Faith in Context

End of an Era

Throughout my lifetime one or more the Kennedy brothers have held a high office and exercised significant political influence in our nation. With the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, an era comes to an end. Jack was the first Catholic to be elected president. Bobby became the clearest voice among top politicians for peace and social justi ce. Ted achieved the largest number of actual legislative accomplishments. That folk song, "Where are they ... John, Bobby and Martin" still brings tears to my eyes and causes my gut to clinch. If it were not for the Kennedy brothers and Dr. Martin Luther King, half our nation would still be without basic civil rights. That happened in my life time; I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears!

The Kennedy's stood for something that is rare and almost dead in America today. They stood up for the weak, the poor, those unable to have a significant voice in how the money and power in this country is distributed. They were sons of one of the richest families in America. They need not have gone to the trouble. They could have lived comfortable lives or made billions on Wall Street or done anything they wanted to do. But they remembered their Irish immigrant grandparents who lived in an America where the Irish were not really "White." Where the Irish were discriminated against, kept in poverty and out of the circles of power. Catholics were feared by a majority Protestant America. Cities were feared by an America centered in small towns and rural farms.

More than the Clinton or Bush regimes, the Kennedys became an American dynasty for a simple reason; They gave their lives for their nation. An older brother (Joe Jr.) gave his life in combat in World War II. Jack and Bobby gave their lives to assassins. Ted gave his life, to the last drop, to serving the poor, the ethnic minorities, the forgotten and pushed-aside in America. Jack is famous for that almost-forgotten sentiment, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Some have tried to tie this to "personal responsibility," that sneaky little notion that allows the rest of us to wash our hands of the suffering of the least able among us. They forget that for the Kennedys this principle was tied to a Biblical notion, "To whom much is given, much is demanded."

The Kennedys believed and lived the simple notion that those with the greatest wealth, education and status should do more and give more to help the least-favored, the poorest, the most oppressed in our country and the world. You can bring up all their weaknesses; their drinking, their unsavory pals, Ted's involvement with the death of a young woman, Jack's womanizing and slowness to support the civil rights movement, and Bobby's political calculation as to when to come out against the Vietnam war. They were not perfect. They were flawed human beings. None of that takes away from their commitment to live their lives for "the least of these" as our Lord Jesus Christ asks for all believers. There are a great many who have never done anything as bad as the Kennedy brothers who have also never lived this fundamental commitment. Read Matthew 25:31-46 and you will see how God views the bottom line on this comparison.

It is my prayer that the next generation of Americans, the young adults who don't fully grasp why this is such an important moment to some of us old people, will rediscover the Kennedy ethic: Live life to the fullest and live it largely for those who have less than you do.

Impact of the Recession on Families

The most severe economic downturn in decades is beginning to bite in American families. The unemployment rate jumped up again last month. Parks Associates asked a national sample what telecommunications services they are thinking of canceling. The hard-wired telephone at home is the first to go among the largest percentage, followed by the cell phone, cable or satellite TV and access to the Internet. The ranking may surprise you, but even more surprising is that the range is eight percent of households on the high end and five percent on the low end. Most Americans feel that being electronically connected is a necessity along with food, shelter and utilities.

Scarborough Research, in a panel survey of children, found that three out of four teenagers in America are worried about the economy and 86 percent think that their parents are worried. Seven in ten have had a conversation with their parents about the topic and nearly half would like to talk some more. More than four out of five want to find out what caused the current situation and nearly two-thirds have had discussions on this topic with their teachers. A third of teens have cut back or changed what they eat or where they eat because of the recession. One in seven have dropped out of some after-school sports or recreation program and one in ten are no longer taking vitamins that their parents once insisted on.

Clearly American families are beginning to feel the pinch. To the vast majority it is more about worry at the moment rather than actual losses in their daily lives. But more and more are having to deal with the reality of unemployment and reduced incomes. They bring these concerns to church. Are we giving them opportunities to talk about it and support for doing something about it?

Religion and the Final Debate

Religion was never mentioned, but it was hiding behind code words such as abortion, vouchers, fairness and possibly health care. In the end, do American politicians believe that faith is measured only by these handful of code words? How many American Christians will vote their faith only within these narrow confines?

