Picking up the gauntlet

The recent edict by the Health and Human Services Department regarding the effects of the health care law on religious organizations should be of great concern to all Christians.  It narrowly interprets which religious institutions can avoid having to include services such as sterilization, contraceptives and abortion causing drugs at no cost in the health care plans offered to their employees.  Only those religious institutions (i.e. churches) whose purpose is to inculcate their moral values to their own members and primarily only employ and serve their members can quality for an exemption to the law.  The schools, hospitals and social programs run by religious organizations are not exempt and must follow the ruling.  While its provisions are most onerous to and have the greatest impact on Catholic churches and institutions who prohibit such practices in their moral teaching, the mandate has the great potential of negatively impacting all Christian organizations, Catholic and Protestant who serve the public.  This has dire consequences particularly on those who minister to others though social programs, such as food and clothing banks, homeless shelters, tutoring or counseling programs, etc. and who desire to avoid providing such health care benefits as a matter or conscience.  In effect, any church which has any type of outreach program which employs people for that purpose could come under the hegemony of the federal health care law and be forced to either drop their health care plans and pay hefty fines to the government, or provide for these health care services.  The administration’s opposition to the recent Supreme Court decision which guaranteed that church organizations alone can decide whom to hire and fire raises further questions as to how the government will further interpret the HHS ruling.  This matter is of grave concern since at its heart, Christianity is concerned with evangelism and missions. The Benedictine Belmont Abbey College has already indicated that it may close its doors rather than comply with the law if it doesn’t receive a waiver.  Several religious adoption agencies have closed their doors rather than adopt to same sex couples.   How many religious hospitals and schools will follow suit?  It has been noted that under these narrow guidelines for exemptions not even the ministry of Jesus and his disciples would qualify for an exemption of the law.

The administration’s decision to deny the constitutional rights of deeply held convictions and religious liberty requires one of two responses.  We can acquiesce to the new mandate, deciding to do nothing.  But if we do so, we must ask ourselves the disturbing questions “What’s next?  Where do I draw the line, if not here?”  For it is likely that we will soon face another challenge to our faith.  Or we can join those who for reasons of conscience are fighting the effects of the edict, taking a firm stand of solidarity with them in their efforts to overturn this attack upon religious institutions.  The Lutheran theologian Martin Niemöller, reflecting on the Nazi purging of various groups within Germany spoke the following:

First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out -- 
Because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -- 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak out –

Because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.

The gauntlet has been thrown down.  Who will pick it up?

Spiritual Tranquilizer

Thomas Merton, reflecting on the 1958 Christmas Address of Pope John XXIII noted that

 “Christ our Lord did not come to bring peace to the world as a kind of spiritual tranquilizer.  He brought to His disciples a vocation and a task, to struggle in the world of violence to establish His peace, not only in their own hearts but in society itself.  This was to be done not by wishing and fair words but by a total interior revolution in which we abandoned the human prudence that is subordinated to the quest for power, and followed the higher wisdom of love and of the Cross.” 

Although his words were written during the height of the Cold War, they are as relevant today as they were then.  We are still living in a world of violence.  We see the effects of terrorism all around the world.  We still seek to obtain power, whether as religious right or left, as conservative or liberal, or Republican or Democrat.  We still find comfort in pursuing a tranquilizing peace that never quite solves the problems we face.  It doesn’t appear that much has changed in the past fifty years.

            The role of a tranquilizer is to soothe over issues and reduce tension.  While it covers over problems, it never solves the basic issues.  Merton’s statement leads us to a probing question. To what extent do we seek peace as a spiritual tranquilizer?  If we do, we will find ourselves eventually willing to accept “peace at any price”.  And this leads us down the slippery slope which ends up in a compromise with error and evil.  Unfortunately it is all too easy to justify this in the name of peace.  The Old Testament prophets excoriated the religious leaders who preached “peace, peace when there was no peace”.  We saw what occurred when world leaders sought to appease Hitler during the 1930s.  Many church leaders of his day also fell under his charismatic leadership, refusing to take a stand against the Third Reich as it became more and more evil.

            But true Christianity never makes compromise with evil in order to achieve peace.  We see this in the life of Jesus.  Many of the teachings of the religious leaders of his day had distorted God’s intent.  Even though it eventually cost him his life, Jesus refused to go along with them in order to have peace.  We see the same in the lives of his disciples when they declared “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God.” (Acts 4:19).  And we also see it in the lives of the Christian martyrs as they faced the wild animals and gladiators in the arenas before the taunting on-looking crowds   Refusing to worship the emperor and live in peace, they gladly accepted death. 

