Reality Based Religion

Posted on December 1, 2012 by Richard Heyduck

One of my new friends this semester is a member of the Nation of Islam. I’ve learned that they have some pretty odd beliefs. The first one I learned of was that Pluto (the ex-planet) is larger than earth. Though this apparently has something to do with founder Wallace Fard Mohammed starting the group in 1930, the same year Pluto was discovered, I haven’t discerned what role this belief plays in the religion.

A second odd belief, though more common in the world, is that the holocaust didn’t happen. I understand racism and antisemitism. Again, I don’t understand what role this belief plays in the religion and why it is important.

I take both of these beliefs to be indicators that the Nation of Islam is not a reality based religion. There are standard methods for determining the size of planets. Pluto has been tried and found wanting. While I was saddened to learn of Pluto’s demotion it never crossed my mind to argue that it had been mis-measured. It also never crossed my mind to think that the size of Pluto mattered very much.

I’m not an astronomer so I lack the training to be able to calculate planetary sizes and masses on my own. I have studied a fair amount of history, including the more theoretical classes like historiography and philosophy of history. I understand how the work of history happens. To deny the Holocaust one has to deny physical evidence, contemporaneous records, and testimony of victims, perpetrators and observers. Holocaust denial is a conspiracy theory. The great thing about a conspiracy theory is that no evidence can be offered against them. Anything that looks like it might be counterevidence is just a sign of how wickedly clever the conspiracy really is. To me, adherence to a conspiracy theory that ignores all evidence is a sign that the Nation of Islam is simply not reality based.

But is being reality based a good thing? I’ve argued before that sometimes we need to argue against calls for more realism. Christianity itself is perceived by some to not be reality based. Just consider the Christian conviction about the resurrection of Jesus. Here’s this dead guy. He’s not just apparently dead, but certified as dead by expert executioners. Three days later he’s alive. Yeah, right. Our uniform experience has been that dead people stay dead, and yet here’s this Jesus fellow, supposedly alive again. David Hume would surely say Christianity is not reality based for this conviction alone.

Consider another belief held by Christians that is not recognized as reality based – the idea that the earth was created just 6000 years ago. As with the measurement of Pluto, every scientific theory leads us to believe that the earth is much older – billions of years older.

We value being reality based. Some Christians have considered the desire to be reality based and rejected the resurrection. What happened was not the resurrection of the man Jesus, but the “rise of Easter faith” in the disciples. What we call the resurrection was not an event in the world but an even in the lives of the disciples. Other Christians look at the science of origins and deny that the faith requires belief in Young Earth Creationism. A person can be a faithful Christian – even a “conservative evangelical” – and accept the findings of science as to the age of the earth.

I believe the conviction about the dating of creation is very different from the conviction about the resurrection of Jesus. If I were a Popperian, operating in terms of falsifiability, I’d see problems with both the Nation of Islam and Christianity. But I’m not a Popperian. I’m more in line with the philosophy of science of Imre Lakatos. Using his approach not just for understanding science, but for the noetic structure of the Christian tradition, I find a way to make helpful distinctions.

First, the resurrection plays a different role in the Christian faith than does the belief about the date of creation. If there’s no resurrection (as in resurrection of Jesus, not just a “rise of Easter faith”) there is no Christianity. Using Lakatosian terminology, the resurrection of Jesus is part of the hard core of the tradition. Christian belief is creation is important, but the particulars of that belief, especially as it bears on dating, is not part of the hard core. It’s more likely to be found as what Lakatos calls an auxiliary hypothesis. Auxiliary hypotheses can be changed, adapted, added or dropped as needed when the tradition encounters challenges and new or revised knowledge.

I was thinking of Lakatosian philosophy of science when I wondered about the role the size of Pluto and denial of the Holocaust play in the Nation of Islam. From what I know of the religion they are not part of the hard core of the tradition; if these convictions were different the tradition would not be significantly different. Drop the resurrection of Jesus from Christianity and you have a huge difference: the resurrection is intimately connected to almost every other doctrine. But what would dropping the conviction that the size of Pluto is larger than the earth do for the Nation of Islam? The best I can guess is that they are operating with a doctrine of inerrancy of some sort. Some founding figure said something about Pluto. Since that figure is inerrant, we must believe Pluto is larger than the earth. Otherwise we’d be questioning our founder and undermining our religion.

