaps his followers in Charlottesville will succeed in creating the same kind of atmosphere that propelled Nazis into power! People are scared of violence, of losing security, so they cut off from people and demand protection.

Colossal foolishness

It remains hard for me to believe, for some reason, that the one percent is really wicked enough to follow the gospel of maximum profit for minimum expenditure as if it were salvation. As Weber famously explained it, the “spirit of capitalism” has profit as its end, profit as a duty, and cultivates industry, frugality, punctuality and honesty as the means to that end. Most Americans, especially Protestants, are completely conformed to this foolishness.

Christopher Carter’s complaints about it all made the rounds of my Facebook friends:

A car plows into a crowd of peaceful counter-protesters to the white nationalists marching in Charlottesville. This is evil. And in the midst of it all, our administration (president and speaker of the house) release statements that say nothing of substance in order to declare that they said “something” to those who chant their names at these rallies.

I am not surprised by the racism of white people as I encounter it all too often. I am, however, hurt, and continue to be fueled by a righteous anger by the fact that 58% of Protestants and 52% of Catholics voted for a President whose life and politics are antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus.

We are in the throws of a theological crisis. Similar to times past when white Christians theologically accommodated slavery, then Jim and Jane Crow and lynching, and then segregation. Too many Christians mistake the individualist freedom of the State with the freedom we find in Christ. For these Christians, the State and the freedom (i.e. entitlement) they find in the racialized oppressive practices of our country, has become their idol. We must call this idol worship what it actually is, heresy. Unless your faith is rooted in the state, bathed in whiteness, and dried on the backs of the poor and people of color, it is incompatible to be a person of faith and support a president who does not speak out against this violence and who’s name is chanted by white nationalists.

What do we do?

We are trying to do it every day, no matter who hacks us or what it costs.

The Bible verse that sums up the proper response for me today should be much more widely applied than it is:

God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. – 1 Corinthians 12:24-7

The answer comes from being the Body of Christ, not just a reaction or a resistance, but an alternative reality.

The body of Christ is alternativity

Abundance

Scarcity is met with mutuality and generosity in the body of Christ. We will have to do better than to think about it. But we are trying.

Fearlessness

Fear-mongering is met with trust in what God puts together, not in what the invisible hand creates. We’ll need to integrate our faith into the actions of our daily life more. But we are trying.

Wisdom

Foolishness is met with truth telling, just like Paul boldly states the new reality Jesus is making. We’ll have to listen to the Spirit directly and in one another and test it out, not just flee, resist and resent. But we are trying.

Alternativity

Alternativity is the word we use to sum it all up. We are trying to live in it. Deactivating Twitter is my act of defiance as much as self-preservation. Tackling the health care debacle is about perseverance as much as survival. Writing this little post, complaining about our terrible experiences, griping about Charlottesville, denouncing Trump, quoting Paul, insisting that there are better ways and that we are living them right now is how I keep myself on track. And I hope it has helped you, too. We have an alternative reality to build with Jesus, and it can’t wait for things to get better.

A Stance: How Jesus Acts on His

Building community, Doing Theology,

Jesus lived among people with stances on everything, too.

Here is Jesus taking a stand. He has a “stance.”

And he said to them: “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” — Mark 7:9-13

The Pharisees had their stance and Jesus had his. They each saw the world in a certain way.

The Pharisees had a point of view that had been refined over a few hundred years. They had an intellectual and emotional attitude. Their stances were so important to them that quite a few conspired to get Jesus killed when he threatened their validity and power.

Jesus had some stances, too. Most of them were pretty basic, when it came to behavior. To the law-abiding Pharisees who wouldn’t even follow one of the ten commandments he said, “You nullify the word of God by your tradition.” When he was talking to people who sin he said, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out” (Mark 9:43).

Church can become a matter of competing stances.

But what did Jesus do as a result of his stances? Did he try to get someone punished? Did he want to enforce them? Did he want to get someone killed? Not at all. He did not treat us according to his stances, he died for us. He treats according to his love.

We need to “go and do likewise.” Doing so will be tough, because postmodern “democracy” is a constant collision of stances. Supposedly, the world is ordered by people expressing their individual consciences within the safety of laws that protect their identities. In reality, as we all know, it is ordered by people who can buy enough influence to guarantee that their stance seems very important. Regular people get lined up behind a particular stance and are defined by massive definitions of “identity” and argue all day like congress. Since the institutions are God-free there is no center to bring any substance to the dialogue, so the process is a constant competition to see who will define the center today.

