Choosing a story…and a community (revised) November 10, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Commentary, Individualism.4 comments
New York Times columnist, David Brooks, wrote today about the “Rush to Therapy” in the wake of the killings at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. Brooks wrote critically of the misguided, politically correct attempt to play down the importance of the Islamic connections and influence on Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s rampage that left more than a dozen dead and several dozen wounded.
Brooks is not the first to take this line, but I was intrigued by his “set-up” paragraphs. They are worth quoting in full:
We’re all born late. We’re born into history that is well under way. We’re born into cultures, nations and languages that we didn’t choose. On top of that, we’re born with certain brain chemicals and genetic predispositions that we can’t control. We’re thrust into social conditions that we detest. Often, we react in ways we regret even while we’re doing them.
But unlike the other animals, people do have a drive to seek coherence and meaning. We have a need to tell ourselves stories that explain it all. We use these stories to supply the metaphysics, without which life seems pointless and empty.
Among all the things we don’t control, we do have some control over our stories. We do have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to make sense of the world. Individual responsibility is contained in the act of selecting and constantly revising the master narrative we tell about ourselves.
The stories we select help us, in turn, to interpret the world. They guide us to pay attention to certain things and ignore other things. They lead us to see certain things as sacred and other things as disgusting. They are the frameworks that shape our desires and goals. So while story selection may seem vague and intellectual, it’s actually very powerful. The most important power we have is the power to help select the lens through which we see reality.
Thoughtful Christians will immediately understand Brooks’ point as descriptive of their own lives and the decisions they have made to embrace the biblical story and become followers of Jesus of Nazareth. They will also recognize that others have chosen other stories to embrace and that the consequences of those decisions are, in many cases, very different.
The world has always been a marketplace of “stories,” “frameworks” and “lenses” — to use three of Brooks’ terms. The story of ancient Israel’s taking possession of the Promised Land is a story of the clash between Israel’s story and the story of the Canaanite inhabitants. One can read the Old Testament as the lengthy account of Israel’s successes and failures to faithfully embrace the story — or live within the framework or view reality through the lens — God had given them. Israel often found the lens offered by Baalism attractive and the prophets were ever rebuking the nation for its faithlessness.
When one reads the New Testament — especially the narrative and letters of Paul — it is clear that the gospel story has connections to the story of Israel, but that it is sharply at odds with the many other stories being peddled in the theological marketplaces of the Mediterranean world. Although Paul once attempted in Athens to connect the Christian story to other stories within the Greek mythologies, he eventually had to conclude that the story of a crucified Messiah would be very difficult for Gentiles, as well as for Jews, to embrace. “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.”
Practically no one enters the marketplace of lenses and stories with a clean slate of no predispositions. But it is becoming very common for people to shop among a variety of stories for chapters that suit their fancy. This is why one often encounters people who have constructed their own very personal spiritual framework with pieces of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other faiths. There is no law against this, of course, but the resulting stories are often riddled with internal contradictions.
In fact, there surely is no perfect story (whatever a “perfect” story might be). The Christian story is a messy one, often at odds with what seems contemporary, clean, and politically correct. Parts of this story are quite contrary to modern sensibilities. But if one tries to take just the parts of it that fit cleanly with those modern sensibilities, it becomes a dysfunctional faith — an incomplete story, devoid of power. We are stuck, as I like to say, with the whole story — even the parts we don’t understand and don’t like.
This is why Christianity is a story — a lens, a framework — best understood and experienced in community. It should never be subject to private interpretation and understanding. Since it is a story, not of individuals but of believing communities, it can only be practiced that way. For it is in community that our narrow views are challenged and our selfish interests — too easily justified by biblical proof-texting — are exposed. When people withdraw from the community to which the story belongs, and begin to live the story as if it is theirs and theirs alone, real problems begin to arise.
Like Christianity, Islam also provides a lens through which reality can be viewed. I think it is a distorted lens. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the majority of the world’s Muslim do not understand their story as allowing or justifying the kind of act Major Hasan did. So what happened? Apparently he withdrew from the community that would have quickly counseled him to abstain from violence. Acting apparently alone, he assumed unto himself the right to interpret the Islamic story as he saw fit. The result was carnage.
When we choose a story — or modify the one we have embraced — we also choose the community to which that story belongs. And that almost always means that we give up our freedom to think and act in isolation. And that is a good thing.
