Nationality as we know it.

This summer I went home to the Midwest. There I listened to much of the same conversations I've heard from most circles I've been a part of in the past few months, meaning those on the topic of American politics. It wasn't long ago that I would have been right in there trying to get my opinion heard as much as anyone else, but these days I've been listening, weighing in a word or two from time to time, but mostly listening. It changes what one hears when the mind isn't set on any agenda but rather to hear and understand.

What I noticed is that more often than not these conversations are not so much each side talking about how good their group is or the other but consist rather more in talking about which side is less wrong; which side has less holes or the worst holes. Whether democrat, republican, libertarian, conservative, liberal, cool and calm or yelling and screaming, there are thinking Christians, thinking members of all colors and creeds on each side who find and admit failing, corruption and distrust in leaders and philosophies and tactics of each group. 'Regan did this'; 'Kennedy did that', 'Bush the tyrant', 'Clinton the harlot', 'Obama the anti-Christ'. Oh and let us not forget the classics: if only there was more money for This or for that, here or there, less government or more, more over there, less over here, more now less later. In the relatively short time that I have decided to be educated about politics and the even less time that I have stepped back and watched and listened, I've noticed that it has all gotten real repetitive real quickly. Different sides, same coin. Always one week’s solution becomes the next week’s new problem. Band-aids for brain damage.

For my people's part, I listen and wonder why there are such strong feelings fighting for one side or the other in the christian community? Why does it sound as though these politics of man, with their powers and clever ideas to make lasting change-- which never last-- which these often admittedly corrupt people can come up with are all there is? That this is all we have to work with? Why, as Christians, does it seem that this is where the good life and our hope is made or broken? That world changing "good news" is limited to whatever one party or the other says is good and winning the most votes? With each new regime change in American government Christians on one side or the other are convinced that the new regime will try to pull America away from being a "christian nation", thereafter viewing every move made through rose--anti-Christ-colored glasses and make an uproar at anything that might be considered evidence to this, even if they have to make it up or spread a rumor they haven't checked the validity of. An example of this being the e-mail forward I previously posted about that the Obama family nixed all religious oriented ornaments from the white house Christmas tree. Many have taken hold of this rumor as alarming evidence that they want to take America away from being a Christian nation-- see my post on the Christmas rumor. What feeds this fire moreover is the apparent comment made at some point by Obama that he doesn't consider America a "christian nation." With these words an immediate defensiveness and panic sets in for many christians, a call to action of sorts to "take back their nation, casting back to the good ol'days of the christian america." What is it that is so Christ-like about America though, or the America of yester-year? I'm not going to speculate at this, just think about it, if you will, remembering that the fact that America may have been more comfortable for you to live it at a different time doesn't mean that it was any more of a "Christian nation."

What first comes to mind for me as problematic with America being a "Christian nation" is that The kingdom of God is a nation in its own which calls its citizens to complete transformation and is not one to share loyalties with kingdoms of man. To the early church, when the name "Christian" first came about as referring to the disciples of Christ, it was a citizen title for the new people of God, who, though being made up of people from every nation and division, now are a new nation of one people, sanctified-- completely set apart from the old ways for the new. To the early church being a "Christian" carried a very similar meaning as did being an Israelite, an Italian or an American; they no longer fit or submitted to these old divisive titles because they had been adopted into a new nation, so people called them Christians. God's Kingdom is a new kingdom and a new way of being a kingdom and a new kind of freedom and economy, a new way of peace that isn't limited to the ways of the nations of men, not merely an improvement on the old, nor is there room for the old with the new. The claims in scripture that "Jesus is Lord" was a very political one and considered treason as it is exactly the word they used to refer to Caesar: "Caesar is Lord." His lordship over his people's lives is not limited to some spiritual realm while Caesar gets everything else due a king. "Jesus is Lord" was/is a choice between kings, kingdoms and the ways of life which follow. The land that Caesar said was his may have had Christians in it but they all belonged to a new nation.

Lets Consider for a moment, though, what a nation that follows Christ and has taken to heart and lives out the freedom that he has given might look like?...