A doctrine of inerrancy has played a role in some parts of the Christian tradition. Some speak of the inerrancy of scripture. Others speak of the infallibility of the pope. Both types of argument have been well-qualified over the years. Whether one thinks these qualifications go far enough or not, at least the making of qualifications is a sign that even the adherents recognize that the bald assertion of inerrancy/infallibility without explanation of qualification either falls apart or is incoherent. It’s possible the NOI will go that direction; I’m not a scholar of that religion so it’s possible some have already gone that direction and I just don’t know about it.

So what about being reality based? What counts as reality is still contested – and I don’t think we’ll ever get to the point where it’s not. That said, I do want to be as reality-based as possible.

Posted in Islam, Philosophy | 2 Comments

Which Quest?

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Richard Heyduck

Since our annual conference reduced the number of districts several years ago, district superintendents have made “cluster” charge conferences more regular. I heard recently of one such conference where many small churches came together in one location. Evidently the DS had heard something about some of these churches being dissatisfied with the UMC, so he used his sermon to tell them they all ought to stay in the denomination. The third hand report I got was that not all were impressed by the strategy. Gaining loyalty among disaffected audiences not easily accomplished by the equivalent of “sit down, shut up, and do what you’re told.” We need to win people, not coerce them against their wills.

I recently read a piece from Leadership Journal, an interview with Andy Stanley and Tim Keller. Though neither is from my tradition, I appreciate them both and have learned much from them. Something Andy Stanley said grabbed me. The line in bold is the interviewer’s question, the italicized part is Stanley’s response:

“People are not on truth quests,” you write. “They’re on happiness quests.” What’s that mean?

If people were on truth quests, they’d all be on diets. We would have extraordinary physical discipline, because we all know what makes life healthy. But we’re not on truth quests. That’s why we eat dessert. Once I realize this, I say to myself, “Okay, when I show up on the weekend, I’m standing in front of people who, at the end of the day, just want to be happy.” Well if that is the driving factor, and if I want to influence them, then I need to factor that into everything I do and say. Of course I don’t have to take this into consideration. I can decide just to shoot truth at them. You know, unload with both barrels, go home and say, “Well, God, I told them the truth!” But if you want to impact people’s lives, you have to start where they are, not where you’d like them to already be.

Stanley is responding here to the common evangelical assumption that people are on truth quests. Since they are searching for truth, the best thing we can do in our preaching and teaching is offer them the truth. We need to be rational and offer compelling arguments.

But what if, as Stanley observes, they are not on truth quests? What is they’re looking for happiness? Maybe truth is a nice addition, if it comes on the side. Truth has become a fuzzy concept in our age, transformed by our endemic relativism into “true for me” rather than a plain a simple “true.” “True for me” can exist in perfect service – and submission – to the happiness quest.

I know enough about Stanley’s ministry to know that he is not unconcerned with truth. From everything I’ve seen he’s not out to pander to everyone’s happiness quest, willing to do or say anything to make them happy. But his point of communication is not truth, but happiness. He uses happiness as the window into their lives, and then broaches the issue of truth.

If Stanley is right, is it wise or possible to be upfront about our strategy? Can we come out and say, “We know you’re looking for happiness, and we have just the thing?” From what I see our culture tends to have as much misunderstanding about the nature of happiness as it does of truth. For that reason our audience will be likely to misunderstand us if we begin by offering happiness.

But given the truth, however essential we reckon it, is not the starting point in our rhetoric of ministry, is happiness the best place to begin? Doubtless, people want happiness. Maybe a better way to begin, even a way more in line with the Gospel, is to see them as being on a love quest. I admit that love is no more likely to be understood Christianly by our audiences than either truth or happiness. If we were to order the three, however, what would we discover? Of the three, which in the Christian tradition would be the ultimate end? I think love comes out on top. Love finds its primary instantiation in the incarnation, in Jesus taking on flesh, dying and rising for us. As Paul puts it, “God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The love of God for us is the starting point. We can frame this as a truth issue if we like, but love is at the root.

