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…Of all those groups, the group with the largest percentage of war supporters are church-going Evangelical Christians.

The older I get and the longer I live with the Gospels, reading, studying and reflecting on them on an almost daily basis, the more I am aware of the huge disconnect between the church and what it has become and Jesus and who he was and what his ministry was.  I find the results of the poll mentioned above just plain embarrassing.  We should all be putting on sack cloth and ashes…

And when Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, not as the world…” he meant just exactly that.  The peace known to his world (and well known, by the way) was Pax Romana, the peace of Rome established by victory in war (sound familiar?) and maintained by violence (even the violence of the cross, inflicted on Jesus himself to maintain the Pax Romana).  Jesus offered a different peace brought about by non-violent resistance to the oppressive powers.

And we are his church.  Or are we?

Kendall Brown, pastor (no relation as far as I know, quote above exactly as written in church bulletin)

Thanks, Sam!

peace

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Dear President Obama,

This letter is on behalf of Veterans for Peace Chapter 104 of Evansville, IN. Our chapter consists of veterans from several wars, and associate members who are non-veterans. First of all, we appreciate your diplomacy first attitude toward disagreements with other nations and your willingness to invite dialogue about world issues.

Out main concern right now is the Afghanistan war you inherited when you became president. We strongly believe that any escalation is a dire mistake and that hostilities should be ceased as soon as possible. Continued violence will only serve to create more casualties on both sides, including civilians, and make future diplomacy that much more difficult. We need to learn from the past that wars of choice on foreign soil do not produce desirable outcomes for anyone.

Please consider putting all politics aside and end this war. It is the right thing to do! Here are a few quotes from people who know something about war.

“There never was a good war or a bad peace.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Anyone who truly wants to go to war, has truly never been there.-” Larry Reeves

“I guess that’s the great sadness to war, the plants, the flowers, the trees all grow

back, but people don’t” – Dennis Mannion (Khe Sanh)

Mr. President, you know that doing the right thing is not always the popular thing. In the long run we all have to reflect on the opportunities we get to make a difference. You have that opportunity now to save countless lives, and if you need a political spin, the amount of money spent to support the current war is obscene. Our main concern has always been the human cost of war, but that human cost also includes what could have been provided for human services if not for the economic cost of war.

The last thing we would like you to consider is the lost potential with each casualty. We will never know if we lost someone who could cure cancer or solve the energy problem. Just the fact that young people lose the opportunity to live the rewarding life this country offers is tragic.

Again, Mr. President, thank you for your efforts in cleaning up mistakes from the previous administration. Take that one more step and get us out of Afghanistan.

Sincerely and Respectfully,

Veterans for Peace, Chapter 104

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A more disturbing thought is playing across my mind and spirit this evening.  What if the church’s great heresy is that she dares to proclaim that she IS God?

[My own language tells me that I do not buy it, as I use the feminine and historically subordinate female pronoun for the church compared to the masculine pronoun for God.]

But, memories race back of the tithing sermon sequence which so offended me that it was the last I listened to at CCC.  The preacher, who conducts his own actions with much humility, actually claimed that to give one’s tithe anywhere but to the church was anti-scriptural and “should not be considered any more of a personal choice than telling the IRS you gave your tax money to another place.”  At the time I was offended by the implied insult to other ministries and missions, and I was offended that he was telling rich people giving God ten or twelve percent and hording the rest is Bible.  Now, it dawns on me that the gifts are God’s and causes me to question if we have reached a point where the church claims to be God.

I have frequently been told that to separate from the church is to isolate oneself from the care and work of God.

I know the Church has historically claimed to hold the keys to heaven with excommunication representing an eternal death sentence.

I know the place I grew up believed that we alone possessed all truth.

In the non-congregational non-denominational setting where I have been for the last decades, all claim to authority is seated with the pastors and elders.  There is no perceived need to include or allow others into the (self described) prayerful process of important decisions other than to congratulate and praise the work of the leaders.  Have we crossed a line where the leaders of the institution now are actually claiming to be God even while they would recoil at the suggestion?

How many times have we taken credit for the work and wonders of God even while using language that claims we are giving it to Him.

