Why "Spirituality" Instead of Religion?

This is not exactly breaking news to those of us in religious vocations: "Young voters want spirituality, but not necessarily religion."

A report entitled "Religion Among the Millennials" produced by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life and released this week found that one in four people 18 to 29 years old are unaffiliated with a religion. But that by no means makes them all atheists or agnostics. While there are always religious people among the unaffiliated, the numbers are significantly higher among the younger unaffiliated crowd. While they are less likely than those unaffiliated and older than them to believe in God, they are more likely to believe in life after death, heaven and hell, and miracles.

In fact, on some measures, the data suggest that these so-called millennials may be more spiritually thirsty than older generations. According to a Knights of Columbus/Marist poll also released this month, being "spiritual or close to God" was the most selected of any other "primary long-term life goal" among those 18 to 29 years old (other choices included "to get married and have a family" and "to get rich"). The rate at which they selected it was significantly higher than other generational groups, and nearly twice that of Generation X.

The Pew report is here: summary page, full report. Glenn Reynolds commented on desiring "spirituality" rather than religion, "Well, that's because religion often tells you to do things you don't want to do, or to refrain from doing things you want to do, while spirituality is usually more . . . flexible."

Well, yeah. "Spirituality" is religious Calvinball, a game featured in the comic strip, "Calvin and Hobbes." The rules of Calvinball are simple: there are no rules. Players make them up as they go along and any player may change any rule for any reason. That's what "spirituality" is.

Now, before you think that I'm digging in my heels like Mel Brooks' character, Governor Le Petomane in Blazing Saddles ("We've got to protect our phony-baloney jobs!"), I'm not. After all, the highest rate of young adults who are least likely to attend a church are pastors' children. (Think of a church corollary to what Bismarck said about sausage and laws and you'll see why.)

Nor is the move away from established churches a new development. Consider this critique and guess when it was written:

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

That was written in 1963 by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as he languished in Birmingham jail. Have we learned anything in the last 47 years? Consider this present-day critique by United Methodist pastor Michael Slaughter on the establishment church's preoccupation with growth for growth's sake:

We had achieved getting behinds in the seats, but I realized that all we had really done was accumulate crowds of spectators who were not moving toward deeper faith and service.

Many people in our churches today profess faith in God, but they embody the values of the dominant culture. They possess a soft-secular worldview rather that the worldview of Jesus. These folks believe in God and profess Jesus, but they trust the materialistic values of secular culture. (From Change the World - Recovering the Message and Mission of Jesus, which I emphatically recommend, temporarily a free
Kindle download)

So I am not exactly criticizing the young adults who retreat from establishmentarian religion, but they are mistaken if they think that self-made "spirituality" is any better. Professor David Bentley Hart explains why:

Even when we have shed the moral and religious precepts of our ancestors, most of us try to be ethical and even, in many cases, "spiritual." It is rare, however, that we are able to impose anything like a coherent pattern upon the the somewhat haphazard collection of principles and practices by which we do this. ... we assemble fragments of traditions we half remember, gather ethical maxims almost at random from the surrounding culture, attempt to find inner equilibrium between tolerance and conviction, and so on, until we have knit together something like a code, suited to our needs, temperaments, capacities, and imaginations. We select the standards or values we find appealing from a larger market of moral options and then try to arrange them into some sort of tasteful harmony.

... Here one may cultivate a private atmosphere of "spirituality" as undemanding and therapeutically comforting as one likes simply by purchasing a dream catcher, a few pretty crystals, some books on the goddess, a Tibetan prayer wheel ... and so forth [making spirituality] indistinguishable from interior decorating

That the establishment Protestant church is failing to carry out its charter (with occasional exceptions) is, I think, undeniable. My prescription for reversing this deadly trend would occupy too many pages to post here. (Walter Russell Mead's essay about the Episcopal church is worth reading, but the leftist preoccupation he describes of that church is not the primary problem of the UMC today, though it is certainly a factor.) The point of this post is that for all the just criticisms that may be made of the American Church, private "spirituality" is not a solution. The hodgepodge of religious sensitivity without religious attachment results in religious-spritual confusion among the Millennials, says the Pew report.

Young adults also attend religious services less often than older Americans today. And compared with their elders today, fewer young people say that religion is very important in their lives.

Yet in other ways, Millennials remain fairly traditional in their religious beliefs and practices. Pew Research Center surveys show, for instance, that young adults' beliefs about life after death and the existence of heaven, hell and miracles closely resemble the beliefs of older people today. Though young adults pray less often than their elders do today, the number of young adults who say they pray every day rivals the portion of young people who said the same in prior decades. And though belief in God is lower among young adults than among older adults, Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty at rates similar to those seen among Gen Xers a decade ago.

Exactly how a self-created spirituality that has no norms but ones agreeable to oneself is supposed to lead to eternal life in heaven is a deep mystery to me. This Pew report and another
one released in 2006, both said that young adults (up to mid-twenties was the surveys' cutoff) are becoming evermore strongly inclined toward private spirituality and withdrawing from organized religious bodies. But at the same time they tend to affirm very orthodox Christian concepts such as heaven, hell and judgment by God.

So my question is, can reliance on a self-created "spirituality" be reconciled coherently with orthodox concepts? I don't see how. For if God is going to judge us, it will surely be by God's standards, not ours.

Oh, heavens! Did I just say that God will judge us? Isn't that unacceptably judgmental of me to say that, to say nothing of God being so judgmental? Well, my question is this: if one does agree that there is a God who created the cosmos, then this God must be admitted to have both the power and the authority to dispose of the created order as he sees fit. The key thing is not what we wish to believe, but what has God revealed to us about the way he manages the created order.

Judaism, Christianity (and for that matter Islam) are practically alone among the world's great religions in insisting that what we know about God is known principally through God's initiative in revealing God's self to humankind. This is a key difference between religion, as usually conceived, and spirituality. Because of the individualistic (and basically narcissistic) nature of spirituality, divine revelation is usually not taken very seriously except where agreeable. There is no more common human failing than to imagine that God, however conceived, loves us just the way we are.

It does not work to make up your own code of conduct and think that integrity will follow. When I was in the Army I heard another officer described this way: "He fails to achieve even the low standards he sets for himself." Rare is the man or woman who does not fall short of even their own standards even though people set their own bar pretty low. Even meeting our own standards really means that we fail to become what God intends us to be.

The "do my own thing" impulse of spirituality imagines that religion is restrictive, constraining and oppressing, and that freedom cannot be found unless one frees oneself from religion's ancient superstitions, patriarchy and prescientific ignorance. That these criticisms are by no means entirely without merit makes their lure all the more attractive.

Yet it is no better that modern America as a whole no longer believes that there is an objective criterion by which to judge our choices because there can be no higher good than being able to make a choice in the first place. Therefore, all judgment, whether divine or human, infringes on choosing – and being able to choose apart from any standards but one’s own is a supreme concern of most Americans these days.

This is a purely modern idea. In centuries past, even before Jesus was born, true human freedom was emancipation from anything that prevented one from living a life of rational virtue, which Aristotle defined as "excellence made habitual," that enabled moral and ethical flourishing of both the individual and society. Yet this ideal, in the Gentiles' ancient world, was never more than that and apart from isolated academies never blossomed. Instead, in literally slavish devotion to the gods and political masters, the ancients lived almost entirely in material poverty and spiritual despair, a condition that reached its nadir in "the glory that is Rome."

Freedom is not simply the ability to choose. It is the ability to restrain and find mastery over our inborn will to selfishness and our own foolish or wicked choices. The freedom of God’s Law is freedom from the baser demons of our being so that we may discover the better angels of our nature. We are not free simply because we can choose, but only when we choose rightly.

For to choose poorly is to enslave ourselves to the impermanent, the irrational and eventually the destructive. Simply choosing, unconnected from divine guidance and godly standards, is to choose ultimately to reject freedom, to be enslaved to the bondage of the will, to what Paul called the body of death and finally to choose to perish rather than attain everlasting life.

