Terry Eastland recently wrote about the transformation of Davidson College. In the past couple of years the trustees have led the school from association with the Presbyterian Church (USA) to merely being an expression of the Reformed Tradition. While they are dropping the requirement that all the trustees be Christians (it’s been a few decades since all the faculty were required to be Christians), they are adding a chair in “Reformed Theology.” While some might see this as a step away from Christianity, Eastland says the trustees see the move as flowing distinctly from their conception of the Reformed Tradition.

While I am neither a Presbyterian not a participant in the Reformed Tradition (though I consider myself a friend of that tradition), I see parallels between Davidson’s situation and United Methodist higher education.

Since my own attendance at an institution of higher education that was United Methodist but not Christian, I have been wondering how we lost our colleges and universities. While my alma mater still claims its United Methodist affiliation, many others have left even the scent of affiliation in behind. USC and Syracuse were once Methodist schools. Perhaps they had left the church behind because of the secularizing forces of modern academia. If Eastland’s account of the happenings at Davidson is correct, another possibility appears.

At Davidson the trustees, not academics, led the change. Their very conception of what the church’s nature and purpose is identified as the cause.

Indeed, the trustees made clear their belief that the Reformed tradition actually provides the basis for their decisions. Writing in the Charlotte Observer, the college chaplain, the Reverend Robert Spach, declared that the Reformed tradition “in which we stand” is not one that “fears, excludes or belittles those who are different” but is “ecumenical in spirit,” the point being that ecumenism—a truth now more fully understood, apparently—compelled opening board membership to non-Christians. Spach envisioned the “pursuit of truth” by an ecumenical board: “We [Christians] tell others what we believe and also humbly…listen to [the] beliefs” of “people of other faiths”—and “perhaps” learn “from each other.” For Spach, an ecumenical board will be better able to pursue truth than an entirely Christian board.

When I hear “Reformed Tradition” it’s not ecumenism that comes to mind. I think instead of Calvin, Knox, the sovereignty of God, TULIP, common grace, etc. According to Spach, the “Reformed Tradition” seems indistinguishable from the ethos of modern academia: tolerance, constant seeking for truth, humility, and diversity. Surely these four virtues are unquestionably good (assuming, of course, that we know for sure what they are), but surely there is more to the Reformed – or Christian – Tradition than these modern platitudes? My search for institutions of higher education that are both United Methodist and Christian has led me to examine many University mission statements. Though many remain “affiliated” with the United Methodist Church – part of the Wesleyan Tradition – they tout an ethos indistinguishable from Davidson or completely secular schools.

And yet they see themselves as being faithful to the Wesleyan Tradition!

What Eastland’s article suggests is that it’s not the colleges that are to blame: they’re merely tools of academia and the church. Rather, it is the theological and ecclesiological traditions themselves that have become sterile. Not only do our institutions not produce new participants (“babies”), we actually think that reproduction is a bad thing. We don’t have the truth – well, maybe a little bit, but every other tradition out there has at least as much (maybe more). Why should our new children be Methodists? They can have everything out institutions offer – intelligence, courage, character and success – and sleep in on Sunday mornings.

Until we learn to see Christianity and the Methodist tradition as true – as worth reproducing (which is not the same as saying all other traditions are valueless), we will continue to lose not only our institutions, but also our next generation.

The opening sentence of the piece really captures it all:

Jurors are being asked to relive the raw emotion of Sept. 11, 2001, as prosecutors argue that Zacarias Moussaoui should be put to death for conspiring with the hijackers.

I caught a bit about this as I was headed out the door this morning that really got me thinking about the sentencing phaseof the trial.

The line I heard as I was leaving echoed the above; it went something like, “Presecutors will attempt to replay the emotion that overtook our nation in the days following September 11, 2001.”

Should that really be the goal? I understand the prosecutors may be out to get as harsh a punishment as possible, but do we really want the sentence for a crime to be dependent upon the emotion evoked by its commission?

In his The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History, Philip Bobbitt writes about (among other things) the transition from the Nation State to the Market State. During the Nation State era – roughly from the mid-nineteenth century until now – the legitimating feature of the State has been the State’s ability to care for its citizens and make them prosperous. Bobbitt interprets the major wars of this period as the conflict between Fascism, Communism and Liberal Democracy as they struggled for to exemplify the best model for the Nation State. The era now comes to an end – so Bobbitt suggests – with Liberal Democracy in the ascendancy.

