Aiya Iluvatar

"Being an Anglican"

Crusty Old Dean comments on the resolution from the Church of England's (CofE) Synod to reaffirm their relationsip with the Episcopal Church while, "the Synod motion has given Church of England affirmation to the desire of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) to remain in some sense within the  Anglican family." Tom puts it this way:

This report is good news. Translated from Church of England speak, it basically means, "Nothing's gonna happen with ACNA for a long, long time. This is what "open ended" engagement means.

via crustyoldean.blogspot.com

"Affirming" a "desire" does nothing other than acknoledge that ACNA wants to be in the communion. "Anglican Family" is as undefined a term in Anglican Ecclesiology as "Enemy Combatant" is in the Geneva Convention.  This is a pretty vague pat on the back from Lambeth.

Tom spends some time in the article comparing the Anglican Communion to the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and points out that all members of the Federation recognize the orders of the other, even if their jurisdictions overlap.  The problem with the case of the ACNA is that many of them would refuse to recognize our orders, many of them being held by women.

The root is in the myth of an "Anglican Church" that many people hold.  The Anglican Church is the CofE.  The Anglican Communion is a family of autonomous churches bound by "bonds of affection."  We really are a federation, whether we want to admit it or not, as the LWF is also a "Communion of Churches."  To claim we were more than this, (i.e., a church) juridical power would have to be exercised in between provinces, which is something not even contenanced in the proposed covenant. Those in ACNA that claim we are an "Anglican Church" don't want to be added to the Anglican Communion, they want to replace us.  

There is a lot of romaticism out there about being an "Anglican."  But in the strictest sense, only members of the CofE are truly Anglican. In my experience, when an American starts waxing abouty being "Anglican,"  It usually boils down to some sort of vague appreciation for tea, evensong and the 1637 Scottish eucharisitc canon.  They seem to do this quite often without understading that they are not using the 1662 English canon, and what a thumbing of the nose at the CofE adopting that canon was.  Anglophilia does not make one Anglican.

This is why people can join the new Anglican Ordinariate, play act as Anglicans, and not recognize that they have left something essential behind.  If Anglicanism is nothing but a minor derivation of the Western Rite, then they are correct.  But if Anglicanism is the actual religion espoused by Hooker and Donne and Taylor and Ferrar as a Via Media, then leaving the Anglican Communion for whatever wtipe of purity they seek is not a reaffirmation, but a repudiation (perhaps a refudiation?)

In America, if you are a member of the Episcopal Church, you are an Episcopalian.  Because of our participation in the Communion's "Instruments of Unity," we can lay some claim to being "Anglican." Beyond that, all of those who follow the trappings of Anglicanism might certainly be called part of the "Anglican Family,"  which really does not contain any recognition with it.  After all, everyone you are related to is part of your family, whether they are healthy and sane or not.

Schism as a Virus

Watching the "Withdrawal" or whatever it is of the Anglican Mission In America (AMIA) from the Anglican Church of Rwanda has been interesting.  For those of you not in the know, the AMIA was formed in 2000 as a reaction to the "theological liberalism" of the Episcopal Church.  In order to be strictly "Anglican," one has to be in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury through a church in the Anglican Communion.  AMIA's tie was through Rawanda, but that relationship flew to pieces last month over what appears to be personality conflicts among bishops.  While many try to put a brave face on it, AMIA member Mark Galli calls it for what it is:

I think it critical in such times that we say what a thing is–only the truth will set us free. And this thing that happened has a name: schism.  All the AMIA bishops who have resigned are schismatics.

This is a hard sentence to write and to read, because these are otherwise godly men, whose leadership we have admired.  Some we call friends and colleagues.  But there is no other word to describe what they’ve done other than the word schism.

This is troubling, first, because it contradicts Jesus’ expressed prayer for the unity of the church. Second, it threatens to make a lie of AMIA’s posture when we first left the Episcopal Church.  Some accused us of schism at the time, and we responded in one of two ways:  (1) It is not schism if the church we departed had lost its Christian moorings. Or (2) if it is schism, then it is one of the rare exceptions in which schism is the lesser evil. In either case, we held aloft a couple of theological ideals that were motivating us: The authority of Scripture and sexual/moral integrity. We did not leave on a point of personal inspiration.

