Thoughts on justice

Posted on September 12, 2006 by me

I can’t improve on this.

Posted in My Own Personal Religion, Politics/Current Events | Leave a comment

The lost episodes of The Lone Ranger

Posted on September 11, 2006 by me

Episode I

Some called him a madman. To others, he was just an abusive S.O.B. who had created his own high-security compound outside of town. Whatever the case, he was a known outlaw, who had been known to have ordered the killings of people in his own gang. The rest of the people in his compound were kept as prisoners, and often abused. Occasionally, he had assaulted his neighbors. The state police had fought him back into his own compound, and for several years had kept him contained. Part of the “deal” they had cut with him was that he would disarm; however, he had either failed to disarm or at least worked hard to give that impression. He continued to mock the state authorities, throwing them an occasional bone but remaining defiant and incompliant. Most communities in the area were in favor of leaving him alone, as long as he only abused the hostages in his own compound.

Enter the Lone Ranger and Tonto. What do they do? Listen to public opinion and do nothing, or take action and set the hostages free?

Episode II

A large band of outlaws – renegade soldiers, rustlers and gunfighters – had been terrorizing the area settlements for years, striking suddenly, and leaving death and destruction in their wake. Their only motivation appeared to be a hatred for civilization; their leader, Black Bart, expressed ideals that were nothing more than a facade for sociopathic attitudes. These outlaws roamed the countryside in smaller groups, often living among the settlements disguised as ordinary, hard-working citizens. As such, the local sheriffs were either unable or unwilling to take them on.

As the story begins, the Lone Ranger and Tonto just broken the stronghold of the outlaws and had sent them running. Several times the Lone Ranger, with the cooperation of a few brave lawmen, had been able to successfully thwart their plans. Now, Black Bart, in true outlaw style, sent word out to all of the settlements that he was out to get the Lone Ranger and any who would help him. Suddenly, our hero finds himself being distrusted and even hated by those who live in fear, or who naively believe that they will be safe, if only the lawmen would leave Black Bart’s band alone.

But …

Most of you have picked up on the allegories, and yeah, I know, the Lone Ranger doesn’t always wear a white hat. However, here’s the point of all of this: very few of us, in a more localized setting, would take a side against those who believe they have a moral obligation to enforce the law. I don’t know of anyone who’d support disbanding our local police force (or disarming them) so that the criminals would roam free. Will the police ever rid the city of crime completely? I don’t think so; however, is that any reason not to enforce the law?

Paul admonishes us to support our government, because it is their task to protect us and to fight evil. As Paul says of those in authority, “he doesn’t bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13). So, obviously God is not opposed to the State use of force to control crime. Now the question is, if we have the ability to fight evil and rescue the oppressed outside of our borders, where does our moral obligation lie? Do we take a “pacifist” stance? Who is more moral?

Things are not always so clear when they are put into different contexts. One of my sons last night commented that one of the things that makes Christianity so plausible was that there are so many things that are not clear (a false religion would take steps to do away with the gray areas).

We can debate wisdom, we can question intent – but, we definitely err if we assume things are black or white.

So, Kemo Sabe, what now?

Posted in Politics/Current Events | 9 Comments

Suggestive spirituality

Posted on September 5, 2006 by me

This weekend I went to our State Fair, which is always an enlightening experience. It’s always amazing to me how many kinds of food you can actually get on a stick, or how exciting some people can make waterless cookware sound. I did have a somewhat enlightening experience, but nothing to do with deep-fried twinkies or cookware.

Mainly, I enjoy walking around, watching people, and taking hundreds of photos that I will probably never look at again. We had to leave the fair before I had a chance to view the photography exhibit, so I went back later on and walked around after dark, where I got some interesting shots of the midway lights. It was then that my attention was directed toward the one and only Travis Fox, the hypnotist.

Usually I avoid hypnotists; I recall going to these traveling shows as a kid, always being slightly spooked by the weirdness. I’m not quite so spooked now, as I’m older, hopefully wiser, and have been exposed to a number of revival meetings that were way spookier than any hypnotist. However, this guy was not your standard, sleazy, hypno-fake; he certainly could be a fake, but he wasn’t sleazy, and besides, I had nothing better to do. (I looked him up online after the show, and found that among other things, he’s got a Ph.D. in psychology.)

It is not a new thought to me that many “spiritual” experiences that people have are not unlike a hypnotist’s act. Watching the show, seeing how easily people were controlled and the amazing power of suggestion, I thought again of many of the weird “Christian” things I have seen over the years, plus many things that perhaps are not so weird.

