The sermon I hope for from every White Evangelical Church this Sunday

This is the sermon I hope will be preached from every white evangelical pulpit this Sunday.

1. We deplore the way that President Elect Trump has talked about immigrants. We follow a Lord who was an immigrant in Egypt. We are heartbroken that people within our community are afraid. We weep with the teachers of Southwest community campus, who cried as they thought of their students whose parents are here without documentation. We think President Trump is a blowhard who said many outrageous things, but we hope he is not going to actually act on them. Should he begin to attempt his mass deportation: We pledge to oppose any effort at mass deportation. Our best lawyers are going to work in the courts to keep families together. Our homes and churches will be open and places of sanctuary. We will place out bodies in front of the agents of deportation.

2. We are disgusted by the things President Elect Trump has said about women and the way he has treated women and their bodies. We also recognize the unique burden an unplanned pregnancy places on women and their bodies. We follow a Lord whose Mother was not planning to be pregnant with him. We pledge to open our checkbooks to help with the expenses that come with an unplanned pregnancy. We pledge to open our homes if that would be a help through the pregnancy and beyond. If a mother wishes to put her child up for adoption we pledge to open our homes to adopt.

3. We are sickened by the way President Elect Trump talked about many minorities. Many of us in the white community have no idea what it is like to have been the victims of systemic oppression through the centuries. But, we do follow a Lord who was part of a people who were under systemic oppression.We have no idea what it is like to be in your shoes. When we think about having “the talk” with our sons or daughters we are thinking about talking about “sex” – not what our sons and daughters need to do to be safe if they are pulled over. We pledge to be better listeners, and after listening, we desire to be allies in the struggle for equal justice for all.

I think a sermon like that might go a ways towards bringing some peace and comfort to the people within the US who have been deeply troubled since Tuesday evening.

A Parable in response to a Parable of my former Professor

My former Professor Mike Wittmer, has written a parable. I have written one in response. Hopefully this qualifies as playful engagement.

There once was a race of people that had enslaved people from a different continent after having conquered the indigenous people of the land they now inhabited. The enslaved cried out for justice, but were told that a Holy book authorized their enslavement, and in fidelity to the book they must remain enslaved. But eventually the cries of the enslaved reached the ears of the high King and they were emancipated. They were emancipated, but they were still a minority.

The majority race used their Holy book to keep the minority race as  domestic workers and field workers and did everything within their power to keep the minority race from being educated. The majority race hung over 3000 of the minority race from trees whenever they felt the minority race got uppity. The minority race cried to the high King for justice. Slowly but surely many hearts changed within the nation. And the government of the land declared that the schools of the land would be integrated.

This greatly angered members of the majority race with a particular read of their holy book. One of them named Job Bones had started a school, and really, really did not want people of the minority race attending the school. The government instructed Job Bones University to integrate. Leaders of the religious community of the majority race rallied around Job Bones University. 

They rallied but they began to realize that their base was not completely charged up about fighting desegregation. It no longer felt like the moral high ground to the base. The religious leaders of the majority race looked for another issue to further their agenda, and they landed on an issue they had not shown much concern about in the past. In fact a number of them had spoken on the other side of the issue. But they decided on the issue and gave it a compelling name and declared themselves the Righteous People. Their base took greatly to this issue.  They elected a new leader of the land using that issue. Under that leader the thing they decried actually increased.

Years passed. And a miraculous thing happened in the land. A man who was similar in race to the people who had been formerly enslaved became the leader of the land. Under his leadership the thing the Righteous People decried actually decreased, even though this leader did not share the position of the Righteous People. The following election a man who was not a part of the Righteous People, but who was the same race as the Righteous People decided to seek the highest office the land. He said many racially charged things. Things that were offensive and disappointing to the formerly enslaved people. This man seeking office told the Righteous People that he was for their one grave concern, (remember the issue they had not cared about previously?, but the issue their leaders chose as a surrogate for fighting desegregation). 

The religious leaders of the Righteous People mostly - though certainly not all -eventually lined up behind this candidate, because he was for their issue, even though the thing they hated so much actually declined under the leader that belonged to the race of the formerly enslaved people. The religious base of the Righteous People voted at a 4 to 1 margin for the man who had said the racist things, but gave lip service to the issue that the religious leaders had convinced them was the most important issue. The 4 to 1 ratio of the Righteous People was a prime reason that the man who had said the racist things was elected. 

People who belonged to the previously enslaved race were shocked. They read the same holy book as the people of the majority race. They served the same high king. They had voted in an inverse way than the Righteous People. They were sad and they were scared. The man who had said the racist things had threatened mass deportations of another race of people, who also read the same holy book and served the same high king. He had said shockingly derogatory things about women. But, he was for the one issue that the Righteous People had been taught was the most important. How would you explain to people who belonged to previously enslaved race that you had to vote for the man who said racist things?

To the White Evangelicals who loved me....

Over the course of the past few years, I left my former tribe of conservative white evangelical Christians. I recently heard a much more prominent former member of the tribe, say that he was once told: “Love is not rude, and it is rude to leave when you are wanted, and it is rude to stay when people want you to leave.”

I may have been guilty of the latter. I may have overstayed my welcome when my tribe was ready for me to leave. For that I am sorry. I hope I attempted to stay for the right reasons - because I do believe in unity and because I loved people in the tribe – and I still do - and because I thought change was possible. I’m sure those were part of my motivations, but there was also likely the mixed motivations of fear of being without a tribe, and the prideful motivation of wanting to make a point. All together these motivations led me to overstay my welcome – that was rude - and I am sorry.

Today, I am first writing a letter of thanks. And second, what I hope will be a charitable critique of some the darker elements of the history of the tribe.

First thanks! Thanks for loving me. I was without a doubt absolutely loved by my tribe, from Sunday school teachers to pastors to professors.  The love was expressed through welcome and acceptance and sacrificial giving of time – thank you. Thank you for teaching me that grace cannot be earned. Thanks for pointing me towards Jesus. To paraphrase Walter Percy, because of the gift you gave me early in life, I have lived a Christ haunted life (I mean that in the best way). Thank you for making me Biblically literate. Thanks for helping me as I grew to recognize the importance of forming a Biblical worldview. Thank you for encouraging learning and the life of the mind, and for encouraging me to seek to do all things well in the name of Jesus. So truly thanks to all who loved me well.  Thanks, especially to my first conservative community that surrounded me with love, grounded me in the idea of grace, and wrapped me the pages of the Bible. Thanks to my last evangelical community, who really did love me well and was quite patient with me, even as it became increasingly clear that I did not fit in the tribe any more. I wish the separation would not have been so painful. Truly I am thankful. I love how I was loved and accepted. Thank you.

Now two brief critique(s). In this I want to first make it clear that this is a critique of a system, not of people, or if there is a critique of people it is limited to the most powerful.

1.       The great sense of belonging and love within our community was often bought at the price of painting ourselves as the morally superior. Morally superior to the “liberals, secular humanists, Hollywood, evolutionists, etc.” I think there is a way to belong within a tribe that is not dependent on denigrating other tribes. I think “othering” the people with whom we disagree is ultimately bad for us, and for them.  Once in a Bible study I described the life of a man I did not know well as a “den of iniquity.” Within my tribe that was a perfectly acceptable explanation of the man’s life. In fact it was the acceptable explanation of the man’s life. Years later when I actually knew that man, he said, “You know the den of iniquity, was really just a den – with books.”

2.       My old tribe, white evangelicalism, has severely underestimated the degree to which the theology of the tribe has been shaped by a sense of white privilege and American exceptionalism. That is the polite way of saying racial politics. I mean no offense but I think it is a simple matter of fact that the tribe of my childhood had a de facto racial prejudice. Here are three things I recall vividly: A) My Sunday school teacher who truly loved me, and patiently taught us saying with great sincerity that whites and blacks should not marry because, “what fellowship has light with dark.” B) Taking a trip to Detroit and being warned to put our wallets in our front pockets so that we wouldn’t be robbed by "the coloreds." C) A testimony time when a woman (she was mentally ill) stood up and said, “We went to Detroit and I thank Jesus that we didn’t let the N--------s push us around.” My recollection is that this was met with chuckles – I’m certain there was no reprimand that said "No! this is not who we are as Jesus’ people" Now of course this is anecdotal, and I have only lived my life. So I’m sure that not all conservative Bible believing churches were this way. And again to be clear these people loved me, and taught me the Bible. But I hope it is patently obvious that this is racism and wrong. 