            In the spiritual realm, peaceful coexistence never seems to work.  Those on the side of evil will almost always come out ahead in the exchange.  Despite our vain attempts to coexist with the world, Satan will never play fair, always manipulating things to his advantage.  He simply cannot be trusted.

            As Merton eloquently notes, God requires an interior revolution or transformation that totally changes our character and our lives. This alone brings true peace, for it is an interior peace that only comes from a total allegiance to and complete trust in God.  It relies upon complete dependence on him.  It requires us to be Christians in action, not just in name.  What kind of peace are you willing to live with?

Being Part of God's Community

During the 19^th century and first half of the 20^th century community spirit was much in vogue.  It was common for neighbors to help neighbors during times of need, especially in rural America.  Growing up during the latter years of this period, before the radical shift to individualism occurred, I was fortunate enough to witness this phenomenon.  While still a young boy, I had the privilege of attending a barn raising where farmers from twenty miles around came together to help a neighbor to build a new barn.  As part of a threshing ring, our family along with several others bought a threshing machine to harvest grain.  During the harvesting season, the entire group would move from farm to farm, harvesting each farmer’s grain, the men and boys working in the fields, the wives and girls cooking the  meals.  I have always felt privileged to have been old enough to participate in this activity prior to its cessation from American life.  One spring, when my father was ill and unable to prepare our fields for planting, several neighbors showed up one Saturday morning with their tractors and plows to plow the fields.  These types of activities were common during my youth.

Moving into the latter half of the 20th century things radically changed with the rise of both industrialization and individualism.  The urban flight to suburbia with its protected yards and garage door openers, the vast increase in mechanized equipment on the farms, the shift in attitude towards “doing one’s own thing” and “I’ve got to be me” all led us away from community.  Front porches, with neighbors sitting on them conversing, were replaced with decks in backyards, resulting in further loss of community.  Churches, by en large, also succumbed to this loss as, with better roads and faster automobiles being coupled with the thrill of individualism, the concept of local community churches disappeared.  It is not uncommon today for people to live twenty or thirty miles away from the church where they worship. 

The emphasis upon individualism which began in the 1960s, moved through modernism into the postmodern era, has increasingly fractured society, with many today feeling alone, aloof and disenfranchised.  The void that individualism brings can only be filled by community because God, being triune, is in community and expressed the need for human community when he said “It is not good for man to be alone.”  In establishing the covenant with Israel he established a community.  In constituting the church, God chose the symbol of the body to illustrate its communal nature.  We are called together, with the understanding that we need each other to function properly.  

The church, because of its body structure, is poised to overturn the aloneness and abandonment of our current individualistic society.  As a caring community, it can reach out to the world, meeting the needs of the people we find there.  But community does not occur by osmosis.  It requires intentionality.   It will not occur without deliberate effort. To be successful, it will require men and women coming together with the conviction that God has called them to such an endeavor. 

But the church is only made up of individuals; individuals who must desire to be a part of community if we are to make a difference.  As both individuals and as a community we can express warmth and love to those whose lives have been fractured, pointing them to God’s kingdom.  But it requires a decision:  Am I willing to abandon my own individualism for the good of God’s community?

True Piety

The words “piety” and “pious” are not always the most appreciated in our world today because in many persons’ eyes they are often associated with hypocrisy and otherworldliness. The pious person is often considered to be uninterested in this world, to be prudish and one who seeks to seclude himself from society. Piety, because it has an introspective aspect to it, appears to be somewhat selfish in orientation. Thus the pious person is seen as having little interest in the plight of people around him, taking a passive approach to issues and problems. His time and energy is spent focusing on his own personal relationship with God. He is sometimes described as being so heavenly minded as to be of no earthly good. This is unfortunate since the description above describes false piety. In reality, the true pious person is just the opposite. He is one who is in tune with, listens to the voice of God and responds accordingly. Rabbi Abraham Heschel, in his essay on piety included in his collected essays “Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity” notes that “The pious man’s main interest is concern for the will of God, which thus becomes the driving force controlling the course of his actions and decisions, molding his aspirations and behavior.” Since God is vitally interested in the affairs of mankind, the pious person has similar interests. Heschel adds “Further, piety is an attitude toward reality in its entirely. It is alert to the dignity of every human being, and to those bearing upon the spiritual value which even inanimate things inalienably possess. The pious man, being able to sense the relations of things to transcendent values, will be incapable of disparaging any of them by enslaving them to his own service.”