A few years ago Gwen and I were in court because she was subpoenaed to appear in the district attorney’s case against the young man who threatened her on our stairs with a letter opener taken from my office on floor below. She talked him down the stairs and was fine (thank God!). But she then had to go through the torturous “justice” system while the young man languished in jail for months. What the lawyers did epitomizes what we all do these days. It is even worse, maybe, than what the Pharisees were doing with their law, certainly similar. The lawyers compete, case after case. They try to get witnesses confused (“You said the knife was six inches long, and now you say eight. What was it?”). They try to find a way out of following the law. They accuse the other side of procedural mistakes. There is no real interest in the truth. They often make sure their clients don’t tell their story at all, because they can’t compete in the game very well. It seems to me that we are all being trained to defend our self-interested stances with the same kind of dialogue.

What you do about your stance is more important than having one.

When “what is your stance on?…” is the big question in the church, which it sometimes is, it is trouble. The church definitely takes a stand in the world, but it does not act on it stances like the world. For one thing, the church is a kingdom, not a democracy, essentially. That doesn’t make democracy a bad way to run governments; it just means governments are different from the church. But the main reason the question can mean trouble is this: if we argue our stances all day we’ll end up with a competition to dominate a godless center, just like the world does.

 

Jesus’ stance

We have stances, just like Jesus has some very radical stances. And just like Jesus doesn’t mind talking about his stances, we talk about ours. More important, Jesus has an even more radical way of acting on his stances. It is how we act in relation to our stances that makes the church like Jesus.

The big example, like I began, is Jesus’ stance on sin. He has a strong “point of view” (from the center of creation): “Sin is killing you. Don’t mess around with pretending you aren’t doing it. You Pharisees don’t even follow the Ten Commandments and act like you are so holy!” His stance does divide up the world between people who are for him and against him. But here is the big difference: he does not treat people according to his stance on sin. He wrestles the sin for them and then with them. He acts for everyone, whether they follow him or not, by acting out of his dying love.

Our church and all the churches are in danger every day of getting divided up into competing stances. I think it is safe to say that most people think the validation of their rights/opinions/political identities/power is crucial these days. They judge the church according to whether it agrees with their stances. We even get judged for not having stances!

I think our only hope in such a day is to discern whatever we can call Jesus’ stances and then act on them the same way he did. He is the center and we listen for truth from the center, but then we treat people in love, not according to their stances or ours. The love may not be based on how great they are, or on their right to be loved. At its best, our love for them will be a dying love animated by Jesus himself.

The teaching of 90-year-old billionaires: Can we be alternative?

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What does it mean to love in an era when people have been reduced to “human resources?” I wish it seemed obvious to state that the culture of capitalism dramatically affects how people understand themselves and one another. But I don’t think it is obvious; thus, this blog post.

Is Capitalism the best system?

Not long ago I was watching one of the news channels and tuned in to an interview of a 90-year-old billionaire. He interrupted his young interviewer at one point so he could make sure to say what he wanted to teach. He said, “There is one thing everyone needs to understand. Capitalism is the best system. We tried communism, or at least some did, and it failed. We tried socialism and that does not work.”

The interviewer did not say, “What do you mean by ‘working?’ Are you talking about ‘achieving the most profit with as little expenditure as possible for the shareholders or owners of an enterprise?'” Instead, she just moved on, either swallowing what everyone has been taught or being afraid to contradict it.

I think 90% of the people who enter a Sunday meeting  react about the same way as the interviewer every day. They spend the week moving along with capitalism and the billionaires who run it — and preparing their children to do the same. But are the goals of capitalism and the 1% the goals of Jesus? You can already tell that I am going to say “No.” But do I have a leg to stand on?

The secret philosophy that runs us all

Last April George Monbiot summarized his book for the Guardian. He identified the secret philosophy that drives what most of us do all week and infects what we do on Sunday, too. He says, Today’s capitalism

  • sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations.
  • redefines citizens as “consumers“ whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling.
  • teaches that buying and selling has its own morality that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency.
  • maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.

People are fighting about how to apply this philosophy in Congress right now. Will a generous version of today’s capitalism (like Obamacare) rule our healthcare or will a radical version rule (like in Trump/Ryan care)?

Monbiot says today’s capitalism fights any attempts to limit competition and labels any question of limits an assault on freedom. It teaches:

  • Taxes and regulations should be minimized, public services should be privatized.
  • The organization of labor and collective bargaining by trade unions are are market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers.
  • Inequality is virtuous: a reward for being effective and a generating wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone.
  • Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.

You may have heard those last four bullet points preached from a pulpit somewhere (other than Circle of Hope). Or maybe you just know the viewpoint is assumed, a moot point, in your evangelical church. I have experienced both the preaching and the assumption. For instance, if a variant viewpoint is raised on the BIC-List (our denomination’s listserve), men will come out of the woodwork to reinforce those bullets, as if they were a 90-year-old billionaire interrupting some foolish youngster. They will even marshal the Bible to help make their point, even though everyone knows neoliberalism was not invented by Christians.