...If you do have a considerable knowledge of the lifestyles, national policies, conditions and standards of nations around the world you might notice that America doesn't measure-up the best to some other nations on having similar values as Christ seemed to have. Such as caring for the sick and impoverished, community, generosity, and stewardship of nature, to name a few.

However, being the nation of God is not merely about the ethical stances but where our freedom comes from, where our daily sustenance comes from and who we submit our all to and where we find fulfillment. It is freedom to be broken and in need, knowing that all we have and all we need is the love of God for who we are--unconditional for who we could be. The American message in all of these things (again, especially speaking in word and deed rather than the ideologies America loves to use and abuse at their best) are not at all close to the message and lifestyle of Christ. Recall the old Pauline philosophy "to live is Christ, to die is gain."? Doesn't sound very American to me.

The more I listen to these conversations with family and friends and follow politics I just keep thinking 'thank God that he has saved us for full life, another way! That he has set us free from this worlds trickle-down authoritarian politics and the death of self-sufficiency. Let us live a life of witness to this good news so that people will see the hope of our Lord, lest the world see our lives and hear our bickering, saying "even the Christians and religious argue angrily with us, losing and gaining hope where we do; they look to our leaders for world change, surely they see no other way than this. Their God is a God of moral law and the after life but now they are stuck with the best of man's wisdom and strength."'

I wonder if, as Christians, we're not wholly concerned with the wrong politics and wrong citizenship?

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25

He has saved us from the salvation and damnation, slavery and freedom, peace and full-life that is conditional to and defined by the nations of man. But do we want His salvation and freedom? His peace and fullness? Do we want his wisdom?

Too often Christianity is reduced to monotheistic morality, trading the lifestyle of unconditional love in our following of Christ for a judeo-morality and effectiveness. We trade giving freely in selflessness for capitalism for the greater good (doing the best for others by doing the best for ourselves). Trade the freedom of Christ from all death, for a freedom behind a gun much like bully on the play ground: long life, as much as you want and no fighting as long as everyone follows your rules. We trade lifestyle implications of taking a stance on world effecting issues for a vote, letting the government carry out the day-to-day of our heavy convictions, which allows us to blame them as a scapegoat if things aren't going the way they should.

To restate what I said concerning Christmas in America: Throughout history the worst thing that keeps happening to distort the identity and name of Christ to the world, from my understanding and education, is that his people, those who are suppose to be his embodiment in the world, in gradually accepting benefits and social ease and popularity mix their allegiance with the kingdom of man, following Christ within civil limits and using the "power" of the nation to "further the kingdom more quickly and effectively". The Church has always, and continues to, grow rapidly in areas where those who follow Christ are most persecuted and outcast. In these places God is moving in radical miraculously present ways for his people and the freedom and life in Christ is a more vivid day-to-day reality than most of us have ever known.

I hold that the best thing that could ever happen in America today for Christians, for Christian relationships with Christians, for Christian relationships with God, for Christian relationships with the world and for the world's sight of Christ is for America or Christians to distance themselves as much as possible from the mutual, co-allegiance and all the ways that the US uses the name of Christ and God for its ways. Let us claim back our nationality, our sanctity (set apart, otherliness) in Christ, accepting any persecution we receive from the nations of men as a possible effect of our following Christ.

America, The people of God and the celebration of Christ

I recently received this e-mail forward and thought I'd share my thoughts, as well as a piece in response from urbanlegend.com

E-mail:

Hello all,

Thought you might be interested in this information from the White House. This isn't a rumor; this is a fact.

We have a friend at church who is a very talented artist. For several years she, among many others, has painted ornaments to be hung on the various White House Christmas trees. The WH sends out an invitation to send an ornament and informs the artists of the theme for the year.

She got her letter from the WH recently. It said that they would not be called Christmas trees this year. They will be called Holiday trees. And, to please not send any ornaments painted with a religious theme.

She was very upset at this development and sent back a reply telling them that she painted the ornaments for Christmas trees and would not be sending any for display that left Christ out of Christmas.

Just thought you should know what the new residents in the WH plan for the future of America. If you missed his statement that "we do not consider ourselves a Christian Nation" this should confirm that he plans to take us away from our religious foundation as quickly as possible.

