Wish list

Car trouble, Christmas events and end of semester work have all conspired to keep me from blogging regularly this week. However, one of my new year's resolutions is that I will continue to blog even after the end of my Public Theology class. I have secured my name as a new domain and once I can figure out how to move content there, I will be operating under a new blog address.

My final op-ed is soon to be ready as well, and I will post it here once I've completed final editing. As I noted earlier, it is about torture, a topic that continues to find its way into our news cycles, as well it should. Given all the scandals of this administration, it is time that the public retain a focus on something as critical to our country's future as this subject.

I am also thankful that John McCain continues to speak out on this subject. It would be easier for his political fortunes for him to join the double-speak bandwagon with some of his Republican presidential contenders, but he continues to argue against torture with compelling personal testimony.

As we move toward Christmas, I marvel at how we can dissociate ourselves from these larger national issues and allow ourselves to be consumed by the consumer process. At this time of the year, Christians should be drawn to the drama of the child that was coming to bring unimagined change to the world, rather than be blinded by the glitz of the season. It is my prayer that we disengage from the consumer culture so that we can turn our attention fully to trying to live in the way we were shown by the one who came as the Prince of Peace.

Shop 'til you drop

I hate to go to shopping malls, so any excuse not to go is good enough for me, even at Christmas time. The recent shooting spree at the mall in Omaha provides just such an excuse. There will no doubt be copycat actions because shooting people while they are Christmas shopping makes for good news copy. If you want to get noticed, now’s the time to grab your guns. It gives “shop 'til you drop” a whole new meaning.

OK. I realize my macabre sensibilities won’t go over well with some, so let’s look at this situation another way.

Immediately after this event, callers to a radio show proclaimed that mall doors should be outfitted with metal detectors. But then a later caller asked; what about the parking lots? If someone wanted to take out a lot of people at once, that would be a fine place, too. Heck, I’ve had moments where having a gun to deal with a parking space thief could have felt really right! OK, so why don’t we have searches of cars/persons as they arrive to a mall?

Obviously all these “fixes” lead to the absurd. There is no place that is perfectly safe. As in so many situations, then, the better question would be to return to the source, that is, to the reason why someone felt his only recourse was to shoot and kill others.

Hope is the antidote to the hopelessness that leads people to such desperate actions. We must be able to imagine a world where no one would feel so isolated that he/she had no other way to deal with pain but to hurt others. Just like the shooter at Virginia Tech, it is clear this young man had problems, but there was no one close enough to reach him, no one to hold out a hopeful hand to him.

When I look at scripture, and see what Jesus did for/with others, it seems clear that in so many cases he was, in essence, defusing people with love. His willingness to hear people’s needs and help them turn their lives around no doubt took away so much anger carried by those with physical or emotional difficulties, or those who had been marginalized by society. They were then able to face the world empowered by hope. He taught a way where love could overcome hate and peace overcome violence, whereas the reverse has never been and will never be possible.

(De)Merit badges

A recent news article announced that the Boy Scouts would no longer be able to lease a Philadelphia building for $1/year because they discriminate against gay scouts. The city has a non-discrimination clause that says taxpayer monies cannot subsidize groups that discriminate, and the building once used by the Scouts rents for considerably more than $1/year!

Some will complain that the Scouts, as a private organization, should be able to set their own membership policies, and I agree. However, if they want to discriminate, they shouldn’t complain at having to follow the same rules as any other organization when it comes to things like renting space, using public buildings, etc. Often what the Scouts do is say that their focus is so positive that everyone should give them a break; they are making opportunities available for young boys and thereby fulfilling a public good.

Here’s one big problem with the above argument; it’s like saying that if underprivileged young white boys are served by being giving educational/leadership opportunities, it’s OK that the organization discriminates against boys of other races. I can’t imagine that point of view being accepted by municipalities as a reason for allowing the group to use taxpayer facilities at no/reduced costs.

I have a young friend who was on his way to an Eagle Scout award until it became known that he was gay. In his subsequent research on the subject, he learned some very important points. First, the United States is the only western-world scouting organization that discriminates based on sexual orientation or religious affiliation (or lack thereof), having rather recently constructed membership policies based on "biblical values." Secondly, most countries around the world do not segregate scouts by sex. Finally, the Girl Scouts here in the US do not discriminate based on orientation. When one puts those facts together, a new picture emerges; the discriminatory policies are based on some misguided notion of what it means to be a proper male in our culture. Those who lead the BSA seem to be afraid of both gay boys in particular and girls in general. Their notion of masculinity must be protected.

Jesus showed by his actions that he did not follow his culture’s strictures on interactions between males and females. Women were prominent in his life as supporters and, following his death, as leaders among those who continued to carry his teachings into the world. So if the BSA wants to discriminate, let them find another rationale for their actions rather than misusing Christian scripture.

The passion of Mel?

Last week, I watched Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ for the first time. Upon its initial release, I had refused to see it. A colleague watched it as part of a panel of clergy recruited by our local paper, and his report was that it was the most violent film he had ever seen. He’s right; The Passion makes Scarface look like a bedtime story.

So many things troubled me about the movie in addition to the excessive violence. As has been noted by reviewers, Mel lays the blame for Jesus’ crucifixion at the feet of the Jewish authorities, a scapegoating tactic that does not follow scripture. But there’s also not-so-subtle scapegoating of women.

The movie focuses on the last hours of Jesus’ life, and opens in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is praying. Circling around him is a Satan figure who might have been intended to present ambiguous gender, but who is smooth skinned as opposed to every other character in the scene having thick beards. Later in the movie, this figure cradles a baby in what seemed to me to be a reversal of a Madonna and child, a scene that latter occurs when Jesus’ body is cradled by Mary at the foot of the cross.

Mel purported to strictly follow scripture in telling this story, but any cursory reading of scripture demonstrates that he took many liberties. This is the story of Mel’s idea of Jesus, a super-macho figure able to withstand 20 minutes of flesh-ripping beatings. Hmmm...almost sounds like the plotline of a Lethal Weapon movie. One has to wonder if Mel doesn’t understand himself as a Christ-like figure, being persecuted by the detractors of his movie.

Growing up

Yesterday, I read a truly troubling NY Times story about a MySpace hoax that led to a young girl’s suicide. The tragedy grows as the story unfolds. A young woman thinks she has found a wonderful boyfriend, their romance blossoms via email and IM time, then he cuts her off and tells her the world would be a better place without her. The “boyfriend,” however, was the 47 year-old mother of a one-time friend of the young woman, and mom wanted to snoop on this young woman to see if she could learn why the young woman no longer wanted to be friends with her daughter. The mom and her daughter actually laughed to a neighbor that they were going to “play” with the young woman. The “play” turned tragic when the young woman hung herself following the breakup with her “boyfriend.”