In my opinion, "Threatens to make a lie of AMIA's posture when we first left the Episcopal Church" should be changed to "Removes the theological smokescreen our leadership used to justify schism."  I'm in the process of reading Douglas Bess' Divided We Stand, which is a history of the "Continuing Anglican Movement."  It's reads kind of like a "bodice ripper" version of Don Armentrout's Episcopal Splinter Groups.  The AMIA is just one of many groups who have left the Episcopal Church over the years for various presenting reasons, from the Reformed Episcopal Church in the 1800s to the Anglican Ordinariates just a few days ago.  However, whatever the presenting reasons, there's always a subtext of bishops behaving badly, and it always seems to follow a particular course:

1. Dissident leaders become frustrated by lack of personal advancement in Episcopal Church.
2. Dissident movement latches onto theological debate du jour.
3. When enough dissidents gather, a loose confederation is formed around their dislike of the Episcopal Church, even if there is little else in common.
4. Dissident confederation leaves Episcopal Church claiming that they are not leaving, but that the church has left them.
5. Dissident confederation creates looser ecclesiological structure and canons that empowers dissident leaders.
6. Dissident confederation ordains many more bishops than it needs, often using Episcopi Vagantes.
7. Dissident confederation cracks apart along papered-over faultlines ignored when the confederation is formed.
8. Remaining dissident groups merge and fracture with amazing frequency, with the bishops sometimes becoming Episcopi Vagantes themselves.

It almost seems to be a viral process designed to create more Episcopi Vagantes.  The speed varies.  The Reformed Episcopal Church is still around, although it has lately become part of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).  (Interestingly, the ACNA was also the name of a group formed after the St. Louis Congress in 1977 in opposition to women's ordination and which split apart later over churchmanship issues.)  But ACNA faces it's own internal problems with women's ordination and other issues that didn't seem so huge when the Episcopal Church was the big bad wolf, but are starting to rear their ugly heads now that they have had time to start getting to know each other.

Perhaps schism really is viral.

Recovering from Overreaction

It was interesting to read the Living Church's editorial, "Thank God for Mercy" about the dismissal of the case against Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina.  What really caught my eye was their description of the procedure as "Kafkaesque."  I suspect they need to re-read Kafka. 

Perhaps I should try a high literary allusion to characterize the megabytes of reactionary blog posts to the presentment.  Maybe "Chicken Little?"  For weeks, they have been worked into a froth about this being the unmasking of the Presiding Bishop's conspiracy to rid the church of anyone who opposes her.  But now, the bishops on the disciplinary board have noted that while they had to review the case (since it was sent to them) they can't find evidence of clear abandonment of communion on Lawrence's part.  This leaves those angry voices making vague choking noises, looking nervously from side to side, and muttering something unconvincing about "Two Days" while trying to make themselves scarce.  Indeed, the conservative Episcopal blogopshere has been notably quiet about this news item, while they had been generating new content about the presentment several times a day heretofore. 

Ya know, guys, maybe there wasn't a second shooter, maybe there's nothing in Area 51, and perhaps when General Convention passed the new Title IV canons, which your dioceses had a part in crafting, it wasn't to target anyone in particular.  Perhaps our Presiding Bishop is not the heretical succubus in a mitre you make her out to be.  On the other hand, maybe she is a Unitarian zombie.  Yeah, that's the ticket.

Ben Goldacre: Battling bad science | Video on TED.com

A very interesting TED video on how the results of scientific studies, in this case pharmaceutical reasearch, can be skewed by methodology and selective reporting.

Oh, and One Last Thing...

I guess it’s part of getting older - seeing your heroes pass on one by one and feeling your world get a little sadder for it.  Steve is dead.  He’s gone the same way as George Harrison and Gary Gygax, the other public figures I’ve had this kind of reaction to.  They all represent an archetype of part of my personality: George the musician, Gary the Gamer, and Steve the people-savvy geek.

As I think on what he represented, it’s not any of the normal computer geek archetypes.  Was he the hardware wizard?  Nope, that's the Woz.  Was he the design wonk?  Nope, that’s Jonathan.  Was he the Software genius?  Nope, that’s Avie.  Steve was the Visionary, the Trickster, the Dungeon Master. He conjured up entire worlds that none of us could envision, and then sold them to us at a premium.

