Archive for the ‘Interfaith’ Category

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Drone Warfare

May 23, 2016

According to Reuters, “…President Barack Obama confirmed on Monday that the leader of the Afghan Taliban had been killed by an American air strike, an attack likely to trigger another leadership tussle in a military movement already riven by internal divisions…The president authorized the drone strike that killed Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a remote region just within the Pakistan side of the border with Afghanistan…”

I am quite conflicted as to the use of drone warfare. On the one hand, it avoids putting U.S. military personnel in harm’s way and limits our interventionism to a kind of “police action” (or rather, targeted assassination) rather than full-scale invasions,”boots on the ground” which looks to all the world like nation-building and occupation.

On the other hand, the likelihood of civilian casualties is higher and the covert nature of authorization by the President and a handful of close advisers rather than a military operation with all its debate, checks and balances seems to me to leave wide open the possibility of abuse, particularly were this policy to continue under, say, a President Trump (a frightening prospect!).

I also worry about this development opening up a wider use of this technology in the years ahead. Surely it will not be long before our enemies have the knowledge and material to construct such drones of their own (if they do not already have such). Then, what is to prevent home-grown terrorists, either as part of an overseas movement or simply one of our right or left wing extremists, building their own right here in the U.S. and targeting, for example, the President of the United States on one of his speaking tours or while on vacation in Hawaii?

I am not a pacifist and even believe, with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that under certain circumstances, even assassination may  fall under the moral rubric of our “responsibility to protect” and be preferable to launching a full scale offensive like the invasion of Iraq in order to effect regime change of a brutal dictatorship. But, this is a slippery slope at best and I believe we need a huge conversation about drones culminating in very strict guidelines and oversight as to just how and when such instruments of modern warfare should be used.

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Communities Of Love

May 22, 2016

On this Sunday when we remember that we Christians are “Trinitarians” (people who believe that God has been revealed to us in three ways – as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit), it’s sort of interesting to see how that understanding developed over the centuries. And our Lessons from Scripture this morning, give us perfect lenses through which to view all this.

We know that one of the founding beliefs of the Jewish people was their conviction that there was only one God.  Contrary to other religions of the times which taught that there were “many lords and many gods,” the Jews believed that there was just one. In fact, their ancient creed, the Shema, stated it well: “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God; the Lord is one!” Can’t put it much plainer than that!

Yet as their faith developed over time, they began to see that, while their God was still one, the nature of God was more complicated than that. And so we get passages in the so-called Wisdom Literature like the one we had today from the Book of Proverbs in which something called the “Wisdom of God” takes on almost a character of its own. This “personification” of Wisdom actually speaks in today’s Lesson:

“To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth…when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always…” (Proverbs 8 passim)

There are other passages like that in the Old Testament and throughout the Apocrypha (which was written after the Old Testament but before the New) – books like Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon. There’s still only one God, but he’s interacting with Someone “up there!”

Jesus would have grown up with that kind of thinking and certainly by the time John tells of his life in the 4th Gospel, we hear him say things like: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16 passim)

So here, the Wisdom of God (now called “the Spirit of truth”) takes on something of the character of God and so we have the Son speaking, not only of his Father, but of the Spirit who will guide us into all truth.

Writing just twenty years after Jesus’s earthly ministry and perhaps four decades before John finally wrote his Gospel, Paul refers to those same three entities in his Letter to the Romans: “Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 8 passim)

Now none of this is a fully developed Trinity. In fact the word “Trinity” never appears in the Bible – Old Testament or New. It took another three hundred years for the church to wrestle with just how Jesus could be said to be the Son of God and what that might mean. And to figure out just what or who this Holy Spirit was anyway! By the year 325 AD we already had something called the Apostles’ Creed which took all this a little further. And in the year 381 we have the Council of Constantinople producing what we call the Nicene Creed and which we recite in the Eucharist every Sunday.

But what does all that mean? And why should we care? I think it means, that while there is only one God, the nature of that God is complex. There something like “community” in the Godhead itself! And, if that is so and if we are created in the image of God, then we are made for community as well.

The book of Genesis says that it is “not good for the man (OR the woman!) to be alone.” So the story tells about the creation of the first human family. Eventually, in the Bible, God draws some of the descendants of this family into a nation called Israel. Out of that nation comes a Messiah who forms around himself yet another community, the community of the apostles. And that community develops over time into what we call the church.

Dear friends, our relationship with God is never “me and God.” It is “us and God!” There really is no such thing as a “solo” Christian and it’s why all those wonderful people who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” and who attempt to hammer out some kind of relationship with God apart from the church are doomed to failure.