What would make an adult feel such behavior was appropriate? To make matters worse, the mom doesn’t feel she really did anything so wrong since the young woman had made suicide threats before.

Popular media have talked a lot about “helicopter parents” over the last year or so. These parents seem to have decided that there is no way any difficulty is going to befall their children, so whether it’s a bad grade or the end of a friendship, they are going to make it their business to take care of anyone who would dare create any unpleasantness in the life of a daughter or son.

I certainly don’t advocate the emotional wounding children/young people “for their own good,” but the fact remains that we have to learn how to interact with people as part of our maturation process. The teachable moments following the breakup of a friendship, or the receipt of a bad grade, are places where parents can educate offspring about the nature of relationships, or empower them to deal directly with situations with persons in authority. Taking over these tasks for children just leaves them without the tools necessary to advocate for themselves throughout later life.

We don’t have a lot of information about Jesus’ childhood, but the mere fact that he came as an infant and moved through the stages to reach adulthood should demonstrate that God’s desire for humanity is that they have time to learn how to live whole and healthy lives. If we are to learn how to love our neighbors, we must understand how to interact directly rather than relying on surrogates who separate us not only from understanding others, but understanding ourselves.

Imagine

CNN recently ran a special on the wounded service personnel returning from the war in Iraq. Specifically, they were focusing on the difficulties faced by the most seriously wounded in getting appropriate disability funds. For example, soldiers with traumatic brain injury were being told that their injuries were only serious enough to warrant small payouts, even though most of these soldiers will never be well enough to hold down full-time jobs. Given that many are in their early 20s, they face a lifetime of economic difficulty.

I wish there were no reason for a standing military, but I cannot foresee a future without one. Therefore, I think we are morally responsible for considering how such a military force should be staffed. It is all too easy to say this is a “voluntary” force, as though that fact somehow makes the system an egalitarian one.

The reality is that most of the enlisted personnel are from low-income backgrounds. They join the military because they see it as a way to escape an almost inevitable future of remaining low-income wage earners. Many pundits have noted that this war is unusual in that it seems much of the country continues on without any disruption, seemingly unaware of the details of the war. I cannot see how it could be otherwise; the movers and shakers don’t have to really think about the war because it is being fought, in a sense, by proxies, young people with uncertain futures rather than the sons and daughters of captains of industry.

If a draft had been established for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we would have been out of those countries years ago. Middle and upper-class families would not have stood by as their children, full of promise, returned with life-changing injuries that would prevent them from seeking the lives they had longed for. But when we have stand-ins, it is all too easy to placate ourselves by saying these people want to serve, rather than admitting to ourselves that they needed to serve if they wanted to try and grab a slice of the middle-class pie.

If the billions of dollars being spent on this war effort were redirected to addressing the underlying issues of poverty, or redirected to paying educators adequate salaries so they didn’t have to choose between doing a job that could change the lives of poor children, and making enough to feed a family, or redirected to helping young people break out of the cycle of poverty, imagine how much could be accomplished. Imagine how many lives would be spared, lives of Americans as well as of Iraqis and Afghanis. Imagine how God would feel at seeing us treat all humans as persons of sacred worth.

Thankful?

I’ve continued to think about the death penalty since my last blog. Thanksgiving may seem an odd time to reflect on such a sobering subject, but frankly, I can’t think of a more appropriate time. For so many of us, the privileges afforded us because of accidents of birth - race, socio-economic status, location of birth, etc, - make it unlikely that we will experience the criminal justice system in a negative way. We privileged folks express our thanks for all that we have without seriously considering that our good fortune comes at the expense of others.

Whenever I hear someone argue that African Americans must be overrepresented in our prisons because, well, they just don’t respect the law or want to follow the law, I’m drawn back to a situation experienced by my niece. While being driven by her African American fiancé (now husband), in Winston Salem, their car was pulled over. The officer asked for ID, looked them up and down, and asked my niece if she were OK, as though obviously this man driving her must be forcing her, a Caucasian female, to be with him. The incident took place in the daytime on a major thoroughfare. If her fiancé had responded at all negatively to the stop, I can only imagine what the officer might have done; obviously he perceived a threat and it would have been a short walk from that expectation to finding a reason to give the driver some sort of ticket, or worse.

As long as situations like this continue to occur, we cannot, with any serious understanding, look at the disparity in use of the death penalty or even the basic functions of the criminal justice system, as anything other than racist. As long as that racism exists, we cannot blithely say that no innocent persons have been executed.

Likewise, we cannot look at the disparities in our criminal justice system honestly without asking ourselves what should be done to correct them. If I, a middle-class Caucasian female minister, were arrested under dubious circumstances, I could depend on any number of individuals and agencies coming to my aid. If the very same situation occurs with a young, low-income, African American male, too many people would just say, “Well, that’s just the way things are.”

Until we are willing to take a long, hard look at the racism that is still endemic to our culture, there are any number of persons whose lives will continue to be shattered by wrongful expectations or accusations.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

I listened to the radio a lot over recent days because of a flu bug that discouraged me from doing anything but resting in bed! One of the pundits I heard was Michael Smerconish, a conservative radio talk show host and attorney. He was crowing about a recent article in the NY Times regarding the death penalty and its presumed deterrent effect. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/us/18deter.html) Smerconish argues that if the (in his view) left-leaning and therefore anti-death penalty NY Times would publish data showing that the number of homicides fall as the number of executions increases, then the numbers must be true. He also argues that the study now makes it impossible for anyone to mount a rational argument against the death penalty because if 3 to 18 lives are saved (or possibly more if other studies are also correct), then we are bound to use it because of the overall saving of lives.

Saving for the moment arguments based strictly on morality, let’s look at the data presented. First, the Times article notes that “Canada has executed no one since 1962. Yet the murder rates in the United States and Canada have moved in close parallel since then, including before, during and after the four-year death penalty moratorium in the United States in the 1970s.” Given this fact, one could argue that the change in rates is based on some other variable. I’m sure there are also comparisons that could (should?) be done with other countries without a death penalty option. Secondly, we aren’t talking about a large data set; there have not been that many executions to track.

The statement Smerconish made that most troubled me, though, was his response to a caller who questioned how many innocent persons may have been wrongly executed. His reply was that there was no proven case of an innocent person being executed. This response would be laughable were it not so sad. He assumes a 100% accuracy rate in application of executions, and there is nothing associated with humanity that functions at 100% accuracy. Fallible lawyers, judges and juries are bound to have made errors, whether we can prove it, or not. Studies have shown that the criminal justice system is skewed based on race, ethnicity and class, so poor minority prisoners who were executed would not have had the resources nor been in the spotlight that would attract persons desirous of proving wrongful execution.

