democracy

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high expectations
complexity of governing
always disappoints


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This will be the 11th presidential election where I have been paying at least some degree of attention.  Isn't there a better way to do this thing called politics?

Should the government do good (and more of it)... or do a lot less of everything?

Congress again is talking budgets. Methinks that there will be budget talk ad nauseum between now and the 2012 election. But as sick of it as we will no doubt get, budgets are no minor issue. They may indeed be the defining issue of the next decade or three as Social Security and Medicare and Defense spending continue picking up momentum and mass like an avalanche cascading downhill. Or like wind aggravating a forest fire. Or like hurricanes hitting warmer water. Whatever metaphor you want to use, debt & budgets are demanding our attention, and not for happy reasons.


So, how to think about it? How to advise one's Congressional representative? (should they ever ask my opinion...)


Here are two takes on the subject, both from the same magazine which approaches culture from vantage points of faith. Which statement resonates most with you?


Budgets are moral documents by nature. They reflect the priorities of individuals, households and even nations, exposing our real notions of who and what is valuable. As elected leaders in Washington engage in shouting matches over how to solve America’s looming sovereign debt crisis, the voice of the poor is still getting drowned out. They’re obviously not our priority.

Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path—meaning that federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the U.S. population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario for current law.

I found myself this morning thinking about what the proper role of government is.   One view of it is certainly summed up in the preamble to our Constitution:



"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Now... does that help settle the budget debate?  Not really.  And even though the Founders were God-fearers (by and large), neither does it tell us what God expects of governments generally.  All it tells us is what our Founders thought ours should be about, flawed men as they were.


A full analysis of the Scriptures on this topic is beyond my reach right now, although I may get to it in my next Seminary elective, which examines the relationship between church and culture in Colossians.  I'll report back if I find something universally applicable.  

(don't hold your breath..)

firstfruits

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festival of spring
a barley sheaf raised in thanks
resurrection day


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i cor. 15:20-23

Guyland

Social scientists have been speculating for, what, 15 years now? .. on what effects living in the "information age" would have on us as a species. They have been at times fearmongering about the potential long term effects on our brains, wringing hands over the probable loss of community, or fictionalizing about what kind of evolution might occur, as "information overload" crushes our senses and overwhelms our ability to make choices and focus. (Think: deer in the headlights.) This article is typical.

Well, one of the things I've wondered about myself has been "will we develop new abilities to filter out useless information"? We've already had that ability to some degree all along. We ignore the sound the wind makes until it reaches a certain pitch. Rain pattering on a window becomes simple background noise until it starts to clatter as it turns to sleet. Mothers develop "selective hearing" around their children's insistent voices until they recognize that something is out of the ordinary about it and their attention is needed. The daily newspaper you grab at the coffee shop or restaurant is selectively read. TV commercials are selectively watched. But I think that going "mobile" with absolutely everything has turned up the dial on information and entertainment and relationship stimuli in a huge way. Social media is at a different level of intensity (because by definition there are real people involved), and to some extent ALL media is quickly becoming social.

As we become more and more aware through the new media of people, cultures, and lifestyles very different than ours, what this is doing to us is giving us many, many more "options" than previous generations had. We are no longer limited to options only in the modest geography near where we grew up, or with people of the demographic who look and sound and believe like us. We can, virtually, go anywhere and do or be anything. Only 3 generations ago, your adult friends were your childhood friends, going to college was the rare exception, and being in a trade different from that of an adult relative was actually treated with suspicion. You got your news via newsprint or by word of mouth (including the voice on the radio). Options? What options?

A book I have started reading, called Guyland, chronicles the emergence of a new "stage of life", which is sort of Adolescence 2.0 - the part that runs roughly 10 years from the time you can drive a car unrestricted until you finish "growing up" (which, to the author, means in essence taking responsibility for your decisions, dealing with the results, and establishing a trajectory for your life).



Personally I think that this new phenomenon is a direct result of too many options than we currently have the capacity to process. It's especially difficult for those in their late teens and early twenties, because the pre-frontal cortex is still growing (until about 22 for girls and 26 for boys, or so MRI research tells us), and that's the part of the brain where value judgments are made, right/wrong is decided, and risk/reward is measured. If you lack the full ability to choose wisely, and are faced with innumerable options for your life, and stimuli demanding your attention... it can be paralyzing. Some people can simply freeze in place and do nothing. Like deer in the headlights.