Unrelated topic: Someone please help me. I am totally confused about "Joe the plumber." This is what I heard:

1. Joe said he could not buy the plumbing business where he works because of Obama's tax plans.

2. Obama said there will be tax increase except for the 5 percent of Americans who earn more than $250,000 a year.

This must mean that Joe would make more than $250,000 a year after he buys the plumbing business. Or does it mean that already makes more than $250,000 a year??

Either way, how might this keep him from buying the plumbing business? Does it mean the previous owner will up the price out of Joe's range? (If so, why would an increase in taxes cause him to do so?) Does it mean that Joe would not have enough money to make the payments on the new business (assuming he is going to borrow money to buy it or the previous owner is going to accept payments over time)? That should not affect Joe's taxable income other than to lower it; payments on either a loan or a purchase plan would be business expenses (right?) and there reduce the taxable profit. This not a trick question. Please, somebody help me understand how it would keep Joe from buying the business if he has to pay higher taxes?

Please Pray for Peace

It is so long ago that everyone has forgotten. In August, 1914, the nations of Europe tumbled into war when a rather small initial event led to reactions back and forth from Austria, Serbia, Germany, Russia, France and England, and so on. That is 94 years ago this month and most historians now agree that World War II was simply the second act of the war that began then.

Russia has today widened its war with Georgia, moving beyond South Ossetia (a disputed territory with a population that includes many people of Russian ethnicity). The NATO countries, including the U.S., have obligations to Georgia. This could all go down hill very rapidly. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to re-run it time and time again.

Should their faith be used to manipulate voters?

A new television spot by one of the major candidates for president of the USA implies that his opponent is the Antichrist and uses many symbols and allusions from a popular Evangelical approach to eschatology. These are powerful images for perhaps one in five Americans, key elements in their personal relationship with Christ. An equivalent response would be a television spot showing pictures of hundreds of actual mothers up in years and saying, "He killed your mother. His health care policies caused her early death."

One the one hand, the fact that this television spot was created demonstrates the power of conservative religion in contemporary culture. When I first took a course in Sociology of Religion in the late 1960s, the textbooks (not my instructor) all said that religion, especially traditional religion, was in decline; that as urbanization and secularization continued, religion would slowly disappear. I still have books from that era on "post-religious faith" and "the end of religion." Instead, what has happened is a fusion between popular culture and traditional religion in which Darbyite eschatology has been enshrined in the best-selling Left Behind novels.

But, that does not mean that secularization has stalled or declined. Instead we have highly secular forms of conservative, traditional faith. I am remembering a Darbyite preacher that I got to know as a ministerial student in the 1960s. He would turn over in his grave if he knew that his kind of preaching themes were being used by political campaign handlers and Hollywood television producers (mostly people with no religious commitments) simply to get the faithful to support their candidate. He would curse Tim LaHaye for becoming a millionaire in his old age writing novels (no less!) on these same preaching points.

Religion is today being suffused into the secular world. (This morning's Wall Street Journal has two news stories on religion, and so does the New York Times and this is an increasingly typical day for these major media organs.) That is a good thing, I think, but not an unmixed blessing. When key spiritual and Scriptural themes are mishandled to an even small degree, both unintentionally by religion-ignorant journalists and intentionally by unscrupulous politicians, confusion and heresy are created; the faith of large numbers of people is tampered with. It means that pastors must work harder to educate those who listen to their sermons and attend classes and study groups, so that they understand the true faith instead of the false faith disseminated (perhaps somewhat inadvertently) by the media.

The Spiritual Life of Potential Presidents

Not since the 1960 presidential campaign has there been so much discussion among Americans about the religion of presidential candidates. And now it appears that religious prejudice may be a more powerful influence than racial prejudice. Surprising numbers of Americans believe total fiction about the religion of at least one of the candidates and indicate they have decided who to vote on the basis of this non-fact, which is the very definition of prejudice (pre-judging, before the facts are known). Whether this is manufactured by Karl Rove's manipulative disciples or reflects the actual level of religious ignorance and prejudice in America, remains to be seen.