What I want to make clear is that these anecdotes are a small part of the systemic sin of America that has been peculiarly manifest in conservative evangelical Christianity. There is fairly compelling evidence that the peculiar evangelical obsession with the “inerrant infallible authorityof scripture” was rather closely tied first to a defense of slavery, and then to Jim Crow, and was leveraged against the civil rights movement. In fact I have recently learned that in many ways the battle against abortion was actuallymainly a proxy fight against desegregation. So I’m sad that people whom I love, and who love me have been misled by a system that is less than good news for all people. I'm sad and ashamed of some of the work I did in propping up the system for a season. So, if you find yourself still in the white evangelical tribe – I hope that you will take a long look at the racial basis of the doctrine of inerrancy, infallibility and absolute authority. And the long history of the tribe in - at best - remaining silent in the face of racial injustice, but more often propagating injustice in the name of being Biblical.

So to my old tribe white evangelical Christianity – thank you very much for everything you gave me. I have left the tribe, and it is good. It does not mean I don’t love you, it means the tribe doesn’t fit me anymore, and I will not be returning - it would be rude and love is not rude. I hope to playfully, non-anxiously engage with people still in the tribe who wonder if there is a bigger world outside of white evangelical Christianity. I hope to humbly listen to the voices of people who were harmed by my old tribe. I hope I can be an ally in the struggle for justice for those who have been on the underside of power.  I hope I can in a helpful way name the dark side of White evangelical Christianity. 

Aleitha - Flash fiction

Aleithia

I start to open one eye slowly, but it’s too bright so I shut it tight. I’m awake, but wish I was still asleep and dreaming.  The dreams are my life. For ten years  I have lived in dreams, and sleepwalked through the waking world. 

Perhaps, this was inevitable. No memories are earlier than the question that centered my morning, “Joey, what were your dreams?”

My parents weren’t mystics, or if they were they wouldn’t have admitted it. They were, as was popular to say among their people, “grounded in the faith.” Their people prized certainty like the most precious of metals. Liberals traded in nuance and complexity. We sought pure faith worth more than gold.  Doubt was an enemy kept at bay, by loud recitals of the truth. We wrapped ourselves in a warm blanket of certainty against an increasingly cold and faithless world.

Within the community of faith, my parents lived with wide-eyed wonder beyond the grasp of other members with their fixation on certainty.

So the days began, “Joey what were your dreams?”

With eyes closed I roll my head the other way, and I again slowly open one. My left one.  Always the left, so that the first waking images hit my intuitive, mystical right hemisphere, and it can speak  before the logical left gets a voice. I open the left eye first because of Aleithia, my love.

Aleithia found me in no man’s land between the faithful and the faithless, shell-shocked from the death of my god and brought me to herself.

We met in senior seminar. Four years after freshman anthropology, where I had learned that god was dead, and only the most primitive held to such superstitions. I lost god, and I stopped dreaming. I lived in the dead world where beauty is false and the only truth is that we are a random collection of urges. In this empty universe, our flesh and our bones crawl over this sun scorched earth driven by nothing but the randomness of our dna, and its will to propogate.

In senior seminar I recited our creed with the rest that beauty is illusion, and god is dead. She. Aleithia, heard me recite the liturgy and she came to me.

After the last class, she spoke to me for the first time.

“What’s your name?”

“Joey.”

Before I could ask hers, “Joey, you don’t want what you said to be true.”

Defensively. “What I want or don’t want has nothing to do with what is.”

Smilingly a little sadly, “You could not be more mistaken.  I am dancing tonight, come and see and you will begin to understand.”

She danced in the old campus chapel, the anthropology prof called a testament to the power of superstition.  She stood alone eyes down waiting for the music began. As the music began she turned her face to the heavens and I was undone. Tears I could not explain flowed freely, from an un-dammed stream of longing.

She found me after the dance, already dismissing the tears. “See Joey, there is beauty. If you want, you can explain it away. If you do you will lose your soul. But, if you want, you can choose to see beauty. You see Joey what you most deeply desire and what you choose to see is everything.”

I chose beauty. In choosing beauty I returned to God. I returned with the wonder my parents had known even amidst the certainty of their community. I returned through beauty, and beauty led me to mystery deeper than shallow certitude. Months later Aleithia read this to me. “In the future we will be mystics or we will be nothing.” 

I embraced mystery and cultivated my intuitive longing. I learned the complexity of the hemispheres of my mind, and my right side’s ability to embrace mystery and beauty. When Aleithia found me and returned me to God, I learned to truly see.

I again learned to dream.

I dream of Aleithia and her dancing. Then I awake, and I open my left eye so the first images of the waking day, play in the right hemisphere.

I open my left eye. I’m still in the attic. In this attic we hide from the fundamentalists - the godless and the god-fearing. They began burning the earth and each other ten years after our wedding.  We have hid for ten years. We hide on the side of the godless, because they are slightly more likely to be humane when they find us - but make no mistake they are fundamentalists. We hide in the attic, waiting for the endless war to end and look out on the world they have painted grey with death.

This morning I open my eye, I see that Aleithia is not beside me. I look at the roof where jagged rusting nails poke through and intermittent holes let in rain in a storm, and now the light of the morning.  I see it all first with my left eye - my eye of mystical vision. I see dust particles dancing a timeless dance across the rays of light - universes unto themselves.

.

I look towards the window, and there is Aleithia her unwashed hair loose, thick and in knots down past her shoulders. When we met it was jet-black, it is now shot through with grey.  Her back is to me. She is praying kneeling on the floor. Her feet once covered with elegant slippers are bare and filthy. She does not know I am awake. It is only her and God.

She stands and faces me though she can’t see that I’m awake. The once smooth skin around her eyes is dark and lined. She is (as am I) deathly pale from being trapped inside ten years.

She is going to dance to music only she can hear.

She begins eyes down on the floor, and then she lifts them to the heavens and begins the dance of the ages before an audience of one.

I have not seen her dance since we began hiding. I am undone. In this moment I know the truth of beauty. Aleithia dances even here.

Once there was a Great Nation

Once there was a great nation. The nation’s economy boomed. The arts and sports of the nation flourished. The people of the nation lived in a land of plenty where food was abundant, and the natural resources were rich. The nation projected a powerful military presence throughout the world. The nation prospered and the citizens of the nation prospered. The nation gave to its citizens and in return expected the citizens of the nation to treat the nation and the symbols of the nation as great. Citizens recognized how much the nation had given to them and gladly gave their awe, respect and honor to the sacred symbols and images of their nation. They pledged fidelity in postures of worship at the beginning of their educational day when they were young. And, throughout the year when many of them gathered in one place for great events, and the music began, young and old would adopt postures of worship in honor and respect for the greatness of their nation.

However, there lived within the nation, young people who were the descendants of a people whose ancestors had been forcefully brought to the land. These young peoples' ancestors had been brought to the land to labor for the benefit and wealth of the nation - to build the greatness of the nation. These people had been given the names of the masters who forced them to labor - and were made to forget the names of their native land. These young people, who were the descendants of these captive people, felt that there was a higher power to whom they owed allegiance. When the music began at the great holy events of the nation, they refused to adopt the posture of worship. For this they were greatly reviled.

http://www.loiscordelia.com/portrait/e30aa53b6

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=daniel+3&version=NIV

Gnosticism! Response #3 to Vineyard USA's Pastoring LGBT Persons

In speaking of how one might reach a third way or affirming position the Executive Team summarizes one way to the affirming view in this surprising way: “This position (affirming) will use the argument of some form of higher gnosis, which enables one to elevate certain biblical themes, like love and mercy, over other biblical themes, like creation and covenant law.”[i] 

The charge of Gnosticism is a surprising and persistent theme in a paper entitled Pastoring LGBT Persons. This theme runs throughout the paper and receives nearly as much space, (it might actually be more if we collected all he references to gnostic knowledge), with its own separate appendix as the portion of the paper that is actually about pastoring.[ii] 

From what I gather the crux of the argument is that humans are obviously either male and female, it is affirmed in the creation accounts, and it is backed up by simple biology and anatomy. During the time the paper was being written my Regional Leader summed up the argument for me in this way, "People need to pull down their pants and look in the mirror." (Granted less learned sounding than the charge of gnosticism, but more to the point). 