Last summer the pope explained this while on a flight from Krakow to Vatican City. He surprised journalists when he told them Muslim attacks on a priest in France were basically caused by neoliberalism. He said, “Terrorism grows when there is no other option, and as long as the world economy has at its center the god of money and not the person…This is fundamental terrorism, against all humanity.” At the time, Americans were in the middle of an election campaign, so they probably did not hear the Pope over all the hubbub about Trump’s tweets. Evangelical Christians were about to overwhelmingly vote for Donald Trump, the epitome of what neoliberal capitalism created since Ronald Reagan.

Are we actually pawns in the philosophy’s system?

What if we Christians, we who are bound and determined to follow Jesus in his suffering and transform humanity, become the unwitting pawns of capitalist deformation of humanity in the image of neoliberal capitalism? Our lives teach. The content of our dialogue sets the contours of the culture are always building!

Can a Christian merely exist in the pluralistic, postmodern capitalist landscape? Does capitalism offer a home for Christians? No. Without Christians creating an alternative, capitalism subjects everyone to its will. We still fundamentally believe, don’t we, that one cannot serve two masters? We might normally think about not serving Mammon within the framework of capitalism and consider how to allow Jesus to be the Lord of how we do capitalism. But what if capitalism is, in effect, the alternative god?

Capitalism makes desire an end in itself and diverts our desire from communion with God. That sin causes us to stray from God’s will and design for us. God’s design for us is to desire God and our true selves. Unfortunately, the economic modalities around us pervert that desire. We cannot serve both our capitalism-perverted desire and God’s desire. We must go back to God, which means rejecting the capitalist way. The two are incompatible.

We need to talk about this, because everyone who comes to our Sunday meeting is feeling desire. Assuming that their desires, dominated by capitalism, are healthy and not a cause of their general illness is wrong. If a person is constantly making a deal and can’t make a covenant with God’s people, if they are trained for desiring what they don’t yet have, if they protect their autonomy and freedom at the expense of their faith, should they not learn that comes from neoliberalism and not God, not even from themselves?

Image result for homo economicus

Capitalism creates homo economicus in its image. That being, by its nature, is:

  • Not in community, not collective.
  • Free to choose. Amidst millions of consumer options, we are free to choose what to do (of course, within the confines of capitalism)
  • Self-interested
  • Driven by Insatiable Desire.
  • Competitive.
  • Reduced to thinking Justice is only about fair exchange regulated by contracts and laws. In capitalism, social justice doesn’t exist because the market is beyond justice.

I think most people who read this far are probably trying to figure out how to be the alternative to what is killing humanity. When people come to the Sunday meeting they come as people condemned to being homo economicus. Is there a way out? If we force them to perform within that bondage, aren’t we preparing them to be consumed consumers? Couldn’t we condemn our children in the name of helping them?

Somehow, we need to risk acting according to the Lord’s economy that is

  • Spirit formed
  • Communal
  • Self-giving
  • Generous out of eternal abundance

After all this theoretical sounding writing, it may seem difficult to think about how to apply it. So will we just go back to being led around by the invisible hand and letting our faith be invisibilized by living under its shelter? Obviously, I hope not. Let’s keep exposing the powers for who they are in the spirit of today’s image of the atonement: Christus Victor. Jesus is our leader in that, present with us, every day.

Lent: We gave up doing basically nothing for the season

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All the guides to Lent (including most of mine) have to do with applying some good thinking from the ancient and medieval church. It is so great. I am doing it.

The idea is so old, so someone else’s, so demanding, the vast majority of Christ followers, radical or nominal, are ignoring it — for all practical purposes, at least. Their loss.

That being said, I think we may have stumbled on to another discipline that we don’t need a lot of prayers, plans, meetings, guidebooks or history books to do: we just do stuff. We gave up not making a difference a long time ago. But this Lent, in particular, We seem to have given up giving up doing nothing all over again. We are kind of over freaking out about Trump, and are back to being the alternative we have always been to neoliberalism, now neolberalism turning toward totalitarianism. We don’t sit around.

Alternativity: finding a way beyond the walls

1. We build the church

Jerome began a cell last week with a set of mostly-new people. They all went against the grain and sat down to community. Our congregation in the Northwest is seven-months old and already show signs of taking its first toddler steps! This keeps happening.

