Bad Religion

Ross Douthat (columnist for the NY Times) has written a thoughtful guide to American Christianity in the last 100 years or so. The book title is Bad Religion. It's like a guide book you might pick up if you were traveling to some unknown region of the country. You would want to know a bit of history, climatic patterns, interesting cultural nuances and the best places to see, the best restaurants at which to eat and places to hike or bike or do whatever you wanted to. Douthat's book is like this kind of guide book. If you are not familiar with what's been going on in American Christianity for the past century, it's a good place to start. You will learn about Niebuhr and Graham and Dr.King and Civil Rights and Viet Nam and the sex abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church. The highlights. Douthat's argument is that the Institutional Church was more effective and influential Back Then than it is Now. Today it is rife with heresies such as The Prosperity Gospel (Joel Osteen, and others), Nationalism and Political Partisanship, New Scholarship that Discredits the Gospels ( think of the so-called Gospel of Judas and popularizers like Dan Brown here) and Other Spiritualities (think Elizabeth Gilbert and Oprah here). There is a pervasive mistrust of Organized Religion and a superficiality to what Christianity is still around. Douthat, a Catholic, is pessimistic about what the future holds for Institutional,Orthodox Christianity in America. Today the Christianity he sees is politically compromised and polarized by political and cultural agendas so that it is hopelessly weak and ineffective in regard to it's mission.

It's a good tour guide. It hits the highlights. It gives you the big picture. It leaves you muddled and confused, as well. Even though at the end of his book he has half of one page that reads like an altar call - inviting the reader who may be a half - believer or non - believer to walk into a church and try it out for him or herself - it's a weak one. You may like what you find, he says, but you may not, too. This is actually the problem with the book (and I liked the book). We live in a commitment phobic age and commitment to the Church is way down, he says. His altar call is pretty weak, too. Commitment, you see. But, in the shortest chapter of the book which is the one on solutions (isn't that always the way with books that critique Christianity and are quite good pointing out the problems but are not nearly so good at suggesting solutions) Douthat does put his finger on something. He mentions something called The Benedict Option named after St Benedict of the medieval monastery movement. During the Roman Empire's slow collapse Benedict assumed Christianity must contract before it grew, with faithful believers forming communities that stand apart from the culture and inspire by example (280). What Douthat means is commitment. The most highly visible churches in America today have telegenic preachers who also write books. Their ideas are often about how to improve one's life with their ideas. But they do not ask for commitment. Churches that ask for commitment to Christ and to His Church do make a difference in their communities. But you don't necessarily see that or know that unless you join them and live with them for awhile. It's the difference between a tourist and a settler.

When you only tour the scene of American Christianity today it may be interesting but depressing. It looks fragmented, divisive, heretical and weak. It looks almost hopeless. But when you put down roots with one of those local expressions of the Body of Christ, you get another view altogether. Charles Williams wrote a book called The Descent of the Dove in which he traced the movement of the Holy Spirit in history. There were times when it seemed like the Holy Spirit was largely absent from the scene but Williams showed how the Holy Spirit was at work in other ways. The Holy Spirit is always at work Williams was saying. Today is a day like many other days in American History. If you take a tour it looks like Christianity is in retreat, compromised by secularism and stumbling over its own mistaken strategies to combat that secularism. But if you stop touring and put down your guide book and stay awhile - you might be surprised at what the Holy Spirit is doing right where you are.

Mormonism

Joel Osteen the Texas pastor of the church the media likes to call the largest church in American history has been asked recently what he thinks of Mitt Romney's Mormon faith. On CNN the other day he said Mormons and Christians are brothers in Christ. He said he had no reason to believe Mitt Romney is not a Christian. I am not sure Romney has ever claimed to be a Christian. I have heard him say Mormonism is another faith, or another religion and he believes we need to be tolerant of persons of diverse faith backgrounds. That seems more accurate than Osteen's comments.

We will be hearing a lot more about Mormonism now that Romney looks to be the Republican presidential candidate. Most people have not given Mormonism much thought up to now. They may know some Mormons. Mormons are good folk. They are as pro-family as one can get. They don't drink alcohol or caffeine and they don't smoke. They all go to BYU which has become a football power. And last year one of their best basketball players was suspended from their NCAA tournament bound team for "premarital sex". And that doesn't happen in many universities. Most people know about the young men in dark suits who knock on their doors to talk about Mormonism, too. But, Is Mormonism Christian? Will Christians vote for a Mormon for president? I can answer the first question but I don't know about the second one.

