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I’m really pretty amazed at the continued sparring over the comments Glenn Beck made a couple of weeks ago regarding social justice and the Church (see here and here).  I sort of figured it would be something that would blow over after a day or two: another right-wing media figure spouting off some stupid remarks that get a fiery response from the Christian left and then after two days all that’s left is the smoldering embers on obscure blogs (like this one), but nobody really cares anymore.

What I find fascinating is that this one hasn’t burned away like previous ones.  Glenn Beck, instead of retreating or apologizing or actually thinking about the absurdity of his remarks, has heaped more fuel onto the fire by continuing to insist and emphasize his claim that the term “social justice” or “economic justice” in the church is akin to “Marxism,” “communism,” and “Naziism” and that if you hear such terms spoken in your church, you should run and hide and report your church to “the authorities” (sounds more Big Brother-ish than anything he’s fighting against!).

Now, I don’t want to just be another blogger going off on a tirade about how wrong Glenn Beck is…I don’t want to be the guy who’s helping to heap fuel on the fire…and I’m not going to try and defend the place of “social justice” or “economic justice” in Christianity or in the Church (mostly because I think it’s pretty plain to see if you actually read scripture…try Deuteronomy 15, Leviticus 25, Amos, or Micah…or for those of you who prefer the words of Jesus himself, try Matthew 23 and 25 or the entire book of Luke)…and most of all, I’m not going to try and weigh in on the national health care debate, the so-called “wealth distribution,” or any other issue (even thought I have lots of opinions).

But in an era of highly polarized politics and religion, I just want to toss out the question: Who is speaking for you?  Who is speaking for your Church?

Is it the Glenn Becks?  Is it the Pat Robertsons?  Is it the Conservapedias with their “conservative Bible project” (which is an abomination to me as an “aspiring Biblical scholar” and should be to anyone who wants to read the Bible well)?  On the other hand is it the “social gospel”?  Is it “tolerance”?  Is it President Obama and the Democratic party?

Or is it Jesus?  Do you (and your Church) stand above the polarized national debates and outside of American conservative/liberal culture to call out that culture wherever it needs to be called out?

I realize that most of the people that read this blog are probably a) my family or b) my friends who already mostly agree with what I think.  And so maybe this is futile or simply worthless. But I’ve got to get something off of my chest…

Our current national dialogue—be it regarding politics, religion, natural disasters, or basically anything—is riddled with sensationalism, fear-mongering, mud-slinging, misinformation, personal and national arrogance, and a whole lot more.  Every conversation, every issue is so clouded by hate and fear that there is no dialogue.  But worst of all, you have a bunch of people who are given a pulpit from which to preach slander and sheer distortions of the truth and of the Gospel!

The Gospel I read is a message of restoration, redemption, and renewal.  It is a story of hope and love and peace.  It is the story of God turning the world upside down with the coming of his son and the bringing of his Kingdom to earth.  That Gospel forces me to care about the poor and marginalized and to seek “economic justice” and “social justice.”  It forces me to care about the environment, to seek the preservation of species, the reduction of pollution, and the sustainability of my lifestyle. It forces me object to wars and oppression.  It forces me to sympathize, to understand and pursue relationship with those who are broken and sinful, even as I am broken and sinful. And it forces me to love those who disagree with me and to seek Truth and engage in civil dialogue and debate.

I’m pretty sure most people in the Church would agree with (most of) that.  I’m pretty sure that most of those who identify themselves alongside Jesus were cringing at Rev. Robertson’s words regarding Haiti and that most would also disagree on some level with Glenn Beck.  Yet, the mentality that they espouse—a mentality of suspicion, fear, individualism, selfish interest, American superiority, and capitalistic idealism—is destructive to the national dialogue, to the American Church, to the message of Jesus Christ, and to everything that we are called to be and do as Christians.  If we continue to tacitly endorse these folks and others like them (even if we think they represent the extremes) by our attitudes, our actions, or television viewing, our money, or our theology, then we are in grave danger of totally misunderstanding who Jesus was and of getting in the way of the Kingdom of God coming to earth.

You don’t have to be a “Christian leftist,” a “liberal,” a fan of Jim Wallis and Sojourners, or a “socialist” to agree with that.  You don’t have to give up Evangelical Christianity.  You don’t have to like President Obama.  You don’t have to give up on “conservative” stances on some issues such as abortion.  But you do have to seek to love your neighbor and promote truth-seeking and -telling…and I’d suggest that you prayerfully consider how those might impact how you view some other issues on our national table.

Who speaks for you and your church? Be sure it’s Jesus.

1. Sunrise was at 10am this morning.  Certainly, dawn arrived much earlier, but I still tend to get this feeling that I’m in some sort of ethereal time-warp.
2. Yesterday was the winter’s first ski.  It felt good.  I’m about to head out for the winter’s second ski.
3. Healing takes time.  One of the advantages of being up here at ACC is that I get to take advantage of professional counseling from the counseling center.  So I’ve been going.  And I’ve been realizing that some scars still run pretty deep.  But I’m also starting to see that maybe the point isn’t to get rid of them but to be shaped by them.  After I got a stress fracture in college from overtraining, I had to learn how to run again, how to train again…I couldn’t go about things in the same way and expect to not get hurt again…and even now, when I start training hard, that same spot, the left tibia, sometimes acts up and I have to be careful.  Maybe emotional injuries work the same way.  Be careful, learn from it, be shaped by it, but never forget it, never act as though it isn’t still a deep part of me.
4. My application to Duke’s Ph.D. program is all submitted.  Now I get to wait around for a couple of months to see if I’m even in the running.
5. N.T. Wright is a phenomenal thinker.  I’m getting close to finishing Justification and though it’s a pretty heady book, I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to believe that maybe the message of Jesus is better than even we imagined.  I never used to like Paul much…but Wright is convincing me that I need to give him a new, better, more informed reading.
6. Somehow I’ve found myself “in charge” of organizing worship at the new The River Covenant Church plant here in Soldotna.  Challenging.
7. The semester is coming to an end.  Ethics was discussing food last week.  I ended on this topic because it ties together a lot of the other issues and shows how they are connected.  We are going to watch a documentary tomorrow, Food, Inc. I recommend that you all see it.  It will change the way that you think about what you eat and it demonstrates those connections to many other ethical issues.  Final exams next week.
8. I’m headed home in less than two weeks.  And by home I mean Portland and then Winthrop for a little while and then back to Portland to fly back here to Alaska.  Hope to see many of you then.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

And happy Black Friday Buy Nothing Day!