What about happiness? How does happiness fit with truth and love? Happiness – taken as a subjective feeling – is a by-product of experiencing God’s love and joining in that love. God made us so that we find our greatest happiness in loving God and neighbor.

How might the DS mentioned in the beginning of the post better handled the situation? It might be that the DS’s experience is that people respond best to threats and institutional pressure (though that has not been my experience with churches), and that previous experience resulted in the chosen strategy. I’d think, however, that a more effective strategy would be to draw a picture of the story of God’s (loving) action in Christ and how we are called to join in that same story as it continues today. The mission is a life or death matter, the stakes huge, going well beyond the mere survival of our particular mission outposts (congregations). The mission is so large, in fact, that we need each other if we’re going to accomplish it.

 

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Thinking about the “Guaranteed Appointment”

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Richard Heyduck

The Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church has recently overruled the General Conference legislation that did away with the guaranteed appointment for Elders. I’ve been ambivalent about the provision, seeing good arguments on both sides.

On the one hand, I have never completely trusted the hierarchy that controls appointment making. I’ve heard too many stories of lying and manipulation of pastors to believe everything a DS tells me. My perception is that things are better now than they were when I came into the conference twenty-five years ago; at that time the “good old boy” network still reigned. Now we talk more about evangelism and “mission field appointments.” Now we have metrics that are reported not just once a year but every week. I still see enough incongruities in the process to not be completely trusting. While we have more spiritual talk about what we do, sometimes this looks like a thin veneer of rationalization laid on top of doing what we’ve always done.

Additionally, with the (apparent) increasing use of metrics in the appointment making system, most of the leverage is put on pastors. That only makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, John Maxwell says, “Everything rises and falls with leadership,” and the pastor is THE leader, so if things are not rising (constantly), it must be the pastor’s fault. Sometimes – maybe more often than not – the failure to rise is due to a failure in pastoral leadership. But we forget at this point how much the UMC partakes in the American democratic ethos that mitigates against the power and place of leaders. Seeing these things, I support guaranteed appointments as a defense for pastors against the System.

On the other hand, our guaranteed appointment system functions as part of our larger guaranteed mediocrity system. For a church that began with an emphasis on discipline, we now lack it on almost every level. Where Wesley once held not only preachers but ordinary members accountable for their discipleship, we do almost nothing. We offer opportunities, and a few partake. Are there any consequences for those who just sit in the pew and get fat? Not at all – they are reckoned faithful members as long as they come and sit in our pews!

We also lack doctrinal discipline. Although doctrinal pluralism is no longer our official position, it is still our de facto position. We settle on marketing slogans “Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Doors” in the place of anything with theological substance. We can all agree that we need marketing, given our fear of congregational death and denominational demise.

We still have a number of churches that report no professions of faith in a given year. How can this be? How can a church with the power of the Holy Spirit fail to win a single convert – even a little child – in a whole year? What on earth are we doing? Surely a pastor serving in a place for a year can go out and meet people and win at least one! Or are some of our churches so far out and isolated from not-already-Christian people that there is no one to win? In those cases maybe the best thing is to appoint the equivalent of a hospice chaplain and to let the church die with “dignity,” whatever that might be. If, however, the best I can do is be the equivalent of an ecclesial hospice chaplain, I neither want nor deserve a guaranteed appointment. Like the man with the hammer who thinks everything looks like a nail, a pastor armed only with the soothing skills of gently laying a church to rest will look at all churches as sets of mostly helpless people who need comfort, soothing, and a kind word as they shuffle their way out the door.

In an interview at Wired, Tom Ricks looks at the culture of mediocrity represented in the recent generations of high leadership in the US Army. Maybe we UMs can learn something from this. Here are my suggestions.

