Be Sad and then Convert… But Don’t Force It

I’m working my way through James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience, and am currently on the chapter(s) about conversion. James has already described the “Healthy Mind” – or the sickening optimist, and the Sick Soul, or the depressed teenager. With conversion, James makes an interesting point quoting Dr. Starbuck... conversion is,

“a process of struggling away from sin rather than of striving towards righteousness.”

He further writes (not quoting Starbuck):

“When the new centre of personal energy has been subconsciously incubated so long as to be just ready to open into flower, ‘hands off’ is the only word for us, it must burst forth unaided!”

These are interesting points about conversion. First, one who is complacent, happy, and satisfied will most likely not convert. Second, conversion is something we cannot force, but we must let happen. Now it is a standard trick of Christianity (especially the evangelical ilk) to convince people why they are sad and why they need Jesus, but the passive waiting for conversion to truly happen is not a gift of most Christians. We preach a sad and sappy sermon about Jesus, then we sing “Just As I Am,” or “Softly and Tenderly,” or some new praisey kind of song again and again until people start coming forward, crying and weeping and ready to give their lives to Jesus (some for the third or fourth time). What James seems to be suggesting is that we cannot force conversion. We have to let it happen in its own time.

If this is the case, then perhaps the best way to convert someone is to convince them that they are sad, and then just invite them into the community to live, and pray, and work with everyone else. If the convictions of the community are true then in time the individual may convert. Can we be that patient with saving souls?

Our Messy Denomination

I thought I would take a break from my conversation with my skeptical friend (he hasn’t written back yet). It is a fun time to be in RI – the rains come down and down and down and down. I’m lucky that I haven’t had much water damage (aside from a leaky roof), but many others aren’t so lucky.

Last week I attended my General Board orientation for the American Baptist Churches/USA. From what I could gather, there are three or four entities floating around, under the name ABC/USA but not having much purpose for connection. There is the office of the General Secretary (OGS), which acts as the presence of ABC in the ecumenical and interfaith contexts as well as in the world (they do other things, but that is a good summary). There is the Board of International Ministries (BIM) which works with foreign missionaries and ministries. There is the Board of National Ministries (BNM) which is focused on ministry here in the States. Finally there are Regional Ministries (RM) which coordination work of the churches and ministries in geographic (kinda) regions. Four different entities all vying for dollars and support. They are all connected through the local churches, but not connected to each other.

Here is how I see it – both BIM and BNM are connected to OGS for the sake of identity. If either board loses its connectional identity with ABC it will be difficult to have continued support from the local churches. OGS needs BIM and BNM in order to speak to ministry that is actually happening. Yet there is no real connection between BIM and BNM – at least thus far. While there are moments of collaboration, they are not necessarily connected. Why is this a problem?

Think of the Trinity. In the Trinity there is a mutual indwelling (perichoresis) between all three parts. Because of this no one part of the Trinity is above any other part of the Trinity. They are all equal.

In the ABC model, it would not be unthinkable for one part of the triad to elevate above another. Or, if one becomes weak, the others would not necessarily have to help. This is not a new problem. It is a problem addressed in 1813, in 1907, in the 60s and continues. If we cannot find a way for BIM and BNM to be necessarily connected, it will continue to be a problem.

Finally we have RM. This is another difficulty that I have not given a lot of thought to. We could move to a quadrilateral or continue the triad with the churches in the middle. I have to think about this for a bit.

Regardless, we have a mess on our hands which is not a bad thing, but could be better.

Of Reading Scripture and Self-Defination: Continuing the Conversation

The conversation with my skeptic friend continues with my response:

It sounds like you should keep wrestling with your relationship with Catholicism, considering your quandary with children. Say you do have your child baptized to appease your family, what then? Will you be there for first communion? What about confirmation? What will you tell your child when he or she asks why you are not involved in the Church? I don’t mean to suggest a level of guilt, but more to consider the implications of your actions. Infant baptism, as I understand it (because we Baptists do not practice it), is a time when the parent(s) are speaking on behalf of the child as to matters of faith. If you find it important to maintain relationships with your family, and if you do not want to be disingenuous with your children and yourself, then you should continue to struggle with these questions. I’m suggesting that you should find a way to justify a continued relationship with the Church, but that you find a place where you can be authentic on as many levels as possible. It is good to work on this now before the issue is real. I know to may parents who ignore the issue until the child is born and the choice is forced. That is just my two cents, you can do what you want with them.


Now, onto the fun questions. First, as to the nature of the church as a place where one defines oneself as who they are not. I think this is the nature of most (if not all groups). My brother used to describe High School pep rallies as moments when a group of kids would gather together and hate a different group of kids. Democrats and Republicans spend a lot of time saying why they are not like each other. When I lived in Dayton one of the ways they described themselves was by saying that at least they weren’t Springfield Ohio. I think it is a matter of perception. I could describe the Baptists by saying how we are not like others (no bishop, no Pope, no infant baptism, etc.), or I could describe the movement with positive attributes (we have local church autonomy, priesthood of believers, adult/believers baptism, etc.). Neither is wrong. I think you are picking up on what is very often the norm, describing ourselves via the negative. This is not something to be proud of, and I think a symptom of human nature. I’m sure there are a number of sociologists who have looked at this group identity theory in greater detail.

As to the Bible, you are asking a great, great question. First, I don’t think you can read anything literally (except maybe phone books, dictionaries, and legal documents). Can you imagine reading O’Neil, Joyce, Hemmingway, or Dante literally? We take it for granted that there are layers of meaning embedded in the text.

Second, we need to remember that the Bible is a collection of different genres of literature. We would not read creation stories in the same way as we would read a listing of law, or a letter from one person to a community, or stories of people struggling to be in a relationship with God, or songs. A literal reading, at best, is closed-minded, and extremely problematic. I would recommend Kathleen Boone’s book The Bible Tells Them So for a great literary criticism of literal reading (she uses Stanley Fish – whee!).

Yet there is the problem of reading the cannon as a whole. Here is my take. The Bible is a collection of stories, experiences, rules, songs, and reactions of a people trying to understand their relationship with God. These are told through different genres, by different people, and at different times. Yet, I would contend, that they are focus on the same God. Chew on that for a while.

Finally, a great book on a literary/narrative criticism of the Old Testament is Robert Alters’ The Art of Biblical Narrative. Secondly, the scriptures you referenced don’t hold much water and is a forced reading of staying within the text via a literal interpretation.

The Skeptical Reply

My friend the Skeptic's response - some very powerful and personal comments and thoughts:

I think you're right about identifying the source of our differences. I have always thought of "church" as "The Church," a hierarchical institution. When I was younger and trying out a few other faiths, I was literally mystified by groups like the Quakers, who seem to be the opposite of the Catholics in terms of rigid structure and centers of authority. You raised a perspective I don't often consider, that the "church" is just the people assembled.

Of course, I readily admit my problems with the church and religion are very personal and run deeper than an intellectual argument.

You mentioned how I felt when the abuse scandals came to light. Part of me was relieved. I always thought of priests as arrogant, generally weird men who -- among the dozen or so I had come to know on a first-name basis from childhood through about age 16 -- seemed a little different and kind of frightening to me.

I know three priests personally involved with sexual inappropriateness with children (I heard them say things that, if a teacher had said it to a child here in 2010, a teacher would probably have been suspended or investigated). When I started typing that sentecne I typed "one priest," but before I finished typing two more popped into my head. Now I'm thinking of men of my father's generation who were educated by priests and subjected to severe physical abuse, against which they were powerless to defend themselves (if you strike a priest, only the bishop can forgive that sin, we were taught -- no I'm not kidding).

When the abuse scandal started to emerge and people started to realize just how many priests were pederasts and bullies, I felt humiliated about the respect and deference we were taught to show them, and angry about the arrogant condescension I heard in homilies for hundreds of Sundays of my childhood condemning such sins as not going to church regularly, eating meat on Friday during Lent, or coveting your neighbors' goods. Physical abuse and torture committed by the clergy apparently wasn't as grave as these sins.

The other hypocrisies of the church then became more obvious to me and more difficult to ignore. This coincided with the end of my teenage years, beginning college, and generally questioning everything the way you do at that age. My favorite was always -- Blessed are the Poor, says the pope, from the throne in his castle in his own private country filled with priceless masterworks of western art. I was chagrinned I hadn't really given it much thougth before.

I guess like many people my choice became clear -- try to change the church from within, ignore the many evils and injustices the church is responsible for or tolerates, or leave. The church never seemed to need me, I was always told that you belong to the church because it's your duty (basically to stay out of hell). Once I stopped believing, I had no more need for this.