Much has been written about the Boomer generation, and how they have aged.  Some kept to their hippy ways and are still living on organic communes.  Some cut their hair, forgot the Summer of Love and went on to develop financial derivatives.  Steve found his own way.  He never lost the 60’s idealism, but married it with 80’s pragmatism.  He showed that you could change the world in a positive way while still making a load of money.

Steve didn’t create the personal computer, MP3 Players or Cell Phones.  Heck, he didn’t even personally create the Mac, iPod or iPhone.  But his vision of products that could change the world and still make a buck represented the best of Boomer idealism brought down to earth in a market economy.  There is no part of the tech sector that has been unaffected by products Jobs helped bring into being.  Our computing world is a much friendlier place due to his remarkable ability to vision, decide, and synthesize.

Oh, and one more thing, Steve.  You really were insanely great.  We will miss you.

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The picture above is from a t-shirt available here.

Hands. A Sermon for the 10th Anniversary of 9/11

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This sermon quotes a small portion of the poem “Jesus Poem” by Susan Birkeland and at length from “Leap” by Brian Doyle.

Hands.

Clenched Hands.  Clasped Hands.

White knuckles on a control stick as he flies a  jetliner, weaponized simply by its contents into the packed tower.  

Other hands at the mouth of the inferno reach for each other as they step out into the air.  Unforgettable.  Inconciveable.  Burned into the retinas of those who witnessed.  “They reached for each other and their hands met and they jumped.” 

Hands clenched in hate.  Hands clasped in community. 

Peter asks Jesus how many times he should forgive, figuring his estimate is more than generous.  Jesus responds that forgiveness is infinite, and tells yet another one of his stories.  One about a man who was forgiven much but refused to forgive less when it was owed to him.

Hands clenched on a jetliner’s control stick.  Clenched with righteous anger and hate.  Forgiven much, but forgiving little,  the cycle of violence is perpetuated.  The one hand becomes many, on the pistol grip of an assault rifle, on the cell phone detonator of a roadside bomb, above the firing button of a hellfire missile on a predator drone.  The ripples of that white-knuckled clenching of the hand propagate throughout the world.

But, Brian Doyle writes, in the burning building, “he reached for her hand and she reached for his hand and they leaped out the window holding hands.”  As they fall, i imagine they are forgiven much and forgive much, as Susan Birkeland writes, “In the last moments there’s nothing to fix.  No protest against the speed of the fall.”

Doyle continues,

“I try to whisper prayers for the sudden dead and the harrowed families of the dead and the screaming souls of the murderers but I keep coming back to his hand and her hand nestled in each other with such extraordinary ordinary succinct ancient naked stunning perfect simple ferocious love.

Their hands reaching and joining are the most powerful prayer I can imagine, the most eloquent, the most graceful. It is everything that we are capable of against horror and loss and death. It is what makes me believe that we are not craven fools and charlatans to believe in God, to believe that human beings have greatness and holiness within them like seeds that open only under great fires, to believe that some unimaginable essence of who we are persists past the dissolution of what we were, to believe against such evil hourly evidence that love is why we are here.

No one knows who they were: husband and wife, lovers, dear friends, colleagues, strangers thrown together at the window there at the lip of hell. Maybe they didn't even reach for each other consciously, maybe it was instinctive, a reflex, as they both decided at the same time to take two running steps and jump out the shattered window, but they did reach for each other, and they held on tight, and leaped.”

Paul preached to the Romans, “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

We generally do not choose how we die.  Then what is left to us is how we live.  We are forgiven much.  Do we have the courage to fall into forgiveness? It is easier to hold onto anger, luxuriating in its deep, boundless depths like dark, succulent chocolate, basking in blind certitude as we forgive little.  Or do we grasp each others’ hands and leap into the uncertainty of difficult, costly forgiveness, not knowing where we are going but certain that the inferno of hate behind us will consume us if we embrace it?

Hands.

Clenched Hands.  Clasped hands.

the choice belongs to us.

Counting Christians

My June Newsletter article:

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Dear Beloved People of God,

It’s not unusual to hear someone ask questions about new members, usually in the context of “Why don’t we have them?”  While some of the answer to that lies in the systems of our parish, a lot of it has to do with big changes in the way society works.  In the early 19th Century, Alexis de Toqueville called us a “Nation of Joiners,” who saw the inherent value in creating and joining a variety of civic organizations, including churches, which functioned as organizations very much like others.

