July 2009 Archives

People often ask me why I don't blog more often in the crucible of the news cycle when an issue is "hot."  My friends and editors are always trying to get me to speed up--as I tend to be slow with my words.  Last week, for example, I was quiet as the war of words escalated between partisans in the Professor Gates/Cambridge police affair.  President Obama did, of course, jump in the fray with his poorly chosen assessment that the Cambridge police behaved "stupidly," only to apologize a couple of days later and invite the wronged parties to the White House for beer

President Obama's actions underscore my reticence to enter the blog-fray in heated battle.  By inclination and academic training, I'm a historian.  Historians believe that the more time we have to understand a situation, the better.   When seeing the picture of Professor Gates hauled away in handcuffs from his own house, I was shocked.  But I also suspected that something had happened of which I was unaware.  As a commentator, I had a sense of my own limitations.  Better, I thought, to let the picture speak for itself.  And better to hold back before starting to call someone names like "racist" or "bigot" or "idiot" or "rogue cop" or whatever.  The escalation is even more shocking than the original event--culminating yesterday with Glenn Beck calling President Obama a racist!

If nothing else, the events leading up to today's Beer Summit at the White House have underscored the importance of slow words.  Although progressive Christians are known for activism, liberal and progressive Protestantism also is marked by a commitment to intellectual analysis.  As a group, we are often painfully slow at decision-making--sometimes to the point of institutional paralysis.  But we are so slow because we believe that the world is a complex place that defies black-and-white (no pun intended) characterizations.  In particular, morality and ethics are often shades of grey, a shadowy realm of mixed human motives and less-than-perfect choices.  In my religious tradition, moving slowly is a spiritual practice--one that accounts for careful and thoughtful engagement with important ideas and events.

The progressive emphasis on thoughtful analysis is more than a matter of taste or the privilege of educated elites.  It is drawn from--what is arguably the most important of all liberal Christian sacred texts--the New Testament Letter of James.   This week's shouting match is well-described in this ancient paragraph:

For all of us make many mistakes . . . The tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.  How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!  And the tongue is a fire.  The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell . . . No one can tame the tongue--a restless evil, full of deadly poison (James 3: 2-8).

The letter's author goes on to say that the tongue is corrected only by "works done with gentleness born of wisdom," by those who "make peace."  Quick and uninformed judgment must be restrained by a quest for wisdom.

Here, at Progressive Revival, Paul Raushenbush and I are trying to create a blog space that reflects the deepest virtues and values of mainline Protestant traditions--a way of being in the world that believes to hold back the tongue--even for a moment--creates the space for understanding, opens new possibilities, and allows us to glimpse God's reign.  Consideration, discernment, and thoughtfulness should never be an excuse to avoid action; rather, they should frame the way we act.  We're not in a contest for speed; we're on a journey toward wisdom. 

In the midst of the fray, I humbly invite spiritual progressives into a "slow word" movement.  Like the "slow food" movement that argues food must be savored to be healthy, so care-filled words also need to be digested in order to be wise, to act justly, and to make peace.  Slow words are a spiritual practice, one much needed in a world of junk politics and faux news events.  Slowing down, guarding our words, might reintroduce a measure of reality into our lives. In order to change the world, we must first learn to bridle the tongue.

The time to fight for a public option healthcare program is now.  As reported on the Huffington Post, the Senate finance committee has offered a bi-partisan proposal that would drop the public option for health care:

These officials said participants were on track to exclude a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for large businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite President Barack Obama's support for such a plan.

This is bad news for those of us who think that one of the most important groups to be considered in the health care debate are the 50 million or so who do not have health insurance at all.  In an earlier post I wrote about Christianiizing the health care debate in which I said:

The impetus for our need to correct our health care system is not that it is failing the rich - it is that it is failing the poor, the fifty million or so  Americans who have no or little health care and for whom getting sick requires deciding whether or not to risk bankruptcy to get healthy.  Christianizing the health care debate would give the concerns of poorest of our society equal weight to the concerns of the wealthy.   

