I was watching the O'Reilly Factor last night and saw the teaser for an interview on a school in Alabama where they were not calling it the Easter Bunny anymore. O'Reilly and his guest seemed to be sounding the clarion call that all Christians should be riding forth to save the Easter Bunny from a fate worse than death ... secularization! Maybe I am overstating things a little bit, but it was striking to me that so much time was being spent agonizing over an aspect of Easter that Christians might actually be glad to get rid of. I think the larger point that O'Reilly was trying to make was that this is one more way that it is okay to attack things which are Christian but not other things. Of course one might also point out that Jews have never bothered to create a Passover Otter, nor is the there the Ramadan Raven for Muslims to have to defend.
Years ago, when Christianity was even more synonymous with mainstream culture we created these media friendly images like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and now we are being forced to defend them as mainstream culture moves ever so slightly (or dramatically depending on your view) away from Christian culture. My question is this ... is the Easter Bunny really worth fighting over? I mean, not only is it not at all connected to any theological understanding of Easter, but the term Easter is one we stole from another religious culture anyway, so we might not want to go making the term Easter too sacred either.
Holy Week is a time where we remember the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, it doesn't need a Hallmark friendly bunny to be more powerful. In fact I think that by defending such secular images we actually weaken the message of Easter. Ramadan is a powerful and important holiday because of how it is treated by Muslims, not because of some mascot that goes with it. Easter can be powerful and important for Christians, but probably more so because of what Christ is doing, not the Easter egg hunts we are holding. Is this what Christ lived for? Is this what Christ died for? Is this the new life Christ is promising? Maybe if we focused more on those questions we might see some of the real changes we are looking for in society and more importantly in our own faith journeys.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
The Lent that Could Have Been
Because our calendar is 365 days, each year a particular date gets moved forward by one day. If your birthday is on Monday this year it will be on Tuesday next year, and so on. The exception to this is when we have a Leap Year and things move forward by two days, as was the case in 2012. Today, Ash Wednesday, is February 13th. But for the Leap Year last year it would be the 14th. Valentine's Day would have shared its holiday with Ash Wednesday. Not only would we have that seemingly odd pairing, but Easter, which falls on March 31st this year would have found itself sharing with April Fool's Day, creating another paradoxical sort of holiday.
Or maybe it isn't so clashing as it first seems. Valentine's Day is about love, and relationships. Ash Wednesday is about relationships too. In addition to being a "Hallmark Holiday," Valentine's Day also becomes an easy opportunity for us to make up for some of the sins of the past year, month, week, or often in my case, day, when it comes to the relationship we have with our loved one. A quiet meal, simple conversation, and of course a nice dessert go a long way to smooth over our previous transgressions and rekindle the romance in our lives.
Ash Wednesday is about a similar effort to rekindle romance. This time the romance is between us and God. We take the dried out old palm branches, reminders of that honeymoon like moment in our relationship where things were so amazing and burn them, creating ash. We humbly acknowledge our mistakes, accept our sins, and mark our selves with ashes, a sign of penance. Then we embark on a 46 day journey called Lent, where we try to repair the brokenness in our relationship and move forward towards Easter.
April Fool's Day is about trickery, deception and lies. It is an instance of frivolity and mayhem, seemingly lacking any sense of solemn dignity. How in the world is this anything like Easter, the high point of the Christian year as we celebrate the great triumph of Christ over sin and death? While we have certainly made Easter into a high ceremony I wonder if it was really meant that way. Maybe God has more of a sense of humor than we give the Divine credit for. After all, isn't Easter the greatest April Fool's prank of all? Jesus takes the worst that his enemies can give him and just when they think they have won he emerges from the tomb, stronger than ever. In C.S. Lewis' depiction of Easter in Narnia, Aslan returns filled with mirth and romps and plays with the women before racing off to save others. When Gandalf (arguably a Christ-figure in Middle Earth) returns he is also filled with joy and laughs deeply at various points.
When I first saw the calendar this year I was relieved to not have to deal with the tension of holidays falling on the same day. The more I look at it the more I think we gain something by juxtaposing these seemingly disparate events onto each other. At least it gives me something to think about.