If Bobbitt’s assessment of the purpose of the Nation State is correct, it’s clear that not all States have done equally well at taking care of their citizens. If we apply this model to the current debate about immigration we might say that millions of people from south of the USA have decided that the USA does a better job providing for its people than do their Nation States of origin. If this is what they are thinking when they come to the USA – by any means possible – their decisions are clearly rational.

But what does the USA do about it?

If the job of the Nation State is to take care of its citizens, that care is made easier to the extent that those citizens can take care of themselves. In the past generation, however, some have come to think that if their lack of ability to care for themselves, i.e., meet their own needs, comes from outside themselves (society, the environment, etc.), then the Nation State needs to step in and take care of them. After all, that’s the purpose of the Nation State, right? If I get into debt, the Nation State should have bankruptcy laws in place to enable me to unload some of my debt. If I get sick and can’t afford treatment, I expect the Nation State to have policies and procedures (and cash!) in place to pay for my treatment.

Let’s put something else into the mix – the commands of Jesus. Jesus tells his followers to love their neighbors as themselves. Jesus says, “Follow me,” and proceeds to demonstrate care and concern for the poor and outcast. Given Jesus – and the biblical tradition for that matter – it’s not surprising that Christians think it a good thing to care for the people around them.

But is Christian “care” the same as the Nation State’s “care?” If we find that we are a Christian Nation (State), then one might think these “cares” are one and the same. However, we find that the USA is constitutionally prohibited from being a Christian Nation (State). (It’s another matter whether the “constitution” of Christianity allows room for the USA or any other State to be a “Christian” Nation State, but that’s not today’s topic.) While I can’t help but think that the American ideal of “care” has been significantly influenced by the Christian ideal of “care,” they ought to be thought of as different things.

Why?

Lacking time for a complete answer, here are a couple of ideas.

1. The Nation State’s practice of “care” is combined with the powers of the State to compel care. With the need for a large, impartial (and thus usually impersonal) system of care, the Nation State must compel funding. It gets expensive to care for so many – especially as the number of those needing care continues to rise. Most illegal immigrants are poor. As caring Americans, we assume poor people will have great need. If it is the Nation State’s job to care for these needy people, the Nation State will need our money to care for them. If the numbers of the needy rise uncontrollably, then we assume that the State’s need for our money will also rise uncontrollably. This kind of thinking can easily lead to the view that immigration – especially the unlimited immigration of needy people – is a huge problem for the rest of us.
2. The leaders of the Nation State are elected by the citizens of that Nation State, usually on the basis of the citizen’s judgment of how well those leaders are taking care of them. If the leaders of the Nation State take better care of people in other Nation States (i.e., produce more prosperity for them – think here of some of the complaints about out-sourcing), the citizens might think this a good thing, but may be more likely to elect other leaders, whom they perceive as more able to provide for their prosperity. In less verbose fashion, Nation States have borders. Intelligent Nation States know that what they do beyond their borders influences the prosperity of their own State, but they also know the extent of their power and greatest responsibility lie within their borders. It’s not surprising that once a Nation State attains Super Power status it is loath to help others join the club.
3. One reason I doubt there can be such a thing as a Christian Nation State is that Christian thinking about boundaries is very different from National thinking. Jesus commands us to make disciples of “every nation.” The relevant distinction for Christians, then, is not about nationality, but about disciple status – not “Are these folks from my nation,” but “Are these folks disciples (yet).” The disciple/not-yet-disciple boundary shapes our relationships with people. This boundary, however, is not a love/don’t-love boundary. If there were a Christian Nation State, and that State were at the top of the heap, i.e., were a Superpower, that State, inasmuch as it was Christian, would not aim to keep others down so as to maintain its status, but rather expend itself to bring others up.
4. If a Christian Nation State existed and were counted as a Superpower, and as a Christian Superpower sought to bring other Nations upward also, one would think the notion of Superpower would need modification. As it now stands, a Nation that is a Superpower is first one militarily and secondly economically. If it were possible for a Christian State to be at the top of the heap militarily – and still be a Christian State, it would seem odd to want to multiply the number of States with militaries as strong as its own. An argument to the contrary might analogize from the benefits of having an armed citizenry. The more paranoid argue that citizens need to be armed so they can resist their own government when it turns evil. The less paranoid argue that citizens need to be armed to discourage their evil neighbors from perpetrating violence against them. The resulting picture would be of in increasing number of Nation States armed to the teeth practicing a version of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). While some might think this an improvement, I don’t. (Yes, I know that stating my desires doesn’t count as a rational argument. In my experience fear and paranoia, while they can be effective motivators in the short term, they don’t work well or tend to the health of a society in the long term.) If we flip the prioritization for defining Superpowers, so that the economic replaces the military, perhaps that would work better from a Christian point of view. This hypothetical Christian Nation State would them aim not merely to make its own citizens prosperous, but also to find ways to help citizens of other Nations achieve prosperity as well. While this sounds exceedingly good and noble, the history of foreign aid over the past fifty years shows it to also be exceedingly difficult.