The Executive team quotes N.T. Wright at length along these lines. “For Wright, the results of the reemergence of the Gnostic worldviewhave been obvious, namely “confusion of sexual identity and behaviour.” ‘If the outside world, including my own body in its male or female particularity, are not
the good creation of a good and wise God, but rather the inessentials made by a blind and
stupid creator, and if instead my inner “experience” is what really counts, then I not only
can but must be true to the spark of light, and indeed of desire, which I find most deeply
within myself, even if it goes contrary to the apparent order of creation, the norms of
traditional society, and the teaching of the bible and the church.’”[iii] As is often the case N.T. Wright is eminently quotable, and I agree that what he is describing - “inessesentials made by a blind and stupid creator,” and the bit about “spark of light,” does sound pretty neo-Gnostic. So good for the executive team for taking a firm stand against neo-Gnosticism. 

But, here is where I am confused, where exactly has any proponent of the third-way talked about the inessentials made by a blind and stupid creator? Where exactly did they talk about an inner “spark of light?” The Executive Team seems to think this is actually how proponents of a third-way arrived at and talk about a third way. This might fit the classic definition of a straw man argument. Or, maybe the Executive team has some secret knowledge to which I am not privy, but I simply do not think that is the case. As I read it, the proponents of a third way confessed a degree of agnosticism regarding the etiology of gayness or lesbianism, but were open to the idea that there may well be biological factors (non-dualistic – material factors). What proponents of a third-way did say consistently is that there actually are LGBT Persons, that is these persons do actually exist, and that they were made by the good Creator. As I read the proponents of a third-way they were simply saying that the Good Creator God also made "Steve."[iv]

Early the Executive team summarizes the question before them in this way:

The basic issue that the Western world is currently struggling with comes down to this: do we human beings create the meaning and purpose of sex, or do we discover the meaning and purpose of sex? Does sex have a meaning totally apart from what you and I think about it and our job is to discover that meaning? Or does sex simply mean whatever we want it to mean? Is there a design for sex given to us by God, or do we just make it up as we go? Here’s the divide.[v]

And then summing up how they might answer if they were an advice columnist responding to a husband whose wife had an affair: “…God has a design for sex. When we step outside of that design, we get hurt and we hurt others….You know, there is a grain that runs through the moral universe and when you rub your hand against the grain, you pick up splinters.”[vi] Ok, great. Nobody wants splinters. I’m in for not getting splinters from the moral universe. But, as I read proponents of a third-way no one was saying we get to make up whatever meaning we want for sex. Again maybe the Executive Team has secret knowledge to which I am not privy. Proponents of a third-way within the Vineyard were asking if the moral universe had primarily to do with covenant, monogamy and fidelity in a to death do us part relationship, before God and in a covenantal community. Proponents were asking if there was a third-way in which this type of commitment could be opened to LGBT Persons.

I’m also confused, because in the above quote and in their quote of Wright the Executive Team seems to be saying that there in actuality may not be any such thing as LGBT persons. It would seem from the above quotes that the only way to be an LGBT person would be by just making “it up as we go.” But, earlier in the paper they approvingly quote Welsley Hill as he talks about realizing that he was gay:

"By the time I started high school, two things became clear to me. One was that I
was a Christian… The second was that I was gay. For as long as I could remember, I had been drawn,even as a child, to other males in some vaguely confusing way, and after puberty,
I had come to realize that I had a steady, strong, unremitting, exclusive sexual
attraction to persons of the same sex… It seemed more like noticing the blueness of my eyes than deciding I would take up skiing. It was never an option– ‘Do you want to be gay?’ ‘Yes, I do, please.’ It was a gradual coming to terms, not a conscious resolution.”[vii] 

It seems the Executive Team wants to recognize, at a minimum, that there was a certain is-ness to Hill being Gay. The team seems in approving of the this quote to be saying that a part of Hill's embodied, actual non-gnostic existence is his being gay. Yet, simultaneously the Executive Team of Vineyard USA wants to accuse proponents of the third way, of a gnosticism that makes up the meaning for sexuality as they go. Or, is the Executive Team saying that Hill may have felt that he was gay, but he was actually making it up? Based on their later quotes of Wright, I am not exactly sure how the executive might answer this question.

I find this Gnostic charge to be one of the most and perplexing, least solid and least satisfying parts f the entire paper. I think this partly for the reasons noted above, but the most perplexing part for me is found in the original quote I noted: “This position (affirming) will use the argument of some form of higher gnosis, which enables one to elevate certain biblical themes, like love and mercy, over other biblical themes, like creation and covenant law.” I am absolutely and completely befuddled, by the idea that elevating the themes of love or mercy, makes one a Gnostic. Love and mercy are themes that are Biblically elevated. By this reckoning the Bible is a gnostic book. Under this definition of Gnosticism, the Executive team will have snared in their gnostic net: Jesus – the greatest command is Love, Love the Lord your God…, (if greatest is not a form of elevation, then I do not understand the meaning of elevation);  again Jesus – “I desire mercy, not sacrifice;” and Jesus talked about weightier matters – justice and mercy (my understanding would be that weightier is not an antonym of elevated); Paul – the greatest of these is love (again maybe I am misinterpreting when I read greatest as a form of elevation); James – talks about the royal law of love – loving neighbor, and about mercy triumphing over judgement. The book of 1 John as I read it has primarily to do with love. I'm probably missing others, but these examples spring readily to mind as Biblical writers who elevated the themes of love and mercy. Outside the Bible they have put a lovely little song firmly in the gnostic camp  - Love and Mercy.

In seems the gnostic charge seems odd, unfounded and out of place in a paper on Pastoring LGBT Persons. To return to an earlier point, this again shows that this paper is actually not about pastoring actual LGBT persons. Pastroing LGBT Persons is about making a case for the Vineyard foul lines. Still even given reinforcement of foul lines as a goal, I am completed baffled by the idea that elevating the Biblically elevated themes of love and mercy, makes one a neo-gnostic. 

[i] Pastoring LGBT Persons, p. 24.


[ii] Other examples (besides the three page appendix!) “The unsuitability of the biblical teaching to prevailing Western culture is countered either by an attempt to revise what the texts mean, or to admit that they are universally prohibitive, but then to elevate certain biblical themes (love and acceptance, or a certain reading of Galatians 3:28) over other biblical themes on the basis of a higher gnosis drawn from modernity.” P.52-53 n explaining why they are for the traditional position: “There is no “new thing” to come, no new eschatological era, no new gnosis with a higher revelation on these matters.” P44


[iii] Pastoring LGBT Persons, p. 69.


[iv] Conservative Christians famously used to say (and perhaps still do), God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. This begs the question who exactly made Steve?


[v] Pastoring LGBT Persons, p. 28


[vi] Ibid. p. 28


[vii] Ibid, p. 15.

Response to Vineyard USA 2 - Responding to the charge of caving to culture

Jettisoning Scriptural Authority for Contemporary Sensibilities

The Executive leadership team of Vineyard USA early on summarizes a lynch pin of their argument against any type of third way by contending that Ken Wilson arrived at his conclusions in A Letter to My Congregation because: “In place of the authority of Scripture, Ken has reconstructed Christian sexual ethics to accommodate contemporary sensibilities.” [i] There is an insistent tone throughout the paper that the only way to arrive at a third way is to jettison Biblical authority.[ii]  According to the Executive Team jettisoning Biblical authority is in fact what anyone who is for a third way must have done, and this charge is repeated and hammered home in a variety of ways.[iii]

The way the Executive team has formulated their argument maybe a textbook example of begging of the question. The Executive team formulates their argument of jettisoning Biblical authority to give more weight to contemporary culture in this way:

1. There is one and only one faithful Biblical position on the question of Pastoring LGBT persons and that is that they can’t marry. 

2. To arrive at a “third way” one must have given more weight to contemporary sensibilities. 

3. There are people in the Vineyard who are for a third way, not the one and only faithful Biblical way of Pastoring LGBT Persons. 

