What's Next, part III

I am continuing the thoughts that I started over the last two weeks, in response to the Next Church national gathering in Seattle. 

I recently reviewed the book, Burying White Privilege, which has the profound subtitle, “Resurrecting a Badass Christianity.” The author, Miguel De La Torre, is a professor of social ethics and LatinX Studies at Iliff School of Theology, where our own Jennifer McCullough is currently enrolled. While speaking of “white Christianity,” I am going to use the pronouns “we” “us” and “our” in this essay. I am doing that, not because every person who is a part of St. Mark is white, but because our congregational culture is largely shaped by what De La Torre means when he speaks of “whiteness,” or “white Christianity.” It is an identifier that is meant to raise consciousness, not an accusation meant to raise guilt. 

One argument that De La Torre makes is that white Christians are unaware of how culturally specific our way of doing Christianity is. Let me see if I can illustrate with a recent experience. After the horrific attack on worshippers at the mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand on March 15, many New Zealanders performed – as an act of solidarity and healing – a traditional dance called the “Haka.” I was impressed with that tradition and looked it up on Wikipedia to read about it. Part of the essay said this: “From their arrival in the early 19th century, Christian missionaries strove unsuccessfully to eradicate the haka, along with other forms of Māori culture that they saw as conflicting with Christian beliefs and practice. Henry Williams, the leader of the Church Missionary Society mission in New Zealand, aimed to replace the haka and traditional Māori chants (waiata) with hymns. Missionaries also encouraged European harmonic singing as part of the process of conversion.” 

In other words, these missionaries saw harmonic singing – a specific cultural expression of music – as a Christian expression of music. Perhaps I should say, “as the Christian expression of music.” If I may use the distinction between ‘form’ and ‘content,’ hymnody was the cultural form in which the missionaries had experienced Christianity, so they proceeded as if this cultural form was necessarily bound to the content of the gospel itself. Given how heroically and sacrificially many missionaries went about their task, I can only guess that most of them genuinely saw no difference between the message of the gospel that they wanted to share and the specific form of expressing that gospel that they knew. De La Torre, by using the phrase “white Christianity,” enables us not to make that same mistake. 

The phrase “white Christianity” is a description, which can be neutral. The phrase “white privilege” is not neutral and points to the ways that white Christianity has used the Christian message to enrich and empower itself. Let’s see if we can get from one to the other. 

“White Christianity” can refer to a number of traditions that are harmless enough in themselves (and which fluctuate over time): Worship services that begin precisely at a certain time; one-hour time limits on worship; jello salads at potlucks; reading back and forth during worship; standing and sitting on cue; pipe organs; stained glass; wooden pews (which might explain the one-hour time limit); etc. Some of these traditions are deliberate and scripted; some are assumed and inherited. 

“White privilege” is a different matter. It happens when we privilege “our way” over other ways, such as assuming that chants are pagan and hymns are Christian. Privilege can also be radically inconsistent when legitimizing itself. Think of all of the arguments that white Christian missionaries made when demanding that native women from some cultures cover themselves. It’s interesting that many white Christians now reject those same arguments when we insist that women ought not to wear burkas or veils. In both cases, we are insisting that our cultural approach to attire gives us the warrant to critique a different cultural approach to attire. 

White Christianity can be a neutral matter when it comes to jello salads or wooden pews. It can be somewhere between repressive and oppressive when it comes to liturgical styles or “proper attire.” But, white Christianity also has a long history of outright evil masked as Christianity. When Europeans (and later Americans) were colonizing “new” lands, Christian missionaries were sailing on the ships alongside of traders and soldiers. When white Christians came to the Americas, the Christian message provided legitimation for “Manifest Destiny,” that encouraged them to eradicate natives and take their land. When the U.S. was building an economy based on slave labor, instead of liberating the captives, white Christians were trying to make them “Christian slaves.” We could see all of those actions as wrong-headed, but confined to the past. Or, we could see how those past traditions continue in the form of establishing “sweat shops” in other countries, scapegoating and underpaying farm workers in our own country, or snowplowing our children’s success by buying their way into elite universities. 

In the end, I need to continue studying Miguel De La Torre’s critique of “white privilege.” It is not about inflicting guilt. It is about liberating us – us! – from captivity to a cultural form that has arrogated itself as if it were the gospel itself. While part of that liberation is the awkward task of evaluating “white Christianity,” the hope is that the real power of the gospel can be found in us. I feel as if I am taking tentative baby steps on a long journey. Let’s do this together. 