The most persuasive argument to me, however, is that from scripture, where Jesus never advocates the death of anyone he encounters, no matter their offense, and actively works against the stoning of a woman accused of adultery. The Sermon on the Mount is clearly anti-violence. Tony Campolo’s words ring again in my ears: What if Jesus meant what he said?

Justice, or just us?

In watching C-SPAN recently, I learned some new things about the mortgage crisis currently worming its way through our economic system. The panel was comprised of some of the economic advisers to 2008 presidential contenders.

The biggest surprise was being told that our bankruptcy laws are such that someone who owns several houses has some options in renegotiating mortgages so that homes are not lost. This is not the case for persons who own only one home. Obviously, there is nothing fair about such a system; if renegotiation options are available to some, they should be available to all.

The impact of the collapse of the mortgage market will have far-reaching effects. Studies demonstrate that when homes are repossessed, the values of surrounding properties drop. Today, the New York Times also reported on the number of renters who will be affected because the owners of their apartments may have unworkable mortgages now.

As Garret Keizer writes in a essay for “Getting on Message: Challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel,” love of neighbor as one loves oneself applies to all systems, even economic systems. If, because we own three homes, we want the chance to renegotiate a mortgage to save those properties from foreclosure, we should want a family of four owning one home to have that same opportunity. As Keizer argues, there is no where in scripture where Jesus comes upon someone in need and pronounces something like, “well, that’s just the way life is,” or “God is trying to teach you a lesson.” Jesus creates circumstances for lives to be changed for the best. We should want the same for all person.

Fire, or ice?

I had lunch with a ministry colleague today. We’ve known of each other for a long while, but had never taken time to just sit down and talk.

His church is struggling right now because, as the saying goes, “no good deed goes unpunished.” Because our local homeless shelters will soon be full to overflowing, his downtown congregation had decided to offer its gym as overflow space through these winter months.

After much work to prepare the space, they were told by inspectors that they must have a sprinkler system installed in order to be approved as a shelter. Ironically, the current shelters don’t have sprinklers, but since this is a new usage, they are being asked to adhere to new standards.

It would all be funny if it weren’t so sad. Basically, officials are saying these folks are safer sleeping outside than in a building without a sprinkler system. I’m not sure those in need of shelter would agree that trying to sleep in 20 degree weather under an overpass would be more dangerous than a warm, secure gym. The church had arranged for volunteers who would remain awake during the night, all exits would be continually lit, and no smoking is allowed. That doesn’t sound like a very dangerous situation to me.

As if the building guidelines snafu wasn’t sad enough, the families bringing children to the church’s day care also registered some serious complaints about their children being “exposed” to the homeless. Fear ran rampant; there were concerns about airborne diseases, AIDS, overall safety, etc. Of course, those staying overnight would be released before the children began arriving. Were parents afraid of their children seeing homeless people - in a church?

Maybe both the government’s and the parents’ responses are the same in one regard; both parties would like to just make the homeless disappear. Neither group seems to be very interested in getting to the heart of the reasons for homelessness. They simply don’t wish to be inconvenienced by having to deal with them at all.

Who loves you, baby?

Working on a university campus has its privileges. Among them is exposure to visiting lectures by any number of scholars, all free to the public. It’s a great perk for a pastor.

Recently, however, a speaker was scheduled who troubled me greatly. It seems that it is still acceptable to invite speakers who believe lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons are sinners until/unless they repent and become heterosexual. To make matters worse, this woman has no training in psychology or psychiatry, and yet “counsels” people out of homosexuality. I’m a bit dismayed that a university group chose to invite such a speaker.

Under other circumstances, I would not even give the name of this speaker, much less post a web listing, but her thoughts – and those of her late husband – are so sad that I decided to display them at the end of this post so that readers may check them out. If you read her husband’s post, you’ll see that this “ministry” believes same-sex orientation is a function of demonic possession.

In listening to Joanne’s story, it is clear she suffered a lot of abuse, and for that I am truly sorry. But to determine that – in her mind – a disordered sexual orientation is caused by trauma is simply ridiculous to those of us who grew up in “Beaver Cleaver” environments. Indeed, while I knew I was “different” by a young age, the only abuse I’ve ever suffered was at the hands of presumed Christians who believe that God hates me.

She clearly has a dim view of humanity, a view that assumes original sin in all its worst manifestations. I agree with comedian Eddie Izzard who argues that most sins are in no way original. If you want an original sin, he says, admit to poking a badger with a spoon. There’s an original sin.

I like the thinking of a second century pastor, Irenaeus of Lyons. He believed that God created humans as children, a not unreasonable assumption I would say, given that all the rest of us begin that way! The sin that ultimately occurred was that humanity attempted to grow up too fast, to assume it understood God without having gone through the maturation process necessary to really “get” God. A figure like Jesus, then, gave us someone who could once again show us what it meant to be made in God’s image, and he did go through a maturation process of his own.

Joanne lives in fear of a god who would have doomed her to hell if she had not stopped living as a lesbian. She could not conceive of having a relationship to God not based on fear. As a result, I think, she and others who believe this way cannot imagine treating LGBT people as humans created in God’s image. Instead, she can only interact with them if they wish to denigrate themselves, to insist that there is something wrong about them. She refused to admit there was any scientific evidence showing a genetic component to sexual orientation in humans. Unless she wants to insist that animals, too, have free will to choose a “disordered lifestyle”, then what must she do with the research demonstrating same-sex relations among hundreds if not thousands of animal species?

http://www.life-ministry.com/

http://www.life-ministry.com/thoughtsfromron.htm

Make love, not war?

Veteran’s Day prompted a story from the Voice of America regarding the visitors to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. I read with interest that some of the visitors, people too young to remember Vietnam, are interested in this memorial because of the war in Iraq. While the reporter didn’t expand on this statement, I wonder if the memorial’s architect, Maya Lin, provides a clue as to why young people would be attracted to it. Lin described the memorial’s form as one designed to resemble “a wound in the earth that is slowly healing.”

Wars wound all of humanity deeply. It doesn’t matter if one remembers a specific war because there is one dark thread that binds them all together; humans made in God’s image are destroyed, whether directly by bullets and bombs, or indirectly through the unseen scars of emotional bullets and bombs that wound the souls of soldiers, family members and friends.

Why can we not learn that killing each other isn’t a viable long-term solution to any problem? Resorting to killing means that we have failed to be creative enough and caring enough to look for other ways to resolve our differences. Indeed, it is just that recognition – that the administration moved to war on Iraq rather than relying on good intelligence and diplomatic intervention – that may be driving people to the wall – or perhaps up the wall as well!