4. Therefore, these people have given more weight to current sensibilities than Biblical Authority. 

The Analogy of Divorce

Executive team piles on regarding Ken Wilson's and those sympathetic to his views Biblical unfaithfulness. The executive team for a moment (a very brief moment), acknowledges that there is something to Ken Wilson's analogy of divorce in A Letter to My Congregation. But, ultimately the Executive Team summarizes Ken’s analogy regarding divorce this way: “Ken’s argument is: ‘We've been willing to be unfaithful to biblical teaching regarding divorced people so why don't we bend the rules on gays?’This is like saying: “The American church has had a racist past. The

only logical response to our racism would be to add anti-Semitism to our catalogue of sins for

consistency's sake.”” Truly I tell you, this is verbatim how the Executive Team summarizes Ken's questions about divorce on page 37 of Pastoring LGBT Persons. The Executive Team acts as if (or maybe actually believes) this is Ken’s actual argument – which it obviously and emphatically is not. But, framing Ken's analogy in this way furthers the Executive Team's narrative of Biblical unfaithfulness. Ken’s point is obviously that a different hermeneutic (interpretation process) seems to be at play regarding divorce and remarriage, than the one being applied to pastoring people within the LGBT community.[iv] Even a cursory reading of Ken’s book would make this clear, but the Executive Team seems bent on pinning on anyone sympathetic to a third way the charge of not being faithful to the Bible and caving to culture.

Naivete about the workings of tribal culture 

The Executive Team appeals to some odd arguments to pin the charge of Biblical unfaithfulness on anyone in the Vineyard proposing a third way (see above and their summary of Ken’s divorce argument). But, in furthering the narrative of jettisoning Biblical authority to “accommodate contemporary sensibilities,”perhaps the greatest flaw in a flawed argument is how the Executive team either ignores, or displays a significant degree of naivete about how culture(s) and tribes actually work. 

The Vineyard has often described itself as a tribe, and tribes have powerful cultures. Tribes often have a significantly more powerful cultural effect on their members than the “contemporary sensibilities” out there. At a minimum I can say as former local Vineyard pastor there was no great pay-off within the Vineyard tribe of articulating disagreement with the Vineyard “foul lines,” – mind you, not playing outside of them, but merely disagreeing with them. For the people I know there has been no great pay off from the culture “out there” but there has been significant social loss which has included for each of us the loss of the Vineyard tribe.[v] 

The executive team seems to imagine people (particularly pastors) closing their Bibles, holding up their finger to find out where the winds of "cultural sensibilities" were blowing and then simply setting the sails of their churches to run with the winds of culture. This narrative that the Executive Team puts forward basically ignores the on the ground pastoral experience that Ken describes in A Letter to my Congregation - the actual experience of knowing actual people and seeing the work of the Holy Spirit. The Executive Team out of hand dismisses any narrative that would say: we met actual people; we saw the the wind of the Spirit; we reread and reread our Scriptures; and we prayed and prayed; and we repeated. The only wind blowing in the mind of the executive team was the shifting wind of culture. It is understandable that the Executive Team would want to formulate an argument in this manner, because it does seem heroic to stand firm for Biblical faithfulness against the shifting winds of culture. However, I am not convinced this is how cultural pressure actually works.

I am convinced that there were many cultural factors at play as Pastoring LGBT Persons was written, but I am not convinced that the primary (or only) factor was the “contemporary sensibilities” out there. Instead think it might be fair to posit that a significant part of the cultural pressure was tribal pressure from within the Vineyard tribe, to deal with Ken Wilson and anyone sympathetic to his views. I have been told twice by a member of the Executive Team that before and as the Pastoring LGBT Persons was being written there were hundred(s) of churches threatening to withdraw if Ken and his views were not dealt with. Let me repeat that: there were hundreds of churches threatening withdrawal from the Vineyard. [vi] My Regional Leader told me that the feeling in the National Leadership was that maybe between 5-10 churches might be lost or disaffiliated after the paper. If one wanted to talk about cultural pressures it is perhaps not impossible to imagine the calculus involved in weighing 8-10 churches against hundred(s). The assertion that a third way simply gives more weight to contemporary sensibilities looks particularly odd when juxtaposed against the reality at the time in the Vineyard, and in the light of how cultural pressure actually works. 

In sum, I find less than satisfying and less than solid, the argument that a third way is only arrived at by jettisoning the Bible for cultural approval. The charge: 1.Begs the question as it begins with only one acceptable Biblical outcome. 2. Posits bad faith on the part of anyone reaching a different conclusion. 3. Ignores on the ground pastoral experience. 4. Is naive about the actual workins cultural pressure. 

But this argument is not the only argument that the Executive team marshals, so next I will turn to one that may have been a surprise to any number of people – that people reach a third way by route of that ancient heresy, Gnosticism.

[i] Pastoring LGBT Persons. P. 9


[ii] Let me take a moment to clarify the Executive Team’s position – there is actually no third way – it is only a rhetorical device – Ken’s third way is really the “open and affirming” wolf dressed in the sheep’s clothes of third way.


[iii] “Capitulation to the moral, religious and spiritual sensibilities of the culture has always been a grave temptation for the church.” P. 12 Continuing the theme of capitulation - that Ken and those sympathetic to Ken are in the view of the executive team guilty of. On a related note there is this rhetorical question: “But this does not explain the way certain very obvious intertextual connections are ignored by affirmative scholars. Is this not also an evasion tactic to avoid the biblical position?” p. 23. “One cannot read Ken Wilson’s paper without hearing either intentional or unintentional echoes of liberal Protestantism’s method of beginning with human experience, rather than Scripture and tradition. His book starts with his experience of people in his church and then adjusts the meaning of Scripture from any consensus understanding to his own highly eccentric reading of Romans 14. It’s as if Ken has predetermined what Scripture must say to fit his limited experience, rather than allowing Scripture and the universal church’s historic interpretation of Scripture to determine his beliefs.” p. 44. Also these rhetorical questions: “The obvious question arises: are the affirming arguments really derived from a careful exegesis of Romans 1, or are they merely an indication that Paul’s statements are entirely at odds with current liberal sensibilities regarding sex? Again, for those who are committed to an affirming position, would it not be better to transparently disagree with Paul and admit that one has decided to elevate contemporary values over biblical norms, than to attempt a revisionist reading of Paul? And one final example a comparison between Peter Fitch and Ken Wilson and pagan writers of the Greco-Roman world: “For all these reasons, it is simply not credible to read the stipulations in Leviticus 17-18 without reference to the creation narrative, the clash of two different views of deity and the rule of Yahweh in the covenant relationship. All of these are inextricably connected through obvious intertextual links. The clash of these two worldviews continues in the contrast between the New Testament writers and the Greco-Roman world, and continues today in the clash between the church’s traditional perspective regarding homosexuality and the entirely new affirming position taken by, among others, Ken Wilson and Peter Fitch.” p. 26-27 Yikes! Ken and Peter are aligning with the equivalent of Greco-Roman pagan writers?! That seems bad. I guess the implication is I should disagree with Ken and Peter. This theme of caving to culture has also been expressed in other settings. At the Great Lakes North Regional conference of 2014 Phil Strout the National Director of the Vineyard speaking about questions around pastoring people in the LGBT warned pastors against the dangers of becoming the contemporary culture’s “lapdog.” (My AP’s notes from the gathering). Fair enough warning, but I have not heard anyone from a third-way perspective asking “How can we be culture’s lapdog?” Warning a tribe about the dangers “out there,” is fair, but from my perspective the warning carries little actual risk within the tribe. It is, if you will, red meat for the tribe and fuels tribal imagination of the godless culture out there beyond the pale.


[iv] The paper goes to lengths explaining the nuances of divorce and remarriage while simultaneously citing various scholars and chiding Ken for being unaware of the scholarship. It strikes me that the executive team has employed some hermeneutic other than the main and the plain (and to be clear I think this appropriate – and well Biblical- for example I think maybe Paul is engaging in something other than the main and the plain in his reading of Hagar). I do not think it would be fair to accuse the executive team of giving more weight to “contemporary sensibilities” than Biblical authority regarding divorce. I do think it is fair to ask: Why does the hermeneutic and pastoral approach on divorce and remarriage feel strikingly different to the hermeneutic  and pastoral approach applied when it comes to pastoring people within the LGBT community?