Figure out what “winning” looks like. In World War 2 we had a clear definition for winning: unconditional surrender by Germany and Japan. While difficult and costly to achieve, that goal was clear. The US can no longer have such a goal in war, given the gross immoralities required to achieve it. Winning in Iraq or Afghanistan would be relatively easy if we were willing to bomb the civilian population into submission. A nuke here, a week of fire bombings there, pretty soon there’d be few left to resist. But we’ve advanced to the point that we realized that approach has too high a price. Now in Afghanistan, as earlier in Vietnam, we don’t have a clear, shared and realistic understanding of what it means to win.

What does winning look like in the church? Our doctrinal fuzziness has hurt us here. Back in the days before soteriological universalism took hold, we could talk about winning souls – about leading people to faith in Christ and rescuing them from eternal separation from God. But neither our people or our institutions (for the most part) are able to talk that way any more. Sure, it’s sort of good for people to become Christians, but if they’re happy and fulfilled as Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans, or Atheists, well, we shouldn’t interfere and show ourselves to be bigots.

Maybe winning means raising attendance. I like that goal. It’s always bothered me to see churches think they’re doing well when their average attendance is only a third of their membership (“We’re doing so much better than all those other churches that have only a quarter of their membership in attendance!”). If only a third of my body were working, yea, only as much as half my body, I’d be in ICU in serious trouble. How can such a body even pretend to be healthy? And yet we take a low attendance to membership ratio as the norm. I remember years ago reading a bio on a conference leader. The piece was framed as saying something great about the pastor. It explained how in one of his pastorates he had added 3000 members to the church and raised the attendance by 800! 3000 members – how awesome! That’s a quarter of the entire population of the entire county I last pastored in. But why did attendance only go up 800? What happened to the other 2200? Where they in the front door and straight out the back? I sure hope no one brags about me that way. Improving attendance needs to be part of our definition of winning.

Attendance isn’t enough, however. We need not only a mechanism (or gimmick) that will bring people in; we need to improve the quality of those we have. We need a shared conception of membership that goes beyond the institutional and sentimental. Perhaps the broader culture is offering us help here. As there is less and less gain in societal status for being a Christian or church member, perhaps more people will become such for more purely Christian reasons. We cannot wait for the culture to do our work for us, however. Holding members to higher standards of accountability in their discipleship will be painful. We will face resistance, “Whatever happened to grace?” is one line we’ll hear over and over. But we don’t have a choice.

Once we bring this dimension to the attendance question, the other elements of what counts as a win become clearer. A win will be measured as “more faithful discipleship.” This won’t be as easy to quantify as we would like, but we will be able to identify some measures.

A second thing we’ll need to do is create a system in which failure is possible but not necessarily terminal. Once we know what constitutes a win, we’ll be able to say what constitutes a “non-win,” i.e., failure. What kind of people fail? Only people who try. I ever never failed to sail a ship – simply because I’ve never even tried to sail a ship. In areas in which I try – teaching, preaching, evangelism, discipleship – failure bothers me. I take it personally. But when I fail, I get up, figure out where I went wrong, and try again. We desperately need a system where failure is possible and permissible, yet also not fatal (We can learn from Tim Harford.) If a general in the Army can be removed from his position for recognized failure, and yet at some point later receive a similar position again, why can this not be a possibility for a pastor?

A third suggestion, and I’ll stop here for today, is that real accountability is needed on all levels but must start at the top. If pastors are the only ones held accountable, we will fail. Church members need to see pastors being held accountable just as pastors need to see those above them being held accountable.

Just this summer Bishop Earl Bledsoe was pushed into retirement – an instance of accountability in action. I know nothing of the details of this event, so I can’t say anything about its appropriateness, but the fact that the church is openly holding a bishop accountable is a good sign for the church as a whole. The weakness, however, is that given our commitment to episcopacy for life rather than a term, retirement is the only option. Why do we assume that once a person reaches the heights of the appointive system that no other options should be allowed? Do we care that little for our people? Do we care little enough for our mission that we don’t re-deploy obviously skilled leaders elsewhere, in positions where they can still make major contributions that might fit their current capacities better?

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Which One?