Paul versus Paul October 29, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Church structure, Leadership.1 comment so far
Over time, we all change our minds and opinions. Life experiences, otherwise called the “school of hard knocks,” often lead to changes in attitudes and perspectives. We accept this reality as hardly noteworthy because it is a common human experience. But what about when we perceive it in the writers of scripture? Are they permitted to grow, mature and change their minds?
For some time I’ve been uncomfortable with how at odds the Pastoral letters are with the earlier writings of Paul. Did Paul change his mind about leadership within the congregation? Concerns about who leads and how that leadership functions are hardly a blip on Paul’s radar screen in his earliest letters — to the Galatian, Thessalonian, and Corinthian churches. But in the Pastorals, his tone has changed and he seems eager to formalize positions of leadership.
The easiest explanation is the one offered by no small number of scholars, who feel Paul is not, after all, the author of the letters to Timothy and Titus. A disciple of Paul, or another late first century/early second century believer, wrote in Paul’s name to address contemporary challenges. I have a great deal more sympathy for this view now than some years ago, when I felt a special calling to defend the integrity of the Bible. Still, the Pastorals cannot be so easily dismissed. Whether from Paul’s hand or not, the early church found them to be “apostolic” and worthy of inclusion in the canon of scripture. And their impact on the future development of the church and its ministry has been enormous. In other words, we are stuck with them.
In Paul’s earlier letters there’s a remarkable dearth of references to formal leaders. In Philippians only does he even mention what might be understood as leaders, using the words episkopos and diakonos. Of the former, some prefer the translation “bishop,” but the word literally means “overseer.” Of the latter, “deacon” is traditional, but the root word means “to serve or minister.” Both these words occur in the Pastoral letters, along with the word presbyteros, which literally means “an older individual” — hence, an “elder.” Many contend, and I am among them, that episkopos and presbyteros are synonyms describing the same thing. Episkopos describes the task — overseeing or shepherding; presbyteros describes the one who does it — a mature believer. In the scriptures these words are, almost certainly, used interchangeably.
But I repeat: what is remarkable is how little Paul uses the language of leadership or ministerial office in his earlier letters. Instead of calling on leaders to solve problems — rebuke the errant, enforce sound doctrine, make difficult decisions — Paul calls on the whole congregation to do these things. This is probably not because there were no elders. We know Paul and Barnabas appointed elders in several congregations on their return to Antioch. Generally speaking, it’s safe to assume that early on most congregations had elders and that their authority was recognized. But it is an inescapable fact that Paul did not single the elders out for special mention or hold them responsible for correcting the many things Paul saw to be amiss in the young churches. Rather, he held the whole church responsible for its life.
But this was not sustainable, many would say. Paul’s belief that congregations could function effectively as the body of Christ without “leaders who lead” could not stand the test of time and circumstances. How else can you explain the rather stark contrast between Paul’s earlier letters and the Pastoral letters? Paul, it is said, eventually saw the need for formalizing leadership at a congregational level. Certain individuals had to be recognized and set apart to shepherd the flock, to teach it, to exercise authority when something or someone went awry. Twenty or so years after Paul left Antioch to plant churches, he had changed his mind and saw the need of strong leadership in every congregation. And this is why in the Pastoral letters he identifies the “ministerial offices” by name and lays out the qualifications for each. Or so they say.
I don’t buy it. I don’t for a minute believe that Paul established ministerial offices because churches were floundering without them. I don’t for a minute believe that he intended to take away from the body its right to experience the headship of Christ directly by placing an ordained intermediary between Christ and his church. And I don’t for a minute believe that Paul intended to keep the members of the body from offering “a hymn, a revelation, a teaching, a tongue or an interpretation” (1 Corinthians 14.26) so that an ordained leader could determine and direct everything that happens when the body gathers, thus turning the church into a body of spectators instead of the body of Christ.
But what I do believe is that this is precisely what transpired over time and that the misreading of the Pastoral letters is somewhat to blame. How in the world, based on these three letters, did we get the religious structures and leadership models (professional clergy) that dominate the landscape today?
Did Paul change his mind? I don’t think so.
Moral hazard; systemic risk October 27, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Evil.add a comment
Like millions of others I watched the value of my retirement funds plummet with the stock market last year. Like many others I don’t have especially kind feelings toward the financial institutions who played dice with my money and the national economy. And, like some, I have tried to unpack what exactly happened to bring the entire financial system to the brink of collapse.