What does all this have to do with the question of immigration? The purpose of the Nation State is to take care of its citizens. The purpose of the church is to inhabit, exemplify and propagate the Kingdom of God. The Nation State looks to geographical boundaries to define its span of care. The Church looks to people in need to define its span of care.

The clear advantage of the Nation State’s care vis-à-vis the Church’s care is that the former is eminently more reasonable. We have limited resources. Clearly can’t do everything. We must take care of our own first, then, if there’s anything left, we’ll share with others. Very logical. But does it sound like Jesus?

The former Soviet Union had two main newspapers – Pravda (Truth) and Izvestiya (News). I’ve heard that it used to be said, “There’s no truth in the News, and no news in the Truth.”

Reports of another study (there have been several over the past many years) on the healing power of prayer have been in the papers the past few days. Apparently they found no statistically significant support for the notion that prayer helps the healing process.

Can it be that there is more insight in a parody than in the reports themselves? Scott Ott writes:

Prayer Study: Humans Fail to Manipulate God

by Scott Ott

(2006-03-31) — A team of scientists today ended a 10-year study on the so-called “power of prayer” by concluding that God cannot be manipulated by humans, not even by scientists with a $2.4 million research grant.

The scientists also noted that their work was “sabotaged by religious zealots” secretly praying for study subjects who were supposed to receive no prayer.

The allegations came at a news conference where researchers announced their findings that intercessory prayer by two Roman Catholic religious communities and a group from the Missouri-based Unity church failed to produce better results for patients recovering from heart surgery.

“As it turns out, God was not impressed by our academic credentials, our substantial funding base, and our rigorous study protocols,” said lead researcher Dr. Herbert Benson, a cardiologist and director of the Mind/Body Medical Institute near Boston. “I get the feeling we just spent 10 years looking through the wrong end of the telescope.”

While patients who knew they were the targets of the study’s intercessory prayer team actually had more post-operative complications, Dr. Benson admitted he failed to prevent friends and relatives from praying for the “no prayer” control group.

“It really burns me up that we worked so hard, only to be undermined by an anonymous army of intellectual weaklings on their knees,” he said.

Dr. Benson said he would now seek $10 million in grants to explore whether fire can be called down from heaven to kindle a pile of wood. The control group’s wood will be drenched in water to prevent combustion.

While scripture teaches us to pray – as an act of worship, as a way of living out a relationship with God and to cry out to God with our needs – scripture taken as a whole does not incline us to think prayer is a technology to manipulate God to get us what we want. We pray, not because prayer works, but because we belong to God.

A while back I questioned the US investment in Afghanistan. After billions of dollars and many lives, they put one of their own on trial for becoming a Christian.

It may not be billions, but we – the citizens of Texas – are supporting a university professor who advocates the elimination of 90% of the human race. Dr. Eric Pianka of the University of Texas presented his case at a recent meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University. The link above is to the report of the event by Dr. Forrest Mims.

HT: Uncommon Descent.

Enter the Rainbow (Andy Bryan) and Locusts and Honey (John the Methodist) are writing on the recent immigration debate here, here, and here.

Andy offers several scriptural texts that encourage loving attention to foreigners, a care rooted in Israel’s status in Egypt and the Christian status as foreigners in the world. Hebrews, instead of urging xenophobia enjoins philoxenia – love of strangers (usually translated “hospitality”) instead of fear of strangers.

He then claims:

This is one reason we should care about immigration in our country today. It should be important to us because it is important to God. This is why we cannot allow U.S. House Bill 4437 or U.S. Senate Bill 2454 to slam shut our border and harshly penalize our brothers and sisters sojourning in our land. Rather than chase foreigners home, we should welcome them with the radical hospitality that our faith calls for. In Christ, there is no Mexican, Sudanese, Belgian, or American, for all are one in Christ Jesus.

In his second post Andy summarizes what the relevant comments in the UM Social Principles (a good place for UMs to look) and comments:

The Social Principles of our denomination say, “The rights and privileges a society bestows upon or withholds from those who comprise it indicate the relative esteem in which that society holds particular persons and groups of persons.
“We affirm all persons as equally valuable in the sight of God. We therefore work toward societies in which each person’s value is recognized, maintained, and strengthened.”