In the popular mind, Mormons have crossed over to the Christian mainstream. Many people just lump them right in there with all the other Christian denominations. But, funny thing is, Mormons don't. They want to convert Christians to Mormonism. In fact, Mormonism grows best in a Christian environment. Mormonism believes it is the true church of Christ. They are the true "Christians". After the apostles died the Church disappeared with them. It was rediscovered by Joseph Smith near Palmyra, NY in the 1800's. So all current Christians are impostors and fakes. Mormons talk a lot about Jesus Christ. They profess faith in him. They call him their savior. But, their doctrine is far different from the orthodox, historic Christian faith. Richard John Neuhaus in an article entitled, Is Mormonism Christian?, in First Things (March 2000) says, LDS teaching adds to, deviates from, or starkly opposes the Apostles Creed article by article. Mormon belief is startlingly different from orthodox Christian belief. For Mormons, God is an exalted man no different in kind from you and me. The world was not created out of nothing but organized out of what was there. They don't believe in original sin. In fact, the "sin" in the garden of Eden was actually a bold first step toward becoming who God is. Mormons teach a plurality of gods with God being like the number one. They do not believe in the Trinity or the deity of Christ. So, it would hard to say that Mormons and Christians are brothers in Christ. Mormons are the newest religion in America dating from Joseph Smith who put it  together out of a variety of spiritual beliefs along with a good dose of Masonic ritual in the early 1800's. It all came together for him when God gave him the golden tablets written in a mysterious language and told him to go forth and reconstitute the true church.

There are many good things to admire in modern day Mormonism. There are many good, decent American citizens who are Mormon. One has been a governor of Massachusetts and is running for President. We have had Presidents of many different faiths and even no faith. Thomas Jefferson had no use for organized religion, did not believe in the miracles of Jesus including the Resurrection and he made his own Bible to suit his personal beliefs. I am sure there will be people who will not vote for Romney because he is Mormon. Most people will vote for who they think the best leader of our country would be for the next four years. Neuhaus concluded his article this way: "...we owe to Mormon Americans respect for their human dignity,  protection of their religious freedom, readiness for friendship, openness to honest dialogue, and an eagerness to join hands in social and cultural tasks that advance the common good...."

Book recommendation: Mormon America: Power and Promise (rev. ed) by Richard and Joan Ostling

Charles Colson 1931-2012

Charles Colson died this past weekend. I was in seminary about the time he was released from prison and soon after his book, Born Again, came out which told his story about his conversion to Christ. There was one professor at my school, Richard Lovelace, who made many trips down to the D.C. area to mentor Colson in Church History which was Lovelace's subject of expertise. Colson was known for pulling in several theologians and Bible scholars along with Lovelace to bring him up to speed with what he had been missing in his Christian Education all those years before ( he was a lapsed Episcopalian who didn't think religion had much use in the real world). Many people doubted his conversion; it looked like he was still manipulating the justice system and trying to get out of prison early. Those doubters have the last 40 years of Colson's life to scrutinize. Colson's life falls neatly into two halves. The first half was full of ambition: a law degree and a promising political career rising to a prominent role in the Nixon White House. As told by his biographer, Jonathan Aitken, he worked long hours, drank too much and it cost him his marriage. He was a close confidant of Nixon though and when Watergate blew up Colson was caught in the middle. And on tape. His win at all costs attitude was revealed in his own words for anyone to hear. His famous statement about "walking over his own grandmother" if it would help Nixon win captured his "hatchet man" reputation. He was ruthless and proud of it. Prison changed him. He was surely humbled and spiritually prepared to commit his life to Christ. There was little of a spiritual background to suggest he would turn to God in prison. He had never been a churched man. But through the dark days of Watergate and beyond he was befriended by a couple of Christian colleagues, Mark Hatfield and Harold Hughes, a Republican and a Democrat. These men and other Christians on Capitol Hill showed him the love of Christ. Eventually, Colson had his own meeting with Christ and the rest is history. Colson went on to a ministry that took him into many prisons around the world. Later, the organization he founded was called Prison Fellowship. Colson became a much sought after speaker and he took his place as an Evangelical leader and speaker. He authored and co-authored a number of books on living the Christian life and the Church. He continued to have a role in politics but mostly it was as a counselor to those in power. Because he lived so large and (in)famously before he became a Christian and that part of the story was so well known, it was easy to see the difference in his life Christ made. He was a redeemed person and because of Christ his life produced many good works. Whatever good he did after he met Christ he gave Christ all the credit. In Colson's life the transformation the Christ brings into a human life was most apparent.