I’ve always found it interesting that here in the US we are constantly bombarded by movies where violent acts are the glue holding together often poorly constructed plots. Yet I can not remember a film being given an NC-17 rating based only on violence. Sex, of any type, however, is scrutinized much differently. We seem to be OK with teenagers watching people be killed in myriad ways, but let’s not let them see two people make love unless the scene is carefully edited and photographed.

Hmmm…it’s almost as though we are training our population to accept the normalcy of violence. Some critics have noted that violent video games, played by millions of Americans, are quite similar to games used by the military to desensitize soldiers to killing.

I’m reminded of reading about Bonobo chimps. They have sex constantly, and there don’t seem to be too many rules about partners or positions! But what is also true is that they don’t kill each other. “Make-up” sex takes on a whole new meaning among this species.

Interesting, isn’t it, that we refer to them as animals and hold ourselves up as a higher exemplar of the evolutionary process.

Real priorities

Basically, this is a continuation of the previous post. I just realized today that Bob Jones, founder of the ultra-conservative Bob Jones University, had thrown his support behind Mitt Romney.

Understand me; I don’t have a bone to pick with Mormons as they can decide on how they want to define their faith and how that faith is lived out. But Bob Jones has, in the past, been very unwilling to compromise in choosing support of a candidate. Remember, too, that this is the same university that didn’t even allow interracial dating until a few years ago because they didn’t believe it to be biblical. Suddenly, the same man who would think nothing of chastising Mormons for following a false prophet is now willing to follow a Mormon to the presidency.

Obviously the “strongly held beliefs” of these Christian conservatives are not so strong after all. If they were, these folks would have gotten behind Sam Brownback with financial support as soon as he announced his desire to run. Instead, Sam had to withdraw. And as I noted earlier, Mike Huckabee is now the only remaining Republican candidate who really signs on to the majority of the religious right’s plank, yet there has not been a call for financial support, or days of prayer in his support, etc., etc.

How ironic, too, that in these same days when there is so much conversation about the political designs of the Christian conservatives that we find a number of the highly successful faces – Hinn, Dollar (!), Meyers, etc. – are under scrutiny for how their tax-exempt congregations have managed to leave them living lives of not only ease, but incredible luxury. If just one of these individuals had thrown his/her financial support behind someone like Huckabee or Brownback, that campaign would have been cemented.

I guess there was a greater need for a new jet or another vacation home...all in service to God, of course.

Politics

I’ve been following with interest the conversations ongoing among the religious right concerning support for the various Republican presidential contenders. So it was with some bemusement that I read about Pat Robertson’s endorsement of Rudy Giuliani.

This is the same Rudy Giuliani who, during his separation from Wife Two, I think, bunked with friends – a gay couple with whom he is very close. This is also the same Rudy Giuliani who looked particularly wonderful in a drag getup! In looking at the video of the two of them at the news conference, I’ve wondered what was really going on in Rudy’s mind.

I don’t wonder so much about what’s going on in Pat’s mind because, well, he’s issued so many crazy statements over the years that I don’t think many of his conservative religious colleagues find him credible, either. But he has fired an interesting first shot over the bow of the Republican ship as we move toward the 2008 elections. This man still commands the attention of almost 1 million viewers through the 700 Club, so like it or not, he has to be taken seriously.

What are the religious right folks going to do? I think they’re going to follow Pat, not perhaps in support of Rudy, but in support of trying to win at all costs. Some are already parsing statements about Mitt Romney, even as they have to also admit that they find his Mormon faith to be a cult. Others, like Pat, are arguing that national security is such a major issue that “America’s Mayor” would be better than someone like say, John McCain, who actually fought in a war (and who knows the REAL definition of torture!)

Fred Thompson has angered many religious right folks by using an argument against a constitutional ban on abortion typically used by the pro-choice advocates. He is willing to reject the abortion plank of the Republican party, a move no Republican candidate has been willing to do for at least 20 years.

Mike Huckabee is probably the only candidate who fulfills the majority of religious right’s platform, and if he can pull off some primary wins, might be able to get enough traction to create a stir. But if not, he’ll be thrown under the wheels of the bus because at the end of the day, I can’t imagine religious conservatives will sit out the election. They’ll get behind Rudy or Mitt, no matter how much they have to hold their noses.

As a political junkie I’m interested in these machinations, but as a Christian, I am saddened by the fact that these folks are willing to overthrow their stated values in order to get a political win. It’s a pragmatic approach, but not a Christian one.

It’s fine to be a person of faith involved in politics, but the key is whether one can do so without overthrowing his/her beliefs for the sake of expediency. If we cannot continue “to speak truth to power” then our Christian witness is dangerously diluted and we begin to look like any number of secular political players rather than followers of Jesus.

Food for thought

One of the readings for this week's Public Theology class is by John de Gruchy, a white, South African professor of Christian studies. It is a chapter from a forthcoming book, and looks at what it means to be a Christian - and a human.

He taps into thoughts of people like Bonhoeffer and Irenaeus, writers who have greatly influenced my thought in these past few years. Both men stress the importance of the work Christians do in the here and now. Even though they come from radically different time periods, both believed that the point of Jesus being embodied - and us being embodied - is that real life occurs in the relationships we have with each other and God, where we can exercise the attributes of God, e.g. love, self-giving, and compassion in our interactions with each other, allowing ourselves to be fully alive and fully human.

It is impossible to read any of the work of any of these men without recognizing the circumstances of life that informed them. During Irenaeus' life, persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire was taking place. Bonhoeffer watched the rise of the Third Reich. de Gruchy witnessed the violence of apartheid in South Africa.

The church, called to be the body of Christ, did not always perform well in these and other historical settings. As many have noted, Christian communities can become very self-focused and self-protecting, forgetting the radical nature of the early followers of Jesus. I've been thinking a lot about "church" because of the impending retirement of the other pastor on our church staff. As a result of this transition, our congregation will be asked to take a good, long look at itself in thinking about an eventual permanent replacement.

In recent visits with congregation members, I have often raised the question: What is Wake Forest Baptist Church to you? I have not asked for immediate responses because I really want folks to think about their answer. Are we truly committed to "the least of these", to the hungry, naked and thirsty? I think we are, but what does that commitment look like, i.e. do we give to missions programs, or go out in the community and get our hands dirty? Do we sign petitions, or do we work to change systems that institutionalize failure for those on the margins? Is our Sunday worship the culmination of our work together in community where we come together to praise God, or is it a performance of the praise of God?