[v] The World Vision debacle of April 2014 is perhaps the best illustration of the principle that culture is primarily tribal. Within 3 days of the decision to merely employ followers of Jesus (these would be people who in good conscience confess the Apostles Creed) in covenanted same-sex relations, 17,000 donors had withdrawn their pledges made to children around the globe. World Vision reversed its decision after three days. In short, there was only a negative payoff within the broader evangelical tribe of the initial World Vision move – and if there was a decisive pressure in the ultimate decision it seems to have been from within the tribe, not “contemporary sensibilities” out there.


[vi] Two direct conversations with a member of the Executive Team.

Responding to Vineyard USA Position Paper - Pastoring LGBT Persons 1 - This paper wasn't actually about pastoring

Why write a response?

In August of 2014 the Vineyard USA Executive Team released a ninety page position paper entitled Pastoring LGBT Persons. In the introduction the Vineyard Executive Team laid out their reasons for publishing only the sixth position paper in the history of Vineyard USA.[i] The team cited two reasons: the public context with the changing morality of Western Democracies, and the Vineyard context with the publication of Ken Wilson’s A Letter to my Congregation.[ii] The Vineyard executive team said that for these reason this issue “had greatness thrust upon it,” and deserved a position paper. [iii] Having been in the Vineyard movement for 20 years with fifteen of those years in pastoral work, my primary reason for writing a response to Pastoring LGBT Persons involves people. The people I know and love within the LGBT community, who have long lived with the pastoring laid out in Pastoring LGBT persons. I’m writing for anyone who may not be convinced that the only faithful way to pastor and live is laid out in Pastoring LGBT persons. For me this is not simply an issue with “greatness thrust upon it” that needs to be dealt with, but rather about pastoring actual people within the LGBT community – and not incidentally - recognizing that people within the LGBT community have pastoral gifts themselves, and probably should be a primary voice in the discussions of pastoring. So for this reason, I am writing a series of comparatively very brief responses to the most problematic aspects of Pastoring LGBT persons.[iv]

Pastoring

The most glaring weakness of Pastoring LGBT Persons, is that it actually has very little to do with pastoring. The actual counsel on pastoring does not occur until 55 pages into the paper, and then is treated in four pages. In these four pages the executive team treats pastoring narrowly as the administration of ordinances and rites, and the question of who can lead in a Vineyard. According to the Vineyard Executive Team the "pastoring" LGBT persons are to be given is as follows: Communion? Yes! Baptism? Maybe, after a firm discussion, (use the analogy about opening every room of your house). Child dedication? Vineyard pastors have some flexibility. Marriage? Absolutely not. Ordination? Absolutely not if the LGBT person is in covenanted marriage to a person of the same sex. Can a person in a same-sex marriage lead in a local Vineyard? Well certainly not in an ordained position, but possibly in other positions. In this respect, the Vineyard is like baseball.[v] There are clear foul lines: don’t perform a same-sex ceremony (third-base line?), and don’t ordain a person in a same-sex relationship (first-base line?). So perhaps a person in a same-sex marriage could teach Sunday school or usher. In sum, this position paper on Pastoring LGBT Persons devotes four pages out of ninety to actually pastoring LGBT persons, roughly about 4.4% of the paper, or just slightly more space than the Executive Team spends on accusing third-way proponents of being guilty of the ancient heresy of Gnosticism.[vi]

That the paper is not about pastoring is evident in the opening paragraph, since the Executive Team regrets that actual LGBT persons might read this paper on how they, LGBT persons are to be pastored. The Executive Team wants to make it very that the paper was not written for actual LGBT Persons: “We realize that this paper will likely end up in the hands of those for whom it is not intended.”[vii] It may not be the best, when your advice on pastoring a group of people, is not meant to be read by the actual people who are going to be on the receiving end of your pastoring. It is not hard to imagine how a community of people who have not historically been treated/pastored that well by the church (as the paper acknowledges), might be nervous about pastoral advice that the Executive Team laments ending up in their hands. This seems to underscore that the paper is at best only indirectly about pastoring, because I would hope that in general, counsel on pastoring would not need to be hidden from the recipients of the pastoring. If I were a cardiac patient and came across a paper in the waiting room of my Cardiologists office entitled The care of Cardiac Patients, that lamented in the opening paragraph that it might fall into the hands of an actual cardiac patient, I might be nervous about entrusting myself to the care of that Cardiologist.

In short, Pastoring LGBT Persons is not ultimately about pastoring. Instead, Pastoring LGBT Persons is demonstrably about making it clear that Vineyard pastors cannot perform same-sex marriage ceremonies, and that Vineyards cannot ordain people who are in same-sex marriages.

As a Vineyard pastor for close to 14 years, and lead pastor for 7, I was dissatisfied with the foul lines chalked by the Executive team. (Vineyard USA didn’t have a formal policy on this issue until the paper was released). And I was extremely disappointed in the defense of the foul lines articulated in Pastoring LGBT Persons. I was distressed that my denomination put out a ninety page paper entitled Pastoring LGBT Persons which was not about pastoring. I asked my overseers within the Vineyard for an open discussion of the paper and the foul lines. My Regional Leader responded that he believed, “Vineyard's paper is an excellent piece of work, solid and satisfying in its arguments and footnoted explanations,” so there would be little benefit to a discussion. In my upcoming responses I hope to lay out a few areas where I found Pastoring LGBT Persons to be significantly less than an excellent piece of work, and why I found many of the arguments less than solid or satisfying. These will be responses to the reasons that the Executive Team gives for chalking the foul lines. I hope to show that the arguments are actually rather weak. But, for now let me reiterate on last time, that the biggest weakness of Pastoring LGBT persons is that it is not about pastoring.

Finally, I hope it is obvious, but in case it is not, I want to say here that I hope LGBT persons will read this. I would like LGBT persons to know that there were people within the Vineyard who thought differently, from the Executive Team. I hope this small effort will demonstrate that some people saw Pastoring LGBT Persons as something less than an excellent piece of work. Something less than solid and satisfying. Anyone else is welcomed to read as well – there really are no hands for which this is not intended.








[i] Pastoring LGBT Persons p. 10. In footnote 23 the Executive team lists the first five position papers of Vineyard USA which are all a defense of spiritual gifts. “In historical order they are: John Wimber, Why I Respond to Criticism (answering anti-charismatic criticism from
cessationist evangelicals); Jack Deere, The Vineyard’s Response To ‘The Briefing’ (a similar subject); Wayne Grudem,The Vineyard’s Response To ‘The Standard’; Wayne Grudem, Power And Truth: A Response To ‘Power Religion’; and Rich Nathan, A Response To ‘Charismatic Chaos’ (as the previous ones, but the particular book by John MacArthur).These are Position Papers of Vineyard USA.”


[ii] Pastoring LGBT Persons. P. 7-8.


[iii]Ibid. P. 7. The Executive team goes on to talk about how they might talk or write to actual LGBT persons. "If we were speaking directly to the LGBT community, we would address different questions and would prioritize the conversation about what it means to know and follow Jesus as a member of the LGBT community. This paper addresses the hermeneutics used to interpret important biblical texts and also considers the pastoral implications of those texts. If you are not actively following Jesus, or are from the LGBT community, it will be easy for you to misunderstand the thrust of our arguments as they are intended for a different audience.” I actually think the pastoring the Executive team lays out is fairly easy to understand. The chalked foul lines are clear. What is exactly is there to misunderstand? This strikes me as a little condescending towards LGBT persons  - "It's hermeneutics - you won't understand." I think actually that LGBT persons, will have no trouble understanding the pastoring that the Executive team offers – it will be quite familiar.


[iv] And I do think there are significant problems as I hope to make clear, in my responses. A hugely frustrating part for me as a Vineyard pastor was how different this process felt from the path that led to the opening of all levels of leadership within the Vineyard to women. In the opening of all levels of leadership to women there was  call for input from all across the Vineyard and many pastors wrote papers that were publicly available laying out their cases on either side of the argument as best as they could. Within the Great Lakes region there was a public debate that featured two pastors of the region presenting their cases on stage during the regional conference - it was a featured part of the conference. In short that process felt much more open than this process. It felt from my perspective as if there was a fear of pubic dialogue.

