By this logic

Here goes. According to some Christians, hormone contraceptives should be considered on par with abortion because they can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall. Just to make sure no one misses the connection, they call them "abortifacients."

(Note: If you side with them that pregnancy begins at conception, raise your hand. If you side with the medical community that pregnancy begins at implantation, now raise your hand. I see we have work to do.)

Ok. Now we have had way too many random acts of gun violence in every corner of the country. Many of the Christians that obsess over the well-being of fertilized eggs are quick to give theology lessons to anyone that dares speak a disparaging word about guns. Evil resides in the person, not the weapon. Fair enough.

So using hormone treatments is intrinsically evil because it risks the life of a fertilized egg. Those treatments should be banned for everyone or at least prohibited for women of faith. Guns in the hands of criminals or mentally disordered people routinely kill innocent strangers or loved ones. Like those shoppers out in Oregon, those movie-goers in Colorado, the wife of that football player, or thousands of other tragic stories. These victims are worth every bit as much as those fertilized eggs. Right? But no discussion is allowed about placing any limits on guns? It just seems to me that guns are abortifacients. They often cause the instantaneous abortion of a fully developed human beings.

If it is acceptable to ban hormonal contraceptives, it should be equally acceptable to ban or regulate guns. If contraceptives are abortifacients, then guns are abortifacients as well. It is just good old fashioned truth in labeling. Fair is fair.

Reduction to the absurd

Legal challenges to laws limiting rights for same-sex couples will come before the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming months. During a lecture at Princeton University, Justice Antonin Scalia was asked why he equated homosexuality with bestiality and murder. Here is his response:

"It's a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called the `reduction to the absurd,'" Scalia told Hosie of San Francisco during the question-and-answer period. "If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?"

Scalia said he is not equating sodomy with murder but drawing a parallel between the bans on both.

Then he deadpanned: "I'm surprised you aren't persuaded."

Not all of Scalia's moral feelings come from scripture. Here is a nice bon mot from Deuteronomy 16:19.

Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.

If we cannot have feelings on judges that fail to respect conflicts of interest, then we should not have feelings on murder. I am not equating unethical conduct with murder but just trying to draw a parallel.

Judges that favor the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and powerless have always been a thorn in God's side. Love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. Right, Justice Scalia?

The toxic debate over contraception among American Christians

The debate over reproductive rights among American Christians is childish and embarrassing.

The whole religious liberty kerfuffle in America today has nothing to do with people having the right to worship as they choose. Instead, we have been treated to an intellectually dishonest debate over contraception. Catholics and some Evangelical Protestants claim that contraceptives should not be included in health insurance because some hormonal methods cause abortions. They have even coined a clever monicker for these hormonal treatments - "abortifacients."

Let me illustrate how the "debate" over religious liberty and conception takes place among Christians.

Fred Clark, a progressive Christian writer, noted the tendency among some Christian leaders to equate contraception with abortion. To illustrated the point, he used the lawsuit by a Christian publishing company claiming its religious liberty had been trampled by being forced to cover contraceptives it labelled "abortifacients." The debate was also politicized by several references to the "religious right."

Timothy Dalrymple,  a prominent evangelical Christian writer, punched back.

Fred Clark (“slacktivist”) and other hard-left progressives have accused evangelicals of lying about the abortifacient nature of some contraceptives. According to this view of things, evangelicals are really just dead-set on opposing anything associated with President Obama, so they have invented the excuse that some contraceptives are abortifacient (abortion-inducing) in order to give themselves a justification for joining Catholic efforts to overturn Obamacare or at least eliminate its contraceptive mandate. In fact, with his usual charity and subtlety (/sarcasm), Clark conflates opposing contraception in principle (which evangelicals generally do not) with opposing the use of specific contraceptives that can cause the destruction of a fertilized egg (which evangelicals generally do), and likewise conflates opposing contraception (do not) with opposing church-supported distribution of condoms to unmarried young people (often do).

Notice the rhetoric. Dalrymple paints those who support health insurance coverage for contraceptives as political extremists - "hard-left." He also claims that Clark called evangelicals liars for equating contraception with abortion. That is more polemics because Clark questioned the factual basis for the equation rather than calling it a lie.

Clark fired back, this time calling evangelicals a bunch of liars.

So, my dear evangelical brothers and sisters, can we please stop lying for Jesus by saying that emergency contraception is “an abortifacient”?

It will not be long before 'poopy-head', 'terrorist', and 'baby killer' are thrown around as epithets. Beyond the name-calling, the debate is counterproductive and ultimately harmful to the body of Christ. We serve Christ, not religious or political leaders. You would never know that by the hyperbolic discussion of contraception by Christians in America.

First of all, Clark is correct in stating that emergency contraceptives do not cause the body to abort a fertilized egg. People that call it an "abortifacient" are wrong. Here is a clear statement of the biological mechanism of action (emphasis added) from the medical literature.

A major barrier to the widespread acceptability and use of emergency contraception (EC) are concerns regarding the mechanisms of action of EC methods. Today, levonorgestrel (LNG) in a single dose of 1.5 mg taken within 120 h of an unprotected intercourse is the most widely used EC method worldwide. It has been demonstrated that LNG-EC acts through an effect on follicular development to delay or inhibit ovulation but has no effect once luteinizing hormone has started to increase. Thereafter, LNG-EC cannot prevent ovulation and it does not prevent fertilization or affect the human fallopian tube. LNG-EC has no effect on endometrial development or function. In an in vitro model, it was demonstrated that LNG did not interfere with blastocyst function or implantation.

In other words, emergency contraception messes with the hormones (particularly progesterone) to stop ovulation, but does not prevent fertilization or implantation of a fertilized egg. It does not destroy a fertilized egg as some Christian leaders claim. The only thing that is aborted is their credibility.

The second problem is that the debate over contraception coverage by health insurance is not really about emergency contraceptives. The most widely used emergency contraceptive is available over the counter. The coverage requirement is for commonly used prescription contraceptives. It is not because the primary mechanism of action destroys a fertilized egg, but because there is some risk to prevent implantation.

“In summary, the primary contraceptive effect of all the non-barrier methods, including emergency use of contraceptive pills, is to prevent ovulation and/or fertilization. Additional contraceptive actions for all of these also may affect the process beyond fertilization but prior to pregnancy. For some methods these actions may be significant in contributing to their overall contraceptive efficacy.” American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Equity Toolkit (Accessed 2012-02-26). From ACOG Statement on Contraceptive Methods (July, 1998).

Some Christians have become so rigid and arbitrary that any hormonal treatment that can potentially interfere with implantation of a fertilized egg is considered an "abortifacient." How touching that we are so very careful with the well-being of a fertilized egg, even before it is even capable of further development beyond a single cell.

The controversy boils down to whether you consider a fertilized egg a fetus. The medical community defines pregnancy as the implantation of a fertilized egg. The reason is simple. A fertilized egg is not viable until it is implanted in the uterus and the cells begin to multiply and differentiate. Some Christians, particularly politically powerful Catholic and Evangelical leaders, want to call a woman pregnant when an egg is fertilized and treat the disruption of implantation as an abortion. That belief has a very interesting history.

The debate over contraception also undermines any meaningful discussion of abortion. Calling the use of medications that might interfere with implantation of fertilized egg murder and an assault on human dignity is a sham.

Additionally, both Evangelical Protestants and Catholics believe abortion is the extinguishment of a person created by God, a being at whose conception personhood begins. Thus, abortion is a profound assault on human dignity and a violation of the Sixth Commandment, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13).

This is cynical politics and sloppy theology. The very next chapter of Exodus prohibits retribution for causing a miscarriage (Exodus 21:22-25).

“If people are fighting with each other and happen to hurt a pregnant woman so badly that her unborn child dies, then, even if no other harm follows, he must be fined. He must pay the amount set by the woman’s husband and confirmed by judges. But if any harm follows, then you are to give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound and bruise for bruise.

From an ethical standpoint, if I want to err on the side of caution out of reverence for life and avoid contraceptive methods that prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, there is nothing that stops me. There is no requirement in our society to use contraception. I can act freely within the dictates of my conscience. The ethical high ground, however, collapses when I want to impose my value system on others. Some Christian leaders want all employers to have the right to deny coverage for family planning. It does not matter whether you work for a university, hospital, nonprofit, publisher, or any other business. It does not matter what your own personal beliefs about contraception happen to be.