This week's Newsweek(July 21) cover article is about Senator Obama's spiritual life. His background is from the largest religious segment in America; the unchurched. His grandparents were Midwestern lapsed Protestants. His father was an atheist and his mother an agnostic, a PhD anthropologist who may have believed in a higher power. Once in while she took her son to Catholic mass and then later to a Congregational church in Hawaii on Easter and Christmas. When he visited her as a teenager, she took him to a Buddhist temple once or twice. His stepfather knew only the common folk religion of Indonesia, a tepid kind of Islam "that [made] room for ... more ancient animist and Hindu faiths." Obama remembers that his stepfather believed that "a man took on the power of whatever he ate" and introduced the boy to dog meat, snake meat and roasted grasshopper. Certainly any imam would consider this entirely heresy and not Muslim at all.

As a college student, now on his own in New York City, Obama began to search for something to believe in, reading Augustine and visiting historic black Baptist churches in Harlem. The choir, the family atmosphere and the prophetic preaching, so typical of African American Protestantism, touched his heart. He gave his life to Jesus, but was not baptized until he got married and began family life. This is so typical of most Americans of his generation; unchurched and searching as young adults, making a religious commitment when marriage and parenthood come along.

The core of Obama's faith is that Christ's gift of salvation is to the community of believers, "not to individual people in isolation." This defines the purpose of the church as "to help each other ... respond to the call of perfection that will be fully realized only at the end of time." (See Matthew 24-25, Revelation 21) For him, faith and social action are blended, two sides of the same coin. "It's hard for me to imagine being true to my faith and not thinking beyond myself, not thinking about what's good for other people," he testifies.

This wholistic approach to faith is widely believed among mainline Protestants and taught by Evangelicals such as Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis and Ron Sider. Right here is where is where Evangelicals part company into two segments. The kind of Evangelicals who have dominated America's civil religion during the recent decades of right-wing political ascendancy tend to define their faith in an entirely individualistic manner. This is why abortion is a much larger moral issue than child poverty for them. Sin is defined entirely as individual behaviors, not the larger evils of social injustice and cruelty systems.

It remains to be seen whether Senator McCain's faith is entirely consistent with this right-wing civil religion, or if it is more nuanced. The leaders of the religious right have not been enthusiastic about McCain's candidacy, with Jim Dobson declaring that he is going to sit out the election instead of vote for his party's likely nominee. Do they know something or sense something about McCain's faith that does not conform fully to their beliefs? Obama's spiritual life has been the subject of much attention, including a share of non-factuals, but McCain's is still largely unexamined.

The political pressure on Evangelicals is very great in this campaign in large part because of the way spiritual faith is aligned with the electoral choices. Jim Dobson/Pat Robertson vs Tony Campolo/Jim Wallis; which kind of Evangelical faith will surface as the strongest in the era after this election? Since the Dobson/Robertson brand has so identified itself with the failed administration and do not find either candidate really representative of their aspirations, it appears that the answer to this question may already be emerging. But, again, we really don't know much about McCain's faith. What kind of religion does he really embrace? Does he worship weapons more than divinity? Is he among the largely agnostic business class that has supported him so strongly in his political career to date? Is he among America's second-largest religious segment, the nominal Christians for whom faith is hardly deep enough to make much of an analysis? Since he may be the next president, it would be good to know as much about McCain's spiritual life as we do about Obama's.

Historic Moment

Regardless of your political views, the nomination of Barack Obama by the Democratic Party is an historic moment in history. It is the first time that an African American has been nominated by one of the two major parties and moves America significantly toward the possibility of the first African American to be president.

It is unfortunate that in the final days of this campaign, Senator Obama felt it necessary to resign his church membership. Again, regardless of your feelings about some of the things that were said from the pulpit of this church, it is a new day in America when people are pressured by the media and politicians to resign their church membership. This is not a good precedent. Those involved in bringing this pressure should be ashamed of themselves, especially since most of the journalists involved are people who have not been members of any church in a long time and really don't understand the nature of the relationship.

Most church-goers hear things said from the pulpit with which they do not agree. In the Protestant tradition, it is understood that the preacher is not controlled by a bishop and makes his or her own, personal decisions about what to say. (It is interesting that one of the problematic situations is a Catholic priest who evidently felt greater freedom visiting a Protestant pulpit.) In fact, one of the reasons for the Protestant religion is to permit freedom of speech in the pulpit. The largely unchurched journalists and politicians who have pressured Senator Obama to resign his church membership should be ashamed of themselves for violating this 500-year-old tradition which is one of the developments that led to the Bill of Rights in America.