So I have learned about derivatives, credit default swaps, CDOs, mortgage backed securities, and other arcane instruments of modern finance. I know what happened to Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Merrill Lynch. I know the names of the powerful government players — Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner, Sheila Bair — as well as the names of the CEOs who played loose and free with other people’s money — Bob Rubin, Dick Fuld, John Thain, Ken Lewis, and others who have possibly regretted their unhappy moments on the evening news (but surely not their huge paychecks and bonuses). And I see, all too well, the revolving door connecting the two groups.
Over the past couple of years we’ve been witness to forces at work that could be described any number of ways. Had they been witnessed by first century Christians, I think they would have described those forces as principalities and powers. The best-known reference in the New Testament is in Ephesians 6.12 — “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Change “the heavenly realms” to “Wall Street and Washington” and it fits quite well, don’t you think?
But this is no joke. Forget the caricatures of devils with horns and pitchforks. We’re way beyond that. This is a story of institutions established to do good — to handle and invest hard-earned money with honesty and integrity — that fell victim to the most depraved of human ambitions and actions. It’s a story of mere mortals — educated and smart, to be sure — but mere mortals nonetheless, who gave themselves over to what John, in his first letter, called “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vain glory of life.” Briefly stated, that is how institutions conceived to do good become demonic. And “demonic” is not too strong a word to use to describe the decisions and actions, of leaders in government as well as the private sector, that have brought the nation to the brink of ruin.
But there is plenty of guilt to go around. John’s description above applies not just to powerful institutions and their CEOs, but to millions of ordinary people who spent like there was no tomorrow, taking on levels of personal debt that only an ever-increasing housing bubble could have supported. To be sure, they were aided and abetted by financial institutions ever eager to capitalize on the human vulnerability to temptations of lust. And, with no cushion whatsoever, millions have been injured by the fall of those institutions on the commanding heights of the economy.
And so we find ourselves deep inside a terrible economic recession. Millions are out of work or underemployed (myself included). Trillions of dollars of national wealth have been washed away. Many, many families have lost their homes to foreclosure. Last year’s federal budget deficit was $1.4 trillion and the national debt is now just south of $12 trillion. Projections on adding to that number will make one weak in the knees.
While delving into what happened in the past year, I frequently came across the terms “systemic risk” and “moral hazard.” These are the twins birthed by the principalities and powers that seem now to control the world of finance. Systemic risk describes the vulnerabilities of a market or an entire economy to the collapse of a single financial institution deemed “too big to fail.” Moral hazard, on the other hand, describes the undesired message that is sent to shaky institutions when the government bails out a sister financial institution that is deemed “too big to fail.” The “moral hazard” is that when government steps in to save a bank run by greedy morons, all other banks run by greedy morons have no incentive to repent and shape up because they, too, will be saved from their insanely risky decisions.
Systemic risk and moral hazard now prowl the economic landscape of the nation. Which one do you like? Sorry, you can’t choose. Choose the one and the other one will kill you. This is the nature of evil. The principalities and powers rule in the financial affairs of the nation. You may not like Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, and the billions he is just now handing out as bonuses to himself and his top executives. But the battle is not against Lloyd Blankfein or the other human captains of national finance. The battle is against the demonic powers that interface with the institutions that have lost their way and no longer serve the good. It is an uphill battle and it will take a lot more than essays like this to win it. It is a spiritual battle that can best be waged with spiritual weapons. More about that soon.
We are all in this together October 16, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Individualism.2 comments
“We are all in this together.” Lately, I’ve been hearing this assertion a lot, especially from government officials. In Washington, those who are pushing hard for health insurance reform are saying it. In Britain, George Osborne of the Conservative Party said it as he laid out his party’s sober assessment of Britain’s economic challenges.
“We are all in this together.” At its most noble, it’s an invitation to set aside selfish interests and join together in sharing the sacrifices, pain and, yes, joy involved in helping the greatest number of people possible.
It is interesting to me that people, especially conservative Christians, who would affirm that “we are all in this together” when it comes to, say, their immediate family, reject it when it is applied to society as a whole, especially if government is the organizing agent.
I understand and appreciate a healthy suspicion of governmental power. Governments have enormous potential to do harm. But they also have enormous potential to do good. The same can be said of any human organization whether small, large, voluntary, religious, secular — whatever the form, constitution or purpose.