This new plan by the senate finance committee does little or nothing for those who are most vulnerable.  It may be telling that the members of the finance committee come from the great states of Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, New Mexico,  Wyoming and Maine. Not states with big populations of people uninsured, although the rural poor in these states could probably use more assistance than they are getting. 

President Obama made the mistake of leaving the country while health care heated up, and then distracting the country by getting involved in the Gates/police controversy.  The health care debate has gotten dangerously off course.  it is time for all of us who support the government option to call our senators and make sure that a government option is offered - health care is too important to be left in the hands of the insurance and pharma industries and their lobbyists   

I think President Obama was right to soften the tone of his statement the other day on the Gates arrest incident; the word "stupid" wasn't a helpful word choice.

But the word, I think, accurately describes the reaction of a lot of white male commentators to the incident.

Let's assume (for a minute, anyway) that Sgt. Leon Lashley, the African American officer who was present at the arrest, got it right when he said Dr. Gates reacted inappropriately to the investigating white police officer, Sgt. James Crowley. Further, let's assume that Sgt. Crowley acted "according to protocol" in arresting Dr. Gates for his overreaction. And further, let's assume that President Obama spoke inappropriately when he used the word "stupidly" without knowing the full story. I'm not saying this is the whole story, or the best way to view the story, but even if we grant these assumptions ...

What remains truly stupid, in my opinion, is for the discussion to stop where it seems to stop among many cable news pundits, sanctimoniously blaming Gates, Crowley, or Obama for this or that transgression. It's especially unwise for white folks like me ... many of whom remain surprisingly unaware of the concept of white privilege ... to fail to see the background reality into which this incident provides a teachable moment. (For a refreshingly reflective analysis, see this short article.)

Whether it's the Gates incident or the Sotomayor hearings, I am saddened to hear so many white American Christians (Catholic, Evangelical, etc.) jump on the Hannity/Limbaugh/Buchanan/Beck/Fox News bandwagon. Their reactive move toward finding someone to blame -- case closed -- reveals to me how much these commentators (rather than Billy Graham, any recent Pope, the Bible, or any denominational headquarters) have become the primary source of spiritual formation (not just political misinformation) for large sectors of the white American church.

Sadly, many commentators in the world of Religious Broadcasting simply apply a thick coat of cosmetic prayer and Bible-talk to the same ideology of their secular thought-leaders. (If your blood pressure is low in this regard and you need to notch it up a few points, watch, listen to, or read Bill Moyers' recent piece on Right Wing Radio ... Rage on the Airwaves. Especially note Bill O'Reilly's spookily frank comments on the "white male power structure.")

Thank God for bridge-building leaders like pastor Efrem Smith, seeking to provide the American Christian community a more fair, balanced, and wise perspective. He, like many of my friends of color, understands how Dr. Gates must have felt, because he has his own stories of committing the "crime" of DWB or DWH (Driving While Black, or Driving While Hispanic). Notable quote:

It's important that my White evangelical brothers and sisters not let Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh give the proper perspective on seeing this issue. Jesus had the ability in Scripture of seeing the world from the vantage point of the child, the woman, the Samaritan, and the poor. Why are some evangelical conservatives only willing to see this from the vantage point of the police officer? I know that Dr. Gates isn't poor, but he does represent the historically marginalized in our nation. And please don't down-size this social sin to victimization. I'm not a victim, I'm just an African-American male who gets pulled over by the police from time to time for no reason. This is why, I'm with Dr. Gates on this one and you should be too.

"Jesus had the ability ... of seeing the world from the vantage point of the [other]," Smith rightly says. The Biblical word for that ability, I think, is compassion. So, as we assess this situation, may we have compassion for Dr. Gates, for Srgts. Lashley and Crowley, for President Obama, and for all our neighbors of whatever skin color who share an ugly history and a messy present moment and the common challenging of creating a better future.

And yes (I'm preaching to my own soul here), may we also feel compassion for the broadcasters whose punditry serves to reinforce white male privilege and reduce compassion for too many of us. After all, they can only speak what's in their hearts, and right now, there's a lot of fear and outrage screaming inside them. Their fear and outrage will only grow as resistance to white male privilege grows, white male privilege being so inherent to reality as they have known it that they consider it normal and the way things ought to be. Unless they are liberated from their fear and freed to discover a better vision of how things can be, their reactions will only get even more shrill and extreme.