Or maybe it isn't so clashing as it first seems. Valentine's Day is about love, and relationships. Ash Wednesday is about relationships too. In addition to being a "Hallmark Holiday," Valentine's Day also becomes an easy opportunity for us to make up for some of the sins of the past year, month, week, or often in my case, day, when it comes to the relationship we have with our loved one. A quiet meal, simple conversation, and of course a nice dessert go a long way to smooth over our previous transgressions and rekindle the romance in our lives.
Ash Wednesday is about a similar effort to rekindle romance. This time the romance is between us and God. We take the dried out old palm branches, reminders of that honeymoon like moment in our relationship where things were so amazing and burn them, creating ash. We humbly acknowledge our mistakes, accept our sins, and mark our selves with ashes, a sign of penance. Then we embark on a 46 day journey called Lent, where we try to repair the brokenness in our relationship and move forward towards Easter.
April Fool's Day is about trickery, deception and lies. It is an instance of frivolity and mayhem, seemingly lacking any sense of solemn dignity. How in the world is this anything like Easter, the high point of the Christian year as we celebrate the great triumph of Christ over sin and death? While we have certainly made Easter into a high ceremony I wonder if it was really meant that way. Maybe God has more of a sense of humor than we give the Divine credit for. After all, isn't Easter the greatest April Fool's prank of all? Jesus takes the worst that his enemies can give him and just when they think they have won he emerges from the tomb, stronger than ever. In C.S. Lewis' depiction of Easter in Narnia, Aslan returns filled with mirth and romps and plays with the women before racing off to save others. When Gandalf (arguably a Christ-figure in Middle Earth) returns he is also filled with joy and laughs deeply at various points.
When I first saw the calendar this year I was relieved to not have to deal with the tension of holidays falling on the same day. The more I look at it the more I think we gain something by juxtaposing these seemingly disparate events onto each other. At least it gives me something to think about.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Women in the Military
It was announced this week that the changes are being made that eventually should make it possible for women to serve in all or virtually all roles in the military. My regrets on this are probably different than most people. I regret all war and so opening up more people to the violence and harm that I believe combat is unfortunate. That being said I think that denying someone a position solely because of their gender is a foolish thing to do. Especially for the military where effectiveness should be the number one guiding influence, not what chromosomes they were born with.
My greatest hope for this is that it will help shift some age-old stereotypes about the differences between men and women. There are obvious physical differences including how big and strong the different genders tend to be, but many of those differences can easily be overcome. I have been beaten by enough female fencers to tell you that being bigger and stronger does not always help. What cannot be so easily overcome is how we view, and thus treat the different genders. Numerous comments were made in reaction to this move about the negative effects this would have. While some people seemed convinced that women simply could not DO the work required and that the military would have to reduce standards, many more centered around two fears. One was that men would be distracted by protecting the women and that the loss of female lives would be a larger emotional blow. The second fear was that women POWs would be subjected to rape and sexual violence and that this would create its own problems (beyond the harm to the women).
What worries me about such fears is that it seems to place a greater value on women than men, which is probably rooted in the notion that women are to be protected like property, and not capable of their own care. There is also an underlying assumption around issues of sexual violence that this is NOT happening to men (despite evidence to the contrary, even in US POW camps) and that it is NOT happening already to women who serve in the armed forces by our own side. Sexual violence to POWs is a horrible thing and something that is very concerning, but not just because it might happen to women. It feels like a horrible double standard to say that we should be worried about the rape that might occur women at the hands of our obviously unscrupulous enemy while ignoring the violence that occurs already.
Just as fighting and dying together helped the cause of integration between races, maybe the same will occur with regards to genders. Maybe we will stop seeing men as strong and women as weak as more and more women are given the chance to step into the same roles as men. I wish equality could come in a less violent way, but I am glad that in one more area everyone is being given an equal chance regardless of gender.