It is true that government has significant powers to coerce and enforce, which surely makes it especially vulnerable to the evil of abusing its power. This is just what many fear regarding health reform, especially when they hear someone like the President say, “we are all in this together.” And, indeed, it remains to be seen if the pending legislation will require citizens to have health insurance and what will be done to those who are able to afford it (with or without a government subsidy) but refuse to do so.
But let’s look at this from a different angle. Suppose a small congregation of ten families, some of whom were experiencing severe economic stress, received a prophetic word from one of its members that “we are all in this together.” And suppose that everyone understood the meaning of this to be that finances would be shared in such a way that those in need should be cared for at the expense of those making more than they needed.
If this is a congregation of American Christians, it isn’t hard to imagine that decisions surrounding this would be agonizing. It also isn’t hard to imagine that before it is all over, less than 10 families would remain because one or two would conclude that this isn’t what they signed up for. “We are all in this together” sounds nice, but it must not mean that I would have to bear the cost for someone else’s misfortune, or worse, their bad decisions.
Such, I think, is the nature of the individualism that has so powerfully infected many, many citizens of our land. In the body politic it provokes many to fierce opposition to any governmental effort to extend the benefits of a first-class medical system to everyone, regardless of ability to pay. And in the church, it is surely the primary reason for the widespread practice of church-hopping. We really aren’t all in this together, are we?
Wisdom and “Obama’s War” October 14, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Commentary.add a comment
Last night, PBS’s Frontline aired its first program of the new season, “Obama’s War.” If you want a sobering experience for the next hour, watch it here.
If you are a praying person, “Obama’s War” might induce you to seriously intercede for the President and his advisers to have the wisdom of Solomon as they decide what to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
If you are a highly partisan Republican, you might be tempted to take cynical delight in the President’s conundrum. Please don’t do that.
Having called Afghanistan a “necessary war,” Mr. Obama has affirmed many times that the United States must not lose and thereby surrender Afghanistan to the Taliban and their Islamic extremist friends. Now the President must decide if Afghanistan can indeed be saved and at what price.
And that’s not even to mention Pakistan, a nuclear power that is obviously in the midst of deep internal conflict over whether it wants to be a responsible modern nation-state or an Islamic extremist provocateur. As the Frontline program suggests, the challenges facing the United States in Afghanistan may pale in comparison to the dangers in Pakistan.
If you have believed, as many do, that the United States must win at all costs in Afghanistan, “Obama’s War” ought to give you pause to wonder whether victory is possible, what it would look like, and how much blood will be necessary to underwrite it.
Eight years ago, it seemed so obvious — so righteous — that the United States should bring down the Taliban government, capture or kill Osama bin Laden, and free the Afghan people to establish a better government. And now we must ask if what was so obvious and righteous is really achievable. The Taliban is resurgent, bin Laden still at large, and Afghanistan’s government is riddled with corruption and, after the fraud of the recent elections, may not even be legitimate.
Can the United States fix Afghanistan? What about Pakistan? (Perhaps another question is what will India do about Pakistan?) Miserably hard questions. If you believe God cares about the answers, intercession for those who will give the answers would be a good daily habit.
Three boxes October 9, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Evangelism.add a comment
Cutting Edge, the church-planting magazine of the association of churches known as the Vineyard, recently carried a thoughtful interview with Charles Park, senior pastor at The River, a Vineyard congregation in Manhattan.
In the interview, “Engaging Secular Culture,” Park spoke of the “three boxes” that help him understand and describe American society. “We have the Christian world box, and we have the post-Christian world box, but then you have an in-between box, which is the flow of people from one to the next.”
For those on their way our of the Christian world box, Park says, the church still has a chance: “It’s the people who are only just leaving that could be attracted to a church that does things differently, or with passion or integrity, or a cooler church, or a hip or relevant church.”
But according to Park, once people have journeyed all the way to the post-Christian box, they are unlikely to ever leave it: “But we…need to recognize that people already in the post-Christian world box are not interested in church, period…the people who have turned their backs are not going to go back.” In other words, they are generally not part of that flow of people who are on the move between worlds.
Park notes church attendance figures in Manhattan as around one percent; in Cambridge it’s two percent. In other words, the post-Christian box is growing and the Christian box is shrinking. “Even though the biggest box is still the church world, the dynamic of what is happening should be very alarming.”
Park says that people in the post-Christian box are not susceptible to the kinds of reasons and arguments for God that have traditionally been a part of Christian witness: “…arguments tend to only make them dig deeper into their positions, because ‘reasons’ rarely convince someone to abandon their identity” because “the ‘logic’ we use flows from our culture and our identity.”
