Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12–4:2; Luke 9:28-36 (37-43)
by Heidi Neumark
In the hospital emergency room, someone accidentally bumps into an aide carrying a bedpan, and urine sloshes onto the floor. After several hours of waiting, my mother is finally admitted. I pay for TV, but she does not have the strength to push the buttons on the remote. She can't find the red button to call the nurse either. She tells me that last night she was taken down to a dungeon where she lay awake in terror. Now she wonders why someone left a black Scottish terrier in the corner of her room. Despite the fact that I gave the doctor a detailed printout of all her medications, doses and times, no one bothered to give her the pill that prevents hallucinations and fear. My mother is in the hospital because unrelenting nausea has left her unable to eat or drink. The dementia comes from her Parkinson's, or from the medications that help her to walk. Or both.
I understand the weariness of the disciples on their trip up the mountain with Jesus. They must be exhausted by the nonstop demands of the crowds. Recently they were sent off with power and authority into the same needy crowds to cure, proclaim and heal. They've had an enviable run of success and have returned to tell Jesus all about it. But when he takes them to "withdraw privately" for a well-earned rest, they are interrupted by more crowds, and the work of ministry continues. It's been a long day and enough is enough. The weary disciples beg Jesus to send the crowd away. But we know what happens next—fish sandwiches for 5,000, or more like 15,000, counting women and children.
When they finally do get a day off, it doesn't feel much like a vacation. Jesus tells them about his upcoming "great suffering," rejection and death (treatment they can expect as well), and about his rising on the third day. I don't blame them for missing the rising part. When you think you're heading for the dungeon, anxiety and panic tend to block out everything else.
Eight days later they are still reeling and in no shape for mountain climbing, even if its purpose is to pray. Luke is the only one who mentions prayer as the reason for their ascent. Why can't they just pray where they are? If I am honest, on some days—even many days—the attempt to pray is a steep, uphill climb on weary legs. If I make it, it's only thanks to the company I keep—Jesus, Peter, James and John—Jesus and the communion of saints, past and present.
Once on the mountaintop, Jesus appears to be doing all the praying. His followers can hardly keep their eyes open—another detail unique to Luke's account, which connects the mountain of transfiguration and the Mount of Olives, unlikely twin sites of glory's face and backside. But here, before sleep can overcome the three, they are startled by a flash of radiance. Jesus, who must have reached the summit as sweaty and dusty as they did, now shines with the light of heaven itself. The rough fabric of his clothing shimmers like a swath of sunstruck water. The disciples behold the glory of God. They see two men as well.
Luke identifies the two men as Moses and Elijah; appearing in glory, they speak of Jesus' departure, which he is about to accomplish in Jerusalem. The word departure comes from the Greek word for exodus, referring not only to the trip down the mountain and into Jerusalem, but to Jesus' death. Moses' presence makes the connection unavoidable; now Jesus will accomplish a second exodus, leading people safely through the waters of death, even as his own flesh is parted in waves of pain on the cross. But this talk of exodus and death in the midst of transfiguration is lost on the disciples.
Peter expresses the confusion of his stunned companions by suggesting that they arrange to stay on the mountaintop. Unlike Peter, I have found the mountaintop of this text an uncomfortable place, perhaps because, unlike Peter, I have not been there. Each year when this story comes up, I am eager to move off the mountaintop and down to more familiar terrain. I feel more at home when they're back down with the needy crowd.
All the transfigurations I've seen—and I have seen some—have been down below. There I have seen lives transfigured, demons cast out, children raised up. These are the transformations for which we work and pray and hope, the transfigurations that brighten our days with wonder and joy. But there are other days.
This year, I'm less eager to rush down to the bottom of the hill. I'd like to linger on the mountain. I'd like to listen to the voice that interrupts Peter and brings balm: "Listen to him," we are told. Listen for dear life. Listen to words of forgiveness and mercy, promises of paradise, words from the cross. Listen without ceasing, on the edge of glory and on the brink of death. I beg you to look at my son, a father cries out, echoing another voice: Here is my only begotten son with whom I am well pleased, listen to him. Listen on this hill and on another where darkness closes in.
When cures and healing are beyond our powers, when the shine on a loved one's face comes from tears in the fluorescent lights of intensive care, when the third day seems far off—on such days it is good to be in this story, listening to the voice that urges us to follow on, for the Word shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Heidi Neumark is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan.
As I write this, the kitchen table is shaking. If our table is shaking, I worry that the church's beautiful stained-glass windows, desperately in need of repair, are also shaking. The parsonage is attached to the church and shares the same foundation. Seven feet away all hell is breaking loose. Several blocks of businesses that have served this neighborhood are being knocked down by giant backhoes and inflated real estate prices to make way for towering apartments.
Similar apartment towers have gone up a block away, offering amazing penthouse views across the Hudson River to the west and Central Park to the east. A studio starts at $1.5 million, and the pinnacle penthouse is five times that amount. The residents will be able to see across the river, but will they see into Lilia's apartment half a block away? There, in the tower's shadow, Lilia and her family live in a single-room cubicle without kitchen or closet and share a bathroom with 60 other people.
Lilia came here desperate to make a better life for her two children. She told me that in Mexico she could earn 250 pesos a week. Diapers cost 70 pesos, shampoo 30. "You can wash or you can eat," she said. And so they pushed themselves through the barbed-wire fence. She said she didn't even feel it cutting her at the time. The scars came later. And other barbs. My daughter told me that some high school girls she knows were talking about a group identified only as "DMs," which means "Dirty Mexicans."
Lilia and her family are part of this parish. I like the old geographical nature of the word, our parish, embracing the whole neighborhood—Lilia's family, my family and the soon-to-be-our-neighbors' penthouse family.
In Spanish, the word for parish is parroquia, even closer than the English to its Greek root, paroikia. Paroikia indicates a place of exile, a place where you might find a paroikos—a stranger, a resident alien. Our parishes are intended to be places of hospitality for the paroikos. Such ministry is not a sideline but our core identity as a church—an identity with a long history, as Deuteronomy reminds us. We don't label our biblical ancestors as economic interlopers, suspect strangers or terrorists; we honor them and love them as foremothers and forefathers of our faith. We are to welcome each new paroikos in the same way.
A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien. Given the surge in anti-immigrant sentiment in many parts of our nation and the challenges posed by a growing number of economic refugees, this reading seems particularly timely. We are reminded that Abraham and Sarah were immigrants who left the land of their birth and became resident aliens.
Then there was Joseph, caught up in a whirlwind of familial, economic and international conflicts as a detained alien whose traumatic journey ultimately gained him legal status and enabled him to feed his family back home. Moses, a child truly left behind, became a resident alien in Egypt and the divinely appointed coyote who led a band of desperate refugees on a desert trek toward freedom. The Israelites later spent many years living in exile, resident aliens all. Ruth remained with Naomi as a paroikos in Israel.
The text from Deuteronomy tells of God's migrant people on the verge of crossing into the land of promise. They are given a lengthy set of instructions to help them as they settle and build. The portion of text chosen for those of us on the edge of Lent comes with concern for a new danger in the land of milk and honey—the danger that when the sojourners settle, they will settle for something less than the vision and hope for liberation and justice that sent them forth in the first place. It proved to be a valid concern: those who entered the land did eventually settle for their own well-being as a group, neglecting the full liberating command of jubilee. They settled as possessors who overlooked the dispossessed and disconnected.
The Deuteronomist's call to remember their connection with those who continue to be landless (the Levites) and those who continue to live as alien residents is also a call to praxis: Then you together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.
The key word is together. How do we practice this borderless hospitality and radical stewardship? In my parish, separate worship celebrations in English and in Spanish are easier for many folks than bilingual services. Sharing a feast of soul food, tacos and Swedish meatballs is easier than sharing opinions at a bilingual congregational meeting. We must refuse to settle until there are none displaced from the feast—not our new neighbors in the pinnacle, not the homeless youth in our shelter, not the recent immigrants struggling with English.
After thousands of years we still haven't got it right. Sometimes it's tempting to settle for a lot less. And so we come to another alien in the desert. There at the edge, and potentially the tempting end of the wilderness experience, Jesus is given a chance to opt out. To settle for his own control and comfort. To isolate himself from wandering Arameans and parishes desperately in need of all sorts of unaffordable repairs. But like Lilia, this immigrant is desperate to make a better life for his children. And so he takes the desert route, refusing to settle for less even at the end, when faced with a crown of thorns sharp as barbed wire.
Heidi Neumark is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan.
It's been some time since I donned my best professional earbuds to focus on a question of audio fidelity. But the band in question is the Beatles and the discs part of an ambitious remastering of the band's catalog. Remastered Beatles material is as controversial as restoring a DaVinci—does the cleanup forever change the way the art will be perceived?
Of course it does. But in this case, even the $260 16-disc stereo box set (plus DVD) and $299 13-disc mono box set won't give you a definitive listening experience. Remastering Beatles material for ordinary CD is the sonic equivalent of taking that improved fidelity and clarity and then squeezing it into a straw. Compare that to Super Audio CDs, developed in 1999 but still waiting to catch on. Super Audio represents a huge improvement in quality that you don't have to be a hi-fi geek to notice: it sounds amazing, as if you're sitting in the Studio 2 control room with the Fabs, listening to the playback of Revolver.
As for these remastered Beatles CDs, while no match for a great vinyl copy of your favorite album, they do yield a boost in quality. The rock tunes in particular benefit from all the sonic flossing. On "I'm Down," the ambient reverb cushioning Paul McCartney's voice gleams, and everything growling in the rhythm shakes and shimmies with added snarl. "Drive My Car" also sounds as if remixed afresh, a formerly indistinguishable piano riff popping out on the song's fadeout.
Yet the remastering isn't always a net gain. "And Your Bird Can Sing," while clearer in the upper register, doesn't sound as cohesive in its newly minted form. Likewise, on "I Am the Walrus," McCartney's bass just doesn't break out of the gate the way it does on previous versions. In the audio realm, cleaner doesn't always equal better.
As an audio engineer, critic and Beatles lover, I'd suggest not spending money on these box sets. Consider that in the remastering, the Beatles brain trust prepared the new results for a possible Blu-Ray audio release. Once these versions become available, I expect they'll merit replacing every disc in your catalog. Until then, I'll enjoy the Beatles recordings I currently own, especially the bootlegs—most of which are of marginal sound quality yet reveal incredible musical treats. In the final analysis, the songs always matter far more than sonic purity.
Chris Smither picks and growls with the best of them. Here he mixes blues, folk and tinges of country to create a sepia-tone soundscape that makes for prime wintertime listening. The title track bounds with brushed snare, foot-tapping and jangling acoustic guitar arpeggios. It's a decided contrast to the electric tremolo blues of "Surprise, Surprise," which tackles religious doubt: "'Save me just this once / I promise I will bow down to your will' / You waited for an answer / Surprise, surprise, you're waitin' still."
Smokie Norful isn't nearly as bombastic as Kirk Franklin, though he certainly loves to stretch out—each of the ten songs on this live disc clock in at more than five minutes. With a tight R&B band and smooth-singing choir, Norful maintains uplifting energy on tracks such as "I Will Bless the Lord," which is punctuated with wah-wah guitar and plentiful horn stabs. "Dear God" showcases Norful on piano, singing a striking hymn of praise: "The moments I thought I failed / I was reminded of your nails / so I held on."