In an article for Christian Century, Amy Frykholm notes that church membership has always been strong in America, but that it has never been stable. It increased dramatically at two points in our history: during the Second Great Awakening in the mid-19th century, and following World War Two.

“Many kinds of voluntary organizations flourished in this period, from parent-teacher associations to social clubs to service organizations. Historians argue that belonging to a church was a primary means of social belonging; church membership marked one's place in the community.

For mainline Protestants, the postwar religious boom led to a peak in church membership in the mid-1960s. With an increase in members came building programs, large staffs and the expansion of national denominations. For many, this model of church life is still the norm even though membership has been declining for almost 50 years.

The 1960s should not be taken as the historical norm, notes historian Mark Noll. He contrasts the mid-20th-century model of membership with churches in the 19th century, whose primary income came from renting pews. Finney created a stir when he created a "free church" in New York City—a church no one had to pay to sit down in. Noll notes that denominations in the 19th century survived for years with just three or four staff members at the national level—not the hundreds that came to be employed by denominations in the 20th century. The rise of what Episcopal bishop Greg Rickel calls the "religious-industrial complex" is a phenomenon of the 20th century.”

There are two points that I would like to note from this change in society that may be a move back towards the American norm rather than a “National Apostasy” that some make it out to be.  The first is that the measures of church health that have worked for the last sixty or so years may not be relevant anymore.  A few decades ago, church membership was a part of the “social fabric” of a community.  For many people, church had less to do with religion, and more to do with your place in society.  Today, the social advantages of church membership have been largely supplanted, and people who attend church do so because it feeds them spiritually.  Because of that, people attend on a more sporadic basis.  A new “member” of a church may come twice a month, or once a month, or may be a “Longtime visitor” for years.  Membership numbers and average attendance are measurements designed during the “Boom time” since World War Two and assume solid membership with weekly attendance.  The only common measure that may actually reflect the health of a congregation is the pledging information, which indicates the value that people who attend put in the mission of the congregation.  Interestingly, that puts us in a similar situation as churches up through the 19th century that measured congregational vitality by pew rents.

The second point is about bringing people in the doors.  For the last sixty years, church membership has largely been a “shell game.”  In this game, almost everyone in a community is a member of some congregation.  Evangelism had largely to do with being ready to hold onto the people who came into the church because they have either moved in from out of town or were disenchanted with their current church.  This is largely no longer the case.  While younger people (and an increasing number of middle-aged people) are interested in religion, they often lack any familiarity with the stories of the Bible, denominational history, or anything else of historical Christianity.  They lack the social compunction of needing to be part of a church that their parents had.  Therefore, looking for a church is at best a low priority, and maybe something best put off in order to keep their decreasing free time with their families free on Sunday morning.  

Late twentieth-century evangelism had to do with opening the doors, putting out a placard, and creating bigger and better program to “compete” with the other churches in the community.  Twenty-first century evangelism has to be centered around telling our stories and explaining WHY someone should come to church.  Our primary task is not to convince people that our church is their best option, but to persuade them that belonging to ANY community of faith matters, is beneficial to them, and is worth part of their free time in a culture where 60-80 hour work weeks are the norm.  

While for many, these changes in society are difficult to accept, they also present an exciting challenge.  We are challenged as Christians as we have not been for several generations to do what the Gospels say: to tell the Good News of Jesus to those around us who have not heard it.  The future of the church and our congregation lies in how passionately we can bring the Gospel of Christ to the world. We are called to trust in Christ, and to proclaim all that He has done for us.  

David+

Bin Laden, Death, and the Cycle of Violence

My May newsletter article:

As this issue of the Newsletter goes to press, the big news is the death of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.  I was up on Sunday night, so I watched the CNN reports and then the President’s address.  My first reaction was one of excitement.  After all, the terrorist organization Bin Laden was the spokesperson for had hurt us dearly in 2001.  It was good to see something definitive finally come out of all the war and intelligence operations in the intervening ten years.  My second reaction was admiration for the forces involved.  The SEALs really did their job well and appear to have minimalized any outside casualties.  My third and abiding reaction has to do with watching the celebrations outside the White House. 