The role of God’s law is to enable human beings to be released from the shackles of spiritual and mental bondage that prevent us from being saved in this life and the next. Through the teachings of the so-called "Old" Testament, we are guided to the divine goodness, which we can then perceive embodied in the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is not an individualistic endeavor. That formal religious bodies have achieved this goal only imperfectly does not mean that private spirituality is somehow automatically better. (See my 2008 post, "Let's hear it for hypocrites!"

Conclusion
I think what the Pew report reveals is a strong sense of religious yearning that (no surprise) the mainline churches are not meeting. The character and polity of those churches, as we know them today, are legacies of the World War II generation, for whom organization and unity were the way that the Great Depression was turned back and World War II was won. Theirs was a generation of joiners and builders. It is no accident that the boom of large churches followed the end of World War II, the ultimate triumph of massive organizations and systems analysis.

This was the time of what futurist Alvin Toffler called the Second Wave of societies. The First Wave was agriculturally-based and lasted from the end of the hunter-gathering period to the inception of the industrial revolution. Then came the Second Wave:

The Second Wave is the society during the Industrial Revolution (ca. late 1600s through the mid-1900s). The main components of the Second Wave society are nuclear family, factory-type education system and the corporation. Toffler writes: "The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment, and weapons of mass destruction. You combine those things with standardization, centralization, concentration, and synchronization, and you wind up with a style of organization we call bureaucracy."

Which almost perfectly describes the UMC today – committee bound, meeting ruled, glacially slow to respond to social challenges, and prizing standardized procedures, uniformity and maintenance of the status quo above almost all other concerns.

The problem is that young adults and our society in general have already moved into the Third Wave, the post-industrial society.

Toffler would also add that since late 1950s most countries are moving away from a Second Wave Society into what he would call a Third Wave Society. He coined lots of words to describe it and mentions names invented by him (super-industrial society) and other people (like the Information Age, Space Age, Electronic Era, Global Village, technetronic age, scientific-technological revolution), which to various degrees predicted demassification, diversity, knowledge-based production, and the acceleration of change (one of Toffler’s key maxims is "change is non-linear and can go backwards, forwards and sideways").

We of the institutional church are failing to comprehend that traditional doctrinal clams can be defended rationally on their own merits and do not require our now-antiquated structure to prop them up. That young adults still respect those doctrines, even if they do not fully embrace them, is evident from the Pew reports. But mainline churches generally, and the UMC specifically, have become their own obstacles in the propagation of our faith.

Hillary agrees with me: Iran's military coup, part 2

I assessed last Wednesday that a coup by Iran's Republican Guard was an increasing possibility given the increasing domestic disorder there. I wondered whether the massive pro- and anti-government demonstration scheduled for last Thursday would provide an opening for Gen. Mohammad-Ali Aziz Jaafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, to both crush the anti-government leaders and take control of the government.

But what is Gen. Jaafari really up to with 10,000 Revolutionary Guards in the capital? Clearly, the regime long ago lost legitimacy among the people and is held in power only by pure power, the foundation of which is the Guards. But what if the Guards are sick of the regime, too?

Now it seems that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is thinking along those lines, too, having announced today that Iran is becoming a military dictatorship.

Speaking to Arab students at Carnegie Mellon's Doha campus, Clinton said Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps appears to have gained so much power that it effectively is supplanting the government.

"Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," she said. "That is our view."

The TimesOnline reported,

“We see that the government in Iran, the Supreme Leader, the president, the parliament is being supplanted and that Iran is moving towards a military dictatorship,” the US Secretary of State told students in Qatar during a tour of the Middle East designed to increase pressure on the Islamic Republic to end its nuclear programme.

“The civilian leadership is either preoccupied with its internal domestic political situation or ceding ground to the Revolutionary Guard and that’s a deeply concerning development.”

John Wesley's warning

The Rev. Kevin Watson of the UMC asks what is the current state of affairs in United Methodism by the standard that John Wesley warned must be upheld.

In 1786, the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, looked back on the revival begun during his lifetime. He seemed to think that it was well enough established that it would not immediately vanish after his death. However, he was not content with the survival of a lifeless sect that hung around, but failed to renew souls in the image of their creator. He wrote in “Thoughts Upon Methodism”:

I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.

This passage is one that haunts me. It is as if Wesley continues to challenge all who call themselves Methodists to continue to have the zeal to “spread Scriptural holiness” that the early Methodists had. I can’t read this quote without asking myself the obvious question: Is the United Methodist Church in America a dead sect, does it have the form or religion without the power? Or have we held fast to the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which we first set out?

Watson's inquiry is in four parts and it is not until part 4 that he offers his own answer.

Answering this question is sadly easy. The answer is clearly no. We have not maintained a Wesleyan discipline in the United Methodist Church in America. My feeling is that for most Methodists discipline means either: not much, or a book (as in The Book of Discipline). But for Wesley, the Methodist discipline was a commitment to a process that enabled Methodists to grow in holiness. It enabled them to experience transformation. Far to many Christians today are not being transformed. They are no different today than they were 12 years ago. (There are of course always exceptions to the rule, and thank the Lord there are still many people who have been deeply changed by their relationship with Jesus Christ.) However, wherever people are not being transformed and renewed in the image of God, it would seem that Methodism has the form, but not the power of godliness.

What do you think? Read the whole series, in order, here, here, here and here.

A military coup coming in Iran?

Early this month Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad promised "a telling blow against global arrogance," on Feb. 11, tomorrow, which is the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. What did he mean?

The Western rumor mill runs amok. It is fueled by the report that,

[Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali ] Khamenei, whose public statements should be taken seriously, is promising some sort of devastating “punch” against the West on Thursday the 11th, the same day as the Green Movement is calling for a monster protest against his regime.

One possibility is some sort of blow against Israel, the "Little Satan" of the Islamic Republic's dementia. (The "Great Satan" is the United States.) After all, Ahmadinejad has repeatedly threatened Israel with destruction.

An attack by Iran against Israel tomorrow seems highly unlikely. By now the preparations would have to be a very late stages and would such a threat seem real, I would think Israel would have already taken countermeasures. A strike against Israel by Iran's proxies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, are much more probable but not necessarily likely. Hamas needs no motivation but its recovery from Israel's December 2008 offensive against it. As for Hezbollah I have no new insights but my gut is that they aren't prepared for an another offensive, either.

So what is up for tomorrow? The most likely event is a crushing domestic attack against Iranian demonstrators. As noted, there has long been planned for tomorrow massive street demonstrations against the regime. These would coincide with the traditional public-square celebratory events of the Revolution. Amir Teheri notes that Atyatollah Khamenei is being kept away from the official demos and that,

Today Iran is in a decidedly insurrectionary mood. With hundreds of figures from past governments, including two former presidents and one former prime minister, having joined the opposition, along with scores of former lawmakers, there is every possibility that even supposedly loyal crowds could switch sides on the spur of the moment.

So what is a diabolic, power-mad, tyrannical regime to do?

The Khomeinist establishment, or at least what is left of it, has been debating strategy for the anniversary for weeks. The more radical faction — led by Gen. Mohammad-Ali Aziz Jaafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, and backed by Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — has been urging a mass crackdown against the opposition. According to sources in Tehran, Jaafari has presented a plan code-named “Tanzih” (Eradication), which envisages the arrest of some 3,000 opposition activists, including former president Mohammad Khatami and former prime minister Mir-Hussein Mussavi. The plan would also authorize the Revolutionary Guard and the paramilitary Basij (Mobilization) street fighters to crush any mass demonstration by force, even if that means producing a bloodbath.

General Jaafari is said to favor a “Chinese-style” crackdown to silence the growing pro-democracy movement. During the past six weeks he has been shipping units into Tehran and its environs and positioning Basij fighters, often in civilian clothes, at sensitive points. By Thursday he will have over 100,000 men in the capital.

The "Khomeinists" simply means the inheritors of the central figure of 1979s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, 1902-1989.

But what is Gen. Jaafari really up to with 10,000 Revolutionary Guards in the capital? Clearly, the regime long ago lost legitimacy among the people and is held in power only by pure power, the foundation of which is the Guards. But what if the Guards are sick of the regime, too?