Now --- after my screed about hypocrisy, here's an interesting thing. One of these days I hope to have children. And when I do, my father is going to want my child to be baptised in the Catholic church. I know this because my sister who feels similiar to the way I do, just went through this process with her daughter. Will I do it? I might. Because the church doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's been such a part of my life and family traditions that I might be faced with the choice of having a harmonious relationship with my family or standing up for my principles. I really like my family, so after all this I may yet just hold my nose...

I guess my questions and skepticism follow two branches of thought: One -- that churches, as insitutions, are groups that I have come to associate with people who are fearful, judgmental and bigoted, and they use their membership in a church to justify their sour feelings toward people who do not share their views. Catholics against Jews, Lutherans against Catholics, Black churches vs. gays, any fundamentalist group vs. intellectuals, Muslims against non-muslims. Membership in a church is so often summed up by the question: "Who are we?" with the answer "We're not those other people..."

Second -- the Bible. And this comes from my background in literary criticism: I wonder if fundamentalists have it right, in a sense. How can you take the Bible any way other than literally? My understanding (and here you'll probably need to correct me) is that the Bible itself states that it is its own authority (quick Google search, Jeremiah 1:9?, 1 Thess. 2:13, for example?) To me, the Bible says that you are not allowed to go outside the text for answers. The answers are here...
But as I've mentioned and as many many people have wrestled with over millenia, the Bible does not provide answers, just questions and logical leaps. So, if we accept that Christ was crucified, mustn't we also accept that people like me will be cast into a Lake of Fire, that it's OK to slaughter the children of your enemies and that women are subservient to men? The earth was made in six days? If the creation story didn't really happen like it was written, then what about the Passion? It seems that the Bible itself gives us the choice -- accept it wholesale, or not at all.
So my question is, if you don't give the Bible a literal, fundamentalist interpretation, doesn't that make you a moral relativist, and, therefore, by the Bible's own rules, not a Christian?

Another Response to a Skeptic

For those of you just joining in, this is part of a series of posts following a correspondance with a friend. The series starts with Thoughts of a Modern Day Skeptic. This is my most recent response.

This is fun! I think our difference comes out of our understanding of the nature of the church (the $25 word is ecclesiology). For centuries that Catholic church was structured just as you suggested, a top down hierarichal institution that would tell people what to say, think, and do. In Vatican II the bases of the Catholic church started to shift from an institution to a gathering of people. The church is first the people of God. Now I agree that such a philosophical change did not filter all the way up and the Catholic Church continued to rule and dictate in different ways.

As a Baptist, my understanding of the church is the gathered people of God. The church is in fully present at the local level only. We do not have a hierarichy. This may be why I have a kinder view of the church, becasue each one is a mix of blessings and curses. There are churches that do evil things - case in point the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas - the anit-gay church (and everything else) that tells gays they are going to burn in hell and that God hates them. This is wrong and evil.

Do I think churches should be help to a higher standard - kinda. They should be working with completely different standards, i.e. those of a religious nature. Perhaps then I cannot compare churches to other institutions. Yet on the other hand, as I said above, churches are still human institutions and do fall (or sin in religious parlance). Think of the pastor of a church.... someone like me. Should I be held to a higher standard of ethical living than anyone else in the congregation that I am leading? Am I a better human being than anyone else?

Here is the crux of my position: the church is a gathering of people trying to understand and live into their relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The church is a gathering of people helping each other, praying for and with each other, pushing each other in beliefs, and walking together.

As to your criticism of Catholicism, I cannot relate completely. I cannot relate because I am not a Catholic, nor have I ever been one. I can only imagine that when an institution that was such a strong part of your formation is complicit in such a sin that the reaction must be like a moment of spiritual vomiting. (or perhaps literal vomiting)

You have been taught a certain view of the world by a very hierarichal institution, and that view has been shattered by that institution's actions. So I cannot condem your reaction (nor could I anyway). I guess I would ask you, in time, to consider that the "church" universal is larger than the Catholic church.

Again, this is good.

More Thoughts of a Modern Day Skeptic

My friend responded to my response:

First of all, thank you. I normally would not force you to respond like that because you're busy with your own flock and family, but I guess it's been on my mind lately and I had to speak up. No one else I know is very engaged in philosophy these days.

And thanks for the reading suggestions. It's like I've been listening to the music of John Williams, and you have urged me to instead go find some Stravinsky.

Of course you can post my "essay." Thanks for thinking it worthy of posting.

I had written more in an earlier reply but I accidentally clicked off the page and it disappeared. Here's one thing I wanted to respond to...

I appreciate what you said about how a church is like any large organization -- there's going to be some horrible people, there's going to be some corruption. Both, I understand you're saying, should be condemned and fought against, but they can never be rooted out 100%.

I feel a church, though, should be held to a much higher standard. We're talking about an organization that governs how we live, speak, and think, and is the caretaker of many of our cultural traditions. It turns out though, that often churches are even worse than secular groups (unions for instance). I will keep harping on this because it's so repellant -- decades of covering up the rape of children. That's a little beyond "institutionally messed up." That's a criminal enterprise that, under what we normally think of as common sense and the law, should be dismantled, its assets sold, and its leaders jailed. But it goes on because it's such a part of our lives, has such a hold over us through, I would strongly argue, fear and superstition.

Anyway, that's outside the scope of your defense. I'm not asking you to stick up for the Catholics. But I do challenge your view that a church is like any other fallible, human organization. It's simply not. A church is an organization that we invite to govern our lives, our relationships, our thoughts...i would argue that while a church cannot be any better than your average trade union, but because of what a church demands of us, it should be far, far better, but is frequently worse.

Response to the Skeptic

Here is my response to the Skeptic

Hmmm..... You have said a lot, and I'll try to answer in the best way that I can. I hope you forgive the spelling/grammer/syntaxt errors.

First, I would not read Hitchens or Dawson. They are both very smart, but idiots when it comes to athieism. If you want so really good arguments against the existance of God read Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche. You could also read some Satre and Camus. These guys gave true and good agruments about society's misuse of the idea of God. I wonder if I should be sending you in this direction.

I agree that God has been used to justify many evil acts. God has also been used as a reason for many good acts. King and the Civil Rights Movement, Dorothy Day and the Workers Movement, Oscar Romero and his work for the poor, and on and on. Augustine described the church as a mixture of saints and sinners, the problem is many people in the church forget this. On the other hand many people outside of the church forget this as well (mostly because of the self-righteous attitude of many within the church).

Yes, many people in the church are jugemental and that is wrong. I think this is a symptom of humanity. Yes the Catholic church is institutionally messed up, but so are every other church and every other institution: case in point, Unions.

I continue to work with the church for the same reason we work with democracy. It is flawed, broken, but the best thing out there.

As to questions of faith, you are asking some great questions. When I was in my second year of seminary I asked many similar questions. I was in a serious place of doubt. That is when I did my little hike on the AT (and got lyme disease and almost died... thanks a lot, God!). I went on this hike looking to wrestle with many questions. I think the wrestling is very good.

In the end I came out not sure if I believed in the existence of God. I can't prove that God exists. I cannot prove that Jesus exists. But I came to the honest realization that I need God to exist. That is where I am now, I don't know with certianity that God exists, but I need God to exist. It is not something I am completely comfortable with, but it is honest.

As to the Bible, I read the Bible as a collection of stories, rules, songs, ect. that speak to an interaction and wrestling with God. They are told by people, interpreted by people, and biased by people. But they are about these people trying to understand their relationship with God and Christ. That is a vague way of looking at the text that allows for the contradictions.

I no longer believe in hell, the devil, and am still working on salvation.

In the end, I continue to preach because I have found a faith that I believe goes deeper than the crap that is often taught. It gives me a profound hope for my life. I continue to preach because I believe that the faith I have found, based on Jesus Christ, is something good, something that others should have as well. I continue to grow and learn and struggle, but in the end, I believe and my belief is why I preach.

That is kinda a bunch of immediate thoughts. I ran out of time, so if you want to push back and go a little deeper that would be fine.

Thoughts of a Modern Day Skeptic

Below is a message I received from a good friend of mine. He gave me permission to post his message on this blog. The next couple of posts will continue the correspondence. I think he is asking a lot of very good and important questions.

You know, I have been thinking a lot lately about faith. I used to have tons of it in the tradtional, doctrinaire, religious sense. I believed in God, Jesus, the devil, heaven, hell, the saints, pretty much I was a rank-and-file Catholic and accepted it.