If even God is a community, it should be no surprise that we need to be part of a community ourselves. So, when you get up on Sunday morning some weeks and just don’t feel like ‘coming to church,’ remember that we need you to be here! Even if you don’t feel like you need it yourself, we need you…Because it’s not “me and God.” It’s “us and God.”

My old friend and mentor, Dean Alan Jones once said that there are three images which sum up Christianity – a woman and her baby…the ruined man on a cross…and a community of Persons. Today we celebrate those three Persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are the model of a community of love…May our families, our communities, and our church be the same!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Age of Aquarius…Delayed.

May 20, 2016

Ignorance may be bliss, but awareness solves problems. It can be hard to read about the bad things happening in other places, but often times, the only reason those bad things persist is because not enough people around the world have been made aware of them.

And, with all that being said, the world is actually getting better– much, much better. Here’s a few pieces of evidence to support that claim.

First off, our health and medicine is improving at an extremely fast pace. Infant mortality is down about 50% since 1990, and we have significantly reduced the number of deaths from treatable disease like measles and tuberculosis as well.

A second indicator is the rapid decline in poverty worldwide. Since 1981, the proportion of people living under the poverty line ($1.25/day) has decreased by 65%. 721 million fewer people were living in poverty in 2010 than in 1981.

The third indicator is violence. Or more specifically, the lack thereof. It may seem like the world is constantly embroiled in one conflict or another, but overall, war is almost non-existent when compared to past decades:

And while we regularly see reports of gang violence and constantly debate how much guns should be regulated, violent crime and murders has been plummeting:

So when you start getting too down from watching, reading, or listening to the news, just remember:

We can change the world for the better. We are changing the world for the better.

I don’t want to sound like Pollyanna or to minimize the suffering that too may people experience in our nation and world today. But, contrary to Donald Trump and so many others, we are NOT moving in the wrong direction today. We are moving in the right direction!

And what we need is not a generation of whiners and complainers but people who are willing to roll up their sleeves, get involved in health care, education, politics and the environment and continue to work to make the world a better place, to “promote the general welfare and to form a more perfect union.”

When I was young, like many of the Sanders’ supporters, for example, I too wanted to live in the “Age of Aquarius.” And I thought it was actually on the way! Then, I realized that you have to work to build The Age of Aquarius (or the Kingdom of God) and that it is often slow, plodding, and frustrating work at best.

But, dear friends, we are getting better. Despite what looks like, in our media-saturated age, evidence to the contrary, we are getting better!

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The Children Are Dying

May 17, 2016

Man Found Dead in Crashed Van on I-57; Among 14 People Shot In Chicago

        Police: 3 Killed, 8 Wounded In Monday Shootings Across Chicago

Headlines from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times over the last twenty-four hours. I was in Chicago last weekend on a parish visitation for confirmation. Of course, I saw no shootings, heard no gunfire. Because this particular parish was north and west of the city, although we have plenty on the south and west sides of town where these incidents are most likely to occur.

Most likely indeed. Why? Because of decades and generations of segregation, poverty, unequal education and a lack of job opportunities which,in our day, has led to increasing amounts of drug abuse, gang membership, and an ocean of guns which show no signs of decreasing. The situation is really very little different from when I was in seminary in the late 60s/early 70s and did field work in a Black congregation on the West side and Northwest side parish just getting into Hispanic ministry.

The main difference today is the level of violence because of easy access to high powered weaponry. The virulent racism and rampant disregard for educational and economic equality remains the same. All these years later.

The tragedy and complexity of the situation was highlighted for me because one of the assisting priests in the congregation I visited is also a Chicago policeman. He said that the weekend was among the saddest day of his life, not because of these senseless killings (which he sees all the time and which he seemed almost immune to feeling), but because of a decision by Mayor Rahm Emmanuel to disband the current police oversight board and replace it with “all-civilian” membership.

This priest/officer interpreted this as one more slap in the face of a police force which has been coming under increased scrutiny and criticism in recent years because of incidents of over-reach and even brutality. “Out of the 12,000 officers in Chicago,” my colleague said, “there are maybe 250 who should never have put on a badge. The rest of us are your family members, neighbors, and friends who are working as hard as we know how to keep you safe and be fair to everyone.”

I couldn’t help remarking that 250 “bad apples” can kill a lot of people. But I understood what he was saying. Undoubtedly most members of the Chicago PD are brave and honest people trying to do a dirty job with what feels like little support from the government, from the media, and from the people they serve. Until all of us are willing to make the kind of sacrifices necessary to begin to address the systemic racism and chronic poverty which infect this city, these officers will continue to fight an uphill battle to keep the peace in these neighborhoods.