True piety greatly affects one’s worldview and interaction with the world. Far from being other worldly and passive, the pious person is actively involved in this world precisely because he is in tune with God. He is vitally interested in this world because God is interested in it. He stands against oppression and brokenness because God stands against them. He affirms human dignity because God does. He engages his culture as did the pious men of old, such as the Old Testament prophets, who affirmed what was God pleasing in their society and condemned what wasn’t. He promotes the responsible use of resources, believing that the creation mandate is one of stewardship, not dominion; one of replenishment and restoration, not of misuse and neglect. Instead of being selfish, he selflessly serves others using the gifts God has so graciously given him. His thoughts, his actions, his very being are in tune with God. Piety is a mode of living whereby we gravitate towards God. As such it is related to holiness.

It is precisely because a pious person is so consumed with the will of God that he steps out in faith to engage his broken world. Everything he says and does is evaluated reverently through the lens of God’s eyes. To him, his interests and desires are less important than is God’s will. The attainments of the world and its beautiful trappings are rejected if they are based on injustice and greed. His love of God fuels compassion for the lost, the dispossessed, the poor and the disenfranchised, allowing him to reach out to them with his time, treasures and talents. He is willing to share the resources at his disposal, believing that everything he has is a gift from God. May we all be known as being pious!

Changing the Culture

Modern man is facing a dilemma. Enamored with modernity, we have rejected Christianity and its way of life. At the same time, we deplore the greed of Wall Street financiers and power brokers, taking advantage of the poor, hypocrisy of religious leaders, etc; all things that Christianity also deplores. We turn away from faith based programs which have demonstrated that inner city youth who regularly attend church are significantly less likely to be incarcerated. In the process we have stripped away the very thing that acts as a deterrent to many of the problems facing the post modern society in which we live; namely the relationship with the moral God that Christianity espouses.

The people who make up a society determine that society’s culture, for they have shared attitudes, goals, practices and morals which form a major component of the society’s educational and cultural formation. When its shared values are no longer held in common, or are denigrated, its culture disintegrates into chaos.

The refusal of our education establishment to teach morals, preferring a value neutral environment adds to the problem. The words of Joy Davidman in her book Smoke on the Mountain regarding this dilemma are perhaps more relevant today than when she wrote them in 1953. “For the present outburst of destruction, no doubt, secularism may be partly to blame. A man cannot obey a law he has never learned, and the failure of our education to give adequate moral and spiritual training is too well known to need discussion here.” She goes on to say that without belief in the promises and commandments of God we are left with a man-centered philosophy. Whether humanism or materialism fills the void, we are forced to deal with the inescapable fact that they both promote “this life and its immediate desires as the basis of all conduct.”

A values free environment devolves into a world with no values, with each individual determining for himself what is right and wrong. Without an objective standard, society cannot function in a predictable fashion. A society where life is not predictable quickly becomes unstable. Without the checks and balances which absolute moral and ethical values bring, it rapidly transitions itself into a self centered narcissistic society. It can only end up eventually destroying itself.
It is very easy to become infected by the environment in which we live, especially its narcissistic values which affect us personally. Our schools, in promulgating a values free education, promote all lifestyles as being equal and abhor any sort of judging. Without an objective standard to use as a gauge of what is right and wrong, our natural tendency is to gravitate to what is most advantageous to oneself, regardless to how it affects others. In the public arena, this is translated into what is the most good for the most people, instead of what is the common good for all people. This leaves the infirm, the elderly, the poor and the disabled at particular risk of being cast off. If everyone behaves this way, society quickly devolves into anarchy, living with the mantra of “might makes right”.

The way forward requires the development of authentic communities that undermine the individualistic isolation which society fosters. Expressing the love of Christ through developing relationships which seek to heal the brokenness around us, together we can make a difference and positively affect the prevailing culture. The church can become such a community as it builds relationships, promotes restoration, and practices love through service. But it requires getting out of our buildings and into the streets, the gutters and the byways. Are we ready for it?

Words and Lives

The passing of the legendary collegiate UCLA basketball coach John Wooden a year ago at age 99 provides an opportunity to reflect on his legacy. Though retiring in 1972, his achievement has yet to be surpassed, and likely never will. During his final twelve years of coaching he won ten NCAA national championships, at one point winning 88 games in a row. Various sports commentators, reflecting on his legacy, have questioned whether or not he would have been as successful in today’s game, concluding that he probably would not. In many ways, the game has changed over the past forty years, and not for the better. Others conclude he still would be, for he always stressed education, commitment and team play. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, commenting on Wooden on the occasion of his ninety-ninth birthday stated “Because of Coach Wooden’s mentoring I have never felt uncomfortable being a scholar in addition to being an athlete.” He noted that Wooden thought more of his players graduation rates being over sixty-five percent than he did of his amazing championship runs.