Mark of St. Mark

What’s Next, part II

One of the fantastic presenters at the recent NEXT Church National Gathering was Jennifer Harvey, the author of Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation. Harvey has also written Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Kids in a Racially Unjust America. I’ve only read Dear White Christians, so I’ll keep my comments directed to it today. We’ll explore Raising White Kids in the future. 

The argument of Dear White Christians is that the church needs to move from a paradigm of reconciliation to a practice of reparation. There’s a lot to unpack in that claim, so for a full description you’ll want to read the book itself (you can order it here). As I have processed it since reading it a few years ago, Harvey argues that if our approach to racial matters is only to achieve reconciliation, it blinds us to the past and the real effects of the past on racial relations today. It could be a way of saying, “Let’s all just get along” without addressing history, disparity, or deeply rooted biases that are at work. In response, Harvey argues that we need reparations, a way of significantly and symbolically addressing current disparity based on past racist actions. 

One example from history that Harvey cites is an attempt by a group of well-intended persons in the Episcopal Church in the 1960’s, who wanted to overcome the adage that “Sunday morning at 11:00am is the most segregated hour in America,” by integrating all of their churches. It was a noble idea, but simply integrating congregations was a disaster. It did not take into account that, because of centuries of exclusion, the black congregations in the diocese were smaller and had much humbler facilities than the historic white congregations. Integration meant that those smaller congregations were swallowed up and typically would be moved over to the finer buildings of the historic, larger congregations. Those historic congregations had fine choirs, pipe organs, and architecture that was perfect for a form of worship that was developed in England and then transported to the US, mostly among well-to-do persons. The worship and membership, simply by dint of tradition and overwhelming numbers, was manifestly a “white” way of being Episcopal, masked as simply being Episcopal. Not only were the particular gifts of the African American worship in those Episcopal churches lost, the specific role that those churches played in many African American neighborhoods was lost – all in the name of “color-blind reconciliation.” 

Harvey argues that too many approaches today – among all manner of churches – try to enact reconciliation without addressing the need for reparation. What she argues is that we need a serious reckoning with how the church historically has empowered a system that has exploited black and brown people, and to start with undoing what we can before we launch into holding hands and singing the “Barney” song together. (That last description is definitely on me, not Jennifer Harvey.) 

I think Dr. Harvey is really onto something significant. But, in saying that, here’s what I’m not saying. I not saying that white people or churches that are mostly white need to “fix” the situation. Our savior complex has been part of the problem all along. Instead, we need to listen. The original call for reparations came from the African American community and it horrified even the most progressive of white congregations. Most of those progressive white congregations were already hard at work “fixing” the situation. What I am hearing from Harvey’s work is that reconciliation – while a noble goal – requires us to address the historical injustices and stop pretending that they can be separated from the current situation. That’s where my mind is as I return to the book again. 

If you want to watch Dr. Harvey’s address, go to this page and scroll down to click “Tuesday AM Keynote #2.”

Mark of St. Mark

What's Next?

This week, I’ve been attending the annual gathering of an organization called NEXT Church in Seattle. When I mention the trip to people, the follow-up question is usually, “What’s ‘Next’?” I want to say, “Exactly! That’s what we’re asking!” On reflection, the question deserves a better answer. I’ll take a whack at it, but you may want to ask Jennifer McCullough, Deborah Mayhew, or Betty Christiansen - other St. Mark members who attended, along with about fifteen other persons from the Presbytery of Los Ranchos. I should add that Susan Thornton is a real behind-the-scenes asset to NEXT Church, bringing excellent organizational skills as well as the right spirit to her work on the leadership team. She makes our presbytery proud. 

You can visit the NEXT Church web site yourself by clicking here. According to our Mission Statement, NEXT Church is a purposeful relational community of Presbyterian leaders whose mission is to strengthen a vibrant and thriving PC(USA) that shares the good news of Jesus Christ in ways that matter to and have impact on God’s evolving world. There are two things in particular that I would lift up about this statement. First, being a “purposeful relational community” is a lot harder than writing a mission statement. It is a tear-filled journey of listening, taking responsibility for our complicity in structures that have systematically oppressed too many of God’s beloved children, and pleading for the grace to be transformed. It is learning the difference between “white guilt” and “lament.” It is creating space to discern who needs to relinquish their voice and who need to find theirs. It is leaning into criticism, instead of shutting it out, pushing back, or letting long-standing barriers keep it at a safe distance. None of that work is easy. 