John Carter Cash may have huge shoes to fill, but he's also got a penchant for tackling challenging projects that would do his parents (Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash) proud. On Diamond, Cash gathers three dozen musicians and singers for a sprawling, exotic album that merges Uzbek sounds with American mountain music and swing. Guests run the gamut from Nashville studio whiz Marty Stuart to Tatar guitarist Enver zmaylov; songs such as "Oh, Bury Me Not" sound like Celtic music plucked from a distant dawn mist.
After plugging along in the Philadelphia music scene for better than a decade, The Silence continue to mature and develop as a trio. On Outside World, front man Evan McIntyre shows supple soulfulness in his voice that complements his guitar playing, a mix of anthemic college rock and lean blues styles. The songs show the band's penchant for searching, stretching and questioning, as on "One Life": "I believe in saving souls / In fact, I'm working on my own."
The best kids music woos adults too, and singer-songwriter Peter Himmelman nails it on this infectious disc. The bouncy-beat opener "Imagination" celebrates how role play gets kids through dull days, while the title track unfurls a silly country-rock strut, studded with beefy saxes and girl-group backup vocals. Himmelman can also sound sweet, as on the piano-and-strings closer "Lullabye with Baseball and Trains": "It's a wonderful feeling when my momma holds me tight."
Christian attitudes toward polygamy are more controversial today than they have been for many years. As Euro-American churches debate the issue of same-sex unions, African Christians attack Westerners for their moral laxity and for caving in to secular hedonism. In response, some Western liberals retort that Africans themselves need to put their own house in order. Do African churches define marriage as a sacrosanct union between one man and one woman? If so, then why do their leaders tolerate polygamous unions?
Such an argument seems to convict the most visible Christian conservatives of hypocrisy, of failing to pluck the beam from their own collective eye. Yet far from convincing Africans, such an argument illustrates a continuing global gulf on issues of sexual morality.
For many societies across Africa, polygamy is far more than a historic vestige. South Africa's president Jacob Zuma has at least four wives, raising etiquette concerns over which one should formally take the role of first lady. So entrenched is plural marriage that Christian churches have long had to make compromises. The ancient Ethiopian church tolerated polygamy in some circumstances, despite periodic reform campaigns. After long encounters with Zulu peoples in southern Africa, the 19th-century Anglican bishop J. W. Colenso concluded that polygamy could not be eliminated in the short term. He decided that polygamy reduced promiscuity and that an official clampdown would only drive plural wives and their children from stable home settings.
Few leaders in Africa's European-dominated churches were as sensitive as Colenso was. Most demanded that Christians end their plural marriages. This policy initially limited the impact of the so-called mission churches, while pushing believers toward the new independent congregations, the African-Initiated Churches or AICs.
Although individual groups varied in their practice, many AICs allowed polygamy on the basis of custom and the multiple examples supplied by the Old Testament. When legendary evangelist William Wadé Harris preached across West Africa in 1913, he traveled with several women who were probably his wives. Some independent churches enthusiastically embraced the practice for clergy as well as laypeople. And while other groups did not institutionalize the practice, they allowed converts to keep their multiple wives.
More controversial still is the survival of polygamy among the older mission-founded churches that originally forbade it. Anglican churches today treat plural marriage as a pastoral difficulty rather than an outright sin. Under policies approved in 1988, polygamous believers can be baptized and confirmed without abandoning their marital arrangements, although the church restricts their ability to serve in leadership positions. Plenty of mainstream churches know full well that at least some of the faithful live in complex domestic arrangements.
To say that some Christians practice polygamy does not mean that it is commonplace or that most senior clergy turn a blind eye to it. As African churches have matured, polygamy has increasingly become, like older animist practices, a disreputable vestige of the past, something no sensible younger person would wish to revive. Reinforcing this message is the growing status and self-confidence of women, as the spread of Christianity has promoted literacy and education. Even the old AICs are being pressured to change their polygamous ways.
For the sake of argument, let us assume that polygamy is widespread among African believers, even within global churches like the Anglican Communion. Given that fact, a liberal American might well ask: By what right can they lecture Episcopalians or Lutherans on sexual morality or insist that homosexuality should bar a person from holding church office? That question makes sense for many Americans in a way that it does not for Africans, because it treats all sexual sins as morally equivalent.
Yes, an African Christian might reply, the domestic practices of some of our members violate church law, and we must struggle to end this regrettable situation. But polygamy in itself does not violate God's law—or else we could not celebrate David, Solomon and all the ancient kings, prophets and patriarchs. The fact that this practice is now forbidden to Christian believers reflects the higher standards of holiness prevailing under the new dispensation. In terms of legal language, polygamy is a mala prohibita offense, something forbidden by law in some societies but not others, rather than something evil in itself, mala in se, which all reasonable people know to be wrong. And while traditional African societies have historically had quite diverse attitudes toward homosexuality, the Bible shows no such tolerance.
For many African Christians, then, polygamy can properly be accepted in some social situations, whereas homosexuality is regarded as sinful always and everywhere. Americans might puzzle over what seems like a contradiction; Africans would likely ask why Westerners can't understand the plain difference. And the arguments will go on.
She's on life support. Racing to get there, his Jaguar fishtails on the frozen highway. She was a beauty and elusive as the future, his mother, usually traveling on his birthday.
He felt he couldn't fly, had to touch dirt every inch of the way. To fly would be to unpeel too fast the onion of his hurt.
She'd call. He wouldn't answer. He was busy.
Now it's ice he notices, gray molars locking to dark bluffs, the way ice locks his heart in steely winter logic. Then sun shimmers on ice, the lock breaks, and love flows. Relief, oh melting! as he steers toward his mother.
My Pittsburgh son haunts thrift shops, collects old rosaries, hangs them on nails down cellar, near his bathroom door.
Buried with their best crystal rosaries, crocheted among their fingers, all those old ladies trouble me when I consider how their every-day rosaries were taken by their daughters to be entombed in gold, pasteboard boxes,
until years later when the daughters were readying for their move to Florida (for the sake of the mover's bill) lightened their load by donating the darker contents of their dresser drawers to Goodwill.
Terrorism has a homegrown dimension. Many of the terrorist plots uncovered since 9/11 have involved U.S.-born or naturalized U.S. citizens.
For example: A white American convert to Islam is suspected of plotting to attack U.S. military personnel in Virginia. A group of Somali-Americans from Minnesota were intercepted as they tried to join a radical Islamist group in Somalia. A Chicago man is accused of plotting the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Five Virginia men were taken into custody after they sought to contact al-Qaeda groups in Pakistan. An American-born, Palestinian-American army major is charged with the mass shooting at Fort Hood and is suspected of being radicalized at U.S. mosques.
Violent jihadist ideas not only circulate in this country, but occasionally take hold in the minds of Americans.
But a joint study by researchers at Duke and the University of North Carolina stresses that American Muslims are still less prone to extremism than Muslims in Europe and elsewhere. And the receptivity of U.S. society to Muslim immigrants serves as a bulwark against terrorism. One evidence of that, the study says, is the number of plots that have been thwarted with help of Muslim communities themselves.
The Duke-UNC study, which reports that 139 Muslim Americans were involved in terrorist plots over the past eight years, suggests that success in the fight against terrorism has depended on the self-policing of Muslim-American groups. Muslim officials speak out against terrorism, and in some cases monitor the content of sermons at mosques.
The study also argues that the emergence of robust Muslim-American communities, in which people feel strongly supported by social networks, is a source of stability, not a threat. The study stresses the importance of Muslims being involved in the democratic process and says that the ability of Muslims to assert their Muslim identity in public helps undermines the roots of terrorism, for it is a prelude to greater participation in American life. Other immigrant groups, such as Irish Americans and Italian Americans, have had moments when they asserted their particular identity, and those efforts served as steps toward fuller public engagement.
Like other radical ideologies, notions of violent jihadism appeal to people who seek a simple, abstract, global explanation of their problems. It has less appeal to those engaged in day-to-day practical efforts to better their lives and the conditions of their own communities. The very openness of American society to those efforts is a powerful strategy, and in the end the best strategy of counterterrorism.
I began the visit with "Hello, I'm the new pastor at the Presbyterian church." An innocent enough introduction, I thought.
"Wow. But you're so young!" came the reply.
"Well, I just started. And sure, I'm on the young side," I said, hoping to move on quickly.
"No, I mean, you're really young!"
At this point it was difficult to know what to say. To be honest, I was frustrated. I thought of pastors in other denominations who are ordained with only a bachelor's degree, or those who are pastoring without having ever attended college. I didn't go to college for four years plus three years of seminary plus an extra year of internship to have my lack of wrinkles and my intact hairline greeted with absolute shock. But I bit my tongue and took a deep breath.
"Well, just think of me as a rookie serving a congregation kind enough to show me the ropes."
When in doubt, go for the sports analogies. Nothing brings the generations together like an idiom or two. That seemed to go over well, so I continued the visit, offering pastoral care to someone 72 years my senior.
I had anticipated generational differences when I was searching for my first call at age 25, but I hadn't fully anticipated what awaited me when I received that call. Many members relate to me not as if I were their grandchild, but as if I were their great-grandchild. It's taking time, but slowly I'm learning to appreciate and honor generational differences and, in the process, to better understand my pastoral identity.
Here's an example of a generational gap: I can't remember the last time I listened to a cassette tape; I owned only a few of them before CDs caught on. But when I walked into my new study at the church, I was greeted by stacks of cassettes filled with recorded worship services. A few months ago I dreamed of podcasting my sermons on iTunes; now I'm encouraging the board of deacons to update our cassette recording system.
I post each week's sermon manuscript to my blog, which is linked to my Facebook page, and I tweet a link on Twitter each time I do so. I'm also a member of a group of young pastors who covenant to e-mail our sermon manuscripts to one another each Sun day. I'm not sure what previous generations of pastors have done, but sharing my sermons helps me acknowledge the worldwide community in which I live. Reading sermons by other young pastors keeps me grounded and motivated to preach my best. I have a friend who posts his sermon manuscripts on his Facebook page before he preaches, hoping that feedback from 500-plus friends will positively influence the sermon he delivers on Sunday. Surely no generation of pastors has preached in a vacuum, but my generation claims interconnectivity and exploits it for the kingdom.
Another generational difference is my generation's lack of denominational allegiance compared to the dyed-in-the-wool affiliations of previous generations. The Presbyterian congregation I serve was founded over 125 years ago by Scottish immigrants who wanted a Presbyterian church in which to worship. The faith and polity of their parents' Reformed (Church of Scotland) heritage made founding a Presbyterian church an easy decision. Soon Scandinavian immigrants came to the area and founded a Lutheran church a few blocks away. They were followed by Episcopal, Roman Cath olic, Mission Covenant and As sembly of God congregations. (We have more than our fair share of churches for a town of 1,200 people.)
A pastor in my weekly text study group jokes that his congregation's de facto mission is "to be the Lutheran church in town." This may be true in their case, but I left seminary with a very different mind-set. I was taught, and still believe, that most members of Generations X and Y have little regard for what makes a congregation Lutheran or Presbyterian. My generation tends to be leery of any large institution and cares more about "what you can do for me today" than about the denominational label on the sign out front. Historical considerations like the doctrine of consubstantiation and the West minster Confession matter less than the availability of compelling programs, fresh worship and free-trade coffee.
I am pastor to a Presbyterian congregation that is certain of its identity as Presbyterian—but unsure what to make of that identity in a 21st-century context. Our younger people are more influenced by the Christianity they encounter in Christian bookstores and by generic Protestant pop culture than they are by their denominational identity. As someone committed to ecumenism, I live in this tension, unsure of how our mission as a Presbyterian church is any different from that of the Lutheran church half a mile away.