Well, we’re back to that time of year…the time when I start to feel a little bit anxious and uncomfortable and start blurting out things that are a little more barbed or more sarcastic than I intend…the time of joy and giving and celebration…and stress and over-spending and over-eating and (for some) too much family time.  Ah, the Holidays!

Last year, I perhaps crossed the line with my barbs and sarcasm.  So I am trying not to do that this year.  But as we come up on this pseudo-holiday that we call Black Friday, a day when we are encouraged to begin indulging ourselves beyond all that is reasonable, I would like to encourage us all to resist our impulses, take a deep breath, and think…

In my ethics class, I am currently talking about poverty.  On Monday, we discussed that currently, about half of the world’s population lives on less than two dollars per day.  Additionally, it so happens that in the U.S. we use approximately 30% of the world’s resources (for about 5% of the world’s population).  This seems a little bit disproportionate to me.

Last week in ethics, we talked about the environment.  Specifically, we talked about how our consumption rates are far, far above sustainable levels.  Now, sustainability is a hot word these days and it’s basically losing its meaning because it’s so overused.  But here’s the thing: we live in a world with finite resources.  Some of these resources are renewable but many are not renewable.  It’s easy to see that someday we will run out of those non-renewable ones.  But what is a little less clear is that we are using the renewable ones at rates far exceeding their ability to renew themselves.  This is especially a reality in here Alaska where many of the people live subsistence lifestyles and where their food resources are dwindling.

We’re also talking about economics.  Besides the poverty side, there is the simple fact that we as a culture are being told that our stuff is inadequate…our houses are inadequate…our lives are inadequate…we are inadequate.  And of course the only fix for these inadequacies is to buy things, to spend money on ourselves…then we’ll be happy!  Or will we…

I want to invite you all to join me in trying to see through this lie.  Join me this month in trying to live a simpler lifestyle, in celebrating Christmas as the time of the incarnation of our God who seeks restoration and justice and redemption and transformation, in reflecting upon the problems of poverty and the destruction of creation and doing something about it.

Here’s two ways to start:

1. Buy Nothing Day this Friday!:  Instead of falling into the temptation to go buy a bunch of junk on Friday, stay at home and read a book or bake some cookies or enjoy family or play some cards…just take a fast from the compulsion to buy, to want, to need, to consume.

2. Join the Advent Conspiracy: Get your church involved!  This is group trying to encourage each other to spend their Christmas money on local projects that help those in need…and also to just spend less!  Last year, my church in Portland was a part of this and a large chunk of money was donated to the city to help with projects for the homeless and for low-income neighborhoods.  Good ministry, yes?  Another thing that they focus on is clean water projects around the world.  Bad water kills about 1.8 million people every year.  And it’s such a easy and inexpensive problem to fix.  Advent Conspiracy estimates that it would take about $10 billion to fix this world problem.  How much did Americans spend on Christmas last year?   About $450 billion. That means that if we just diverted a little over two percent…2%!!!!!!…of our Christmas budget to clean water projects, we could basically solve this problem!

I don’t say all this to sound self-righteous.  As one dude once said, “I haven’t attained perfection and in fact I am the worst of sinners”…or something like that.  I’m not claiming that I spend my money well or that I don’t get caught up in consumerism.  But I am trying to see my materialistic compulsions for what they are and to do better.  I can’t solve poverty and hunger…but if I can give a cup of water or a piece of bread to “the least of these”…well, it’s something.

(This one’s for you Candice!)

Well folks.  It all begins in two days…Monday at 8:45am.  I’ve spent most of the past couple of weeks sitting in my office (That’s right.  I have an office.  I’m official.) reading books about ethics and trying to figure out how to teach such a subject.  But I think I’ve got it.  In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be pretty easy given my foolproof, step-by-step method:

1. Tell the students that they have to give “presentations” on ethical issues.  This basically makes them do all the work of preparing for the class.

2. Sit in the back with a notepad and occasionally jot something down (doesn’t actually have to mean anything because you never allow the student to see what it says…could just say “I’m bored.  Bored, bored, bored.”).

3. Scowl a lot as they are speaking.

4. Come up with one or two questions per person that are solely for the purpose of establishing my intellectual superiority over the students.  Good questions cite a supreme court case, refer to obscure historical events on specific dates, or talk about a country that may or may not actually exist.

5. Ta-da!  Sit back and enjoy yourself all semester long.

But seriously though, I’m pretty excited.  It took me a while, as I was starting from scratch, but I think that I’ve finally got a plan for the class that will hopefully work pretty well.  I’ve been able to construct it so that at the beginning we will be looking at what the Bible has to say about ethics, trying to get a broad theological perspective, and then using that as a basis for thinking about some ethical issues, including some that are of particular relevance today (i.e. health care, war, food, immigration, etc.).  And yes, I actually am having them doing presentations…but I’ll try not to use that as an excuse to slack off.