Hacking Christianity

March Connection Drive

Wow, almost a year since I last shamelessly plugged for subscriptions.

HX has gotten a lot of traffic in the past few days...6,000 visits (new and repeat) since March 8th. So where are people coming from? From Google Analytics, 90% of the traffic is from the USA with other primarily English-speaking countries taking the bulk of the rest: UK, Canada, Australia. This makes sense given the language barrier. India has double the amount of visitors of any other non-English country.

But focusing on the USA, I finally found the map feature and thought this was really interesting. This is the number of visits since March 8th (when the ~~Glenn Beck~~ Justice story was first posted)

There's a TON of people coming from Texas! I don't even live there! Texas, Tennessee, California, New York, and Oklahoma are the top-five states, with Texas doubling the #2. Wow!

So yes, this is a small-time blog, but I'm quite pleased with the level of conversation and diversity of opinions expressed here. Thanks to all our regular readers for our continuing conversation!

But we're not done and will slink off into the night...there's tons of free ways to interact with and get to know the HX Community. Here's some ways to connect:

Subscribe to the Newsfeed. Seriously, there's no better way to keep up with all your blogs in a feed reader like Google Reader. I've written more about it here: About Subscriptions
Become a fan on Facebook (if you want, you can follow the blog on BlogNetworks too!)
Follow me on Twitter. I don't often post blog posts there, so it is more day-to-day musings that don't need to become blog posts yet.
Subscribe on the Kindle. Pretty cool, eh?
Read my Google Reader Shared Items (you can also get this as a newsfeed too!)
Dude, drop me an email. Seriously. I'll read it.

Thanks for visiting and your continued readership!

Stephen Colbert, Thessalonians, and Lazy People

Stephen Colbert is a fake ideologue host, but he is also a sunday school teacher (in real life!)...and on occasion, it shows! On tonight's show (3/18/2010), he talked about Glenn Beck's social justice miseducation, and interviewed a Catholic priest, holding his own on theological and biblical notions. Comedy and solid theology gold!

But while interviewing Mary Matalin, Matalin said that Jesus said something like "if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day." She also said Jesus said "if you are lazy, you don't eat." I apologize that I don't have the exact quote word-for-word. But Colbert countered that Jesus didn't say either of those. The interview meandered on and the show was over.

Then it got weird. At the last minute of the show, the words "2 Thessalonians 3:10-13" flashed on the screen. Did anyone else see it? What is it?

For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.

2 Thessalonians 3:10-13, NRSV

So it would seem to indicate that Matalin was correct...such admonitions against laziness are in the Bible. But Jesus did not say it, and even 2 Thessalonians is not likely to have been written by Paul, instead representing what John Dominic Crossan calls "the Conservative Paul" who makes other statements contradictory to the other letters of Paul, especially on social issues like poverty and women (more here). Authorship is important in biblical study, people!

So, in short, +2 to Colbert for knowing what Jesus said...but -1 for the show's editors muddying the issue by linking Jesus with 2 Thessalonians.

I will link the video clip tomorrow when it comes online.

Thoughts?

::EDIT:: Here's a link to the episode (watch the whole thing!) and here's a screengrab of what we're talking about:

Embracing a Beta Faith

About 16 months ago, we talked about Beta Church, or seeing church ministries as unfinished, incomplete ministries that people could participate in. We also looked at allowing "beta" ministries to grow unbounded in various ministry contexts in our first series "What the Church can Learn from Wikipedia."

At the Theology After Google conference (why, oh why didn't I attend?) Philip Clayton talked about having a Beta Faith, which is beyond simple church ministry structure towards a faith that is always malleable and in process. Homebrewed Christianity has an hour-long podcast that is really really interesting to listen to. Some excerpts:

[7:50] Beta version is something that apple or windows programmers have put together. You get to try it out, then you get to send them feedback. The very early releases were really primitive programming...didn't have the functionality of Word today or something. But you could write macros. And what those of us who were computer nerds did, we wrote macros and then make shortcuts for virtually every key on our keyboard. We took that basic program but what we actually used had our needs and our interests and our creativity built into it...Beta Faith is a faith where we take what's given, and we bring the creativity, the responses, the questions that we have, and help to make it better.