[v] Ibid. p. 59. Here is the baseball metaphor: “To use a baseball analogy, Vineyard USA has two clear foul lines regarding our corporate life together: one foul line concerns marriage and the other foul line concerns licensing and ordination. The baseball field that we play on is huge. We permit Vineyard churchesto be positioned on the field in different places. We will not all agree on where those positions are, but we are committed to practice generosity toward one another, so long aswe are on the field of play.


[vi] Ibid. p. 55-59. And by all means read these pages for yourself. If you do, I believe that you will find I have given a fair summary of the pastoring LGBT persons will receive in the Vineyard.


[vii] Ibid. P.6.

The playground of inspiration

I really like this from James Allison who speaking of the Bible says this:
"rather than being a weapon for moralistic thugs, can, when held in un-frightened hands, become the playground of an awe-inspiring and wonder-producing act of communication of God."

Forgiving when there has been no apology...

Later this week, I hope to look at a couple of things that I think are extremely helpful in forgiving a person who has apologized and asked for forgiveness. I also want to look at a couple of tips that are helpful in asking for forgiveness. But, for today, I want to think for a little bit about what seems to me to actually be the much more common experience... What to do with the pain, when there has been no apology?

So far I have contended that it is absolutely essential if we are going to progress in forgiveness at all, that we have a clear vision of the benefits to us of forgiveness. I think the cliché is absolutely true: forgiveness is setting someone free and discovering that the person you set free is you. To forgive a person who has made no apology, we are absolutely going to have to be clear that forgiveness is worth it - for us. Second, it will most likely be a process. Even if we are extremely clear in our vision of the benefits of forgiveness, there is a strong likelihood that we will progress in forgiving a person, it won't be a we decide to forgive and we are done with it once and for all. Maybe it will work that way for you every time. You just decide to forgive and then your have. I pray that it does. I just know that it doesn't often work that way for me. I go into forgiveness expecting it to require effort - and sustained effort at that. Third, forgiveness, (and this is perhaps particularly true when it comes to forgiving a person who has not asked for forgiveness), means admitting to myself that I was hurt. I am vulnerable, and I was hurt.

I think forgiveness flows much more easily in a loving community where people readily ask forgiveness and I am longing for such a community, but, again that is not my subject for today. I'm look at about forgiving the people who have hurt me, but not asked for forgiveness. A central part of the prayer Jesus gave us is: "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us." It would seem that forgiveness must also entail forgiving those who haven't and may never ask for forgiveness. And if giving forgiveness truly is good for my soul then I do not want to wait around for someone to apologize before I forgive. That is a little like waiting for the perfect time for anything in life - starting to exercise, learn a language, ask someone on a date, get married, move, have kids, plant a new community - the perfect time so rarely comes - that we will end up spending a whole bunch of our time waiting. So, I am advocating for myself beginning the work as soon as we realize that we have been hurt - and not waiting around for an apology that may never come.

First a caveat on forgiving a person who hasn't asked to be forgiven. What I am explicitly not advocating here is remaining in an abusive relationship. That is not forgiveness. I'm also not advocating a sort of cheap throw away "We even need to forgive our abusers..." If forgiveness is a journey - I see very little wisdom in attempting to begin the journey at the most difficult of places. Related to this, forgiveness, or better I should say the concept of forgiveness, can in abusive authoritarian systems become a bludgeon that reinjures victims of the authoritarian system. "Mistakes were made, sins were committed. The Bible says you need to forgive and your unforgiveness and unwillingness to let this go is sinful." Authoritarian systems can turn the concept of forgiveness into a tool of the system. Here is a more in depth description of how an abusive system can abuse their most vulnerable members through the concept of forgiveness. If you are in a system that uses forgiveness to shield the powers that be from abuse of their power - get out.  And, in time work on forgiving the people from a distance - and, I would say eventually fight the system - but, seriously, right now get out of the system.

Ok, end of caveat, which does flow into something that I have found quite helpful in forgiving when there has bee no apology.  Forgiveness from a distance is possible, and often wise. Forgiveness does not necessarily entail becoming best buds with the person we are forgiving. The ideal in forgiveness is if the person was our best bud, is that after forgiveness they will also be our best bud. But, not everybody will be our best bud, and it simply may not be possible to have a restored relationship with everyone - I think that is the vision of the future - but, it may not be the target of the present. Forgiveness from a distance is possible - and at times I am convinced that the distance empowers the forgiveness. Here's  couple of ways that I think this works. One the distance, the gives space and time for the wound to heal. We rest and protect our physical wounds - I think there is some real wisdom in doing the same with our soul wounds. Second, the distance can cultivate some space our souls to surface who we need to work on forgiving. If we are not in regular contact with a person. Yet they are occupying large units of our mental energy, and showing up at regular inervals in our dreams - then that is probably a pretty good sign that we are being invited into the healing journey of forgiving that person.

I'll end it here for today, and take at least one more post on forgiving someone who has not asked for forgiveness.. For today these are my summarizing thoughts some distance may be our friend. Forgiveness from a distance is not only possible - sometimes it is the wise and necessary.

Surprising goodness...

I came across this story in Robert Sapolsky's Why Zebra's don't get Ulcers. It struck me as a wonderfully charming story of what I am hoping that we are hoping will happen for all people. The book in general is a fun read about the effects of stress on our mental and physical health. In this particular section of the book he is talking about type A personalities (and actually turns out that one of the people he references of the agnostic and the atheist in the story is the cardiologist who discovered the type A personality and it's links to cardiovascular disease - Dr. Meyer Friedman). In the midst of laying out the correlation between type-A behavior and heart disease, he tells this story which is followed by his wonderfully personal and surprising little footnote:

"A pleasing thing is that Type A-ness is not forever. If you reduce the hostility component in Type-A people through therapy (using some of the approaches that will be outlined in the final chapter), you reduce the risk for further heart disease. This is great news. I've noticed that many health professionals who treat Type-A people are mostly trying to reform these folks. Basically, many Type-A people are abusive pains in the keister to lots of folks around them. When you talk to some of the Type-A experts, there is an odd tone between the lines that Type A-ness (of which many of them are admittedly perfect examples) is a kind of ethical failing, and that the term is a fancied-up medical way of describing people who just aren't nice to others. Added to this is a tendency I've noticed for a lot of the Type-A experts to be lay preachers, or descendants of clergy. That religious linkage will even sneak in the back door. I once talked with two leaders in the field, one an atheist and the other agnostic, and when they tried to give me a sense of how they try to get through to Type-A subjects about their bad ways, they made use of a religious sermon.* I finally asked these two M.D.s an obvious question—were they in the business of blood vessels or souls? Was the work that they do about heart disease or about ethics? And without a beat they both chose ethics. Heart disease was just a wedge for getting at the bigger issues. I thought this was wonderful. If it takes turning our coronary vessels into our ledgers of sin and reducing circulating lipids as an act of redemption in order to get people to be more decent to each other, more power to them.

* I listened to a tape of this sermon, called "Back in the Box," by the Reverend John Ort-berg. It concerns an incident from his youth. His grandmother, saintly, kind, nurturant, also happened to be a viciously competitive and skillful Monopoly player, and his summer visits to her were littered with his defeats at the game. He described one year where he practiced like mad, honed his Machiavellian instinct, developed a ruthless jugular-gripping style, and finally mopped up the board with her. After which, his grandmother rose and calmly put the pieces away.
"You know," she said offhandedly, "this is a great game, but when it is all over with, the pieces just go back in the box." Amass your property, your hotels . . . [the sermon takes off from there] . . . your wealth, your accomplishments, your awards, your whatevers, and eventually it will all be over with and those pieces go back in the box. And all you are left with is how you lived your life.
I listened to this tape while racing to beat red lights on my way to a 5:00 A.M. commuter train, Powerbook ready so as not to miss a moment of work on the train, eating breakfast one-handed while driving, using the time to listen to this sermon on tape as research for this chapter. And this sermon, whose trajectory was obvious from the first sentence and was filled with Jesus and other things I do not subscribe to, reduced me to tears."

I found myself a little verklempt as I read. I loved the whole (especially his footnote), but was also particularly grabbed by his talk of ethics - though I might not use that word. The thing he seems to be getting at is that living better in the way we treat other humans actually makes our own lives better. Or conversely, treating other people shittily is bad for others and for us.