Jaafari is still fairly young as strongmen go in Iran, being only 52. He is not even relatively liberal in Iran, having been a signatory of a letter in 1999 to then-President Mohammad Khatami, warning him that Khatami's liberalizing policies were threatening to undermine the government. It was understood as a thinly-veiled threat of coup. Today, Khatami is a leading figure of the opposition and could loom large in Jaafari's crosshairs.

It cannot be expected that Jaafari secretly is sympathetic with the opposition and its anti-government demonstrators. Yet his record for the last 10 years at least also shows that his great fear is not the fall of Khomeinist regime as presently constituted, but that civil unrest mutate into civil war.

Amir Taheri wrote on Feb. 5,

The anti-regime movement started as a protest against the alleged rigging of the June election that produced a landslide victory and a second four-year mandate for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The crowds' initial slogan was "Where Is My Vote?" The movement's accidental leaders, including former Prime Minister Mir-Hussein Mousavi, who insists that he, and not Ahmadinejad, won the election, tried hard to keep the protest confined to limited demands such as a recount of the votes and, ultimately, a run-off in accordance with the Election Law.

Over the past eight months, however, the movement has developed beyond those objectives. The initial slogans that focused on vote rigging have all but disappeared. Their place has been taken by unambiguously anti-regime slogans such as "Death to the Dictator", "Freedom Now", and "Iranian Republic, Not Islamic Republic!"

So will Jaafari move tomorrow to implement a "Chinese Solution" to the opposition? That has to be the most probable course of events.

But not the only possible one.

Jaafari is no dullard. He is well educated and experienced. It might have occurred to him by now that the regime is the problem. By accounts, it was Jaafari's idea to use the IGRC to crush the opposition tomorrow. A substantial number of Guards would have been deployed in the capital to protect the Islamic parades and demonstrations, anyway, so Ahmadinejad et. al. were probably receptive to raising the number to 10K to end the opposition once and for all.

But Jaafari may read tea leaves better than Ahmadinejad and company. Leading figures of Iran, including former members of the Khomeinist regime, have increasingly distanced themselves from the present government. Some have openly criticized it, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani being one. Furthermore, Jaafari has said that the political role of Turkey's generals has some appeal to him. (More than once Turkey's generals have taken over the government to prevent civil war. They have always returned it to civilian rule.)

Clearly, at least to observers, Iran's status quo is not sustainable. Ahmadinejad and Khamenei may not realize it but I am betting that Jaafari does. So which way will the cookie crumble on Feb. 11?

Don't be surprised if the Chinese Solution is implemented against the opposition followed by an announcement that that the IGRC has taken Khamenei and Ahmadinejad and other figures to a secret, secure site "for their own safety" until the situation is stable. In the meantime, Jaafari will be in charge while 10,000 of his Guards patrol the streets of Tehran.

Endnote: the "Chinese Solution" refers to the Chinese government's brutal suppression of demonstrators at Peking's Tiananmen Square in April 1989.

The Vanderbilt Chaplain Controversy

A very large minority of elders and deacons of the Tennessee Conference obtained their theological degree from Vanderbilt Divinity School. I am one of them. Although the school has no denominational affiliation, it was originally founded as a Methodist seminary. Vanderbilt University was founded as a Methodist-affiliated college. Those bonds were severed in 1915 (if I recall correctly), but the Methodist influence on the Div School remains strong, and vice-versa. The Div School has an endowed chair of Methodist studies, for example, presently held by Dr. Doug Meeks, a scholar of the first rank. About a third of the students of the Div School are Methodist and UM hymnals are used in worship services held there. So there remains a very strong tie between the school and Methodism, especially Tennessee Methodism.

As an alumnus of Vanderbilt Divinity School, I know that the university generally and its religion departments specifically fully embrace conceptually and practically gay rights. This is a very strong institutional value of the university.

So what are we alums to make of Awadh Binhazim, a Vanderbilt Muslim chaplain, who stated at a public forum late last month what those of us who study Islamic law, sharia, already: that Islam calls for the execution of homosexuals. This is explicit in the hadith, the oral traditions of the words and deeds of Muhammed that were finally set to text. Binhazim's confirmation of this fact is not objectionable since any reader can read it plainly. The controversy at Vanderbilt springs from the fact that Binhazim went on to say, when asked, that as a Muslim he agreed: "I don’t have a choice as a Muslim to accept or reject teachings."

The video:



Here is Vanderbilt's official position on the controversy:

A recent forum at Vanderbilt University has generated questions about the university's stances on discrimination and free speech.

The "Common Ground: Being Muslim in the Military" event on Jan. 25 was part of Project Dialogue, a series at Vanderbilt dedicated to bringing diverse viewpoints to campus. It featured Awadh A. Binhazim, Muslim chaplain at Vanderbilt, and Army Reserve officer Capt. Darryl A Cox discussing issues military leaders face as they encounter and lead soldiers with Islamic beliefs.

During the question-and-answer session that followed the presentation, a student asked Binhazim about Islamic law and homosexuality. Binhazim answered the question with his interpretation of an Islamic law.

For clarification, Vanderbilt strives to bring many points of view on the issues of the day to campus for examination and discussion. This is the purpose of Project Dialogue.

No view expressed at a Project Dialogue or similar campus forum should be construed as being endorsed by Vanderbilt. The university is dedicated to the free exchange of ideas. It is the belief of the university community that free discussion of ideas can lead to resolution and reconciliation.

Vanderbilt is committed to free speech. It is equally committed to a policy of non-discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, national origin or sexuality.

There has been some confusion as to Binhazim's role at Vanderbilt. He is the Muslim chaplain at Vanderbilt, a volunteer position. He is not a professor of Islam and is not associated with Vanderbilt University Divinity School. He has adjunct associate professor status at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in pathology. This position, which carries no teaching or research responsibilities, is also unpaid.

I cannot even imagine a Christian (or Jewish) chaplain saying gays should be executed. According to ReligiousTolerance.org, the only reference in the Jewish-Christian Bible prescribing death for homosexual acts is Leviticus 20:13. However,

Over the last few centuries, most Christians and Jews have rejected Leviticus 20:13. They no longer call on the death penalty for homosexuals. Only Christian Reconstructionists and a few Christian hate groups wish to revert to mass executions of gays and lesbians today.

Which is true. But I absolutely guarantee that the university would fire a Christian chaplain who denounced homosexuality as merely abominable. However, execution of homosexuals is a fact in Islamist countries, especially Iran. The photo at right is from the hanging of two teen-aged boys in the Islamic Republic in 2006. The Washington Post reported it was one of a series of photos.

The pictures show a dismally sad drama: Two young men, identified by the Associated Press as aged 16 and 18, are seen shackled in a prison van, sobbing; one of them is then seen being led to a scaffold; other shots show the boys together with dark-hooded men placing nooses around the boys' necks; and two final images show their bodies hanging from ropes, in a large public square, as a crowd watches from a distance.

What Chaplain Binhazim said was that this hanging, and countless others in Iran and other Islamic countries, was dictated by the basic tenets of Islam and that he agrees with those tenets. Hence, these executions are right and proper and unobjectionable.

You may recall that when Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia University in 2007, he said there are no homosexuals in Iran. Now we know why. He has them killed.

Let me be clear of my own position here. Asked a straightforward question, Mr. Binhazim gave an equally straightforward answer: This is what Islam says and I am bound by the tenets of Islam to accept it. I personally do not think he should be disciplined or fired for answering the question, even as bluntly as he did.

But there is not the slightest doubt in my Vanderbilt-alumnus mind that a Christian chaplain would indeed be disciplined by the university. So what Vanderbilt will do now is something of a defining question for the school. It prides itself on being tolerant and inclusive. Well, let's see just how tolerant and for what it shall be.

The whole forum lasted about 80 minutes. The co-speaker, Army Reserve Capt. Cox, is a Muslim convert. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, testified to Congress this week that the Defense Dept.'s "don't ask, don't tell" policy should be revoked and that gays should be allowed to serve openly. A good question for Capt. Cox would be, "As a Muslim officer, do you accept Islam's doctrine that homosexuality is an abomination?" There is no possible answer for him but yes, since textual literalism is a basic tenet of Islam. Then, "If you were directed by your superior commanders to participate in and publicly support a gay rights event, similar to such events already held by the military for ethnic minorities, would you comply?"