It was interesting that the crowd seemed to be made up largely of late-teen/twentysomethings.  This points out two things.  First - that since time immemorial, college students really are just looking for an excuse to party.  Second - that these young adults had grown up with war as constant background, both terrible and largely remote.  It must have been incredibly cathartic for them to know something of a victory.  But as I watched them, a voice inside me questioned if this was fundamentally different than any other crowd chanting for blood. Having just come out of Holy Week, I am still haunted by the chants of the crowd, “Crucify Him!” Now, let me be very clear.  I am not equating Osama bin Laden with Jesus.   Bin Laden was an evil man, and the point of the passion is that Jesus is innocent of what his accusers charge him with.  I’m not talking about the object, but the reaction of the crowd itself.  

There is something universal and terrible about a crowd chanting for blood.  Whether inside a Roman Coliseum, or in the streets of Tehran, or at Ground Zero, bloodlust is a way for us to transfer our fear and guilt onto another (guilty or innocent, it really does not matter for the mechanism to work) and abate those fears through the death of the other.  But the catharsis of the death only works temporarily.  As Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote:

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” - Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, pp. 62–63 (1967)

Throughout Lent and Holy Week, I have been preaching on the works of René Girard.  He puts this mechanism at the root of human evil, identifying it with Satan himself.  For Girard, Jesus’ death and resurrection becomes yeast that leavens the dough of humanity so it becomes increasingly difficult to look at violent death with the dispassion we did as a race at the time of Jesus. If we as Christians want to differentiate ourselves from a practitioner of extreme Wahhabi Islam such as Bin Laden, the best place to start is a refutation of celebration of the violent death of others.  Whether or not the death of Osama Bin Laden has any practical effect in the “war on terror,” whether or not the operation can be considered moral under just war doctrine, our calling as Christians is to examine not the evil of others, but our own reaction.

Of course, we are human, and caught up in this cycle whether we want to be or not.  As one colleague pointed out on twitter, “Emotions are what they are. They're not moral or immoral. They come from deep inside us. Morality hangs on what you do with them.”  What shall we do with them?

The Reluctant Sermon - How would Jesus Legislate?

This is the sermon I delivered today.  It was the hardest one I have had to write because I knew it would make some people in my congregation angry.  I kept trying to find ways to modify it, but the Holy Spirit seemed to demand that I keep it largely intact.  MP3 of the sermon follows with the text below.

 

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Beloved, We certainly live in interesting times.  In addition to the horrific earthquake in New Zealand and the violence in Northern Africa, protests in our state capitol have now reached a close to two-week mark with no signs of abatement.  The Senate Democrats are still out of state, the Assembly passed a bill under some very unusual circumstances, and our Governor accepted an embarrassing  prank call.  The state and the nation seem to be in a perpetual state of worry.  Into this comes Jesus in our Gospel this morning - 

“do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”  

But how do we do this?  Is God telling us to be lazy and unproductive?  Don’t catastrophes, starvation, and other natural disasters shorten the lives of birds and flowers?

The Galileans hearing these words lived in a very harsh reality in a subsistence culture.  They were oppressed under the yoke of the Romans, who taxed them heavily without regard for the effect on them or their children.  It was no easier for them to hear this than it is for us.

So when Jesus says this is what the kingdom looks like, what is he saying?  I think the key is that line, “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”  This is a good touchstone, a mantra to repeat to yourself.  You can only shorten your life by continually worrying.  A life lived in fear is a life never truly lived.  Just as the birds of the air must go forth and hunt for their food, and the flowers depend on insects for pollination, so we have to go forth boldly without fear and rely on those around us.

Beloved, this has been a difficult week for me.  The fear comes mainly from finding myself needing to take a definite side on a political issue due to my understanding of the Gospel and worrying about how that will effect my relationship with those of you who disagree with me.  But I am a preacher of the Gospel, and it is my charism to share with you the Gospel as it has shaped me and as I have prayed about it this week.  Rest assured, I am all too aware of my own human short-sightedness and prejudices, and I certainly think there is plenty of room for people to disagree.

Last Tuesday, I participated, along with our bishop and several other Episcopal clergy, in an interfaith rally in Madison against the “Budget Repair Bill” that is currently awaiting action in the state senate.  This is not something that comes easy to me.  I am by no means the sometimes stereotyped "liberal in the pulpit."  I have been a registered Republican my entire life.  Eisenhower is a favorite president.  My first vote was for Ronald Reagan, and I’m still convinced that was a good vote for the times.  