It can become easy for congregations to be complacent, to be so focused on their internal matters that the work of God comes as an afterthought. Perhaps that's why so many congregations struggle with changes in pastoral leadership; the focus is on a position rather than on the work to which we are called as the body of Christ. Just some food for thought.

A drive for life?

On my way to church this morning, I saw one of the buses used by local churches in picking up children for Sunday School. The churches target low-income neighborhoods where families might not have time or transportation for getting their children to church.

Some years ago, I worked with several local children who very much enjoyed attending one such church, so on a couple of Sundays, I rode with them on their bus. I got into a conversation with one of the bus drivers, a man who had been doing this work for many years, Sunday after Sunday. His volunteer time began around 7 a.m. each Sunday morning, as drivers would gather for prayer before leaving for their routes. He often would not make it back home until 2 or 2:30 that afternoon.

I marveled at the devotion he and the other drivers (they had about 25 buses) had for their work, especially given that about one Saturday a month was reserved to travel each route, visit with the children who normally ride, and recruit others to join. Some would say, “Well, that’s a hallmark of evangelicals/fundamentalists. Their drive to save souls borders on the fanatical, and we (liberals) just aren’t like that.”

Granted, I’m not fanatical about the kind of evangelism these folks do. It is primarily born out of the belief that the world will soon end and that they must do everything they can to save souls for Jesus. I do, however, wish that liberals could catch some of the fire these folks have for giving of their time and energy. After all, they may be focused on heaven, but we should be focused on doing God’s will “on earth, as it is in heaven.”

There is a lot of work to be done in the here and now to alleviate pain and suffering, to give human faces to God’s love for the world. Instead, I find that so many liberals like to think about the needs of the world, but aren’t all that interested in getting their hands dirty. We could use a little bit of that evangelical fire for doing God’s work.

What's good for the goose...

As one of the class requirements for the Public Theology class, we were asked to write an op-ed piece. My draft of the piece was submitted a few weeks ago, and I’ll be getting feedback not only from Dr. Thistlethwaite, but from Charlie Madigan, long-time writer for the Chicago Tribune.

While I’ll share the finished piece on this blog, I wasn’t ready for the draft to make its public debut. One of the reasons I chose the subject matter of torture, though, was because it keeps coming around for discussion, and I didn’t see that fact changing at least through the next presidential election. Of course, the current reason for attention to the subject comes because of the hearings regarding the potential new attorney general, Michael Mukasey.

Apparently, the crux of the problem for Mukasey is that he’s been a good judge, but now that this White House has asked him to come on board, he’s developed a problem with being straightforward, a problem he might have considered ahead of time given some of the things this administration has said/done over its years of power. He cannot directly answer questions about a torture technique known as waterboarding because it’s quite likely that the technique has been/is being used with White House knowledge. For him to openly state that it is torture would open some of our citizens to charges of violations to the Geneva convention, at least, and allow for potential prosecution on those charges.

Administration officials seem to be unwilling to allow the rest of the world a chance to weigh in on what we Americans do. They seem to believe that as long as an American official is doing it, it must be right, a dangerous game to play considering that these same officials would not want other countries to have the same right.

If we really believe in the Golden Rule, or in Jesus’ greatest commandment, we have to be willing to treat people as we would want to be treated, to not do things to others that we would not want done to us. I would like someone in our administration to explain how he/she would feel if American personnel serving in other countries were to be strapped to a board, have their faces covered, then have water poured onto their faces such that it enters their lungs and leaves them believing they will be drowned. If our administration is OK with that, then please be honest with the American public. If our administration is not OK with that tactic being used, then they should be willing to stand up and take the necessary consequences for allowing it to be used against others. And Michael Mukasey, as a judge, should stand for the rights of all.

If he did mean it...

What if Jesus meant what he said? It’s the powerful question raised in my last post, coming on the heels of hearing a sermon by Tony Campolo. And, it is a problematic one, given that we don’t exactly know what he said versus what others had him say, or wanted him to say. But there is something we cannot overlook as we consider the question; Jesus was crucified by the Roman Empire because of what he said.

To me, crucifixion makes it impossible for us to domesticate Jesus’ message into some nice, tidy, doctrinal set of teachings. He was a radical and because of that, he scared the powers of the empire so badly that they felt killing him was the best option. If he had simply been a calm, quiet teacher who “kept the peace” as he traveled from place to place, why kill him? Those in power yearn for calm and quiet in their subjects.

No, he scared people in power because his words did not leave people feeling warm and fuzzy and safe, which is often what our worship services devolve into and what our words about Jesus seek to do. (Thanks, Constantine; I think that’s one of your legacies.) Instead, his words caused people to recognize that the world as it was was not the world as it should be; reread the model prayer if you wonder.

Taking Jesus’ words seriously means, in effect, giving up the comfort of place and position that many of us hold by virtue of different kinds of privilege. Taking his words seriously means we will be uncomfortable and unsettled, and unsure of what will happen next. It also means that we’ll shake up the world and cause people to have to confront the inconsistencies and injustices present before them – if they will open their eyes…or, if WE will open OUR eyes.

What if...

A couple of weeks ago in class, we talked about the impact of certain words and how words have been and can be hijacked. The discussion is often one where progressive religious folks complain that language has been hijacked by the religious right. On Sunday evening, however, I had the good fortune to hear a self-avowed evangelical bemoan how that label had been damaged to the point that he, Tony Campolo, no longer wants to use that name, but instead, has begun to refer to himself as a “red-letter Christian.” His overarching question is: What if Jesus meant what he said?” His statement brought to mind the pointed bumper sticker: “When Jesus said ‘Love your enemies’ he probably meant don’t kill them.”

That question can feed a lot of debates ongoing today; torture, immigration, health care coverage for children, war, etc. That question should also prick everyone, regardless of one’s “labels.” Just as conservatives have tried to reframe “values” to be all about abortion and sexuality, progressives have also chosen a few key issues, to the exclusion of other items that are equally important.

Issues lists are being compiled frequently as we move toward the next presidential election. Are we doomed to continue to make lists such that some items come to the fore over others, or would it be possible to construct questions for ourselves that would lead to just action in a more global sense? Is Tony’s question the key?

Framing the issues

In our most recent class discussion, we considered that progressive Christians are generally on the defensive when it comes to dealing with issues of the day. Indeed, they are often left reacting to what the religious right has defined as the most important issues, even if those issues seem out of whack for most people. For example, abortion and sexuality concerns are put out in front on most conservative agendas, with these subjects being defined as important issues impacting families.

Because the religious right is choosing the music, so to speak, progressives are trying to dance to tunes that do not sound right to their ears, and the steps they take are often awkward as a result. However, if one begins to pull apart religious right arguments, they begin to fail because they have no internal consistency on either a rational or moral level.