The entire forum may be viewed in eight parts starting here. Related coverage from Vanderbilt's campus newspaper:

Sparks fly at presentation on Muslims in the military

Vanderbilt 'Muslims in the Military' event goes viral

Finally, speaking of things Vanderbilti, Gen. David Petraeus will "engage in an open dialogue at Vanderbilt University about his actions as commander of the surge in Iraq and the role of U.S. forces overseas" at the university on March 1 (link). The event will be streamed live.

Update: comments turned on - please read comments policy.

So many of us have been there

No commentary needed.

Five Jewish Women

The Gospel of Matthew 1:1-6, 18

   1 A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:
   2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
   3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram,
   4 Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon,
   5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,
   6 and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife. . . .
   18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

Matthew begins his gospel with the Jewish genealogy of Jesus. Unlike Luke’s genealogy, which traces Jesus’ ancestry all the way back to Adam, Matthew stops at Abraham. Also, only Matthew mentions any women in Jesus ancestry. Besides Mary, there are four. They are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

Let’s hear the story of each of these women.

Tamar’s Story

My name is Tamar . My story is told in Genesis, chapter 38. I was widowed at a young age when my husband, Er, died. He was a wicked man, so the Lord shortened his life. Er’s father, Judah, told Er’s brother Onan to lie with me so that I could have a child to inherit Er’s estate. But Onan didn’t want to father a child who wouldn’t be his own, so he didn’t carry through with his duty. Not long afterward, Onan died. We think he died because he did not carry out his responsibilities, which was wrong in the eyes of the Lord.

Judah then said to me, “Live as a widow in my house until my young son Shelah grows up.” So I went to live in Judah’s house. After a long time Judah’s wife died. When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep.

When someone in the household told me Judah was on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep, I took off my widow’s clothes. I covered myself with a veil to disguise myself, and went to the village of Enaim. Enaim is on the road to Timnah.

You see, Judah’s third son, Shelah, had now grown up. But Judah had not given me to him as his wife. Without a husband and children, I would be destitute in my old age. No one would be obligated to care for me. Everyone knew it was a terrible fate for a woman to grow old alone.

When Judah saw me, he didn’t recognize me because of the veil I was wearing. In fact, he thought I was a prostitute. Not realizing that I was his daughter-in-law, he went over to me by the roadside and said, “Come now, let me sleep with you.” “And what will you give me to sleep with you?” I asked.

“I’ll send you a young goat from my flock,” he said. I replied, “I want something as collateral for your payment until it arrives.”
Judah said, “What collateral should I give you?”

I answered, “Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand.” That would be something like your modern drivers’s license and house keys. So Judah gave them to me and he slept with me. As the result, I became pregnant by him.

After I left, I took off the veil, put on my widow’s clothes again, and went home. Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by a friend in order to get his collateral back, but of course, he did not find me.

About three months later someone told Judah, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.” Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!”

As I was being brought out to be burned, I sent the collateral to Judah with the message, “I am pregnant by the man who owns these. See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.”

Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” He never slept with me again.
When the time came for me to give birth, we discovered I would have twins. As I was giving birth, one of the twins put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.”

But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez.
Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out and he was given the name Zerah.

Perez, the firstborn of Tamar, was the father of Hezron. Hezron was the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon. Salmon was the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab. . . .

Rahab’s Story

My name is Rahab. You can read my story in the book of Joshua. I was born and raised in the pagan city of Jericho, where harlotry and idolatry were acceptable. I came to recognize God as the one true God. Did you know that by the time of Jesus, the rabbis would say that I was one of the four most beautiful women the world had ever known? I was the ancestor of eight prophets, including Jeremiah.

The Bible says that when the Hebrews were entering the Promised land, Joshua sent two spies ahead. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

Yes, that was my house. I hid the spies Joshua sent, but not too well, I guess. Someone saw then and told the king of Jericho. So the king sent a message to me: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.”

I took the Hebrew men up to the roof and hid them under some stalks of flax I had there. I told the king’s messenger, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know they were spies. They left last night at dusk, right before the city gate was closed. I don’t know which way they went.”

The king’s men left Jericho to catch the spies. As soon as they left, the city gate was shut, so nobody could leave the city that night. After dark, I went up on the roof.

I said to the Israelites, “I know that the LORD has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.

“Now then, please swear to me by the LORD that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and that you will save us from death.”

“We pledge our very lives!” the men assured me. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the LORD gives us the land.” My house was part of the city wall. I let the men down by a rope through the window. They eluded the king’s men and went to Joshua.
Later, when Joshua was giving orders to his soldiers to attack Jericho, he said, “The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the LORD. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.”

Then he commanded his trumpets to be sounded. The Israelites shouted and Jericho’s wall collapsed. Every man charged straight in, and they took the city. They destroyed every living thing in Jericho—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

Joshua said to the two men who I had hid in my house, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, like you promised.” So the young men came in and brought me out, along with my entire family. They put us in a place outside the camp of Israel.

Then the Israelites burned the whole city and everything in it. But Joshua spared me, a prostitute, with all my family, because I hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho. I lived among the Israelites for the rest of my life.

Rahab’s son was Boaz, the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth. . .

Ruth’s Story

Like Rahab, I was not born a Hebrew. I was from the country of Moab. I married Mahlon, one of the sons of Elimelech. Elimelech was a Hebrew who had migrated to Moab with his wife, Naomi, to escape a famine in Israel. But Elimelech and both of his sons died. That left Naomi and me widows. Things got pretty tough in Moab for us because we had no men to provide for us. All Elimelech’s relatives were back in Israel. We also heard that there was no more famine there.

Naomi decided to go back to Israel where she had come from with Elimelech. She urged me to stay in Moab where I might find another husband. But I couldn’t bear to be apart from Naomi because I loved her like my own mother.

In tears, I told her, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me severely if anything but death separates you and me.”

We returned to Israel and settled in Bethlehem. There was a well-to-do kinsman of Elimelech there named Boaz. He let me glean in his fields after the crops were taken in. He was very kind to me because he had heard that I had left my people behind in Moab to come to Israel with Naomi. He even instructed his hired men to give me some of the harvest.

When the harvest was gathered in, Naomi told me, “Tonight Boaz will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor. Wash and perfume yourself, and put on your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, go and uncover him and lie down with him.”

So I went down to the threshing floor and did everything my mother-in-law told me to do.

After Boaz had finished eating and drinking he lay down at the far end of the grain pile. I sneaked over and uncovered him and lay down with him. In the middle of the night something startled Boaz. He discovered me lying with him.

“Who are you?” he asked. “I am your servant Ruth,” I said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer.”

“The LORD bless you,” he replied. “This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. I will do for you all you ask.”

Boaz married me very soon. We had a son whom we named Obed.

Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife. . . .

The story of the wife of Uriah the Hittite

I was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba. Both Uriah and I were Gentiles. Uriah was a valiant officer in David’s army. In the springtime, when kings go out to war, David sent General Joab with many troops, including my husband, to besiege an enemy town. But David stayed in Jerusalem.

My house was near the palace. One evening I was bathing on the roof of my house. David saw me and thought I was very beautiful. He sent messengers to bring me to him. I didn’t have any choice in the matter. When the king sends for you, you have to go. Besides, I didn’t know what he wanted until I got to the palace. He made me go to bed with him and the next morning he let me go home.

Awhile later I sent word to David that I was pregnant with his child. So David called Uriah home from the battlefield and pretended to ask about the war, but what he really wanted was to get Uriah to come to my house and sleep with me so that everyone would think the baby was Uriah’s. That way, David would be off the hook.

But Uriah was an honorable man and wouldn’t visit his house with his men dying in battle. He spent the night at the palace's gate. Even the next night, when David got him drunk, he would not come to our house. So David sent him back to General Joab with a sealed message that was Uriah’s own death warrant. David ordered Joab to make sure my husband was put in the fiercest fighting. Then Joab was to withdraw the soldiers from Uriah’s side so he would be killed. So Joab drew the enemy into a fierce battle in which many Israelites were killed in order to set my husband up. But David’s orders were carried out.

