Faith and Politics - My Journey

Some of my earliest memories are of God.

God was there for me, and I was never afraid of God.

That carried through high school (Grand Rapids Christian High School).

And Calvin College.

And then to Seminary, and all the years since.

Sometime in 9th or 10th grade, I subscribed to U.S. News and World Report.

I read every issue.

Slowly, the world of mice and men merged with my sense of God and Bible reading.

In high school, I bought a huge Thompson's Chain Reference Bible, and I loved it. I found my verses, underlined them, memorized them, and made them mine, but the best was yet to come.

In seminary, I began to read the whole Bible, and that's pretty much continued over the years.

My teaching mantra: "Read lots of the Bible in single settings, and read often."

Out of this mix of reading and personal history, I made my political decision when I turned 21 and was able to vote.

But was it just Bible and then politics?

No!

The whole of my life - for whatever reason, I very much felt like the outsider, and that gave me sympathy for the outsider. I was sick a lot as a child - bad allergies and lots of colds and coughs. I was overweight much of the time. My family moved often. My mother had great difficulties with most of the family and some of their friends. My father was on the fringe of things. My older brother was gone off to college when I was 9, and we didn't see much of each other thereafter.

I've always had feelings for those who are shunned by others, who don't belong, who are looked down upon.

Wasn't always consistent, that's for sure. I was a terrible racist.

It was in college where the debris of racism was finally gathered up and swept away by Dr. Roger Rice who had us read Michael Harrington's "The Other America." This professor will always be enshrined in my memories.

Slowly, my world came together.

Theologically, what mattered was grace.

No one has better understanding of grace than the Apostle Paul.

And then Calvin.

My Presbyterian story.

Amazing Grace.

These are the bits and pieces of who I am, from little on.

This is my story.

And why I see the world as I see it, and think about politics as I do.

I've been reading the Prophets as of late.

Strong reading.

Confirmation, I think,

What God despises is military might and the pride that goes with it.

Wealth without restraint.

Mistreatment of the vulnerable - the failure of the nation to care for its weakest citizens, and even the alien within its boundaries.

And false gods.

False gods are always present and evident in the above: the love of military might, and reliance upon it. Love of wealth and the accumulation of more and more. Contempt for the poor, ignoring their needs, taking advantage of them, impoverishing them even further.

No matter the pretense of faith, behavior reveals the false gods.

So ...

All greatness is of God.

All greatness becomes arrogant.

God brings down all arrogance.

How do I vote?

I vote for the politicians that have the larger grasp of what justice is all about. A big vision of the world, and our place within it. Those who proclaim "America the greatest" are just plain wrong, sadly mistaken, and need to immerse themselves in the Bible before they yammer on like some silly potentate of old.

I vote for those who have a sense of the underdog, the vulnerable - who look upon them and their plight with compassion rather than contempt. Who see them as people, not parasites. Who see them as victims of big systems that serve the wealthy. Who understand that it's the job of priest and prophet and king to address these needs and maintain balance for all citizens.

I vote for those who understand the manna principle: that those who have much won't have too much, and those who have little won't have too little.

I have no time for Ayn Rand and her blighted view of things.

She's to be pitied.

Not believed.

How strange that anyone who professes faith in Christ would shape her bitterness and bile into a political vision.

But so it goes in this world of cabbages and kings.

Racist Debris

I hate it

When

Racist debris floats to

The surface of

My mind.

Those murky paradigms of

A time long ago.

They rise unbidden.

To sink again.

But a stench they leave

Behind in the mind.

I hate it.

"Christianity After Religion" - book review

Posted at Amazon

A review of Christianity after Religion by Diana Butler Bass.
By Tom Eggebeen


Two words come to mind: honest and hopeful.

Diana Butler Bass is an honest writer - no punches pulled on her descriptions of the changing times in which Christianity finds itself, and her descriptions of the many deformities of the Christian Church in the West, and especially in America with its sense of "exceptionalism" (an inordinate pride in our religious landscape) and no punches pulled, either, on the dangers confronting the Spiritual Awakening emerging in these times.

If any reader here wishes to get some handles on the monumental changes occurring throughout the world, in all religions, no better place to begin than with this book.

But let me move to the next word: hopeful.

While the author's comments on Jonathan Edwards are most helpful - i.e. human beings, fervent and faithful, cannot, of themselves, bring about Spiritual Awakening. That belongs only to God. Yet, there is one thing the faithful, the hopeful, can do, and that's to pray!

And adopt a variety of other behaviors, disciplines, described in detail, to engage the world with eyes that see and ears that hear and hands that do.

The author reflects upon her own efforts to see and hear the world with an appreciative, loving, heart. To see people, hear them, and walk with them.

Will this bring about the Awakening?

In one sense, the Awakening is already upon us ... the world as we knew it is disappearing, and though various nativist groups and ideologies seek to return us to the past, the world moves in only one direction, and that's forward.

The character of the Awakening is known to us - much of the book offers detailed analysis of it - and even if we lament what is lost, we can join hands with those who seek a better world.

And honest book full of solid, scholarly, analysis, and, as well, a hopeful book, outlining ways and means that we can embrace right now and the emergent Awakening.

This book deserves the widest possible reading - by those who love the church and those who have rejected it, often times for very good reasons. Religion plays an enormous role in human history, for good and for ill, and to understand religion a bit more can only help all of us.

Thanks to Diana Butler Bass for this remarkable contribution.