Interpretation of this principle hinges in part on what is meant by “those who comprise [a society].” If “those who comprise” the United States are only legal citizens, then this principle does not apply to undocumented immigrants. But if the phrase, “those who comprise it” is an inclusive phrase that takes into consideration all people who are living in the society regardless of official status, then we must conclude that no consideration of legal status ought to be made when affirming a person’s inherent value in God’s eyes, and therefore in ours. We cannot accept policies that deny rights to a particular group of people and devalue them based solely on whether or not they have jumped through all the necessary hoops, themselves flawed, of becoming legal citizens.

Rights and privileges are bestowed by a system of laws. Citizenship is a right offered under certain conditions, and with citizenship comes other rights. Are the Social Principles suggesting that there should be no differentiation between citizens and non-citizens? From a US perspective, I don’t think that would work. From a Christian perspective, I think it’s irrelevant. As Andy notes, Christians are called to love and extend kindness to all. While some might infer that this means Christians must confer the status of citizenship on all who come into our land, we certainly don’t even think things work that way in our churches. While we show love and kindness to all the people around us, we do not unilaterally confer membership upon all we see. There is even an ongoing debate in United Methodism about standards and processes of membership.

John the Methodist recognizes the same issues as Andy, but comes down in a very different place. He says,

That dominant culture is being washed away in favor of a different one from Latin America. The new wave of immigrants have little to no desire to assimilate to the dominant culture. In fact, they are becoming the dominant culture. That bothers me because I like my culture and I don’t want to see it go away. Many Americans agreed in the past, which is why immigration policies a century ago advocated assimilation, and largely succeeded. We made a deal with immigrants: you can come to our country, but you have to join our culture. As an independent polity, I think that we have inherent property rights to our own territory and can therefore require such bargains. No one has a right to come to our country anymore than anyone has a right to walk into your house and start living there.

But beyond our lovely culture being absorbed into a different one, we Americans also face a real political danger from massive immigration from Latin America. Healthy states are ones that are largely uniform. Although multiethnic societies can thrive, multicultural societies fail, almost without exception, such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (which don’t exist anymore. Guess why). Multiple divergent cultures within one polity ultimately lead to Balkanization, a process exacerbated if those divergent cultures actually have different languages. If people can’t even talk to each other easily, they have trouble forming a cohesive society…
So culturally and politically, let’s do the smart thing: drive the illegal aliens out, keep them out, and wait a couple generations for the Mexican population here legally to be absorbed into our culture before resuming large-scale immigration from Mexico.

Clearly John’s perspective is more “Americanist” than Andy’s. I don’t know if he’s read Samuel Huntingdon’s Who Are We? But the points he brings up are discussed in great detail in that work.

Here’s my take.

First, both Andy and John need to tighten up their use of “we”, “us”, “our” language. Do these first person plural pronouns speak of us as Americans, Christians, Anglos, Caucasians? Is it our relation to a culture, a nation, a polity, a race or Jesus and his kingdom that most determine our action?

Surely “in Christ” cultural and ethnic variance is unimportant (which is why we United Methodists make no ethnic distinctions in our churches and ministries), but are we such a Christian nation that what is said about the church applies to the nation? As a non-Constantinian, I’d say not.

Second, with John, I’d say that traditional American culture is greatly weakened by a flood of immigrants who do not assimilate to American culture. But that semi-mythical American culture has first been weakened from other sources. It’s been weakened from within by the exaggeration of its traits of radical individualism and consumerism. It’s been weakened from without by the type of multiculturalism that insists that no culture is “right” – except the other guys.

This view is found not only in American culture, but in the church. When found in the church (which is all to easy to do), this view seems to say that Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, etc., are all right – but Christians, if they are right about anything (and not doing crusades or inquisitions), are only right about the platitudes that “everybody” agrees about anyway.

The USA is a sort of organism. As an organism, it, like all cultures, has a sort of immune system. Not only is the US immune system not working well, but it has also become common to think the mere having of an immune system to be a bad thing.

We have come to think this in the church also. If orthodoxy can be thought of as part of our immune system – something that defends “us” against “not us,” – orthodoxy is thought of as an evil. Openness – apparently to everything – is much better than orthodoxy (which is inherently narrow).