What do you call Christians that want to protect every fertilized human egg but barely lift a finger to stop the already born from dying of hunger, thirst, disease, war, or execution? Mental gymnastics over a fertilized egg require even more time, money, blood, sweat, tears, and political capital for the already born if one's concern is truly rooted in respect for life. If you want to protect every fertilized egg but cannot be bothered about the already born, you better hope the Lord has a well-developed sense of humor about hypocrisy.

And let's not forget that by opposing the most effective forms of contraception, you are deliberately increasing the chances a woman will have an unwanted pregnancy. There are few good outcomes with an unwanted pregnancy, but the advocates of prohibiting hormonal contraceptives do not care. The woman's choices at that point are extremely difficult. She can terminate the pregnancy, but wrestle with the emotional and moral issues for a lifetime. Or she can bear the emotional, physical, and financial costs of carrying the child to term and giving it up for adoption. Lastly, she could become a parent despite not being prepared for the responsibility and perhaps lacking the resources to effectively raise the child.

The authoritarian streak in some Evangelical and Catholic leaders is on display in the fight over contraception. Perhaps if they cared less about their own power and more about the well-being of their flock, the debate would not be so unbecoming to the body of Christ. Do these people seriously think they bring glory to Christ by equating the use of hormonal contraceptives with abortion and murder?

Snapped

Corey Booker, mayor of Newark, is taking the food stamp challenge. Not only is he taking the challenge, but he is taking to social media to publicize his experiences and reflections. Now into the fifth day, he admits how difficult it is to count pennies, budget every meal, deal with hunger pains, and forego some vices like coffee. His motivation is to highlight the growing problem of food insecurity in our country.

As I begin this journey, I am doubling down on my commitment to the Food Justice Movement that is gaining awareness and participation in this country. We have much work to do at the local level to address a legacy of structural inequities in the American food system. As more and more working people and families - many holding down more than one job - face greater and greater challenges to juggle housing, medical, and transportation costs, meeting nutritional needs becomes a serious problem and a social justice issue. The struggle of children, seniors, and families to have access to essential nutrition is a struggle we are all invested in and we all benefit when families succeed. Now more than ever we are all in this together.

Personally, I believe every politician should be required to take the food stamp challenge. And try to support their family on a minimum wage job. Or live on the fixed income of senior citizen living on Social Security. That will never happen. Courage and compassion are not marketable commodities for politicians.

So far, Booker's efforts have been met with some criticism. There have been the typical slings and arrows from folks complaining about any government program for people in need. Their blessings in life do not extend to compassion and empathy. Christine Romans, a finance sector talking head at CNN, dismissed the food stamp challenge as unrealistic.

"It's not meant to be your only calorie intake source," Romans said. "'Supplemental' is the key. The government designs it so this is on top of what little money you might have, food pantries, soup kitchens."

What this "journalist" does not understand is that food banks and soup kitchens have limited resources and are not accessible to all the people that need them. The real conversation should be how threadbare the safety net is in our society.

The artifice in the food stamp challenge is that it only lasts for 7 days. Booker is counting down the days until his diet goes back to abundance. For the millions of people that cannot find work or are getting by on a minimum wage job, the food stamp challenge never ends.

Perfect God, stupid humans

In an interesting opinion piece in the New York Times, philosopher Yoram Hazony asks an important theological question.

Is God perfect? You often hear philosophers describe “theism” as the belief in a perfect being — a being whose attributes are said to include being all-powerful, all-knowing, immutable, perfectly good, perfectly simple, and necessarily existent (among others). And today, something like this view is common among lay people as well.

Hazony goes on to point out two stumbling blocks for belief in God as a perfect being. First, if God is perfect, then why is there so much imperfection in the world, particularly in the human element? Everything else around us has its place and purpose, but we are willful, selfish, greedy, and often malevolent creatures. Second, the God of scripture is depicted as surprised by our sinful nature, prone to collective punishment, easy to anger, jealous, and the spitting image of an abusive parent incapable of unconditional love. The scriptural literalists have no answer to why the God found in Genesis looks so different than the loving and merciful God described by Jesus and New Testament writers. He goes on to suggest that perhaps the best way to reconcile all of the head popping contradictions is to argue that God is not perfect and does not have to be. It is the more "realistic" view.

The ancient Israelites, in other words, discovered a more realistic God than that descended from the tradition of Greek thought. But philosophers have tended to steer clear of such a view, no doubt out of fear that an imperfect God would not attract mankind’s allegiance. Instead, they have preferred to speak to us of a God consisting of a series of sweeping idealizations — idealizations whose relation to the world in which we actually live is scarcely imaginable. Today, with theism rapidly losing ground across Europe and among Americans as well, we could stand to reconsider this point. Surely a more plausible conception of God couldn’t hurt.

There is another possibility. The flaws are not in God but in us.

First of all, no one, absolutely no one, can claim to understand what God is. God defies our senses and far exceeds the bounds of our puny intellect. We cannot begin to imagine God as a being that existed before matter sprang forth in a glorious explosion of energy. God spans time and space. We can get our head around some Titan-like human entity residing in the stratosphere above our little planet, meddling in human affairs. While that conception readily fits within our constructions of reality, it creates God in our image. A being that transcends all the boundaries of our existence defies comprehension.

Equally problematic is the concept of perfection. The attributes that define a perfect God are human-centered. We call God all knowing and all powerful, but then struggle with why there is suffering and injustice in the world. If an all powerful God stands by as we struggle with death, disease, and injustices at the hands of our fellow humans, then you begin to think of this deity as callous and unloving. It renders us no more valuable than the animals we slaughter for food or as potential threats to the quality of our lives. We want a God that grants our every wish, dries every tear, and rights every wrong. That is what we expect from a perfect God. Such a God looks like a rich and powerful parent that allows us to live like royalty as long as we obey a few rules, worship, and make a few ritual sacrifices in our daily lives. What an embarrassingly immature theology!

Let's face reality. We are woefully imperfect creatures in our ability to comprehend the universe around us and our place in it. The same goes for our understanding of God. While we may be instinctively drawn to believe in a being that exceeds the limits of our senses and intellect, only in arrogance can we claim to have clear and true picture of God. A life well-lived brings the hope and promise that one day we will come into a more complete understanding of God. As Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13: 8-12, faith, hope, and love hold the keys.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

As for perfection, everything that happens, even the terrible things we do to one another, may be part of a plan in motion. Creation is not static; it is dynamic. We cannot see or understand the end-game and how all the pieces fit. The process may fall short of our hopes, desires, and expectations, but that does not mean it is flawed from a big-picture perspective.

Perfection is in the eye of the beholder. Everything in the universe may be unfolding as God intended. Ultimately, that is the only perfection that counts. As for our understanding of God and our wish-fulfillment model of perfection, it falls far short of perfection.

Equal opportunity pulpits

There continues to be considerable resistance in some quarters to the ordination of women. The battle seems to particularly pitched in the Catholic Church where the Vatican has recently cracked down on any dissent in the ranks. For example, the American nuns participating in the Leadership Conference of Women Religious were harshly reprimanded and branded "radical feminists" for even hosting speakers that advocated the ordination of women. High profile priests have even been excommunicated for supporting leadership roles for women, including Roy Bourgeois of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. This zero-tolerance policy for dissent is strangely ironic for an organization that has huffed and puffed so mightily on the subject of religious freedom.

Perhaps the intolerance of any discussion on the ordination of women is not having the intended effect. The National Catholic Register just published an extraordinary editorial in support of ordination of our sisters in Christ. The opening salvo does not mince words.

The call to the priesthood is a gift from God. It is rooted in baptism and is called forth and affirmed by the community because it is authentic and evident in the person as a charism. Catholic women who have discerned a call to the priesthood and have had that call affirmed by the community should be ordained in the Roman Catholic church. Barring women from ordination to the priesthood is an injustice that cannot be allowed to stand.

The editorial then goes on to provide a detailed history of the Vatican's policy since 1976. At that time, the powers that be issued a statement that opened the door to possibility of ordaining women.

In April 1976 the Pontifical Biblical Commission concluded unanimously: "It does not seem that the New Testament by itself alone will permit us to settle in a clear way and once and for all the problem of the possible accession of women to the presbyterate." In further deliberation, the commission voted 12-5 in favor of the view that Scripture alone does not exclude the ordination of women, and 12-5 in favor of the view that the church could ordain women to the priesthood without going against Christ's original intentions.