My greatest hope for this is that it will help shift some age-old stereotypes about the differences between men and women. There are obvious physical differences including how big and strong the different genders tend to be, but many of those differences can easily be overcome. I have been beaten by enough female fencers to tell you that being bigger and stronger does not always help. What cannot be so easily overcome is how we view, and thus treat the different genders. Numerous comments were made in reaction to this move about the negative effects this would have. While some people seemed convinced that women simply could not DO the work required and that the military would have to reduce standards, many more centered around two fears. One was that men would be distracted by protecting the women and that the loss of female lives would be a larger emotional blow. The second fear was that women POWs would be subjected to rape and sexual violence and that this would create its own problems (beyond the harm to the women).
What worries me about such fears is that it seems to place a greater value on women than men, which is probably rooted in the notion that women are to be protected like property, and not capable of their own care. There is also an underlying assumption around issues of sexual violence that this is NOT happening to men (despite evidence to the contrary, even in US POW camps) and that it is NOT happening already to women who serve in the armed forces by our own side. Sexual violence to POWs is a horrible thing and something that is very concerning, but not just because it might happen to women. It feels like a horrible double standard to say that we should be worried about the rape that might occur women at the hands of our obviously unscrupulous enemy while ignoring the violence that occurs already.
Just as fighting and dying together helped the cause of integration between races, maybe the same will occur with regards to genders. Maybe we will stop seeing men as strong and women as weak as more and more women are given the chance to step into the same roles as men. I wish equality could come in a less violent way, but I am glad that in one more area everyone is being given an equal chance regardless of gender.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Rooney Rule, MLK, and the Nominations Committee
There is a rule in the NFL called the Rooney Rule that requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for any open head coaching position. The rule was instituted years ago in an effort to break up the virtual monopoly of head coaching positions by white candidates. There is renewed conversation about the need for the rule, and maybe reinforcing it this year after all the vacant head coach and general manager positions were filled by white men. The conversation tends to center around the tension of not hiring someone based on their skin color, but still finding ways to make sure people of all skin colors have the same opportunities.
Often cited by both sides in such arguments is the quote by Martin Luther King, that people "will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." While it clearly seems to speak against such quotas as the Rooney Rule requires, I am not sure that King would have been opposed to such rules. Maybe fifty years ago the rule would have been needed to prevent owners from making racial motivated decisions for hiring. I am not sure that the problem today is that candidates are being excluded because of skin color. More likely it is a combination of two things, coincidence (it is a relatively small sample size after all), and the fact that people tend to trust what they know, and in a society that tends to still clump around lines like race and class, white people are going to tend to know white people, and black people are going to tend to know black people, and so subtly you tend to hire around those same lines, not because of racial motivations but more along the lines of habit.
A great example of this for me is the nominations process that has been going on at churches everywhere as we set our committees and leadership teams for 2013. My experience of the nominations process is this, we either tend to look for the most obscure people (who is a new person we can get involved), or we tend to think about the people already in leadership positions, Mr Darcy is rotating off the trustees, with his fortune I bet he would a good person for the finance committee. We don't mean to exclude people, but we tend to think about the people we know, the people we like, the people we are like. The hardest part about nominations is thinking about the people you don't really know, and finding a good fit for them.
The really hard part is realizing the people you are missing ... because if you knew you were missing them you wouldn't be missing them. One of my goals in college was to sit at different tables at dinner. There were a number of people who sat at the same table every night and in turn sat with the same friends. By switching tables I would sit with different groups of people and thus broaden who I was connecting to and staying in touch with. In turn the people who sat with me would experience a similar mixing as different groups of friends merged at this new location.
Sadly now that my college days are done it is harder to intentionally sit at a new table and meet new people. So maybe we do need "Rooney Rules" in our lives. Not because we are racist, or sexist, or classist, but because without forced effort on our parts we will not live out the full meaning of Dr. King's dream, which is not just an end to racism, but an end to segregation, a dream of place where we all mix and mingle as children of God.
Often cited by both sides in such arguments is the quote by Martin Luther King, that people "will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." While it clearly seems to speak against such quotas as the Rooney Rule requires, I am not sure that King would have been opposed to such rules. Maybe fifty years ago the rule would have been needed to prevent owners from making racial motivated decisions for hiring. I am not sure that the problem today is that candidates are being excluded because of skin color. More likely it is a combination of two things, coincidence (it is a relatively small sample size after all), and the fact that people tend to trust what they know, and in a society that tends to still clump around lines like race and class, white people are going to tend to know white people, and black people are going to tend to know black people, and so subtly you tend to hire around those same lines, not because of racial motivations but more along the lines of habit.