10:30: What if we could conceive of the church in that beta sense, in process, always renewing, always experimenting in an age where we haven't been given the easy institutions of our parents and grandparents?

Cool. Listen to the podcast here. And for further reading, Jonathan Stegall has a post on this topic here (h/t @blakehuggins)

Thoughts?

Richard Alpert and Doubt [LOST]

As a quick followup to this morning's post on doubt, last week's LOST had an interesting take on the role of doubt. Richard Alpert has (presumably) been doing Jacob's bidding for a few centuries and once that role is taken from him (I'm being intentionally vague for fear of spoilers), doubt consumes him.

Here's the exchange I'm talking about:

RICHARD: What I'm talking about Jack is that...Jacob touched me, and when Jacob touches you... well it's considered a gift... except it's not a gift at all. It's a curse.
JACK: Why do you want to die?
RICHARD: I devoted my life, longer than you can possibly imagine, in service of a man who told me that everything was happening for a reason, that he had a plan, plan that I was a part of, when the time was right that he'd share it with me, and now that man's gone so...why do I want to die? Because I just found out my entire life had no purpose.

To Alpert, certainty was the crutch of faith that he leaned on, certain belief in his role. But when that certainty was taken away, he felt lost and alone, going through a dark night of the soul. It seems like a parallel journey to people who subscribe to determinism, or that every action is willed by God to have a purpose (ie. purpose-driven, perhaps?). When the pieces don't fit together, how does one keep their faith? Or is it better to allow it to die and be resurrected anew stronger than before after the dark night has passed?

Clergy, Don't Stop Believin' (Hold on to the Feelin')

At Hacking Christianity, we often study bad.hacks of the Christian system, ie. actions or beliefs that hurt the Christian witness to the world. Most of them, not surprisingly, deal with hypocrisy. So imagine how much Newsweek's "On Faith" section this week caught my eye with its intriguing conversation about what happens when clergy (or religious leaders) lose their faith and continue to lead a church.

The conversation reflects the same conversation in ordained ministry circles (especially at the level of my process that I'm at): what role does doubt play when it comes to doctrinal beliefs? What are the beliefs that are non-essential for conformity? Can ordinands affirm Christ as God's son, yet reject blood atonement? What are the essentials and at what point might clergy, whose own spiritual beliefs are often in process, see a divergence from their own tradition? Newsweek seems to present three understandings:

At one extreme of orthodoxy, you've got the presumption that clergy believe everything their faith tradition understands as doctrine. Thistlethwaite calls them robots who believe everything 100%, Hirschfield comments that such faith is "nothing more than static answers" which makes "God as its footnote." Carter wonders if the role of preaching is to be "a mere vessel for the transmission of orthodoxy?" I would almost claim that such a position makes doctrine an idol and a faith merely responsive, not reflective. While there are tons of people close to this belief (including an unfortunate number on boards of ordained ministries), 100% doctrinal assent is hard to sustain.

At the other extreme of orthodoxy is the divergence of the preacher's belief with the expressed belief of the tradition in which they are. The predominant sentiment is that such a position is unsustainable over the long run. Cal Thomas succinctly tells such people to resign and go sell something. Hirschfield says the same, but only when the clergy subscribe to "new articles of faith which demand the denigration of the previously held beliefs." Again, such a position is as difficult to sustain as total assent...the dark night of the soul has to end at some point, and you either see yourself in a tradition or you don't.

I think most clergy (honestly) find themselves between these two extremes. Perhaps the happy middle is clergy who are honest about their struggles with faith...while it is in process! Honesty is the best policy (Gaddy), while also respecting the roles of the pastor/parish (Hirschfield). Honest struggle can lead to what Carter talks about: the joy of about being a wounded healer, ie. a "beggar helping other beggars find bread." Finally, such struggles might be the vocation of the clergy, as Hirschfield reminds us:

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said it best when he remarked that, "the purpose of religion is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted". Applied to here, that teaching translates into the demand that spiritual questions and doubt should afflict the spiritually certain, while spiritual answers and faith should offer security to the afflicted.

Rabbi Hirschfield

Finally, the practicum: what ought clergy who wrestle with this do? Newsweek's panel responds with essentially:

If ones beliefs are held in question, be honest about the process while relying on non-parish members to be completely honest with and seek guidance.
If ones beliefs become more solid and they are not compatible with the faith tradition, find an exit from that parish/faith tradition...it is not sustainable.
All clergy should have a spiritual mentor who can talk us through the dark times and help us make these decisions along the way.