Please remember such things as you cast your votes in local, state, and federal elections over these next months.

The children are dying.

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Mary’s Pentecost

May 14, 2016

She always felt better when she could be with his friends. True, all of them except the young one, John, had deserted him in the end. But she understood that. She’d been afraid too. And she wasn’t even in immediate danger from the Romans like they were. In any case, he had told her just before he died, “Behold your son.” And to John, “Behold your mother.” So, clearly, he wanted her to be part of them.

She really would have preferred to stay in Olivet which is at least a little distance from where it all happened. But, as they gathered there, it was clear that Jerusalem was where he had wanted to go, and Jerusalem was where they must re-assemble as well. So, they crept in, over the course of a couple of days….individually, sometimes two by two…and began meeting in that same upper room where they had celebrated Passover.

Now, it was the Feast of Weeks, fifty days after the ceremony of the barley sheaf during Passover. It had originally been a harvest festival, marking the beginning the offering of the first fruits. She had always loved its celebration as a child…and so had Jesus! She accepted their invitation to be together that morning. There were other women there in addition to his brothers and, of course, the Twelve (and they were 12 again now, with the addition of Matthias – who had, in any case, never been far from their assembly.)

They had just begun to dance…and sing the Hallel – “Hallelujah! Give praise you servants of the Lord; praise the Name of the Lord” Psalm 113:1 – when the wind picked up. It first whistled and then howled through the streets of the old city. And, even though they had been careful to secure the door, suddenly the shutters rattled and blew open.

Strangely, there was no rain or fog as one might expect with the wind, but sunshine – bright glimpses of it, illuminating every face around their make-shift “altar table.” But they were too caught up in their praise dance to worry about open windows now! And the volume of their singing only increased over the noise of the wind:

“Let the name of the Lord be blessed! Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your Name give glory! How can I repay the Lord for all the good things he has done for me? I will lift up the cup of salvation…Praise the Lord, all you nations; laud him all your people!” (Psalm 113-117 passim)

It was their custom, during the Feast of Weeks (or Pentecost) to gather the poor and the strangers, as well as the priests and Levites, for the great communal meal which was the high point of this great agricultural feast. It was a way of recognizing their solidarity as people of the Covenant, across all the natural divisions of life.

And so, people in the streets were from all over the Mediterranean world. But their racial and ethnic diversity was no barrier to understanding God’s praise that day! She had no idea how it happened, but no matter in what language God’s praise was being spoken or sung, everyone heard it. Everyone “got it” — all of them, from east to west, from the different traditions, ethnic Jews and converts.

And, when the praises began to abate, Mary saw Peter slowly walk to the open window and, flanked by the other Eleven, he said, “People of Judea, and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you…and listen to what I say…” (Acts 2:14)

Well, that may not be exactly how it happened on the first Pentecost. But it must have been something like that.  Clearly, something momentous must have happened to transform that ragtag group of frightened disciples into missionaries and evangelists. Several things happened, of course, to do that…in addition to the miracle of Pentecost.

Their experiences of the Risen Christ, perhaps particularly the one we heard about in the gospel today – the so-called “Johannine Pentecost” from the Gospel of John, with Jesus breathing on them and saying “Receive the Holy Spirit” and empowering them to forgive sins…or to withhold forgiveness. And then, gradually, their discovery of gifts in each other; gifts such as Paul would catalogue years later in his First Letter to the Corinthians:

“Wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous works, prophecy, discernment, various kinds of tongues and their interpretation.” (I Corinthians 12:4-11). Those were the kind of qualities they had seen in Jesus, but now began to see in one another! Clearly, they were meant to do the kinds of works he had done…and to do, perhaps, even greater works…as he had promised. What are those works for us today?

Well this morning we will be confirming/receiving people into the Church. Or rather, they will be confirming themselves – confirming (or re-confirming) the vows which were once taken on their behalf at Baptism…making those promises themselves.

And, as Bishop, I will ask them two questions: “Do you reaffirm your renunciation of evil?” And, perhaps even more importantly, “Do you renew your commitment to Jesus Christ?” To the first they will answer “I do” and to the second, “I do, and with God’s grace I will follow him as my Savior and Lord.”

