Politics and Faith

Friends, let me first apologize for not posting last week. Between travel and the snow here on the East Coast, it slipped past my calendar that it was my turn to post!  What i means is double the posts for you this week, so enjoy!

The role of the Church in public life, and in particular in political life, has long been a question debated within the Church of the Brethren. Set up to be a community apart – in the world but not of it, the church for a long time stayed outside of, and not involved in, the political world that surrounded it. In the last century, however, that relationship has changed dramatically. As the church has become more and more involved in the society which surrounds them, the political realm has been no different. We are now elected officials, and consistently participate in the political process.

The question, then, is what this means. Alan Storkey, in his text “Jesus and Politics: Confronting the Powers” writes,

But there is more to it than that. The disciples started to learn, but knowledge of the rule of God means far more than this central insight. It would systematically change every area of politics. It means submission to God’s law, seeking justice, meekness rather than assertiveness, addressing disputes we have caused, keeping rulers humble, redistributing wealth, reconciling nations and classes. It requires leaders to be put in their place, with no ruler worship. The humble are to be lifted up and the arrogant cut down to size. In its scope, this is the greatest political revolution ever, as the gentle rule of Christ voluntarily settles on humanity, with its structural principles and insights (280).

Especially in light of the closing last year of the Brethren Witness/Washington Office, what does this mean for the future of the CoB’s witness in the political realm? What is the appropriate role of the Church in politics? In what way should we participate? These are the questions on my mind as I consider the question of faith and politics. And, as a way of suggesting a possible answer, as a part of Ecumenical Advocacy Days in DC, this coming March, there will be a Church of the Brethren lunch centering around the role of peace churches in the immigration conversation. So, what do you think is the appropriate role for the church in the politics of this world?

From John Howard Yoder’s “The Politics of Jesus”:

Jesus was, in his divinely mandated (i.e., promised, anointed, messianic) prophethood, priesthood, and kingship, the bearer of a new possibility of human, social, and therefore political relationships. His baptism is the inauguration and his cross is the culmination of that new regime in which his disciples are called to share. Hearers or readers may choose to consider that kingdom as not real, or not relevant, or not possible, or not inviting; but no longer can we come to this choice in the name of systematic theology or honest hermeneutics [...] No such slicing can avoid his call to an ethic marked by the cross, a cross identified as the punishment of a man who threatens society by creating a new kind of community leading a radically new kind of life (52-53).

poetic discipleship

At the Church of the Brethren staff retreat last week, former Bethany Seminary president Gene Roop led an awesome biblical study of texts on “Radical, Compassionate Discipleship.” I forgot how fun it is to have texts broken open like that, and to read them in community!

We studied a couple of narratives, and then turned to the poetry of Isaiah 55. It was, for many in the room, a rough transition. Poetry is harder to get into, harder to understand, and besides, we were attempting it right after lunch, during prime nap time.

But something Gene said made everyone in the room perk up: “Discipleship that dissolves into duty,” he said, “will never last. But discipleship grounded in poetry can not end.”

I love that. It says to me (much like the content of Isaiah 55 – check it out) that God’s plan for the world and for the church is not always linear, does not always make immediate sense, and takes a little extra effort to get into. It reminds me that God works in ways that are not always what I would prefer, but in ways that – once broken open a little – make such a beautiful and unending pattern that its grace is almost incomprehensible.

It reminded me, again, that I participate in the life of the church not because I am duty-bound to do it, but because I continue to believe and expect that God is doing beautiful and transformative things through Her poetic presence in the world, and that I get to be a part of that.

What reminders of poetic discipleship have you encountered recently?

how do brethren pray?

In her new book, Lit (which I highly recommend), Mary Karr details her path to sobriety and faith. She stumbles into God, prayer, and the Catholic church at the insistence of both her sponsors and her 8 year old son. The practices that finally embrace her are the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises – including the Examen (for a low-key Protestant introduction to this, check out Sleeping with Bread).

I love the Examen, and when I share it with young adult volunteers, they latch onto it immediately. But I’ve been working on a project with a couple of young Catholic women, and at the very mention of Ignatius or the Examen, they let out immediate groans of boredom. Raised in Jesuit practice and attending Jesuit colleges, they’ve been Examen’ed out. For them, spiritual practice is old news, but for me and for a lot of young Brethren, it’s not something that I learned much about in Sunday school.

So, my question for y’all is: What spiritual practices have you found and incorporated in your life? How do Brethren pray?

Anti-Intellectuals, oh my!

I heard it again today:  The Church of the Brethren is more anti-intellectual today.  I have to admit, I don’t buy it.