So is there any hope? Park thinks the emergent church is filling an important role in catching some of those who are in the in-between box. But for those already in the post-Christian box, he admits that “the church just doesn’t have any idea how to reach the post-Christian world. It’s just dismal.”
Still, Park has some optimism. He thinks that Pentecostalism, properly crafted and practiced, just might have a chance. He does not think that traditional Pentecostalism, with its emphasis on “all-night services with yelling and shouting and miracle-touting ‘hype’ going on” is going to “transfer well to the secular culture.” But a Pentecostalism that presents the real presence of God in a “non-hyped, accessible, realistic way” just might reach those in the post-Christian box. Not surprisingly, Park thinks the Vineyard churches fit that bill and “can play a unique and critical role.”
He winds up the interview speaking about unhappy and unfulfilled post-Christians, the difference between Apple and Dell, and why the Vineyard churches are not like those in the Willow Creek Association of churches. And he ends with this:
But consider this: What if God has given the Vineyard the tools to play the Apple game in the post-Christian world, but we’ve ended up playing the Dell game in the church world? What if we are now parked in the church world when we were given the keys to unlock the post-Christian world? All this is to say, I believe the Vineyard has been raised by God for such a time as this. I believe the Vineyard has a destiny, but it will not be fulfilled by catering to the church world. I believe we can be relevant in the growing market of the post-Christian world, to go where the gospel is not coming across as good news. To go to the Dionysius and Damaris. To go to the toughest crowd on earth…the post-Christians.”
Here’s a question: could you substitute the name of your church where Charles Park uses the word “Vineyard?” Until our churches, whatever their stripe or structure, can conceive the reason for their existence and the focus of their mission in terms similar to these, I don’t think we will be doing the work of the kingdom.
Between aspiration and accomplishment October 9, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Commentary.1 comment so far
The announcement today from Oslo that the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Barack Obama raised eyebrows and elicited gasps on both the right and left of the political spectrum. With nothing but the rhetoric of aspirations and good intentions thus far, our President was surely nowhere near the top tier of candidates most deserving of this prize. It was a bad decision on the part of the Nobel committee, saying more about how Europeans long for America to start acting like them than about the real accomplishments of the man to whom they awarded this $10 million honor. (Update: Later today the figure was quoted as $1.4 million, which I assume to be correct. Early this morning, a news reader used the $10 million figure).
But once I got over my startled reaction to the announcement, I began to think about the wide gulf between aspirations and accomplishments. The bridge between the two is constructed with vision, smart strategies, faith and hard work. This is surely why so much we may aspire to never comes to pass.
This is nowhere more evident than in matters of faith and church. Believers aspire to many things — to have more faith, to conquer bad habits, to overcome sin, to develop better devotional practices, to pray and intercede more effectively for others, to be better spouses or parents or employees.
Churches have aspirations too — to be more effective at outreach, to add more members, to serve the community better, to become a congregation that attracts the unchurched.
We were talking together in our most recent gathering of the church about faith. One of the songs we’d sung had the line, “Savior, he can move the mountains….” We looked at the passage in Matthew 17 where the disciples were unable to heal the boy with epilepsy. Jesus noted “this faithless and twisted generation” and proceeded to heal the boy. When the disciples asked why they were unable to do so, Jesus responded, “because of your little faith.” Then he added, “if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
Is faith the chief missing ingredient between aspiration and accomplishment? (Not to diminish the importance of vision, strategy and hard work, of course). How can faith be increased? Are these even the right questions, suggesting as they do that the reason we cannot accomplish what we aspire to is because there is some deficiency in us? (I think that’s the last place many are willing to go; it is much more comforting to find the answer elsewhere).
Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his aspirations, so eloquently expressed in speeches and press conferences, and not for his accomplishments which, as yet, are in the future. His presidency will ultimately be judged, not by this prize, but by his accomplishments.
I believe also that there is probably no reward for the eloquently expressed aspirations of those who follow Christ, but who are ever postponing whatever it takes to accomplish the deeds of the kingdom. It is in doing the whatever-it-takes that our discipleship may be judged.
Individualism and health insurance October 5, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Individualism.add a comment
Roger Cohen, a New York Times columnist, made a lot of sense in “The Public Imperative,” a column appearing today, which you should read, and can find, here. It wasn’t his first column about the current health reform effort, but I think it was one of his best.