There was soon a move to slam the door shut, with the charge being led by Cardinal Ratzinger at the behest of Pope John Paul II. The Cardinal has continued the hardline approach after becoming Pope Benedict XVI. Opposition to the ordination of women became a key litmus test in determining fitness to move up the ranks from priest to bishop. As the case of Roy Bourgeois demonstrates, a priest now risks excommunication for daring to question official doctrine.

The Holy Spirit cannot be behind demands for obedience to church leaders and calls from the faithful for a change in policy. There is also something about the arrogance and oppressive actions by the powerful that seem far from Christ-like. Humble leadership is the mark of the Lord.

Killing Santa Claus

When our son was five, the toxicity of holiday materialism became plain to see. Between relatives and friends, there was a veritable mountain of gifts marked with his name. Like clockwork, the uniformed delivery elves seemed to add to the pile every day.

Needless to say, he was very excited. Each package was sized up carefully as he tried to gauge whether it might contain one of the items on his wish list.  He eyed package mountain every time came into the room to see if it had grown. The days were counted down until the loot would finally be his. This state of self-centered intoxication is exactly what the Mad Men (and women) of Madison Avenue were hoping to create.

The big day finally arrived. He was literally bouncing off the walls. The first few packages brought squeals of delight as he tore through the brightly colored paper. And then things started to go terribly wrong.

At first, he seemed like he was going into a coma. His eyes started to glaze over. There was drool at the corners of his mouth. He was nearly panting from hyperventilation. He barely looked at the contents of each package before asking for more.

Then came full-fledged demonic possession. He became increasingly belligerent during the interludes between his gifts as others in the room opened theirs. More! Now! A relative made the mistake of wanting to reminisce instead of opening the package in her lap. Smoke started to pour out of his ears.

Relatives tried to assure us that our son was just "over-tired." That is relative-speak for excited and obnoxious. The trouble was that the excitement came from anticipation, daily exposure to gift mountain, more than a month of advertising saturation bombing, comparing wish lists among friends, and let's not forget constant prayer to the patron saint of toys.

When the dust settled, my wife and I talked about the meltdown. The image that was all too clear in our minds was of our normally even-keeled son ripping through package after package, barely glancing at the contents, and demanding another. The religious elements of the holiday were completely lost in the amped up commercialization and consumerism. Santa Claus would have to die.

We decided to set strict limits on gift mountain for the future. We told him to limit his holiday wish list to three items. It was also critical to get him to thing about others, especially those less fortunate than him. The holiday Heart Fund was born.

The Heart Fund was money we set aside each year. Every year, our son was given the task of coming up with four organizations he wanted to give money to. He had to explain why he picked each organization and help with the envelope or online dedication. Part of the Christmas celebration included him announcing his gifts to others, courtesy of the Heart Fund.

Friends and relatives were asked to support our new and improved holiday celebration rules. There were a few puzzled looks and questions about we were going grinch. We explained our dissatisfaction with the me-me-me chorus to Jingle Bells. We set strict limits on what could be spent on gifts and requested relatives also consider donating to the Heart Fund. The light bulb in most people's head lit up when they heard him announce the recipients of the Heart Fund that first year.

The causes that he championed over the years were impressive. A relative's heart attack sparked a donation to the American Heart Association. A lost dog poster in the neighborhood generated interest in the Animal Care League. A homeless man inspired donations to Feeding America, Habitat for Humanity, and the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

The other change in our holiday tradition was to get up very early every Christmas morning and go down to the Dominican Priory in the area to help with their holiday dinner delivery program. Long before dawn, you start by putting together bags filled with dinner items, fruit, drinks, and sweets for each person in the household. After the assembly line was complete, you pick up a list of addresses to deliver the goodies to.

By 10 in the morning, the deliveries were complete and we stopped for breakfast at the local pancake house. It was enough to tide us over until the big holiday meal with relatives.

Killing Santa Claus and the me-centered Christmas celebration was one of the smartest moves we ever made as parents. The focus on giving to others, especially strangers in need, changed the whole feeling from a feeding frenzy to a holiday spirit that burned warmly.

Some Christians love to blubber about a "war on Christmas." They hyperventilate over whether stores greet you with Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas. There are heated battles over tawdry holiday displays in public places. The trouble is that what bothers these people is whether the orgy of consumption is labeled Christmas. It is all about packaging, not content.

The real war on Christmas is that Christ is lost in the schlock and spending. That is why we killed Santa Claus.

It reminds me of song popular in my youth by Jethro Tull ("Christmas Song"). My favorite lines still still ring true:

Once in Royal David's City stood a lowly cattle shed, 

where a mother laid her baby. 

You'd do well to remember the things He later said.

Spiritual economics

Then He said to them, “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” 

And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

-- Luke 12:15-21

Another small victory for generosity of spirit in sea of greed.  Joe Lueken, owner of a successful grocery store chain in Minnesota, has  decided to give his company to his employees as he approached retirement.

On Jan. 1, Lueken's Village Foods, with two supermarkets in Bemidji and another in Wahpeton, N.D., will begin transferring ownership to its approximately 400 employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP).

Humility and recognition of the contribution of others to the success of the business were factors in the decision.

"My employees are largely responsible for any success I've had, and they deserve to get some of the benefits of that," Lueken said earlier this week. "You can't always take. You also have to give back."

The decision to "do the right thing" was supported by his family. It strengthens the community by giving people a stake in the future of the business, not to mention sets a powerful example of what God views as success.

"The whole move revolves around people, not things or money," Jeff Lueken said. "It's about allowing people to grow with the business and send their kids to college and have a great retirement, and even to express themselves at work."

The employees say it's a wonderful gift, but Joe Lueken said he's gotten more than he gave. Holding out two palms, one above the other, he said: "To see somebody go from here [up] to here is the best feeling in the world."

Amen!

Good Samaritan

Most people, regardless of their faith tradition, are familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). In this parable, Jesus is defining what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. The contrasts drawn in the parable are pointed and powerful. On the one hand, we see two religious men ignore a man beaten and bloody in the street. One is a priest, someone revered for leading religious services, and the other is a Levite, someone expert in religious law and doctrine. They failed the test of loving others as God expects. Along comes a Samaritan who ignores traditional tribal tensions to show love for a stranger in Judea. The moral of the story is that you should love all others, even those you have been taught to distrust or dislike by your culture and religion.

 Jesus would be pleased with this New York City policeman. The officer saw a homeless man on the sidewalk with no shoes. The officer stopped to buy the man heavy socks and warm boots. His gesture of kindness was recorded by a tourist who witnessed the event and took a picture with her cellphone.



The officer was surprised by the attention he received when the tourist posted the picture on the NYPD's Facebook page. People were greatly moved by his compassion.

Foster’s photo was posted Tuesday night to the NYPD’s official Facebook page and became an instant hit. More than 420,000 users “liked” it as of Thursday evening, and more than 140,000 shared it.

The context is perfect for retelling the Good Samaritan parable in 21st century America. Ordinances have been passed across the country that criminalize the homeless for sleeping on the street. It is against the law in some places to give the homeless food or money. These ordinances often put the police in the uncomfortable position of enforcing these laws. Likewise, political, business, and even some religious leaders have been bashing the poor as worthless freeloaders in our society. Our culture is hardening its heart to the suffering of others.

Officer Larry DiPrimo could have listened to our increasingly callous culture and walked on by the homeless man shivering in the street. Instead, he behaved like the compassionate Samaritan. And his act of kindness just happened to be witnessed and publicized by a stranger to the city.

She wrote: “The officer squatted down on the ground and proceeded to put socks and the new boots on this man. The officer expected NOTHING in return and did not know I was watching.”

DePrimo said buying the boots “was something I had to do.” He tried to persuade the man to get something to eat, but he declined and left.

“When I brought out the shoes, it was just a smile from ear to ear,” he said. “It was a great moment for both of us.”

Judging from the reaction to this story, people are hungry for the gospel of love as taught by Jesus. Not the religion of ceremony, law, and doctrine, but a theology built around loving God and love others.