From the beginning, Pietism contained a reaction to overly intellectualized belief.  The egalitarianism of the Spirit countered the elitism of scholastic thought.  Yet, this was hardly a rejection of rigorous critical thought.  Even the quickest read through the Pietist writers of the 17th and 18th centuries reveals a tradition in the hands of an intellectual class.  To have read scripture and written with such attentiveness required a standard of education above the social norm of the day.  Even if there was sentiment against learning, clearly today’s level of education would be far beyond that of the early Pietists.  Just because the typical pew sitter cannot define hermeneutics, identify the latest theological terms, or even know the ideas Derrida or Hauerwas does not mean they are anti-intellectual.

Such a historical review is a task for another time.  Rather, I would like to explore the impact of perceived anti-intellectual on the tradition of the Brethren.  What if this anti-intellectual turn, if there is such a thing, is really a failure of leadership?  I am not suggesting that each pastor or DE should be publishing in the latest peer reviewed journal, but simply that there are fewer and fewer forums for clear intellectual and creative expressions of the Brethren tradition.  Here are some questions about this “Anti-Intellectual” effect:

• As we in leadership set the bar below our congregants, what will they learn?  How will they grow intellectually and spiritually?
• If we in leadership are not presenting a model of faithful thinking, who are the models for their spiritual and intellectual formation?
• Is the “anti-intellectual” card a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, which ends up reifying a divide between the laity and the elite?

As an alternative, I want to present a new theory of counter-intellectualism.  There is clearly a wider phenomenon of “simple folk” in American culture.  I do not think this is a rejection of critical thought but rather a push-back against elitism, against a way of being critical which imposes on the other.  In this interpretation the “lay” response is a means of protection against a learned class which “knows what is best” for the populace, and imposes that vision on it.  In the Church this is like a cancer.  It freezes the laity into a stagnancy and locks the intellectuals in their heads.  A fissure becomes a chasm, and the unity of the Church prayed for by Christ disappears into the resulting darkness.

A similar phenomenon was recored in the early desert literature.  As the second generation of desert ascetics was maturing, a question arose about the nature of God.  Basically, two camps emerged.  The first, following the Genesis narrative, believed God to have a human form.  The second, and more philosophical, rejected that idea.  Instead, God for them was best thought of as beyond human form.  After a pronouncement by the local bishop condemning the first group’s theology, a monk emerged from his cell in tears.  His reply was simple.  ”They have taken my God away from me.”

In our present dilemma, that is the result to be avoided.  Our choices are not between thoughtfulness or simplicity, but rather between spiritual transformation and bifurcated isolation.

The Unity of the Church

Friends, this is partly a self serving post. I am beginning a Doctorate of Ministry program at Wesley Theological Seminary in a few days, titled Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue. But it is also true that as we move through the liturgical seasons, I am reminded of the unity of the church that Christ brought into this world. Advent is no different. Christ brought the reconciliation of humankind and God into this world. So, as I delve into readings for this program, and also consider this message, my thoughts also turn to the role of the Church of the Brethren in the larger picture of the movement toward the unity of the church, and the ecumenical movement as a whole.

Many of you also know that this is my day job as well, working for the National Council of Churches, of which the CoB is a member communion. But just what does this mean?  What does being a member of a council of churches mean?  Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches (who spoke at this summers Annual Conference, continually insists, “the NCC is not an organization (churches) have joined; it is a covenant they have made before God with 34 other communions to mankfest the oneness that is our gift – not our achievement, but our gift – in Christ.”

So, my questions: as members of the Church of the Brethren, what does this actually mean?  What do we gain by striving for the unity of the church? What do we bring to the table? What does it mean for our unity, our oneness, to be a gift we are seeking to make manifest?

Snow, Silence…and Another Surge

This Christmas we will all sing Silent Night, most likely several times.  At least once, I imagine someone will reference the singing of this traditional carol in the midst of The Christmas Truce of 1914.  Unfortunately, that was not the last time the peace of Christ was intoned in the fog of war.  This Christmas the carol will be sung in congregations and homes, as well as in the mountains of Afghanistan and the sands of Iraq.

Many had hoped that this would not be the case with the new administration, yet twice in a week President Obama reminded the world that just as there are no atheists in fox holes, there are no pacifists in the White House.  We should not be surprised.  What more could we expect from a man whose theological and ethical outlook has been shaped by the pen of Reinhold Niebuhr?

Obama’s Oslo speech has been praised, oddly enough, by his staunchest critics as well as his progressive allies.  It has even prompted a series of reflections by theologians and ethicists on a blog hosted by The Ekklesia Project.  In the first post, Duke theologian Stanley Hauerwas summed up the fundamental problem well:

That the speech ends with appeals to love I suppose seems a good. But, again, I worry that such appeals make peace an ideal which war becomes the means to achieve.