Just back from Europe, Cohen noted — once again — that Europeans just don’t understand why so many Americans “don’t agree that universal health coverage is a fundamental contract to which the citizens of any developed society have a right.” But Cohen, looking at the matter from a slightly different angle, hit on an answer that made a lot of sense.
Unlike Europeans, Cohen observes, Americans are loathe to embrace a moral commitment that would entitle everyone to the same benefit because they think “somebody’s freeloading on my hard work.” He goes on to say this:
Post-heroic European societies, having paid in blood for violent political movements born of inequality and class struggle, see greater risk in unfettered individualism than in social solidarity. Americans, born in revolt against Europe and so ever defining themselves against the old Continent’s models, mythologize their rugged (always rugged) individualism as the bulwark against initiative-sapping entitlements. We’re not talking about health here. We’re talking about national narratives and mythologies — as well as money. These are things not much susceptible to logic. But in matters of life and death, mythology must cede to reality, profit to wellbeing.
Ever scanning the landscape for examples of American individualism that undermine the common good (especially when it comes to matters of church), my antenna went up. One of the reasons is because some of my more conservative Christian friends seem to think that any greater involvement of government in health care can only mean the loss of individual freedom — most likely theirs — and end up being a catastrophe for the nation. The opposition I hear stated by some of these friends borders on visceral hatred of anyone (especially President Obama) who would dare suggest that when it comes to health we can accomplish something good if we will just all be in this together — yes — with the help of the government.
Cohen noted — actually much to my surprise — that one of the great economist heroes of free marketers, Friedrich Hayek, dared to suggest in The Road to Serfdom that a valid case can be made for government involvement in a matter like health insurance:
“Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance — where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks — the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong.”
Of course this is what is done throughout Europe when it comes to health insurance. Not perfectly, to be sure. It is never the case that 100 percent of citizens are well-served by anything, public or private. But it is astonishing to note just how many citizens in our country are not well-served by the excellent health care system that they simply cannot access because they have no insurance or are denied it because of a pre-existing condition.
Cohen is advocating for the “public option” that is so strongly opposed by conservatives, though he notes that it is still possible to have universal health insurance without it. But doing so will require everyone to participate so that the risk is spread over the largest group possible. And that means that the healthy who make only modest use of the health care system will be paying for those who overuse the system, some of whom choose to live patently unhealthy lives.
Such is life in a society where people actually care about their fellow citizens enough to forge a social compact that insures that everyone has access to the health care they need. Or, as Cohen pointedly puts it, “individualism is more ‘rugged’ when housed in a healthy body.”
What the “one anothers” tell us about church October 4, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Commentary.add a comment
Love one another (John 13.34). Accept one another (Romans 15.7). Serve one another (Galatians 5.13). Forgive each other (Ephesians 4.32). Submit to one another (Ephesians 5.21). Pray for one another (James 5.16).
I expect that many Christians, especially those in a house church setting, have done a study of the “one anothers” of the New Testament, of which a small sample is included in the paragraph above. Most of these are found in the letters of Paul; a few occur in the gospels and the general epistles. All in all, there are least 25 of them in the New Testament and they pretty well cover the waterfront of things to do and not to do in close relationships.
There is nothing quite like a house church or intentional Christian community to highlight just how relevant the one anothers are. In large congregations where the primary gathering is a worship service where few function and most just sing and listen, the one anothers aren’t especially important.
But in small gatherings where face-to-face interaction is the name of the game, they are vitally important. On a Sunday morning in large congregational gatherings, one can avoid the difficult people by going to the other side of the sanctuary. In a house church gathering, this is not possible. Here, one must face difficult people and find some way, with them, to function as the body of Christ where everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation and, most importantly, where everything must be done to the building of a spiritual house and a dwelling place for God (1 Corinthians 14.26; Ephesians 2.22).
Paul’s letters suggest just how challenging this is, which is undoubtedly why he included so many of the one anothers in his admonitions to the young churches. The church in Corinth was a mess of disunity, immorality and disrespect. The Philippian church suffered from a bitter division between Euodia and Syntyche. All the churches undoubtedly experienced the challenges of overcoming the historic enmity between Jew and Gentile. There were, apparently, challenges everywhere in churches consisting of rich and poor, slave and free, men and women.