Does the US need an immune system? Only if it wants to continue to be the US. If we’re happy becoming another Mexico/Guatemala/Colombia/etc. – which John the Methodist evidently doesn’t want to do (and which I’m not excited about either), then we’ll have to do something.
I’m pessimistic that American Christians can be very helpful in this debate. A generation or two ago we decided to minimize the boundaries in our traditions. UMs in particular (I know them best) continue to fall apart because of this. “You’re a Buddhist? Well sure, you can be a UM (bishop) too.” “You’re an agnostic? Well sure, you can be a UM too.” “You deny the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Resurrection of Jesus? No problem – you not only can be one of us but we’ll either make you a bishop or hire you to teach in our seminaries to train our pastors.”

These questions of identity are huge. Treating the answers dichotomously – EITHER we’re completely open, to the point of having no boundaries, OR we’re completely closed, to the point of killing those who are different (which seems to be the current approach)- will be a huge mistake. We need to develop some nuanced accounts of identity that are healthier and more productive. That’ll take more work than I can give to the topic today.

Why is it that publishing companies shell out bucks to pastors of mega-churches to write books in which they say “it isn’t about numbers or buildings, it is about people;” yet the only reason these individuals are paid to write these books is that they have built huge buildings and attracted massive numbers of people?

This past Sunday I began my message with a reference to the Jon Stewart interview on Crossfire. I offered to provide a link to watch this video, and have done so on my church’s website. You can either click the heading of this port to go straight to that page, or ckick to go to our website, choose “From the Pastor.” My sermon is also available there.

Of course, “Sinners” is a Christian term – or at least a term with meaning circumscribed by particular religious traditions. Other terms, taken from other contexts might include: “Miscreant,” “deviant,” “criminal,” “traitor.”

In the nation formerly known as the USSR, people who were accused of “sinning” against the system were dealt with quite harshly. Depending on the whims of the leaders, they might be tortured, killed, sent to the Gulag, or put in an psyciatric hospital. While this last option might sound benevolent, it was nothing of the sort in actual soviet practice. You see, the doctors tried to cure their patients. Or at least that’s that they called it. Massive doses of drugs. Electro-shock. Whatever it took to cure them of their sin. Sins like believing in democracy, freedom, God – all those were illnesses worthy of a soviet cure.

The Corner at National Review Online has been following the story of Abdul Rahman. They point to a story at CNN that the Afghans have come up with a possible out for Rahman: He’s insane.

On Wednesday a state prosecutor said Rahman may be mentally unfit to stand trial, The Associated Press reports.

“We think he could be mad. He is not a normal person. He doesn’t talk like a normal person,” The AP quoted prosecutor Sarinwal Zamari as saying.

Moayuddin Baluch, a religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, said Rahman would undergo a psychological examination, according to the AP.

“Doctors must examine him,” the AP quoted Baluch as saying. “If he is mentally unfit, definitely Islam has no claim to punish him. He must be forgiven. The case must be dropped.”
So Mr. Rahman has an out. Innocent by reason of insanity. What does that mean in Afghanistan? When someone in the US is declared “not guilty by reason of insanity” does that mean their life goes on as normal, as if whatever it was they did wasn’t done? I think not.

What do they do with Rahman if he’s declared insane? Will they do the “compassionate” thing and seek (i.e., enforce) his “healing?”

As a Christian, I understand that turning away from Jesus can be an expression of mental unhealth. But as a follower of Jesus most of the common courses of action are ruled out for me. I cannot torture them into health (that was the mistake of that benevolent institution known as the Spanish Inquisition). I can also not imprison them or kill them.

What does Jesus say to do to people – to sinners – who won’t listen to reason? (I have Matthew 18 15-20 in mind.) He says, “Treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” Does that sound brutal? After all, from the view point of holiness, those are the bad guys. But think a minute. How did Jesus treat pagans and tax collectors?

Once we look at Jesus – which is what his followers are supposed to do – we see our way clearly. Our role is to love sinners (the miscreants, deviants, criminals – those who depart from the faith). Our role is to treat them as we would any outsider – as those for whom Christ died, as those whom we are to love into the kingdom.

Where does Islam stand on this? I wouldn’t be surprised if there are multiple traditions on this, partly depending on the weight given to certain Koranic passages (like, “There is no compulsion in religion”) and certain passages in the Hadith, as well as other cultural traditions that have built up here and there over the centuries.

Of course, it may be the case that Afghanistan, an ostensible Muslim nation, ends up doing the Pushtun or Uzbek (or Afghani) thing instead of the Muslim thing. I know that’s the case here in America (claimed by some to be a Christian – especially in the Muslim world – nation).

We’ll see.