Bum hunting

At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 

-- Matthew 24:10-13

Sarasota officials have been forced to defend treatment of the homeless in the city. A press conference by the American Civil Liberties Union (UCLU) highlighted childish communications by the police, tough ordinances aimed at the homeless, and the paucity of services for those who find themselves living on the street.

There is no question that too many police officers in Sarasota enjoyed mocking the homeless as "bums" with police contacts called "bum hunting." While the comments can justifiably be called "juvenile" by the ACLU and unacceptable conduct by officials, it should be viewed in the larger social context. It is no less juvenile and callous than the rhetoric of politicians, business leaders, and media personalities in recent years. The poor, sick, old, and disabled in our society are increasingly being labeled as unproductive and a drain on our society. We have fallen off a moral cliff in the hardness of our hearts, particularly at the hands of people who have wealth and privilege.

The defensive comments by Sarasota officials display a complete lack of understanding. For example, one official talks about the fact that many police contacts lead to referrals for substance abuse or mental health care.

Sutton brought a stack of his own documents to the news conference. They listed homeless statistics from 2004 to the present, including how many times officers have referred homeless people who were intoxicated to social services rather than arrest them — 946 — or connected people with mental heath issues with such help — 470.

Many people turn to drugs and alcohol because the circumstances of their life become hopeless. It is a way of dulling emotional pain. These are not people out partying in the street. And our mental health care in America is laughable. In the dark ages, people were institutionalized for mental disorders and subjected to inhumane treatments because the disorders were poorly understood. At least they were given food and shelter. Today, we have a much better scientific understanding of the causes of mental disorders, but all too often people are left to suffer on the street with little or no treatment. It is callous. Barbaric.

At least the mayor had the courage to admit the city has failed the homeless.

He has worked on the issue in Sarasota for more than a decade and says the city still is not listening to the needs of the homeless, despite having the resources for change — wealth, business knowledge and grass-roots efforts.

It is not a question of resources. It is a lack of compassion. Without compassion, people are not interested in helping those in need. As Christ put it, "the love of most will grow cold." Pick another translation if you do not like that one, but the gist is always the same. For those of us that love and serve the Lord, it is disconcerting to see the growing lack of compassion in our society.

The city manager of Sarasota tried to put a little lipstick on the pig.

He says this talk of the unfair treatment of the homeless in Sarasota is just not accurate.

"This community has served 30,000 meals last year to the homeless," said City Manager Barwin.

Let me help you with the math, Mr. Barwin. That works out to average of about 82 meals per day.

Sarasota has been identified as an epicenter of the housing crash in America because of the obscene rate of foreclosures. It also has the distinction of making the list of the meanest cities in America for its treatment of homelessness. That was because of a severe shortage of emergency housing for the homeless while imposing severe penalties for sleeping on the streets. Impressive. And let's not forget the event that triggered the ACLU's latest investigation.

SARASOTA - A homeless man spent the night in jail Sunday after police arrested him for charging his cellphone in a public picnic shelter at Gillespie Park.

Sarasota is typical of many localities in Florida.  The state is home to some of the most abusive ordinances and laws aimed at the homeless despite having some of the highest rates of home foreclosure and unemployment in the nation. Meanwhile, programs and services aimed at giving the destitute a hand up have been gutted in the name of austerity.

The love of most will grow cold.

Church of the Nones

More and more people in America fall into the None category -- no affiliation with organized religion. The Pew Report survey describes them as a diverse group in terms of belief. Some reject the existence of God. Others acknowledge the possibility of God, but have reservations about organized religion. Call them spiritually curious but turned off by dogma and the dickishness of high profile religious authorities.

Perhaps people who used to call themselves Christians and attend church once in a while are falling away. They do not see religious belief and practice as valuable in their lives. These folks are often dismissed as not "true" believers so their departure is actually cause for celebration by some prominent evangelical leaders. The fly in that frankincense is these are mostly young people. If they were older, the idea that these people that grew tired of pretending to be faithful is plausible. The young are not burned out; they are turned off.

A friend sent me a link to a site called We Occupy Jesus. From what I gather, this is an organization promoting social justice outside of any faith tradition and looking to create a loose network of caring people This discussion of the group's raison d’être has a ring of truth to it.

Christianity is still undergoing the growing pains of the Emergent Church movement, threatening to splinter the faithful once again into even further disarray. The secular world is still appalled by the archaic social policies championed by many Evangelicals. The more progressive factions of the church still struggle to reveal a meaningful and logical faith to the world while simultaneously fending off their own spiritual leaders who cry heresy. I once held the optimism many still possess today, hoping against hope that a new Christianity would soon blossom. While that indeed may transpire, such revolution is most likely reserved for our grandchildren, if not our great-great-grandchildren.

In the meantime, church councils continue spinning their wheels developing lackluster programs that amount to little more than self-help programs for a dwindling and aging audience. In the meantime, gay and lesbian teenagers are still sinking into depression or opting for suicide because their Christian friends and families condemn them to hell fire. In the meantime, the rift between theists and atheists continues to grow wider and wider, along with the rift between the gospel and any potential receptivity for wider social reform. While the battle rages to define and defend the meaning of authentic Christianity, the world waits for this Jesus to finally emerge from the tomb of irrelevance.

Christianity in America seems to have a serious public relations problem. People in our nation are having trouble seeing Christ in Christians. Perhaps that has always been true. Reformers and traditionalists within Christianity have been trading elbows for at least a thousand years and maybe two. We have been sold out time and time again by Christian leaders that want to climb in bed with the rich and powerful. Monstrous acts have been sanctioned or ignored by the church. There is nothing new under the sun.

This group is advocating living as Jesus taught rather than fight over belief and doctrine. That has a certain appeal. Their approach is to dispense with everything but the example of Jesus in the gospels.

There are also many advantages when doctrine and dogma are removed from the equation. There is no organism we are forced to continuously reform. We are the organism and we are already fixed. We are already united, since unity is our primary goal. We have already agreed to put our differences aside. We are already the embodiment of Jesus on earth because we choose to simply live like him, without the structures put in place by the institutions to cloud our passions, to pacify us with programs and propaganda. When we convene, we have already made the choice to be reconciled to our brothers and sisters. We have already forgiven them, and they us. As Jesus would say… “It is finished.

It is sad that people are losing sight of the fact that Jesus was a true revolutionary. Instead of a religion of exclusion, he opened the gates of the kingdom to all who wanted to enter. He told his disciples to love others as equals and avoid the temptation to exclude some as undesirable or inferior. He said to love your enemies rather than kill them. He denounced religious leaders that used the name of God to become wealthy, powerful, and privileged. He had no patience for greed or vengeance.

In a world struggling with overcrowding, dwindling natural resources, and increasingly unstable climate, the teachings of Jesus seem more relevant than ever. How do we call more attention to Jesus and less attention to Christian leaders that promote conditional love, vengeance, and materialism?

My motto is Jesus: Now More Than Ever. Jesus occupy me rather me occupy Jesus. To each his or her own?

Shining a light on the hungry

If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,  then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

     Isaiah 58:10

I have always looked forward to the family celebration of Thanksgiving. Regardless of the ups and downs of our life, there are always blessings to count and far too many temptations on the table. This year, however, the holiday season got off to an unsettling start.

Volunteers at the local food bank were summoned to a special meeting. Given that it was a week before Thanksgiving, I assumed we would be hearing about plans for the distributions prior to Thanksgiving. In years past, we have had a flood of donations, particularly from local grocery stores, that created some interesting logistic challenges in terms of storage and distribution. Rising to the challenge required a bit of creativity and longer hours for volunteers, but always meant watching people go away with smiles and full carts.

Instead of abundance, the director soberly announced a change in distribution to adapt to a perfect storm of sorts. Rising food costs, smaller donations from local stores, and increased demand meant that we were coming up short. And not just for Thanksgiving, but for the foreseeable future. The solution to stretch our supplies was to adjust the amount given by household size. Households with less than four people would now receive between a third to half of what we have given out previously.

These changes come less than a year after cutting the number of zip codes we serve in half. We expected that restricting our service area would allow us to meet the needs of the community, particularly those people that walk or take public transportation to the food bank. However, instead of trimming our numbers and stretching our resources, the number of clients has continued to grow, with record numbers served almost every week over the past six months.

In years past, we have given out turkeys for large households and whole chickens for smaller households on top of our normal distribution. This year, there were no special holiday items to distribute. The stores were more cautious in their purchases so there was no real overstock to donate. Rising food costs and shortages produced by the heat and drought over the past growing season meant that our purchasing power from wholesale stocks was smaller.