Joab sent a messenger back to David to tell him that Uriah was dead. When I heard that my husband was dead, I was stricken and I mourned for him.  

After the time of my mourning was over, David had me brought to his house. I became his wife. The baby was born, a son. But the things David had done displeased the Lord. David, who was rich a powerful, had ordered a contract murder in order to possess me. He never asked me what I wanted to do. I had no voice in the matter. Nathan, the prophet, pronounced that my child would die because of David’s sin.

My son did die. Once again someone I loved died because of what David did. Within about a year I lost my husband and a son to death.

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

We know little about Mary. She was a young woman, in her late teens or early twenties, when the Spirit of God came over her. Her position as a betrothed pregnant woman must have been very precarious. Her pregnancy would have been taken as self-evident proof that she had broken the law of Moses. Joseph could have chosen to have Mary stoned to death. Instead, Joseph simply decided to break off their betrothal and send her away. But the Scriptures record that Joseph was convinced by an angel in a dream to take Mary as his wife. From the beginning, Mary had something irregular about her.

Mary is a woman under oppression. A Roman census requires her to make a difficult journey to Bethlehem very late in her pregnancy. The Romans make no exceptions for expectant mothers.

All four women named in Jesus’ lineage before Mary had some irregularity in their lives. They were victims or seductresses or schemers, but they all found themselves in a bad situation and got out of it the best way they could. In the end, they become heroines of Jewish history. If Mary’s pregnancy seems a bit irregular, Matthew seems to say, just look at the women who went before her. If Jesus himself seems out of the mainstream, just look at the record of his ancestors. During Jesus’ ministry the Pharisees were scandalized that Jesus broke bread with women of questionable character and reputation and openly conversed with them. Perhaps Jesus saw in them his own lineage.

If Jesus were to visit the earth during this Advent season, I don't think he would come around to my house. We might find him over at Miriam’s Promise, ministering to unmarried pregnant women. He might be found at My Friend’s House, healing women who were victimized by the oppression of the powerful men in their lives. Jesus might stop by Graceworks and share his lunch with women who don’t have a place to stay. He’d stop by the state prison’s death row and pray with mothers awaiting their son’s execution. He would spend time with women who mourn the death of a child.

God honors women in the lineage of Jesus. Mary was not of noble birth, she was not wealthy or well connected. She was quite an ordinary person. Yet God chose her to bear an untimely pregnancy to be the mother of the savior of the world.

God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly and the despised things of this world to abolish the things that we exalt. It is because of this fact that we are in Christ Jesus, who is our righteousness, holiness and redemption. (Re. 1 Cor 1:26-31)

No Christmas Kindle

The idea of reading eBooks appeals to me because I am out of library space in my home. I could buy another bookshelf but there is really no place to put it. Earlier this month my older brother received a Kindle for his birthday. I haven't seen it yet, but he described its utility to me a some length on a phone call. My wife had already asked whether I might want a Kindle for Christmas -- she's tired of finding books I am reading laying around; I might have a different book for most rooms in the house. I have no problem following three or four books at one time so I just leave one in the den, another in the living room, one in my home office and one ... well, somewhere else.

So eBooking has a certain attraction. I can have many different books on the electronic reader with the Kindle keeping track of which page I am on in each. But would the Kindle be right for me? I scoped the reviews of the three main readers and pretty quickly rejected the Sony eReader. Reviews said it wasn't near up to the Kindle's snuff.

But Barnes & Noble has a new e-reader called the Nook that reviewers say is kicking the Kindle's pedestal and maybe knocking it over. I'm not getting a Nook, either, but I think its feature set is superior to the Kindle's.

Kindle and Nook both have a free reader for both PCs and Macs. I installed both vendors' downloads and the readers are very good. Although a notebook computer's screen is not the e-ink used by the two e-readers, the typeface and clarity of the PC readers' display was superior to that of most web pages.

Both Amazon and B&N also offer a free e-reader download for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I downloaded B&N's reader onto my son's Touch (with permission), downloaded a free book and was very impressed again with the clarity of the display the readability. Obviously, not as much text per screen, but a flick of the finger from right to left turns the page with the silky smoothness Apple has perfected for its handhelds.

But wait, there's more! B&N also has a free e-reader for Blackberry. (Amazon's is "coming soon.") So I installed it onto my Tour. I was surprised again at how well the text displayed. A press of the trackball turns the page instantly. Because the Tour's screen is so small (but thankfully hi-res) I pressed the trackball a lot to get through the first chapter of Dracula -- it was 96 screens long!

Once a book is added to your accounts library at either vendor, you can download it to any device registered on the account with no additional charge. So I can read Dracula on either my computer or my Blackberry. The Kindle even lets you sync between the Kindle and your computer so that if you stop reading a book on page 75 on the Kindle, you can pick it up right there on the computer. I didn't see this feature on B&N's site for the Nook.

However, neither a Nook nor a Kindle will be under the tree for me this month. Their drawback is that they are single-purpose devices. Reading books or mags is all you can do with either of them. (They also will play sound files of various sorts.) Frankly, at $259 and $249 respectively, they are just too limited in capability for the price.

For $10 more than the Nook I can get a 32gb iPod Touch from Amazon, download both the Kindle and Nook's readers to it free, and read away with great ease. I can buy books from both vendors rather than be limited to the vertical-only vending for either device. And the Touch will do a lot more than serve as an e-reader. (I'd get an iPhone but am slaved to Verizon, besides, AT&T's 3G coverage ends 40 miles from my home.) The Touch's wi-fi works for full web browsing. The Kindle does not have wi-fi. The Nook does, but only for downloading eBooks, not for browsing. (Both the Kindle and the Nook download materials over a built-in cell phone connection no extra charge.)

The Touch will store and play music, of course, as do the e-readers, and also movies. There is a ginormous library of apps, including Documents to Go for word processing and office software functions. And I can watch TV on it with my Slingbox. In short, the Touch is not as good a reader than either the Kindle or the Nook, mainly because of screen size, but has so much more total capability for basically the same money that I can't make sense of getting either the Kindle or the Nook.





Endnotes: Here's a hands-on review of the Nook that generally agrees with my impressions, although I have never touched one. One thing the review points out is that despite the overall size of both Kindle and Nook, the reading area of their screens is only about the size of a 3 by 5 index card, which is not very much larger than the screen of a Touch or iPhone.

Of course, a book is a single-purpose device, too. Except there is no book on my shelf that I paid $249 for. I don't dispute that the Kindle and Nook are e-reader hedgehogs ("the hedgehog knows how to do only one thing, but it does it extremely well"). For me that is simply too much money to spend to read eBooks when there is a multi-purpose alternative that e-reads almost as well.

As for the optical advantages of e-ink, I'll not dispute it but OTOH, reading several chapters on my Blackberry didn't bother my eyes. Haven't tried it on the PC reader. Maybe the Blackberry's display, though backlit, is closer to e-ink than to my notebook PC's display, I dunno.

Bad clergy clothing

Let's see, what are the vestments the other clergy are wearing? If there was ever a site for "Glamour Don'ts" for clergy, this would be it.



Please, if I ever wear something like this, somebody just pick me up and carry me bodily out of the church.

Was Jesus really born to a virgin mother?

Matthew 1:18-25 makes this claim:

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

The birth of Jesus of Nazareth to a virgin woman has been claimed by the Church from apostolic times, but it is today one of the most vexing claims about Christ that the Church grapples with.

I commend to your attention Tod Bolsinger's essay about the virgin birth. Among other things, Tod says that there was no expectation among first-century Jews that their Messiah would be born of a virgin. There is a passage in Isaiah in which the prophet is speaking to King Ahaz and tells the king,

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.

The King James and many later versions quote Isaiah, "... a virgin is with child," but this is a retrojection of Church tradition onto the Hebrew text. The Hebrew word used is alma, which simply means "young woman" with no indication of her marital status or sexual experience. Some scholars think Isaiah was referring to his own wife when he spoke to Ahaz, others that he was simply laying out a timetable for when Ahaz's troubles would be over. (Isaiah continued that by the time the child could eat solid food and choose between good and bad, Judah's foreign-policy problems would be gone.)