They must decide for themselves, and promise for themselves, that they will renounce evil. No one can do that for them! And they must decide for themselves, and promise for themselves, to renew their commitment to Jesus. But there is a helpful reminder tagged onto the end of that second answer: “I do, and with God’s grace, I will follow him as my Savior and Lord.”

Following Jesus, over the course of a lifetime, is much more difficult than promising – or even desiring – to do so. And so, we rely on God’s grace…God’s never-failing love. And the vehicle of that love is the Holy Spirit – the gift we celebrate on this Day of Pentecost.

And so when I lay hands on them, I will pray, “Strengthen, O Lord, these your servants with your Holy Spirit; empower them for your service, and sustain them all the days of their life.” (Or, Defend, O Lord, your servants with your heavenly grace, that they may continue yours forever, and daily increase in your Holy Spirit more and more, until they come to your everlasting kingdom.”

I believe God will answer that prayer…in their lives and in the lives of all of us.

And it all started on Pentecost! “Hail thee, festival day! Blest day that are hallowed forever, day when the Holy Spirit… shone in the world… with God’s grace!” Amen!

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Time For A Global Ethic?

May 12, 2016

“Will there be blood?” asks The Miami Herald‘s Leonard Pitts in today’s column. Given the violence at Donald Trump rallies and his apparent endorsing of it, Pitts wonders just how emboldened his supporting bullies might feel to perpetrate such acts on a wide scale should he be elected.

Perhaps even worse, should Trump be defeated, what will his disappointed supporters do if they feel the “rigged system” has let them down once again? Right wing violence has been a problem in this country for decades now. Let we forget, Pitts lists some of them:

“From the Oklahoma City bombing to the Atlanta Olympics bombing to a New York state plot to murder Muslims by radiation poisoning, to a massacre at an African-American church in Charleston, to the attempted bombing of a Martin Luther King Day parade in Spokane, to the crashing of an airplane into an IRS office in Austin to a mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility to, literally, dozens more.” Frightening to see them all massed together like that. How quickly we forget!

And this on the day when we learn that George Zimmerman is planning to auction off the gun with which he killed Trayvon Martin! No doubt, there will be plenty of potential customers.

So many of Donald Trump’s supporters seem to be white males who are fearful and angry that the world they used to think they dominated (and did, in so many ways) is changing and that power is being taken away from them by African Americans and Muslims and women and big government And this is precisely the demographic most likely to be associated with what I believe is rightly called “domestic terrorism.”

Unless and until we move away from the win-at-any-cost, my-way-or-the-highway, might-makes-right, “get-’em-out-a-here, get-’em-out” ethic that pervades so much of our American society today (and in”deed much of the world, if the truth be known) I am afraid that Leonard Pitts’ troubling scenario is all too likely.

What would we replace this prevailing ethic with? I suggest something very simple. Very simple indeed. Simple enough to be found in every major religion in the world and some which are not so major. Something Roman Catholic theologian, Hans Kung, calls “A Global Ethic.”

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or, negatively stated:

What you do not wish done to you, do not do unto others.

Of course, “simple” does not equate with “easy.” But this global ethic actually works — in domestic policy, in economics, in politics, in religion,  in international relations.

Such an ethic has not been tried and found wanting (as C. S. Lewis once said about Christianity itself). It has simply never been tried.

Perhaps it’s time.

Or, consider the alternative.

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Intimidation In Tel Aviv

May 10, 2016

Apparently things have not changed in the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv since my several trips to Israel/Palestine in the 1990s and early 2000s.  Traveling through that airport “last week for a climate justice meeting, World Council of Churches (WCC) staff and partners were detained or deported in a manner that WCC general secretary Rev. Dr. Olav Fykes Tveit terms both unprecedented and intolerable.” Continuing on the WCC website, he writes:

“Members of the WCC’s Working Group on Climate Change from as many as 13 countries reported that they were held for hours of interrogation, including tough intimidation and detention in prison-like conditions for up to three days — a very difficult experience…We believe that it is also in the interest of the government of Israel to address these very unpleasant incidents for future visitors to this country, and to prevent their recurrence,” said Tveit and added, “We are ready to meet and discuss these issues.”

Readers of this blog and my Facebook posts will know that I have a deep commitment to Israel and therefore reserve the right to criticize her government just as I criticize my own, from time to time. I reject the charge that any such criticism is somehow Anti Semitic. I have cast my lot with J Street, the pro Israel, pro peace lobby in Washington DC and consider their positions on most issues related to the Middle East my own.