Forgiveness means saying that something wrong or painful happened... and, sigh, this means we are vulnerable

In the first post on forgiveness I looked first at it being actually good for us, forgiveness is about setting someone free and discovering that the person is you. In the second post I looked at the reality that forgiveness is a process and is likely to take time, perhaps not always, but often enough to suspect that it is going to take a little time. That is why it is so important to have a clear vision of the benefits of forgiveness on the front-end, because, it could take awhile and it may in fact be fairly difficult.

If we have  a vision firmly in place and are clear that it will be a process, then we are in the best position to proceed with the work of forgiveness. In order for forgiveness to actually be forgiveness, there has to have been some actual harm, pain, or loss that has been in some part been caused by another person. This may seem obvious, but it is worth leaning into for a little bit. I, at least, face a real temptation to deny that something hurt, or to minimize the actual pain - "it was no big deal." Sometimes, perhaps often, it might not actually have been that big of deal. But, there are the other times, when it absolutely was a big deal - it hurt and it hurt quite a bit. Now there is a possibility, that I might want to say, "no big deal" for the sake of the person who hurt me, (more on that below), but more often than not, I would guess that in saying "no big deal," I am exercising a type of denial. I think at root that this denial is rooted in fear. The realization that something really hurt quite a bit, means that I am absolutely vulnerable to pain. I'm vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life, and I am particularly vulnerable to the actions of my fellow humans. I don't want to over psychologize myself, or anyone else, but I think on some level admitting any pain, insult, vulnerability means a recognition that I am vulnerable to that ultimate insult - death. (Check out the brilliant book Slavery to Death, by Richard Beck). So, to admit that something hurt, means admitting my vulnerability to pain, and all that comes with vulnerability. That is why it is so courageous. Courage has nothing to do with being invulnerable. Courage is all about being vulnerable, but moving ahead. This is why forgiveness is an act of courage. We admit that we were vulnerable, and that we were hurt. In admitting that we were hurt, we bring the real possibility into the present that we will be hurt again. This act of courage is absolutely crucial to forgiveness, because if we are actually talking about something that was "no big deal" -  well, then it was "not a big deal" - and only a real asshole reacts strongly to something that was no big deal. Forgiveness is of course not necessary for something that caused no harm - that was "no big deal." So forgiveness is not saying "No big deal." "No big deal," probably is the appropriate response in all sorts of situations - but it is not forgiveness. Forgiveness means saying/admitting, even if it is only to ourselves, "man that hurt!"

Now there are times, when saying, "yes that really hurt," to another human, might be really painful for them. We need to be wise. Sometimes as noted above, we might want to say, "no big deal," as a way of sparing them pain. Sometimes this might be the appropriate response. But, what I have in mind here is the situation when someone is actually asking for your forgiveness. They feel that their actions have caused you pain and they are before you asking for your forgiveness. There may be an occasion when, it would be a kindness to say no big deal, but this should be very much the exception. In general, I think it would be wise to (as I heard Stanly Hauweras say eloquently) "tell the truth." So if it actually was no big deal - just tell the truth. But, again, I think the primary motivation in saying, "no big deal," is an exercise in denial as an attempt to protect ourselves from the truth about our own vulnerability to pain. Secondly, I would guess that the temptation to sy "no big deal," is somewhat motivated by a fear that if we admit that something hurt it might damage the relationship. Well, the reality is that the relationship is already hurt. We're hurt. Now, another person is standing before us saying, "I'm sorry I caused you pain," That's a pretty vulnerable act on their part. It seems like this is about as safe a setting as we are going to get for admitting "Yeah that really hurt." I would say this is generally the wisest and most courageous response. Because, what does "No big deal," communicate to the other person? I think whether or not this was our intention it can easily communicate, "you have very little impact on me - I'm pretty invulnerable. And you measily human that you are - do not really effect me - and well our friendship/relationship, just doesn't mean that much to me." Of course we are not saying all that, but really in a way aren't we?

Forgiveness is entering into our vulnerability and being honest about the impact another person has had on us. It is admitting our vulnerability from other humans.

I'm not sure if we can forgive institutions - or if we even should make that a goal

I'm going to keep plugging away at forgiveness. Today, though I am taking a bit of a sidetrack to think about anger at institutions. And whether it is possible to forgive institutions, and beyond that if we can - should we?

I heard a speaker once say that whenever he hears someone say "I'm so angry at: ...GM,.... the church, ....the government....etc," that he would always say, "No you're not, your angry at a person." On one level I get what he is saying. There will often be, for me, a face that represents an institution if, I feel angry or frustrated with an institution. But, on a different level, I think he is way off. It seems to me that I at times do feel actual anger toward institutions, a company or school etc... It is certainly fair to ask whether or not the anger is helpful, but that is not what interests me here. Here I am simply after what seems to me to be a fact that I actually do experience real frustration towards what at times seem to be absolutely faceless, and heartless organizations/institutions. I have no problem labeling the level that frustration reaches at times as anger. It seems to me that institutions do cause real harm, and I am convinced (see institutions as emergent entities), that institutions have a life of their own - so I would say it is only natural that we be angry at them.

So, I would argue that we can in fact get angry at institutions. I would also say that our anger at institutions can actually fuel, prophetic kingdom movements. I think Dr. King was angry at the institution of Jim Crow - the instituting of the motto separate but equal. It strikes me that Jesus was angry at the institution of the Sabbath, and the institution of the Temple. (Again if the Sabbath, or the Temple are mere abstractions, or simply given facts about the world it makes little sense to be angry, that would be like being angry that a day on earth is around 24 hours, or that in the Northern Hemisphere or days during winter are shorter than our nights). Jeremiah, talked about his desire to not speak against the institutions of the monarchy and the priesthood, but that the word he didn't want to speak became like fire in his bones.

For today, I will end with this. It seems to me anger at institutions can be fuel for an actual kingdom fire, and we have to be willing to let the fire be kindled by the Holy Spirit.

Forgiveness may take time...Perhaps I should say almost certainly will take time

Yesterday, I wrote about a couple of true clichés regarding forgiveness... that unforgiveness is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die,  and forgiveness is about setting someone free and discovering that the person you set free is you.

Today, I want to think for a moment about forgiveness as a process. By process, I mean that it will occur over time. That likely there will be a beginning to the process, some middle ground with some setbacks, of one step forward and one step back, and it would seem to me probably an end. There are a couple of implications of forgiveness being  process. The first is that viewing forgiveness as process will give us some grace for ourselves as we work on forgiveness realizing that forgiveness for us will very often be a work in progress.

Viewing forgiveness as a work in progress gives me grace for the work. If, however, I am living with a view that forgiveness should just be something I do once and it is done for good and for all time, than I am likely to feel, (especially if I do not feel particularly forgiving), that I have not done any forgiving at all, or I may simply tell myself that I am not good at forgiving and stop the work all together, or I can mistakenly think that having said the words (either aloud or in my mind) "I forgive ..." that the work is done. Sometimes it may in fact be done, if the offense was fairly slight and the relationship in general is warm, and characterized by forgiveness - it may very well be done. But, my guess would be that more often than not there is still much work to do. In these cases simply saying I forgive, and thinking that we actually have forgiven is a little bit like, saying, "I'm going to learn Spanish," and mistaking saying this for actually learning Spanish.

So a couple of first steps on the healing journey to forgiveness. First I must absolutely view extending forgiveness as a gift to my soul and an invitation to a full happy and joyful life. If I do not have this vision firmly in place, I am very unlikely to progress in extending forgiveness, because extending forgiveness can be arduous work. I am unlikely to take up this work unless I have a vision of how my life will be better as a forgiving person. Second, having a vision in place, of the benefits of extending forgiveness I will be helped, by recognizing that it will be work. It is likely that my brain is somewhat addicted to patterns of ruminating on the wrongs that have been done. It seems likely that forgiveness is going to involve forming some new neural pathways. This can be done, but it looks like our brains can be lazy and would prefer to keep running on the same circuits. It wil be work like learning a language, exercising, eating healthy...again this is where the vision of forgiveness as a good for me is crucial.

Forgiveness is often a process. We enter the process best by having a vision of better life through extending forgiveness. We are helped in making progress along the way by remembering that forgiveness is a process - it is work - and like all meaningful work - it is worth it.

On setting someone free and discoverying that someone is you...