A few weeks into my call, the congregation celebrated two wedding anniversaries; each couple had been married for 69 years. I tried to fathom the extreme dedication and love that makes a marriage thrive for almost three times as long as I've been alive; then I thought about friends in their twenties and early thirties who have been with partners for years and have no intention of marrying any time soon. Who knows, they figure, marriage might mess up a solid relationship. Add to this skepticism the effort to keep up in other ways with members of the Greatest Generation. As that generation reaches age 90 and beyond, I sometimes wonder, what's left for Genera tions X and Y? Sometimes I wonder if we should lower our expectations and strive only to be the "Second Greatest Generation."
But before I can get too discouraged, I catch a glimpse of grace that snaps me out of generational assumptions and makes my life as pastor unpredictable and exceptionally interesting—like e-mail from the 80-something who questioned a post on my blog, or the Facebook friend request from a great-grandmother, or the conversation about church music with a grandfather who enjoys attending his granddaughter's contemporary worship service. At times like these I remember that our God of the ages isn't bound by generational distinctiveness; God moves in the nursing home as well as on my Facebook homepage.
It's that foundational belief in God's working in and through old ways and new technology, old folks and young ones, that keeps me going. Gradually I'm learning to revere the past with some members of my congregation while at the same time opening my eyes and theirs to what God is doing with a younger generation. It's a slow process, but essential. And I'm not in it alone—I have the good company of several seniors at breakfast at the town diner each week and the Twitter community to check in with on my way to church.
Adam J. Copeland is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Hallock, Minnesota. He blogs at adamjcopeland.com.
Bob Abernethy, host of the PBS show Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, will receive a special Wilbur Award from the Religion Communicators Council at the Religion Communication Congress 2010 in April in Chicago. He will be recognized for the contribution he and the television program have made to the public discussion of issues of faith. "Since 1997, Bob has promoted intelligent, insightful examinations of faith issues on American public television," RCC President Douglas F. Cannon said in an announcement.
Art Clokey, 88, the creator of the animated clay icon Gumby and his clay Christian counterparts Davey and Goliath, died January 8 at his home in central California. His work on the television program Davey and Goliath showed "the spiritual side of my dad," son Joe Clokey told the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's news service. A forerunner of the ELCA, the United Lutheran Church in America, asked Clokey and his wife, Ruth, in 1959 to create a Gumby-like show for the church. The episodes, which ran from 1960 to 1975, were known for simple moral lessons. Often Davey invited trouble by ignoring the advice of Goliath, his conscientious talking dog, before returning to Christian values. The ELCA resurrected the duo for a 2004 Christmas special that featured new characters, including Sam, who was Jewish, and Yasmeen, a Muslim.
The New Jersey state senate has voted down a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, prompting a promise from gay-rights advocates to take their campaign to the courts. The final tally on January 7 was 20-14 with three abstentions. It reflected a dramatic shift in the state's political landscape since gay-marriage supporter Gov. Jon Corzine lost his bid for reelection to Republican Chris Christie in November. Christie came out strongly against the bill, emboldening opponents of same-sex marriage and drawing undecided senators to the Republican fold. He has also said he would veto a same-sex marriage bill if it ever reached his desk. Steven Goldstein, who led the push for gay marriage as chairman of the gay-rights group Garden State Equality, said he and other advocates would move swiftly to force the issue in the courts.
Roman Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse in Ireland were for decades re-assigned to positions in the U.S., according to a church reform group with a new database of names. Bishop-Accountability.org, which documents allegations of abuse, released on December 28 the names of 70 accused Irish priests who at some point served in the U.S. Many on the list (see Bishop-Accountability.org/irish_priests_in_us) are said to have died or no longer serve in the priesthood. The database of accused Irish priests is likely not comprehensive and may not include any priests currently serving. But codirector Anne Barrett Doyle called on all U.S. bishops to release names of priests accused in Ireland, where an unfolding clergy sexual abuse crisis has led four bishops to resign.
Jordan has complained to a United Nations agency after Canada refused to seize a display of Dead Sea Scrolls at a recent exhibit in Toronto.
Jordan says the ancient manuscripts, which had been on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority, were stolen from a museum in East Jerusalem that Israel seized from Jordan during the Six-Day War of 1967.
Some of the earliest copies of biblical and religious writings ever found, the 2,000-year-old scrolls were discovered primarily by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947 in caves overlooking the Dead Sea.
Seventeen of the approximately 900 scrolls had been on display in Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum since June at the hugely popular "Words that Changed the World" exhibition, which closed on January 3.
On January 11, after Canada declined to seize the scrolls, Jordan announced that it had complained to UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
"The government has legal documents that prove Jordan owns the scrolls," Rafea Harahsheh of Jordan's antiquities department said in a statement. Jordan made its latest formal claim to the scrolls in mid-December, citing the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.
Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper quoted a spokesperson for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade as saying that it would be inappropriate for Canada to intervene.
"Differences regarding ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls should be addressed by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority," the spokesperson stated.
Palestinians also claim the scrolls as part of their heritage; in 2009 they had asked Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to cancel the exhibition, declaring the documents had been stolen from Palestinian territory.
Both Jordanian and Palestinian officials said they did not expect Canada to determine who owned the scrolls but wanted them kept safe until their ownership was resolved.
The scrolls were scheduled to be part of an exhibition at the Milwaukee Public Museum, starting on January 22. -ENI/RNS
Jordan has complained to a United Nations agency after Canada refused to seize a display of Dead Sea Scrolls at a recent exhibit in Toronto.
Jordan says the ancient manuscripts, which had been on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority, were stolen from a museum in East Jerusalem that Israel seized from Jordan during the Six-Day War of 1967.
Some of the earliest copies of biblical and religious writings ever found, the 2,000-year-old scrolls were discovered primarily by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947 in caves overlooking the Dead Sea.
Seventeen of the approximately 900 scrolls had been on display in Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum since June at the hugely popular "Words that Changed the World" exhibition, which closed on January 3.
On January 11, after Canada declined to seize the scrolls, Jordan announced that it had complained to UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
"The government has legal documents that prove Jordan owns the scrolls," Rafea Harahsheh of Jordan's antiquities department said in a statement. Jordan made its latest formal claim to the scrolls in mid-December, citing the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.
Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper quoted a spokesperson for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade as saying that it would be inappropriate for Canada to intervene.
"Differences regarding ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls should be addressed by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority," the spokesperson stated.
Palestinians also claim the scrolls as part of their heritage; in 2009 they had asked Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to cancel the exhibition, declaring the documents had been stolen from Palestinian territory.
Both Jordanian and Palestinian officials said they did not expect Canada to determine who owned the scrolls but wanted them kept safe until their ownership was resolved.
The scrolls were scheduled to be part of an exhibition at the Milwaukee Public Museum, starting on January 22. -Ecumenical News International, Religion News Service
Places of worship belonging to religious minorities in Malaysia are continuing to be targeted in a dispute over the use of "Allah" by non-Islamic faiths. The new general secretary of the World Council of Churches has expressed "deep concern" about the situation in the Muslim-majority country.
In Geneva, the WCC's Olav Fykse Tveit urged "immediate action by both the [Malaysian] government and civil society to resolve the conflict in order to avoid renewed hostilities and escalation of violence in society." Tveit noted that "Christians in majority Muslim countries all over the world . . . have used the word 'Allah' for God for centuries."
The attacks against Christian churches followed a court decision that opened the way for Christians and other non-Muslims to use the word "Allah" in their religious publications and prayers. The decision outraged some Muslims. At least 10 churches are reported to have been attacked.
In recent incidents, St. Elizabeth's Catholic Church in Johor, southern Malaysia, was splashed with red paint January 14, and stone throwers attacked a Sikh temple in a Kuala Lumpur suburb the previous day. -Ecumenical News International
The Islamic Society of North America, one of the broadest umbrella Muslim organizations based in the U.S., has appointed Chicago lawyer and youth leader Safaa Zarzour as its next secretary general.
Zarzour's appointment comes on the heels of several terror-related incidents that have cast suspicion on Muslim Americans and provoked concerns about Muslim youth being vulnerable to extremist propaganda.
Zarzour, 45, has acknowledged the concerns. "We need to have the ability to pay attention to our youth and make sure they aren't being swayed by influences that are contrary to Islam," he said. "We need better training of our own cadre of imams who can contextualize Islam in terms of the American experience."
A Syrian-born educator who has lived in the U.S. since the 1980s, Zarzour has 10 years of experience as a teacher and principal at the large Universal School in Chicago. He chairs the Council of Islamic Schools of North America, an association of 50 schools and organizations.
Unlike other well-known Muslim groups that focus on civil rights issues, the ISNA, based in Plainfield, Indiana, deals with education, youth and community organizing.
Zarzour said his main responsibility will be to advise and support the work of Ingrid Mattson, a Canadian-born convert who was elected ISNA's first female president in 2006. Zarzour replaces Muneer Fareed, an Islamic studies professor who resigned his position in late 2008. -Religion News Service
The number of state-sponsored executions jumped 41 percent in 2009 even as the number of death penalty court sentences dropped, according to a report from the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center.
The 52 executions nationwide last year represented a 41 percent increase from the 37 executions in 2008, the DPIC said in its annual report on capital punishment trends.
Much of that increase was due to the end of an eight-month informal moratorium on executions nationally through mid-2008, while the U.S. Supreme Court considered a case on methods used in lethal injection, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the DPIC.
"The rise in 2009 was expected as states were backlogged with cases," he said. "But the country continues to move away from the death penalty. This decade has been marked by a declining use of the death penalty."
Fewer death sentences were imposed by courts nationwide in 2009 than in any year since 1976, when states began operating under new laws after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down most death penalty laws in 1972.
The 106 death sentences issued nationwide in 2009 marked the seventh year of decline and were 68 percent fewer than the 328 death sentences imposed in the peak year, 1994, the DPIC reported.
The drop in death sentences has been greatest in Texas, which added life without parole as an alternative to death sentences in 2005, the DPIC reported. Texas, the nation's historical leader in the use of the death penalty, averaged 34 death sentences per year during the 1990s. Last year, Texas sentenced nine to die, the DPIC reported.
In Alabama, which ranked no. 2 in 2009, judges ordered nine death sentences in 2009, versus 13 in 2008. "It's a reflection of skepticism about the death penalty," Dieter said. "When juries see strong alternatives like life without parole, they often view that as sufficient punishment." -Religion News Service
A nationwide poll of 1,100 Protestant church leaders in the last quarter of 2009 found that 57 percent said the economy affected their congregation negatively over the past year, but only 8 percent called the effect "very negative."
A typical church saw its budget drop 7 percent from the previous year, according to Barna Research based in Ventura, California. Southern Baptist congregations, charismatic or Pentecostal churches, and black churches were most likely to say their budget was down.
Mainline Protestant churches and those with pastors earning between $40,000 and $60,000 annually were most likely to be holding their ground, the researchers said. -Associated Baptist Press
When I was in the fifth grade, I took an old shoebox from the hall closet and wrapped it in construction paper. Then I glued a triangular prism inside the box and positioned a penlight to shine toward the prism's edge. I cut a slit in the side of the box, and my science fair project was finished. When I arrived at the cafeteria with shoebox in hand, however, I blanched at the visual spectacle. How could the simple, subtle beauty of refracted light compete with the fury of the baking soda and vinegar reactions that were erupting from papier-mâché volcanoes all around me? With sweaty palms, I directed the judges to stoop down and peek through the slit in my shoebox. The white light struck the prism and broke into every fifth grader's mnemonic friend: ROY G. BIV (red, orange, yellow, etc.). ROY shone on the inside wall of the box, a rainbow in miniature, while I chattered away about the properties of light.
