Sidewalk Cracks

Ok, so, one minute I'm on the phone with a mission developer (i.e. a pastor who is starting a new faith community/congregation/ministry) who is looking for a coach and she's dreaming out loud about a church that a) addresses the lonliness and isolation that deadens people in suburbia and b) wakes them up to a life that means something by inviting them to work for justice and serve their neighbors and give themselves away for the sake of the world...and I'm totally psyched. I'm like, "Yeah! That's right! Preach it, sister!" And I'm thinking this is exactly the kind of "church" we need to be growing. And I think I even said, "The whole 'me and Jesus' church that invites you in so we can 'make you successful and make your life better' is so over. People today want their lives to matter." And the very next minute - I'm not kidding, as soon as I hung up the phone - I'm facing this headline in today's Chicago Tribune: Sidewalks crack suburb tranquillity By Courtney Flynn Tribune staff reporter Published May 9, 2007 Here's the story: While new housing developments in suburbia these days almost always include sidewalks, because we've discovered that sidewalks help connect people to each other and create community, the older developments didn't. And, to the surprise of town planners, efforts to bring sidewalks to these neighborhoods are causing a firestorm. Petitions, protests, angry town council meetings. We don't need them, people are saying. We walk our dogs in the street! Our kids get on the bus right in front of their houses. Everybody drives everywhere, anyway. It'll cost too much money. And, above all, you never know who those sidewalks will be inviting into your neighborhood.

[Hubert] Frank, 68, who organized a petition for Whitehall Drive, said sidewalks could also pose a safety risk by welcoming strangers into the neighborhood. "There's strange things happening in the world today, so why would we want to open up that possibility?" he said...The concern is, who knows what you'd be encouraging to come through."

"Who knows WHAT you'd be encouraging to come through...," Mr. Frank said. Not even WHO. This is sin, right? I mean SIN. In other words, this is people turning in on themselves, away from God...away from neighbor. And wherever there are people, there is sin. So, I'm not going to blame the sidewalk wars on anybody or any institution in particular. But I'm feeling a little cranky right at the moment. And here is what I'm thinking: Not only have all of our "me and Jesus" churches failed to address this sin in our suburban neighborhoods, we have contributed to the problem! We have allowed people to huddle up in the safety of our beautiful buildings and put them to sleep with assurances of personal salvation (given "FOR YOU!") and numbed them with our 3-point sermons on how to build happy families (as though there is some kind of reward - rather than a cross - for following God's 12 step program). We have given them the illusion that they are part of a real community because we smile at them when they come through the door on Sunday morning and, if they wear the nametag we ask them to, treat them like family...instead of like the strangers they really are...sending the message that strangers are BAD and difference is unacceptable. Aaargghhhh! This is SO not "over!!" Dear new friend of mine, working the mission field of American suburbia: You can't get that new church up and running soon enough. [Read the whole story at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0705090110may09,1,6246343.story?page=1&coll=chi-news-hed.]