I well remember receiving the “good cop, bad cop” treatment on various trips through Tel Aviv. A smiling young Israeli woman officer would ask a series of questions while examining my luggage. And then I would be hustled off to a small room where the same questions would be asked in a rough and bullying manner by a team of soldiers, obviously trying to find some inconsistencies in my reasons for travel, etc. They were both rude and abusive.

I am aware that Israel has all kinds of reasons to be hyper vigilant and to maintain high security arrangements. As I’ve written elsewhere, “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you!” But there is no excuse for belligerent and disrespectful treatment of passengers, be they tourists or pilgrims to the Holy Land.

The United States and other countries also have stringent security arrangements in airports, but I have always found the TSA agents to be civil, if not always kind. The state of Israel enjoys a kind of mindless support in this country, but it is not so around the world.

Just as the Palestinians would garner much more support in this country if they would renounce violence and recognize the state of Israel, so would Israel increase its standing around the world by simply humane treatment of those of us who love her and want only the best for her.

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We Don’t Need A Bully In This Pulpit!

May 9, 2016

I have known bullies all my life. I was not particularly “bullied” as a child perhaps because, although I was small for my age, I always fought back when I was. I didn’t often win those brawls (usually behind the gym after school) but the victor would, as often as not, have a bloody nose when it was over. Bullies don’t like being stood up to.

The definition of a bullying is “the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively dominate others. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception, by the bully or by others, of an imbalance of social or physical power, which distinguishes bullying from conflict.” (Graham Juvonem’s article in the Annual Review of Psychology, 2014)

By this, or any other definition, Donald Trump is a bully. He threatens and seeks to intimidate and dominate women, Hispanics, Muslims, and anyone he perceives to be his rival. Why? Because he knows there is an imbalance of social or physical power and he seeks to exploit it.

Many, if not most, of Donald Trump’s supporters are also bullies. I hesitate to say it, but most of them are also white and male and many are blue-collar workers. Bullies often share those same characteristics (although clearly not all white, male blue collar workers are bullies).

The people most likely to recognize and stand up to bullies are those who are most often bullied — women, minorities, people with disabilities, and young people. I believe it will likely be a coalition of such persons — women, African Americans and Latinos, students, and those who care for them — who will likely defeat Donald Trump is the general election. Hopefully, we will win that battle.

If not, let us be sure this bully comes away from the November contest with at least a bloody nose!

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Feast of the Ascension

May 5, 2016

Not an “Ascension”

Up, up, up, up and away.

Now he fills all things!

 

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EXODUS

May 3, 2016

On a whim, I ordered a DVD of Otto Preminger’s 1960 film Exodus. It was based on Leon Uris’ fine novel of the same name and starred Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Peter Lawford, Lee J. Cobb and Sal Mineo! How’s that for a cast? It was a bit long at 3 hours 28 minutes (!) and considerably dated in its dialogue and special effects. But it was set on location in Israel/Palestine and the photography quite beautiful for its time.

It is set in 1948 and chronicles the rebirth of a people and the lead-up to the establishment of the state of Israel. The lead character, played by Newman, is Ari Ben Canaan (said to have been based loosely on the real-life Yitzak Rabin) who is a commander of the underground and who leads some 600 Jews from the detention camps of Cyprus onto a large freighter bound for Palestine. But British forces learn of his plan and insist that he turn back. Undaunted, the Jews refuse to give up and risk their lives for the greater cause of Israeli independence. Much blood is shed and the film concludes without a real conclusion and with Newman and his troops headed off into one more battle.

Whenever I get fed up with Benjamin Netanyahu’s strong arm tactics and policies of the Israeli government which trample upon the rights of the Palestinian people today, I try to remember that there is a reason why the world’s Jews seem paranoid and why they do not think their incredible military might (today funded and supported by the United States in large part) is unnecessary. As they old saying goes, “Just because you’re paranoid, that doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you!”

Yes, in many ways the oppressed have become the oppressor once again, this time in the state of Israel and I reserve the right to be critical of the Israeli government without for one minute conceding to the charge of anti-Semitism. I criticize my own government, but am not thereby un-American. I have allied myself with “J Street,” a Washington based pro-Israel, pro justice and peace lobby who continue to strive for a viable two-state solution in the Holy Land.

For, was it not a two-state solution that was initially envisioned? Near the end of Exodus Newman speaks at the burial of a boyhood Arab friend and a young Jewish girl, side by side, in the rocky soil of Palestine. He vows that, just as these two sleep together in death, one day Arab and Jew will live together, in this same land, side by side, in peace.

This story was set in 1948. The lines were spoken spoken in 1960. It is now 2016.

How long, O Lord?

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