Every ounce of that is gone now. I'm not even convinced Jesus, as we commonly understand him, was even a real person. I still feel nervous typing phrases like that, because the dangers of blasphemy were drilled into my head so completely that there's an irrational part of me that still fears being smoted.

But I think it's all junk. I think it's stories and metaphor and myth, told to ignorant people in part to control them, in part to soothe the horrors of their own nasty, brutish, and short lives, and part to soothe the anxious human brain that really can't comprehend infinity. I have a hard time understanding people who believe the Bible literally (i'm not suggesting that you do). It is so full of contradictions that it cannot be taken as one literal whole.

I find myself agreeing with pop-athiests like Hitchens and Dawson. That God is not great. That we use "Him" to justify our worst impulses (The Crusades, The Inquisition, any number of Intafada, polygymy, most everything conceived by the Puritans, female circumcision, ethnic cleansing, jihad, etc.) I believe that there's something wrong with giving deference and power to people and institutions who will willingly profess that they take things "on faith," that is, without proof and against all available evidence. That we consider our moral leaders to be, literally, those who talk to and interpret the wills of invisible beings who perform magic. It no longer makes any sense to me.

The Catholic sex abuse scandal might be considered the inciting event for my lack of faith. Gail Collins, in a recent NY Times column headlined "Saints Preserve Us!" makes a good point. Pope Benedict, when he was a cardinal, sent a note to the clergy that threatened excommunication to anyone who divulged information about internal abuse investigations to the police. Note, Collins points out, he was not threatening excommunication for pedophiles, but to those who called the police. This, Collins, says, from a pope who has long warned us on the dangers of moral relativism.

If someone asks me why I left the church, I find the answer "institutionalized child rape" is one I'm pretty comfortable with. Actually, it makes me want to say, "and why haven't you left?"

So this is but one example of why the Catholic Church has zero moral authority .

And while, someone may argue, that's a different issue than the theology, I don't see it. I trusted the church because I believed its hierarchy was directly descended from Jesus ("Upon this rock..." and all that). Even if you can draw a straight line from Benedict back to Saint Peter, it no longer means to me what I thought that meant. I know there have been some popes -- especially through the Middle Ages, that made Benedict look like an actual saint. But since the days of Innocent IV were a long time ago, I guess I overlooked it.

So I'm going long here, I'm going to cut it short. Once I realized that the Catholic Church had zero credibility, I wondered, "who has any?" Everyone is telling the same story. Every church has an enemies list. Every church creates God in their own image and says that every other faith is the faith of infidels. Every church is full of hateful, ignorant, people and when I meet them I think, "If there is a Heaven, and I get to go there, do I have sit next to YOU?"

And at the root of all this is the Bible. Which, in my non-expert understanding of it, is a document written over the course of centuries by hundreds (scores?) of authors with their own agendas and historical contexts. And then there's the old arguments: what about all the contradictions, the violence, rape, and slavery, the stunningly different accounts of the Passion in the Gospels? Jesus seemed to indicate in several quotes that he thought the End Times would be within his own generation, and yet they were not. Does that make Jesus fallible? Or if not, a liar? There are pretty heavy implications either way.

And now, Jonathan, after all the above, which is rougher than a rough draft of an essay, just some thoughts that have been boiling in my head recently, is the point of my note to you:

You are a smart guy. You're an intellectual in the very best sense of the word. I respect your thoughtfulness and seriousness on these matters. I'm not asking you to convice me, I'm asking you for your perspective. You know all this, and still you are comfortable enough with it to preach it. Why?

Of Beautiful Days, Certainity, and Forced Description

It is a beautiful day today. I went to the playground with children 1and 4. Child 1 threw the disc (Frisbee for all of you uneducated folks) around. It makes me proud to see him throwing and catching. Beautiful day, it probably wont last.

I have finally done my taxes. The good news is I don’t owe anything. The bad news is the return is very, very small. Thanks Uncle Sam.

I have been continuing to work on my expletive dissertation which is taxing at times. Trying to take data and then explain it in a technical way can be difficult. I am taking the speech-acts of a community and deriving from them a conviction statement. I often wonder about such an effort - forcing a term or theory on something that people just do. Would it be better to just let people live, have pastors, etc? Probably not. The more we understand about ourselves the more we can be deliberate in naming and claiming who we are, or who we want to be. I have meet a number of Baptist pastors who have no idea what it means to be ordained, and their ministry suffers. I have encountered churches that have no idea what to expect from a pastor – they just hope they don’t get a tyrant. It is my hope that my work will help pastors and churches arrive at a better understanding of what it means to be and to have a pastor. I probably shouldn’t make it so obtuse.

La Romana - Afterthought or What Now?

Well I have been back for a couple of days now. I think I have caught up on most of my sleep – I awoke this morning at 5:00am which is a good sign. I have been running, trying to catch up with studies, work, and family, and it wasn’t until now that I have asked myself – what now?

What do I do now that I have had this amazing experience? The easiest and obvious answer is to return to my work and look forward to the next trip in two years (if we go again). We would tweak things, move things around, but that would be the obvious action.

Yet the poor will continue to struggle, the country will continue to struggle, and I don’t think I need to say anything about Haiti. Shouldn’t we continue to be actively involved in the mission we are engaged in?

On the other hand, how much can we do? We can get more and more involved, give more and more of our resources and energy, and still not make much of a difference. And in the meantime, there are needs at our doorstep that would not be met.

Yesterday I was with the Rhode Island Council of Churches Faith and Order commission discussing the church’s involvement with the poor. I suggested an adaptation of Avery Dulles’ Models of the Church to recognize that different churches have different chrisms when it comes to engagement. Dulles suggests the models of Institution, Mystical Body, Sacrament, Herald, and Servant. I’m not going to get into them more – maybe in another post. The take-away is that we all have different gifts as individuals and as churches. Some of us will be institutionally involved, some will speak truth to power, and some will serve in any way possible. With this in mind, I ask myself what is the chrisms of First Baptist, EG when it comes to reaching out to those in need? If we name that and embrace it, then we will likely have something to focus on.

Me with a Baby

Since it is a rare thing for me to hold a baby girl, here is a picture.

La Romana Day 7 - The Final Day

Yesterday was supposed to be more of the same. We on the medical team have a good routine – we get on the bus, the bus travels for an hour or so, we get off the bus, we do our work and then we get back on the bus and go home. We don’t know were we are going, but we all trust that the magic bus will get us there.

Yesterday was different. We got on the bus, and about fifteen minutes we got off the bus. We were not in a batay, but in a barrio. Here is the difference: a batay is surrounded by sugar cane and is very rural. It is a small village. A barrio is in a city, is not quite a village, but is more a neighborhood. We had to set up in a small, dimly lit house and work there.

Once the work started it was the same as every other day. People are sick, people need medicine, and we were there to help. At the end of the day the leader of an community organization (a community organizer, if you will), asked me via interpreter what the experience was like serving the poor in a Latin American country. I gave two answers.

1) I wish we could do more. This church has been coming here for ten years and doing more or less the same thing. I don’t know if conditions have improved, but my assumption is that they did not. It feels like we are just putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. The leader of the organizer went on for a while about the lack of interest and concern that the government showed. The system is broken, and I wonder if we are enabling its brokenness.

2) The poor are the poor here, in Mexico, in Providence, in Boston, in Europe, and elsewhere. Suffering is suffering, and we (Christians) are called to reach out to those who are suffering. I remember one funeral I did last year where the deceased was remembered with this line: see a need, fill a need.

In the end, I am glad I got to go on this trip. I don’t think I would say it was life changing, but I would say that it is life enriching and fulfilling. On this trip I was reminded of the suffering of the cross and the glory of the resurrection in a real and tangible way. God is good, all the time, we just need to show people that goodness.

Oh, I also had the opportunity to hold a 2 month old girl for a while. As a father of four boys, that was a wonderful experience. Pics of that to follow.

Haiti Update.3, (final update?)

This is probably the final post from Haiti - we received a text from them circa 4:30pm that they crossed the Dominican/Haiti boarder.