An Open Letter To Barack Obama's Pastor

Dear Reverend – It would appear, given the current media frenzy, that one of your parishioners is about to be crowned King of the Democratic Party. And he appears ready to accept the crown. But before you hang that “White House or Bust” banner across your pulpit, it’s time for a little reality check. The Senator Obama who just kicked ass in the first quarter fund raising drive will never get elected president of the United States of America. Not in 2008. Not ever. And it’s quite possible that it’s all your fault. Frankly, if it weren’t for the fact that the opponent in his last (and first) congressional campaign was the reliably wacky Alan Keyes, imported from out of state by a Republican Party caught off guard by the lurid sexcapedes of their candidate Jack Ryan, Senator Obama would still be a little known Chicago pol serving time in the downstate Illinois capitol. I think even I could have taken Mr. Keyes out on election day – Illinoisians outside of Chicago are conservative but they’re not crazy – but presidential contender Obama has confessed that Mr. Keyes almost got the best of him. “Alan Keyes,” he reports in his now best-selling book The Audacity of Hope, “presented the essential vision of the religious right in this country, shorn of all compromise. Within its own terms, it was entirely coherent, and provided Mr. Keyes with the certainty and fluency of an Old Testament prophet. And while I found it simple enough to dispose of his constitutional and policy arguments, his readings of Scripture put me on the defensive. ‘Mr. Obama says he’s a Christian,’ Mr. Keyes would say, ‘and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination. Mr. Obama says he’s a Christian, but he supports the destruction of innocent life.’” Senator Obama passionately describes the dilemma that Democrats across the U.S. have found themselves in over the past several decades: “What could I say?” he wonders aloud. “That a literal reading of the Bible was folly? Unwilling to go there, I answered with the usual liberal response in such debates.” In other words, he dodged it. And that left his constituencies – and Senator Obama himself – “steeped in doubt” about whether or not he can call himself a “true Christian.” And everybody knows you can't get elected president of the United States today unless you are a "true Christian" (or a Mormon who acts like one). So all I can say to you, Mr. Reverend Sir, is: Shame on you. And shame on all of us who are "leaders" in the church today who have failed to teach people a responsible way to read and understand the Bible. We've allowed Sunday School literalism to become the foundation of the "true" Christian faith and we've made heros of those who check their brains at the church door. We've ducked and weaved when our parishioners have come at us with "hard" questions about creation and Noah and women preachers and all the rest instead of telling them the truth about what we learned in seminary and what we ourselves believe. We've tried to protect them because we've assumed their faith is too fragile to ask questions and deal with the uncertainties that are inherent in any ancient text. And we've tried to protect ourselves and our pay checks because we've assumed that, angry because we've upset their childhood faith, they'll fire us. Shame on all of us. If you're at all interested in seeing Senator Obama in the White House come January 2009, hop on the next plane to wherever his campaign has taken him and sit him down for a little one one one Bible Study. Teach him about all of the ways faithful Christians are reading the Bible these days - tell him about historical criticism - tell him about the narrative approach - tell him that the Word of God is bigger than the Bible! - tell him that JESUS is the Word of God and that, the last time we checked, Jesus is still alive and kicking - in other words, tell him that GOD IS STILL SPEAKING in and through the Bible but also in many and various other ways today. Tell him that "true" Christians worship a living Lord; they do not worship a book. Above all, tell him to quit second guessing himself and his faith. You don't have to read the Bible literally in order to be a "true Christian." In fact, a literal reading of Scripture IS folly...not to mention unfaithful, dangerous, and IMPOSSIBLE. Tell him that.

Hey, Remember This?

v. Faith of our fathers, we will love both friend and foe in all our strife; and preach thee, too, as love knows how by kindly words and virtuous life. c. Faith of our fathers, holy faith! We will be true to thee till death. Text: Frederick W. Faber, 1814-1863

The Right is Right about This

,By the way, welcome to my new blog. I've always been incredibly undisciplined when it comes to journaling, which is what this feels like, and so we'll see how long it lasts. But right at this point in time I'm feeling a need to spout off about a few things. Like the photo on the front page of my paper this morning - Hill & Bill on one end of the line and Obama on the other - marching hand in hand with leaders in the African American community at the front of the procession through downtown Selma and across the bridge where Alabama state troopers attacked non-violent protesters in 1965. The whole thing was broadcast on national TV and people responded to it in such horror that 10 days later LBJ proposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was passed by Congress later that year. Both candidates spoke in the pulpits of black churches in Selma yesterday morning - Obama at the church where the protestors had gathered the morning they were attacked. How come it seems like almost nobody remembers that, once upon a time, it was possible to be a faithful, passionate Christian AND have progressive politics?!? How did we get into this mess? Among other things, I'm going to say that progressives have just been too damn nice. In fact, one charge the fundamentalists level at us that is actually fair and true is that we are too tolerant. We are. We've tolerated them.