The main thing the world needs is an alternative. Democracy is great and needs to be expanded, but it obviously is not saving the world. People have elected the worst government in my memory — for the most part they let their reps buy their position so 1% capitalism would be preserved. What people really need, as they always have, is not more info, power, and government largesse, they need to be a responsible part of their own people, culturing a common life with Jesus at the head. We are making that community, whether we are 20 or 60, new believer or old salt. We do it very simply by forming cells where we deliver our spiritual gifts face to face and by holding weekly, public gatherings where we worship, teach and incorporate people looking for Jesus. Those simple acts of building an alternative community in Christ spawn all sorts of other amazements! We map  our direction our ourselves, not just apply someone else’s thinking. We fund it all ourselves, not living off our business profits or grants from the fat cats. We keep inventing it ourselves, it does not belong to our leaders or our founders, it is us.

2. We pray

A lot of us never pray, it must be admitted. They are missing out. But most of us do, and we don’t think it is doing nothing, because we actually believe God responds to our prayers. We don’t run the universe with our intercession, but we participate in what the Holy Spirit can do. Plus, of course, praying people become more accustomed to their supernatural capabilities and become answers to their own prayers, so that is a bonus.

Art started organizing prayer walks around our new site in South Philly. People are out on the street praying, discerning, letting love flow. When we move through the stations of the cross in our neighborhoods on Good Friday, it will be about as obvious as we can make it that we believe Jesus is dying and rising right here, right now, among us and in our neighborhoods.

3. We form teams that express our passion

The Community Workshop Team decided that lightly or illegally employed people could learn woodworking. The Watershed Discipleship Team saw the threat to the world and to the Delaware River Watershed and decided they could not let the planet die without doing something. The Solidarity Beyond Borders team was revived when Trump stirred up anti-immigrant sentiments and challenged Philadelphia’s right to be a sanctuary, so they got an alliance going with local Mexicans, in particular, and started strategizing.

At this point, we kind of take making these teams for granted. When Jonny was telling someone about them last week, the person was flabbergasted to learn that there are still Christians in the world who do something. Most of them seem to be settled into resenting the obligation to go to church on Sundays (as if anyone could GO to church when they ARE the church!).

4. We make good business

This is kind of new. Yes, it is old, too, because we have had our successful Circle Thrift stores and we partner with Circle Counseling. Both these businesses began as compassion teams. But now we are moving into the next flowering of this idea, it appears.

We bought the new South Broad building thinking we would put Circle Thrift down there. But as it turns out the congregation doesn’t really need all that income to support the building and the space for the store is probably too small. We thought a NEW business there would be better: a childcare business (we’re talking that over tonight). The whole neighborhood is on a waiting list for childcare; we have the talent (if people want to use it), and we think we have a good space.

This development in our thinking about 2212 S. Broad made us think we should KEEP 1125 South Broad, which we had just decided to desert! We are thinking we should keep the store in place and create our long-held dream of a space rental/events business. These ideas presented themselves and we decided to go for it, in terms of planning, at least. Approval is not settled yet.

Alternativity: Holy Week

Lent is a great time to sit around and do “nothing” as we meditate on what Jesus has done and learn the basic spiritual disciplines that sustain our life in Christ. Please figure out how to fast! Learn what is on the other side of silence! Study and pray!

That being said, I don’t want to undercut what our actual spiritual strength might already be. We don’t sit around and do nothing while the world goes to hell in a handbasket (as my mother used to say, for some reason). We build the alternative. We are alternativity, itself! That is a good way to spend every day, especially as we look so carefully at Jesus, the alternative to sin and death, being it and living it during Lent!

 

 

I woke up fearing fear: Being pulled toward the edge of the inauguration.

Building community, Doing Theology,

fear is a liar

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. – 1 John 4:16-18 (NIV)

I woke up pondering these verses. I think the Holy Spirit was helping me face the fear that seems to be infecting the world around me and infecting me! Many of us feel like we are being pulled toward the edge of something as we move closer to the inauguration. It is scary.

Some of us are lashing out in various ways and maybe getting ready to get on the bus to head for Washington to lash out in a big way. They have undoubtedly been told, perhaps by the silence they meet when their voices get louder, that such behavior is wrong.

Others of us are pretending nothing is happening, as if by sheer force of will we will render the fearful things unreal, or irrelevant. They have undoubtedly been met by some passionate person knocking on their foreheads, sending them another email, barraging them on Facebook requiring them to get out of their denial and face the enemy before it is too late.

Meanwhile we have the 24-hour infotainment industry, the 1%’s plaything, managing perceptions, wondering how to deal with Donald Trump tweeting lies that somehow need to be considered seriously because he’s the president.

I woke up pondering these verses because I woke up pondering fear, my own and everyone else’s. John had a lot to say to me. He comforted me. There are so many good things that he wants to give us, the church, in this frightening, unpredictable day in just these few lines! Pick out what you need. I picked out three things:

  • Confidence
  • Perfect loves drives out fear
  • Whoever lives in love lives in God

People have said so much about this passage over the centuries, that I feel like referring you to a Google search project. But let’s just be us and see what God is going to do with us today. We face a lot of fear.