In the end my science project fared poorly. I didn't get a blue ribbon. But I realized that the color of my ribbon didn't really matter. I had learned in my research that the blue ribbon only appeared blue because it reflected a certain wavelength of the visual spectrum. Receptors in my eyes perceived blue when a certain amount of white light was reflected by the pigment in the ribbon's dye. In a dimly lit room, no one could tell which ribbons were blue and which were red or yellow! Besides, I already had all the colors of the rainbow inside my shoebox.
We see because light breaks open when it shines on objects. Light reflects and refracts and absorbs in ways that allow us to discern shapes and movement. God created light first because without light the rest of creation would have no definition or vibrancy. We humans see only a tiny fraction of all the light that God made, yet we persist in the presumptuous notion that only what we see exists—that only a 300-nanometer piece of the spectrum is real.
Jesus negates this presumption when he ascends the mountain with Peter, James and John. In the moment of the transfiguration, Jesus doesn't change his form or shape or hue, but he does change the disciples' perception of his appearance. Jesus gives the disciples the gift of seeing him as God sees him—a glorious being of dazzling white light. Instead of reflecting the blues and reds and yellows of the visible spectrum, Jesus reflects God and shows himself to be luminous.
When Jesus opens the eyes of the disciples, they see another person, one who had a similar encounter centuries before on another mountain. In Exodus, Moses comes down from Sinai after talking with God and has no idea that his skin is shining. His brother Aaron and all the Israelites are afraid to come near him because of his dazzling appearance. Today we know, from another part of this story, that Moses—tucked away in the cleft of the rock—only saw God's back. "You shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen" (Exod. 33:23). So Moses isn't shining because he saw God on the mountain. Moses is shining because God saw him.
Moses and Jesus show us that God sees us, not through the limited visual spectrum, but through the shimmering expanse of the glorious spectrum. We may be visible to one another simply because we reflect and absorb various quantities of white light, but God made us to do much more; God made us to shine.
Over the years, however, our luminosity tends to fade. Every inhospitable word spoken, every neighbor mistreated and every resource hoarded layers grime over our radiance. Every hand unextended, every gift squandered and every road not taken leaves layers of apathetic dust. The world tells us that the radiant things out there are things we purchase: "When you wear the shiny stone or drive the shiny car, you will shine." Too often we cede our light to the glossy detritus of the world and forget that we are the ones God made to shine.
But God hasn't forgotten. God sees us shining despite the grime and dust. God knows that we have buried our radiance beneath layers of stuff. God offers us the gift of transfigured eyes, in order that we might see as God sees. When we see ourselves struggling to shine, we can start scraping off the grime. With God's help, we can become radiant again.
There are radiant people in our lives who seem to exist somewhere between the visible and glorious spectrums. Their grime and dust are gone (or were never accumulated), and they shine just the way God made them. An elderly woman at my church is one of these special people. Every morning she greets me with a gentle handshake and a slip of paper with that day's readings on it. She prays the same way she talks, because for her praying and speaking are the same thing. On Fridays she plays piano for the altar guild while they clean the brass.
God made us to shine just as Moses and Jesus shone. There are those among us whose radiance bursts from them because nothing covers it up. Call them saints or luminaries. God sees us all, but these people reflect God's light better than most, and they see God's light in others with the strength of transfigured eyes. I pray for such eyes so that I might see myself as God sees me—a luminous being in need of a good scrubbing.
Adam Thomas is the curate of Trinity Episcopal Church in Martinsburg, West Virginia. He blogs at wherethewind.com.
"Tell me a story." No bedtime liturgy would be complete without these four magical, sacred words, or the four magical words that follow: "Once upon a time. . . ." Story shapes us. Fantastical bedtime stories fill us with fervent hopes for lives full of high adventure and romance, through which we learn chivalry, fidelity and courage. Stories we tell about our families and ourselves recall and rehearse the triumphs, failures and oddities of life. There's the humorous one about being pulled over while driving a friend's pickup, the painful one about the Pacific Theater in 1944 and the embarrassing one that you wish your parents had made up but know they didn't.
Around and within each of our little stories, the one great story weaves, the story of God's relationship with creation. This story subsumes and explains and connects our fantastic, personal and familial stories with those of the rest of humanity. This story has been recorded and bound, but it has never ended. When we tell the story, we participate in it and add to it. Put another way, when we remember the story, the story remembers us. We are members of the story and discover our place in it when God re-members—or reconnects—us.
Moses directs the people of Israel to observe this work of remembering when they enter their new home after 40 years of wilderness wandering. From the first harvest of your newly settled land, he says, take the first fruits of the ground and offer them to the Lord. As you faithfully give up the best of the harvest, rehearse your faith by telling the story. "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous." Moses bids the people to locate themselves in the collective memory of Israel. Each member will be re-membered by identifying with the story. Even the youngest will say, "That's me. I'm part of that great nation. I cried out to the Lord when the Egyptians afflicted me. The Lord heard my voice, brought me out of Egypt, and here I am in that land offering my first fruits to God in thanksgiving."
By directing the people to tell the story as they settle in the promised land, Moses hopes that they will remember who they are and whose they are. Of course, over the next couple hundred years, the people of Israel do a horrible job of remembering. By the end of the book of Judges, when a downward spiral has led to civil war, rape and murder, "All the people did what was right in their own eyes." At this time no connection exists, no shaping of the faithful happens. Instead of the re-membering that occurs with storytelling, there is literal dis-membering of a rape victim. At this low point in the story of Israel, Moses' bidding to rehearse the collective memory all but vanishes.
But "the lamp of God had not yet gone out": the story still remains in the hearts of the faithful. Samuel learns how to listen to God from his teacher, Eli, and holds the story in trust for several generations as the Davidic monarchy establishes itself. King Josiah finds the "book of the law" (which may be Deuteronomy) and realizes how much of the story has been forgotten (2 Kings 22). When the people are forced into exile, the connecting nature of the story sustains them. They remember how the Lord brought them out of their bondage in Egypt. The prophets tell and retell the story of God's relationship with creation until its power begins to work a change in the people.
That change reaches fruition in the great story found in the gospel. Early on, Luke connects Jesus back to an earlier piece of the same story—Moses addressing the people at the end of their 40-year wilderness wandering. During his own 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus meets the devil and resists him by remembering the great story: "One does not live by bread alone. . . . Worship the Lord and serve only him." Jesus frustrates the devil with the collective memory of the people of God: "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
The early church shared this collective memory during the 40 days of Lent with the culmination of a years-long program of formation. Seekers discovered that they had been members of the great story all along. When they learned their part in it, the community of faith re-membered them with the sacrament of baptism on Easter. The story shaped them, and it will shape us if we take the time to remember it and tell it.
This Lent, if someone asks you to "Tell me a story," begin it like this: "A wandering Aramean was my ancestor. . . ."
Adam Thomas is the curate of Trinity Episcopal Church in Martinsburg, West Virginia. He blogs at wherethewind.com.
Rick Steves got into the travel business by teaching travel classes at the University of Washington in Seattle and working as a tour leader in the summers. His 1979 book Europe Through the Back Door emphasized how to cut costs and encouraged travelers to avoid prepackaged tours and encounter local cultures in a more authentic way. His TV shows about European destinations have aired frequently on public television. Steves, a Lutheran, whose business is based in Edmonds, Washington, just published Travel as a Political Act, a series of "field reports" from Europe, Central America, Asia and the Middle East.
What motivates you to teach people about traveling?
To me, travel is a spiritual thing, and I try to create an environment in which people will feel free to consider the effects that travel has on their spirituality. It is a challenge to do that while working in a secular environment.
My desire has always been to inflict on comfortable Americans situations that they have never encountered before in the hope that they will gain an appreciation of their place in the world. I decided on forming a secular tour company, however, because I like to act as a Trojan horse in that regard.
What effect does travel have on people's spirituality?
People have a lot of fear. The flip side of fear is understanding. When you travel to places new to you, you understand more, so you fear less. And then you can love people, as a Christian should. The less you travel, the more likely that media with a particular agenda can shape your viewpoint. Those of us who travel are a little more resilient when it comes to weathering the propaganda storms that blow constantly across the U.S. media.
What recent insights have you gained from traveling?
In Europe I am always meeting people less driven than I am. For example, I met a man in Greece who spent 20 years working in the U.S. and then went back to the old country to retire. When he returned to Greece, it occurred to him that not once did he take a nap while in the U.S. Culturally, it just wasn't OK to do that. Europeans know how to enjoy a moment, and that's something almost subversive for many people in the U.S.
What traveling experiences would you especially recommend for American Christians?
I love to take American Christians to Muslim countries, especially Turkey. One of my favorite moments as a tour guide took place in a village in Turkey. Our group was in the mayor's living room. He showed me a place on his wall where he hung his Qur'an bag—the most holy place in a Muslim home. He said to me, "In my Qur'an bag I keep a Bible, a Torah and the Qur'an, because Christians, Jews and Muslims are all people of the Word, children of the Book and of God."
How amazing it would be if we could all share the same "bag"—share the same planet and be thankful to our Creator. Those are the kinds of eye-opening experiences that I try to bring to people through our program.
What are some common travel mistakes that Americans make?
Americans are so proud of their patriots like Nathan Hale, who wished they had more than one life to give for their country. I like to afflict the comfortable a little bit and tell them that the Nathan Hales and Patrick Henrys are a dime a dozen on this planet. That's not to diminish the importance of such heroes but to say that many groups are waging a struggle every bit as valiant as the one our patriots waged.
For example, every year, nine languages become extinct, and that means that nine ethnic groups have lost the battle to preserve their language. Their patriots who wished they had more than one life to give are gone, and no one speaks their language any more.
Americans are also often guilty of economic prejudices. We tend to think that people who are dirty and don't have nice clothes have less value and are more expendable. By now so many dirty, miserably dressed people have impressed me with their strength and spirituality that I am not going to discount them.
What about American Christians?
Frankly, many Christians are embarrassingly ethnocentric. They wear their Christianity on their sleeves and think everybody should be like them. I wish I could be their tour guide. I'd put them in a lousy hotel, make them talk to people who don't speak their language, give them some history to read and hope they can recognize that other people have dreams other than theirs. They might have the Bulgarian dream or the Sri Lankan dream or the Pakistani dream. Many Americans think that everybody should have the American dream.
What are the differences between being a tourist and being a pilgrim?
The system encourages you to be a tourist, because the system is an economic engine. You are led to believe that you need to be a consumer, that you need a fancy hotel, that you need to take a fancy tour. You will go home having done some predictable things—just what the advertising told you would happen.
To advocate something different is an affront to the system. If you are a travel editor, you're encouraged to promote helicopter skiing and three-day weekends in Reno and jet skiing in Maui—all of which will endear you to advertisers.
You could go to Africa and take in all the finest golf courses and come home having learned nothing. Or you could go to Africa and drink tea with local people, help them out in different ways and gain empathy for them. You'd come home changed. That's being a traveler. Travelers and pilgrims are people who are connecting, learning, challenging themselves and not doing what's predictable.
What do you think about mission trips?