Some might say that religion has no place in discussing this situation here in Wisconsin. But while Jesus did not spend his time in open rebellion against the Romans, it’s very hard to say that his teachings have no political implications.  One of the things that people thought remarkable about Jesus was his ability to draw in people from all over society, from Jewish rebels to the religious establishment to a Roman Centurion.  This was what the authorities criticized him for - being willing to sit down with people that they thought were not worth being listened to.  While he was no agitator, his ability to bring people together was a direct threat to the establishment, which relied on being able to distinguish those who were worthy of the benefits of society from those who were not.  His treatment of everyone as equals was something completely unacceptable to a violent society that needed those differences in order to sustain itself.  His insistence that people need not live their lives in fear went right up against an empire whose rule was based in fear. As one of my colleagues remarked this week, in the Gospel today, Jesus does not ASK to not act out of fear.  He COMMANDS us not to do so. 

Over the last week, we have seen an overwhelming amount of concern from religious leaders, both conservative and liberal, over the implications and implementation of the budget repair bill.  Over 75 leaders have signed the Interfaith coalition’s petition opposing the bill.  Some of those leaders, such as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Milwaukee, the Eastern Orthodox, and the rabbis of the Conservative tradition, are not always to be found on this side of the aisle.  Most of them, such as Bishop Miller, do not routinely speak out against legislation.

For many of us who are speaking out, it is due to the way in which the bill is being handled.  The climate of fear around our fiscal crisis is being used to do many things that seem to have no direct correlation to the crisis.  The unions have announced their agreement to fiscal concessions, but there is a refusal to even negotiate from the other side. The removal of legislative control over our state-run health care and centering that authority in the governors office seems to strike at our system of checks and balances.  And the revelation that there was real consideration given by the administration to planting  troublemakers in among the protestors to cause a disturbance should give everyone pause.
Those of us who follow Jesus are called to emulate his ways.  We are not allowed the luxury of dividing the world into “us” and “them.”  Absolute rule by a majority is not a Christian value. Nor is lack of charity and compromise.  We are called to sit at the table with those we disagree with and acknowledge that the other has a rightful place there. And we are called to make decisions not out of fear, but out of understanding that ultimately God is the one in control of the universe.

The issues that are being debated in this bill have little to do with short-term fiscal policy.  I've seen commentators from both MSNBC and Fox news point that out.  The way its passage is being handled, which is that there can be no room for compromise or discussion, creates a situation where a significant portion of our population feels they have no input on issues that deeply effect their fundamental rights.  The solution of breaking off the contentious issues from the fiscal concessions in order to both solve the immediate budget crisis and to allow for a wider debate outside the capitol chambers seems to be something the administration is not willing to do.

Now, beloved.  Of course, you may disagree with me on the actions of our governor or the actions of the unions or the actions of the protestors.  And this is the Episcopal Church - I cannot tell you that you have to believe that Jesus speaks to us on this in the way I articulate it.  

But if you have not thought about it, spend a minute on this. What WOULD Jesus do in Madison?  This is important - we cannot partition off this part of our lives from the living God who sees and judges all, saying, “it’s just politics.”  God does not allow politics to be held to a different standard.  Part of the command to not fear is to constantly remember that we belong to Jesus’ kingdom, not to the kingdom of this world.  For a second, don’t think about what a Republican or a Democrat would do, or what a union supporter or opponent should do, or what the other party did in control, or what you’d like to do or what would be easiest.  Those are human arguments.  As a minister of the Gospel, my job is to challenge you to ask yourself "how would Jesus handle this?"  It is very hard to imagine him supporting a process that involves so much real impact with so little public input at such a breakneck speed without previous notification that these issues were on the table.  Those were the kinds of solutions Peter and Judas advocated and which Jesus rebuked them for.  Speed was not something Jesus seemed to value, because it is often a pretext to hide fear. He was always annoying the disciples by stopping to show compassion when they thought he should be hurrying along. From our examples in the Gospel, I believe he would tell us to ratchet down the fear several notches, that he would stop everything, that he would command us to sit down with one another, and that he would expect that we would talk and actually listen. Not debate - debate is people talking past each other. He would command us to actually listen and hear the other's point of view.

