Bandits No More

Curious comment from Glenn Reynolds (the Instapundit) today. He says:

I think that’s right. I feel somewhat that way about capital punishment. I’m utterly unpersuaded by the argument that there is something uniquely immoral about state-sanctioned killing. (At its core, the nation-state is all about killing; everything else is window-dressing). But I’m quite persuaded, as I’ve written before, by what Charles Black called “the inevitability of caprice and mistake” in the application of the death penalty.

I don’t believe Reynolds makes himself out to be a Christian, at least not of the type who reads authors like Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder & William Cavanaugh, yet this read (in the parenthetical statement) on the nation state sound right in line with what they say.

Ah the destructive power of modern culture!

Salman Rushdie, in a recent opinion piece says:

… The simple truth is that, wherever religions get into society’s driving seat, tyranny results. The Inquisition results, or the Taliban.And yet, religions continue to insist that they provide special access to ethical truths and consequently deserve special treatment and protection. And they continue to emerge from the world of private life — where they belong, like so many other things that are acceptable when done in private between consenting adults but unacceptable in the town square — and to bid for power.

Rushdie sounds like a secularized modern American. The values and ethos of modernity are clearly of controlling value for him. Of course he has experienced the negative consequences of bad public religion – death threats for irreligious writing. But surely murder and complete privatization aren’t the only options.

We live in a dangerous world. No, I’m not talking about terrorists or global warming. I’m talking about really dangerous things – like the laws of physics and Aunt Myrtle’s cooking. As this piece in Christianity Today indicates, the State is increasingly taking it upon itself to keep us safe form ourselves. The days of the church potluck where everyone brought their favorite dish will soon be behind us.

In this age of such tremendous technological and economic advances that we are increasingly ruled by fear – and thus we call on the State to save us from all dangers.

Several bloggers have been commenting this week on Greetings/Passing the Peace in worship. Joshua Claybourn started the discussion, and my old classmate, Tod Bolsinger, adds in come comments.

Since I have some opinions on the subject, I though I’d add a little.

As a pastor for a number of years, my professional capacity and sensibilities have overcome my introversion when it comes to greeting people. For many years now I have used the time before worship to “work the crowd” – connect with the people in attendance. I try to meet all the people I don’t know and at least greet everyone else. (Obviously this is easier in a small congregation.) But that’s BEFORE the worship “service” starts.

In my United Methodist tradition the biggest complaint about greeting times is that they interrupt worship. My take on the practice is different, however. I see the greeting time as a an opportunity for the Body to come together, connecting with each other. Our culture is so prone to individualism that even in a worship “service” the focus in on the single worshiper. We think the people around us need to mind their own business so I can worship. In the greeting we’re forced to acknowledge the people around us. We’re not forced to connect with them and become co-workers, but as leaders we can certainly invite people to connect and become co-worshipers.

Sometimes our words betray us. In a meeting recently, I heard someone speak in favor of a man who had come before that group seeking membership. It was rough going as there were some legitimate issues at stake. What this person said, though, took me far beyond the immediate circumstances of the person in question.

“He deserves some grace on this matter,” she said sincerely. Her intent, I knew in an instant, was to persuade those opposing her on this particular issue to reconsider. “Grace” is an important word in Christian circles, and was used with that in mind. The problem was it was used incorrectly; and the incorrect use of a word like “grace” signifies some serious theological misperceptions.

Grace indeed, cannot be deserved. By definition grace is unmerited favor. If something is unmerited it is not and cannot be deserved or earned. If we could earn grace, it would no longer be grace. It could still be love or mercy or patience or lenience, but it would no longer be grace.

Christians say we believe that God’s grace means that He accepts us and welcomes us into his presence, into a relationship with Him, in spite of, not because of, anything we have done. We are invited to lay our sins and brokenness and failures aside, even give them to God. Grace gives us the ability to do so; it is not something we receive because we have taken care of our own problems.

Oddly, I am quite sure the person who said this would agree with me. What was said, though, conveys that the understanding of the reality of grace has not sunk as deep as it could. Many of us have the same difficulty; our heads know we don’t earn our way to God, but our hearts have not fully realized what this means.

You don’t and can’t earn grace. Thank God we don’t have to!