How much of my own desire for a pastoral position is tainted by a desire to be part of that club rather than the pure motives I claim?

I remember growing up singing Larry Norman’s “One Way,” wearing the sweatshirt, and displaying the accompanying hand signs.  While I struggle with the basic theology of it now in its most restrictive forms, I wonder how many times what American Christians really meant wasn’t even Jesus but our chosen expression of the Church…

Maybe I am just to cynical right now to read the self congratulatory things that Christians seem to write on Facebook!  Maybe I just need to listen to the Beatles for awhile instead and “Let It Be.”

peace

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I wonder if the greatest heresy of the church today is not the way the church keeps telling people that God’s greatest promise is anything other than God.

I know it is a heresy when we tell the rich that He promises them greater riches (especially if they keep giving more to the local organization with His name on the door,)  or the poor that they can join us in our mad pursuit of wealth if they just sign up with the church through whatever each group’s magic prayer and rituals are.

I also suspect it is a heresy of stopping short when we promise that He wants to give His healing, protection, comfort, aid, guidance, or any other good thing without including that His greatest gift is to accept us back to Him ( in the Old Testament since to be the “God who dwells among us” or in the New Testament who “stands at the door and knocks,” and then to invite us to join in continuing His work and spend our lives bringing others not to His gifts, but to Him.  As I sit here this morning it seems to me that everything short of that commits the heresy of reducing God to the latest rabbit’s foot, shaman’s pledge, or business plan.  Right now I cannot think of a greater lie to either the rich or poor.

[I know the language I use is still sexist, but my traditional upbringing just stops me short of typing "she" or "her" for God.  I do not believe God is either male or female and was raised in an era when "he" was the neutral pronoun when "it" would be insulting.  Even that includes a sexist assumption of "he" as the superior choice, but I have not yet escaped it.  I think it is because the use of feminine pronouns ("radical language") is even more likely than the masculine to cause people to focus on the language rather than the God behind the musings.]

This is one I would really like to hear other’s opinions on if anyone is actually reading these! lol

peace

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I have to agree I have felt closer to God sitting with a sincere young Muslim girl observing Ramadan, having a beer with Sam, talking with my now departed atheist friend John Elliot who accepted the holiness of being made of the stuff of his farm and resting comfortably in the belief than when he passed he would return to that soil and life would continue, or standing on the Wall at night as Arlo would say, “Just bringing my own being there.”

I guess there are three or four things that keep some grace in my conversation about the modern American church in this postmodern world; good friends still there who are sincere but not yet ready to search for something better, my belief that God claims the Church as His own and intends to claim her as a bride despite all her current faults, and not least — my memories of having been a big part of the problem, and my own Spirit fed willingness to remain forever “uncertain” as I learn to enjoy the mystery and the dance of trusting God without having to know it all.

I certainly do not want to stand before God in some future judgment today, or present awareness of the Spirit, and answer for participating in spreading a false image of a very True God.

peace

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I am still fighting serious anger issues over my final interactions with a former friend and pastor.  It spills over into as well as grows out of my lifelong relationship with organized Christianity.  I have seen it be so right.  I have seen it be totally the opposite.  I have been part of the worst of it as a full and generous contributor to the problem.

When I see those who are supposed to care for God’s children and share the blessings of the Gospel as broadly as possible, making themselves the point of the exercise, the arbiter of God’s will, or just one more person justifying their existence by staying busy at their work, my humanity boils up like a volcano!  There is too much pain, not to heal.  There is too much healing Love available not to obey the command to share it.  And it is still a sin to be boring or bored with the Gospel.  There are times when I just cannot abide another moment of hollow motions or men claiming to sit in the authority seat of Christ.

Tonight it has me thinking about Jesus going to temple.  The New Testament accounts contain enough references to make it clear that it was a regular habit for Him.  By then the blessing of Abraham’s seed that was to be a blessing to all people had been turned into something far different.  Legalistic Judaism under the thumb of Rome seems to have been totally co-opted into a blessing for the leaders of an ingrown cult.  Jesus’ interactions with those leaders on many occasions leave little doubt of his opinion of them, their leadership, or what had become of the message of God’s love and blessing.  But, He went.