Pacifists are often characterized as ideologues who have no sense of how the world really works.  Yet, Hauerwas helpfully shifts the terms.  Pacifists, or Non-Violent Activists, know the ways of conflict within the world.  Its just that they also are convinced that the ends justify the means.  In other words, a peace achieved by violent means is incomplete and fragile at best.  Niebuhr, and his presidential heir, have overlooked this simple truth.  Both are blinded by the modern poker game of balanced power and called bluffs which must be backed by military acuity.

Unfortunately, this realist approach to conflict overlooks the confession of faith within the Christmas carol- Christ the savior is born.  The brief peace in the European trenches of 1914 testifies to our faith:  Peace is not achieved through violent means,  but through common belief and celebration of Christ the Savior.  Sounds a bit pithy, but the bullets were overpowered by the melody of that simple carol.

Bethlehem was small too

I always find it humorous when I read books and articles that are targeted at “smaller churches” and realize that within the broader context of Christianity the definition of a small church encompasses the vast majority of congregations within the Church of the Brethren. I just don’t see it that way. For me, a church with 150 people is BIG! And yet there are many people out there who would consider it to be small (and not just the megachurch crowd.) I wonder what they would think about the church I worshiped with for several years that averaged about 20 attendees?

I’ve been working with Micah 5:2-5a for this final Sunday in Advent and in the process I’ve been reminded that being small and seemingly insignificant isn’t always a detriment. After all, Bethlehem was small too. Yet despite its size and status among the “lesser” clans of Judah it will be forever remembered as the birthplace of Jesus. And don’t forget Nazareth – “can anything good come from Nazareth?” But the towns of Jesus’ origin are in no way the only examples of the lowly being lifted up – just consider David or Joseph, or Mary the young teenage mother. The history of our faith is filled with similar stories! God often works through the people and places that our world is quick to write off.

So I’m left thinking – what does this mean for us, a relatively small denomination of about 1,000 churches, most of which are smaller and therefore seemingly less attractive to the general populace. According to one resource I found, smaller churches only draw about 11 percent of those who attend (Christian but not Catholic or Orthodox) worship in the US, while at least 50 percent of that same demographic attend the largest 10% of congregations, with an average attendance of 350 or greater.

It’s easy to get depressed about being a bunch of small churches in a small denomination. Still, I think there are also blessings that come with occupying this particular ecclesiological niche. Yes, being small has its challenges, but I don’t think we should think for a moment that God cannot work through us in amazing, world-changing ways!

So my question for you is this – what are your experiences of how being a relatively small church (both congregationally and denominationally) can be a blessing? How do you think our size makes us well-suited for this increasingly postmodern, post-Christendom age? What opportunities afforded by our size are we poised to take advantage of, and which ones are we missing?

I’ll be thinking about these questions (and many others this topic raises) and will contribute some more of my thoughts in the comments …

Delayed Gratification

Unfortunately, this will be more of a reflection than a prompt for a discussion.  So I will put the question first, and then offer a meditation.  What are your communities doing for Advent?

In front of the administrative building here at Catholic University sits a nativity.  As a group of us walked in front of it my friend, a liturgical scholar,  quipped “Baby Jesus is not here yet!”  For a second, I had to think, but I soon realized what he was saying.  “Oh, since its Advent and not yet Christmas.”

Though it might sound like an academic dismissal of a common practice, there is an element of truth to his observation.  Culturally, we really do not prepare for Christmas.  The turkey barely cools on the Thanksgiving table and advertisements tell us its Christmas time.  So we venture out to buy our Christmas presents, put up our Christmas decorations, and set out the Christmas scene in our nativities, complete with the Messiah in a manger.  In other words, Christmas comes as soon as the dishes are done. Baby Jesus comes on the last Friday of November.  I do not want to digress into mourning about the commercialization of a religious holiday or to rant about the need to insert Christ back into Christmas.  All of this is simply a collective sign that December has lost its role as a season of preparation for the coming Christ.

Advent is our liminal time, much like like the name of our blog.  Like the apostles waiting in the upper room in the days after the crucifixion we are stuck, anxiously twiddling our thumbs waiting for the next event.  For us, as with the apostles, its the second coming of Christ we anticipate.  Despite the remembrance of the first Christmas, Advent comes as a season to get ready for the day when Christ comes again.  This is an eschatological, and not memorial, preparation.