A great example of this for me is the nominations process that has been going on at churches everywhere as we set our committees and leadership teams for 2013. My experience of the nominations process is this, we either tend to look for the most obscure people (who is a new person we can get involved), or we tend to think about the people already in leadership positions, Mr Darcy is rotating off the trustees, with his fortune I bet he would a good person for the finance committee. We don't mean to exclude people, but we tend to think about the people we know, the people we like, the people we are like. The hardest part about nominations is thinking about the people you don't really know, and finding a good fit for them.
The really hard part is realizing the people you are missing ... because if you knew you were missing them you wouldn't be missing them. One of my goals in college was to sit at different tables at dinner. There were a number of people who sat at the same table every night and in turn sat with the same friends. By switching tables I would sit with different groups of people and thus broaden who I was connecting to and staying in touch with. In turn the people who sat with me would experience a similar mixing as different groups of friends merged at this new location.
Sadly now that my college days are done it is harder to intentionally sit at a new table and meet new people. So maybe we do need "Rooney Rules" in our lives. Not because we are racist, or sexist, or classist, but because without forced effort on our parts we will not live out the full meaning of Dr. King's dream, which is not just an end to racism, but an end to segregation, a dream of place where we all mix and mingle as children of God.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Wisdom of Downton Abbey
So like many others I am a fan of Downton Abbey and just watched the first episode of the third season when it aired last night on PBS. In it the family that owns Downton Abbey learns that a substantial portion of its financial investments have been lost. Suddenly the money that was meant to secure the future of Downton into perpetuity have vanished and we are left wondering what will happen. The family is left to contemplate what it will be like to have to move from their stately home to a slightly less stately home. Can the Earl of Grantham exist without Downton Abbey.
The parallels to the church seem striking to me. First there is the existential question of separating ones identity and existence from the building that traditionally defines it. What strikes me more however is the challenge around the financial problems. The money was lost because it was invested poorly. The investment was meant to make lots of money and secure a future for the great estate and instead it caused its ruin. Certainly there is a tragedy in the loss that occurred, but maybe it was better that it was spent to try and secure a future instead of being squandered just plugging the financial holes to keep things afloat for the short term. This is the real problem I think we face in the church.
Most churches have a great wealth of resources and a very uncertain future. No matter how solid our financial situation might be this month, most churches would be faced with ruin if they saw a rapid drop in membership and giving. Many churches are already feeling a pinch as shrinking numbers have forced tighter budgets and reductions in what the church can do to function. The real wealth of resources comes not from the budget balance sheet, but from the members of the church. Here are the real resources with which we do ministry. Here too are the resources I worry we are squandering. We worry too much about sustaining our budgets and sustaining our buildings (which are important) that we forget about making full use of our members. Dollars and buildings are a means to an end, which is the mission of Christ to spread a gospel of love to all the world.
In Downton Abbey the Earl took a risk and tried to use the assets he had to build for the future. I think we in the church need to do the same. There are countless studies that point to aging membership of churches and the implied decline in membership that will happen as members die. We are going to lose these great resources one way or another. Maybe it would be better as a church if we took some risks and engaged our members in new ways to make use of their many gifts and talents for mission. Instead of worrying about what the church will look like when they pass away and how we can sustain ourselves at that point, maybe we should be looking at how we fully engage our members now, which might actually take care of the second problem all together. Even if it doesn't our churches will dwindle while living out the mission of Christ instead of dwindling while paying the heating bill.
The parallels to the church seem striking to me. First there is the existential question of separating ones identity and existence from the building that traditionally defines it. What strikes me more however is the challenge around the financial problems. The money was lost because it was invested poorly. The investment was meant to make lots of money and secure a future for the great estate and instead it caused its ruin. Certainly there is a tragedy in the loss that occurred, but maybe it was better that it was spent to try and secure a future instead of being squandered just plugging the financial holes to keep things afloat for the short term. This is the real problem I think we face in the church.