Second, it may sound odd for us to describe the Presbyterian Church (USA) as “vibrant and thriving.” All of the statistics and church analysts have been screaming otherwise for four decades now. Those stats and wonks are not wrong. There is a lot about the church that is anachronistic and longing for those past “glory days” is an exercise in futility. But, those things about the church that are “dead and dying” (my attempt to find the opposite of “vibrant and thriving”) help us to see the biblical distinction between wine and wineskins. I truly believe that God has called the church into being, not as the end all of God’s reign, but as a provisional witness to a new way of being in the world, empowered by God’s own Spirit at work in our lives. Because this is a shared and gathered movement of God’s Spirit, the church takes institutional shape along the way (despite whatever aversion we may have to the word “institution.”) Those institutional forms, the wineskins, must always be adapting to the fresh new wine that God is pouring out. That is hard work, because familiar institutions give us comfort. But, new wine is potent and has a tendency to burst through old, dried, shrunken wineskins. New wine is “vibrant and thriving,” and I experience NEXT Church as a place where we are intentionally focused on how the new wine of God’s Spirit is calling us to discover new wineskins that enable us to carry this life-giving Spirit to the world. 

I don’t mean to beat the wine/skin metaphor to death. I just don’t know how else to describe how NEXT Church transforms me and calls me to a more enthusiastic embrace of what God is doing – even if it means that a cis-gendered, heterosexual, white, male, head-of-staff, large church pastor (I’m talking about me, by the way) needs to remember how to be a disciple in this conversation, not always the talking-head teacher. 

If you’d like to get a glimpse of a “vibrant and thriving” Presbyterian Church, click here, scroll down, and watch the video capture of the closing worship service. You’ll need to give yourself some time to savor each part. If you’d like to get a glimpse of the challenge of discarding the old wineskin in order to take up the new, click hereand scroll down to the keynote presentation by Tali Hairston. It is marvelous and challenging. 

Challenging. Now, there’s an apt descriptor for the NEXT Church annual gathering. As I continue to unfold some of the gifts that have been stuffed into my mind and heart, I will search for ways to share them with you. 

Mark of St. Mark

Climate Change as Crucifixion

Below is an essay that I sent to the Daily Pilot in hopes that they might publish it as an Op Ed last weekend. The people at the Pilot are usually very generous in publishing whatever I submit to them, but I think the events involving local students saluting a swastika ended up being a more immediate cause for their attention last weekend. So, I’m offering the essay to you, even though we are now a few days past Ash Wednesday. 

-MD  

In Christian communities, March 6 is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. Many people will dedicate this season to prayer, fasting, examination, and other disciplines intended to prepare us for celebrating the resurrection of Christ on Easter. But, to get resurrection, one must travel the road through crucifixion. 

The story of Jesus’ death is very difficult and we can engage it from a number of angles. In 1943, H. Richard Niebuhr wrote a remarkable essay called, “War as Crucifixion,” using the death of Jesus as a “revelatory pattern” to understand what we now call the Second World War. I wonder if, 76 years later, it is possible to imagine “Climate Change as Crucifixion.” Can the story of Jesus provide a lens for interpreting our moment in the face of climate change? I think we can and here are some possibilities for doing so. 

First, the crucifixion story is unrelenting in disclosing the lengths to which humanity will go in destroying life, as well as the ways that we try to justify our worst tendencies religiously and politically. Judas’ betrayal, Peter’s denial, the disciples’ abandonment, the religious authorities’ rejection, Pilate’s capitulation to the crowd, and Rome’s cruel way of dealing with sedition are stories of moral failure, blind ambition, and coercive power. Some of those actions might be seen as good intentions with unintended consequences, but the cumulative effect of those actions is death. 

That is the first word that people of faith need to speak about climate change. While the science continues to unfold, while there are uncertainties about the future shape of climate change, and while the phenomenon is complex, the cumulative effect of our carbon footprint is simply destructive to our planet. While there may be some degree of unintended consequence involved, we know that our dependence on coal, oil, and gas are incredibly destructive, no matter the religious or political legitimations we can make for them. 

Second, the crucifixion story demonstrates a cruel aspect of our execution of justice, because the suffering of the cross falls on an innocent scapegoat. Likewise, the cruel reality of climate change is that the innocent are suffering the most. It is not polluting cities or wealthy oil and gas producers that are experiencing the first effects of climate change. Small island communities are already seeing rising sea levels, agriculture-dependent poor countries are already experiencing record amounts of drought, and many species of animal and plant life have already been extinguished forever. If climate change is some kind of universal payback for our carbon footprint, it is a cruel and misdirected payback that will cause the most suffering on those who have exploited it the least, as well as future generations who have yet to do anything. 