No church-goer should be held accountable for what any preacher says from the pulpit. One of the sacred duties of Protestant worship is to hear what the preacher feels called upon to say, regardless of how much one disagrees with it. We believe that God speaks in a context where preachers pray and study the Bible and then say what they feel the Spirit is leading them to say. Obviously, many things are said in Protestant pulpits that are not authored by the Spirit simply because no preacher is infallible. But, if we disrespect the freedom of the preacher, then we will never hear the truth, only politically-manipulated messages.

To suggest that Senator Obama is somehow remiss for listening to certain things revealed by video clips is to misunderstand the nature of Protestant worship and to take away the freedom of worship for everyone in the Protestant tradition. Why do you think Protestant starts with "protest"? It is an approach to faith that is not fundamentally conservative or traditional, and places high value on freedom of speech. I am deeply disappointed at the outrageous things some preachers have said, both in this current context and over the years, but I am more deeply grieved that contemporary media, out of ignorance, would attempt to curtail the freedom of speech in the Protestant pulpit by pressuring those in the congregation to leave.

Impact of the Economy on Churches

How is the recession impacting your church and your ministry? A survey of Southern Baptist pastors completed just a few days ago has 72 percent reporting a negative effect on their churches, but only 24 percent saying that giving is below what they expected when their finance committees drafted budgets or projected multi-year trend lines last fall. It appears that most of the negative effect at this point is related to fear and the tendency of nonprofit boards to run scared any time the economy is not booming.

One of the researchers, Scott McConnell, associate director of LifeWay Research, observed that with "two-thirds of Southern Baptist churches ... plateaued or declining in membership and attendance, it is no surprise that 20 to 30 percent of churches find their giving under budget at any given point in time." So is this just evidence of worry, not real problems?

I have already published on this blog a note about the research by David Beckworth which shows the correlation between economic downturns and church accessions. (Incidentally, it is also being published as the cover story in the current issue of Adventist Today.) So, it is likely that within 18 to 24 months, the net impact of the bad economy on churches will be positive.

What is going on in your congregation or ministry? Are you actually below expected income? Is your board worried? Are your leaders cutting back, "hedging the bet" on the economy?

Source: An on line survey of a "representative sample" of 778 Southern Baptist pastors conducted April 16-May 5, 2008. Despite the fact that LifeWay Research says at the 95th percentile of confidence the allowance for sampling error does not exceed 3.5 percent (plus or minus), the use of the language "representative sample" may mean that it is not random. On line surveys are new technology and there have been good and bad results from it use.

The President's Faith-based Initiatives

The Bush administration has published a report on what has been accomplished by the Office of Faith-based & Community Initiatives over the past seven years. The 122-page report, entitled "The Quiet Revolution," includes a lot of information and is relatively modest in its claims of success. Click here to get a PDF copy of the document.

It claims that grants to faith-based charities has increased by 41 percent from 2003 to 2006, while grants to secular nonprofits grew by 19 percent from 2004 to 2006. It is not clear whether this is a narrow measure of the programs directly coordinated by the OFBCI or a wider assessment of Federal grants.

The report claims 10 innovations by the Bush administration, only three of which seem plausible. In fairness, I think that the Bush administration has made unprecedented progress in "leveling the playing field so that faith-based organizations could compete for government grants;" it has stimulated the creation of similar offices of faith-based and community initiatives in the state governments; and it has provided new training and technology resources to expand the capacity of the nonprofit sector. But the other seven "innovations" are clearly fall into two categories.

First, there are items that the Clinton administration had been working for several years, namely (1) "expanding partnerships with grassroots organizations;" (2) implementing a unit in each cabinet agency to pursue this agenda; (3) "expanding public-private partnerships;" (4) developing a united strategy driven by the president's call to community service; and (5) "catalyze the compassion agenda." I can testify personally to the Clinton administration efforts along these lines because I was a participant in the 1996 White House consultation on partnership between government and the nonprofit sector and in the 1997 Presidents' Summit on Community Service in Philadelphia. In many ways, the Bush administration has simply continued what the Clinton administration launched, but with a right-wing, Christian veneer over the previously secular polish.