So if you can't decide what to do with your life... maybe you just continue the behaviors that got you to where you are, socially and recreationally, and just mark time until you can process the options that confront you. You work a dead-end job, live at home with Mom, party with your school friends, just sort of drift. The good news is, for most people, you "un-freeze" at some point, and pick a direction (or it picks you). Only a few are run over by life while frozen.

I remember drifting from one unfulfilling job to another from ages 19 to 27, until I quit, sold the house, went back to finish my Bachelor's, adopted a daughter, and picked a vocation that I've stayed in ever since. This was even pre-internet, and it still took me until 27 to lock in. Except... while I drifted, I also bought insurance, tithed to my church, and made mortgage payments. I lived like a responsible adult while still being directionless (just not admitting it to many people).

Today, being directionless is much more socially acceptable. Authors like Michael Kimmel are giving it a name, and a space to live in. :)

Up on the platform, quick, quick, quick.

No time in church now for mentally lounging about; must pay attention or I'll miss my cues.

Starting in May, I'm back in the saddle again, as they say: serving as a lector at the Basilica for Saturday afternoon Mass, and being on worship team (with some ensemble singing) at the Baptist church on Sunday. Both are enjoyable, familiar, comfortable ways of serving. I do still get a little nervous, though, when it's my turn (which is once every 3-4 weeks), but not so nervous that it's counter-productive. Nervous as in a heightened awareness of where I am and what my task is, putting any performance anxiety or excess adrenaline I might have right into execution.

It's good to contribute. And speaking of contributing, a local charity that runs a homeless shelter and transitional housing program for families with children had a fund-raising dinner & silent auction earlier this week, with some very cool artwork to bid on (which I did). Had to leave early and haven't heard the results yet, but if I did happen to win, I'll have to move to an "industrial chic" loft to make the art look right! More likely, I'll just hang it in my office at work. :)

Applying past oracles to today

Well, here we are again, with another weekly assignment in OT503.  This time it's about the OT prophets and their messages of condemnation against various nations.  What does it mean to us today that Nahum was so critical of Nineveh, or that Obadiah lashed out at Edom?  Here's my reaction to the assignment.

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Q.  How do the "oracles against the nations" function as Scripture in the contemporary Christian church?  (How do they inhabit our imaginations and what witness do they urge?  What claim do they make on, against, or for us?)

A.  Again we must be careful to allow past nations, peoples and cultures to retain their historic uniqueness, and preserve their significance in God's economy by respecting their prophetic context.  We should not engage in wholesale appropriation of God's messages to (or for, or against) them for use in our own time and place, by simply assigning those nations new names more contemporary with and familiar to us.  To do so denigrates the cultures that came before us and steals from them the respect they are due, even if they did have significant moral failures.  So, of course, do we, but... our failings differ from theirs, and so will God's message to (or for, or against) us, when it comes.

That being said, there are things in Nahum and Obadiah and Amos that we can learn as Scripture, in a way that is living and active toward us.  One lesson easily learned is the error of American Exceptionalism.  One only has to read the oracles against the nations to see contained within them oracles against Israel and Judah as well.  If Israel and Judah were singled out for criticism and judgment, so too can America be.  After all, if God delights in us as a nation, isn't it still true that "the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights"?  "My country right or wrong" has no Biblical basis, and is no more than school spirit (or even gang loyalty) writ large.  "My country, disciplined by a loving God" is much more apt.

God loves other nations, too.  The oracles make this clear.  In Amos 2, Moab is judged in part for how it treated Edom.  God must care about Edom if Moab's punishment was based on wrong treatment of Edom.  And yet Edom is also punished for its treatment of other communities.  And who can read the rest of Amos chapter 2 and say that the criticism directed at Israel & Judah was any less harsh?  Can we even bear to read Ezekiel 23?   I blush when I read how God describes Israel & Judah.  God is no respecter of nations - the standard is applied to all, and perhaps most stringently to God's own chosen.  So, America should not think itself immune from judgment, based both on how we treat other nations and cultures, as well as treatments of segments of our own population.