One of the things that kills the community of the church is a common reaction to fear: I think something bad is going to happen in our relationship so I plan for it not to happen in advance. I try to solve the problem you might have before you have it. I might not even let you say much about what you are feeling because I already fear what you are feeling before I hear you say it! Likewise, I don’t say much about what I feel or think because you are going to react negatively or I might be offensive and we would have a conflict, or you might be silently offended and leave. So in order to connect, I don’t connect. This happens in close friendships, marriages, and business partnerships, but let’s think about the church: all our cells, teams and budding partnerships. John has a few things for us to apply.

Don’t let fear steal your confidence.

Our confidence comes from God who is love and who loves us. Some people read John’s words, above, as if he is saying: “We will have confidence on the Day  of Judgment if we are like Jesus.” There is something to that. But if that is all there is, it is a good reason so many people who believe it never get out of their starting blocks because they are afraid they won’t finish the race.  I read it as saying: “We have confidence because God’s love is with us; so we know we will be able to stand before Him without fear, now and forever.” Paul says it even clearer, but I will just refer you to him.  Don’t let fear steal your confidence.

Don’t let your love be driven be the fear of imperfect love.

Love is a powerful weapon. People seeking the common good all over the world know this, even when they don’t know Jesus. Most of us feel that love makes a difference. Love upends things, even fear. When John says “Perfect love drives out fear,” some people focus on the “perfect” in the sentence. I do think John means to say God’s love is perfect and we should perfect it. But the point is not to be perfectly loving so you can be perfectly disappointed in how bad you are at loving and how ineffectual your love seems. We can end up being fearful of not being perfectly loving, right? — even fearful about being fearful!

Such an attitude about oneself usually results in criticizing others for how unloving they are; then there we go again in our usual judgment-laden struggle. I think what John means to say is this: Jesus is bringing us confidence to face our fears as we face them in the middle of his love. We love, not fear, because He first loved us. As a result of this great, self-giving love of God in Jesus, we end up connected to God again and so able to bring God’s kind of love to the world. Don’t let your love be driven be the fear of imperfect love, just receive God’s love in Jesus and give what you’ve got.

Hang on to the love where you find it

Love is the best we can do. I know a lot of brilliant people who know a lot about a lot. They are going to apply their wisdom and all that intelligence to make the world a better place. I just watched Hidden Figures (loved it) in which three black women friends rose to the top ranks of NASA in the 60’s. The movie made you feel like miracles can happen, and they happen. But most of us are not going to do or experience a movie-makeable miracle this week. And John does not promise that, or even imagine the expectations of the 21st century, where if you don’t do something amazing, nothing is happening. What he does promise is this: the great love who-God-is and what-God-does-in-Jesus is infecting the world with eternity. Even unbelievers who latch on to that great breast are fed with possibilities for all we long to receive. Like Paul also says, even the best ideas and greatest ambitions without love are gone like the ring of a bell that has stopped disturbing the air. The love who God is and the love God does is greater. Hang on to love where you find it and let the seed of God there lead you into fullness.

Yes, it will be hard to have confidence in such love because it is imperfect. But your judgment is not always the point. God is the creator of love and none of yours will be wasted.

Top Ten Posts of 2016

Mostly the arts

Thanks for reading in 2016, friends. I have not played the blogging game too hard, so it is encouraging that people manage to find my footprints on the beach and stick with me on the journey.  Here are my most-read posts for the past year. Click the headings to link to the posts.

Periodically, I try to talk back when I get a whiff of Circle of Hope’s reputation. If you’ve been around a while, or even when you do something notable, people say stuff about you. I think I realized more than ever in 2016 that God has not only developed a way of life among us that contrasts with much of the churches in town, we also have some corrective theology to offer a Church that generally thought Donald Trump and the Republicans had their interests in mind. Some think we are not “holding the line” on purity. They are right; we are not holding their line.

Periodically, I can’t resist talking back to evangelical talking heads. Donald Miller never intended to be that, but then Blue Like Jazz sold over 1.5 million copies. He is way too influential, IMHO.

These posts about the election process also go on the list:
We have no other king but Bernie?
About Hillary — we can do better
About Trump — we can do better

What a crazy year! Hillary Clinton trounces Trump in the popular vote and he becomes president! I had quite a bit to say about it all — mostly trying to help us not be swallowed and to maintain our sense of separation from the world. We also did some theology that explained why we maintain that sense of separation, which I summarized on the Way of Jesus blog Elections: Trump, Constantine, etc.