Most churches have a great wealth of resources and a very uncertain future. No matter how solid our financial situation might be this month, most churches would be faced with ruin if they saw a rapid drop in membership and giving. Many churches are already feeling a pinch as shrinking numbers have forced tighter budgets and reductions in what the church can do to function. The real wealth of resources comes not from the budget balance sheet, but from the members of the church. Here are the real resources with which we do ministry. Here too are the resources I worry we are squandering. We worry too much about sustaining our budgets and sustaining our buildings (which are important) that we forget about making full use of our members. Dollars and buildings are a means to an end, which is the mission of Christ to spread a gospel of love to all the world.
In Downton Abbey the Earl took a risk and tried to use the assets he had to build for the future. I think we in the church need to do the same. There are countless studies that point to aging membership of churches and the implied decline in membership that will happen as members die. We are going to lose these great resources one way or another. Maybe it would be better as a church if we took some risks and engaged our members in new ways to make use of their many gifts and talents for mission. Instead of worrying about what the church will look like when they pass away and how we can sustain ourselves at that point, maybe we should be looking at how we fully engage our members now, which might actually take care of the second problem all together. Even if it doesn't our churches will dwindle while living out the mission of Christ instead of dwindling while paying the heating bill.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Guns are not the answer
I think perhaps the most disturbing thing I have seen in the wake of the shooting in Newtown is an ad that ran in Maxim magazine from a gun company. The tagline was "consider your man-card reissued." I have no idea if the shooter in CT saw this ad and if that influenced his actions at all, but I cannot help but wonder if such a mentality is making it easier for people, mostly men, to see guns and violence as a solution when things become difficult in their life. When we create the image in society that guns are a way to claim power or to reclaim a sense of identity we are helping people who are hurting to see guns, and in turn violence as a solution. The answer in my mind is not to ban guns. Banning drugs has not stopped enough people from seeking them as an answer when times are tough. Instead I think we need to actively work to create a culture where there are better ways to get help than to grab a weapon, or a bomb, and see how many people you can take out with you as you go.
We cannot totally guard against the desperation that causes someone to cause mass violence. Our efforts would better be spent helping people to not get to that state of desperation. We have all felt the desire to hug our own children closer in the wake this violence, but I believe also need to be closer to those around us as well. I worry that even as connected as our society is we are still to far apart, that people who are hurting are falling through the cracks. Instead of turning to their neighbors for help they turn to guns, to violence, to death.
There are not easy answers to this problem. To fix the epidemic of violence in our nation requires sacrifice. I think it means we need to look at all the ways we teach ourselves, and we teach others that violence is an answer to the problems we face. Maybe it means turning off the television a bit, or switching the channel. For me it might mean playing less-violent video games. Until we start to create a culture where we glorify things besides violence then I think we may be faced with more desperate individuals who turn to killing to solve the problems of their lives.
We cannot totally guard against the desperation that causes someone to cause mass violence. Our efforts would better be spent helping people to not get to that state of desperation. We have all felt the desire to hug our own children closer in the wake this violence, but I believe also need to be closer to those around us as well. I worry that even as connected as our society is we are still to far apart, that people who are hurting are falling through the cracks. Instead of turning to their neighbors for help they turn to guns, to violence, to death.
There are not easy answers to this problem. To fix the epidemic of violence in our nation requires sacrifice. I think it means we need to look at all the ways we teach ourselves, and we teach others that violence is an answer to the problems we face. Maybe it means turning off the television a bit, or switching the channel. For me it might mean playing less-violent video games. Until we start to create a culture where we glorify things besides violence then I think we may be faced with more desperate individuals who turn to killing to solve the problems of their lives.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Hope
Someone recently noted I had not posted anything on my blog lately. A lot of this is the fault of Bryce and the fact that I spent 8 weeks at home caring for him ... and like most new-borns he demands a lot of attention. I realize that the other reason I have not blogged much is I feel like around elections I am left biting my tongue a lot. Even if the IRS did not have laws around the role of the church in politics I am not inclined to dive into these highly charged waters. I am privately very politically but since my calling is a pastor is to all people I think it better to keep my personal opinions out of the way of my ministry.