While Christians observe Lent with a view toward the resurrection story of Easter, resurrection is not a simplistic ‘do-over.’ The risen one in the story bears scars – ugly reminders that the crucifixion was real, the pain was intolerable, and the perpetrators guilty. The path to resurrection winds through crucifixion, as difficult as that story is to hear and accept. 

Using the crucifixion as a “revelatory pattern” will not make climate change less controversial or create easy solutions. It might, however, give us a better way of understanding how to take responsibility for our actions and to attend to those who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. That would be a remarkable way to honor the Lenten season. Join us throughout the Lenten season as we attend to the theme, “Fragile Beauty of the Earth.” 

Mark of St. Mark

A Busy Weekend and Then Some

This weekend we have a full, full slate (again) at St. Mark, followed by the season of Lent. So, let’s begin with some reminders and then we’ll talk about the forthcoming season. 

On Saturday and Sunday, we welcome Mihee Kim-Kort as our guest preacher. Mihee is the author of Outside the Lines: How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith, a very honest and self-examining reflection on identity and relationships. After Saturday worship is our monthly “Meet Me at Muldoon’s,” from 6:30 – 8:00pm. And after Sunday worship Mihee will be presenting a book talk in the Fellowship Hall from 11:00-noon. 

Sunday afternoon, from 3:00 – 5:00, the Orange County Alliance for Just Changewill present a forum in the sanctuary entitled, “From Homeless to Home,” featuring two success stories of Permanent Supportive Housing in Orange County. Among the speakers will be activists, service providers, and residents, whose experience can help us in our work to establish 2,700 units of Permanent Supportive Housing in Orange County. You will also hear how the United To End Homelessnessmovement is recruiting “Housing Champions” who can attend city council meetings equipped with information, compassion, and justice. 

And then, on Wednesday we enter the season of Lent with a 7:00pm Ash Wednesday worship service. Our theme for the season is “Fragile Beauty of the Earth.” We will reflect on being disciples of Jesus Christ while living in a world that is experiencing climate change at a pace that few of us are willing to imagine. Using the 104^thPsalm as a guide, we will see how our addiction to carbon, resulting in rising sea levels, the loss of biodiversity, and exacerbated effects of wildfires, are at odds with God’s purpose in creation. Each week will feature a 30-minute “Talkback” following Saturday worship as well as a special presentation featuring environmental concerns on Sundays at 11:00am. 

As this season begins, I want to clarify my starting point for this series: Climate change is a reality and it is dramatically driven by human actions, particularly by carbon emissions. The case for climate change is based on science and poses a real challenge to our ideologies – our approaches to economics, politics, ethics, and even how we interpret the Scriptures. I am not going to engage in endless debates over the whether climate change is truly taking place or whether it is a ‘natural phenomenon’ rather than impacted by human actions, because I believe one of the most effective means of avoiding a difficult question, is to ‘question the question.’ I believe that climate change denial/doubt is an ideological position that uses science to legitimate itself, rather than a scientific position that is willing to let the truth challenge our ideology. So, the starting point of this Lenten series – at least insofar as I contribute to it through my sermons and reflections – is that facing climate change is the cup that we have to accept if we are to be faithful, just as the crucifixion was the cup that Jesus accepted in his prayer in the garden. The question of faith is not whether we should do something, but what we should do. 

There is a lot of beauty in the earth, and it continues to afford us many moments of joy and wonder. Yet, our earth is fragile. This Lenten season will be a time of embracing this fragile beauty. 

Mark of St. Mark 

The Joy and Justice of the Gospel, #5

Last week we began looking at “conversion” stories in the book of Acts, by looking at the persons who gathered on the Day of Pentecost (c.2) and who responded to Simon Peter’s call to “repent” by the thousands. We recall that the narrator described this crowd as “devout people,” not sinners, evil, lost, or however else we might often hear the beginning of a conversion story described. They were devout persons, a term that Luke does not use ironically or sarcastically, but a term that shows great respect for one’s relationship with God. 

In other words, the people who heard Simon Peter’s message and were “cut to the heart” asking, “What shall we do?” were not people who had never heard the Word of God before. They were hearing that this phenomenon that was taking place was part of God’s plan – spoken by their own prophet Joel – and a validation of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, whom they and the Romans had killed. In response to their contrite question, Peter answers, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” 

Let’s make some observations about Peter’s altar call. 