Good morning

Hot hot hot
Will I ever see my ankles again?
We are driving thru another part if the city to the next stop. Such
poverty
The air is so dusty. Most of us wear masks in the open air travel
accommodations a.k.a. back of the truck

The water doesn't seem so cold and I still love soap

Another clinic in another church. Each clinic was different today's
was an older group not as many under the age of 12. Quieter, subdued ,
sad eyes, eyes that have seen too much for too long
I think by best guesstimate we will have seen 1000 people

Friday
Last night I fell asleep by 8:30 Helping people is exhausting work!
We are on the bus back to la Romana DR. This morning we held a clinic
about 15 mins from the church. The neighborhood looked much more
affluent than where we had been. The people were a mixed group. So
many people. We saw 167 pts in about 3 hrs. Many were still at the
gate and we had to turn them away. A one month old Tony saw yesterday
came back today because they were turned away at the hospital. Tony
treated the baby again and had someone from the group with a driver
attempt to bring today. The Baby got in today even so Tony doesn't
expect the baby to live......

All creatures great and small
All along the roads and around the buildings and tents are cows goats
hens chicks n roosters a few donkeys and dogs. John - I think of you
with the dogs. They don't look mean or act mean - they pretty much all
look like the same mutt family but they are looking for food some go
on top of the collapsed buildings. I wonder if they know if someone is
under the debris. No cats or birds- wonder why?

I was doing so well getting up and down the trucks until today...
I lost my footing and went down about 3 ft. Ouch. All parts are still
working just sore. Thank goodness no cameras

What an experience thus week has been.

Picture From Haiti

I just got this picture of Don Anderson in Haiti... not sure what is scarier, the scene behind him, or the idea of Don as a medical doctor.

La Romana Day 6 - Don't Get to Close...Why So Distant?

Once again, more of the same. We headed out to another batay to help people. This one was one of the nicer ones, with decent wood houses and electricity in some of the homes. There were a lot of children with a lot of needs. It was, overall, a good day, but some of the children were getting pushy. Not only were they asking for things like shirts and candy, but they started to directly ask me for my pens and my hat. This was crossing the boundaries for me. This was asking me for something that was mine, and that I needed. I have to admit at that time I did not consider the words of Christ calling us to give our shirt as well as our cloak when we are asked (and there are more nuanced ways to read that passage). I was thinking that the children should not even ask.

After work we went to an orphanage, which was a great institution doing great work, and then headed home. This evening we went out to dinner as a group and some even danced for a bit. It was a lot of fun.

I was thinking today about interaction. We are missionaries here on behalf of Christ. If this is the case, then shouldn’t we act in such a way? I’m not suggesting that we all be prim and proper all the time, but shouldn’t we worry about how we will be perceived?

I think this question really comes out of my experience. I do not normally spend this much time with church folk, and I enjoy it when I have the opportunity to relax and be myself, completely and uncensored. Yet, I am still their pastor, I am here as much for them as I am for others. Think of this with the people we have been serving. We want to have fun with them which is good. We want to truly be with them, and yet at the same time we want to serve them and show them Christ. How do we share ourselves and at the same time serve and show Christ? How do we hold to our authenticity and at the same time avoid closing any doors to the movement of the spirit? We (Christians) have a long history of going to one extreme and I’d rather not go to the other. Something to think about.

La Romana Day 5 - A Special Treat

Yesterday I had the unique opportunity to go to Santo Domingo with Raquel Alvarez. Raquel now lives in Providence, RI, but is from the DR. The trip was full of a lot of neat adventures including getting off a bus on the highway, crossing the highway, and riding around Santo Domingo on the back of a motorcycle. It was a great trip and a great way to experience the DR; with a local.

One of the most powerful experiences of the day was when we went to visit one of the hospitals in Santo Domingo. It was not a pretty sight. I want to be clear, the doctors there are very good, the care is as good as it can be, yet I was still shocked. No one had an individual room; everyone was in larger wards (about 8 to 10 in a ward). There was not a lot of machines that went “beep,” or lights, or machines that went, “ping,” only the most basic things that the patients needed. Maybe an IV bag, but most just had to lie on their beds and wait. Some family was there to help.

It did not take long for me to want to do something, and all I can do is pray. I asked Raquel if she could pass the offer on for me, and translate for me. I prayed for one man, I held his hands and I prayed for him and for his family. Someone else asked for prayer, so I held his hand and prayed for him. I went to the next room and Raquel asked who wanted prayer. They all wanted prayer. So I prayed for all of them, standing in the middle of the room, and then I went around to each person and laid hands on them and prayed for them one at a time. We went to another room and did the same thing. Eventually we made it to the children’s ward. Again, everyone wanted prayers, so I started to pray. Then came in the Nun.

The Nun told us to stop, told us to be quiet and to not pray. She did not want us to pray. We finished our prayer and then left with Raquel shouting at the Nun.

What can I say? People needed some sense of hope and peace. People needed to know that God was with them, and for a Pastor to take their hands was a powerful and meaningful thing. It was powerful. I saw tears again and again. It was amazing, I felt the presence of Jesus Christ. Yet then came the Nun. Can we really be so petty as to let doctrinal differences keep us from offering people the love of Jesus Christ? Can we be so small as to let our churches get in the way of ministry?

I wanted to yell at her, “woman, get thee to a nunnery,” but then I thought, “to late.”

Haiti Update.2

Another message from a memeber of the Haiti team

What day is it? I asked myself that question several times today. Is
it Tuesday, Wednesday? Yesterday was surreal we left La Romana the
night before, traveled thru the night, got to Haiti which looked like
another world from the DR, dropped our stuff, ate something while we
were oriented, packed a truck and left for a "settlement." We worked
till dark, probably would have worked longer but there was no
electricity, left and you know the rest of that story.....

Today was another exhausting day. Driving in the back of a pickup
truck thru the city, the ride on the way to the church clinic and back
looked surreal. A scene out of a movie, a horror movie? A sci fi?
Dantes Peak? Or maybe that really weird book I read The Road. Did
the end of the world start in Haiti ? But there are still so many
people smiling, waving, sad, and fearful living in some of the worst
conditions. I am still amazed how clean and dressed they come to be
seen. We passed a tent city this morning, tents right next to each
other, hundreds of tents, but people were washing clothes in tubs. One
woman had a makeshift ironing board and a old fashioned looking iron
heated by a charcoal fire, and she was ironing!! What pride in
themselves, what strength in such a disaster!

To be assessing and providing care is amazing to me. Never did I think
I would have such an opportunity to help people. When I think back to
the days at the Brookdale Clinic and so many home visits with village,
I know now why I was placed there. Who still doesn't believe God works
in mysterious ways?? Also, Thank goodness He sends his angels! My
personal angels are the other providers- Mark, Tony, Zach, Tom They
are wonderful and so supportive. Everyone in the group is great.
Pretty much we don't know each other, yet collectively we each bring
ourselves and our talents and gifts oh and our patience and we work as
a group doing phenomenal things.

Dinner tonight was wonderful. Chicken, plantains, carrots. It was
tasty. Its amazing what Our Dominican/Haitian cooks can do with
limited facilities

You know what I realized is underappreciated and underrated - soap
I have come to love soap. Soap is wonderful especially mixed with water
Soap soap soap on your face , body , feet. I love soap

La Romana - Haiti Update!

I received this e-mail from one of our team in Haiti yesterday (3/10) from her i-phone. It is very powerful. I’ll post on my experiences yesterday soonish.

Haiti end of day one

I am lying in my lower bunk - hot as biscuits as Christine would say.
Our room has no lights and a small ceiling fan slowly moves the warmth
around. My roomies were here last week- Linda is a NP from North
Carolina and Karen is a psych clinical specialist from I think MA-
they tell/ warn me be careful there are mice that come out at night.
Hence I took a Tylenol PM so I don't have to think about the mice. The
mattress is about Quarter inch thick - gosh I want to complain , it is
so easy to whine and be scared of the mice, bugs, whatever may be
growing and procreating in the mattress. Then I think of the hundred
of people we saw today living under sheets in dirt with horrible
plumbing , no electricity. I feel guilty to complain, but isn't it
"normal" for us to complain when we are the least bit inconvenienced?

Everyone that came to the clinic was dressed in their Sunday best as
were the children with them, and they waited in the hot dust for hours
staying clean. I could count on one hand the people who didn't have a
lost empty fearful look in their eyes. They were ready to move at any loud
noise.

The interpreter who worked with me , Val, was in his last year
at the university expecting to graduate in June with a linguistic
(spelling?) degree. He is already a teacher. He had one foot out the
door of the university when the building collapsed behind him he said
no one behind him made it out. His home was destroyed. He is living
with his wife and 4 year old on the streets under a tarp the school and
university were destroyed, no idea when or if they will be rebuilt or
open somewhere else and yet he is helping and coping and still has faith

So tonight when I'm thinking of the heat, mice, cold water lack of
lighting, very thin mattress and all the other amenities I am missing
I will put myself in the their shoes and try to remember There but for
the grace of God......
Would I/we be as strong , as resistant? I have to honest with
myself..... I'm missing some of those amenities ........