I would respond that the panelists miss out on a couple of clergy-types that I know of personally:

Clergy who grew more divergent the more they learned about the faith. Part of the ordination process is becoming very intimate with the essentials of the faith, but it is usually in the practice of ministry that we learn about the non-essentials that can be big deals. What do they do? Their "essentials" are in unity while the "non-essentials" are not. Do they stay?
Clergy who speak too much of their doubts and the parish reacts badly. I know of a church where expressing doubt is like blood in the water and the clergyperson was forced out. Such a fear or experience would cause clergy to not be honest about their beliefs while they are dealing with such things.
Clergy who express doubt all the time on the expression of our faith while holding sacred and true the abstract ideal of our faith. They are comfortable with their faith in abstract but wrestle with how to live it out in actuality. For example, Emergent Christianity holds doubt and mystery as essential components of a healthy faith (yes, such perspectives are mentioned a lot on this blog though I don't consider myself emergent).
Clergy whose faith traditions change over time and no longer speak to them. For instance, the fundamentalist takeover of the Baptist Convention certainly exiled women and progressives from their tradition...and it wasn't the clergy's fault! (EDIT: Gaddy talks about this a bit)

During my ordination process, I talked about being open with my doubts and concerns from the pulpit. I was told that people who were looking for answers wouldn't get much assurance from my sermon. I think such a sentiment reflects the first extreme: that we are to be 100% sure of our answers and offer answers to people. But for those of us who are more comfortable in the mystery of faith (which is NOT the same as refusing to take a stand or make up our minds), offering honest conversation about sustaining ourselves in our doubts is a clear pastoral duty. There's got to be a happy medium here, and this conversation was a reminder to offer a balance between doubt and assurance in the preaching moment.

At the end of the day, honesty and integrity are the most important qualities of a clergyperson. The first sermon that I got responses from nearly 100% of the congregation was when I preached openly and honestly that I doubted that Abraham passed the test of Isaac's sacrifice...people admitted to wrestling with child sacrifice for decades and had never verbalized it! By being honest about doubts but strong about my faith convictions, it opened up conversation that had sat dormant for 30 years or more. Wow.

I don't know if I will ever find myself in this situation of losing the faith in my tradition...Wesleyanism is so embedded it will be hard to chip out of me. But I hope clergy friends and former clergy friends can know that whatever they struggle with, there are good people out there to talk to and to find our way together through. Heck, drop me an email and I'd love to talk about it. But find a community to talk about it and together you can find a way through the dark, dark night.

Thoughts?

Welcome umc.org! Let's talk about Justice!

My friend John Meunier is holding me accountable...I can't write anymore on Glenn Beck than I already have:

Unfortunately, UMC.org has us linked on their front page (see attached image) and I've already had a surge of comments in the past few hours, including some unfortunate ones whose authors have received prayer and comments have been deleted.

However, I hope the blogosphere will forgive me if I don't really want to talk about Glenn Beck, or his sources, or who misinterpreted what. Let's instead talk about Justice. Here's some great links to read:

Kevin Watson has written an extensive article "Prooftexting Wesley" that comments on usage of Wesley's mantra "no holiness but social holiness." He accurately calls us to accountability when we prooftext Wesley...including this blogger! We had a further conversation about social justice v. social holiness where Watson makes this important comment:

I also do not see social justice as antithetical to social holiness. My point is that social holiness is prior and broader. In Wesley’s understanding, I think social justice would come out of social holiness. It would be one part of it, but not the entirety. Or, as we become more holy we become more just. In some ways it may help if we remove “social” and think about holiness and justice. I think most people would agree that these two are not the same thing. However, most people would also agree that a holy person would not be unjust. Likewise a holy society would be a just society.
Commenter Rev. Jeremy Peters unearths this article about John Wesley's historical interactions with the prison system that exhibits both care for spiritual concerns along with physical concerns:

Just how familiar John Wesley was with the prisons of his day can be gauged from the fact that in a period of nine months he preached at least 67 times in various jails -- institutions that he had been known to describe as nurseries of "all manner of wickedness." Indeed, it was because of Wesley's often fearless criticism of prison conditions that he was sometimes banned from visiting inmates there.
...
In 1759, Wesley walked to Knowle, near Bristol, to see a company of French prisoners of the Seven Years War. His report was revealing. "About 1,100 of them, we are informed, were confined in that little place, without anything to lie on but a little dirty straw, or anything to cover them but a few foul, thin rags, either by day or night ...," he said. "I was much affected and preached in the evening on 'Thou shalt not oppress a stranger; for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.' (Exodus 23.9)"
Slacktivist has an important perspective on why "social justice" is an oxymoron:

Justice is, by definition, social. Justice, by definition, is something that exists only between and among individuals and groups of individuals and groups of groups. One might argue that "social justice" is redundant, but one cannot oppose "social justice" without opposing justice itself.
...
Let me be clear: When Glenn Beck asserts that justice is incompatible with the Gospel and with the teachings of Christ, he is not following the Pauline/Augustinian argument that perfect love transcends justice ("Justice that is only justice is less than justice," in Reinhold Niebuhr's phrase). He is, rather, saying that justice itself is a bad thing.
Finally, being linked to again is Eugene Cho whose comment here still echoes in my mind:

But [Cho's church] Quest does speak (and attempts) of pursue mercy, justice, and humility not because they are code words for some sort of agenda but because they are central to the Triune God. How can you read the Scriptures or examine the life and ministry of Christ and not sense that mercy, justice, and compassion – particularly to those who are marginalized – aren’t dear to the heart of God?

Please don’t leave your churches just because they have the words “social justice” on their website. If you want a good reason to leave your churches: Leave if the gospel of Christ isn’t being preached and lived out. And thankfully, justice is an integral part to the gospel of Christ.

So, that's a smidge of justice. It's an inherent part of the Gospel, and an inherent part of Wesleyanism, an inherent part of practically every swath of Christendom, and an inherent part of every form of interpersonal interaction.

And I'm thankful for this whole situation so we can all better articulate what justice is and why it is important.

Welcome to our visitors and thank you for your comments!

Glenn Beck v. United Methodists, part deux

Yesterday's post on Glenn Beck netted 20 comments, 12 retweets, and a mention on UMReporter. Maybe I should try partisan sniping more often to get more readers. Naah, the ends don't justify the means, don't worry.

But the responses here and elsewhere have been enlightening as to just how many people are looking for a reason to avoid talking about justice and society's ills due to a suspicion it's code language for Democrats. Is that the true audience of Beck's remarks? People who are looking for a reason to leave their church that encourages them to set society to rights? Being a pastor, I know all it takes is a little backup to self-justify behavior. Sigh.

But to revisit the issue, today (March 11th 2010) Mr. Beck addressed the issue again:

Today, Beck returned to the subject, insisting that the notion of social justice is "a perversion of the Gospel," and "not what Jesus would say." He went on to say that Americans should be skeptical of religious leaders who are "basing their religion on social justice," and explained his fear that concern for social justice is a problem "infecting all" faith traditions.

Here's his specific words:

"There are members [of Beck's church] who preach social justice all the time. It is a perversion of the Gospel. Nowhere does Jesus say, "hey if someone asks for your shirt, give your coat to the government"...That's not what Jesus would say. You want to help out, you help out. It changes you. That's what the Gospel is all about you...you, you change it, not have the government dictate it."

Again, Mr. Beck makes the same mistake: equating social justice as a code word for the Democratic platform. From the blogtalk I've witnessed, it's an equating of social justice with the social welfare programs so bitterly hated by that edge of politics. But as talked about 18 different ways on the internets, social justice is beyond Beck's comprehension in scope and its reflection of the Gospel.

I like all of these, but I like what Eugene Cho says the best:

But [Cho's church] Quest does speak (and attempts) of pursue mercy, justice, and humility not because they are code words for some sort of agenda but because they are central to the Triune God. How can you read the Scriptures or examine the life and ministry of Christ and not sense that mercy, justice, and compassion – particularly to those who are marginalized – aren’t dear to the heart of God?

Please don’t leave your churches just because they have the words “social justice” on their website. If you want a good reason to leave your churches: Leave if the gospel of Christ isn’t being preached and lived out. And thankfully, justice is an integral part to the gospel of Christ.

Boom.

Thoughts?