First, it is given to “devout people.” I keep banging that drum because this is a inter-religious conversation, not a call from believers to unbelievers. Don’t forget that the reason the crowd was gathered there was to celebrate Pentecost, Shavuot, a religious harvest festival, rooted in the Scriptures and all about God’s call to live with thanksgiving and abundant grace. This story does not contradict the celebration or meaning of Pentecost, it fulfills it. 

Second, they are called to “repent.” One part of that inter-religious conversation is that there was a real and horrible injustice that was committed when the religious leaders conspired with the Romans to kill Jesus. As Peter puts it “this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. (v.23)” Remember, this harsh claim is not a legitimation of anti-Semitic violence like the Kristallnacht violence of 1938. If anything, this story invites Christians to speak out boldly and forthrightly to other Christians who commit horrible acts of violence and hatred in the name of their faith. That’s what Peter is calling his fellow devotees to repent about – an inordinate act of violence legitimated by faith. Perhaps that is why Peter added, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” There was a real thing at that moment which required repentance and forgiveness, not just sin in general. 

Third, the repentance is for the sake of having their sins forgiven and for receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit that Joel foretold. Between Luke, the theologian writing this story, and Peter, the preacher preaching this sermon, they make a synthetic connection between the wrongful crucifixion of Jesus and the fulfillment of Joel’s promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

This conjunction of repentance and receiving the Holy Spirit is a part of this story that I believe we ought to explore more closely. It is something that we’ve often left up to Pentecostal and Charismatic congregations/preachers to own. I think that is a huge mistake on our part, because congregations/preachers who cling to an exclusivist theology and fundamentalist approach to the Scriptures are among the least equipped to appreciate what is happening in this story. I’ll explore that more in depth next week. 

Until then, may your hearts be so full that people think you’re full of new wine.

Mark of St. Mark

The Joy and Justice of the Gospel, #4

In last week’s message, I promised to look at the book of Acts, revisiting some of the ways that the “conversion stories” are often read there. I’ll start today with Pentecost. 

The story of the Day of Pentecost, from the 2^ndchapter of Acts, is fascinating at many levels. The phenomena of the sound of wind, the fire, the ability to proclaim God’s mighty acts in languages other than one’s own – no wonder the narrator uses words like ‘amazed’, ‘astonished’, ‘bewildered’, and ‘perplexed’ to describe the scene. I would be amiss to overlook everyone’s favorite line in this story, which expresses one way of explaining the perplexity, when some people sneer and say, “They are filled with new wine.” And then there are the geographical references – a nightmare for a liturgist who tries to read some of these unfamiliar names in front of people, but a significant indicator of the linguistic and cultural identities that become part of this story. It’s interesting that the litany of cities, nations, and religious journeys – catalogued in verses 9-11 – is not from the narrator but is the way the people describe themselves. The narrator only says that these were people “from every nation.” 

The phenomenal beginning of this story is followed by Peter interpreting the outpouring of the spirit as a sign that God is at work in Christ. The stirring line that completes Peter’s sermon is: “Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” The crowd is cut to the heart and asks what they ought to do, to which Peter replies, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” Many of the people do – about three thousand added to the apostles’ number, according to the narrator. 

The typical way that I was taught to hear this story was that these were Jews who converted to being Christians. And, of course, there is a lot of truth to that statement. They were indeed Jews, we learn that from the start, despite their countries of origin. Some of them were born into Jewish families and some were “proselytes.” And they certainly were called to “repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” “Repent” here is the verb μετανοέω, which means to change one’s mind, direction, or purpose. It was the message of John the Baptist and was picked up as the message of Jesus, according to Luke. 

So, there is a lot about the interpretation that this story is about Jews who converted to being Christians that seems correct – except perhaps the word “converted.” The connotation of that term suggests that these Jews quit being Jews and started being Christians, that they switched from one religion to another, perhaps even that they moved from being evil to being righteous, from being enemies of God to being God’s beloved. 

But, the narrator does not describe these persons as unbelievers or evil. They are called Jews, followed by the apposition, “devout people.” This adjective ‘devout’ is only used in Luke-Acts and in all three other cases refers to really and truly devout people. It does not signify anything hypocritical, like we might hear the word “pious” used sometimes today (sadly.) It really means living in reverence of God. These folks were devout Jews. And they repented and were baptized in the name of Jesus. That’s the pattern that we want to study a bit more closely next week. 

Mark of St. Mark