Urbanlegend

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/barackobama/a/white_house_christmas_ornaments.htm

Analysis: Baseless rumor. Apart from the announcement last August that an 18- to 19-foot Fraser fir from Shepherdstown, West Virginia will serve as the official 2009 White House Christmas Tree, there have been no revelations to date as to First Lady Michelle Obama's plans for decorating the Executive Mansion for the holidays. All speculation in that regard is premature.

Moreover, we have only this one anonymous, secondhand account to support the claim that artists who have contributed White House Christmas ornaments in the past were invited to contribute again this year with the stipulation that submissions be limited to non-religious-themed designs. Its veracity is dubious, if for no other reason than that it does not appear to be the case that the same artists are asked to participate year after year. In 2008, for example, Laura Bush asked each member of Congress to select an artist from their home district; in 2007, each National Park site was asked to designate an artist; in 2006, submissions were restricted to craft artisans; and so on.

White House sources say that as yet no such invitations have been sent out for 2009.

White House Christmas Tree vs. Capitol Christmas Tree

It's possible the rumor was sparked by a controversy surrounding decorative guidelines for a different tree, the Capitol Christmas Tree (aka National Christmas Tree), which is displayed every holiday season on the West Front lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Each year, the federal government selects a different state to supply a 50- to 85-foot-tall National Tree and 75 smaller specimens for distribution around the Capitol, and citizens of that state are invited to contribute handmade ornaments.

Objections were raised this year when it was noted that the program guidelines stipulated that ornaments contributed by citizens "may not reflect religious or political themes." Threatening a first-amendment lawsuit, Christian and conservative groups called on the U.S. Forest Service, which sponsors the program, to rescind the ban. A Forest Service spokesman said the language prohibiting religious themes came from "old information" posted on the Capitol Tree website, an ABC News report says. It has since been revised.

Religious-themed ornaments were banned during the previous administration

In point of fact, online documents show that a ban on religious-themed ornaments was in effect in 2007 and 2008, though no one objected at the time.

My Thoughts:

I don't understand what the problem is if it is true? It seems to me that the more absurd fact is what Christmas has been for so many years. the token celebration of the birth of Jesus has been hoard-out to commercialism and materialism at the worlds worst year after year, which is saying a lot-- approx. $450 billion dollars. To give just a pinch of perspective to that number: conservative estimates say that approx. 3.4 million people die each year from unclean water related diseases; it is also estimated that it would only require approx. $10 billion dollars to make clean water available to everyone in the world. Moreover, it is also a rather widely held understanding that if just all Christians living in the United States tithed 10% it would eradicate poverty.
World issues aside for a moment, what do we see if we step back and ask ourselves how much of the Christmas' past have even just been more about the birth of Christ in word and deed rather than just ideologically vs busyness, materialism, stress and excessive amounts of food? I know that at least in my life the evidence doesn't fall in favor of Christ.
We can even isolate from the world issues how these practices and the attitudes that it brings out in many of us fall against the teachings of Christ on Materialism, selflessness, worry and love?
Moreover, if we couple all of these issues together with the world issues of water-sourced disease, starvation abroad and next door, as well as those without clothing and shelter or toys, how does it seem Christ would have us spend our time and money in remembrance of him? What traditions of remembering Christ are we teaching our kids?

Christmas is Changing? I say thank God. It seems that one of the best things that could happen for the name of Christ so far as Christmas is concerned is to take his name out of the "holiday season" altogether. At least that way maybe his name will quit being sold and raped as a commercialism mockery.

need help deciding how to change your spending habits this holiday season? check out

http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

and

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.204586/?msource=kw2689&gclid=CLfR9dn60J0CFc9h2godMA4ErA

... or will I just forget?