Since the Jews of Jesus day could certainly read Hebrew - it was taught in the synagogues, even though they mostly spoke Aramaic - they would not have ascribed virginity to the young woman of Isaiah's prophecy. In fact, the face reading of the passage is self-evidently against it! So Tod is right that no one of the time expected the Messiah to be born of a virgin. In fact, they didn't expect the Messiah to be born of the Holy Spirit, either. What they did expect was for the Messiah to be a powerful political ruler and military leader who would usher in an eschatological peaceable kingdom for the Jews.

However, Matthew quotes Isaiah thus:

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel"

Matthew, of course, was written in Greek, and the word used for virgin is parthenos, which indeed means "virgin." The reason Matthew reads that way is that in 70 BC Jewish scholars in Alexandria translated the Jewish Scriptures into Greek. Their result is called the Septuagint, for "seventy," because the story is that 70 scholars worked nonstop for 70 days to make the translation. This translation is abbreviated LXX (Roman numerals for 70) and it was from the LXX that Matthew cited Isaiah. And the LXX uses the word parthenos in Isaiah where the Hebrew text uses alma.

There was no lack of myths or legends in the ancient world of miraculous conceptions and births. But there are profound differences between them and the story of the birth of Jesus. In most of the other stories, the encounter between the human parent and the god (or goddess) is presented graphically, even explicitly. What happens between the woman and the god is exactly what ordinarily happens between an ordinary husband and wife. But in Matthew’s story as well as Luke’s, God is not shown in the male role in conception. The Holy Spirit, the divine power and presence, works in Mary to conceive a child without a human father. There is no union between God and Mary, either in Matthew or in Luke. Jesus comes to exist as an unborn child simply because God wills it, not from anything God does to Mary. This distinction is perhaps a crucial one for understanding who Jesus was.

Let’s recall, for example, the story of the famous figure of Greek mythology, Achilles. Achilles was the son of a human father and a divine mother. Achilles’ portrayal in the Iliad shows that he was half human, half divine. He had much of the power and invulnerability of the gods, but the temper and tempestuousness of ordinary people. He led his men with godly courage, but carried out unforgivably harsh vengeance on the Trojan prince, Hector. Throughout the story, the tragedy of Achilles unfolded precisely because he was neither wholly god nor wholly human. He was half and half, and neither half was at peace with the other. His godly side strove for the higher virtues, but was dragged down by his humanity, and his divinity perverted his humanity. Thus, the story of the semi-divine, semi-human Achilles is one of tragedy.

Jesus is nowhere presented as a hybrid product of divinity and humanity. Jesus is not a half-and-half person. Jesus is affirmed as fully human and fully God, and his story ends not in tragedy at the cross but in victory at the empty tomb.

Tod observes that the virgin birth of Christ

... is God’s way of personally entering his creation. The Spiritus Creator that brought the universe into being, personally entered creation to bring restoration. God did not choose a human being, imbue that person with his Spirit and stick him on the cross (that view is called “adoptionism”). God himself did the job. God did not just send his Spirit, God himself saved us, was with us…

Mark D. Roberts has a thoroughly read-worthy series on whether the doctrine of Jesus's virgin birth is hype or history. Also, many people confuse the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception with the universal Christian doctrine of the birth of Jesus to the virgin Mary. But the are different ideas altogether.

The Immaculate Conception means that Mary, whose conception was brought about the normal way, was conceived without original sin or its stain - that’s what "immaculate" means: without stain. The essence of original sin consists in the deprivation of sanctifying grace, and its stain is a corrupt nature. Mary was preserved from these defects by God’s grace; from the first instant of her existence she was in the state of sanctifying grace and was free from the corrupt nature original sin brings.

However, this doctrine is exclusive to the Roman Catholic Church, having been promulgated only in 1854 by Pope Pius IX. Protestants have never worried about it.

Why the "Great Faith Experiment?"

I explained in my November newsletter column (click here to read)that we are doing financial pledging for 2010 differently this year.

In this post I will try to explain why.

In years past, pledges were done in a very traditional way. Pledge packets were delivered or mailed to the households of the church, the people filled them in and brought them back. The church's financial stewards opened the pledges, totaled them up and reported the total to our bookkeeper and finance committee chairperson.

And that was that.

What many people of the church probably don't know is that the sum of the pledges received for the coming year did not affect the amount of the budget for that year. Each annual budgets is formed by committee chairpersons and activity chiefs making a request for funding to the finance committee, which as a whole considers the requests, puts together a draft budget and re-evaluates the submissions. Some requests are sent back for reconsideration and after additional analysis and discussion, a final budget is formulated. This budget is sent to the church council for final approval.

The reason the sum of pledges received did not affect the budget amount is because almost 90 percent of our budget consists of fixed costs that can't be adjusted based on nothing more than amount of pledges. The heating/cooling bill, for example, is what it is. Property insurance costs are what they are. The payroll is the payroll. (Salaries did not rise for 2010, by the way.) Those expenses must be paid; in a strict sense they are not budgeted, but estimated, for the coming year. Some estimates are precise but others are only approximations. But they will not vary whether the pledged sum is high or low.

Furthermore, the money budgeted for ministries of the church forms the core of what our church is all about. Although from a strict financial-accounting perspective these expenses are "discretionary," they really cannot be. If we fail to fund our ministries then we cease to be a church in any meaningful sense of the word.

So we of the finance committee asked ourselves in the last few months, "Why continue to do pledging the same old way?" After all, once the pledges were totaled, nothing more came of them. No one ever got a "bill" from the church nor did anyone compare a pledge's amount against the amount actually given. Furthermore, many people declined to render a pledge.

We concluded that continuing to do pledges that way was not well advised. And so the Great Faith Experiment was born. We will still pledge to support the work of the church financially, but our way of receiving pledges will recognize that giving is part of both worship and discipleship. In that regard, our pledges are promises made to God.

This Sunday is Commitment Sunday.

During each worship service there will be a time to come forward to lay your envelope, with the pledge sealed inside, on the altar as a gesture of solemn commitment to God and God’s work of redemption by our church.

Afterward, volunteers will collect the envelopes and pray for each person by name that God may grant each of us grace to remain faithful to the commitments we have made. Then they will mail the unopened envelope back to you. Please keep it and use it through the coming year to remind yourself of the promise you have made to God to support the work of his church.

A final note: the budget approved by the church council for 2010 amounts to $275,332, a decrease of $23,760 (-8.6%) from 2009.

Stress on Army families is great, too

In much of the commentary related to the tragic killings at Ft Hood, attention has been paid to the enormous stress soldiers endure while deployed to operational areas and the difficulties of adjusting to normal life upon return. And those stresses and difficulties are very real and serious.

But let's not forget the stresses of the family members soldiers leave behind. From "Army Live," the official blog of the US Army: "Not Wanting to Let Go"

I recently came across the above picture (which I am sure many of you have seen already) of Paige Bennethum standing in formation with her father, pleading with him not to leave. Her father, Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Brett Bennethum was preparing to leave on a year -long deployment to Iraq.

Last week I attended the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting and Exposition and had the opportunity to sit in on the Military Family Forums. On the final day, the topic for the forum focused on the effects of extended deployments on Soldiers, families and especially the children.

The Army psychiatrist, Col. Kris Peterson discussed with Army Spouses and support groups the seriousness of repeated, lengthy deployments and the effects they are having on children.

For example, he noted that yearly mental health visits for children under the age of 15 have increased from 800,000 in 2003 to 1.6 million in 2008. One out of three school-age children are at risk for psychological problems and about 30 percent of children have significantly increased anxiety.

In an effort to deal with that trend and provide a central place for Army children to get mental and physical help, Peterson and other experts at Madigan developed the Military Child and Adolescent Center of Excellence in Fort Lewis, Washington.

The team consists of pediatricians, psychologists, social workers and child and adolescent psychiatrists whom are looking at the latest research and strategically planning the way forward for caring for Army children in addition to sifting through existing programs to find what actually works.