We just do not handle delayed gratification well.  Culturally, we are not trained to wait.  A recent review of Barnes and Noble’s new e-reader presents this well.  In describing the difference between a computer screen and the display of the e-reader the author praised the speed of a computer:  The image on an LCD screen, he said, is refreshed as many as 60 times a second.  Unfortunately, from his perspective, the e-reader screen only refreshes once a second.  As I read, I laughed.  There are few moments in my day to day life that I measure in increments smaller than a second.  Yet, I also know what he means.  When a computer or phone takes longer than a second to respond to my whimsical commands I can get frustrated.  In our ego-centric culture time and needs are defined by the individual’s perception, not the realities of the situation.  Having it our way, and having in now are the new mantras of our society.

But Advent forces us to stay for a while in the waiting stage.  We do not measure the season by seconds, minutes or even days.  We count the weeks, one candle at a time.  Then on Christmas Eve when we can finally light the center white candle, we are met with absence.  We can put Jesus in the manger, open the presents, and offer wishes of merriment for Christmas but the Second coming we expected does not take place.  So we content ourselves for memories, another egg nog and enter the post-Christmas let down.  Then the clean up begins and the Valentine’s day gifts fill the store shelves.  Its no wonder the season of advent is treated as the religious countdown to the remaining shopping days of the season.

When we do pause in this season of waiting, we can see for a moment the realities of the Christian life.  We are a people hopefully waiting, living in the state of delayed gratification.  What is known as the Glory Be, or Lesser Doxology captures our state well:  “As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.”  God the Christ has been present from the beginning of time, in the manger long ago, now, and will come again.  Advent presents us with the occasion to search for  the presence of Christ in everything  through the confounding interplay of presence and absence; presence in the mangers of the nativity and yet absence in a conflicted world.

Piety and Justice

A few weeks ago a leader in the Columbian Mennonite Church came to DC to share the experiences of the Columbian Anabaptists with University Park COB and Hyattsville Mennonite.  Through his eloquent Spanish and several capable interpreters I was amazed by his prophetic yet pastoral insights.

His most cutting insight came in a profoundly simple question:  “Have we so spiritualized salvation that we have piety without justice?”

The sigh of confirmation from the congregation was audible.

This seems, at least to me, to capture the insights of the early Brethren in a single sentence.  Some contemporary Brethren may want to highlight the interests of justice and peace over salvation while others among us want to elevate salvation above all else.  Yet, each camp presents themselves as pious members of the tradition.  Fundamentally, however, I think our early spiritual ancestors held all three in a kind of Trinitarian balance.

So I want to open the same question for our collective discussion: How have we spiritualized salvation so that we have piety without justice?

Radical Relationality

In the comments on my last post, about what the church is called to be, it seems to me the common theme that ran throughout everyone’s thoughts was that of a radical, reconciling, relationality (even if no one actually used those words ).  Dan spoke of the idea of the church family, Matt of being reconciled with all Creation, Josh of radical community, Paul of overcoming the continual broken relationships of this world.

So, I feel the need to push this  a little further.  We did a pretty good job of speaking in catch phrases and themes – the glory of God and my neighbor’s good, of being transformed, a network of Christ-centered communities, ect. I think all of those are well and true, but what do we actually mean by them?  What does it mean for the Church to be a place of radical relationship? H. Richard Niebuhr writes in his text The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry (pardon the male-centered language),

Is not the result of all these debates and the content of the confessions or commandments of all these authorities this: that no substitute can be found for the definition of the goal of the Church as the increase among men of the love of God and neighbor? The terms vary; now the symbolic phrase is reconciliation to God and man, now increase the gratitude for the forgiveness of sin, now the realization of the kingdom or the coming of the Spirit, now the acceptance of the gospel. BUt the simple language of Jesus Christ himself furnishes to most CHristians the most intelligible key to his own purpose and to that of the community gathered around him (31).

But again, what does that mean when lived out in practice?  For me, this lives true as not only living out the example of Jesus Christ, but reflecting the inner, loving relationships of the Triune God.  As the imago dei, we are called to reflect and live out those relationships to the world around us.  They are relationships of radical giving, surrender, sacrifice, and love. When we conceive of a Trinity as three existing in relationship, it is no longer necessary to distinguish between the way God relates to the world and the being of Godself.  When we see God as the unity of relationships, the relationships become visible all around us as the very foundation of who God is.  Catherine LaCunga writes of the kind of impact this understanding should have in her text God For Us, stating,

God moves toward us so that we may move toward each other and thereby toward God.  The way God comes to us is also our way to God and to each other:  through Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  This is our faith, confessed in creed and celebrated in sacraments.  Confessing faith is incomplete unless it becomes a form of life.  Living faith in the God of Jesus Christ means being formed and transformed by the life of grace of God’s economy:  becoming persons fully in communion with all; becoming Christ to one another; becoming by the power of the Holy Spirit what God is:  love unbounded, glory uncontained (377).

So, what does this mean, and actually look like in day to day life?