The director told us that we were not alone in facing shortages for our clients. Food banks that make up the Feeding America network were all coming up short. Yet, I could find almost no media coverage. To date, only Reuters has covered the story about the fraying safety net for the hungry. The article by Lisa Baertlein does a nice job of laying out the challenges by food banks across the nation.

This summer's crop-damaging weather in the U.S. farm belt has driven up costs for everything from grain to beef. That means higher prices at the grocery store, but it also means the U.S. government has less need to buy key staples like meat, peanut butter, rice and canned fruits and vegetables to support agricultural prices and remove surpluses.

Most of the products from those government purchases are sent to U.S. food banks, which then distribute them to food pantries, soup kitchens and emergency shelters that are a lifeline for people who struggle with hunger - including low-income families, senior citizens and people with disabilities.

The decline in government donations is exacerbating the pain inflicted by stubbornly high unemployment and a lack of income growth for many low-wage workers.

Kudos to Lisa Baertlein and Reuters for covering the story. With one in six Americans living in poverty, there needs to be more coverage to awaken our collective conscience as a nation. Hunger is too much of a reality in our nation. The dry statistics do not put much of a human face on that suffering.

One only need to glance at the thousands of stories covering the first big shopping weekend of the Christmas season to see our misplaced attention. The media is doing a great job of generating excitement for our annual spending spree with story after story about crowds, fights over popular items, retail projections, and cash register receipts to date.

Scripture assures us that God hears the cries of those in need and expects the faithful to respond. The question is whether we can hear those cries over the din of the marketplace catering to our every whim. 

Black Friday

I was blessed with the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving day with our extended family. The meal was a communal affair in which everyone contributed one or more dishes to the menu. We ate, drank, and were merry. Part of our tradition is to take turns around the table talking about at least one thing we count as a blessing in our lives. After dinner, the noise spread throughout the house. There was football in the living room, board games in the den, and small children running around everywhere. To put it simply, it was glorious time to be together as a family.

As we drove home, the parking lot at every big box store was full. It was another kind of feeding frenzy, the kind that sets my teeth on edge.

In 21st century America, Black Friday refers to the day after Thanksgiving when we embark on an orgy of consumption, supposedly as part of our celebration of Christ's birth. No one guided by the Holy Spirit believes that the holiday spending spree has anything to do with Christ. It does not take much discernment to see the worst of self-centered human nature on display during this so-called season of giving.

The official kickoff to the holiday shopping season has slowly crept backwards. Every year, the doors open a few hours earlier than the year before. And this year, the crowds filled the stores by 8 on Thanksgiving evening. Thanksgiving is being consumed by consumption.

I could not help but think about the employees forced to give up time with their family so merchants could seduce shoppers into the stores in search of bargains on needless junk. Time to bond with their families is taken away in exchange for an extra 30 or 40 dollars in pay. It seems like a deal only Satan could celebrate.

All of the talk of morality and family values in our society is a farce. The people who make the most noise about family values never say a word about the undermining of family life by the ravenous wolves of materialism.

Here is a look at people stampeding like cattle for deals in a Walmart in Moultrie, Georgia. This is your brain on greed. Look at their faces. Listen to their voices. There were no major physical injuries in the melee, but the spiritual degradation was plain to see.



The only Black Friday of any significance happened two thousand years ago. A true man of God was tortured and executed for disrupting the gravy train of religious authorities. In life, death, and resurrection, this man revealed the love of God at work. I owe my faith to this itinerant preacher from Nazareth. For that I am thankful.

The cancer of original sin

The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is well known. Most understand that what the first couple did wrong was to disobey God. They were given explicit instructions to stay away from one tree. Along comes a snake hissing about what they were missing and the garden party was suddenly over.

What we frequently overlook in the story of original sin is that it is also about greed. Adam and Eve had more than enough to eat. In fact, their every need was met. Yet they wanted more. They were tempted by what they did not have rather than being satisfied with their needs being met.

Greed is at the heart of many sins in scripture. Consider King David. He committed adultery and murder in his pursuit of Bathsheba, but there was more than lust was in his heart. David had wives and concubines galore. As king, he could have had practically any unmarried woman he desired, but he wanted the wife of another man and was not going to let biblical laws get in the way. 

There is no escaping the plague of greed in this age or any other. Wars are almost always fought over greed in the form of resources coveted by others. We lie, cheat, steal and even kill others because of things we desire. We destroy God's creation because of our insatiable appetites for more and more. We will bow down to graven images, false prophets, and corrupt political leaders that promise prosperity. Isn't it odd that greed is the sin that no one likes to talk about. 

Greed is also going to kill my son. His death will be chalked up to cancer, but greed will likely have a hand. That probably sounds odd so let me explain.

My son has neuroendocrine cancer. Current treatments, most of which have been around for decades, only slow the spread of the cancer. However, the most promising treatment ever developed sits in a freezer in Sweden because it will never make a pharmaceutical company rich.

Dr. Magnus Essand and colleagues at Uppsala University modified a common virus to attack and kill neuroendocrine tumors. It is inexpensive to produce, has few side effects, and ruthlessly effective in the lab. So why are dish cultures of the oncolytic virus sitting in a freezer while hundreds of thousands of people die every year from neuroendocrine cancer? Because Dr. Essand published his findings in scientific journals without first patenting the method, drug companies cannot get exclusive rights and make lots and lots of money.

'It is so,' Magnus agrees sorrowfully. Swedishly uninterested in profiteering, devoted only to the purity of science, Magnus and his co-workers on this virus have already published the details of their experiments in leading journals around the world, which means that the modified virus as it stands can no longer be patented. And without a patent to make the virus commercial, no one will invest. Even if I could raise the £2 million (I want only the best version) to get the therapy to the end of phase II trials, no organisation is going to step forward to run the phase III trial that is necessary to make the therapy public.

Greed. The head of oncology at Uppsala University, Kjell Oberg, tries to put some lipstick on the pig, but the stench of gluttony remains.

'It is because,' Kjell corrects me, 'only if there's a big profit can such companies ensure that everyone involved earns enough to pay their mortgage.'

Dr. Oberg is far too polite. Drug company executives rarely have mortgages on their castles, but I digress. Had Dr. Essand patented the cancer-killing virus and sold the rights to a drug company to make billions in profit, he would have had a castle of his very own. Thinking about the greater good will never do in a world driven by greed, even at the expense of the sick.

Maybe one day, this tumor-killing virus will make neuroendocrine cancer a readily treatable condition. That probably will not happen in my son's lifetime and we will be left wrestling with the realities of the profit first and foremost mentality of humans.

Ever wonder why Christ said you cannot serve God and Mammon? God calls us to compassion and Mammon demands greed. Greed has always been the bane of human existence. And no matter how many scripture verses tell us to pursue God instead of materialism, humans will always listen to the snake.

Oops

Christians in America have the ability to effectively promote sexual ethics. To maximize respect for God and each other, sexuality should be limited to the confines of a loving, committed relationship. Such an effort would target promiscuity and adultery as unacceptable behaviors. Instead, too many Christian leaders are focused on condemning same sex couples that want to be in a committed relationship while saying next to nothing about "fooling around." Last time I checked, it was adultery that made God's top ten list of sins. And the biggest threat to the stability of families comes from infidelity rather than homosexuality.

Sexual misconduct has been in the news of late. Some of the highest ranking military officers have been caught with their pants down, including the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Investigation into the years of sexual dalliance by Gen. Petraeus also uncovered misconduct by another top general. Adultery is so commonplace at the highest levels of the military that one historian dryly noted that, "marital fidelity was not a requirement of the great commanders in World War II." The only thing that has changed is that affairs by top brass are more likely to become headlines in our media-driven culture.

Sexual promiscuity by military officers is more than just fodder for juicy gossip. It has long been a favorite target for espionage by pillow-talking confidents. This is what first raised eyebrows about the Petraeus case, when emails from his paramour revealed details of his travel plans.

Another less than savory tradition in the military has been sexual harassment and rape of female members of the service. On some bases, a culture of abuse seems to develop where sexual misconduct becomes part of some sickening hazing ritual. The latest scandal at Lackland Air Force Base provides a look at how pervasive such behavior can become.