Journal entry: approx. July 26, 2007 rural Sukuma territory, Tanzania

At the point that I stopped writing yesterday I decided that I was going to go see if I could do anything for any of these children [I hear crying everyday in the village I am staying in]. I hadn't before out of the order of men, women and children here; because I am a guest that doesn't speak their language and because children of such a young age here are known to be frightened to hysteria by our strange white skin. None the less, this time I decided to try.
I didn't find anyone outside [the huts] except a very small naked baby girl sitting in the dirt, with flies eating at her running snot (accumulated from her recent crying?) which was now collecting sand, her vagina already being covered in sand and dirt.
I went and sat beside her, bashfully giving her my thumb to hold onto which she, even more bashfully, took.
All I could think to do is tell her that God loves her and ask that somehow God might show his love for this girl through me in that moment and ask that she be healed. I repeated this over and over again (though I got a sick, steadily deepening self righteous feeling that she, as well as her whole family, already knew and would continue to know God and his love in a more present, day-to-day power and reality than I might ever).
Then I began to tell her that I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I loved her also without feeling as though I had just told a bold faced lie, one I was just realizing I had been telling myself for years [to shake about some warm, lively feelings of selflessness when feeling empty and cold]. I had nothing to give evidence to my love, no inconvenience from me; no pushing through a difficulty for her sake. So I apologized, for myself and all of us. I apologized that we have abused, raped and reduced and made in our image a "the love of Christ," to checks in the mail and "deep conversation", spiritual masturbatory feelings of meaningful life and even a little martyrdom. We have raped and deformed her identity to checks and deep, emotive and philosophical conversations, essays, poems and music videos, and so used her for our own invigorating feelings of self-sacrifice that might last for quite some time; all the while she is sitting naked in the dirt. It is these good feelings of selflessness that we buy with our checks and accomplish with our heated conversation, for they rarely ever move far enough from that starting point to make her feel loved selflessly. I am so very sorry that we have used her in this long running cycle, replacing her for our "conviction." I apologized that at the rate we tend to go with loving the power, control and orderly ways, she might never get a chance to know the love of Christ in a white person. Although, many of us Christians might never know it at all the way she does or will.
And if this is read, my fear is that, if it does move anyone in any way, it will become another link in the cycle. That those good feelings of conviction and that tingling to "help" will only produce more checks and "good conversation," perhaps even prolonging her life, but not to the reality of Christ in her's which is missing in ours.
...

April 1, 2008: Abilene Texas, USA

Stories are what they want, just a simple "good" will do. Nothing else please, or you might break my stride, effect my time or even wake-up my mind. But don't worry because I can't even speak your nothing more nothing less, I tried just saying "bad" but it tasted like blood in my mouth and about knocked you on the ground for not being the answer you already "knew" for yourself. I can't speak knowing the places I have driven through, everyday life I'd see through the windowed AC. I can't think because for twenty years these things I'd see were through the safety of a screen, where people watch together and everyone would sit and think, passionately speak or maybe even weep, and now I pasted pasted pasted them on the street. The empty swell of the babies belly and the beginnings of infection in that place for a leg where there is none-- treated a little sooner and she probably would have seen years to come. But she never had a chance because she's as noticed as a suit on wall street. should have stayed on the screen. But I had to come and ignore you to your face. I've come a long way, hours in the airports to get to this place to know name and face, real relationship, be changed, and a simple way. But you've made the mistake getting in my space, asking for help and slowing my pace. I'm just here to watch, "hands off. they will help you. get a job." If I help you, allow myself to reach out and feel you, I'll have to help him too, or at least pick and choose, else I'm liable to become just like you. It's more practical to write about you somewhere down the road from the safe activism of my Fair Trade brew.
I can't speak of the times and words I could speak, bargaining on the street, good thing I learned some Swahili. I can't give you money, though it wouldn't be enough anyway. If I had time and we could speak I'd sit with you in the street; as is, I'm off to Europe, have a nice day.
You want to hear stories of my "great adventures?"Sorry, I couldn't see because my eyes were adjusted to sort of pain on T.V. When in Africa, do as the Africans do: Survive. Don't be affected, this is everyday life. Do as the missionaries do: tough love; a turned eye and resenting sigh. Get out of my mind! I didn't pay to live with your cries, I just wanted to tell stories of the days I stayed in your sty. Could you please stop for a moment, it's hard to get a convincing picture of your loathsome plight when your always laughing. know the time and place.
How was my trip? How was my trip? How was my trip? How was my trip? I don't have an answer for you. I can't speak because I didn't speak (who was I to speak?). Now who am I to speak? Numb, frustrated gap of life. On autopilot. Sleep walking, trying to make my dreams like I think they should be. Now I just live with this nagging feeling of incomplete. Learn to be okay with not being okay. Okay with not being okay with what I was okay with. I understand what your trying to do but it's not catchy enough.
I need to go on with my life now, please let go of my hand, I have plans to be with these people so let me leave. Take your hands off, I need to roll up the window.
How was your trip?
Not okay. African is a whore for social service. A tax deduction, a stamp in the passport, a story for the blog.
----------------------------------