On the Christian extreme, we have the various pentecostal performers/ministers; in the old days, it was Charles & Frances Hunter (“The Happy Hunters”); more recently, we have Benny Hinn, and many more lesser known folks. Are they sincere? Probably, for the most part. However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t using the same techniques to elicit responses; people will respond extremely quickly to suggestion (and even to their own expectations).

Things I’ve seen include falling over (including injuries resulting from falling over), various odd and not-so-odd physical responses, laughter, and making animal noises. These, by the way, don’t include the things I’ve seen in “exorcisms,” which I think often drift into the hypotrance arena. I’ve also witnessed people being controlled by various “words” spoken over them.

The power of suggestion, especially in a therapy / ministry situation, is extremely powerful and dangerous; however, most ministers (and many therapists) fail to recognize it, rather choosing to believe that these manifestations are always signs of God’s work.

The power of suggestion in ministry worries me. Our church has recently announced a class in some kind of inner healing method with a new-agey name; have you ever wondered why there is no inner healing in the New Testament? (I’ve often wondered if it’s because we’re finally at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy.) All of this emphasis on prophetic words, guided imagery, and so on worries me; it’s all too easy to manipulate people. And, those who minister are people, too – we all long to be effective, and the temptation is always there to manipulate manifestations in order to affirm the minister.

I’m not saying that all spiritual experiences are phony – I’m just saying that one of the gifts that is seldom displayed is that of discernment. If I want to see a hypnosis demonstration, I’ll go to the fair; I’d rather not see it in church.

Posted in My Own Personal Religion | 6 Comments

λειτουργία: On Liturgies and other Public Works

Posted on August 23, 2006 by me

As I’ve mentioned recently, I was raised Lutheran. Since leaving the Lutheran Church, I’ve attended and visited a number of different churches, from Greek and Russian Orthodox to Evangelical Free to independent charismatic and “third wave” churches, to post-modern experiments. I can say from experience that there are things to appreciate, and things to challenge, about all of these traditions.

One of the things I have noticed in the more contemporary, freestyle church is that they are made up of people who fall mainly into one of three groups:

  1. Those who were raised in the more traditional “liturgical” churches and upon “getting saved,” now despise their former church, seeing it as representative of “dead religion;”
  2. Those who were raised in a fundamentalist, anabaptist or other “non-liturgical” type of church, who have no personal experience of “high” church (and who also view high churches as dead religion);
  3. And, last but not least, those who have no church background whatsoever, and who more than likely have been given no theological framework for evaluating any church tradition (and who probably assume what they are in is the “best,” which is a normal default assumption).

These attitudes can come from what they have been taught, or simply from the modernist assumption that “newer is necessarily better.” In truth, newer is neither better nor worse, simply because it’s newer. Newer benefits from additional scholarship and historical perspectives; on the other hand, the modernist form of newer often tends to toss the baby out with the bath.

The result is that there is often a misunderstanding about liturgy; views range from seeing liturgy as merely old-fashioned to downright evil. An example is the adage, “liturgy is what you do when the Holy Spirit fails to show up.” Most critics fail to appreciate the historical importance of liturgy, which has served as a crucial teaching tool as well as a theological “rudder” through the ages, especially before the Bible was available for mass distribution.

The other common misunderstanding about liturgy is that contemporary churches don’t have it, which of course is an absurd thought. The Greek word from which we get our word “liturgy” simply means “public works,” or in other terms, “the way things are done.” If you go to church knowing you sing for 30 minutes, take an offering then listen to a sermon for the remainder of the time, you’ve got a liturgy.

What most people mean, however, in their dissing of liturgy is the repeated recitation of creeds, proclamations and prayers. The assumption here is that if it isn’t ad hoc or spontaneous, it’s not valid. I’ll not only disagree with this assumption, but offer this: if this is truly what you believe, then you’d better stop singing worship choruses, too. A song is merely a recitation put to music.

I will also suggest that if you are comparing 30 minutes of worship songs to 30 minutes of responsive readings and hymns, the choruses will come up short on many points. The main one for me is that creeds and responsive reading generally tend to be theologically and Biblically accurate, something which you can’t always say about worship songs.

Be honest: do you really believe what it is you are singing every Sunday morning? If not, you are not only participating in a meaningless liturgy, you might also be a hypocrite to boot!

I am not proposing that the so-called “high” churches are better than your church, or that they are worse. I am merely pointing out – once again – that the freestyle churches’ liturgies tend to lack in sound teaching and theology, and it’s time we changed that. What’s wrong with people learning sound doctrine through worship? I have a feeling that was the thought behind the Orthodox (which pre-dated Roman Catholicism) liturgy to begin with.

Learning in church… what a concept!

Posted in Church, My Own Personal Religion | 3 Comments