It's Time - The Blog Entry that Started it All

Addressing the American Conservative Union's Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. yestereday, Ann Coulter used one of the F words that isn't "faith" to describe presidential candidate John Edwards. This elicited roars of approving laughter from the crowd. Edwards' campaign has responded by using the whole situation as a fundraising tool. You can read about his effort...and watch the video at: https://johnedwards.com/action/contribute/coulter. I want to know: Why isn't Edwards using the outrageous behavior of this crowd and its speaker as an opportunity to come out loud and clear in support of equal rights for all Americans, including gay and lesbian persons? I can't imagine a better chance ever coming along! Only the most bigoted, most ignorant, most mean-spirited person could watch this video clip and not be utterly horrified. Seize the moment, John! Let people see and hear it for themselves! And then tell everybody why you are committed to helping this nation be its very best self, why you will do everything in your power to bring us together around the enduring values of liberty and justice for all, why you will risk all to do the right thing. I sent him an email today and pledged to give $1000 bucks to his campaign if he does it. I told him to stop being a chicken. You see, I still have this crazy idea that our political leaders pay attention to us and that we can make a difference. But I won't be surprised if he doesn't respond. Too many of our religious and political leaders are paralyzed by fear these days. Political leaders are afraid of losing elections. Religious leaders are afraid of losing members - and their pensions. All of them are being held captive by the fundamentalist terrorists who have hijacked Christianity in this country. I'm talking here about the Christians who want to turn Jesus into a poker-faced, stick-in-the-mud, my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God, straighten-up-or-else-you’re-going-to-hell, rule-making, balls-busting, line-drawing, fear-mongering, noose-tightening, gay-bashing, reason-defying, flag-waving, saber-rattling, son-o-bitch. They use Jesus to stick it to those who are different, either because they dare to be or because they just can’t help having been born that way. They use Jesus to justify their prejudices. Prop up their platforms. Plump up their bank accounts. They use Jesus to be their excuse for the walls they build that keep “those people” out, whoever “those people” happen to be at any given point in history. And if anybody dares to question this picture of Jesus, dares to suggest that maybe we’ve gotten just a little off track, they are branded. Heretics. Pagans. Traitors. Worst of all: LIBERALS. Sometimes I wonder why the rest of us aren't rising up, in one single fluid we’re-not-going-to-take-this-anymore movement, to shout with their loudest outside voices that THIS IS NOT THE JESUS WE KNOW! But it’s time. I know there are people like me out there, people who are fed up with the way in which their churches…their faith…and the Jesus they know…have been co-opted and distorted by religious and political leaders on the right. I have met them. Some of them were hippies, back in the day. They plastered “Jesus Freak” bumper stickers across their beat up guitar cases. They went around in sandals, even in the winter, just like he did. They believed in simple living. They loved the earth. They did a lot of weird things, but they did a lot of good things, too. And, today, they seem to have lost their voices. But they do remember when being a liberal was a good thing. A holy thing, even. When “liberal” meant “generous.” Altruistic. Greathearted. They remember when Christians marched with those who were tired of sitting, if the only place they could find a seat was in the back of the bus; when Christians gave voice to the voiceless and made this nation look beyond itself in horror at a world where far too many children spend sleepless nights because their stomachs are so empty and their futures so bleak. They remember when Christians knew these verses by heart and believed them:

[The Lord] has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8)?

Then [the Lord] will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40)

Do to others as you would have them do to you (Luke 6:31).

But a lot of the frustrated Christians I meet today weren’t hippies. Some of them were too old to be; some too young. A lot of them aren’t sure they like the “liberal” label at all, or any label, for that matter. A few of them even think of themselves as “conservative.” The vast majority of them are somewhere in the middle. But all of them know that something has gone desperately, horribly wrong with the Christian church in this country. They may not be able to quote the Bible. They may not know all the theological terms. They may not play the guitar and, if they have bumper stickers at all, they don’t say “Jesus Freak.” They say “Grandparents for Peace.” And “Hate is not a Family Value.” And in their hearts, where once upon a time God promised to write the holiest words, they know that the farther this nation leans to the right the more wrong we are. And it is time for us to take a stand. We're out here, John. I promise we are.