March Makes Me Madness

My wife asked me last night if this was the last basketball game. I said yes. It was the women's college championship. I don't count the NBA because I don't watch it. It's the least pure form of basketball. It's watch me, I'm the star, see me play one on one. I said, yes to her question. Then I said, tomorrow baseball begins.

So the basketball season is over. What did we learn. The women's game is purer than the men's game. Kentucky won the men's championship and all 5 of their starters will be playing in the NBA next season. Two of their stars are projected to be the number one and two picks in the NBA draft. They were both freshman this year. One and done. They went to college on the seven month plan. What a joke. Their coach, Calipari, will be busy now recruiting another bunch of seven month college students. The men's championship was boring. It was a done deal. Kentucky could have beaten some NBA teams. The final four teams every year have many players who are attending a college for a year or two before they enter the NBA draft. Who can blame them, as the thinking goes, they will make millions. Not so, women's college basketball. Their best player, Baylor's Brittney Griner, will be back for her senior year she said. She could go play in Europe and make a million or she can wait to play in the WNBA and make in the thousands. Women players go to school, play for their school; many men players have to check out their jerseys to remember what school they are attending. Women coaches of women basketball make millions less than their male counterparts. People like to watch the NBA minor league. Baseball drafts players out of high school but if they choose to go to college instead they have to wait until they are 21 to re-enter the draft. That would be a better plan for the NBA and it would make for better college basketball.

Some years there is a small college like Butler who made a run to the championship the past couple years. This is a team with no McDonald's All Americans, no big sports budget, no mega million dollar coach - just a lot of team chemistry and hard nosed players. They are definitely the underdog and the reason lots of people watch. Not this year. By the time the championship game was played on Monday night, it was hard to tell who was more bored - the Kentucky players or the spectators. Kentucky was up by 18 at one point and got so bored they almost lost the game. CBS had plenty of hype for the tournament but by the time it got past the first couple rounds there was little reason to stay and watch. Many of those one and dones and two and dones had given up playing hard and were thinking about staying healthy and making those NBA bucks while playing one on one.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

I watched the dvd Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close this week. It deals with the attack on the Twin Towers on 9-11. Many people died that day but this is about one man who died. One man who loved his wife and had a warm nurturing relationship with his young son. The son is somewhere on the Aspergers syndrome spectrum. He is very precocious and has a very imaginative mind.  He also has a lot of fears about the real world. After 9-11 his fears only get worse. He tries to construct his own safe haven in his home, a place he retreats to to try to stay close to his father. One day he gets up the courageous to go into his father's closet and he accidentally knocks over a vase which shatters and an envelope falls out. In the envelope he finds a key with the word BLACK on it. Before the day his father died he created scavenger hunts for his son to get him out of the house and help him overcome his fears of the outside world. Oskar (the young boy) thinks this was his dad's last scavenger hunt for him. So, he devises an impossible plan to track down every person named Black in NYC. There are thousands. He figures it will take him 3 years. But, more importantly it gives him a way to keep his father close. He meets a lot of people and he always wants to know what their stories are. He takes their pictures and keeps a journal of his discoveries. The journey of the Key is not what he thought it was -a last message from his dad, but it becomes the best way he could have found to deal with his grief and anger. In the process of looking for the key he finds many stories of loss and love. A mysterious mute old man (played wonderfully by Max von Sydow) helps him on his search for what the key unlocks but he eventually has to give up and Oskar loses him, too (he has his own story of loss that bisects Oskar's life in an interesting way).

Oskar is played by a boy who never acted before and who was seen on Kid Jeopardy and then recruited for the role. He is in every scene and his performance is Oscar worthy. Oskar's loss on what he calls the Worst Day of his Life is deeply painful and seems unbearable at times. Oskar's fits of rage are mostly directed at his mother (Sandra Bullock) and himself. Losses like these are never healed completely. Time does not do it. Love is a better healer and the shared loss of a community of people helps, too. Oskar has the support of a loving and caring family and he meets people - a community of shared loss -that gets him past his anger and grief and fears to the point where he can live in the real world. It's a modern parable for our times.

Hunger Games

I went to see Hunger Games last night. Like everywhere else it's selling a lot of tickets here. The theater was full and there were more adults there than kids. I wasn't going to go. I read the book and was not that impressed. But, I am glad I went. I liked the movie better than the book. In the film, a few of the main themes of the book were much easier to see. And see is the important word here. The movie is all about seeing. Hunger Games, as everyone knows by now,  is about a future world (America?) where the few (1%) occupy the best district in the country while the other 12 districts are kept under the thumb of the Capitol. This is the 74th edition of the Hunger Games we are told and every year each district selects two teenagers (ages 12-18) to compete in a survival contest to death. Only one teen survives and he or she is a hero for life. These "Tributes", as they are called, sacrifice their lives in a gladiatorial contest ( it will remind you of ancient Rome - they even process before the enthusiastic crowds in the Capitol by chariot) every year to pay back the ruling elite for a rebellious uprising 74 years ago. It is not totally clear how this came about but what is clear is that for the rest of the year the people in these districts do the dirty work so the Capitol dwellers may enjoy the Good Life with all its self indulgent perks.