In addition, we can learn much about the things that matter to God by reading the criticisms God levels against the nations; the judgment being brought is not arbitrary & capricious, but rather in reaction to specific sins, to wit:  plotting evil, devising wicked plans, increasing merchants who then strip the land and leave it, being prideful of supposed invincibility, standing by and watching other nations being plundered, selling out whole communities and cultures to other governments, killing women & children during battle, taking advantage of the poor & denying them fairness, endorsing sexual immorality, etc.  It seems to me that I have seen behaviors like these in my own lifetime, covertly and overtly, at the hands of my own government, by big business, Wall Street, and even by non-profit organizations whose corrupt leaders line their own pockets or fatten their pension funds.

And yet, while I can recognize modern-day equivalents of these ancient cultural sins, what I cannot yet recognize are the specific and detailed judgments currently being pronounced on my country by individuals called by God to bring a contemporary message.  Nor can I recognize any consistent and unified voice spoken by the Church to the same effect.  How can we assume for the Church the role of the prophet when the Church does not speak in unity?  It is one "prophet's" voice versus another's, with the implication that they can't all be right (in fact most must be false, to have so many different opinions on who is ripe for judgment and for what sins).  No one today is speaking authoritatively on God's behalf - at least no one we can agree upon.  And until God definitively calls me and gives me a contemporary message, I have no business asserting that authority myself in how I interpret past "oracles against the nations" as applying to today's nations and cultures.  That would be arrogance in the extreme.  

Better that I should concentrate on who God is, and see what these angry Scriptures teach about the things God values and protects, so that I can value and protect them, too.

Jonah - the real target audience

In my OT503 (Prophets) class, we've been slugging our way through Isaiah and Jeremiah, looking at judgment, hope, calls to repentance, etc., both back then and today. The assignment this week finally gets us into the Minor Prophets. I reprint my response here:

Q. What themes in Jonah resonate or contrast with the sections of Isaiah and Jeremiah that you have studied up to this point?

A. There is much in Jonah that is similar to Isaiah and Jeremiah: God's singling out of a prophet to bring a specific message; a prophet overwhelmed by the summons to speak for God; a pronouncement of judgment (which turns out later to be conditional); God's showing mercy to people who do repent. These themes resonate with much of the material in Jeremiah and Isaiah. They hardly need explanation. It's the contrasts which tell the story.

First, there is no call extended for the Ninevite culture to repent and turn to God, yet it is implicit in Jonah's understanding of God. The Ninevites may not know Yahweh as a God of mercy, but Jonah knows it, which is what makes him reluctant to go. And despite not being called to repentance, the Ninevite leaders still proclaim a time of sackcloth, fasting and prayer, hoping against hope that Yahweh would relent of the threatened judgment. They actually saw prophetic hope where none was announced!

Second, Nineveh takes God very seriously, where God's chosen people do not! It's as if Nineveh's respect for God was greater than Israel and Judah's. It's similar, I suppose, to boys treating their friend's Dad with more respect than the kid himself does. "Familiarity breeds contempt" may be at work. Or perhaps Israel and Judah knew God as merciful, one who "relents from doing harm" as Jonah says, and came to take that mercy for granted, figuring that the threatened punishment would never really come.

Third, while many prophets were nonplussed at being selected by God, and protested their call, their reluctance was based on their own self-assessment: they were unworthy or incapable or not gifted. Jonah's resistance was not based on who he was, but on who GOD was! God's character was the problem! This is really astounding, and shows that Jonah had no "love for the lost", as it were, either. He was more than happy to let sinners get what they deserve. One can imagine a scenario like this today, if God were to call an homosexual-hating preacher to go to a Gay Pride march and preach judgment. He might indeed go, but how awkward for him if they all converted on the spot! He might react like Jonah did and be angry with God about letting a little thing like repentance get in the way of condemnation.

Fourth, God spends more effort on redeeming the reluctant prophet than on redeeming Nineveh. God pursues Jonah, disciplines him, restores him, commands him, confronts him, comforts him, rebukes him and teaches him. The story is really more about the rehabilitation of a recalcitrant believer than about the repentance of evildoers. It's as if God expects far more of the "chosen", than what's expected of those who don't know God. God's mercy is extravagant toward sinners - it always is. God's firm but loving persistence toward those who are called by God, is what is truly remarkable in the book of Jonah. It actually resonates more with God's call of (and both irritation and patience with) Moses, than with God's dealings with Isaiah or Jeremiah. To me, it's the key lesson of the book. It shows God as a loving and patient Father who is also persistent in correction and instruction. Regardless of how annoyed or frustrated God might be with Jonah, God doesn't smack him, or let him off, either. God both bears down and lets up, as needed, to make the lesson stick. That's my idea of an ideal father.