Good morning day two
I made it thru the night. The mice didn't eat me and I didn't see or
hear them. The mattress is still thin but I slept till 5:30
Is it faith, surviving or both?

We are on the back of a pick up truck. A large " dollar van," one of
yesterdays trucks had broken down on the way back from the clinic.
Ron was part of that group. They waited until we got back to the
church and then our truck went back to get them. I hear it was quite
the adventure hanging out on a Haiti stoop.

We have a longer trip this am

Just drove thru downtown Port a Prince. I'm speechless The
destruction from nature .... so many people must still be lying under
the rubble. Dust to dust

The UN tanks with troops in helmets and machine guns ..,, at least we
haven't heard the guns go off.
The buildings hanging on by a thread. Ready to tumble and implode. No
wonder the people are afraid to go into the buildings.

Well go to go. Bus is trying to back around a corner and keeps " tapping" a building. Probably best to pay attention

Love n peace
Loretta

Day 4 post-thought

Chrisms – we all have different gifts and calling – see Ephesians 4:12. Thus some of us are called to focus on construction, some are called to focus on medical, some are called to be relational. We need to be aware of each others gifts and callings and honor them.

La Romana Day 4 - Why are we here?

This was our second day of work – the construction team worked on rebuilding a playground, painting, and hulling cement to the roof. I joined the medical team to another batay to administer medicines (once again I took a lot of blood pressures).

It seemed like a good day overall. Everyone was in good spirits at the end of the day which is a good indicator. It feels like everyone is really starting to find a groove to their work and place in this ministry.

Today I have been thinking about the nature of ministry. We came here with a specific purpose – to help with the construction at the hospital, and to help with the medical needs at the batays. Yet we also brought supplies for the San Pedro school (which some of the youth are going to drop off tomorrow), and we have sent people to Haiti to work there. So our ministry has grown and changed a bit. Today we had some people work with the medical team who normally work with the construction team. While they may have come expecting to move cement, today they had to interact with children, parents, and other people in the Dominican Republic. So why are we here? What is our ministry?

Our ministry cannot simply be to build a hospital, because if that were the case it would be better to give the money we spent on this trip directly to the people in charge to continue work on the hospital. Our ministry cannot simply be to help the sick in the batays, because if that were the case we should send more doctors and such, and spend more time and energy training people in the DR to help. Our ministry is not to make the DR a better place, or even to make LR a better place. That is condescending. I think our real ministry is to form true and real relationships with the people here. We work with the Dominicans as we together build the hospital. We work with Dominicans as we reach out to the batys. We are connected with a Dominican school and their children. We are connected with those who are suffering in Haiti. The relationships are important.

If this is important, then we are not here to make the lives of others better, or to make our life better. If this is the case, then we are here to better the lives of others as we better our own lives; we are here to lift up others and be lifted up. That is good ministry.

La Romana - Random Pictures

La Romana Day 3 - It's Hopeless?

Today was our first real work day. About half of the group went to work “construction,” and the other half went to do medical. I went with the medical team so that is what I can speak to.

We went to what is called a batay, which is basically an outpost in a village in the middle of a sugar cane field. This is rural DR. We spent the day seeing people, diagnosing people, and handing out medication. I spent the day taking people’s blood pressure and sending them to the doctors. I saw a lot of people, and that was good. More on that experience later.

When we returned, the rest of the team eventually returned and we had dinner. Later I had ice-cream with the youth (a regular occurrence) and then we prayed for those going to Haiti. There was something powerful about the prayer. We gathered around all of those who decided to go, laid hands on them and sang, “Here I Am Lord” which is a great song. Then I prayed. It was a very emotional moment, and I think it was emotional for a number of reasons. One, most of those who are going to Haiti decided to go at the last minute, so many are still adjusting to the change. Yet more than that, I think we are all embracing the call to be here. It is no small thing to make such a journey, and at the same time I think we all realize how little we can do. The problems are so large, that the sand we move and the concrete we pour can only do so much. The bandages we place and the medicines we give can only do so much. And yet we face the audacity of the hopelessness and we continue to work. So to embrace our call is powerful and emotional.

Here is where I saw this in my day. We spend all day handing out medicines and all the time people were calling through the windows to us, asking for clothing, supplies, or anything else. It came to a point where we have to ignore them. I had to pretend I didn’t hear the children calling to me because I knew they wanted more than I could give. The problem was great and I had to ration out the solution. This is not easy.

It would be easy to walk away, believing that hope is lost. But we didn’t. It would be easy to turn our backs on the people and try to focus our resources on something that would matter. But we didn’t. Instead we served whoever we could with whatever we had and hoped it would make a difference. This is the calling of God, to serve and trust that God is working through our actions.

But by the grace of God do I go. But by the grace of God can I serve.

La Romana Day 2 - Church, Church, and more Church

Today was one more day of getting adjusted. We went to church (more on that below), we walked around the markets, and we got ready for tomorrow. It rained most of the day which was to bad because we were hoping to go to the beach. Well, that gives us something to complain about (I went to the DR, I worked hard, and I only got one day to work on my tan!).

As it turns out, the team going to Haiti needs more medical personal, so a number of our medical team as well as others are going to go to Haiti tomorrow. Keep them in your prayers. Now, onto church:

I have heard it again and again – we Americans don’t know how to do church. I have been told again and again that when we are in the Hispanic culture then we see a real worship with sincerity and authenticity. Well, I went to church for three hours this morning and an hour and a half this evening (that service is still happening). I guess I have seen “real” worship by now.

Let me say, the worship was powerful at moments. The singing was very emotional, it was full of a impromptu feel that added a certain feeling of spontaneity and an awareness of the Holy Spirit. The warm hospitality and welcome on the part of the pastors, deacons and other people there was wonderful. The pastor’s sermon was full of power and energy at a very high volume. And it was two hours long. I am in no position to say that the worship was insincere or weak, mostly because I didn’t understand a word they were saying. They could have been railing against fried chicken in favor of baked chicken for all I know. Regardless, it was passionate.

Here is where I get stuck, at a certain point I want to stop and pray. At a certain point I would like to have the opportunity to sit in silence, even if it is for a moment. At a certain point I would like to come off the high and find a quiet peace in the presence of the Lord. As always, it is a balance (at least I think so) between high energy and quiet energy. There is a place for the shouting. There is a place for the quiet. And I contend both can happen in the span of one hour to ninety minutes.

3-6-10: La Romana Day 1; who are they that we serve and live with?

Well, I’m not sure you can call this day one, since it was a travel day. The “day” started yesterday at about 12:00am (yes, mid-frickin-night) with a lot of bleary-eyed people climbing on a bus and starting the long journey to Newark, NJ. I have not been in a charter bus in a while, and I remember why. It was not very comfortable, it was cold, and it was slow. Eventually, around 4:15am we got to the airport and started the next stage of chaos and craziness. Try to get 42 people checked in when only one person is handling each person, and taking the cash for each extra bag. 42 people at two bags each makes…. 84 bags. This took a while.

The plane was just as you would expect how plane rides to be. Plane goes up. Plane goes down.

Next we had to find our way through customs and all that. Luckily, my experience playing video games made a big difference if jumping through all of the hoops, over all of the gates, and through the ring of fire.

Now for the fun part. I should let you know that when I say “fun” I am being sarcastic – this was not fun. Remember how I haven’t been in a charter bus for some time? It has been even longer since I have been in school bus. A school bus with no AC, with very little power and crammed with people. This was not fun in any manner and lasted at least two hours (maybe more). As we rode through the Dominican Republic (DR), I overheard a number of people making comments about the houses (or lack of), the incomplete projects, the people, etc. I started to think about this, are we projecting on the people of the DR as less than we are? Are we creating an us/them when we look with a disapproving glance at the way things are? Later in the evening I went with a large group of people (and nothing is worse than walking through a foreign country with a large group of people) to the big supermarket/department store/wall mart. I found myself looking down at many of the products offered in the electronics department. I found myself looking down at the food being sold, and I caught myself. Who am I to assume and decide that these things are less in value than what I have? Who am I to cast judgment?

So here is a challenge for the week: how do I work with these people, serve these people without looking down on them? How do I stand by their side and live in their lives without condemning them?

Who am I to say that my life is better?