If I were planning a mission trip, I would make a point of tackling people's ethnocentrism. There are a few books that can be helpful. Reading the Bible Through Third World Eyes is one I would recommend. War Against the Poor is another that I have purchased by the hundreds. We've got to acknowledge that we in the First World downplay Jesus' preferential option for the poor. We play up the notion that we should be industrious; we think, "Blessed are those who invest smartly." When you venture to the developing world you are challenged to interpret the Bible from other people's perspectives.
Too often, when Christians visit a place where the people are poor, they bring home quilts those people have woven, but they don't ask, "Why are these people in such squalor?" Mother Teresa was a loving person motivated by her Christian faith, but I think she was so beloved in part because she never asked "why?" When you ask why, that's when things get really interesting.
Archbishop Oscar Romero saw structural poverty and economic injustice in El Salvador and asked why. And he was assassinated. Thirty years after his death, the power of Romero in El Salvador is just mind-blowing.
Our goal as thoughtful travelers is to see things from an economic-justice point of view. Economic justice is the hard issue. You can travel and then come home and consume with impunity in a way that keeps poor people poor. Or you can travel as a political act and come home inspired to live your life in empathy and solidarity with all of God's people.
Recently I was one of the judges for a video contest sponsored by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. "God's Work, Our Hands" was the theme. All the videos showing mission efforts were commendable, but they were mostly about acts of charity, with not much edginess. Nobody was willing to ask about economic justice. Poverty is structural. It is a matter of people's buying power.
I understand that you personally are trying to make a difference in the area of affordable housing.
My work has always been involved with affordable housing. That's what I do: I look for places people can have a decent roof over their heads while they are traveling.
I have traveled enough in the developing world to know that land issues are driving a lot of the strife and squalor. If I own land and can make more money by growing fancy flowers to sell to America than by growing rice and beans for local consumption, what am I going to do? It's a slam dunk—I'm going to grow flowers for export. That's a land issue in simple terms.
I've also had friends and relatives who have been one paycheck away from homelessness. I understand what structural poverty is. The rules are structured to keep landless people down. It's true both in America and in the developing world, though in the latter you see homelessness in a much more extreme form. So it is a natural thing for me to be excited about affordable housing.
So what have you done?
My wife and I had a little retirement nest egg, like anybody would who runs a good business for a couple of decades. And I thought: This money is just sitting there in the bank giving me taxable interest but not doing anybody else any good. I didn't want to be a landlord because I don't have the energy or the temperament for that. This money could provide housing, and there are groups like the YWCA that could use it to house more of the people who are in transition and tough straits. What a great opportunity to put our equity to use. Just buy a rundown apartment building, make it a community effort with a church to spiff it up, and give it to the YWCA to use to help single moms get back on their feet.
I just say, "YWCA, there is a huge need. You are very capable. You need more apartments to house people. Take these 25 units—and bless you for doing all of that." So every night I go to bed not checking my portfolio to see how my multimillion-dollar investment has done, but knowing that 25 moms and their kids have a nice home. There's no risk on my part, no stress. I still own the building. It's a win-win-win situation. My hope is that other people would see that example and partner with the YWCA or churches or whomever and do something similar in their communities.
Amy Frykholm is special correspondent for the Century.
Who cares about history? I think about this question a lot because of my job as director of the Congregational Library in Boston. My association with this venerable Yankee institution, a large collection of things both important and inexplicable, means I'm often invited to churches that are celebrating anniversaries. It's the part of my job I enjoy the most—bringing words of greeting from long-dead Congregationalists whose memories are stored away in our climate-controlled archive.
I have been around long enough to recognize a congregation's collective dread when they're told that a historian is going to give the Sunday sermon, so I do a little advance research and come prepared with a few names and anecdotes from the congregation's particular story.
The more I have read congregational histories, the more I notice something that is hard to talk about: contemporary congregations seemed to be living out the sins of their ancestors. In all kinds of odd and sometimes humorous ways, congregations are all haunted by the past.
I began musing about this in earnest after visiting a mid-sized church on Cape Cod. The pastor had done a wonderful job pulling together a detailed narrative of the past 300 years, and I read almost the whole thing in one sitting. As I laid the book down, however, I began to feel obligated to pass on an urgent word of advice to this pastor and to any who followed him: Do not under any circumstances go near the water. His predecessors had drowned with depressing regularity, not just in the ocean as one might expect, but in lakes and rivers, sometimes falling off boats and sometimes just disappearing in the midst of a swim. If I were going to serve a pastorate there, I'd come with a life preserver.
I visited one 350-year-old church that had a semipublic history of sexual scandal. I also knew that it had been organized in the early 1600s under somewhat dicey circumstances, with a pastor exiled from Boston under the shadow of heresy. As the years passed, the church seemed to regularly skirt the edges of propriety. After reading that congregation's history I wanted to put the library copy back on the shelf in a plain brown paper wrapper.
I am exaggerating a little bit to make my point. I do not mean to suggest that some kind of weird determinism is at work. But I do believe that the past plays an important, often unarticulated role in creating the present-day realities of religious institutions. Memories survive in different ways, sometimes as a deep undercurrent of sadness or disappointment, sometimes as a tendency toward suspicion of outsiders or as resentment of authority.
The past can work in positive ways too, inuring a centuries-old congregation against panic or despair. All this suggests the importance of understanding the institutional DNA of a place—that broad set of predilections that shape (but do not determine) a church or a denomination's life course.
The daily demands of congregational life don't usually allow for critical reflection along these lines. In many churches, awareness of history rarely goes beyond a memory of old grievances. Many of the groups I visit have relatively little understanding of the origins of their congregations, let alone the origins of the denomination they may still claim. One consequence is that in the course of my visits to churches I regularly come across old record books, the painstaking labor of years—sometimes centuries—stuffed into boxes and left in unheated closets or packed away like relics, left in no one's particular care.
On the denominational level, historical awareness is often boiled down to a list of important "firsts" or various progressive stands on social issues. This string of successes is important and inspirational, but it can also become a way of disowning past sins and errors that are still folded into current realities. Most denominations end up with a baseball-trading-card approach to history—they highlight singular achievements but don't explore larger complexities. I suspect this aversion is one reason why the historical memory of mainline denominations seems to stop somewhere after the Civil War and pick up again in the 1960s. The long intervening decades, marking mainline Protestantism's glory days and its deepest crises, are virtually unknown territory.
What would happen if churches took their histories seriously? What if they found authentic footing in their particular past, not just in their theological traditions of origin, but in the deeper social and cultural soil from which they've grown? What if mainline churches decided to undertake a critical appropriation of their own history, as they have already done with biblical scholarship? Thoughtful observers like Diana Butler Bass have talked of the need for "re-traditioning," building new practices and new ways of connecting to history as a source of congregational vitality. I suspect, however, that mainline churches have some difficult emotional territory to traverse before those practices will ever have much of an effect.
Some of the reasons why history is a daunting subject for mainline Protestants are baldly practical. Many of them are offspring of multiple ecumenical mergers, and they draw from multiple denominational bloodlines. Specific remembering, especially about simpler times with fewer obligations and fewer strings of adjectives, can hint of disloyalty. This often means that historic denominational institutions—like the Congregational Library, for instance—are left in historical limbo, banished like an old girlfriend from the memory of an earnestly faithful husband. Many mainline churches in small towns and cities are hampered by their de facto status as the community church, a semipublic space that hosts the local Boy Scout troop and the Red Cross blood drive, maybe even the town meeting. Unlike smaller sectarian groups with very specific brand labels, many mainliners have long since lost any compulsion to explain themselves to anyone, historically or otherwise.
The relative absence of memory among mainliners distinguishes them from evangelicals. Conservative Protes tants are a diverse group drawn from a variety of theological and denominational sources, and they are justly famous for epic disputes on matters both social and doctrinal. If they have one common bond, something that draws them together under one cultural roof, it is a collective memory of loss. Once the appointed custodians of American culture, the ones who set both the moral tone and the political agenda, evangelicals came up hard against the secularizing forces of the early 20th century. In their story, told so well by a growing cadre of evangelical historians, the culture wars of the 1920s pitted a rising fundamentalist faction determined to battle for the "faith once delivered for all the saints" against an entrenched and determined liberal bureaucracy.
The conflict ended badly for the fundamentalists and they were routed from leadership, but their defeat soon became the stuff of legend. In the mid-20th century, they embraced their new role as religious pariahs, turning old grievances into entrepreneurial energies that fueled a massive campaign of institution-building. Though direct conscious memory of those confrontations may have died, their legacy, in all its present-day complexity, lives on. It's often said that winners are the ones who write history, but it's the losers who remember it most often—and the most effectively.
A few hundred years ago, a society's "rememberers" were not ink-stained wretches in academic libraries but important, idealized figures. Deep connection to the events of the past was a privileged status, a sign of piety and character. As David Gross writes in Lost Time: On Remembering and Forgetting in Late Modern Culture, the seers and sages who told those old stories were by definition people who possessed unique spiritual gifts. In the days before printing presses and copying machines, remembering required special focus and mental discipline—qualities long deemed essential to carving out the life of the soul. Not surprisingly perhaps, the great saints of Christian hagiography were notable for miraculous feats of memory. St. Francis, it was said, could recall every event in his life since childhood; St. Anthony could recite the entire Bible after simply hearing it read aloud. Remembering was also associated with creativity—in Greek myth Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, was mother of the Muses—because knowledge of things past was the stuff of authentic inspiration. The very act of recollecting great words and deeds was inherently ennobling.
Modern society, however, rewards forgetters. Better to drop it and move on, the self-help books advise; let bygones be bygones, make a fresh start. And so we teach children to improvise and innovate—we reward the ones who create something brand new, who think "outside the box" and are free from old regrets and superstitions. We are suspicious of memory, and for good reason: we recognize how history can be put in the service of fanaticism and greed—and how allegiance to the past has so often choked off the wind of the Spirit.
When formal seminary education was first offered in the early 19th century, students did not take any church history until their final year. Biblical studies and theology were fine for introductory students, so the reasoning went, but history was far too fraught a subject for rank beginners in divinity. A long view of the past would invite students to reconsider everything they thought was sure and to begin to reason on a vast and relative scale. History challenges the idea that there is only one truth and only one way of seeing things, and it challenges the assumption that the church is always a fountain of virtue, always stretching after the example of Christ. Perhaps those old curriculum designers knew that memory is a dangerous thing and that we should not engage our ancestors lightly.
In the end, we avoid history, I suspect, because it forces us to come to grips with our finitude. The past is the realm of the dear and not-so-dear departed. I sometimes contemplate with awe the fact that every item in our archives is a living connection with someone now on the other side of mystery. The library is full of books by people whose arduous life work survives only as a tiny blip of an obituary notice in some obscure publication. In my work, I pause now and then to say their names aloud, not to summon their spirits but to give the universe a chance to hear an old and beloved combination of words one more time.
Engaging the past is something more than a sudden encounter with Great Aunt Harriet in the upstairs bedroom. Critical reflection on all the stuff of history, the good as well as the bad, is a source and a sign of institutional vitality. Congregations that understand their origins and how their spiritual DNA has quietly shaped their course over the years are richer and more textured communities than they would be otherwise. Denomi nations with long and intricate association with their past are more sure-footed, more three-dimensional than those content just to skim off a famous name or two now and then.