Paul wrote in Ephesians that a mystery hidden for ages had finally been revealed in Jesus Christ — “that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 3.6). Everything that divides has been relativized in Christ so that everyone can become “sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.”
Such a bold assertion challenges everyone to reconsider and repent of prejudice and favoritism. This is where the one anothers become very practical and very important. They are the “down and dirty” means whereby members of the body actually put the theological high ground of Ephesians 3.6 into practice. This is why Paul follows his remarkable assertions in Ephesians 3 with, in chapter 4, a whole array of practical teachings, including these one anothers: “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (v. 2). ” “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (v. 32).
A friend who read my earlier post on “A Pentecost of Love and Unity” reminded me that even after the extraordinary experience of August 13, the Moravians in Herrnhut continued to have significant differences and disagreements even as they commenced the remarkable mission outreach that gave the Moravian Church its own chapter in the history of Protestant missions.
The fact that the New Testament contains more than two dozen statements of how members of the body ought to treat each other tells us just how demanding it can be to live in close relationships as members of the same body, something church history clearly bears out. It also tells us just how much of a divine priority this is. And for some reason, divine priorities don’t come naturally for most of us. But the rewards are worth the work.
“Did Christianity cause the crash?” November 19, 2009
Posted by Hampton Morgan in Commentary, Reviews.add a comment
Such is the title, emblazoned in yellow and with a cross from which a “Foreclosure — For Sale” sign hangs, on the cover of the December issue of The Atlantic. All I can say is, “Is this what it takes to sell a magazine?”
Actually, I can say a lot more.
With the equally provocative subtitle, “How Preachers Are Spreading a Gospel of Debt,” it seems clear that the editors of The Atlantic boasted of more than their contributing editor, Hanna Rosen, could deliver. First, she makes no case at all that Christianity — as a faith — had anything to do with the financial meltdown of 2008. Second, she falls far short of convincing even a critic like me that the preaching of the “prosperity gospel” entices Christians to take on more debt than they can manage.
Ms. Rosen sets out to explore an interesting question: Is there a correlation between the concentration of prosperity-preaching megachurches in the Sun Belt states of Florida, Texas and Arizona with the large number of foreclosures in the larger cities of those states? In other words, are the members of such churches represented in significant numbers among those who bought more house than they could afford? And, if so, did their preachers entice them to do so?
As you might guess, there is a paucity of data from which answers could be gleaned. Ms. Rosen spoke, at best, to a handful of church members where the prosperity gospel is preached, none of whom lived in Sun Belt states. She interviewed a pastor in Charlottesville and apparently attended several services at his church. She wrote with care, even sensitivity, about his personal story and his theology. Ms. Rosen allowed her interviewees — pastor and members — to speak in their own words about their past, their failures and successes and their hopes for the future. Most of them were Latino and they sounded little different from most immigrants who are pursuing the American dream. As Christians, there was no separating their hopes and dreams from their faith.
Were they influenced by their pastor? Indeed. He helped them in many practical ways to negotiate the maze of a new country. Did he preach that God wanted them to prosper? Absolutely. Money and wealth were inordinately included in almost every sermon. Did they make faith-crazed financial decisions as a result? Ms. Rosen finds no evidence of this, even if her editors wished she had.
Ms. Rosen cites evidence that some lending institutions sought to gain access to church members in Baltimore by means of “wealth-building seminars” held at churches and with offers to pastors of donations to their churches for each member who took out a mortgage. She also notes, surely correctly, that African-Americans and Latinos were targets of many lending institutions trying to sell subprime mortgages. And it would not be surprising to know that some of these were members of churches where the prosperity gospel is preached.
But this hardly qualifies as evidence that such preachers induced their members to take on such debt. And it surely is not even in the same universe with the possibility that Christianity nearly brought down the financial system.
I am no great fan of megachurch Christianity and certainly have my problems with the prosperity gospel, as I wrote in an earlier post. Ms. Rosen’s article merely substantiated those convictions. But I could find no evidence of an intent on her part to smear preachers or Christianity.
So I am left to wonder about the motives of the her editors. Are they tired of publishing articles about the irresponsible risk-taking of those who bought and sold subprime loans, mortgage-backed securities, and credit default swaps? Is there nothing more to say about the rape of the American taxpayer by Congress and the titans of American finance? Or do they just want to join the company of the irresponsible by suggesting, with a scurrilous title, that Christianity and those who preach it, are a menace to the nation’s financial health ?
And, by the way, you can read the article here.