Don't be Clear with your Speech

Language is appropriately vague. I say this well aware that I again and again have stressed how important language is in discerning the beliefs of a community. Yes, language has meaning but the meaning cannot be captured in a neat, short phrase. For example, the word, “saved” may meaning something specific when you look it up in the dictionary, but when used in a religious context the meaning can be very different. And even in that context the meaning is still vague. What does it mean to be saved? How is one saved? Are we talking atonement or are we talking a kind of existential understanding? Here again, language is vague and appropriately so. You may ask me if I am saved and I will say that I am, but our understandings of what it means to be saved may be very different.

Now I realize that in the very last post I talked about the functionality of language, and if you read your Austin and your Wittgenstein you will know that meaning exists in the context of a community. Yet I would say to a point. The word “saved” functions in a certain way in a religious context, but even in that context it will still vary in meaning from the individual to the individual. We do need to be careful about language becoming private and individualistic, so I would argue that a basic understanding of the word is shared, but only to that degree.

So what do we do? First, I think we would need to be honest and agree that even if people differ on meanings of words, one’s particular understanding of a word was invariably influenced by some community and is not completely private. Second, I think the vagueness of words, especially in a religious context, is necessary so that conversation can occur without parsing every little word and phrase. Hence I can preach that we are saved through Christ and not have to wonder if everyone agrees with my understanding of salvation.

Perhaps what we need to realize is that certain words have symbolic meanings which connect us with something greater (kinda Platonic). Love, Salvation, God, etc…. If this is the case then we need to continue to be sure that we are vague and thus respect the symbol.

Did that make any sense?

Yes, but Will it Work?

I have recently been reading William James’ The Variety of Religious Experience mostly for kicks and giggles. I am only a couple of chapters in, but I think I am starting to get one of the points that James is trying to make. The podcast Philosophy Bites helped illuminate me on James and pragmatism. Basically, from what I can tell, James is not arguing about the truth of God’s existence, but instead the functionality of religious experience or belief of God for the individual. This is an interesting idea that I can get my head around.

For a Baptist Theological Circle that I am involved in I am prepping for a discussion on religious pluralism. Usually I tend to compare and contrast, looking at the similarities and differences. Perhaps this time it would be prudent to consider the functionality of God and the religious experience. How does a sense of the divine function in a Buddhist community, Hindu, or other communities? Such an approach does not stress so much the correctness of a religion, but considers the functionality of a religion. It is not an argument of ontological truth but one of intrasystematic truth (to borrow from Lindbeck).

I don't care if it is true, I want to know if it works.

How the West Was Won

Remember the movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? Watch that movie and you'll understand why I am restricting who can leave comments on this blog. From now on you need to have an "Open ID," whatever that is. No more ads for pictures, drugs, or false happiness. And sorry, no more snide, nameless comments.

You are Very Special!

Continuing to work at my writing, research, and what have you. I have sent sections of my fourth chapter to some of my professors and have gotten the reply (from one) that I need to condense things a bit. Perhaps I have found myself getting a little to focused on the particulars.

Think about this. We like to think that we are very important, that this time is important (reference the Goonies). We like to think that the particulars we are living in are special. We like to think this and so does everyone who came before us and everyone who will come after. Yet we are only a part of a story. We are a part of something bigger, and sometimes the particular details that we struggle do not matter so much when considering the bigger picture. This is what I have to try to do with my dissertation – not so much bigger picture, but more a look at what is changing over time. I need to consider how small changes are part of bigger changes and so on and so on. There will be historical anomalies, but they need to be named as just that: anomalies.

It is one thing to step back and view history in such a way, but it is another to view ourselves in such a way. It is not easy to look and see how we are changing slowly, how we are a part of a larger trend, and how we may not make a big difference in the long run. Of course I don’t mean you the reader. You are special. You are important. You are my special little guy/gal.

Politics - Now I have a mess on my hands....

This week I am supposed to present to the Rhode Island Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission about relationality and the problems of political involvement for the church. There are volumes and volumes written about such a topic, so I mostly summarized. For now, consider the reasons why the church should be involved in the polis. We believe in a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21). If this is the case, then we should be working to live in that new heaven and new earth – we should be living by that ethic and sharing that ethic any way possible. Some, like Hauerwas and H. Richard Niebuhr would argue that we should be a witness to the community for others to observe. Our role is not to be politically involved, but to the counter to the culture, calling culture to the ethos of the church. I like a lot of what Hauerwas and others are suggesting, but in the end I don’t think I can agree. There are moments when the church needs to be more than a witness – a bystander to destruction. There are moments when the church needs to be actively involved when the culture is advocating and legal sin on the societal level. Cliché case in point – the Civil Rights movement.

Of course the church should not get so involved that it becomes complicit in the mess of bill-making and legislating. Perhaps the church is to be a witness, but within the process, if this is possible. Granted, this is a difficult and delicate balance to hold. It is not easy to be in the system and not completely in it, so I am going to be deliberately vague about the details. We do need to be engaged – it is essential, but we need to be cautious as to the how. A witness alongside those who are also working for justice and peace in the world.

The Moral Dangers of Chess

As usual I have been involved in more things than I should be. I’m currently reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House for fun – it is a great collection of short stories and a good, wry sense of humor. One story has been bouncing in my mind is “All the King’s Horses.” This one is not a comedy. It is a story of a group of soldiers who have been captured by a Communist dictatorship in the height of the Cold War. The Colonel of the group has to play the head of the government in game of chess in order for him and his company to be set free. The first twist is that the Colonel’s wife and two children are with them. The second twist is that the prisoners are to be the chess pieces. If a piece is taken than that soldier (or civilian) is killed. Diabolical!

Spoiler Alert! As the game continues the Colonel finds himself in a position to make a difficult decision. If he sacrifices one of his sons then he will ultimately win the game and his wife, other son and the few soldiers left will be allowed to live and gain their freedom. If he doesn’t sacrifice his son then he will most likely lose the game and all with die. The Colonel makes the decision to sacrifice his son and through a bizarre turn of events his son is spared and the Colonel ends up winning the game.

Some may read this and say that everything worked out and it was a happy ending. Yet I wonder what that one boy who was sacrificed will think of his father. That boy and the Colonel’s wife will have the haunting memory that the Colonel was willing to sacrifice one of his children. The Colonel will live always with the guilt of what he was willing to do. If you take all of these things into account, I would say that the Colonel did not win.

I have recently re-read the Niebuhr brothers’ classic argument over the U.S. involvement in war (Christian Century, March 1932 and on). H. Richard argues in his article, "The Grace of Doing Nothing," that the U.S. should not be involved in war but should hold to the higher ground, trust in God, and not be complicit in a sinful act. Reinhold countered that doing nothing would be a greater sin than to get involved and attempt to make something good out of the political and global mess they were facing. Taking a pragmatist stance Reinhold argued that to do nothing would be to allow a greater evil to continue. It is a fallen world and we have to live in it.

Think about this with Vonnegut’s story. What if the Colonel did nothing and all in his company as well as his wife and sons were killed? Would this have been the better action? What if the Colonel did not sacrifice his son, lost the game, and all were sacrificed? Would this have been the better action? Christians are called to a higher ethic, but can we say the Colonel did the wrong thing? Either way the Colonel will lose.

Varieties of Projects

I’ve had my irons in a couple of fires. Obviously I continue to work on the dissertation. This week I finished the fifth and final chapter – felt good. Now I just have to make it presentable and readable. In the meantime I have been reading William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Good stuff. I have also been thinking about theology and immigration, as well as relationality in the church and the necessity and dangers of political involvement. Is that enough?

Trafficking our Language

It seems that I am getting a number of comments from people selling different things. I'm thrilled that they think this blog has such a large readership that it is a good place to hock their cheap S--t (or sell their images).

Yesterday was Human Trafficking Awareness Day. I encourage all of my readers (the lot of you) to find out as much as you can about Human Trafficking and how you can be involved in ending it across the world.

Apropos, (points for SAT word!) I am working with the ABCORI Social Justice Committee (or something like that…. I don’t quiet remember the actual name of the comittee, my good friend roped me into the task) to draft a statement on Human Trafficking for the Rhode Island American Baptists. In preparation I have been reviewing Joerg Rieger’s Remember the Poor; specifically his chapter Authority, Power and the role of the text.

Reiger is using Lucan’s analysis of language as a launching pad for his own work (which is pretty good). I have turned to Reiger’s summary of Lucan partly because I am to lazy to read Lucan for myself, and because Reiger offers an application of Lucan’s work that is germane to my own (why re-invent the wheel?).