The scandal at basic training in San Antonio has already cost two commanding officers their jobs, led to charges against 11 military training instructors that resulted in five convictions. One MTI was convicted of rape; others were convicted on charges involving inappropriate relationships with recruits. So far, 25 MTIs are, or have been, under investigation, and the number of possible victims has climbed to 49.

At least one in five female veterans reports being sexually assaulted while serving in uniform. Those numbers may grossly underestimate the problem because many women do not report the attack for fear of further reprisal. Rape, of course, was the last straw for Sodom.

As an organization, the U.S. military prohibits adultery and other forms of misconduct, yet perversely has a culture that wants to look the other way until it attracts disapproval from the larger culture. Having grown up in a military family, I doubt there is anything truly unique about sexual misconduct in the military. It mirrors attitudes found in the larger culture. Power is intoxicating and corrupts the morals of the powerful. Call it the King David Syndrome.

So why do some Christian leaders seem obsessed with homosexuality when adultery is rampant and destroying marriages? Catholic bishops have recently become particularly vocal on homosexuality while looking the other way for decades while their peers sexually abused children. There is nothing about adultery, promiscuity, or pedophilia that can be reconciled with the overarching commandment by Christ to love others as we would wish to be loved. You have to wonder if same-sex marriage is little more than a diversion from addressing sexual conduct that destroys families and degrades people.

It is hard not to question the convoluted messaging on sexual ethics when high profile Christian leaders say things like this about the Petraeus affair:

"She is an extremely good-looking woman," the 82-year-old Robertson gushed. "She is a marathon runner. She runs Iron Man triathlons. So she's out running with him and writing a biography...." 

"The man's off in a foreign land, and he's lonely," Robertson added sympathetically. "And here's a good-looking lady throwing herself at him... I mean... he's a man."

Adding insult and insanity to injury, the Christian Broadcast Network issued a statement defending Pat Robertson's "boys will be boys" nonsense. These people running a multi-million dollar broadcasting empire expect us to believe that his words were taken out of context in an attempt to discredit him. That does not pass a smell test.

And let's not forget the spate of comments by Christian political leaders about rape, claiming that women cannot get pregnant from rape unless they somehow invited or enjoyed the sexual contact. Those comments were not poorly phrased. They reflected condescending attitudes toward women. These were slips of the mind rather than the tongue. Jesus warned that what comes out of your mouth betrays what is in your heart.

As followers of Christ, we have an opportunity to promote sexual ethics based on the hermeneutics of love, discouraging casual sexual contacts and infidelity. That will not happen when the loudest voices are culture warriors who disparage homosexuals that want to be in committed relationships and treat women as the root of all sexual evil among heterosexuals. The culture warriors are part of the problem rather than the solution.

Walking the walk

Proselytization is often confused with evangelism. Talk is cheap. People need to see Christ in you. Let me show you an example of why it matters.

Bob Moore is a very successful businessman and the driving force behind Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods.

In 1978, he started Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods, as a small family-run business in Oregon selling stone mill-ground whole grains. The company has since grown into a multi-million dollar business that sells more than 400 whole grain products including flours, hot cereals, and organic and gluten-free products.

Bob has always put his customers and employees first. He calls his 209 employees his "second family." Two years ago, he decided to do something truly extraordinary. He gave the company to his employees.

"It's the only business decision that I could make," he said. "I don't think there's anybody worthy to run this company but the people who built it. I have employees with me right now that have been with me for 30 years. They just were committed to staying with me now and they're going to own the company."

It is a story fit for one of Jesus' parables. And Bob has taken the lessons of scripture to heart.

"There's a lot of negative stuff going into business today," he said. "It's a good old basic Bible lesson -- love of money is the root of all evil. And unfortunately, our entire philosophy today is get all the money you can and whatever way you can. It's caused many corporations to bite off more than they can chew. And it causes people to do a lot of things just for money that they feel in their hearts is not the right thing to do."

Two years have come and gone since the story of Bob giving his company to his employees first made the news. The interesting thing is that it is still touching hearts. That includes hearts in places not normally sympathetic to religion.

Here is one:

Now as an agnostic – I do not share the same religious viewpoints, but I find Mr. Moore’s example inspiring. Somehow, someway there has been this conflation between capitalism and religion that merged together to give birth to “Supply-side Jesus” that church going American evangelicals all pray to as they denounce the poor as “takers”; watching this all in real time is very perplexing. So – seeing a real life example of what I envision non-hypocritical Christianity to look like is quite humbling and Mr. Moore’s ability to lead by example is wonderful to watch.

The spectacle of Christian leaders selling politicians, greed, and militarism should perplex and disgust all that love and serve Christ. You have to wonder when people who call themselves evangelicals turn compassionate people off to Christ.

Moore's act of love also found its way to the Daily Kos, a blog portal for liberal politics. The blog post about Moore attracted a great deal of attention. Notice the title, "Compassion side Jesus and Bob's Red Mill Foods." On a site where the mere mention of religion often attracts ridicule, the reaction was uniformly positive.

The fact that this story of faith in action is still making the rounds, often popping up in the strangest of places, is an important lesson. Talking about Christ is useless, even counterproductive, unless you act in love. What was it the Apostle Paul said about love?

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Jesus commanded us to love. Anything less represents a complete failure of hermeneutics. 

It is always the same story

In Mark 10:17-31, Jesus is approached by rich young man. The man wants to add eternal salvation to his trophy case after his life of abundance and privilege. Jesus reminded the man that only God is good and pleasing God starts with following the commandments not to harm others. The rich dude was feeling pretty good about his chances for a mansion in the sky. It was then that the Lord threw him a curve.

And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Sell your possessions, give all the money to the poor, and become one of His disciples. Illusion shattered. The poor rich man walked away in a funk because he had no interest in parting with his luxuries. Jesus saw that the man loved material things more than God. He challenged the man to shift his focus from wealth to God. The man refused and they parted ways.

The story is not ambiguous. Jesus calls us to put God first and wealth last. It does raise one question. What would the Lord think about our country with the poor called worthless freeloaders while the rich are exalted? Many Christians are being taught that the poor deserve to suffer and the rich deserve more and more and more. Morality is now limited to matters of sexual intercourse; you are free to worship materialism as long as you toss a few pennies to the poor and pay a tidy tax to your friendly neighborhood church.

If that characterization of America in the 21st century seems unfair, please let me know what I have missed. Be sure to explain things like this:

WASHINGTON -- After bailing out a global financial crisis, enacting a series of major tax cuts for the wealthy and waging two unpaid-for wars, the U.S. government is some $16 trillion in debt. Now, in exchange for paying off a bit of that debt by returning some of the tax rates to their previous levels, Democrats have offered, in a series of high-profile negotiations, to slash trillions in spending, much of it hitting the elderly, the poor and the middle class. This process of tranaferring wealth up the economic ladder is known in Washington as a "grand bargain."

The one thing our elected officials agree on is to sell out the most vulnerable so as not to displease the "job creators." Evangelical Christians cheer loudly for politicians that promise prosperity (for the privileged few chosen ones).

Or how about the CEO that was at the helm when bad business decisions threw a megabanking corporation into insolvency but walked away with his pockets overflowing with cash. It makes you wonder how many Christians believe that God helps those that help themselves to everything. With all the slobbering praise of capitalism, you might be tempted to think that we worship capital, that Jesus missed the mark. He should have fist-pumped the rich man for paying lip service to God while being thankful for all his treasures.

You have to admire the chutzpah of being able to call "transferring wealth up the economic ladder" a "grand bargain" for the greater good. I wonder how many Christians could recognize Jesus if He appeared among them. Something tells me that the Lord can spot hypocrisy from a mile away.

Now is the chance for followers of Jesus to remind others that you cannot serve God and Mammon. If they have any doubt, just tell them that Jesus said it was impossible. It is their loss if they do not believe you.

Clueless

The reaction of Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, to the 2012 election in America is telling. He thinks it was a catastrophe of biblical proportions, yet his focus is breathtakingly narrow.

We are rightly and deeply concerned. We must pray that God will change President Obama’s heart on a host of issues, ranging from the sanctity of unborn life to the integrity of marriage. We must push back against his contraception mandate that tramples upon religious liberty. Given the trajectory of his first term in office, we are urgently concerned about a second term, knowing that the President will never again face the electorate.