This time of year it can be hard to escape politics. So I think I am going to go for an area that I feel is not political at all ... hope. Obviously hope is gets used in political discourse but I am talking about a more generic hope. I am talking about a hope that no matter who wins things will be better ... or things will be alright. I think that sort of hope is lacking in the world. It clearly is lacking in politics but I think it is also lacking in other places.
I follow the Vikings and unlike mostly people I am not that surprised that they are 4-1 at this point in the season. This is not because I am good at analyzing football and picking winners and loser (my family can attest to that) but simply because I tend to have hope. Even in the midst of a losing 3-13 season last year I kept finding reasons to hope. Not because it was justified ... in fact it was often unjustified but just because I felt hope was better than despair. Reading the Star Tribune sports pages I often feel the local writers need some hope when it comes to covering our local teams. It may not be accurate journalism, but it would be optimistic journalism. I think a lot of local fans look for hope when it comes to their sports teams (or should anyway).
Another area I see a lack of hope is the economy. This is a tricky situation ... one could easily argue that false hope is what got us into some of the mess we are in now. People seemed to hope that the housing market would go up and up ... or hope they could afford the mortgages ... or hope no one would notice the mortgages they were bundling were filled with bad loans. One of the biggest hindrances to a recovery seems to be a lack of hope. People are not hiring because of the gloomy outlook ... and the outlook remains gloomy because people are not hiring. I know it is far more complicated than that ... but I cannot wonder if there is some room for hope here too.
Maybe we need to find a way to distinguish between false hope and true hope. True hope is not blind optimism (every lottery ticket I buy will be a winner) ... instead I think it is an optimism that is tempered by the knowledge that losing is not nearly as bad as we make it out to be. The line from Fight Club "only when you have lost everything are you free to do anything" comes to mind.
When it comes to the church I think this is the kind of hope we offer. Not an artificial hope of a land flowing with milk and honey ... if you just do enough right. But a genuine hope that no matter what there is room for grace, room for God, room for resurrection. Maybe that kind of hope does not have a place in politics or economics, or even sports ... but I think it is the kind of hope that the church should be offering to everyone, especially in these challenging times.
This time of year it can be hard to escape politics. So I think I am going to go for an area that I feel is not political at all ... hope. Obviously hope is gets used in political discourse but I am talking about a more generic hope. I am talking about a hope that no matter who wins things will be better ... or things will be alright. I think that sort of hope is lacking in the world. It clearly is lacking in politics but I think it is also lacking in other places.
I follow the Vikings and unlike mostly people I am not that surprised that they are 4-1 at this point in the season. This is not because I am good at analyzing football and picking winners and loser (my family can attest to that) but simply because I tend to have hope. Even in the midst of a losing 3-13 season last year I kept finding reasons to hope. Not because it was justified ... in fact it was often unjustified but just because I felt hope was better than despair. Reading the Star Tribune sports pages I often feel the local writers need some hope when it comes to covering our local teams. It may not be accurate journalism, but it would be optimistic journalism. I think a lot of local fans look for hope when it comes to their sports teams (or should anyway).
Another area I see a lack of hope is the economy. This is a tricky situation ... one could easily argue that false hope is what got us into some of the mess we are in now. People seemed to hope that the housing market would go up and up ... or hope they could afford the mortgages ... or hope no one would notice the mortgages they were bundling were filled with bad loans. One of the biggest hindrances to a recovery seems to be a lack of hope. People are not hiring because of the gloomy outlook ... and the outlook remains gloomy because people are not hiring. I know it is far more complicated than that ... but I cannot wonder if there is some room for hope here too.
Maybe we need to find a way to distinguish between false hope and true hope. True hope is not blind optimism (every lottery ticket I buy will be a winner) ... instead I think it is an optimism that is tempered by the knowledge that losing is not nearly as bad as we make it out to be. The line from Fight Club "only when you have lost everything are you free to do anything" comes to mind.
When it comes to the church I think this is the kind of hope we offer. Not an artificial hope of a land flowing with milk and honey ... if you just do enough right. But a genuine hope that no matter what there is room for grace, room for God, room for resurrection. Maybe that kind of hope does not have a place in politics or economics, or even sports ... but I think it is the kind of hope that the church should be offering to everyone, especially in these challenging times.
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