The teen on teen violence which is a major theme of the movie was downplayed. At times when I was watching the movie I had to remind myself what this was about: kids having to kill each other or be killed. Other than one or two scenes the violence is not graphic and most of the killings are in self defense or accidental. At the outset, the Tributes are told that most of their deaths will be by natural causes, ie, falls, animal attacks, dehydration. The Tributes are there by no choice of their own (one of the districts is rumored to train some of the athletic teens in survival techniques and one boy from this district seems to get into the role of predator more than the others). In the process of preparation for the Games, and during the Games themselves, relationships are formed and some of the teens really care about each other and their fates.

The villain in the story is the Capitol. It is the people who demand this entertainment every year. They are a nation of watchers. Every moment of the Hunger Games from the time the Tributes are selected to the finale is on the big screen. There are surveillance cameras all over the "wilderness" where the Games are held and "natural" effects like storms and fires and wild animals can be controlled and managed from a central place in the Capitol.  It is likely the watchers are being watched, too. It is a voyeuristic image of the future. I thought of the cameras on street corners, and campuses, and in businesses. More and more of our lives are on video tape. Courts are deciding what is legal to video and what is not. What rights to privacy do we possess any more. We are a nation of facebookers and youtubers for whom it is not enough any more to experience something for ourselves but we have to share it or show it for others to pass judgment (like or dislike).

Some of the key figures in the movie learn that they are entertainers as well as fighting for their lives. They are playing to the crowd. How others see them is more important than who they really are. Peeta who plays the lead opposite Katniss says before the games begin that he hopes they don't change him. He doesn't want "them" to control him. But, they do change him and everyone else. Everyone is changed by the need to play a part. To play to the crowd. To please those who have control of your life. Katniss, for one, learns that image is power and it's a knowledge that rattles the president of the Capitol (and sets up the next book). As our society becomes more and more a society of watchers, it begs the question: How are we being changed by who is watching.

A Way of Life

Interesting....or sad.... or just of sign of the way of life today. Peyton Manning, the former Colts football player who sat out a year with a seriously injured neck, who was let go by those same Colts signed a contract with the Denver Broncos today. It's reported to be 96 million dollars over 5 years. That's a lot of money by the way. In Kodiak, our school budget is short about 3.5 million. That means we either shut down one elementary school or let go 40 or so untenured teachers. That's a lot of teachers. Don't have to be a rocket scientist, as they say, to see what our way of life values most.

In basketball, the NCAA tournament heads into its second weekend. It is down to 16 teams or 15 teams and Kentucky. Kentucky is loaded. The team is projected to have the number 1 and 2 top picks in the next NBA draft. Two other players, both sophomores, are predicted to go in the second round. We need to be reminded again and again that this is a college basketball tournament because many of the players on the top teams do not spend much time in college. Why would they? Let's see million dollar contracts or an education. It's our way of life.

In baseball, the best player in the National League who played this past season on the world champion St.Louis Cardinals took his game to the highest bidder and moved to the west coast to play in the American League. Albert Pujols ten year contract with the Angels is reported to be 240 million dollars plus incentives over 10 years. That's 40 million more than the Cardinals for whom Pujols played the past 10 years, the only other team he has played for. Guess 40 million makes it worth the hassle of moving your household. Not to mention nicer winter weather.

Now I like Pujols and I've seen him do some good things with his wealth from baseball. It is not his fault that he plays a sport he is very good at that pays him a lot of money to perform. I like to watch the NCAA tournament, too. It is great basketball. I like Peyton Manning, too. From everything I've seen he is a class act all the way. But, do I have to even say that there is something wrong with a way of life that values the contributions of a Manning, or a Pujols or a Clooney or a Madonna way more than a teacher or a nurse or a someone who is hired to take care of your children or parent in a nursing home.

Jesus, who knew something about the inequities of life, said this: "the person who loves his life will lose it but the person hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." We can debate the specifics of what he meant there. But, its pretty clear he was talking about two ways of life. One leads to life and one to death. A way of life that values money above all else, that says you gotta follow the money, that makes money the measure of all things - well seems like Jesus was saying there is different way, a better way of life.