God may be "still speaking," as they say in my denomination, the United Church of Christ, but that same God is also the Ancient of Days, loved and sought by generations of people who walked this earth many years before any of us came along. Those now voiceless men and women once owned and inhabited the earth we now enjoy; they contemplated the same horizon of hills and sunsets that we do; they toiled along streets that we walk on. They demand our respect, our thanks and our willingness to remember them with honesty and grace, never losing sight of what they might still be saying.
Margaret Bendroth is executive director of the Congregational Library.
Tom walked into my office looking glum. He tossed his backpack on the floor, fell into a chair by my desk, sighed, and then rummaged through his bag for the registrar's form. Tom is a first-year seminary student, and I'm his counselor. We walked through the courses he would be taking, most of them part of our core curriculum. Tom's lack of enthusiasm was screaming at me. Finally I took the bait: "So, Tom, what's the matter?"
His hands went up in the air as he shot back, "What's the deal with all of these required courses? When do we get to study things that are relevant?" Ah, I thought, the old "Let's make thousands of years of inherited tradition relevant to me" argument. I'd just had a similar conversation with a woman in the congregation where I serve, who wondered why we repeat the "same old creed" each Sunday.
Whenever someone starts talking about relevance, the focal point is always on the self. The individual is the one, and the only one, who gets to decide if something is relevant.
The assumption behind the relevance agenda is that we are on our own to construct life as best we can. Relationships, work, place, philosophies and religion are all à la carte resources that can, or cannot, be used in building a life that we prefer. Our choices depend on their relevance to our cherished ideal of the self.
Relevance is such an unquestioned idol of contemporary society that many congregations have grown by marketing their ability to provide relevant programs, music and preaching. It's as if they are saying, "Our church can provide better products than the rest of society as you try to collect the pieces of a life you will like."
The problem with this success at being relevant is—well, God. The church marketers are claiming that they can make God relevant to you, but when they do this, God ceases to be God and becomes instead just one more optional resource. By contrast, the historic churches and the seminaries that serve them are filled with old theological traditions. Most of them don't feel particularly relevant on any given day. That's by design. Their devotion is not to make the gospel relevant to the individual, but to make the individual relevant to the gospel. This is the function of our creeds.
We believe that the individual's life is not self-constructed but created by God, and that this construction began not when the individual was born, but with the words, "In the beginning God."
We believe that the end of the individual's story has already been written. According to the last book of the Bible, it ends wonderfully. It gets a little scary just before the end, but God makes a home among mortals, and a tree grows up out of the river of life with leaves for the healing of the nations. Nothing we do during our short life is going to make that ending any better or worse.
We believe that the best chapter of our life's story did not happen when we graduated from school, got a job or had children. The most formative chapter was not the time we failed at something important, lost a spouse or contracted a disease. The most powerful chapter, the one that changes everything, is when the word became flesh and dwelled among us.
We believe that this story gives our lives an eternity of meaning and purpose precisely because the story is not about us. It includes us, which is more of a grace than we can fully appreciate, but it's not about us. Isn't that a blessing?
We are dominated by an exaggerated sense of the self. We worry about "my job," "my kids," "my health," and when we're stuck in traffic we ask, "Why me?" By the time we make it to church on Sunday we're sick and tired of the self and ready to hear a better story, a glorious story revolving around Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This is why both the seminary and the church I serve are relentless in declaring "core curriculum requirements." The seminary requires courses in biblical studies, theology and church history because it wants pastors to be scholars of the inherited Christian drama. Their future parishioners will count on them to be well trained as holy storytellers. Similarly, the historic churches have a liturgy that doesn't include many optional electives. It requires worshipers to join in praise to God, confession of sin, proclamation of the word, sacraments of grace, prayers for others, offerings and thanksgivings. Week after week the liturgy keeps telling the same identity-shaping story.
From the perspective of a casual observer, not much is going on in either the seminary curriculum or the church liturgy that is relevant to felt needs of the individual. But if you peer beneath the individual's clamoring and conflicting desires, you may find a soul that has begun to breathe again.
M. Craig Barnes teaches at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and is the author of The Pastor as Minor Poet.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: A Novel
by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Dial Press, 290 pp., $14.00 paperback
In this collection of whimsical fictional letters set in 1946, protagonist Juliet Ashton corresponds with a group of people on the English Channel island of Guernsey about their experiences during the German occupation of World War II.
This book is a collection of witty, whimsical and charming fictional letters written in 1946. Most of the letters take place between a writer, Juliet Ashton, and a circle of friends and acquaintances. Juliet, in search of a subject, begins to correspond with a group of people on the Channel Island of Guernsey about their experiences during the German occupation of World War II. Eventually, she goes to the island to meet members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. She falls in love with the island and its quirky people and decides to stay to write a biography of one of the society's founders. The novel paints a complex and enlightening portrait of England in the days immediately after the war. Sometimes the conventions of the book become too conventional, but it is about the power of storytelling, and it tells its story in a way that captures the imagination.
Into the Story: A Writer's Journey through Life, Politics, Sports and Loss
by David Maraniss
Simon & Schuster, 304 pp., $26.00
An associate editor at the Washington Post, Maraniss presents a collection of articles ranging from an insightful piece on Barack Obama's mother to a gut-wrenching account of a family member's tragic death in a car accident.
Maraniss is one of the finest nonfiction writers alive who has plied his trade on political and sports figures, as well as historical events. This is a collection of his articles, many from the Washington Post, where he is an associate editor. A skilled biographer, these articles range from an insightful piece on Barack Obama's mother to a gut-wrenching account of his younger's sister tragic death in a car accident. Maraniss advises writers: "Be open to any possibility, remain flexible, look for connections, let the story take you where it will and always use detail for a purpose, with a larger design in mind." The ego of a writer gets in the way of a story, and it "serves too often, not as a form of revelation but as a cover for writer's block or for a paucity of research."
The title of Scott Cooper's debut film, Crazy Heart, comes from a song by the movie's protagonist, a country singer named Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges). At 57, Bad is an alcoholic and is shut down artistically, but he's still working the road and hanging on. The song alludes to picking up his crazy heart and giving it one more try. That's the theme of this poignant movie, whose intimate style evokes the films of the 1970s.
Bad has long hair and wears a beard, shades and a ten-gallon hat—the last of which he plops on his microphone when, loaded in the middle of a gig, he has to run to the men's room to throw up. But Crazy Heart isn't about an apathetic has-been or a spoiled, selfish drunk; it's the flip side of Payday, the 1973 minor classic in which Rip Torn played a third-tier country star whose only loyalty was to his own physical pleasures. Bad is exhausted from the road and dispirited by the wan, cut-rate venues his manager sends him out to. He hasn't written a new tune in years. But he doesn't begrudge his audiences the pleasure they've come for: he accedes to their requests with an indulgent, sexy grin and even gets one of his middle-aged fans up to dance.
Without a doubt Bad is a deeply flawed man; he has four ex-wives and a son he hasn't laid eyes on in decades. But he isn't self-deluding about the mess he's made of his personal life, and he isn't uncaring. When he gets involved with a much younger music writer (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a divorcée with a little boy, his kindness and generosity come to the fore, and he makes a romantic leap of faith like the man in his song. You know he's going to mess it up—he hasn't come to terms with his alcoholism—but Cooper (who also wrote the script, based on Thomas Cobb's novel) and Bridges have us rooting for him.
Jeff Bridges has been making movies for about as long as Bad has been touring; the first pictures he made a splash in—The Last Picture Show, Fat City—are nearly 40 years old. But he's never closed down his own creative impulses by repeating himself or settling for easy choices, and he's never been better than he is here. Bridges hasn't played a singer before, but his worn, occasionally meandering voice sounds authentic, and the songs inhabit him—he doesn't perform them so much as let them fall out. His exchanges with Robert Duvall (as a Houston club owner and an old fishing buddy) and with Colin Farrell (playing the one-time bandmate who's become a big star) are effortless slices of naturalism.
Bridges's rapport with Gyllenhaal—giving yet another of her superbly judged character performances—is even lovelier. Gyllenhaal's Jean is hard-bitten, a survivor of a series of failed relationships, but she's soft and pliant underneath her wariness, and she falls for Bad's warmth and good intentions even though she knows the danger of falling in love with a man who can't lay off the bottle. The first interview he gives her (as a favor to her uncle, who runs a club Bad plays) is an extended not-quite flirtation; when she returns for a second one after one of his gigs, he makes the flirting overt and she blushes, which knocks him out. They wind up in bed, and before she can take a wide-eyed look at what's transpiring he's begun to court her in earnest, cooking up breakfast for her and charming her son. They both gamble their hearts against their experience, but the tables are rigged.
The film has no special visual distinction, but it's genuine to the core. That songwriter and producer T Bone Burnett was involved with the project—he co-wrote "The Weary Kind," the movie's theme song—is one more sign that Cooper knows exactly what he is doing.
Steve Vineberg teaches at the College of the Holy Cross.
Met any vampires lately? They are unavoidable in popular culture, from Stephanie Meyer's books Twilight and New Moon (both made into films) to television fare such as True Blood and The Vampire Diaries. And though Buffy the Vampire Slayer may have gone off the air years ago, she lives (and slays) on in DVDs and comic books.
Vampire and other monster stories have long held an appeal for adolescents, an appeal the Twilight Saga movies exploit with hot young stars. Adolescence is a period of strange, new, powerful feelings. As sexual maturation and awakening occurs, menstruation begins for girls. Boys, like werewolves, grow more hair and experience their own hormonal turbulence. Amid these disturbing changes, teens often feel alienated and freakish, alone in the world.
Monster stories allow them to approach their sense of monstrosity sidewise. In many tales the monsters are vanquished, suggesting that the disconcerting bodies and disturbing urges of adolescents can be mastered. In more recent narratives, the monsters are domesticated—a sign that the adolescent can mature and tame his or her sexuality. The vampires in Twilight and True Blood aren't all evil. Some have learned to subsist on animal or synthetic blood rather than human blood.
The vampire is an enduring figure in our culture because it plays into the myth of romantic love. This myth concentrates on the adventure of two lovers who must overcome obstacles to consummate their attraction. Romantic love is a love of being under the spell of love more than it is a real, enduring relationship. That's why classic fairy tales end at the point where the lovers come together.
For romantic love, then, a distant, apparently unobtainable, even dangerous lover is ideal. The vampire is the ultimate tall, dark stranger—seductive, impressively powerful, mysterious, if also threatening.
I suspect that beyond the drama of adolescence and the conventions of romantic love, there are reasons specific to our time that vampires are pervasive. The catastrophe of 9/11 shook some American certitudes. Before that day in 2001, we believed acts of serious terrorism, at least by foreign agents, happened only in other countries. Now we know they can happen here.
In a post-9/11 world, we are confronted with terrorists who seem to operate outside our understandings of good and evil. In the wake of our bafflement and fear, we can and sometimes do think of these terrorists as monsters, unnatural people, not really human.
The situation is even more insidious than that. Knowing that we are not invulnerable from horrendous attacks, we worry that terrorists may dwell and move among us, their monstrosity concealed under a veil of normality. We may sit at a bar or in a classroom, maybe even at worship, alongside strangers or acquaintances who are actually our sworn enemies, who despise our way of life and hate what we stand for.
Vampires perfectly reflect this state of affairs. Especially in post-9/11 fictions, vampires do not immediately look different from ordinary human beings. (In Twilight and New Moon, they can even dwell in the daylight.) They speak our language and outwardly conduct their lives like ordinary citizens. Yet, like Osama bin Laden, they want our blood.