I think a lot of people read this because Circle of Hope, in particular, has been colonized by disaffected evangelicals, and because, generally, there are a lot of people who are fed up with a church that promises one thing and does another. We are longing for Jesus, and he is often not allowed to be himself in our church, just like we aren’t.

In August I took the opportunity to explain what it is like to be me, now that I have traveled a while as Development Pastor. I think this post explains a bit of what Circle of Hope aspires to be now, too.

This post a also includes links to all the dispatches I sent from Africa when Gwen, Joshua, Bethany and I traveled with a crew associated with MCC to see what is going on in Zimbabwe and Zambia. They were all among my most-read posts. I think our trip had the intended impact and strengthened the Brethren in Christ – U.S. partnership with MCC.

I see quite a few married couples in the course of a month. Most thirtysomethings who are married could probably use some counseling to gain some insight and tools for the next steps in their relationship. This post is a summary of of a couple of things they might want to learn.

Laughing out loud

Poetry

The rain feels like the tears of the world today
and it is wobbly and foggy,
like me stumbling into the daylight
still blurry and choked up over Birth of a Nation.

The rain reminds me of people in Haiti
and they are ruined and soggy.
They are stumbling into the morning
traumatized again and asking “What happens next?”

Puddles fill up
with marital woes,
unprocessed fears,
unresolved conflict,
hopeless situations
and broken systems.

Yet I am so at peace in my comfy chair
listening to the rain, feeling the pain
and trusting You, thanking You.

The rain whispers of oceans filled with favor
and it is unfathomable to me.
I keep stumbling into it like a grandson
wobbling around on the walk, arms raised, ready to swing.

And I am so at peace in your loving grasp,
flying in the rain, splattered with pain
and trusting you, laughing out loud.

Seven ways we are avoiding the temptation to institutionalize

Leadership, The Mission,

 

I innocently wandered into “institution land” the other day. Someone lumped our church into the category. It felt strange when they politely said, “I don’t believe in institutional religion.” Meanwhile, here I feel like that bird above — and dead institutions are the cage! I’m one of the people who could have rejected Jesus because of bad institutions! It was a memorable moment  — memorable enough to write about.

The broad definition of “institution” is: a society established/organized/founded for a purpose, often charitable, educational or religious. That sounds fine, right? Then you remember that institutions become big, controlling establishments run by the funders or the leaders for themselves quite often. But Jesus was about as “anti-establishment” as you can get, wouldn’t you say?—isn’t that why the funders and leaders got him killed? When they were about to do it, he said:

“Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.  And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” — Jesus in John 12:31-2

I’m a Jesus-follower, so I have nothing BUT fear when it comes to being a mere institution. They are, by definition, not all bad. But they are often led by the “princes of this world” who are not drawn to Jesus and are prone to merely preserving themselves. When it comes to the institutionalized church, I am as tired of it as anyone else [previous post]. I even protest its origins [previous post]. I am not interested in turning my relationship with Jesus into a program housed in a corporation that is mainly designed to preserve itself and profit the insiders who own it. So how do I keep people from labeling me “institutional” just because our Circle of Hope “society” resembles other religious people in various ways?

Here are some ways we’ve been trying to have a common purpose without becoming the establishment.

  1. We try to provide real help for people in real need.

Our greatness is in serving others. That’s why we are organized in cells, so everyone gets a chance to be served and to serve. That’s why we support compassion and mission teams so people get a good chance to express their passion, not just conform to expectations.

And that’s why 20% of what we share in our Common Fund is designated for people who are in need or are not us. For an example, read this post about caring for North Koreans. Our thrift stores kick in about $100K a year more for the same purpose.

What’s more, one of our main goals in the next five years is to perfect our mutuality system, so we can help people with debt and other challenges. We also want to help start businesses so we can provide jobs and have alternative sources for funding what we want to do. What’s even more, that’s why we are not building temples but trying to find out how to do church planting in an expensive market without busting the bank.

  1. We dial down the hype.

We are committed to transparent truth telling, even if it makes the leaders look less than perfect (since we are less than perfect, that is not hard). The leaders don’t particularly trust anonymous, entitled institutions either, so we don’t want to excite everyone’s inauthenticity meter every five minutes.

  1. We are a team. We lose if people don’t play.

People mock the fact that many of us grew up on soccer teams that gave everyone a trophy at the end of the season. Maybe that idea has problems, but we still think everyone is important, whether they are on the travelling team or not. You don’t even have to like soccer analogies or feel comfortable not calling it football/futbol. Older people and younger people lead our church, men and women, people of all backgrounds. Everyone counts. We are a living body, not a program. And if people don’t live it, we are set up to die quickly.

  1. We are honest about debt.

We share money. We make big plans with our money. And we also know that debt keeps people from being a part of sharing or dreaming.