Stephen Carter is one of my favorite writers on the interection of law, religion and culture. His The Culture of Disbelief and God’s Name in Vain are classics. Carter writes a regular column (though I’d be happy if it were more regular) for Christianity Today. This particular column focuses on how the State (i.e., the US Government) has been crossing boundaries and impinging on the freedom of religion. Though he points to some contary judgments (like the Pledge case last year, and the case allowing the constitutionality of vouchers a while back), he sees more bad than good. He zeroes in on the decision in Georgia that stickers on biology textbooks that sought to de-absolutize evolution are unconstutitional. Carter comments:

I doubt these stickers convinced evolutionist students to suddenly become creationists. Indeed, if the students of Cobb County are like most students I know, the stickers largely escaped their notice.

On the other hand, books unadorned with the stickers might well influence creationist students to suddenly doubt the Bible’s creation account. In that case, an authority figure (the school) backed by the state is pressing upon them a version of “truth” that varies from what their parents had raised them to believe. In other words, the books without the stickers, not the books with the stickers, should raise a constitutional worry. That is, unless one supposes that the state should wean children away from the religion of their parents.

One need not be a skeptic on evolution to be a Christian, and one need not be a Christian to be a skeptic on evolution. According to Frank Newport of the Gallup Poll, “Public acceptance of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is well below the 50 percent mark.” Only 35 percent say evolution is well supported by the evidence.

But, whatever one’s view on that controversy, it seems reasonable to enforce a central rule: The state should not, without very strong reason, interfere with the religious choices of parents. Where the state feels it must do so—for example, by teaching evolution in the science curriculum—a cautionary sticker of the sort struck down in Cobb County seems a reasonable compromise between church and state.

This picturesque metaphor is used to talk about forces that are so large and obvious that they demand our attention. If the gorilla comes our way the best strategy is to move out of the way quickly. What the gorilla wants, the gorilla gets. A quick Google search this morning find the image used for corporations, departments within a company, the US, etc. When faced with the 800 pound gorilla, the most common strategies seem to be denial (“What gorilla? I don’t see any gorilla.” or “He’s so harmless he wouldn’t hurt a flea.”) or belligerence and attack (which, if you’re also an 800 pound gorilla may or may not work).

Here in East Texas the 800 pound gorilla is the Baptist Church. Even most of the non-church attenders are baptist by excuse. Since baptists are not only the most numerous, but quite often the most articulate about their faith, their understanding of the nature of Christianity has become the de facto standard to which all others must reply.

Some within my church tell me we need to go on the attack. They hear that certain baptists are telling our students at the high school that they’re not real Christians because they’re not baptist. Sometimes this claim comes in different formulations: “Real Christians follow Jesus’ commands. Jesus plainly commands baptism. Baptism means immersion. You haven’t been immersed, therefore you haven’t really been baptized, therefore you’re not a real Christian;” or, “Are you saved? What? You don’t use that terminology? Come to my church and we’ll tell you how to get saved.” I’m told that I should go talk to those baptists and tell them to leave our kids alone. In other words, I need to go confront the 800 pound gorilla.

I don’t think attack is an effective strategy – for several reasons. First, the idea that baptists are the bad guys is simply wrong from a Christian perspective. Some might be overzealous. Some might be too narrow minded. Some might have drunk too deeply of modern individualism. But if we think that the baptist who says the non-baptist is worthy of attack because of his sub-Christian theology, and respond with a tu quoque type of argument (“You too!”) we’re not doing any better.

Second, I have great appreciation for baptists. I’m not sure I would be a Christian today if it hadn’t been for the influence of various baptists during my high school years. Their evangelistic passion and labor is not only an example for us all, but it is a blessing to us also. I wish United Methodists had as much as they did. If we did, we’d be a lot closer to our founder John Wesley.

I also appreciate baptists for their ability to articulate their faith. Ask a United Methodist what he or she believes and chances are you’ll get a vague answer about the love of God, and maybe a little more. Ask a baptist and chances are they’ll not only tell you about the love of God, but also about the problem of sin and how Jesus came and died for the sins of the world and how through faith in him we can be forgiven and have eternal life.

Because of our fear of the 800 pound gorilla, we’ve too often made the mistake of defining ourselves negatively in relation to the gorilla. We’re not sure what exactly we believe, but we know we’re not baptists. Since evangelistic passion is associated with baptists we eschew it. Oh, we’ll do “church growth” – clean restrooms, modern nursery, plenty of parking, and an effective follow-up strategy for visitors, but passionate evangelism? That’s for baptists. Fear has caused us to forget our heritage. We’ve forgotten the bold evangelistic passion of early American Methodists like Peter Cartwright. We’ve forgotten John Wesley who told his preachers (all lay preachers, by the way), “You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work.”