Present day:

For this reason I've wrestled for years with sharing this story at all, not knowing how to get around and cut deeper than just being another "inspiring" story, with all the ways we abuse that word as well, from which we throw up our hands in helplessness or to some half baked effort to do something, anything, just long enough to make these feelings of guilt wear off and settle back into our groove and forget that the effort ever stopped.
This experience, her face, has been sitting inside me, a wrenching ache in my soul. She is the crying inside my head, the mirror I never wanted to look at and always saw. I felt this excruciating tear in feeling that she was just serving as something for me to be continuously convicted about and letting myself forget her and moving on to any degree of a well adjusted life in America. No matter what I do I am doing exactly what I didn't want to let happen. I don't want to forget her and move on. I don't want to settle back into American life-- as long as I'm living in America I've realized I can't help being some degree of who I never wanted to be again. I am afraid of not being changed enough by her face, by her cries. I am afraid of using her to make myself and others fool ourselves into thinking we don't forget about the pain of the world around us every day, while we go about ours so comfortably that it is over before we know it. The structuring of the societies of man allow us, "nurture" us to think it "nature", to live in two different worlds and right next door, this fact alone has to be one of the first things to go in the kingdom of God.
Yes, I know I've changed, but what bothers me is how much I haven't changed, how closely similar the person I am now, together with my worries and decision making, is to who I was before.
None the less, these past couple years I have done just that, I have adjusted relatively comfortably to living in America again and taken as automatic some ways of life and thinking, becoming some degree of who I never wanted to be again. At times I think I have gone weeks without thinking about her, seeing her face, hearing her cries and laughter that is fourth dimensional to life as I know it.
I write the story now because I need to get this wrenching inner wrestling off my chest somehow. I write knowing that all of these things I fear are inevitable because the societies of man are the way they are and we are broken bastard children of the societies that raised us, who make for broken neighbors. But we disciples of Christ have been adopted by God and are being transformed by grace and love to an entirely new way. I hope that this story, she, can be another face in the millions that we have encountered that make it harder and harder to forget that they are our living, breathing, dying, laughing neighbors. I pray that I, we, will never stop lamenting what is not yet of the breaking in kingdom of God, in our hearts, minds, lives, homes, religious congregations, neighborhoods, communities. That no matter how uncomfortable it will get at times, we don't forget that we strive to be transformed to the society of God and not back to that of man which says her pain and our comfort is just the way things are.

This may of seemed all over the place and repetitive at times because that is the way it has happened in me, more or less.

"To be deeply bothered is a sign of hope... We are not in control of reconciliation. Too often christians are driven by activism that by trying harder and doing more our communities can become all they should be. We have to keep proclaiming [lamenting] what is not, even what is not in our own midst. Even if things never really change. This keeps calling us to hope in God, to humility, to resist certainty, self-congratulation, and the pride which so easily besets self proclaimed 'radical disciples'" - Chris Rice
-----------------------


There ain't no reason things are this way
It's how they always been and they intend to stay
I can't explain why we live this way
We do it everyday
Preachers on the podium speakin' of saints
Prophets on the sidewalk beggin' for change
Old ladies laughing from the fire escape,
cursing my name
I got a basket full of lemons and they all taste the same
A window and a pigeon with a broken wing
You can spend you whole life working for something
Just to have it taken away
People walk around pushing back their debts
Wearing pay checks like necklaces and bracelets
Talking 'bout nothing, not thinking 'bout death
Every little heartbeat, every little breath
People walk a tight rope on a razors edge
Carrying their hurt and hatred and weapons
It could be a bomb or a bullet or a pen
Or a thought or a word or a sentence