Here is the geist of what I found. The idea of the authority of the self is an illusion even though it was an idea embraced by 19th and 20th century liberalism. Through language, an order is created that cannot be controlled. The self is defined by the language used to name and describe the self. Language is in control of the self.

Example: If I call someone a “freak” again and again, even if he is not a “freak,” and doesn’t believe he is a “freak,” the label will have power and control over other’s view of the individual and even over the individual’s view of himself. Think of this in broader terms. We call ourselves Americans, we call ourselves New Englanders, or we call ourselves Christians. Those words have meaning which will vary from context to context and we cannot control those meanings. Others will call us things that we may or may not accept, or may understand differently, but we cannot control the label or the meaning that a specific community attributes to that label. Here we see a later Wittgenstein rearing his head.

Why does this matter in writing a statement on Human Trafficking? It matters because we need to be careful and deliberate in the language we use when talking about the victims, the perpetrators, and our own role (or lack thereof). Rieger suggests that we embrace Biblical language; he may be onto something.

What if we refer to the victims as Rehab, as Rachael, or as Mary? What if we read the passages of Jesus reaching out to the prostitute in this current context?

We need to be careful and deliberate in choosing the words we use. We also need to be aware of the words others use in this issue of Human Trafficking.

The Goal of Theology

Happy New Year Everyone!

Ellen T. Charry writes in her article, “Educating for Wisdom: Theological Studies as a Spiritual Exercise,” (in Theology Today, Vol. 66, no. 3, Oct., 2009, 295-308) that the goal of theology is to gain wisdom of God. A great deal of this work is based on Augustine’s De Trinitate.

Basically, in studying theology we gain knowledge that leads to a wisdom of God. I think this is an important point to make and remember that should keep me and all other theological snobs humble. What we are doing is engaging in a spiritual exercise that will hopefully bring us closer to God. This is no small thing and should not be taken lightly. We need to remember that any time we engage in theological pursuits we should do it with fear (awe/respect) and trembling.

Make a Decision! How?

Every day I wake up and say, “today is the first day of a writing and posting on the blog on a regular basis.” Every day I say this, my wife tells me to be quiet and my children ask me, “what is a blog?” Well maybe today is the first day. Probably not.

I’ve recently read the article, “Restricting the Scope of the Ethics of Belief: Haack’s Alternative to Clifford and James,” by Rose Ann Christian from the AAR (Sept. 2009, vol. 77, no. 3, pp. 461-493). It has a very sexy and eye-catching title!

The article looks at Susan Haack’s work, “The Ethics of Belief Reconsidered,” which offers a critique of W.K. Clifford’s “morally demanding” ethical position and William James’ “epistemically over permissive” ethical position. (Wondering what epistemology is? Me to). I am not an ethicist, so this area is not something I have specifically studied, but I do understand the general concepts. We have two sides of ethics: Clifford’s which is data based and James which is experientially and intuitively based. With Clifford one makes a decision based on what would do the least amount of empirically discernable harm. Facts and research are highly valued in this area. With James, decisions are made based on the faith/moral stance of the individual. What one believes is important. Granted, this is a simplistic summary, but hopefully gets the point across.

Christian (the author) and Haack are claiming that an good ethical decision should take into account both sides. One should look for the basic empirical data and at the same time one should be aware of one’s religious beliefs which would inform one’s beliefs. Christian considered the debate of Intelligent Design and Jerry Falwell’s outrageous comments after 9/11 as examples.

Here is one small thing I have gathered from this article: a third way…. sorta. This is a trend I have encountered in the past. Lindbeck tries to carve a middle way (cultural-linguistic) between the cognitive and the experiential-expressivity. Murphy tries to offer a third way in theology, following to a degree, Lindbeck’s path and focusing on language.

One’s beliefs will always be tied to one’s reality. The empirical data is not objective, nor are one’s moral foundations. The two will always be intertwined and this is something we need to be honest about. The view that one must earn money to survive in the world is based on a belief that a capitalist economic system exists, that one is deciding to participate in that system and that such a system can offer a good. One could go into the wild and live in a different system.

Before judging someone’s actions and decisions, we need to consider how the individual views reality and what religious/moral system influences such a system. This is a little rough, but I think gets something of a point across.

Afterthought: it may boil down to this - what you know and what you believe are both very important. So remember what your mother told you:

"You should know better!"
"That isn't the way I raised you!"

I’ve been working on a couple of things. First and foremost is the dissertation which is moving along. I’ve finished the rough draft of chapter 4 as I mentioned. Only one more chapter to go! In-between dissertation work I have been boning up on the idea of the Incarnation, focusing on P.T. Forsyth’s Person and Place of Jesus Christ (see previous post) for the Rhode Island Theological Circle, I have been looking into the nature and implication of relationality in light of poverty as well as the complexity of political involvement for the Rhode Island Council of Churches Faith and Order Committee statement on poverty. In addition to that I have been thinking about the issue of human trafficking to help write a statement of concern for the American Baptist Churches of Rhode Island. For such a small state, there are a lot of statements out there.
For some time I have wrestled with my own call as a minister, specifically with activism. I have gone to the rallies, marches and other events. I have lobbied politicians, written letters and have canvassed neighborhoods. This isn’t my thing. I don’t get excited about yelling, arguing and getting angry. Yet I have been enjoying the theological statement writing. I enjoy taking time to consider the role of Scripture and the theological foundations for action. I suppose some would argue that I am wasting all of my time in the ivory tower, but as one person said, good theology leads to good practice. In my mind, such statements are places where theology begins to be practical and real. It is where we look at how our understanding of the trinity directly effects our response to poverty. Not everyone is called to write such statements nor is everyone called to political activism, yet both are important. For the first time I think I have found my place in progressing the Kingdom of God and it feels good.

Down with Church Autonomy!

I have been writing. Obviously I haven’t been writing for this blog, but I have been writing. I have been mostly working on my Dissertation, which is a good thing. I’m on chapter 4, the social-historical section. So I haven’t been reading much or doing much else – this is the life of a doctoral student, wah, wah, wah.

As I have said before, I have been working on Baptist ordination. I have found an important piece of information in my research: the presence of the denomination (broadly construed) is important. Us freedom loving, independent minded, creedal denying, Bible holding, and autonomous curmudgeonly Baptists would like to say again and again that it is the local church that ordains. We would like to say that all we need is the affirmation of the local congregation and that person is ordained. Yet since 1720 (circa), in the Baptist movement nationally (as best as one could be national in the 1720s) and locally (i.e. FBC Swansea) a council of local ministers was required to affirm the desires of the denomination for ordination. As time continued there was a clear tension in the literature between the authority of the local church and the credentialing power of the ordaining council. So, is it up to the local church? Ultimately, yes. The local church recommends someone and would be the ones who ultimately ordain someone. Yet the council is a gatekeeper. The council is a body that would affirm the individual as someone who would be fitting for other Baptist churches beyond the one ordaining the individual. This brings into question the role and nature of church autonomy. While an Association does not tell a church who to hire (in most cases) it does play a big part in ordination. Perhaps we can’t do it all on our own. Perhaps we don’t want to.


Unrelated Afterthought: While writing this I have been listening to the All Songs Considered Blog list of the most influential songs of the last decade. As an example of the impact American Idol had on the decade they posted a Taylor Hicks song (Do I make you Proud). It is a great example of how a good voice does not make a good artist. It is really an awful, sappy, nauseating, painful and depressing song. No, Hicks, you don't make me proud.

Take your time during the day

I have been bothered into writing a new post (darin), so here it is. In truth, I really should be posting more so the guilt was just what I needed. I'm in the middle of working on a couple of things - chapter 4 of the f**kin dissertation, O'Neil's Long Day's Journey into Night, Incarnation and preaching. This is all in addition to my church work and my endless quest to unpack and clean and organize the house. No wonder I haven't posted in a while.

Right now (Friday, 10-16, 11:45am) I am taking a short break from Chapter four. I have finally started to write chapter four which is good, but it takes a lot of mental energy of which I have little.

So for this short break I thought I would reflect on A Long Day's Journey into Night. Harold Bloom claims that this is the greatest American play written in the 20th century, and I'm not one to argue with Harold Bloom so he must be right. If he said it on NPR than it would be right beyond all certainty, but I'll take what I can get. It is a good play, kinda dark, but good for many reasons. One of the aspects of the play that I enjoy is the tempo of the speech. When the characters are speaking truth and honesty, no matter how difficult to acknowledge, they tend to speak in a slow, cautious way. For example when Jamie (the older son) is talking to his father about his younger brother Edmund's illness he says:

JamieSlowly.
He thinks it's consumption, doesn't he, Papa?