Let me go off on this for a minute, since this is a bigger relationship killer than people think. Debt is the big fact of life for most normal people. Factoids: 1) For households with credit-card debt, the average is $15,799. We know that so-called “millennials” feel the vise grip of debt more painfully than most. 2) We know that the average debt for graduating college seniors is more than $23,000, and recent graduates stumble in paying this back—since the jobs they’re finding are often part-time, lower-paying, service-sector.

When you add in a car loan, and an occasional bad spending decision, and people wonder if they can ever be legitimate members of the tribe. They have little to share. When the church is trying to get some money together for our common purpose the process can feel like another debt collection.

We’re trying to be honest about the struggle.  We need to be part of our common financial life for our spiritual health, for our connection to the body of Christ, and for our own dignity. So we talk about it; we share the problem; we help each other.

  1. We try to stay relational in the virtual age.

Tech is helpful, but God help us if it replaces face-to-face relating!. Even our websites (like this one), blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc., are for beginning and extending relationships. Even if you see us on YouTube it is still very easy to see everyone in person. We’re in cells and we keep the Sunday meetings small enough to be touchable. We’re an anthill more than an agency. We are a gathering more than a show.

  1. We set goals we can meet.

Obviously, we do not meet ALL our goals. But we keep moving right along every year according to what we all think we should be doing. Everyone gets a say, if they want it. Our last few “maps” have been especially visionary, I think. We are in the middle of a lot of productive disruption and growth. It is challenging and exciting. But even when we have big dreams, we are also realistic. We want 100% participation from our covenant members and regular meeting attenders. So we don’t set the bar so high that many people won’t even consider getting over it. Our five-year plans did not come from some faceless bureaucracy; they came from our own dialogue with God and each other.

  1. The leaders are unafraid to be who they are.

Well, maybe we are a little afraid. After all, it is a labeling era—you think you are trying to follow Jesus and people tell you you’re just an institution as untrustworthy as all the others!

Nevertheless, our pastors, in particular, are “out there.” They are honest, they are open to hard questions—even if they can’t answer them! They try to go through depression and anxiety with the same mutuality and hope they suggest to others. They pray, and listen, and try to stay free from the temptations to get established in something that no longer needs Jesus to operate.

So if you think all churches are institutions in that bad, coercive, uncaring, unchanging establishment kind of way, is there any way you can give us an exemption? Jesus doesn’t fit the label, do we have to wear it? It would be interesting to hear your honest opinion when you came to visit us, or, better yet, got to know us. We’re doing something new over here that doesn’t match your stereotype. If we ever stop moving with what the Spirit is doing next, we’d like you to tell us.

About Hillary — we can do better

The Mission,

Well, THAT was a convention! I always think the balloons should fall faster, but that is just me – and perhaps a secret wish that it would all be over! The DNC was a well-choreographed spectacle of hopefulness, exceptionalism, saber-rattling and Trump bashing, with lots of faith thrown in. I’m old enough to remember that it seemed a lot like a page from the Ronald Reagan playbook. To be honest, Hillary reminds me a little of Richard Nixon — I kind of think she is a crook, but boy, can she do policy!

But a woman was nominated, people. She works for children. Does anything else matter? William Barber was allowed to give the best speech. Isn’t that great? Secret fat cat donors funded the thing (Johnson and Johnson was apparently the biggest donor with a face), but at least she threatened them. Bernie Sanders was the most gracious curmudgeon to endure Hillary’s moment – shouldn’t you be as nice?

Katy Perry's Powerful Performance, Hillary's 'Hamilton' Shoutout and 8 More Musical Moments from the 2016 DNC | Entertainment Tonight

I’m trying to go along a little. I truly admired the eloquence and organizing capacity of the Democrat crew (except for Katy Perry and her malfunctioning ear mics)! I do not believe in their view of America, but it would be great if I did. As Hillary proved, in her own way, “We can do better.” But we Christians are not running an election campaign for our brief moment in office to rule and change the world (are we?). We must do better than holding out America as God’s gift to the planet.

I have the blessing of traveling a lot. The United States is not God’s gift to the planet. I also pray a lot. The country has positive points, but I have not gotten the impression that it is central to the Lord’s redemption project. If anything, China has been better for that, in my lifetime.

But let’s be positive (as if anything could be more positive than the anti-RNC DNC!). The Democrats have a lot to offer

  • They unabashedly talk about love and building community.
  • They are on the side of “the least of these,” and quote the Bible about that conviction.
  • Both Hillary and Tim Kaine have public service resumes that looks like serving.
  • Even if they are obviously in the pockets of corporations, they talk back to their overlords.
  • They mentioned mass incarceration, generosity to immigrants and equal pay for equal work.
  • They are into protecting rights.
  • It cannot be underestimated how revolutionary it is to nominate a woman, and a qualified one!