There ain't no reason things are this way
It's how they always been and they intend to stay
I don't know why I say the things I say
But I say them anyway
But love will come set me free
Love will come set me free, I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set my free, yes

Prison walls still standing tall
Some things never change at all
Keep on building prisons, gonna fill them all
Keep building bombs, gonna drop them all
Working your fingers bare to the bone
Breaking your back make you sell your soul
Like a lung that's filled with coal
Suffocating slow
The wind blows wild and I may move
The politicians lie and I am not fooled
You don't need no reason or a three piece suit
To argue the truth
The air on my skin and the world under my toes
Slavery stitched into the fabric of my clothes
Chaos and commotion wherever I go
Love I try to follow

Love will come set me free
Love will come set me free, I do believe
Love will come set me free, I know it will
Love will come set my free, yes

There ain't no reason things are this way
It's how they always been and they intend to stay
I can't explain why we live this way
We do it everyday



people love you the most for the things you hate.
and hate you for loving the things you can't keep straight.
people judge you on a curve
and tell you you're getting what you deserve
and this too shall be made right.

children cannot learn, when children cannot eat
stack them like lumber when children cannot sleep
children dream of wishing wells,
who's waters quench all the fires of hell
and this too shall be made right.

the earth and the sky and the sea are all holding their breath
wars and abuses have nature growing with death
you say we're just trying to stay alive
it looks so much more like a way to die.
and this too shall be made right.

yes theres a time for peace, there is a time for war
theres a time to forgive and a time to settle the score
a time for babies to lose their lives
a time for hunger and genocide.
and this too shall be made right.

oh i dont know the sufferings of people outside my front door.
and i join the oppressors of those i choose to ignore.
im trading comfort for human life
and that's not just murder, it's suicide.
and this too shall be made right.
oh this too shall be made right.

celebrate characters

A project by NY TIMES-- New York Characters in Sound and Images--
A celebration of people in their "normalcy" as beautiful individuals with stories worth telling and worth stopping to listen and see; as One in 8 million.

does my heart good, not only to receive these stories, but that this project was even put together. check it out, you'll love.

thanks to this guy for bringing it to my attention.

Always We Begin Again

The Benedictine Way of Living--

...
The First rule is simply this:

live this life
and do whatever is done,
in a spirit of Thanksgiving.

Abandoned attempts to achieve security,
they are futile,

give up the search for wealth,
it is demeaning,

quit the search for salvation,
it is selfish,

and come to comfortable rest
in the certainty that those who
participate in this life
with an attitude of Thanksgiving
will receive its full promise.

I read it again. again. daily again. I effort to read these words into my life, read this spirit into my spirit. read the state of being and world view into this (my?) state of being and world view. Daily the words find new relevance to my existence. "Always we begin again" is itself a daily contemplative effort toward a foreign reality; to "always begin again" makes no sense in the context of the society that has raised me and instilled in me its ways. Intellectually feasible but lacking lacking experiential reference to build meaning for reality. It is a reality which in contemplative discipline, neither lacks a disarming hope, nor blunt challenging of present existence.

Oh God,
Get Egypt out of us.
Take us out of Egypt if you must to do this, as you did with your people before us.

Let our prayer not be for a better world
but for the breaking in of a new world and the transforming of our minds from the old to new--
your Kingdom come
your will be done
on Earth
As it is in Heaven.

(The rule is from St. Benedict's Rule, restated for today's reader by attorney John McQuiston, titled Always We Begin Again. This is only the first rule.
these rules, particularly as stated in this little book simply because it is easier to understand its relevance, has been invaluable to me and many of my close friends and their close friends in our pursuit of daily living a peaceful, full, contemplative life in relationship with God and all of creation.)

...
The First rule is simply this:

live this life
and do whatever is done,
in a spirit of Thanksgiving.

Abandoned attempts to achieve security,
they are futile,

give up the search for wealth,
it is demeaning,

quit the search for salvation,
it is selfish,

and come to comfortable rest
in the certainty that those who
participate in this life
with an attitude of Thanksgiving
will receive its full promise.

who's telling our story?