Many times when we think about the U.S. Army we tend to focus just on the Soldiers. We must remember that there are children all over the country like Paige Bennethum whose father or mother is/will be deployed overseas for months at a time. These deployments obviously have a great effect on the children and that is why the U.S. Army is working hard to create and development programs and centers that will assist families through those difficult times.

Military families, we want to hear from you. Let us know what you think can be done to assist families in times of deployments. Children; share your stories of how you deal with a loved one being deployed.

The Overpopulation Myth, Part 1

Myth: We can't produce enough food to feed the people in the world today, much less in years to come.

Fact: The world today produces enough food to provide every person alive with an adequate daily diet, and there is more land still available for agriculture than is being used now.

In my sermon this morning, I said,

Beginning in earnest in 1968, we have been almost incessantly propagandized that the earth is overpopulated and that responsible adults will not have more than one child each, or better yet, one child per couple. 1968 was the year that Paul Ehrlich, an American specialist in butterflies (really) published a doom and gloom book called The Population Bomb. In it, Ehrlich predicted a catastrophic meltdown of the earth’s ability to support more than the three billion, five hundred fifty-six million people living at the time.

Ehrlich wrote,

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate...

Ehrlich’s book was influential far beyond the credentials of its author or the phony science he used. The present world view that overpopulation is a ticking time bomb threatening to end in mass death derives directly from Ehrlich’s apocalyptic fairy tale.

The planet’s population is now six billion and climbing. Across the world, people are better nourished than ever before in all history. Hunger in the world today is caused by politics, not lack of food production. GlobalIssues.org lists the following causes of hunger in the world. I have asterisked (**) those that are purely or predominantly political:

• ** Land rights and ownership


• ** Diversion of land use to non-productive use


• ** Increasing emphasis on export-oriented agriculture


• ** Inefficient agricultural practices [there are also cultural, economic and educational issues with this one]


• ** War


• ** Famine


• Drought


• ** Over-fishing


• Poor crop yield


• ** Lack of democracy and rights

The majority of these causes are purely or predominantly political. Note that famine is actually not a root cause of chronic hunger, it is a description of local, enduring shortages of food. But famine's relief is not an arcane art. Shipments of food stocks from other countries to the famine area take care of the problem. But whether that humanitarian deed is done is a political decision.

Famine can also result from intentional political decision. The people of North Korea are the most enduringly malnourished people on earth. The reason is simple: North Korean communism cannot organize resources and labor to produce and distribute enough food to feed the people on the one hand, and on the other the ruling classes divert the country's resources to their own use, to arming the country and to cement their iron grip on the masses. If the people finally resort to cannibalism, well then, so be it.

The International Food Policy Institute says that even so about 20 percent of the world's population,

... are chronically undernourished ... [S]ince the mid-1970s the world has produced enough food to provide everyone with a minimally adequate diet. Hunger is one piece of a complex of interrelated social ills. It is linked intricately to global economic, political, and social power structures; modes of development and consumption; population dynamics; and social biases based on race, ethnicity, gender, and age. The world community has both the knowledge and the resources to eliminate hunger [emphasis added].

According to a report published this year by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), there are 1.4 billion hectares of land under farm production in the world today. "Some 1.6 billion hectares could be added" and most of that in Africa and South America (OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2009-2018, PDF). I have read some estimates that the amount of arable land in Africa alone could feed produce enough food to feed the whole world, although as a matter of practicality, that will obviously never be the case.

The point is that the amount of arable land used today can be more than doubled. Lack of food production is not the cause of hunger today and there is no reason it should be the cause in the many years to come.

Next: the real "population bomb" is not having enough children to secure our future.

Update: I thought about explaining in my sermon the new twist on Ehrlichean apocalypticism but simply didn't have time. The new twist goes like this from "the world is about to end" bunch:

1. Okay, we admit that we can produce enough food for all six billion of us, plus many billions more.

2. That doesn't matter because human beings are poisonous to the earth. They produce carbon dioxide!

The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO² every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess. If Britain is to meet the government's target of an 80% reduction in our emissions by 2050, we need to start reversing our rising rate of population growth immediately.

That from the UK's Guardian newspaper. The piece ends,

Some scientists, the German chancellor's adviser, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber among them, say that if the cuts are not achieved, we will end up with a planet with a "carrying capacity" of just 1bn humans. If so, we need to start cutting back population now with methods that offer a humane choice – before it happens the hard way.

To which University of Wisconsin law Professor Ann Althouse responds, "Oh, great. Thanks for the warning about cutting back "population" the hard way, Germany."

This is not exactly a new idea in Europe. More than two years ago the K's TimesOnline ran a guest op-ed entitled, "The cry should go up in Europe: more babies, please." It includes this cheery thought:

And there is the hint – but just a hint – from the Optimum Population people that if voluntary restraints do not work, governments will bring in coercive measures. The example that springs to mind here is, of course, China and its compulsory one-child policy. I’ve come across some distinguished academics myself who wouldn’t dream of trying to impose coerced abortion here but have made it quite clear, in private conversation, that we should all be grateful on environmental grounds that it happens in China.

Last year, Dr. Freeman Dyson, one of the most respected physicists in the world, had a long essay in the New York Times Book Review in which he explained why environmentalism is now an actual religion in its own right. Mind you, in his mind this is a good thing. I'll post more about that later on.

"Why Jews Pray"

First Things has an essay by Rabbi Ben Greenberg, Orthodox Jewish Chaplain of Harvard University as well as the Orthodox Rabbi of Harvard Hillel, called, "Why Jews Pray."

Every moment that we stop and begin to move our lips in prayerful words towards God is a testament to the notion of purposeful creation. The basic ability to pray, to yearn for a connection to God, demonstrates the meaningfulness of life. Yet, this only explains a broad universalistic Jewish motivation for prayer. What lies at the core of Jewish prayer?

The question is answered, like most Jewish questions, with a debate. Maimonides (Laws of Prayer 1:1) argues that it is a commandment to pray to God everyday based on the verse “And you shall serve the Lord your God.” The service being referred to in this verse is none other than prayer as the sages in the Talmud (Tractate Taanit 2a) had already noted. However, for Nahmanides (Notes on the Book of Commandments, Positive Commandment 5), the commandment to pray applies only when the community is faced with great distress and then, in that moment, it is an imperative to affirm our belief in a God that listens to prayers and intervenes.

We are thus presented with two differing reasons for Jewish prayer. On the one hand, as expressed by Maimonides, praying daily is of fundamental importance. One can speculate a myriad of reasons why this would be so. On the other hand, however, prayer is only necessary when the community is faced with a tremendous difficulty and needs to turn to God and cry out for help in that very moment. ...

Maimonides, then, is in agreement with Nahmanides that meaningful prayer arises only when one is in a state of difficulty. But the difference lies in the application of difficulty to the circumstances of life. Nahmanides considers trouble to be something that can only manifests itself as a distinct and recognizable event, Maimonides, however, sees life itself as full of difficulty and burden. The very nature of what it means to be alive is one that is rife with existential strife and tension that necessitates daily prayer.

Not a long essay and well worth your time.

Some thoughts on health care

The Social Principles of the United Methodist Church declare, "Health care is a basic human right." The Principles offer the weakest of justification for the claim, citing only Psalm 146, which "speaks of the God 'who executes justice for the oppressed;/ who gives food to the hungry./ The LORD sets the prisoners free;/ the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.'" I have looked in vain online for a philosophical argument, as opposed to mere assertion, that health care is a human right. haven't found any yet, but I keep looking. However, here are some representative sample of the "pro" side that I have found so far.

As far as I can tell, when someone says that health care is a human right, what s/he really means is, "I want all the health care I want to be given to me free."

Amnesty International merely cites the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which lists health and health care (both) as human rights, and pretty much lets it go at that. But Amnesty offers no explanation of why health care is a right rather than, say, an achievement. It simply is a right, and that's that. Same for The Opportunity Agenda.