For close to two millennia we followers of Jesus have prayed that our Father in Heaven would forgive our debts/trespasses/sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

Forgiveness can be viewed as something which we ought to do/should do/are obligated to do - and perhaps rightly so. But, more and more and I am hoping to see all that Jesus commands as things I desire, because I desire, life and every good thing. I'm beginning to desire forgiveness because I simply desire life - and life to the full. First, I do desire forgiveness of my debts/sins/trespasses. I don't find any life or wisdom in being weighed down by my sins. Daily praying the prayer Jesus gave us is a way to remind myself of my daily need for forgiveness and to daily feel the weight lifted.

Then the prayer reminds me that I need to extend forgiveness. In fact forgiveness follows the request for daily bread. In some very real and meaningful way forgiveness is every bit as necessary as daily bread. And, I think that the way the prayer flows both elements of forgiveness are absolutely as necessary as daily bread - both the forgiveness I receive and the forgiveness - I need to forgive. Expecting to receive forgiveness, but never extending forgiveness is absolutely as unhealthy as expecting or attempting to eat bread and then expecting that bread to never ever go anywhere else (I think friends we call this anal retentiveness - and well it is not all that good for us).  Forgiveness flows to us, and then if we are to be healthy and cultivate room in our soul, it flows from us.

I am helped by viewing unforgiveness as a toxin. Unforgiveness poisons my soul and poisons the soil of my relationships with others. And here is the thing - I do not think that poison only effects the relationships where I am aware there is unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is a habit forming type of toxin. It provides a certain false energy, that can propel me forward for a moment, but in the end leaves me drained, yet addicted to that false energy, and that false energy can easily spill into different relationships - I can begin to use in new situations!

So there is a cliché that is often used when speaking of forgiveness  and unforgiveness.... Unforgiveness is liking taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It can be a clichéd throwaway line in a sermon - but like the clichéd sayings of the twelve step programs if taken to heart- will facilitate a process of transformation. I think this one is especially true - holding on to unforgiveness absolutely will poison my own soul - (I suspect that it also has a toxic effect on my body).

The other cliché that I love regarding forgiveness is: Forgiveness is setting someone free and discovering that the person you freed was you. Again easy enough to turn into sermonic white noise, but if taken in the depths of my soul - wow what a powerful anti-toxin.

So, I'm looking to be the truly free person Jesus says that I can be, and am looking to set people free - and am discovering happily that the person that is being freed is me!

This too shall pass.... Like a puff of smoke

My granddad who is now over 90 fought in World War 2 as a sailor in the U.S. Navy. Sometime during the war he had his forearm tattooed, with a symbol I could never decipher, and words that had little meaning for me as a child: This too shall pass. In  our current moment, when tattoo sightings are about as rare as spotting someone wearing a t-shirt or a hat, it's hard to imagine just how exotic, and unchurchy this tattoo seemed to a young boy. A young boy, who belonged to a conservative Baptist church and excelled at scripture memorization and Sword drills. Sword drills sound awesomingly cool, and they are! You are given a verse and then you take your sword (the Bible - the sword of the Spirit) and race to find the verse the fastest. I loved it, and if I may say so, I was quite good with my sword. Maybe, not the undefeated champion - but take my word for it - really good. As a boy excelling at sword drills, I did not run into many people with tattoos at my church, but there it was on my granddad's arm. And the tattoo was especially hard too miss as he would light or take a drag on one of his unfiltered Pall Malls. Pall Malls (or any cigarette or smoking device for that matter), were also not commonly sighted in my conservative church. I have vivid memories of being in my grandparents living room and watching absolutely mesmerizing shifting clouds of smoke hanging halfway between the floor and the ceiling. These clouds far surpassed whatever programming was coming from the floor model TV - after all, 38 years later I can recall as if I am still there the shifting cloud, with something of the same wonder I had then, but for the life of me I would be hard pressed to recount a program I watched on the floor model TV. I was so captured by the smoke (and my dear, beautiful and diligent mom kept the proof that the smoke captured me), that all my kindergarten workbooks are filled with pictures of a wide variety of animals and people (but mainly dogs), with pipes in their mouths and lovely plumes of smoke billowing from the pipes goin over their heads. Anywhere in my letter books, where the authors asked for a picture I filled it in with animals and people, pipes firmly affixed, and plumes of smoke pouring forth. Picture of people sledding? Gleeful animals and peoples speeding down a hill, pipes in mouth, smoke trailing behind. Swimming? Head and arms poking out of the water, pipe in mouth - smoke rising to the clouds. Where the letter book authors didn't ask me to draw, but had drawn pictures for me, I helped the authors by drawing in the pipes and smoke that they had forgot to supply. My granddad, did not smoke a pipe, but my uncle did and he was as cool and unchurchy as my granddad. The pipe smelled fantastic, and he was frequently at my grandparents when I was also there - weekends and holidays. The smoke and the tattoo made an indelible impression on me, that I in kindergarten obviously attempted to record for posterity. In short I loved my granddad and my uncle and my whole family and life- seemed simply as enchanted as the smoke that hung between the floor and the ceiling of my grandparents' living room.

That time of my life has passed (though it is retained in my memory - even though it is likely that I do not have a single atom in my body at present that I had as a kindergartner! -those atoms have been passed on to a different part of the universe). My granddad's tattoo has absolutely been proven correct time and time again. My guess is that the tattoo was meant as a comfort during the horrors of an awful war, and being away from home on a foreign sea. This too shall pass. It did pass. World War 2 is over. My granddad returned home. He built the house he still lives in with my fantastic grandma, whom he married over 70 years ago!, and with whom he raised three sons, the middle one being my dad. But, not only the war has passed, the childhood of his sons has passed, the childhood of his son's children have passed, (I along within all my cousins are fully grown - shoot, if I like my granddad live to be 90, I am precisely at this moment middle-aged - half my life has passed), and some of the childhoods of his son's children's children has passed - like my oldest daughter's who has now entered college. The childhood of some of his great-grandchildren has passed!

My granddad as a boy knew his great-granddad, who had been a drummer boy in the American civil war for the union army. My granddad has told me a story about helping his great-granddad Wesley go and purchase a horse when Wesley was in his eighties, and Wesley riding it barebacked for over thirteen miles. Wesley has - as you will have guessed - long since passed. The past, good and bad, has obviously passed. And, just like 2015 has passed, this year, 2016 will pass. As will I. As will you. Sorry, that sounds a little depressing, but, my friends, it is true - This too shall pass.

I love that tattoo, but more, I love the man, on whose arm it is inked. And, today on this first day of 2016, in this passing moment, I am grateful for the moments that have passed, and I hope to receive as gifts with gratitude the passing moments to come. And, with gratitude for the amazing moments of the past, I am simultaneously thankful, that some moments have passed I am heartened to know that the dreadful moments of the past, have passed. After all the civil war has passed, as has World War 2, as has the Vietnam war - in which my dad served. Legalized slavery has passed. Jim Crow has passed.

So 2016 - This too shall pass ... this election cycle; the Red Wings' season; MSU's playoff run to the football National championship has passed; this wonderful season of my life with beautiful growing kids who learn and play and laugh and at times are simply wonderful reminders of living in the moment - this too shall pass; this season when my kids are irresponsible and times don't seem to pick up one damn thing they get out or one mess they make - this too shall pass; this agonizing season when I am again in the midst of trying to figure out what to do for work - this too shall pass; this season when I feel an amazing amount of freedom from the anxiety of religious structures - this too shall pass; this season when I am at moments so angry at the structures of religion that grind people up that I feel like cussing like I imaging the sailors on my granddad's ship cussed - this season shall pass; this season when I am so thankful for family and friends for the journey who love me and would love me even if I did cut loose and cuss like a sailor - this too shall pass.  This too shall pass like the shifting cloud of smoke that hung between the floor and ceiling of my grandparent's living room. (Incidentally my granddad quit smoking cold turkey in his sixties! - the stage of his life where he was a smoker too passed).

In this passing year, I'm hoping to live in the present - after all what are the other options? -  receiving as gifts wonderful moments as treasures that are passing. And, I hope to live with deep hope knowing that the excruciatingly painful moments that are also certain to arrive- whether I would have them or not - too shall pass.

And the writing of my first post of 2016 too has passed.