Posted on October 20, 2012 by Richard Heyduck

I’ve seen various claims that we need to “Put God back in the Whitehouse.” The context of these claims indicates a few assumptions:

  1. God is not now in the Whitehouse.
  2. Whether or not God is in the Whitehouse is within our power to control.
  3. Whether or not God is in the Whitehouse is a determined by the congruence of the political ideology of the current occupant of the Whitehouse and the one making the comment.
  4. In our current election cycle the ones making this claim are saying that the one who professes to be a Christian is somehow keeping God out of the Whitehouse.
  5. Again, considering our current political cycle, the candidate who is not a Christian is somehow not only a candidate for the highest office in the land, but also for getting God “back” in the Whitehouse. (Note: I have no awareness that this candidate is actively promoting this conviction. On the other hand, I have seen no evidence that he denies it.)

Inasmuch as theocracy reflects the rule of God, and not just rule in God’s name, it is a good thing. God has the knowledge, power and wisdom to rule well. God’s intention is to bless all people, and having created them, knows best what constitutes such blessing. Having God as president would be a good idea on this basis alone.

But which God are those who speak of “Getting God back in the Whitehouse speaking of?” If we’re only talking about the God of conservative politics, I don’t want to have any truck with that God. If we’re talking about the God of Mormonism, I, being a Christian, again don’t want to have any truck with said God. The first option, the God of a political ideology, is an idol. The second, the God of Mormonism, is some other God.

If I were to want a God in the Whitehouse, I’d want the God who became incarnate in Jesus. Of course that God wouldn’t fit very well in our political system. He wouldn’t honor the Lockean dichotomy between the domains of church and magistrate. Jesus claims everything, not just the religious things. Jesus would mess with our economy – and probably not in a way all of us (if any) would like. Jesus would also mess with our foreign policy, again probably in a way none of us would like. I take Jesus too seriously to spend my time looking for a political messiah in some candidate for president.

As a last thought, I think of Josiah, one of the most lauded kings of Judah. Josiah was one of the few good kings. In spite of being one of the good kings, his reign was short and not very successful. His successors – his sons – were disastrous. I don’t look for God in the Whitehouse – either in the current occupant or in a successor. Being president is nasty enough a job without having to be God too. I have political convictions. I’d like the president to operate from similar convictions (i.e., be right). But those convictions, insofar as they are connected with any particular party or partisan expression, have mostly nothing to do with God.

Posted in Current events, Elections, Politics | Leave a comment

Lead the Mission

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Richard Heyduck

In describing the work of appointment making in his book Bishop, Will Willimon frames the big picture this way: “The task of the bishop and the DSs in the appointive process is to send clergy who can lead the mission of the congregation.”

The first thing I notice is that the role of clergy as leader is highlighted. We are in the age of the pastoral leader. Other roles have been lifted up at other time: pastor, counselor, teacher, preacher, prophet. Now the key job is leader. Leaders make things happen. Leaders use their influence to bring vision to reality.

I notice, secondly, a bit of ambiguity. In the context of the book as a whole and of Willimon’s ministry as a whole, the ambiguity is lessened, almost to the vanishing point. The ambiguity I see is, just which congregational mission is the pastor supposed to be leading? The mission as perceived by the congregation? For many that mission is mere survival. The young people are staying away in droves and the old faithful keep dying. Bring in the young folks and we can pass on in peace. Then there will be someone to maintain the building and the traditions we’ve guarded so carefully.

Or maybe the pastor’s job is leading the mission of the congregation as that mission is conceived by the conference leadership. Pastors hear these days that congregational leaders who stick to the old ways are less likely to gain a hearing for their complaints about pastors leading change. If a pastor crosses the congregational leaders in their pursuit of the status quo, of mere maintenance, so much the better. Pastors need to heed and seek to improve the particular metrics that come from the conference leadership. That’s the evaluation that counts.

This second model requires not only leading the congregational mission but changing the congregation’s understanding of its mission. Anyone who’s tried leading change in a long established organization (a church founded over a hundred years ago can surely be counted as long established) knows the difficulty. Organizations become highly resistant to change in much less time than that.