An excerpt from New Monasticism by Johnathan Wilson-Hartgrove. I made bold a few parts that really hit me.

Teaching in our local church and talking to pastors and friends in other churches, I've been convinced that you can learn what a church really believes by asking what it teaches its children. This is why God said to Israel, 'Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise' (Deut. 6:6-7). Deuteronomy says that the way we really believe a story as a people is by talking about it at home and on our way to other places, when we get up and when we go to bed. If that is true, then I think it's fair to say that the TV tells us our story more than the Bible. With a TV in the Living room, the bedroom, and increasingly in the car, kids hear the stories that advertisers sell them when they sit at home and when they're on the road, when they lie down and when they get up. Of course we often acknowledge that this can be bad for children, and parents limit TV time. But if Deuteronomy is right, this is bad for all of us. God's law is not on our hearts when we're not impressing it on our children. (Incidentally, I think this is true whether you have biological kids or not; if we're a people, they're all our kids.) It seems that we don't tell the story of God's faithfulness enough to convince ourselves or our Children that it's true.

On this topic he referenced an encouraging movement in Christian education called Godly Play ("an imaginative method for presenting scripture and stories to children"). check it out.

Flag(s) in the Assembly: An Uncertain Proposal (from Brad East's blog Resident Theology)

Flag(s) in the Assembly: An Uncertain Proposal (from Brad East's blog Resident Theology)

I take it as axiomatic that a church should not display a national flag in or around the physical premises of the church building, much less in the assembly or sanctuary. That this is not self-evident is in itself a problem, of course, but for those churches that do see the discrepancy but struggle to find a satisfying solution or do not feel threatened by the American or other flags' visible presence (usually out of a thoughtful gratitude, rather than a frothing patriotism), I wonder if there are any faithful options. This especially came into sharp focus recently after a story I heard secondhand about a church, contrary to regular practice, displaying the American flag for Memorial Day.

The reasons are manifold for maintaining an absence of the flag, but the danger is uniquely potent for American Christians, for two reasons: First, since its inception America has been inextricably linked conceptually, metaphorically, religiously, and militarily with the (Protestant) Christian church. America has been proclaimed a new Israel, a city on a hill, the hope of the nations, the triumph of man, the promised new world, etc. These are frighteningly blunt in their appropriation of eschatological images of the church in the New Testament. Thus the claim that "America is a Christian nation" or, as straightforwardly as possible, "Christian America." This is -- and it ought not need to be said at all -- idolatry, plain and simple. The church is the people of God, the body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit. America is none of these things. Even if every single individual that made up the nation called America happened to be, by birth or by choice, Christian -- like other European nations of the past, I might add -- nothing would thereby be changed. America is not and cannot be the church, and therefore is not and cannot "be," without qualification, "Christian."

Second, America is not merely one among many nations, nor merely a nation "with the soul of a church" or one happening to contain many self-professed Christians; America is, in a profound sense in our time,the nation. It is the preeminent world leader in military power, economic strength, and political muscle. When America throws its weight around, people amen, cower, rebel, submit, flee, or at the very least flinch. There are no bystanders in the time of America; one is not neutral toward it. It is in the business of picking sides and asking others to do the same. That is simply what it means to be "the best" in those areas the world deems important.

And so, as any American knows, what comes along with being (or claiming to be, or acting like) "the best" is a resilient, remarkable, fervent pride. Americans love America, love being American, love that America is what it is. And with that comes a kind of devotion which, accordingly, involves the American flag. The flag is the symbol of the nation: its history, its virtue, its standing, its future. And because the nation demands allegiance, Americans pledge allegiance to that flag as the one thing uniting them all together.

It is easy to see, then, regardless of how one feels about Christians actually pledging allegiance (we'll leave that for another day), why the presence of the flag in assembled Christian worship would be problematic. Here is a visual representation of National, Economic, Political, Military Power that expects, solicits, and even demands Pride, Devotion, and Allegiance. There are four visual possibilities for the flag in worship, all equally detrimental in their role:

1) above the cross, in which the cross of Christ lies symbolically in subordinate service to the flag;

2) on level with the cross, in which the two are linked visually as mirror and equal representations of the same divine reality;

3) below the cross, in which the flag exists ontologically in service to the cross; and

4) in place of the cross, in which the cross of Christ has disappeared altogether and the flag has replaced it as the symbol of the faith.