It puzzles me.  He must have wanted to set the people there free as dramatically as he did the sacrificial animals on the day He finally sat down and braided a whip.  He must have been offended by the leaders’ pompous self glorification.  He must have wept over, no we know He wept over the lost flocks following these worthless self centered shepherds.  I wonder what went through His mind when He looked at the curtain separating the people from the Holy of Hollies.  I wonder if He wanted to nuke the place as badly as I have sometimes wanted to put an end to harmful church practices?

Perhaps He was there specifically because He loved the devout of heart who sought the Father there.  Perhaps He was there to keep the promise made to Solomon that He would dwell there.  Perhaps He was there teaching us/me that even when it isn’t “right,” it still cannot be “left.”  The gathering of those who seek God is clearly a place where Jesus demonstrates that God chooses to show up.  Maybe I will go and try another church tomorrow.  Maybe I will go to Native American Days.  I don’t know.  Right now, it all puzzles me.

peace

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I am sure there are good honestly motivated Republican folks who sincerely disagree with President Obama — just like there are Democrats who honestly disagree with policies of Republican administrations.

But the degree of venom in what I have been listening to lately causes me a darker (I almost edited this adjective out, but it speaks to how language of color still remains a very common part of our vocabulary for the negative) suspicion. I wonder if I am the only person who thinks some of the people screaming Radical, Socialist, Dangerous, un-American, etc. in tones and volume bordering on actual violence actually mean but will not say N****R.

Maybe its just me. Maybe our partisanship has truly become this deep and this angry.  Maybe the American public is now this easily manipulated to real fear and anger by the string pullers who manipulate the internet and media. Any one of those would be sad and a warning of dangerous possible futures in its own right. But, I think I smell hatred of another color.

If you think I am crazy,I am open to reasonable other explanations.  I would be happy to hear some in fact.  Any responses resorting to only (or too much) name calling, obscenity, or venom, will simply be deleted.

peace

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I just finished Leaving church. I love her honesty.

And, I really like the question near the end about what church might look like if it was a place where we met to discuss where and how we have experienced God and our fellow man out in the world.

(This sounds so much healthier to me than places where the very people who teach priesthood of all believers, maintain their structure and power by acting as if they dispense Him, or His message, to us [comment in a comment: that bit is about protestant clergy who claim one thing and practice another, not those who invite us into the presence of the Eucharist, or the joy of creation]).

Sitting together to discuss where we have encountered life/love/the Divine.  I like that.  That is what I already do with Doc, and Tim, and Dave, and Leah, and Sam, and Bill, and Kevin, and Scott, so many dear friends…and even my young public school students without the language of church.

The church does not own or cage the Spirit.  We/I/You do not dispense Him.  The man Jesus never wrote down a book of doctrine.  He never told his followers what kind of new temples to build, or how to conduct weekly meetings.  He left no secret code for the initiated.  He said, ‘The Kingdom is upon you and within you, Live!’

That is what I do with my friends.  We do our best.  We live.  We learn.  And when we get the chance to sit together, we share what it means to be human and to encounter Life and Truth along the Way.  I like it.  I sense the dance in it.

peace

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I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. But, several people have commented on my little friend Eric now dancing with angels. We develop such strange imagery in Christianity. The Bible does speak of the angels rejoicing there. But, I am looking forward to finding him in the company of real people made whole by the presence of God — family, other children who became whole only there, the risen Savior. Angels sound cool and other worldly. I am looking forward to a very happy and very human reunion.
peace

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They both left the hospital today; my friend Roger to come home for more tests and to spend more time with us, my little friend Eric to finally walk, run, laugh, talk, hug, and sing praise.  I believe it.  I know it.  I cherish the hope that he now can experience all that has shown these ten years through only his face on an immobile body.  But, all I feel is the leaving.  I hear my wife crying and know I am too.

“Your Kingdom come, Your will be done ON EARTH as it is in Heaven.”  We aren’t big enough to heal each other, save each other, restore each other.  We need the Kingdom here.  We need the King here.  We need the King with healing in His hands.

peace

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