What about the other roles of the pastor: are these just subsumed under the role of leader now? I’m going to get personal for a moment. I have a strong calling to leadership. Since my calling to lead outweighs my skills in leadership, I have to depend on Holy Spirit intervention and empowering all the time. Every time I’ve served in a leadership role I’ve seen the need. I think back to visiting the junior high in a town where I used to pastor. I don’t remember why I happened to be there that time – I think it was to pray for the students. School had just let out and the students were milling around, making for their buses or looking for their parents. God opened my eyes and I saw more than rowdy junior high kids. I saw “sheep who were harassed and helpless, sheep without a shepherd.” They were lost, wandering helplessly in the dark. I was awakened afresh to the impossibility of quietly letting my congregation do what it wanted to do. We had to do something.

I spent the next couple of years – the rest of my time at that appointment – banging my head against a brick wall. The leadership eventually called in the DS: I was bad for the church. Too many neighborhood kids were coming to the church. If the kids came, their parents might start coming – and they were the wrong kind of people.

They managed to get rid of me. It broke my heart. First, my heart was broken for the kids. I could preach Jesus all day long, see them get excited – and then what? Experience a church that didn’t want them? My heart was also broken for the people of the church. I loved those people and they were missing out on the adventure of joining Jesus. And for what? Nothing as good as a mess of pottage. All they got was a temporary continuance of the status quo.

I reject the notion that seems so popular today, that leadership is the most important role of the pastor. I just don’t have the confidence that even the best of us have the ability to make the right thing happen the right way with any great regularity. But leadership is essential. Praying our way into our congregational mission, joining a Jesus always on the move, cannot be left off.

Posted in Leadership, Texas Annual Conference, Will Willimon | 1 Comment

Political Unconvictions

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Richard Heyduck

Unlike many I encounter, I seem to have at least as many political unconvictions as I have convictions. Here are some of my current unconvictions:

I am unconvinced that people who disagree with me are stupid and/or evil. Sure, they’re wrong, but a person can be wrong without being stupid or evil. Some may be wondering how I can say that people who disagree with me are wrong. It’s straightforward. If I believe X and someone believes not-X (what it means to disagree with me), then as long as I believe X I have to believe that believers in not-X are wrong. It’s not really a big deal; I know they are within their logical rights to say that I’m wrong. Wrong people can be motivated by what they take to be the good; they can also be way smarter than I am. If you want to think the other guys are stupid & evil, go ahead. I don’t think it will do you or them any good, though.

I am unconvinced, more specifically, that either of our major party presidential candidates are evil and out to destroy our country. I know many claims are made to this effect, but I find them all incredible.

I am unconvinced that raising taxes on the rich will save our economy and adequately fund our government.

I am unconvinced that raising taxes on the rich will ruin our economy and invigorate class warfare.

I am unconvinced that “Obamacare” will (a) extend quality, affordable healthcare to significantly more people than our current system, and (b) be affordable in the long run.

I am unconvinced that “Obamacare” will be the ruin of our healthcare system.

These last two unconvictions show my ignorance. I simply don’t know what the solution to the brokenness in our health care system is. As one who has had to shop for insurance on the open market, I know it is unaffordable for many people. I also know that even the most basic treatments and procedures cost such huge piles of money that insurance is a necessity. I give the president credit for trying something. At the same time I am dubious that such a massive bill that no one understands will work. So I’m praying and hoping it will work well.

I am unconvinced that we can be the world’s policeman. Maybe after Iraq and Afghanistan we’ve finally learned that lesson. But then there’s Libya. We’ll see.

I am unconvinced that most people are stupid and helpless and need an ever-expanding, intrusive and powerful government to take care of them.

I am unconvinced that we, through the power of wise policy and law, can make people do the right thing.

What are some of your political unconvictions?

Posted in Politics | 1 Comment

What to do?

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Richard Heyduck

Robert Fritz wrote long ago about what he calls “structural tension” (sometimes called “creative tension”). I find the concept very useful and easily illustrated. Creative tension has two parts. First, there’s the vision of the future you want. This is the picture of where you’re trying to get in life. Second, there’s current reality. The vision is a picture of the future. Current reality is, well, where you stand right now. The gap between where you are now and where you want to be creates a tension. The natural human tendency is to reduce that tension.