Two other "innovations" that the Bush administration claims show that someone at the White House (probably several someones) is simply ignorant of history. (1) "Building mutually-reinforcing clusters of service" is something that has been on the American agenda since the 1950s when multi-service centers, community coordinating groups and case conference committees became popular. If there was an MSW with a little memory at the OFBCI then they should remember this is textbook stuff from grad school. (2) "Applying the FBCI vision to international aid and development" has been underway since the late 1940s. A long-standing pillar of U.S. foreign aid policy has been to distribute humanitarian and development assistance largely through faith-based and secular nonprofits who have significant networks and infrastructure overseas. The secular media likes to focus on Doctors Without Frontiers, the S.S. Hope and CARE packages, but the reality is that the American charities with the largest and most far-reaching networks overseas are allied with churches that have had extensive missionary efforts for most of the last two centuries. They have always carried much of the ground-level work and continue to do so. This is an excellent idea that I am pleased the Bush administration supports, but it is no more an "innovation" than bunnies and eggs are innovative art work in newspapers this time of year.

I am pleased that the Bush administration has pursued this agenda, but I am unhappy with the way they have tried to politicize it and with the very small investment that has been made in it. The report describes initiatives such as a prisoner re-entry program with projects in 30 communities and an anti-gang program in eight communities. These are simply too small to begin to meet the need. The administration has allowed its narrow-minded anti-welfare-state ideology to get in the way of its righteous instincts. Strangely enough, that is another way in which it is much like the Clinton administration, which is lambasted by the right wing for "massive programs" featuring "wild spending" and "Federal control," when, in fact, it pursued very small and very decentralized social programs. Remember, Bill Clinton was a conservative Democrat elected on the promise (which he fulfilled) to "do away with welfare."

In fact, the "welfare state" with massive bureaucracy is a necessary evil of the age in which we live. We no longer live in small, self-sustaining villages. We no longer have an agrarian economy. We have a globalized economy in which when you call to check on your prescription medicine it is not the druggist around the corner who picks up the phone, but someone on another continent. The neighborhood druggist does not fill the bottle for you and send it around via that nice 11th-grader to deliver to your door. It is some faceless pill factory somewhere that sends your pills through the mail reminding you that it might take 10 days to get to you. And I could give a thousand more examples of the way business has become a massive, bureaucratic monster. The free market has done that of its own initiative because it is the most efficient way to meet needs. Listen to your own rhetoric, George; that's why government cannot shrink away and disappear. Not if we want a USA that does not slowly devolve into "third world" status because there is no money to maintain the Interstate highways, no money to keep up the quality of neighborhoods, no money to keep libraries open, no money to provide health care for everyone.

The really pitiful thing about this report is the tiny output from the massive huffing and puffing that went into it. Both the Democrats and Republicans need to get off their ideological bicycles and let people with real expertise in community development make the important decisions. We are a big country and it is going to take big enterprises to solve big problems. At the same time we can only provide health care one person at a time; we can only help the unemployed find jobs one person at a time; and we can only keep teens out of gangs one kid at a time. It takes the rightly-tuned mix of global networks, well-funded big programs and human-size local groups to get the job done. We need the faith-based and community initiative (no matter who had the idea first) and we need adequate funding to deal realistically with the needs. We don't need more bone-head politicians who are most concerned about what's in it for them.

Those Who Live By the Gun ...

In the last few days there have been more shootings ... a shopping mall filled with families preparing for Christmas in Minnesota ... a missionary training center and a mega church in Colorado ... now a high school in Nevada. How long must this carnage go on before the American people get it? We cannot continue to make an idol of the gun and escape judgment. We cannot continue to have such a massive supply of weapons on every hand with such free access that the emotionally damaged have easy access to them! Frankly, those who continue to uphold the false doctrine of an unlimited right to less regulation on gun possession than there is for driver's licenses are a danger to the American people and to the republic. They are not doing the work of patriots. They are not doing God's work. They are clearly on the side of disrespect for the sacredness of life.

It is time for the followers of Jesus to stand up for the lives of children and families, for the peace of the nation. Americans do not deserve to live in a country where they are frightened to go the mall or to church or send their children to school. That peace cannot be restored so long as the current vast over-supply of firearms exists. It is time for pastors and people to discuss how to change the situation. Perhaps it is time to make it a test of fellowship. Can a person continue to be an authentic follower of Jesus and protect the idolization of guns in our society?