So vampire tales speak not only to teenagers or readers of romance novels—they resonate with Americans of all ages. They reassure us that the monsters can be defeated with spectacular technology and extraordinary violence, as in the Blade and Underworld movies. Or, as in Twilight and True Blood, they suggest that vampires may not be irredeemably monstrous after all. Maybe they can be domesticated and taught to live peaceably with us.
In theological terms, today's vampire stories focus on a difficult but central tenet of Christian discipleship: the love of enemies. It is easy and often psychologically satisfying to demonize our enemies. But Christ's response to his enemies, as well as his counsel to his disciples, rules out that response. The profusion of vampire stories today gives Christians an opportunity to consider and debate how to love the enemy, even the enemy in the guise of a supposed or actual terrorist.
Loving enemies in real life, amid intense global and inter-religious conflicts, is not easy to imagine, let alone act out. Would that it were as simple as driving stakes through the hearts of monsters or charming them to fall in love with us. It is not, of course. That is what gives teeth—or fangs—to the challenge of loving our enemies.
Rodney Clapp's American Soundings column appears in every other issue of the Century.
A recurring challenge for preachers, teachers and readers of the Gospel of John is making sense of its references to "the Jews." At Jesus' sentencing Pilate goes "out to the Jews" to tell them that he finds no reason to crucify Jesus (18:38). After Jesus is dead, John says that two men—Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus in secret "because of his fear of the Jews" (John 19:38), and Nicodemus, earlier described as "a leader of the Jews" (3:2), who came to see Jesus under cover of darkness (presumably out of that same fear of the Jews)—claim the body of Jesus for anointing and burial.
These and other negative references to "the Jews" are at least partially responsible for the shame of Christian anti-Semitism. Students of the New Testament understand that "the Jews" can't really mean all the Jewish people and is usually used by John to refer to the part of the Jewish leadership that was accommodating and cooperating with the Romans. After all, Jesus was an observant Jew and so were his disciples and his mother.
The Fourth Gospel was written in the context of early Christians' painful separation from Judaism and from the synagogue. For a while, Christian believers felt persecuted by the community they were leaving. John's Gospel was written for those believers.
In her very helpful book, Encounters with Jesus: Studies in the Gospel of John, Frances Taylor Gench explains that "in John's social environment, adherence to this community bore a cost," and she quotes David Rensberger's statement, in Johannine Faith and Liberating Community, that at that time declaring oneself a Christian believer was "to undertake an act of deliberate downward mobility."
This understanding in no way justifies the terrible history of Christian anti-Judaic teaching. It is nevertheless necessary for Christian preachers and teachers of John to understand and in some way include this point in sermons, lectures, essays and books.
The obvious problem is that it's hard to squeeze such lessons into a sermon. The very least we can do is explain that "the Jews" does not mean all the Jews and that a phrase like "because of fear of the Jews" does not refer to fear of the entire religious population.
John M. Buchanan is editor and publisher of the Century.
If church leaders had the chance to fashion a seminary from scratch, what would it look like? Would it have its own campus? Would it be tied to a denomination or be fully ecumenical? Would the classical academic subjects be taught and, if so, how would that learning be correlated with the work of forming spiritual leaders and training them in the practice of ministry? Would greater emphasis be placed on supervised ministry? Might the entire curriculum be based on an apprenticeship model of learning?
While this kind of important reflection is going on in some circles, students and churches must continue to reckon with seminaries as they exist—with their campuses and buildings, faculty and staff, governing boards and supporting constituencies. Yet change is coming to these institutions whether they want it or not, for many face decreasing enrollments and lack the financial resources to continue business as usual. The Association of Theological Schools reports that of the member schools that responded to a survey last April, 53 percent saw their endowments drop from 21 to 30 percent between June 2008 and March 2009; another 15 percent experienced an even deeper drop. Seminaries that were living on the edge financially before the recession were forced to cut faculty and staff, freeze or reduce wages and benefits, defer maintenance and reduce other spending, especially on libraries.
The average ATS member school spends 60 to 70 percent of its budget on institutional support and only 30 to 40 percent on educational programs. "This model is not sustainable," the ATS report bluntly concludes. Seminaries are going to have to rethink their economic model and focus on strategies that have greater sustainability, says Daniel Aleshire, ATS executive director.
There is a long history of seminaries merging or pooling resources to achieve greater efficiencies, but some recent attempts at merger or affiliation have foundered, showing that there are limits to this strategy as well. As Aleshire indicates, seminaries must consider new economic models.
Seminaries and their constituencies should use this moment to consider new pedagogical models as well. Take, for example, the longstanding disconnect between the practical fields of ministry and the academic disciplines of Bible, theology, ethics and church history. Curricular discussions have focused on how to help students integrate the practical and theoretical aspects of study, but most efforts end up maintaining the division and placing the burden of integration on the students more than on than the curriculum and the faculty. Is it time to organize courses around the life and mission of the church?
Change usually comes slowly to institutions, but these are not usual times. Deft administrators and imaginative teachers will have to take some risks to redefine theological education for the next generation.
Hope for more: As a new chaplain working in hospice care, Deborah L. Geweke thought her role was to help patients move beyond the denial of death. When a woman named Susan said to her, "Chaplain, I know God won't disappoint," Geweke replied: "Susan, but what if you do die?" To which Susan responded, "Well, Chaplain, then I guess especially in that case God won't disappoint!" Geweke learned from Susan that the dying often go through a series of hopes: first is a hope for a cure, then a hope that one will be cared for by loved ones, and finally, for persons of faith, a hope for the kingdom of God beyond death (Word & World, Winter).
Time out: Given President Obama's pro-choice stance on abortion, many members of the University of Notre Dame community were disturbed that Obama was the school's commencement speaker last spring, and they directed most of their criticism at Father John Jenkins, UND's president. For another side of Jenkins, his critics might want to read a recent profile of him, which relates how Jenkins hosts one-on-one sessions with students twice a semester. The interviews are usually limited to seven minutes, but in one instance, when a student confessed he no longer sensed the presence of God, Jenkins ignored the schedule and shared with the student how his own faith had been challenged when he was a philosophy major on the same campus. He invited the student to return for more conversation (Chronicle of Higher Education, January 3).
Word to the wise giver: Charity Navigator, which serves as a watchdog for nonprofit organizations, offers some suggestions to people who want to donate for Haiti relief: give to established organizations with a track record in Haiti. Check out the agency's Web site to see how funds will be used. Don't give to the Haiti government, which is known for corruption. Be wary of any e-mail solicitations or telemarketers. It is not effective or practical to donate supplies. Instead of sending old clothing, for example, it's better to hold a garage sale and donate the proceeds (Charity Navigator).
Handel this: Handel's Messiah is most often sung during the Christmas season, but Handel intended it to be performed during Holy Week. In his lifetime the work was seldom sung in churches but was sung in playhouses, where opera was performed. When the influence of Puritans in 18th-century England led to the banning of operas during Lent, oratorios like the Messiah became a popular alternative form of entertainment (Frank Burch Brown in Interpretation, January).
Oh say can you sing? Goshen College, a Mennonite liberal arts school in Indiana, attracted national attention in 2008 because of its practice of not playing the national anthem before intercollegiate sports events. The college recently decided to use an instrumental version of the national anthem, followed by a prayer, before sports events. President James Brenneman defended the shift, saying that "playing the anthem in no way displaces any higher allegiances," provides a more hospitable atmosphere on campus for those who disagree with the Mennonites' peace stance and opens up opportunities for the college to take prophetic stances on issues such as war, racism and human rights (Goshen College news release).
Mexican and American: Cesar Chavez, cofounder of the United Farm Workers union, was, like many great leaders, a flawed and disappointing character to those who knew him best. The UFW was not run well and many of the people around Chavez became disillusioned and quit or were fired. But Chavez's genius, according to Richard Rodriguez, was his ability to wed a Mexican understanding of the value of suffering with an American optimism about fighting the causes of suffering. In one of his most famous speeches during his hunger strike in 1968, Chavez said: "To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men." These words were later used in his funeral program without the gender-specific language: "To be human is to suffer for others. God help me to be human" (Wilson Quarterly, Winter).
Prescription for protest: "Protest," says Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, "is built into the job description of those who speak for the vulnerable." She believes that those who have learned the "art of generous, life-giving protest" share three qualities: first, a deep sense of the common good; second, a complex understanding of public policy—of "who benefits and who pays the hidden costs when taxes are lowered or wars waged or jobs outsourced"; and third, a humility that comes from an awareness of whom they are serving. "Protest can be a form of prayer," says Chandler McEntyre. "Wise protest is prayer turned to radical action" (from Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, excerpted in Weavings 25:2).
Test of faith: Alabama Republican gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne felt compelled to make a public statement declaring that he believes "every word is true" in the Bible. He said his position had been previously misrepresented in a newspaper article. The newspaper had sent each candidate a questionnaire concerning their religious and social beliefs, and Byrne had declined to answer the question on whether the Bible is literally true. In an e-mail message to the newspaper, he said that neither a yes nor no response represented his viewpoint. In a subsequent interview, Byne said, "I think there are parts of the Bible that are meant to be literally true and parts that are not." Apparently that's not good enough for Alabama voters, nearly 80 percent of whom consider themselves born-again Christians (al.com).
Doing good, doing well: Anyone investing in certificates of deposit knows that banks are paying rock-bottom interest rates. But it is possible to make short-term commitments that benefit the poor—from affordable housing in the U.S. to microenterprise abroad—and make as much as 3 percent and even higher on the investment. One-year Calvert Foundation community investment notes have been paying 3 percent interest. The money is steered "toward environmental, antipoverty, or regional initiatives of nongovernmental organizations" (Christian Science Monitor, January 17).
Focus on Tim: Tim Tebow, standout quarterback for the University of Florida's football team, is known for his outspoken evangelical faith and participation in mission trips. He is widely respected, even by sports fans who don't share his religious views. But that may change. A Super Bowl ad, financed by Focus on the Family, will share the story of how Tebow's mother, when pregnant with Tim, became ill and was advised by her doctor to have an abortion but rejected the advice. Women's and pro-choice groups are protesting the airing of what they regard as an antiabortion ad by CBS television (ncaafootball.fanhouse.com).
Andover Newton, Colgate Rochester drop plans for merger
Andover Newton in the Boston area and Colgate Rochester Crozer in upper New York State—two seminaries with American Baptist ties—have agreed to end merger talks, saying that plans fell short of being "financially viable" due to "economic realities."
Presidents of the two schools said they intend to keep exploring collaborative academic programming, according to a joint statement by Eugene C. Bay of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School and Nick Carter of Andover Newton Theological School.
In the meantime, however, Andover Newton began talking about a possible partnership with a Unitarian Univer salist seminary in Chicago. Carter met with Lee Barker, the president of Meadville Lombard Theological School, for initial discussions before Christmas.
"We found enough common ground to agree to continue the exploration," said Carter. Andover Newton has ties to American Baptists and the United Church of Christ but is also "a significant center for formation of Unitarian Universalist ministers," according to a joint statement. The Unitarian Universalist Association has headquarters in Boston.
Meadville Lombard trustees announced in November that they have authorized the sale of the school's campus in Chicago, which includes a main educational building and three large, converted houses. The school has been in Chicago for about half of its 165-year history.
Appeals for the world's banking leaders to cancel the remaining foreign debt owed by earthquake-devastated Haiti were made in late January by the leader of the World Council of Churches and by a newly founded alliance of U.S. Christian leaders.