The easiest illustration of this requires only a rubber band and two fingers. One finger represents your vision, the other current reality. If you have a large rubber band and your fingers are close together, you won’t feel any tension. But as your fingers get farther apart, you will feel more tension. The tension will begin to feel uncomfortable. Something will have to give. One finger or the other will pull the other closer. Similarly, the larger the gap between our vision and our current reality, the greater the tension we feel.

How do we resolve this tension? There are two basic ways to reduce tension. First, we can minimize our vision. Second, we can change our current reality to bring it closer to our vision.

Let’s say I have a vision in the area of athletics. I see Usain Bolt in his competitions. I decide I want to win the gold in the next Olympic 100m race. That is my vision. Now if I’m the guy who finished second, I can easily measure my gap; I see how much I need to lower my time. As an experienced runner, I probably even have some ideas on how I can get faster.

But what if I’m not the number two finisher, but myself. I confess that I’d be in trouble if I had to beat anyone in a 100m race. The gap between my vision – winning Olympic gold – and my current reality – being fairly out of shape – is huge. My best bet is to lower my vision. Perhaps a better vision, one that would actually inspire rather than rob me of all hope, would be to think of getting to where I can run 100m. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a start for a non-runner like me.

Ok, you probably have the general theory. Now let’s turn to Rich Karlgaard’s article in Forbes, “Recovery Drag: The Age of Cheats.” He tells of cheating in sports, politics, education and business. He hopes that we soon pass this age. You’ve probably heard of the incidents he reports – and others. I think of the push to have all students pass particular standardized tests, and the scandals that have followed. What’s going wrong?

Thinking in terms of “structural tension,” I have some ideas.

First, we have adopted not only standardized tests, but standardized visions of excellence. One size fits all. Or so we proclaim. But maybe one size doesn’t fit all. Maybe we need to admit that there are multiple ways to be excellent. Our vision is so high, so awesome, that the tension overwhelms us. The rubber band breaks. Or, sometimes – and here is where the dishonesty sometimes comes in – we see that the gap is completely beyond our ability to overcome so we start lying. We use lofty words to describe our vision, but we speak deceptively. We overestimate our current reality, engaging in what John Kotter calls “happy talk.”

I’m not advocating doing away with excellence through dumbing-down, or the equivalent of not keeping score. People have different giftings and callings. One of my children made it through high school and received her diploma, not because she mastered the basic curriculum. She was in special ed her whole school career. If we define excellence with a one size fits all approach, say, “Everyone will go to college,” then she’ll be set up for failure from the start. That particular excellence is not in her capacity. Our strategy is to admit that up front, and then identify another area of excellence, one that fits her capabilities better. One area in which she is excelling is in showing compassion. Every week she goes to visit kids at a nearby home for disabled children. She goes joyfully, seeking to cheer those kids. So is she perfect in showing the excellence of compassion? Not at all: but it’s an excellence that fits her abilities and interests.

Second, we have no tolerance for mediocrity. As a perfectionist, this is hard for me to complain about. But very few of us have the skills, time, resources, and temperament to excel at everything. In fact, in order to pursue excellence in some areas will require tolerance of mediocrity in others.

Third – and paradoxically, our one-size-fits-all approach goes along side our hyper-individualism. If we could learn to see ourselves as living in community, we could see that our individual excellences will be complemented by those of our friends and neighbors.

Posted in Culture | 2 Comments

Adjustment Bureau

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Richard Heyduck

When The Adjustment Bureau first came out, I added it my list of movies to see someday. I finally had my opportunity today (I know, I know, I’m way behind the times). It would be a good film to show to a philosophy class, considering all the questions it raises. Here are a few that came to mind as I watched:

  1. What is the Adjustment Bureau? In the film it is hinted that the agents we see can be thought of as angels, and perhaps the “Chairman” as god. Is this view tenable for Christians? Why or why not?
  2. What is the role of fate in the story? With what major world view, ancient or modern, does the movie’s view of fate fit best?
  3. Do we ever know if the AB agents are telling the truth about the “Plan?”
  4. Why are the agents more concerned about the plan than the people in the plan?
  5. What things in life are worth pursuing no matter what the authorities around you might say?
  6. Is it ever possible that what is best for our lives, taken as a whole, is not what we think is best right now?
  7. What do you think of the way the major characters isolate themselves from the wisdom of others? They both act as if they are best off consulting their own feelings and desires, with little or no input from others.
  8. What is the significance of David & Elise reaching the AB through the door at the base of the Statue of Liberty, given Harry’s point later about free will?
  9. To what degree do humans have free will? Can it ever be the case that we take ourselves to have free will when we don’t – or vice versa?
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Why Be in Ministry?