Take abortion, for example. The religious right argues that once the egg is fertilized and cells begin to divide, you have a baby, and anything done to end that process of cellular division becomes murder of a human being. The mother does not have a right to end that pregnancy. However, once the child is born, the concern for the child wanes. Now, the parent(s) has ultimate control and responsibility, and should not expect the government to assist with things like health care coverage, for example. If, as a result of the child being born into poverty and/or immigrant status, conservatives have a problem with being responsible to help that child achieve all that she/he can; it’s not their problem. But if that child later commits a crime, it may well be fine to put that human to death on the basis of the infraction. It may also be the case that this child, because of having grown up in poverty, would choose to go into military service in order to get benefits he/she would be unable to get otherwise. Again, it would be justified to the religious right to place this person into a war where he/she may be killed.

There is no justifiable way to make sense of these disparate ideas. If we value human life, then we should value it at all stages, not just at those stages we deem important – or convenient.

I also had the good fortune to hear Tony Campolo preach this evening, and his sermon will be feeding my blog for much of the next week. I think he has much to offer Christians in thinking about taking the teachings of Jesus to a logical – and radical – level.

The blame game

Yes, it has begun in earnest…the blame game, that is. It started early in the week here in San Diego, as questions were raised about why water carrying aircraft were not in the air immediately after the wildfires began.

Excuses were offered. The first was that California Fire officials could not just let any and all aircraft take wing without supervision. That description makes sense until closer questioning exposed that “supervision” meant only approved CalFire persons were qualified to be aboard these flights, even though the military equipment and personnel offered had been trained to fight fires in conditions much worse than that faced by the civilian firefighters.

Another blame game concerned the casualty count. Some local conservative radio personalities have argued that the reason so few people died in these wildfire evacuations – relative to those asked to evacuate before Katrina – was that these Californians took personal responsibility for their actions. When asked to evacuate, they packed up and left. Katrina victims, in their argument, refused to take the personal responsibility to evacuate because they were acculturated to wait for the government to do any/everything for them. When the government did not physically arrive to remove them from their homes, the hurricane’s flooding overtook them while they waited for someone else to solve their problem.

Missing from their equations, of course, were the socioeconomic differences present in these two populations. If one lives in the suburbs of a major city, it is usually the case that one has transportation to allow for the commute to a job in the city. If one lives in the inner city, it is usually the case that one depends on mass transit as owning a car can be quite an expense in city settings. It is also the case that in inner cities, poor people are often shunted to areas that do not get much attention by the city, i.e. areas close to factories and other not so desirable locations such as those surrounded by levees!

My bigger question is this; why did this blame game need to be started? I cannot fathom a reason other than a need to draw comparisons on a racial basis. In all the TV coverage I saw this week, none of the wildfire victims interviewed were African American.

Are we learning anything?

The sky is very hazy and the acrid smell of smoke fills the air. I just happen to be in San Diego for several days, arriving not long after the wildfires began to spring up. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/slideshow/14396456/detail.htmlindex.html?currentSlide=3&taf=dgo

San Diego is the 7^th largest city in the US. I’ve been impressed by the outpouring of support residents have shown: taking supplies to Qualcomm Stadium where many evacuees are staying, donations to blood banks, cutbacks on electrical and cell phone use.

There are two things about this situation that I find to be very sad, though. One is that absent an emergency like this one, many of these residents would not be giving much thought to the needs of other people surrounding them. During a “normal” period, folks without homes, food, etc., would only be tended to by specific agencies or the few folks who do give thought to these people while the rest of us continue on in our lives.

Second, this area of the country has vegetation that thrives because of fire; as a local geologist pointed out, some of the plants must have fire/smoke to germinate seeds. However, in our haste to expand, new housing developments are built in areas populated by such vegetation. To protect these homes, regular burns are not typically allowed for fear they will get out of control. Because there are no regular burns, every few years, when conditions are just right, uncontrolled burns do take place, “destroying” thousands of acres of land, along with any dwellings placed on them. As the same geologist noted, the populace tends to learn things after events like earthquakes; building standards are changed, for example. But we don’t tend to change our ways after these wildfires.

I wonder when we will begin to realize that we live with nature and do not control it. We see in the litany of creation in Genesis 1 that God gave us dominion over the land, but as many have noted before, that word usually gets read as “domination.” Likewise, we’ve been taught to take care of the least of those among us, but we don’t often think about the needs of others until emergencies arise, and then only because we can really see ourselves in the faces of those being displaced. Somehow we manage not to see ourselves in the faces of the poor and needy on a regular basis.

Say what?

I really try not to watch TV as I’m pretty sure that some programs are designed to suck away IQ points as I stare at the screen.

I occasionally allow myself to be drawn into a drama, and most often it is because I see in the story things that I deal with all the time in my life as a pastor. For example, I recently got hooked on a drama called “Damages” which is shown on the FX channel, though I think the season is soon to end.

The show focuses on a law practice, an easy target for a pastor or anyone else given that there are only about 12 million lawyer jokes circulating through the world at any given time. It is taking every bit of my self-control not to list my favorite one here.

In watching this series, I realized two things. First, serial TV is no different now than when I was an undergraduate hooked on soaps in the late 70s; if you can see the occasional episode, you can keep up with the plot. The second realization is that the reason these series flourish is because they encourage paranoia in relationships.

One of the main characters in Damage, as portrayed by Glenn Close, the principal partner in the law firm, tells another character that the key to life is never to trust anyone else completely. How sad. If we cannot trust anyone, how can we ever hope to have a healthy relationship? Every relationship in this drama is based on mistrust, and as I remember my days in the corporate world, before I finally said yes to the call to ministry, I can imagine that things have only become more cutthroat than they were then.

Our relationships will not be healthy unless we are willing to do two things, two things that are interrelated. We must be both willing to be honest, and willing to be vulnerable because we are honest. In my work as a pastoral counselor, I see too many people who function in a constant passive-aggressive mode, a way of being that is toxic to honest and helpful communication. There’s a reason that the second testament offered testimony on living together successfully, and that testimony said that you always go directly to the person with whom you have a problem, even if it means taking others with you to document the problems. Issues must be dealt with directly, or they will become like infections and kill us from the inside.

Social justice in practice

In our last class discussion, one of the questions raised by our guest lecturer, Tim Ahrens, pastor of First Congregational Church (UCC) in Columbus, OH, (http://www.first-church.org/) was whether it is possible to do social justice work as a preacher and pastor of a local church. In re-reading our class logs, it appears that every student agreed this not only can happen, but should happen. Most of us cannot imagine a pastoral ministry that would not have feet planted firmly in both the local congregation and the larger community.