People's Weekly World is, as the name indicates, overtly Marxist, but let's see whether it can offer an actual argument in favor of the position. Umm, nope. It simply cites FDR's proposal of a Second Bill of Rights, which includes, "The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health," and let's it go at that.

Roosevelt did make an argument, albeit a very brief one, postulating that the original Bill of Rights, being oriented on political freedom, was no longer adequate for an industrial America. And yet his argument was only pragmatic, claiming that, "People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made." Which is pretty interesting, seeing as how FDR once fancied himself a strongman ruler if not actual dictator (he actually drew up legislation for Congress to authorize him to rule by edict, but he never sent it to the Hill).

I think that history, however, would show that "people who are hungry and out of a job" bring down dictatorships as often as they enable them. Say, France, 1789 and the downfall of the French monarchy. It wasn't hunger that caused dictatorial rule to return later to France, but chaos. And again: Russia, 1917, the overthrow of the Czar and the establishment not of dictatorship but of proto-democracy, well, until the Bolsheviks got the upper hand. Germany: Hitler was not elected chancellor- twice! - by hungry, jobless Germans, though his elections in 1933 and 1936 did take place in the depression. It was improving prosperity in Germany, combined with runaway nationalism and anti-Judaism, that enabled the Nazis to consolidate their power. Nor did jobless, starving Japanese demand the bushido government that took them into World War 2, although starving Japanese in 1945 would almost certainly have overthrown that government in 1945 had it not surrendered to the Allies first.

However, FDR didn't stop at health care in his Second Bill of Rights. He listed all sorts of ingredients for his rainbow pie. For example, the right of every farmer "to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living." Growing plants is now a human right? How can there be a "right to sell" without a corresponding obligation for someone else to buy? And just how shall "decent living" be defined? All of FDR's Bill is chock-full of inexactitudes like these, such as, "The right of every family to a decent home." Just what does that mean?

Well, continuing to march: we turn to Ryan Dashek, writing in The Daily Cardinal, that, "Health care is a human right, not a costly luxury." Again, no explanation of why this is so, just assertion and a litany of presumed benefits that would come from nationalized, single-payer health care. Nor, for that matter, is there the slightest recognition that health care is going to be costly whether we classify it as a luxury or not. (The failure to distinguish between cost and price is very common among universalism advocates.)

Well, the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative lets the cat out of the bag.

When visiting a doctor, clinic or hospital, patients should not have to pay. Health care funds should be collected independent of the actual use of care, to avoid creating a barrier to care. Services must be provided based on clinical need, not payment, regardless of the financing mechanism used.

This is so economically uninformed that I hardly know where to begin its rebuttal. It treats medical care as a resource rather than a service. It absolutely makes the bean counters and accountants in charge, not doctors or patients because medical care is going to allocated somehow ("rationed," as we say) and the main important question is how it shall be done.

Contrary to what the NESRI thinks, access to medical care will never be unlimited. I have personal experience with government-run health care. It was a CHAMPUS-run clinic that opened in Fayetteville, NC, while I was stationed at Ft Bragg. (CHAMPUS was the military health-insurance program used when treatment at actual military facilities was not available. It's called Tricare today.) The object was to encourage family members of military members to use this clinic rather than go to the base hospital. The Army contracted with a civilian company to staff and run the clinic.

Being a contract, there was a dollar amount to pay for a specified number of patient treatments. The clinic was overutilized (or underfunded, take your pick). So the company, as allowed by the contract, reduced the number of days the clinic was open and the number of hours per day it was open. Otherwise, it would have continued on until say, the end of July, and then been shuttered until October.

Like Mr. Dashek, NESRI does not understand that price and cost are not the same. Making health care free for patients does nothing to reduce its cost. All it does is shift the small-minority costs to the provider that are presently borne by most, but not all of the patients. But the costs will neither disappear nor be reduced. It will still cost the doctors and hospitals the same to provide the care as before.

What "free" (in scare quotes because, you know, TANSTAAFL), health care will do is increase demand without increasing supply. That always leads to shortage whether we're talking about medical care, gasoline, hotel rooms or any other good or service. Without price movements to bring demand and supply back into alignment, reductions will follow in access to or quality of care or both.

Here's an illustration: I visit many hospitals and occasionally those visits are to emergency rooms. There is a sign in waiting and admission areas I have seen many area emergency rooms. It says something like this: If your illness or injury is not a true emergency, you will be directed to a routine-care facility.

Why that sign? Because federal law requires that emergency rooms cannot charge patients for treatment if the patient says he cannot pay or is uninsured. I don't object to the law, but emergency rooms have become choked with uninsured supplicants for free treatment who are not suffering a medical emergency. I have seen this many times in person over the years. But emergency rooms are called that for a reason, and if you fill your treatment bays with patients who, though ill or injured to some degree, are not facing an actual medical emergency, you are in fact decreasing access (rationing) care for true-emergency patients.

That's what happens when you make medical care free. It will always become over-demanded and under-resourced. Costs will rise and will not be recuperated by monetary price. Hence, price will be paid in other coin, and that coin will always include availability and quality.

Any economist understands this. Pity that so few others do.

Endnote: Philip Barlow, Consultant neurosurgeon at Southern General Hospital, Glasgow, explains why, "Health care is not a human right."

Philip Niles says that the real question is not whether health care is a human right, but "How much health care is a human right?" Good question, since health care is finite.

We are under authority

Every year the Tenn. Conference Board of Ministry (BOM) interviews, in person, candidates for probationary service as pastors, called commissioned ministers, and serving commissioned minister who are ready for ordination either as deacon or elder.

The BOM also sends a member to the seminaries where most Tennessee Conference candidates matriculate to talk to the Methodist students about going before the BOM. Candidates are interviewed by the entire BOM twice, first for commissioned status and later for ordination. These interviews take two days.

When I was still working toward my M.Div. At Vanderbilt, the BOM's representative visited and spoke to us for some time. One of the things he talked about has stuck with me all the years since. I can't quote him exactly after so long, but this is very close to what he told us:

One of the things you need to understand about going before the BOM is that there are some things we are flexible on and some things we are not. We are not necessarily of one mind on things such as the theology of worship, for example, but there are other things for which we will be entirely inflexible.

One of those things is baptism of infants. I need to let you know as clearly as I can that if you do not unambiguously affirm to the BOM that you will baptize infants, you will not be commissioned or ordained. Believe me when I say that the BOM makes no exceptions for any reason.

Despite the fact that we always emphasize this fact when we send BOM members to talk to seminary students, every year there are always about two candidates who appear before the BOM and say that they cannot bring themselves to baptize infants. And they always seems to think that they have a compelling or new argument in their favor that will convince us to approve them. Or they think that their candidacy record is so strong in other areas that the BOM will excuse them for not affirming they will baptize infants.

They are always wrong. I need to be very clear: there is no argument you can possibly present that will justify your unwillingness to baptize infants in the United Methodist Church. And the strength of the rest of your candidacy will not be relevant to this issue.

Ministers of The United Methodist Church baptize infants, period. If you cannot do that, save yourself a lot of time and trouble and withdraw from candidacy now.

You can see that this was an unusually blunt advisory, but as he indicated, it needed to be. And yet when I went before the BOM, one of the seminary students who was sitting at my table on that day told the BOM he would not baptize infants. And the BOM voted "no" on his continuation.

It behooves us now and then to remember that, as the centurion told Jesus, we are under authority in the church. Even if we were an independent congregation, not affiliated with any denomination, we still could not simply make up our own rules and call ourselves a church. The New Testament can't be ignored nor can the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

As United Methodists, we are bound by the UM's Book of Discipline, which sets forth the doctrinal standards of the Church and many matters of local-church governance and organization. For example, the Discipline directs that every charge shall have certain committees and be structured certain ways. (A charge is one or more congregations who have the same pastor.) We cannot decide to ignore the Discipline in these matters or in others where the Discipline is directive.

The Discipline is not directive in every part; some of its sections say "should" rather than "shall." Even so, it is the Discipline that makes us a United Methodist Church rather than a generic Protestant one. Our challenge is to remember that we are under authority when it seems burdensome, for it is no merit to do obey instructions that are pleasant to us.