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Richard Heyduck

In his book, Bishop, Will Willimon says, “The only good reason for anybody to be in ministry is theological.”

Why be in ministry? We’re in ministry because of who God is and what God has done in Christ. We’re in ministry because we’ve spent enough time with Jesus that we’ve learned to see people from Jesus’ perspective. Instead of just singing, “The world behind me, the cross before me,” we also sing, “The world before me and Christ is with me.” The more time we spend with Jesus the more the things that break his heart break our heart.

If there is no God, if God was not in Christ reconciling the world to himself, if the Son of Man did not come to seek and to save the lost and to give his life as a ransom for many, if Jesus did not die on the cross, bearing our sins, and then rise victoriously, defeating all the powers of sin, death and hell, then sure, there’d be no point to be in ministry. But if we believe those things – and I take those as pretty basic Christian convictions – ministry is the natural outcome.

But for whom? Just for those whose profession is ministry? Just for those who have the title? Not at all. If we’re with Jesus, ministry is the natural outcome. Period. Whether we be categorized as clergy or lay, whether we’re just starting on the road with Jesus or long-traveled, whatever our age or place in life, ministry is the natural outcome of responding to the call the echoes from Jesus’ life lived and given for us.

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Assurance: Why? part 2

Posted on August 4, 2012 by Richard Heyduck

So let’s suppose that the reason we are interested in finding assurance of salvation is not so we can feel at ease doing our own thing in the world, with only minimal and occasional glances back to make sure we’re still tethered to God. What are the other options?

Think of someone who is married. Walk up to them and ask, “How do you know you are married?” I’ve asked this question many times and after enduring looks of confusion, perhaps the most common answer is, “I was there!”

It is an odd question, isn’t it? Except in cases of amnesia it’s likely rare that anyone would ask, “How do you know you’re married?” Once married, we just live as married people.

Or suppose you walk up to a person on a baseball field and ask, “Are you playing baseball? If so, how do you know?” Again, an odd question. If one is in a baseball game one’s focus is on playing the game, not on stepping back and wondering if one really is playing or not. (Of course, if you’ve ever seen a game, realize that T-ball is an exception here. Who knows what’s going on in the minds of those youngsters.)

I want to suggest that having assurance of salvation is like knowing that you’re married or knowing that you’re playing baseball. Assurance is something we gain as we “play the game.” Salvation is not an extrinsic reward added on after this life. It is an ongoing relationship with God that starts at the moment we receive Jesus. As willing participants in his story, salvation is a life we live. Assurance comes as we live that life.

Can we do marriage poorly? No doubt about that. It is not merely doing marriage poorly that detracts from and makes us begin to doubt our relationship; rather, it can be pulling back and objectifying the marriage, thinking of it as something “out there,” instead of something in which I am intimately involved.

Similarly, assurance of salvation becomes a problem for us when we withdraw from our relationship with God, maybe not far, but far enough that we begin objectifying it. Remember Wesley’s three General Rules I mentioned the other day? The third of those would have us engage in a life with God: immersion in Scripture, prayer, fellowship, worship, communion, etc. When we disengage from these disciplines, we disengage from life with God – from the continuing life with God we call salvation. Seen this way, these and other Christian practices are not things we do in order to have a relationship with God; no, they are expressions, ways of being that come from having a relationship with God.

If this picture is correct, the point of having assurance is not so we can have God in our pocket as a safety card while we go do our own thing. No, the point of assurance becomes having the confidence and security to base our identity on Christ and to join in his mission. Because we have assurance, we don’t need to worry or fear. We can trust God; we can obey God. God will see us through.

Posted in Assurance, Salvation, Theology | Leave a comment