(At least as opposed to the kind of Dad who says: "Aah, who wants to do the hard work, when you can just pop in a video! Let the scruffy little urchins learn their own lessons...") ;)

The Template Church

At the company where I work, we serve several market niches, one of which is churches. In a meeting a few weeks back, we were reviewing a pricing spreadsheet for the church niche, and one of the guys showed the rest of us how it worked. At the top, it read: Church of the [Template]

And I thought... that's it!! That's what I have struggled with in my evangelical church experience (well, one of the things, anyway). Evangelical churches today tend to not be "purpose-driven" churches, so much as they are template-driven churches.

There is a template derived from church growth seminars, from district denominational conferences, from seminary classes, and from "how we do it" workshops at successful mega-churches. The template you choose says a lot about your philosophy of ministry. There is a template for "seeker-friendly" churches, one for "bible-based" churches, another for "spirit-filled" churches, and yet another for "socially relevant" churches, or churches focusing on "reaching the lost" or "young families" or "urban professionals", etc., etc.

This goes for not only the programs you must have in place, but how the worship service is structured as well. Week after week it's really the same service, you just change the songs and rotate in other singers/musicians. Honestly, when worship is reduced to a repeatable pattern, how much different is it from a liturgy? Very little different, I think. At least when you go to a liturgical church you know what you're getting. You're getting a pattern, yes, but a time-tested, theologically-vetted, historically-connected pattern that changes very little over time or across cultures. It is meant to unify globally.

When churches who have purposely and determinedly abandoned liturgy, confession and creed as part of worship, wind up doing essentially "the same thing, only different" (as my Dad used to enjoy saying), doesn't it confirm that these acts and words held in common have a good purpose? They unify, bring a sense of belonging, and we gravitate to these unifying patterns whether we call them liturgy or not. Sometimes I think that Protestants are like teenagers who insist they won't grow up to do what their parents did, and wind up with similar behaviors and values anyway.

As Shakespeare wrote: "A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet." C'mon, evangelicals... stop and smell these heirloom roses, huh? Put some creed and common prayers back into your template. Your parents in the faith may have known something useful after all.

The Mainstream vs The Political Class

Ask yourself these three questions:

1)  Generally speaking, when it comes to important national issues, whose judgement do you trust more: America's voting public, or America's political leaders?

2)  The Federal Government has become a special-interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests.  Do you agree or disagree?

3)  Corporate America and the Federal Government often work together in ways that hurt both consumers and investors.  Do you agree or disagree?

Research for a recent paper in one of my grad school classes led me to this simple questionnaire by a pollster named Scott Rasmussen.  My research topic was religious populism, and this gentleman's work has been in the area of what defines populism (of both the right and the left).  His thesis is that left vs. right, conservative vs. liberal, is not, after all, the main divide in this country.  Both ends of the political spectrum are frustrated with congress and mistrust politics in general.  They only differ on what form solutions should take, not that we need some.  Right-leaning populists advocate limiting the role of  government in private and societal matters, left-leaning populists (aka progressives) see a positive role for government if properly focused and guided.

People who answered "yes" to the above three questions are what Rasmussen calls the "mainstream", whether left-leaning, or right-leaning.  Those who answered "no" to the above questions may also be left- or right-leaning, but would be considered part of the "political class".  They are what populists refer to as "elites", who are not down in the trenches living life on the unemployment line or shopping at thrift stores to get by.

Polling data shows that there is a bigger gap between the Mainstream and the Political Class than there is between those who identify as Democrats or Republicans, or as liberals or conservatives.  On question 3, for example, there is no gap between voters affiliated with the two political parties or with the two ideologies.  There is a huge gap, though, between those who answered the above questions as "mainstreamers" and those who answered as "politicos".

And that defines populism (of the left or of the right) in a nutshell.  Populists do not trust the political class - they trust, by definition, the collective wisdom of the people.  Populists also favor the interests of the people over the interests of the elites, whether the elites are national-level politicians, heads of multinational corporations, powerful labor leaders, rich televangelists, Ivy League intellectuals, entertainer/athletes, investment bankers, or anyone else who lives in an alternate reality than does mainstream America.

And in Iowa in the next few months, the Political Class comes to rub up against the Mainstream, and see whom they can fool.  They've certainly succeeded before, and will probably do so again.