Without compassion, without the ability to see the world from the vantage of the other, we're all TWS (talking while stupid).

cross posted from Brianmclaren.net

Three news stories in recent days point to significant change in the landscape of North American religion.  For decades now, the conventional wisdom about church growth has been that only conservative churches--those that take the Bible literally and embrace conservative politics--could grow.  But it appears that conventional wisdom is being seriously questioned.

Take a look at these stories:

1.     The Southern Baptist Convention--the largest and most conservative Protestant denomination in the USA--records a continued decline in baptisms and an increasingly aging membership.  The oft-reported number of 18 million members has declined in the last decade to just over 16 million.  And, according to journalist Christine Wicker (see her book, The Fall of Evangelical Nation), the internal number of active members may well be around 5 million people.

2.     The Anglican Church of North America, the umbrella group for conservative Episcopalians who have left their denomination over women's ordination and full inclusion of gay and lesbian persons, has long claimed over 100,000 members.  Recently, they admitted that only 69,000 persons in 650 churches in the USA and Canada have joined their association. There are 2.2 million Episcopalians in the United States and approximately 1 million in Canada.  Thus, the conservative group--the one that has garnered so much media attention in recent years is a very small percentage of the entire North American Anglican membership--some 2% of the total.  And with their rigid opposition to women's ordination, it is hard to imagine that this group will find much appeal with young North Americans. 

3.     President Jimmy Carter last week publicly explained why he renounced his life-long affiliation with the Southern Baptists in an opinion piece appearing in The Age.  He denounced the Convention's leaders statement that women are inferior to men (created "second") and responsible for original sin as inherently discriminatory and that Southern Baptist views on gender were contrary to both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the teachings of Jesus. 

Taken singly, the stories might seem anecdotal.  But there are many other examples as well--the decline of Roman Catholicism among all demographic groups except new immigrant communities, the acceptance of LGBT inclusion among young evangelicals--and added together they are snapshots of what quantitative surveys have been pointing out for a couple of years--that membership decline isn't only the struggle of liberal churches.  As Jon Meacham wrote earlier this year in a Newsweek cover story, many conservative Christian groups aren't really doing very well, either.  The old accusation--and theological threat used by conservatives against mainline denominations--that the denominations have failed because they are too liberal--is now being proved false by both qualitative journalists and quantitative researchers.  Almost all Christian institutions are experiencing slowing growth and/or membership declines.  The only growing Christian churches in North America are "non-denominational," and those congregations are difficult to classify theologically because they are so diverse.

What is causing the erosion of Christianity in North America?  Most North Americans look at Christianity--especially as embodied in religious institutions--and find it wanting.  I suspect that Christianity is in decline because it appears both hypocritical and boring.  Although young North Americans express deep longings for a loving, just, and peaceful world, they don't find an equal passion for transforming society in meaningful ways in most congregations.  And, sadly, many churches simply lack the imagination and passion that many spiritual people are searching for.  Folks aren't looking for answers nearly as much as they are trying to clarify their questions and are hungry for accepting communities in which to ask them.

If you think about it, mainline liberal churches embody a theological vision of God's reign that resonates with contemporary hopes for social transformation.  But they often lack passion, acting on God's dream for the world in business-as-usual ways.  Conservative churches are chock-full of passion.  But they are often passionate about all the wrong stuff--like excluding people and supporting the military-and-economic status quo that is destroying the planet.  

Perhaps North American Christians are smarter than anyone suspects--that we are looking for congregations, communities and denominations that put the pieces together--passionate, imaginative, open, justice-seeking, inclusive, and loving gatherings of faith that actually live, as Jimmy Carter put it, "the teachings of Jesus Christ."  If progressive faith communities can be both--transformative and passionate--we may be better poised to reach a new generation than the "decline" bellyaching of recent decades suggests.  With the waning of conservative churches, it may well be the historical moment for the rest of us to step up the the spiritual plate.