It is all about sexual politics. No one is being forced to terminate a pregnancy, use contraception, or marry someone of the same sex. Instead, Mohler and other culture warriors are angry that people are allowed to make those choices of conscience for themselves. He wants the power to regulate sex and reproduction, but dresses it up as religious liberty.

We live in a society filled with greed, materialism, and violence. The wealth of the nation is being sucked into the hands of a few. The rich throw billions of dollars into buying politicians and elections rather than creating products of value, paying living wages to their employees, and paying taxes to support the common good. People go without food, shelter, and medical care while politicians spend trillions on war and the tools of death. There is no way to reconcile any of this with commandments to love others and pursue God that serve as the foundation of the New Testament. Never mind the dust. These are the logs in our eye as a society.

What requires reform in Mohler's eyes are regulating sexuality, the secularization of the electorate, and the inability of the Republican Party to appeal to a broader spectrum of our society. That agenda does not seem all that Christ-like. A little less lust for power by Christian leaders and lot more love for others would go a long way to convince younger generations that following Christ will give their lives meaning, purpose, and spiritual wealth. 

Thankful for an end to the election season

Anyone who has ever been active in a political campaign understands that it is the work of Mammon rather than God. Everything is spun in ways that make a mockery of the commandment not to bear false witness. Empathy for people on the other side goes out the window. Loving others as you would wish to be loved is replaced with do unto others before they can do unto you. Your emotions are dominated by fear, anger, and disgust. Politics is a figurative blood sport even in the most civilized of societies and a blood bath when the rule of law fails. And the endgame is one of Mammon's biggest prizes - power.

Religion and politics do not mix because the temptation to claim God is on one side is too great. One does not have to look particularly hard to find people of faith that all but claim that God endorses a candidate, political party, or ideology. Those claims never serve God. Never. It is blasphemy because God's name is being dragged into the mud of politics with all the lies, dirty tricks, money, and lust for power. 

For Christians, we hear too often the hiss of 'who would Jesus vote for.' It should be apparent that Jesus never calls us to put aside our obligation to love each other and pretend to be Christian soldiers in the political arena. The introjection of Christ into politics is a major factor in younger generations rejecting organized religion in America. Yet, instead of taking stock of those trends, some Christian leaders have doubled down on the politics and God talk. 

One renowned Christian culture warrior spun the movement of younger generations away from the church this way:

In a Gospel perspective, this is a healthy development. It is good that non-believers know that they are, in fact, not believers. Cultural Christianity is not Christianity, and no one will find salvation through merely identifying as Christian. The disappearance of cultural Christianity will weaken the culture, but it should strengthen the church.

According to the recent Pew Forum survey, younger generations are walking away from the church because they dislike the mixture of religion and politics, the focus on money and power among the religious, and the bellicose promotion of a narrow definition of morality instead of celebrating God's love and creating compassionate communities. Rather than listen to those concerns, the culture warrior claims to represent the true believers and celebrates the fact that younger generations see Mammon rather than Christ in organized religion in America.

Some Christian leaders have even gone so far as to betray Christ by claiming that God's grace depends on how you vote.

“To vote for someone in favor of these positions means that you could be morally ‘complicit’ with these choices which are intrinsically evil. This could put your own soul in jeopardy.”

It is not how you vote that puts your soul in jeopardy but rather how you live. Love God and love others. Period. God does not count your vote. As Christians, our loyalty to Christ matters, not our obedience to religious leaders with a political ax to grind.

Now that the work of Caesar in the political arena is finished, I hope and pray we can come together to lift the crosses of those that suffer and share the good news of God's love. God have mercy on us if we fail to do that.

She prayed for a miracle

I ran across Sunny Carney when my son's doctors first mentioned the possibility of neuroendocrine cancer. Sunny suffered from the disease and described her battles with brutal honesty. Beyond her tireless advocacy, two things stood out for me about Sunny. One was her incredible love of life, even in the face of pain and discomfort. The other was her love of God. Her faith was vibrant and echoed throughout her writings.

A little over a week ago, Sunny posted this on her blog.

Many of you who follow my blog know the happens of me physically. I will somehow keep you somewhat posted but I don't want to focus on the negative. I am asking that everyone pray for a miracle. Please pray that some new treatment comes up. I'm currently taking chemo that is really strong and making me really sick. So we need to watch me on it. The kids hate seeing me suffer but they are begging me not to stop. So we are taking things one happy day at a time. It's ok to cry as long as you wipe the tears and laugh with me too. So let's do that. Happy times will keep me here. Cry when you see me then hug me and laugh. Let's have fun. Now enough cancer talk. Enough feeling bad for me. Have fun with me and treat me like the old Sunny.

Sunny went on to tell everyone to find ways of filling the empty spaces in our hearts with love. She closed her message with "I love you all."

Sunny died a week later. Thanks to social media, news of her death spread quickly among the neuroendocrine cancer community.

Those who reject God like to take unanswered prayers for miracles as proof that faith is superstition. They often joke that God cannot (or will not) heal the blind, regenerate amputated limbs, and cure disease. Yet, even if all suffering were cease, these same people would still demand concrete evidence. Without that proof, the concept of God adds no meaning to their existence.

Having faith simply means accepting the invitation to enter into a relationship with God. It does not mean snapping your fingers and having every wish and whim granted. The temptation to believe God is the cosmic equivalent of Santa Claus is considerable. That temptation brings out the wolves in sheep's clothing. Many so-called religious leaders do promise health and prosperity if your faith is strong enough. The test of that faith is usually giving them money and following their commands. If you do not receive your heart's desire, you only have the weakness of your faith to blame.

Sunny Carney's walk of faith gave her the strength to comfort others even as she suffered. Her love for God and others did not waver in the face of life's storms. As she put it, "everyone has some kind of cancer in their life." For some, that cancer is abnormal cell growth or other diseases in their body. Others struggle with poverty or other social injustices as their cancer. For too many in America, it is lust for power, money, and other trappings of materialism.

Yes, Sunny asked that we pray for a miracle. Rather than a new treatment, the answer to those prayers seems to be an end to her suffering. Perhaps the real miracle is all the people who learned to count each day as a blessing because of Sunny, who now draw strength from her courage. Cancer never had the power to shake her faith or diminish her love.

I pray for God's love to comfort Sunny's family and friends as they mourn the loss of her physical presence. I also give thanks for her courageous walk of faith.

Small voices

I spoke to my father on the phone yesterday. His memory and word-finding difficulties were out in force. It was painful to hear him struggle. Perhaps it is a blessing that he does not appear to be aware of how much his brain is failing him. Perhaps he wonders why there are more family members and strangers around the house. I wish I knew.

Hanging up, I had one of those strange coincidences. I am was struggling to find the right words to pray. Do I pray for a miraculous recovery or a rapid end to his suffering? I have no idea what would be best for him and for those that love him.

As I struggled with what I should offer in prayer, a strange thing happened. The Grateful Dead's "Box of Rain" came up in the playlist on the stereo. One verse stood out:

Walk into splintered sunlight, 

Inch your way through dead dreams to another land. 

Maybe you're tired and broken,

Your tongue is twisted with words half spoken and thoughts unclear

What do you want me to do, to do for you to see you through?

A box of rain will ease the pain, and love will see you through.

It works as a prayer for what I was feeling at that moment. All I want to know is what I can do to see him through. Somehow praying for what I want or he might want seems presumptuous and a tad arrogant. I have no clue what is truly best for him. Doing what I can to ease this time for him is all I really need. No remorse over things not said or not done.

Be it ever so irrational, that just seems to be the way the Holy Spirit speaks to us. The words we need to hear suddenly appear and there is a moment of near perfect clarity.

All too often, it was not the answer I had hoped for. It is not the easy path. On the contrary, more often than not, it is the path filled with hairpin curves, rocks, and thorns. It is also the path that makes you feel most alive.

It boils down to the difference between superstition and faith. Superstition is thinking you have control over the actions of God. Faith is about learning to listen to God. Less about controlling the universe and more about it understanding it. 

Inerrant fundamentals

Peter Enns does a little linguistic poking at Albert Mohler Jr. and the biblical inerrancy crowd in a recent Patheos post.  Enns translates a panel "discussion" by Mohler and other Southern Baptist Theological Seminary faculty on why the biblical inerrancy folks are theologically superior to the rest of us. The list of 34 arguments made by the panel serves as a great introduction to the linguistic and rhetorical flourishes used by the godly inerrant warriors against the ungodly traitors of scripture that claim every word is not literal truth.