New WCC general secretary Olav Fykse Tveit, a Norwegian Lutheran, said January 25 that the international community must "focus on how Haiti can become sustainable." Tveit was to take that message days later to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss winter resort of Davos.
In Washington, the new Evangelical Partnership for Common Good an nounced January 22 a petition signed by 66 Christian leaders, many of them known as progressive evangelicals, calling on all nations and institutions that have made loans to the Haitian government "to quickly and completely forgive these debts."
Last June, international financial institutions wrote off $1.2 billion of Haiti's $1.9 billion debt. But the country's debt level remains at around $640 million, with annual payments of about $50 million required to meet interest payments on that sum.
Debt cancellation would be an important step in the right direction, although not a solution, said Tveit in representing the view of the Geneva-based WCC. The minister-theologian said that the international community needs to show moral leadership and make sure that "any financial assistance to rebuild the country comes as grants rather than loans."
The petition announced by the U.S. evangelical group was newsworthy not so much for its stance as for what Associated Baptist Press called "the full return into public life of Rich Cizik, the former vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals."
Cizik resigned that post in 2008 following an outcry after he said on National Public Radio that he no longer opposed civil unions for gays. His positions on social issues, including environmental protections, had irked some conservative NAE members.
Cizik co-founded the new group with David Gushee, who teaches at Mercer University, and Steven Martin, a minister, filmmaker and activist. "We have yearned to offer a better model for how Christians address public issues; to be known for always standing up for those whom God loves but the world or the church often mistreat or neglect," according to their statement.
Other signers of the Haiti petition included Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Longwood, Florida; preacher-activist Brian McLaren, and author Jim Wallis, president and CEO of Sojourners. -Ecumenical News International, Associated Baptist Press
Alicia Swaringen of Eugene, Oregon, received heart-swelling news the morning after the deadly January 12 earthquake in Haiti: Sthainder, the four-year-old boy she planned to adopt, was safe. And then it hit her.
The adoption paperwork, amassed over three painstaking years, was in Haiti's Ministry of Interior, now rubble and dust. What, she wondered, would become of the affectionate boy she yearned to bring to Oregon?
By January 19, however, Swaringen's fears had subsided. She heard the news of plans to speed up as many as 900 U.S. adoptions that were already in progress before the quake—and to ease the way for more.
Even before the earthquake, Haiti was awash in orphans, about 380,000 according to the U.N. Children's Fund. Many had lost parents to hurricanes, floods, disease or poverty. They lived in about 200 legitimate orphanages or group homes. Other children, however, were sold through bogus orphanages.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced a "humanitarian parole" policy to expedite legitimate adoptions already under way. According to State Department spokespersons, several hundred Americans were in various stages of adopting Haitian children and the special "parole" has already been granted to 400 children. During fiscal year 2009, by comparison, only 330 children were adopted from Haiti.
[A couple from Frederick, Maryland, David and Christie Hubner, promised a three-year-old three years ago, was told January 20 by their agency, One World Adoption Services, that they could pick up their daughter in Florida. "As a Christian, I really believe the Lord did not cause this (earthquake)," David Hubner told the Los Angeles Times, "but blessings really do come out of tragedies."
[Government officials cautioned that the destruction in the Haitian capital and the difficulty of correctly identifying children as earthquake orphans will slow adoptions sought by new applicants.
[Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a news briefing in Washing ton January 20 that caution is advised: "We will not let red tape stand in the way of helping those in need, but we will ensure that international adoption procedures to protect children and families are followed."]
Private agencies, such as the Oregon-based Holt International Children's Services, are proceeding with care. "It's incredibly important in times like this to take every precaution that an ethical, professional, compassionate process takes place," said Susan Soon-Keum Cox, Holt's vice president.
"There may be children that appear to be orphans, but we need to make sure there are no other family members or neighbors willing and happy to take that child into their family. We can't rush in and assume that they'd be better off somewhere else."
Holt International, a nonprofit Chris tian organization, works in 14 countries to find children safe, permanent, loving homes. It has operated in Haiti for about a decade and had 21 adoptions in progress there when the earthquake struck.
"We have to remember—adoption is a very complex, complicated procedure," said Cox. "It needs to be preserved for times when a child has no other possibility to have a family."
Swaringen met the child she hopes to adopt last May at Holt's facility in Haiti. Sthainder (pronounced Sten-dare) was three, yet seemed sure that the tall, blond woman was trustworthy.
"We walked up to each other," Swaringen said. "I sat on the ground. He leaned over, gave me a little kiss on the cheek and put his arms around me. It was so incredibly precious. He sat in my lap and hugged me for an hour . . . We bonded immediately."
Swaringen, 48, single and a massage therapist, has long wanted to be a mother. "Things didn't work out that way," she said. "So adoption was an obvious solution." Now, she said, he will be with her shortly. "I just feel really blessed that there is this little boy there for me, and I'm here for him." -Religion News Service
When a church is deemed no longer viable and is ordered to be closed, who gets to decide what happens to the building?
Catholic dioceses in Ohio and Massachusetts are resisting moves by local officials to apply landmark designations to shuttered churches, saying such moves raise issues of religious freedom and expression.
Landmark advocates, meanwhile, say they are preserving the historic character of neighborhoods—a concern that isn't always shared by bishops preoccupied with shrinking budgets and dwindling numbers of priests.
On December 29, the City Council in Springfield, Massachusetts, voted unanimously to designate Our Lady of Hope Catholic church as part of a historic district. Built in 1925, the Italian Renaissance-style church boasts the tallest bell tower in Springfield.
Then in early January, the city's His torical Commission recommended that a second church, Immaculate Conception, also be named part of a historic district.
On January 21, the Diocese of Spring field filed suit to stop the designation, accusing lawmakers of acting out of "unnecessary haste" and "political expediency."
Designating church buildings as landmarks over the objection of church leaders is "a serious threat to our ability to control church buildings, including very clear religious symbols—a control which protects our religious freedom and expression," diocesan spokesman Mark Dupont said in a statement.
The four-county diocese has an nounced plans to shutter about one-fourth of its 101 churches. "The population has fallen by one-third in our diocese as the industrial base has declined. The bishop is determined to right-size the diocese in terms of parishes and not overextend our priests," Dupont said in an interview.
The legal dispute represents a new wrinkle in traditional church-state disputes. The designation for Our Lady of Hope includes statues and crosses—and the government has no right telling churches what to do with such religious items, Dupont said.
"If we don't defend this right," he added, "every city and town could tell churches what they can and can't do."
A similar fight has erupted in Cleve land, where Catholic leaders plan to close about 50 churches.
Rebuffing the diocese's claim that the proposals were "extremely offensive," the city's Landmarks Commission recently recommended that six more Catholic churches be designated as historical city landmarks—adding them to a list of 31 Catholic churches already so designated.
Councilman Anthony Brancatelli, who is sponsoring five of the six designations, said he found the church's response "a tad unusual." He added: "These are absolutely beautiful churches architecturally. Whether they like it or not, this is the step we have to take. We're going to hear it in council and we're going to pass it."
Last March, the Cleveland City Council moved to landmark not just the exteriors, but also the interiors, of shuttered churches. "I will not stand for stained-glass windows to be boarded up," said Councilwoman Dona Brady. "And many churches have built-in icons. These have got to stay there."
Robert Tayek, a spokesman for the Diocese of Cleveland, said the situation has not yet moved into lawsuit territory. Interior landmarking, he added, "raises a bigger question" under the First Amendment than the already contentious fight over preserving a church's outward appearance.
In Springfield, Massachusetts, Cath olic spokesman Dupont noted that the diocese has found new roles for many former churches, including as sites for affordable housing and artisan galleries. Some churches have been sold to other denominations and remained worship spaces.
Ironically, Dupont said, designating church buildings as landmarks would discourage developers from finding such creative new uses.
Avoiding the confrontational nature of landmarking is part of the mandate of Partners for Sacred Places, a Phila delphia-based organization that gathers denominations, architects and community leaders to explore new uses for churches.
"We are about making the most of these great old buildings and finding a smooth transition to a use that keeps the public value," said Partners executive director Robert Jaeger. In a Partners project in Detroit, for instance, a former church became a Polish history center. -Religion News Service
A man who by his own testimony sought chances to kill Dr. George Tiller, one of the few U.S. physicians who perform late-term abortions, was quickly convicted of murder in a Kansas trial. The outcome was welcomed by pro-choice groups and by most established pro-life groups.
Scott Roeder, 51, an airport shuttle driver from Kansas City, was convicted of first-degree murder January 29 by a Wichita jury after only 37 minutes of deliberation. He faces life in prison. Sentencing is set for March 9.
Members of the Reformation Luth eran Church, affiliated with the Evan geli cal Lutheran Church in America, testified that they had seen Roeder at the large brick church several times prior to May 31 when he shot Tiller point-blank in the head. On that Sunday, Tiller was serving as an usher and standing in the foyer as his wife was preparing to sing with the choir.
In his testimony January 28, Roeder told the jury that his only chance to kill Tiller and to stop what he considered the killing of more babies was at the church. Tiller's clinic was bombed in 1986 and a shooting in 1993 left the doctor wounded in both arms. As a result, Tiller lived behind high walls, wore a bulletproof vest and traveled in a custom armored car, often with a bodyguard.
"It was the only window of opportunity that I saw where he could be stopped," Roeder testified.
After defense lawyers finished their case, Sedgwick County District Judge War ren Wilbert ruled that he would not allow the jury to consider a charge of voluntary manslaughter, which under state law would require that Roeder be judged to have acted in honest though unreasonable belief he was stopping imminent, unlawful harm.
"There's no imminence of danger on a Sunday morning in the back of a church, let alone unlawful conduct," Wilbert said. "In the state of Kansas, abortions are legal."
In a post-verdict statement, the doctor's widow, Jeanne, and the Tiller family expressed hope that "George can be re membered for his legacy of service to women, the help he provided for those who needed it."
Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, implored abortion opponents to temper their "inflammatory rhetoric and tactics that inspire this kind of violent action from the most extreme factions of the anti-choice movement."
Antiabortion activist Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, attended the trial and said, "I don't condone what Scott Roeder did, but I cannot condemn the consistency of his logic." Terry told reporters the verdict was "a miscarriage of justice."
However, Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, issued a statement from New York contending that "violence is antithetical to the pro-life movement, which is why Priests for Life is part of the vast chorus of pro-life groups condemning the killing of George Tiller."
ChristianPost.com, an online news service, noted that Southern Baptist seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr. said after the killing that "violence in the name of protesting abortion is immoral, unjustified, and horribly harmful to the pro-life cause."
Since 1993, eight people associated with abortion clinics have been killed in attacks; Tiller is the fourth doctor to die.
Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder, Colo rado, among the few physicians who still perform late-term abortions, said he was furious that the Kansas judge even allowed the defense to argue for voluntary manslaughter during testimony. "The judge gave this assassin a national platform for [Roeder's] inflammatory propaganda," Hern said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The pastors of Reformation Lutheran praised the district attorney's office for its clear presentation and the judge for providing clarity during the weeklong trial. Though activists on both sides of the abortion issue crowded into the courtroom, no protests were staged at the church, said senior pastor Lowell R. Michelson. "I'm grateful . . . that it's over and we can start the next part of our healing phase," associate pastor Kristin M. Neitzel told ELCA News Service.
"We pray that all places of worship will be sanctuaries—places of reconciliation, peace and hope, setting the pace for a fractured world that so desperately seeks unity with God and one another," said the pastors on behalf of the congregation.