In my work with our local community organizing group, CHANGE, our lead organizers teach us about thinking of the world the way it is, and the world the way it should be. Our goal as a community organization, then, is to do the work we think is necessary to make our city what we think it should be for the betterment of all. This is an inherently biblical way of thinking about the world, in my view, because it calls us to doing what we pray for in the model prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

This model of community organizing also recognizes another important biblical principle, that of bringing people together across what had previously been unfathomable divides of gender, ethnicity and class, a strategy that refuses to scapegoat “them” in order to serve “us.” This principle can be hard in our culture when the presumed leader of the country proclaims that “you’re either for us or against us.”

Today I was in a situation where it would have been easy for those seated around the table to drop into the us/them mode, ultimately leading to a shouting match. An African American male was convicted of the beating of a Caucasian woman, even though there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime. He did, after a time, confess to being on the scene, but his eventual polygraph results were inconclusive. Our community is on alert because it has already been the scene of a highly publicized wrongful conviction, that of Darryl Hunt, (http://www.darrylhuntproject.org/about.html) so the African American community and its Caucasian supporters are understandably worried that another injustice has occurred. But we – mostly clergy - gathered around a table with the district attorney and had a civil conversation, learning many things about how hard it is for the DA’s office to be successful because of lack of staffing, training, pay scales, etc., not to mention the inherent racism we all know is endemic to the criminal justice system. The end of the conversation concerned how we, as citizens, can find ways to rectify these problems – in conjunction with the DA’s office – so that further injustices will be unlikely.

Democracy is messy, but done well it should bring us together rather than pushing us further apart. That sounds like something with which Jesus could agree.

Oh dear

The Winston-Salem Journal, our local newspaper, runs a poll question each week. This week’s question was: Is anyone dear to you serving in Iraq or Afghanistan?

My immediate assumption was that the poll’s authors were trying to get at whether people responding to the poll have relatives or friends serving in these war-torn areas. Perhaps there will be some sort of follow-up question to see how those with close ties to people serving in the military differ in regard to views on the war when compared to those who are not connected to any service members.

However, my next thought was that perhaps the poll’s authors were looking for something deeper, because regardless of how we view the war, we should see everyone serving there – along with the civilians living there – as dear to us. For if we do not see these people as being just like ourselves, as being as important as we are, we have made them into objects disconnected from us.

Even though national polls now show people have little support for the war, there is still no major outcry from the public to end the war and bring the troops home immediately. Instead, we can continue on with our lives without being too inconvenienced by the loss of life occurring every hour this war continues. In this way, we have proved through our lack of action that we do not consider the people in Iraq and Afghanistan to be very dear to us. Like the characters in the biblical parable, we are able to pass by a ditch filled with wounded people and continue on our way without stopping to help.

Until we recognize that all of our lives are interconnected, atrocities can continue. If we don’t find dear ones when looking at the faces of Buddhist monks in Myanmar, uninsured sick children in the US, AIDS patients in Africa, or Afghani farmers struggling to feed their families, then we have lost our essential humanity. As Victor Hugo wrote in Les Miserables, to love another person is to see the face of God.

Folks you need to know

A good friend of mine, Jimmy Creech, is now executive director of a group called Faith in America (http://www.faithinamerica.info/). His organization has been going into smaller US communities, particularly in the midwest, to put a face on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. In addition to public events, they also run advertisements in local media in an attempt to remind folks of how religious bigotry has been used to suggest that women and African Americans are inferior, and that interracial couples should not be able to marry. In each case, scripture was used as a basis for the bigotry.

Faith in America recently held an event in Greenville, SC, where they were greeted by some sign-carrying “Christians”:

As the press release noted, these protesters were surprised by the number of straight allies who challenged them.

Also present at the event was a young woman, Erin Davies, who has been the victim of two recent attacks. The first was a defacement of her VW Bug. Instead of trying to repair the damage, she has allowed it to remain on the car, and is now taking the car to various events around the country. See her story at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLMR7Nre4x4.

I am thankful for the continued work of Jimmy Creech. If you don’t know his story, you need too; he lost his ordination in the United Methodist Church because of his refusal to treat LGBT Christians as second-class members of God’s beloved community. I still think of him as one of my pastors. Thank you, Jimmy.

I am also thankful for Erin. Her courage is empowering. As she says, her actions are holding up a mirror to the world. People cannot avert their eyes from overt homophobia directed at her – and so many others. Thank you, Erin.

Reclamation projects

OK…I’m back. It has been a while since my last posting as life does have a way of overtaking my best intentions!

In our last online class discussion, there was a lot of questioning about words, particularly words that are so freighted with meaning that we begin to shy away from them. The first word that came to mind for me was “feminist” because it seems to have become “The Other F-Word.” Popular wisdom is that young women no longer call themselves feminists - even if they may subscribe to feminist ideals – because conservative pundits have tarred and feathered the word with negative stereotypes which I won’t even honor by repeating here.

But a second word followed closely after “feminist” and that word was “values.” Thankfully, a number of folks before me have tackled that word, and so members of the right-wing no longer hold control of that concept. I’m glad that so many progressives have decided to begin talking about other “values” that matter, like providing health-care to children whose families can’t afford insurance, for example!

Of course, my using the word “progressive” is a reflex against the “L-word” – liberal! When I read definitions of “liberal” I marvel at how well conservatives have butchered what should be such an honorable description: a liberal is “tolerant of different views and standards of behavior in others” and favors “gradual reform, especially political reforms that extend democracy, distribute wealth more evenly, and protect the personal freedom of the individual.” (from Encarta Dictionary) How did we manage to let that word be bludgeoned to death?

So as I prepare to close this entry, let me note that I am a proud feminist – and a liberal to boot. I’m also a lesbian, and a Baptist, two more words that grab folks’ attention. As I’ve joked to friends, though, it’s much easier for me to come out as a lesbian than as a Baptist in most circles! My Baptist forebears worked against the kind of fundamentalism that has become the trademark of groups like the Southern Baptist Convention, and so will I as I try to reclaim what should be a proud heritage of separation of church and state, sole competency, autonomy of the local congregation, and the priesthood of all believers. If you aren’t sure you believe that there are such Baptists left, visit www.allianceofbaptists.org and www.wabaptists.org for some pleasant surprises.

Dancing as fast as he can

I’ll admit it. I enjoy watching politicians get caught doing the very things they’ve railed against, so it was a pleasure to watch Republican Sen. Larry Craig squirm after being charged with soliciting an undercover cop for sex in the Minneapolis airport. Given that the GOP has made gay-baiting their favorite sport, it was nice to see a member of the party be caught by the very net he himself supported being cast.