Catholic Boys "Respect" Girls in Phoenix

One of the more surprising pieces of news in recent days comes out of Phoenix:

An Arizona Catholic high school forfeited a shot at a state baseball championship on Thursday rather than compete against an opponent that had a 15-year-old girl on its team.

Our Lady of Sorrows Academy in Phoenix had been due to play Mesa Preparatory Academy in the Arizona Charter Athletic Association state championship.

But the team pulled out rather than face the Mesa squad, which fielded 15-year-old Paige Sultzbach at second base.

A school official noted:

Teaching our boys to treat ladies with deference, we choose not to place them in an athletic competition where proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty.

Our school aims to instill in our boys a profound respect for women and girls.

Our Lady of Sorrows is run by traditionalist, conservative priests who do not agree with Roman Catholic Church reforms enacted by the Vatican II Council in the 1960s and who broke from the Church in the 1980s. 

The girl's mother noted: "It wasn't that they were afraid they were going to hurt or injure her, it's that (they believe) that a girl's place is not on a field."

That's right.

Because a girl's place is to get ready to have babies!

Lots of babies.

And out of respect, of course, these girls, when married, will be denied birth control.

And, heaven forbid, access to abortion.

Because a woman's purpose in this life is nothing more than having babies.

Athletic pursuit? Don't think so.

Careers? Don't think so.

Write books and climb mountains? Don't think so.

Do research? Don't think so.

Lay flat on your back and let some eager Catholic Boy, who respects you, have a go at ya'. Yup, for sure ... that's what God wants, that's what the Bible says, that's what the "real" Catholic Church teaches - just like Mary, "our Mother of Sorrows," compliant and ready to open her body to the only purpose a woman's body has - bearing children.

And if she doesn't want babies, then no marriage either - off to a Convent, to be trained as a nun, a teacher, removed from life and married to the church for a life of service to the priests of the church.

This version of the Roman Catholic Church, rocked as it is with sexual scandal, is trying to recover its balance by trying to recover the heart of its traditional sexual ethics: women bear children! 

If only the Church can return to this purpose, if only women would pay attention to how God created their bodies, if only women would hush up (and all those uppity nuns, for crying out loud, shut them down, please) then everything else will work out - or, at least, maybe the world won't pay so much attention to what these horrible men are doing if only the women of the church stand up, I mean, lay down, and have tons of babies.

Wal-Mart Blessings

Walmart has single-handedly put tens of thousands of small family-owned businesses out of business.


Sure, selling things at discount prices, but all across America, small towns lost their downtowns and much of their social structure, not to mention Bill and Fran and Sammy and Lydia, who sold the underwear, the wrenches, the TVs and washers in the small stores, and they knew you, and you knew them and you both loved your community. 


Walmart is a monster, as is the 1% - and there is no pay-back whatsoever, except a little more junk in everyone's home, miserable jobs, oh yeah, and ya' get to wear a Walmart vest!

The Culture of Rape

Reflections on the rape of disabled girl recorded on a cellphone video - in South Africa.

The culture of rape, which is alive and well here in the US, too - wherever women are denied their rights because of gender. Just watch what's happening in the GOP right now, the systematic reduction of women's rights. 

Yet some of the comments seem less interested in understand the cultural role of rape and more interested in expression racist junk.

But all that aside, the culture of rape is rooted deeply in much of Africa, too - some of it rooted in Christian missions aligned with the brutality of the Colonial era, where whites regularly rapped African women who "worked" for them. Christian mission repeatedly stressed the "sinful" nature of the woman and her secondary status as God's punishment for Eve's "original sin."

Islam, as well, has generally considered women secondary human beings.

Rape is always a function of power, and the Colonial powers repeatedly demonstrated their superiority with rape as well as the machine gun. The plight of South Africa today is the culmination of Apartheid, the Boer Wars and Britain's systematic denial of human rights. Unemployment is rampant, and as SA sorts itself out, all of sorts of tragedies and social dislocation are occurring.

Rape is also rooted in the deep structures of the world itself - men have always tried to prove themselves superior with sexual dominance.

Just some thoughts - racial stereotyping doesn't help, nor does wishing violence on the perpetrators - we can, and we must, find ways to make a better world. And men everywhere need to think deeply on their attitudes toward women.

Church Advertising

Driving by a non-denominational church the other day, with its typical slogans of “welcome” and “enjoy,” “casual and contemporary,” “a church for people who don’t have a church,” it occurred to me that “non-denominational” churches have to advertise, and all advertising has to appeal to the worst within us - our self-serving instincts.

Places like Willow Creek (at least in the past) refused to advertise, relying only on word of mouth and the personal lives of its members.

In the past, denominational churches didn’t have to advertise, either. Yet, here we can say, they relied on “cultural connections” as much as on word-of-mouth and the personal lives of their members.

Whatever the situation, how much better if all churches quit advertising, other than a name out front, and perhaps a simple word of hope or praise. 

The church in America has to cease appealing to the worst instincts of self-help, self-aggrandizement, self-love and America’s endless quest for personal satisfaction, achievement, youth, beautiful hair and shiny white teeth. 

Infantile at best, demonic at worst, these instincts can never produce a healthy Christian, but only those who claim the name of Jesus for their own personal journey, to maximize the gains of this life and to finally get to heaven when it’s all done, leaving behind an changed world, a world that has been shopped and used, but never loved, and never once given the care mandated by Genesis 1 & 2 and Genesis 12 … not to mention the call of the prophets for justice, kindness and humility.