Tyrone
Reluctantly.
He Said it might be.

There is a caution to this speech as it points to the horror of reality that they all may face. Yet when truth is avoided there is a lightness and a quickness to the speech. For example when Mary (the mother) is speaking to Jamie and Tyrone, trying to break the tension between he and his father:

Mary
To Jamie, forcing a smile.
Did I actually hear you suggesting work on the front hedge, Jamie? Wonders will never cease! You must want pocket money badly.

Jamie
Kiddingly.
When don't I?
He winks at her, with a derisive glance at his father.
I expect a salary of at least one large iron man at the end of the week - to carouse on!

Now I said this was a short break, so I need to make my point (do I have a point?). There is something about being slow and careful and honest. So often we rush and cover and ignore the wounds that are very real. O'Neil is capturing this human trait in his play, we do it every day. Yet when we take time with our speech and our thought we tend to open up the wounds of our lives in an honest way. Granted, this is more painful, but it is real. The long journey into night (or at least one view of it) is a long journey of denial as the hurts and pains continue to thrive, grow and overshadow and hope. The fog of suffering rolls in as we try to avoid it. The night of our wounds blankets any false and fast speech we can offer.

Isn't that a nice and happy ending?

digging in the past

It has been a while – but I haven’t heard any complaints. For the last couple of weeks I have been focusing on chapter 4 of my dissertation – the social-historical chapter. For this chapter I have been looking at the history of the pastors of First Baptist, Swansea MA from 1720 to the present (give or take a few). It has been interesting. I have found one issue with Samuel Maxwell, pastor from 1734-1739. All of the history books, and the church records from that time claim that Maxwell was or became a Seventh Day Christian – i.e. he advocated worship on Saturday. Gasp. In the short work, “The Case and Complaint of Mr. Samuel Maxwell” written by the good Rev. Maxwell, he claims that the issue was over his acceptance of infant baptism. Hmmm….. Either one is going to be a problem for a Baptist church in the 18th century, but why the difference in stories? Is it worse to be a Seventh Day Christian than an infant baptizing Christian? Either way, the congregation decided that Maxwell’s change in beliefs was not acceptable and looked to have him removed. Guess I should stay quiet about my beliefs.

Chautauqua 3 - Of Hopes and Dreams

A little late, but with all the conversation over my last post, I don’t think I needed to say much. Yesterday (I took today off from lectures) I heard two lectures – Benjamin Friedman and William Niskanen. I’ll be focusing on Niskanen (former director of the CATO institute).

Niskanen offered a number of ideas about capitalism, relationship, the role of government, greed and self-interest. Of the three types of human interaction (caring, exchange, and threat), caring can only happen with close relations. In other words, only those who are close and known can be cared for by others. This is because according to John Stuart Mill (via Niskanen) the principle soul end of the human is self-interest, making the individual sovereign. So all caring is local.

Capitalism occurs on the exchange level of interaction and is bi-lateral, consensual exchange. That tidbit is just for fun.

Here is the issue with caring. It can only occur on the local level. Niskanen even criticized Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical Caritas in veritate, claiming that a global level of charity (caring) would put the wealth of others at risk and thus be irresponsible. It is to demanding on the human spirit, Niskanen claims. I think he was quoting someone else when he said, “reality cannot compete with dreams, at least not fairly.”

The market, on the global level, should be kept clean of any human emotion so that the bi-lateral, consensual exchange can occur.

Where is the room for hope?

Wordsworth’s great poem, “The Ruined Cottage” paints a picture of a lovely young woman wasting away because she is grasping onto a dream that never becomes a reality. Hope is tragic and dangerous.

Yet Christianity is based on hope. Christianity is based on the idea that we can make some kind of a difference. I would like to think that grace brings us beyond the self-interest that Mill describes to a “other-interest.” The church needs to continue to push and advocate a hope that does go against the reality of the world. We need our

Chautauqua 2 - Goods and Values

Now to business. Today we had the inaugural lecture on “The Ethics of Capitalism,” starring Michael Sandel. But first….

Worship. Wallis again took the pulpit (he is preaching all week) and focused on the story of Lazarus and the rich man. In his interpretation of the story, Wallis considered the lack of relationship between the rich man and Lazarus (the poor man) as a major sin in the story. He read a lengthy quote from Levinas which is always good. Overall, his point was good but kind of basic.

Sandel made a number of interesting points. Before anything, I suppose I should mention his teaching style. Sandel tends to lecture for a while and then engage people in the audience by offering an ethical situation and asking people to comment for or against. He had people with mikes walking around so everyone could hear. It was very well done.

Some basic points that Sandel made:
From the 1980s there was a basic feeling of Market Triumphalism leading to the idea that government was the problem to the issues of the world and the market was the solution. This held to the idea that the market was the primary instrument of the common good (whoops!)

Here is a scary thought: The biggest change in the past twenty or so years was the expansion of the market and the values of the market into areas that are normally governed by other values – i.e. schools, hospitals, prisons, security, etc…. The danger in this shift is that certain values and norms that are higher than market values are lost, i.e. helping a child to score higher in tests because it is the result of the child learning and comprehending information vs. helping a child to score higher in tests because it will result in a monetary bonus. Sandel suggested that perhaps the incentive of the market undermines the values of humanity (the intrinsic good). When goods are bought and sold then they become commodities.

Hold those thoughts…..

The other speaker I heard was E. J. Dionne who suggested that capitalism works only when the wealth is distributed in a fair and just way. Thus the government must regulate in order to keep the market honest and fair to all involved. He didn’t seem to offer much more than some flowery language.

So…… there are goods that are above the goods of economics, and capitalism can help to encourage those goods when regulated. And relationships are important. So what is the church to do? Perhaps start with encouraging relationships. Then the church (broadly construed) should articulate the “goods” that are a part of humanity, higher than the goods of the market and act as a watch-dog on the local level to protect those goods. From there, I’m still thinking…

Chautauqua 1 - Worship

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! It is Sunday which means lots and lots of worship. Hooray! The day started with worship at the Baptist house. I always enjoy worshipping with my Baptist peeps because they are earnest and honest and the hymns are pretty darn good. Once again the Baptist did not disappoint. The sermon was weak (a grade of C to C-) but the overall worship was good.

Almost immediately after the Baptist worship was the big everyone gets involved worship. Here Jim Wallis was the preacher, who did not do a bad job but was still missing a certain poetic depth to his sermon (B to B+). The service was a kind of watered down Episcopalian worship time with well written and wordy prayers and very high church hymns.

One of the things that Wallis mentioned was Gandhi’s Seven Social Sins (From Gandhi’s “Young India,” 1925). They are as follows:

Politics without principles
Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Commerce without morality
Science without humanity
Worship without sacrifice

Some good things to think about.

In Search of God....

I recently received an e-mail from one of the college students I worked with in my previous position. Without giving out all of the details, she asked me about the "epistemology" of the existence of God, i.e. how do we know that God exists. Here is a portion of my reply:

In truth, it is just as difficult to prove the existence of God as it is to disprove the existence of God. This is a basic epistemological problem for everyone - believers and non. When I took my little walk on the AT I struggled with the existence of God, accepting the very real problem that I cannot prove God exists. I ended up at the point where I recognized that I need God to exist and have to settle with that. It is not a comfortable place, but it is where I stand at this point. On the other hand those who do not believe have to decide that God does not exist - it is a choice that must be made and at that point epistemology is moot.
There are some much smarter people who have contributed to this conversation - Kierkegaard is good - try the Philosophical Fragments and Either Or. Fear and Trembling is good, but focuses more on ethics. I would start with that. Ironically, I think Nietzsche is good, but I don't know enough to recommend a book. Bonhoeffer's Sanctorum Communio, especially the first chapter, makes a case for the difference between believing in God and not.
As I stated, the difficultly is that we cannot prove God exists and there will always be a gap which one must jump. Either we could engage in a "reductio ad absurdium" by asking again and again "and then what," or, "what was before that," or we can find a stopping point and name it God. There are proofs for the existence of God: Aquinas - Cosmological Proof, Anselm - Ontological Proof, but they actually demonstrate the existence of God, or the nature of God.
You are asking a good and important question and I encourage you to keep up with the struggle. I am sorry I cannot offer more hope but to encourage you to close your eyes and take the leap.
I'll ask around for more ideas.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Rejection

Last Sunday's sermon, "Rejection" is now on my church website. We have Feurbach, Hauerwas, Willimon and Freud all taking part in the fun. Text is from Mark.