Those who personally knew Wooden point more to his character as a man and teacher than to his coaching ability, for his concern was always to develop the total person, not just his player’s basketball ability.

Trained as an English teacher, he sought to inculcate into his players the creed given him by his father at his eighth grade graduation. These principles were to be true to yourself, make each day your masterpiece, help others, drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible, make friendship a fine art, build a shelter against a rainy day, and pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day. Wooden lived and taught these principles; they became the basis for his Pyramid for Success, developed over fourteen years of reflection.

The disciplines he developed throughout his long life contributed to his success as a coach, whether it was teaching his players how to put on their socks and lace their shoes, dribble a basketball, or dealing with their stardom. He could praise his star players, like Abdul-Jabbar and Walton without fawning over them, and criticize them without berating them. In all of his years of coaching no one recalls one time when he swore at a player. Although blessed with megastars, he always insisted that the main ingredient of stardom was the rest of the team.

Avoiding pre game emotional speeches, believing that emotional peaks are usually followed by passing through deep valleys, he focused on intensity, teaching his players to think small during games – to concentrate on quick but proper execution. Success was not winning, but obtaining the peace of mind that comes from knowing that one made the effort to do the best to become the best that one is capable of becoming.

But it is in an anonymous poem which Wooden considered one of his favorites that we see perhaps most clearly the character of the man that his players and associates saw most clearly.
"No written word, no spoken plea
Can teach our youth what they should be,
Nor all the books on all the shelves.
It’s what the teachers are themselves."
In this poem we see the essence of authentic, unhypocritical living, Because he lived this way, Wooded had a profound impact on the young men who played for him. becoming a mentor to many. As we go though life we often find ourselves taking on roles as mentors and teachers. In them our character is set forth for others to see. As they observe our lives, do they see us teaching what we truly are?

Cocoon Living

Working for a small privately owned company with a strong Christian presence has both its plusses and minuses. While there is a certain camaraderie which is beneficial, it can also be very isolating. A fellow co-worker, a recent college graduate, and I were discussing the frustration of spending most of our times in a Christian cocoon – Christian family, strong church involvement, having mostly Christian friends and co-workers – while desiring to have an evangelistic presence in the world in which we live. Neither of us wanted to live only in the cocoon.

As I later reflected on our discussion, the image of the butterfly came to mind. The caterpillar must go through the chrysalis stage in order to be transformed into a beautiful butterfly. The goal of entering the chrysalis is not to stay there, but to emerge at the proper time, free to soar above the ground instead of crawling upon it. It is a time of metamorphosis, when the caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly. If the butterfly emerges too quickly it likely will be deformed or stunted, unable to fly and will likely quickly die. If its emergence is delayed too long it also won’t survive. The length of time as a chrysalis depends upon the season of the year, the average temperature and the type of butterfly. Emerging at the right time gives the butterfly the freedom to be what God intended it to be.

The same is true in our Christian life. One of the goals of the church and the Christian family is to provide the Christian culture and nurturing environment for children to develop into young men and women who are free to be all that God intends them to be, able to think for themselves and develop a strong faith. During our growing up years, home and church should be a cocoon, providing the training and upbringing that will eventually allow us to spread our Christian wings and soar. They should provide the nurturing that we need in order to mature. Just as with the butterfly, either leaving too early or too late can cause problems – too early and our faith is not developed enough to survive the onslaught of the secular culture in which we are immersed; too late and we may not have the strength to be independent, always needing hand-holding and support in order to survive. In either case, one’s faith may wither and die.

Parents who are over protective are in as much danger as those who are over tolerant in seeing their children abandon the faith. While working in a coffee house ministry during my seminary years, I witnessed several college students, whose entire life until then revolved around church and Christian schools. They had been isolated from the larger world. As a result, they struggled with questions about their faith; both abandoning the church and living lives filled with drugs and promiscuity. Out on their own, away from home for the first time, with no one to hold their hand, they were ill prepared to handle their first adventure into the secular world around them.

In order to prepare one’s children for a life in the world, it is important to live out the faith we proclaim so that our children can see our faith in action. It is important to discuss issues from a Christian perspective so that our children develop a Christian worldview and understand why they have it. There is one question which Christian parents should keep in the forefront of their minds: How well am I preparing my children to leave the cocoon?