I do not disagree with the points made by Enns. It is a great exercise in how issues and ideas are framed by Mohler and others. It is meant to help those struggling with the strictures of biblical inerrancy to find an experience of Christ that will given meaning and purpose to their spiritual lives.

It is of no concern of mine whatsoever what Mohler thinks about how the Bible has to be. Mohler and his faculty are absolutely free to believe as they wish, and my purpose in this life is not to change their minds, ridicule them, crush them, mock them, or whatever. My concern is to help those who feel trapped by Mohler’s way of thinking, people with whom I have had many conversations over the years.

They need to hear that the boundaries drawn in panel discussions like this do not reflect all or the best of the Christian tradition. Rather they sell God and the Bible woefully short by placing burdens on the text–and its readers–that neither should, or can, bear.

While I found myself nodding and smiling at the points made by Enns, I have two more fundamental quarrels with Mohler and company.

Mohler is a big proponent of the cultural and political warrior mode of Christianity. What is missing in the writings of these glorious warriors for orthodoxy is the teachings of Christ. You will never understand and appreciate what the Lord taught by reading or listening to Mohler and the other leaders of the culture war movement. There is an enormous gulf between the inerrant culture warriors and other Christian scholars. If you read or listen to someone like N. T. Wright, Christ is all but resurrected in your mind.

Here is a simple illustration. N. T. Wright was asked to succinctly summarize the chief political concern of the bible.

“The chief political concern of the Scriptures is for God’s wise and loving ordering of his world to be operative through humans who will share his priorities, especially his concern for the poor, the weak and the vulnerable. This concern was embodied by Jesus in his inauguration of ‘God’s kingdom’ through his public career and especially his self-giving death, which together set the pattern for a radically redefined notion of power.”

God's love, our obligation to attend to those in need, and the servant example of Jesus are front and center. Wright and others keep us grounded in the ministry of Christ and God's love. If you want to discover what it means to follow Christ, there is no question. Even a cursory reading of the Gospels will affirm your obligation to emulate Jesus in demonstrating the love of God to all you come in contact with.

The culture warriors are offering a different meal altogether. Their fundamentals consist of following them in defining morality narrowly as regulating sexual behavior and reproduction. As long as you profess faith in Jesus as the messiah and keep the commandments they deem fundamental, you win the golden ticket to heaven. That may be a hostile way to frame it, but look closely at the writings and public statements of Mohler and others.

The religious authorities encountered by Jesus often played the same game as the culture warriors. They were good at telling others what rules to follow but missed the underlying meaning of the scriptures. Jesus took them to task time and time again for missing the forest for a few trees.

The other fundamental objection I have with the inerrancy crowd is that they do not really believe the scriptures are to be taken literally. If they did, they would have to follow the 613 commandments that make up the Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy). True orthodoxy is not an a la carte menu for you to pick and choose the rules to follow. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus said he did not come to abolish the law, which then forces the inerrant fundamentalists to look to the Apostle Paul for a few excuses for what rules can be ignored.

Christ promised following him will be simple (Matthew 11:28-30):

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Those words make sense when the rules boil down to loving God and loving others as the two guiding principles. Jesus said you cannot go wrong by putting God and others first. Whether you consider that easy is another story. Lifting the crosses of others may not be your idea of a light burden.

Therein lies the rub. There are more than 2000 verses that instruct us to care for the suffering of others. Yet, the culture war fundamentalists ignore those strictures while raising up a few verses as immutable. And all too often these same fundamentalists preach the glory of materialism and the virtues of capitalism as part of their political creed. It is the sort of fundamentalism that reeks of hypocrisy with a capital H.

The inerrant fundamentalists really want to you ignore your own conscience and meekly follow their authority. What that means is that you should not let the Holy Spirit guide you because you cannot be trusted. Only they know what the Holy Spirit really wants and you better acquiesce to their authority. Thanks, but no thanks.

Do you believe in angels?

Thanks to artistic depictions, we tend to think of angels as these otherworldly winged creatures that fill the heavens with song and slay the evil with flaming swords. Yet I have always viewed the idea of angels as more of a quaint adjunct to my faith rather something real and tangible. I may have to rethink that position.

On Monday, a member of my son's neuroendocrine cancer support group died. Karen lost her battle with cancer after 7 years of fighting it with everything she had. On some level, she became another statistic in a disease with a 10 year survival rate of only 30%. While statistically average in her struggle to survive, she was extraordinary in how she lived with the disease.

After diagnosis, Karen took it upon herself to reach out to others with the disease, offering encouragement, love, information, and energy. She became, for lack of a better word, a tireless advocate for those afflicted with the disease and the oncologists struggling to improve diagnosis and treatment. None of that description really does her justice.

During the memorial service yesterday, her husband described the countless hours she spent answering emails, talking on the phone, answering messages posted on internet boards, and networking with doctors and fellow patients. Even when she felt terrible, she did not waste time feeling sorry for herself. There were jokes and anecdotes to tell. Her shoulder and her ear were always available to whoever needed them. One oncologist joked that she knew more about the disease than he did. What she did understand better than any of the oncologists was what it meant to fight the disease as a patient and her mission was make sure other patients had as much ammunition as possible.

Karen lost her fight with cancer during what should have been uneventful surgery to correct a complication of the disease. When news of her death spread across the patient support boards, Facebook, email, and telephone, hundreds of tributes from fellow patients poured in from across the globe.

The subject of religion never come in our interactions with Karen. She was focused on getting my son information about how to manage symptoms and treatment side effects. I learned she was a devout Jew (and child of a Holocaust survivor) during the memorial service. It was also during the memorial service that the subject of angels came up. Her rabbi said the following:

"In the Jewish tradition, angels are not mystical beings with wings. They are God's messengers and appear in human form. They walk among us and tell us what we need to hear. I firmly believe that Karen was an angel."

Looking around at the overflowing crowd at her memorial service, filled with people from her family, congregation, and the neuroendocrine cancer community, it is hard to argue with that depiction.

After the service in the chapel, the crowd walked with her casket to the grave site. As we walked, clouds started to fill the sky. As we recited the mourner's prayer (kaddish), it started to rain. The raindrops were huge and the wind swirled leaves around us. Then the sun broke through the clouds as we each took turns throwing three shovels of dirt into her grave. Maybe it was all a coincidence, but it did not feel like it. It felt like angels joined the mourner's prayer and the sun sparkled in our tears as we said our final good-byes to her body.

I don't know what angels are, but Karen turned her disease into a blessing for others, including my son. For that I am thankful.

Her husband closed his tribute to the love of his life with this:

"Go walk with the angels, Karen. Your work here is finished."

Amen.

Update: After I posted this, I came across a tribute to Karen from another person fighting neuroendocrine cancer. It is consistent with the possibility that Karen was indeed an angel.

A Benevolent Force provided three glorious days without pain so Karen could enjoy her birthday party. It had been postponed because of her abdominal pain but last month, with 64 friends and relatives, a DJ, music and a fresh-waxed dance floor Karen and Ken wowed the crowd by performing the stationary Cha-Cha-Cha. Everyone cheered in amazement and begged for lessons on how to do the dance.

There are many, many more things Karen would want you to know. She was a thoroughly good person. She knew how to have fun yet she championed many causes: pro-woman; pro-people of color; pro-self advocacy. Karen was proud to be descended from Holocaust survivors and of her Jewish heritage. If she liked you, she never held back. You knew you were liked. She liked just about everyone except those few doctors who are condescending or aloof.

Saying Good-bye

Friends and family gathered at a small cemetery chapel today (Oct. 16, 2012) for a traditional service. Then the Rabbi walked with Karen and the group to her graveside where, in the Jewish tradition, each person tossed a bit of earth down on her coffin. Of course, Karen was not there. A little bit of her sweet soul was settling into every heart.

Let's see. Everyone described Karen as a person that knew how to love. She gave hope and comfort to many people suffering from a rare and difficult to treat form of cancer. God gave her a last hurrah and called her home surrounded by loved ones. She was carried to her final resting place by a crowd of people touched by her presence. Her absence will be felt long after her death.

I don't know what an angel is, but Karen could probably pass for one. She will be missed.