Certainly we may have a different take on evangelism than the baptists. But it’s not as different as our avoidance of it indicates. (I remember an incident with William Booth. A woman came up to him once and said, “Sir, I don’t care for your methods of doing evangelism.” Booth replied, “I don’t care for your methods of not doing evangelism.”) The baptist mistake is the tendency to assume no one is saved – so they’re always preaching basic Christianity and the need to get saved. The methodist (Since I’m Methodist I can speak for my own tradition) mistake is the tendency to assume everyone is saved. We’ll preach growth, we’ll preach the need to be nice, to be socially active, but totally avoid the issue of whether people actually have faith in Jesus.

We’re also being motivated by fear when we identify articulacy as a “baptist” trait. If we were to learn to define ourselves over against the world (and all identity work requires the use of the via negativa, the willingness to say what we’re not) instead of baptists – and other groups for that matter – we’d be making major progress. I’d much rather ground our kids in the bible and in solid theology grounded in it than teach them to settle for inarticulate mutterings. The bible says we’re to love God not only with our heart and soul but with our mind. The objective is not dogmatism, but understanding and the ability to articulate that understanding.

SO that’s my third reason for not going on the attack. Attack is a strategy of fear. “Mr. Gorilla, I’m so scared. You’re such a bully. Won’t you please leave me alone? Pretty please with sugar on top?” And this is supposed to accomplish what? My abject surrender?

So, if I refuse to go on the attack, is denial my only option? I’m I forced to say that there is no problem? Nope. Instead I choose to operate from a position of strength and responsibility. First, even though I’m more committed to the Christian tradition than I am to the United Methodist tradition, I think the latter is worth standing for. Now my commitment to the former leads me to much difficult work with the latter, but I’m convinced it is worth it. Since baptists (and presbyterians, and catholics and orthodox, etc.) are also part of the larger Christian tradition I and my tradition can learn from them also. Since I see us as part of the same larger tradition I also think they can learn from us and act accordingly. Participants in other Christian traditions may not think they can learn from us, but that’s their problem not mine. I’m going to loving act like God intends us to mutually bless each other.

This is a primary action of taking responsibility. We are responsible for our own tradition. We are responsible for developing our articulacy. We are responsible for winning our kids to Christ. We are responsible for grounding them in the Word. We’re responsible for living before them an exemplary Christian life. We’re responsible for reaching our community for Christ. Saying “The baptist will do that” or “The baptists made me not do that” are simply excuses for disobedience. Worse, they’re denials of our Methodist heritage.

So as for me, I plan to continue standing up for myself and being responsible to God regardless of what anyone else thinks. I’ll continue to pray for God to bless my church and the baptist churches. If others choose to be dopey, ignorant or rude, that’s their problem. They are responsible for themselves.

I just ran across this old series of posts by Mark D. Roberts. He consistently puts out substanative well-thought out material. As one in the same profession, I don’t see how he has the time to do it all. As long as he keeps up the work, it’s a blessing to the rest of us.

In 1998 when I was appointed to Westbury United Methodist Church in Houston, I was finally at a church where I could invite anyone. Westbury is a culturally diverse church, full of Anglos, Africans, African-Americans, Asians, etc. Many great people. I loved it.

Now I’m pastor in small town East Texas. After 5 years at Westbury I sometimes wonder “Why are there only white folks here?” when I look out on the crowd. There are many in the church who, like me, would like to see our congregation become more racially diverse. I even heard one person say the other day, “All those other Methodist churches should close down and come join us.” I understand the sentiment, but I don’t think that’t the way to go.

In today’s Dallas Morning News (registration required), There is an article on the demise of black-owned businesses since the end of segregation. Now that white insitutions are (increasingly) open to blacks, it is getting harder for back institutions to keep going. Insofar as this gives more peopel opportunities, this is likely a good thing. But my guess is that it’s been easier for blacks to become integrated as consumers (“we’ll take your money”) than as business people (“We’ll give you our money”). I think they need both.

When it comes to black churches, I don’t want to put them out of business – I don’t want all the black methodists to come join us so they can close down; any more than I want all the baptists to come join us. First, the black churches are too important in our communities. Second, the varieties of churches we have preaching the gospel the more likely we are to reach all the people. It might stoke my ego, but that certainly isn’t a Christian motive. Instead it seems that a better Christian motive would be for each church to begin to invite and assimilate non-church people indiscriminately. That is, instead of us trying to get black church people to come join us, we’ll try to get black non-church people along with the white & other non-church people we work on. In the same way, the black churches would work on bringing in people of all races also.