Obviously, every one of these possibilities is disastrous. The cross represents to us the absolute call of Jesus to each of us individually and to us together as a community to follow after him, to commit ourselves utterly to him in allegiance above and in replacement of all other allegiances, to renounce all former claims in order to become citizens of the kingdom of God. The flag, by any pairing imaginable, enters into this call not as a rival claimant but as a complimentary fellow, one more icon in the visible reverie of the faith. The God of Israel, however, is a jealous God, and he will not stand to have a rival god in his presence, and thus not in the gathered worship of his people.

I hope it is clear, therefore, why it is utterly inappropriate for the American flag to be displayed in, on, above, around, or by means of any other coterminous preposition vis-a-vis physical church grounds. Before moving on to my uncertain proposal, though, I should also note an apparent doublesidedness to this brief explanation. On the one hand, this temptation and reality is, in the present day, uniquely American. Being the Biggest and the Best, the most Christian and the most Iconic, we are nearly singular in our patriotically syncretistic temptations. On the other hand, however, there is nothing "less wrong" with, say, a village church in Uganda or an apartment church in Russia displaying their respective flags. Nationalism is a sly devil; rabid revolutions and demographic violence do not demand international influence for participation. And the call to discipleship with its subsequent expectations do not waver according to nation.

Now, with all of that said, what of possible "faithful options" of which I hinted above? This is merely a thought, and probably a bad one, but I share it in hope for feedback and contemplation.

What if, in a church accustomed to display of the American flag, instead of fighting the battle to remove the flag completely -- which, while acommendable fight, too often rightly earns that coercive description by the tactics and attitudes employed -- other nations' flags were added to the display? And not only random flags -- of equal size and shape as America's! -- but chosen specifically for that specific church in that time and place, in visual subordination and subservience to the cross. (If there is no cross, of course the whole project falls apart.)

For example: begin with the American flag. Then add the flags of any church members' home nationalities, whether Mexico, Britain, or Australia. Next add the flags of all the international missions locations that church is involved in, say, of Uganda, Honduras, and Croatia. Finally, take the flags of the half a dozen or so most prominent, most talked about, most reviled, most foreign enemies of America (from the past, present, and foreseeable future), and display those too -- say, those of Iran, North Korea, Cuba, China, Russia, Venezuela, and Sudan. And order them chronologically, randomly, or even by "greatest enemy," beginning in the center and moving outward.

So displayed might be, in some order, the flags of Australia, Britain, China, Croatia, Cuba, Honduras, Iran, Mexico, North Korean, Russia, Sudan, USA, Uganda, and Venezuela. Fourteen nations, from around the world, ordered arbitrarily, some home to members of the church, some home to fellow members of a missionary church connected to this one, and some explicit enemies of the nation in which this church resides.

What might this convey to the people of the church?

What if it meant that Jesus, the one to whom the cross points, is Lord of and over each and every one of these nations, fully and equally? What if it meant that the great commission applies to each and every one of these nations? What if it meant that God is already present by his Spiritin each and every one of these nations? That Jesus died for each and every one? That God loves each and every one? That each is on equal footing before God; that each belongs to the broad sweep of history that is God's created world; that each is mere withered grass before the Word of God; that each is allowed no ultimate claims of allegiance before the one true God? That any person of any tribe or tongue is welcome in the assembly of this gathering of God's people? That when we pray, we not only pray a blessing for the well-being of the nation in which we find ourselves as exiles; we pray even more fervently for the blessing of ourenemies, whether of the church or of the nation in which we reside. All are one before the Lord our God, for God is not the God of Jews alone, but of Gentiles also. And we pray Maranatha! Come Lord! We pray that God's kingdom would come on the earth -- for we know that it has not come in full, not in any nation or place, but we await it in its fullness in all times and in all places and in all languages: for the coming of the Lord; for the New Jerusalem; for the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.