As for political victory, dominance and power, as Jesus would say, “It is the Gentiles who strive for all these things.” and “You cannot serve two masters.” As followers of him, we are to strive for something different.  We are to build a world that puts the Kingdom values of kindness, mercy and forbearance first, even at the cost of our most cherished political beliefs.

David+

Why I Protest

On Tuesday, I joined a group of interfaith religious leaders from throughout Wisconsin at the state capitol to protest the so-called “Budget Rescue Bill” proposed by Governor Scott Walker.  It’s always a  tricky thing when a religious leader speaks out on a political issue.  Obviously, I don’t spend time reflecting theologically on every piece of legislation, but sometimes the issues involved seem so basic that it is not possible as a person who reads the Gospel and takes it seriously to stay neutral.  Governor Walker claims that it’s all about the budget, but that can really no longer be the issue, since the unions have agreed to take the cuts the governor has proposed.  Instead, the Governor wants to remove the collective-bargaining power of the unions over everything except salary.  He claims he needs this power because there will be hard times in the future and he needs “flexibility.”  It’s very hard to read this as anything other than a simple attempt to break the unions.

The presenting problem for me as a pastor is the tactics.  The attempt was to move this through the legislature so fast that fifty years of bargaining would be swept away in two days.  Only the flight of the fourteen Democratic senators has kept this from happening.  Republicans claim they have the moral impetus to do this because they won the election.  They talk about a “Mandate” that was given to them by the people.  If we look at the election, 52% voted for walker, and we had about 50% turnout, so that means that around 26% of the population voted for Walker.  While this does make him the governor, the idea of the “Overwhelming Mandate” seems like an overblown claim.  In addition, the point of a constitutional democracy is to avoid “Winner take all” changes of government and to protect the rights of the minority.  What Walker is trying to do in Wisconsin is to disenfranchise public workers without having any real discussion as to whether this is a good idea or not.  Even worse, he is portraying it as a budget issue when it is obvious it is not since those demands have been met.

The underlying, worrying problem for me is worker rights.  I read a letter  in the local paper the other day that said something to the effect of, “As a person in the private sector, I can’t fathom being able to bargain with my employer for benefits.” Why not?  Why is there an underlying philosophical assumption that a corporation has the ability and right to set all terms of employment without any input from workers?  While I agree that unions can become corrupt, so can corporations.  The existence of unions creates some balance against the influence of corporations.  Many have commented on how short-sighted modern corporate America is - more concerned with current stock price and quarterly earnings than long-term health.  People bewail the fact that loyalty between company and employee has deteriorated. Yet when we talk about organized labor, some of those same people seem to think that there is no need for a counter-balance that represents the rights of workers.  Do we really expect that the corporations that got us into the current financial mess are looking out for our best interests?

Even those workers who are not unionized benefit from the existence of unions.  Many of our modern labor laws from child labor to minimum wage to mandated breaks stem from the legislative support of unions.  Who do we expect will continue to push for labor laws in a rapidly-changing world if the unions are gone?  Will the corporations do that simply out of good will when such laws hurt the short-term bottom line?

And while many suggest that public workers should not be unionized, I would think the unions would be even more important for them.  The free market helps balance out the private sector a bit.  A truly awful employer will (hopefully) lose good employees to a better company (although the example of Wal-Mart does not inspire hope). But if you want to be a teacher, you will be likely be employed by government.  Public Unions ensure that there is some consistency for public employees despite the fact that the party in control is likely to change several times during their careers.  In addition, the collective bargaining process is the way that teachers have some say in how classrooms are configured through class size, hours, etc.

The question for me is, “Why does Scott Walker need this to do what he SAYS he wants to do?”  The answer is, “He doesn’t.”  They are offering him the financial fix he wants.  Other governors have gotten large concessions from the public unions without removing their collective-bargaining rights.  In my opinion, he is simply using this as a pretext to score a Neo-Conservative victory and possibly get himself some national notoriety for his next political move.  And while many don’t seem to mind this, I am angered to see a real fiscal problem being used as a pretext to further his career.

David+

Note: Even Fox News seems to recognize that this is really about union-busting. If that's what it is, let's have an open discussion about the value of collective bargaining.