I don’t think Hillary has a chance of getting most of her agenda passed through Congress, since it appears the Republicans have suppressed voting and gerrymandered the system so well it will be very difficult to dislodge them. So if she is elected, expect her to be a lot testier than Barack.

We must do better. We Christians must not get looped into the glittering promises of Hillary’s great compromise – the first George Bush meets Lyndon Johnson. Just because Johnson and Johnson let Christian speakers on the platform, doesn’t mean the United States is any more Christian. Most of these people are part of the Baby Boomers’ last stand of peace and love. But the legacy of those Boomers looks a lot like all the other promises of politicians. We always need to do better.

It is tempting to spend another four years hoping things will get better – and the government can and does makes things better, as it should. But we still don’t put our hope “in chariots and horses,” that is, in the capacity to threaten ISIS, the wealth to promise free education, or the exceptionalism of our supposed democracy. So let’s not fall into temptation. Someplace, Jesus needs a platform to speak the truth. Someplace, normal people need to struggle face to face in faith and do what they can do, not dependent on their corporate overlords to allow it. Someplace, the alternative to two years of vying to be the top dog has to be available. The church is the Lord’s people and we are, like it or not, the best hope of giving people real hope in a 46%-43% society. I think our witness has been drowned out by big money, big systems and our own complicity (in general). But Jesus is still making connections and is still using us. I’m with Him.

About Trump — we can do better

The Mission, ,

I watched the Trump acceptance speech – all of it. I also watched Ivanka. In Trumpspeech: “Not that pleased with the first – Surprisingly pleased with the latter — Believe me.”

I live among people who are not happy with Trump. But sometimes I think they are posturing, since they probably have a relative from the South or Middle Pennsylvania (or keeping quiet in Philly, at least) who thinks Trump is great. So they must have some sense of affinity with the guy. Don’t worry if you do or you don’t — It is crazy politics, people, but it is still just politics. And even if the election turns out to be a life and death matter for some people, we are still Jesus followers. Every election serves to remind us why we are glad to have a savior who triumphs over death. I don’t say that in a fatalistic way, just a realistic one. I know Americans think they can control everything so nothing bad will happen or happen again, but how many times does our control system need to be proven faulty until we give up on it?

In the spirit of charity I would like to try a third way to judge Trump – not work hard to take him seriously and gloss over his faults, and not just point out all the lies he told last night and despair over his angry, divisive approach, but a caring way. I want to try an understanding look at Trump from the bluest of cities. Why are people voting for him? And why might he win the presidency? Here are seven things that people  find positive about him:

  1. He understands how irritating the overreaching government is — all the way down to telling you how to speak.
  2. He understands how people are tired of the 1% getting away with everything. Hillary’s emails are another example. He at least admits he gets away with things. People admire how he hoodwinks the system for his own benefit because that is what they have to try to do to get by.
  3. He understands that people want Americans to be Americans. It is a nationalistic country. People don’t want it divided up and don’t want people to call them bigoted when they want a citizenship standard.
  4. He understands why people are mad and scared. It is hard to get by. Every time you turn around someone has their hand in your pocket — mostly the government and those who have the inside track with the government. It is hard to feel safe. People all watch TV all the time and don’t trust anyone to tell the truth, but bad things are happening all over and we know about them.
  5. He understands that people have finally gotten wind that the system is rigged against anyone who is not rich. People want the authorities to “do their job” and lock up people who sidestep the law.
  6. His children are good looking, well-spoken and loyal, even if they did come from three mothers.
  7. He has gotten things done and the government has been a gridlocked mess for sixteen years. Every major decision that is made seems half-baked (Obamacare) or wrong (Iraq).

Jesus followers can see the good in everyone, or at least we can have some empathy for why they think what they believe is good. We love people.

When I was watching the RNC reality show, I kept thinking of what Hillary tweeted during it, “We we are better than this.”

hillary tweet

I am not sure Hillary can do better (unless she can repent of skirting the law and the truth all the time). But I do think we Jesus-followers (at least the ones who are not trying to run the world) can do better. We ought to do better, too, rather than just reacting to politics as if they are the focus of all our hope or the end of the world.

I think we and many Jesus followers are doing a LOT better. If we speak the truth in love and build communities that look and act like we share the love of Jesus, then we can offer people an alternative that is better than whatever is already messing them up. Whoever gets elected is going to need a lot of prayer; they are winning a position that is nothing but trouble — what else is new? But Jesus told us not to let our hearts be troubled with the latest trouble. He still overcomes the world, no matter what the trouble in whatever country. Let’s overcome with Him. Why should people get stuck with Trump and Hillary as if nothing better is available to them?