But I’ve developed some pity for Craig in recent days. His party has tried to throw him overboard while at the same time it continues to support Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, whose name showed up on a call log from a prostitute’s phone. Vitter, presumably a staunch “family values” supporter, was cheating on his wife, yet there have been few calls for his resignation.

One could argue that both politicians deserve punishment, but I don’t think that’s true. What, after all, did Craig actually do? It seems his “crime” was a bit of toe-tapping and hand-gesturing designed to let the man next to him know he was interested in him sexually. They never had sex, though, so what conduct was disorderly? I think Craig deserves some pity because he’s a product of conservative religious rhetoric designed to make LGBT people feel so ashamed of themselves that they cannot be truthful about their orientation. Granted, he has participated in his own subjugation, but all the while he’s also been swimming in homophobic waters.

We know if we subject children to continual withering criticism, they will consider themselves to be bad, and act out accordingly. Little Larry was taught that men who loved men were the worst kind of people, and that self-loathing has surrounded him always. In a testament to how engrained orientations are, he hoped to find a way to acknowledge a bit about who he was, even if only for a few furtive minutes.

God calls us to healthy relationships, relationships where we can be honest about who we are, and where another person can accept us for who we are and love us as our full-strength selves. When anti-gay pundits begin to quote statistics that homosexuality is a “dangerous lifestyle” that leads to shortened life spans, they always fail to think about the millions of children who, like Larry, were told they were bad simply for being who they were. If you’re looking for a sin, look no further.

A life to be remembered

Yesterday brought a stark reminder about the tenuousness of our existence; a friend of many years died in a traffic accident, even though several fine trauma surgeons spent hours attempting to save her. She was a Texan by adoption, and if you’ve ever known a Texan, you know there’s something in the water there that makes most of ‘em, but especially a lot of women, stronger than their counterparts in any other state – or any part of the world, for that matter. Consider Molly Ivins and Ann Richards and you begin to understand a little about Sylva. Don’t mess with Texas (women)!

She was larger than life in so many ways. She had a big bank account, a big appetite for life, a big ego…and a big heart. Granted, you could cross her to the point that, like a Mafioso, you would become dead to her. But at the same time, there was no greater advocate for women – for feminism – than Sylva. She really did put her money where her mouth was in terms of supporting groups/causes that advocated for women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, too.

She was also an artist. I don’t think she ever found the audience for her woodworking that she deserved, but it didn’t matter. What became important to her was doing things the right way. Like Michaelangelo, she took wood and worked away anything that didn’t look like the picture in her mind.

She was also a Christian. She hated the way conservative Christians would distort the gospel for their own ends, and we had many conversations about how to overcome the religious bigotry directed toward women and the LGBT population. Sylva was a career student and a particular fan of Phyllis Trible, whose feminist scholarship has given life-sustaining nourishment to generations of students, but especially to women.

As Christians, we are called to take up our crosses and follow Jesus. Sylva did that, not only for herself, but for countless others who could not take up their crosses easily because of the additional weight the world had placed on them because of socioeconomic disparities, race, orientation, gender, etc., and made use of the wealth she experienced to try and help others who had not been similarly gifted. I lift up the beauty of her life and of her advocacy. I also lift up that we should be vigilant about saying “I love you” to people. We should resolve to say it not in a cheap, sentimental way, but in a way that recognizes that on any day you, too, might find yourself at the hands of a trauma surgeon. And in the end, Sylva will be remembered for what she gave to the kingdom of God “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Was dinner too spicy?

I had a disturbing dream last night. Men were transporting hundreds of dogs via travel trailers, trying to escape from Michael Vick's compound in Virginia so that they could continue to use these animals for upcoming fights. During the trip, a horrible traffic accident occurs and many of the dogs are killed. I drive up shortly after the accident has taken place. The carnage is horrible, but even in the midst of this gruesome incident I am struck by what the uninjured dogs are doing; they are lying next to their mortally wounded pack mates. It seemed they were alternately grieving and/or trying to comfort the injured dogs. The drivers of the travel trailers had fled the scene.

I’m not sure what might have triggered the dream given that a couple of months have passed since charges were first filed against Vick. Perhaps an ad for the new season of the Dog Whisperer had lodged in my subconscious. But there was a recent story in the New York Times that had touched me. An African gray parrot, Alex, died at the age of 31. He had been the subject of intense work by Dr. Irene Pepperberg, a comparative psychologist who had studied and worked with Alex for most of his life. Alex had learned a great deal about English, and at the close of their last work session, he said to Dr. Pepperburg: “You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you.” Alex died overnight.

In later online comments posted to this story, I was struck by how hard it was for some writers to imagine that animals other than humans are capable of expressing care and even love for another, particularly a creature not of their species. In other contexts, persons who call themselves Christian also express similar sentiments; humans are made in the image of God, they argue, so animals cannot be that important or share any traits.

While it is certainly the case that Genesis 1 says humans are made in God’s image, we should not overlook other portions of that text. First, God pronounced all of creation “good.” Secondly, humans were given the responsibility to take care of that good creation. Why would God create good creatures only to have humans treat them as though they were disposable goods to be used for our amusement – or for food? After all, Genesis 1: 29-30 does not offer us animals for food!

This discussion highlights a personal problem for me, though, in that while I would never dream of harming a live animal, I have always been willing to eat animal flesh. How do I justify arguing that God is calling us to the care of all creatures when I myself am part of a process that requires the death of animals? I think the reason I can separate these actions is because I am separated from the killing process; if I had to kill the animal I wished to eat, I would have long ago become vegetarian.

Why me?

Why does the idea of blogging bother me so much? When I published the link to this site in my church newsletter, I was already nervous about having members read the material, much less thinking about the general public having access to it as well. My anxiousness is odd given that our church’s morning worship service is broadcast via radio every Sunday morning. When I preach, thousands of people may hear what I have said, and anyone with internet access can visit the church’s website to download audio or document files with that day's sermon.

I guess my problem is that there is something about blogging that has seemed self-important. After all, there are plenty of editorial writers, for example, who are more talented and thoughtful than I who express themselves in powerful and transforming ways, espousing opinions with which I wholeheartedly agree. The problem is that few of these persons write from a religious perspective, and fewer still write from a Christian perspective. As an unabashed liberal, I’m getting tired of hearing what “Christians” think, as though all Christians are of one mind about important issues of the day.

One of the reasons I signed up for this Public Theology class is that I knew having to create and post to a blog would stretch me. But what I hope it will also do is encourage other liberal Christians to make their voices heard. The internet, for weal and for woe, makes it possible for voices that have historically been underrepresented to be able to offer their views in the public square.

So, this blog is now officially open for business. I will try to post several times each week, and I hope that readers will engage with me as I begin to share.