Universal Suffrage: Why Everyone in the World Should Vote in America's Election.

I am a Canadian citizen. And, I am an American citizen. In the interests of full disclosure, I became an American citizen in order to vote for Al Gore. Not that it helped.

This past week I received my ballot for the November 6 presidential, state, and local elections. I’m always tempted to vote straight ticket, but if I can find a moderate Republican or two, I’ll vote for them. I do it for the sake of political conservation. I would hate to see that species go totally extinct.

In any case, now that I’ve received my ballot, and have begun considering my options, I have had an amazing insight. The problem with the American election is that only Americans get to vote.

That’s wrong! The consequences of American policy are so great, for so many people all around the world, that I think these people ought also have a say in how America exercises its power. American consumption of natural resources, contributions to global warming, farm subsidies, military interventions and foreign (usually military) aid—the list goes on and on—are all matters of grave concern to the world’s billions who won’t get to vote. In fact, there is hardly any American policy that doesn’t impact the rest of the world. Our policies are taxing most of our neighbors round the world, in spite of their not being able to vote about who will legislate these policies. Taxation without representation!

Worse, American politicians are quite clear that when America acts in the world, it must do so in the American interest. Not in Canada’s or Sudan’s or China’s. When it comes to American politics, Samaritans are not good neighbors. Only other Americans are good neighbors. So while it is inevitable that some American policies will also be good for at least some none-Americans, this is merely trickle-down largesse. American policy, whether foreign or domestic, is about putting us, ourselves and our fellow citizens first.

This sort of America-first thinking runs contrary to a key Christian conviction. You see, before we are Americans or Canadians or Kenyans, we must identify ourselves as Christian. The Apostle Peter says, for example, says that Christians are “strangers and aliens” to the world, and instead, “you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.” National distinctions must give way to our transnational—some would say “kingdom,” identity in Christ.

Among the earliest Christians, overcoming racial and national prejudice was a big deal. Jews and gentiles had to find their identity in Jesus—as did men and women, slaves and free. The early church was about creating a new identity that transcended all those divides. Paul adds that Christians are “ambassadors of reconciliation.” The image is that of a divine political institution sending Christians into the world to remake it in Jesus’ image. For Christians the question can never be “am I better off now than four years ago.” Rather, it must be, “are my neighbors better off now than four years ago?”

So among Christians, there ought to be a groundswell of support for letting other Christians, our international neighbors, vote. And since it isn’t only Christians—but Jews and Muslims and Baha’i and Hindus who all teach love of neighbor, we ought to throw the American election open to all people.

And yes, of course, this is written tongue in cheek. But voting in America is a very serious matter. So what will you vote this time around? Your pocket book? Or your brothers and sisters all around the world?

What do you think? Leave a response!

The Myth of Jesus' Return

            When Jesus walked from Galilee to Golgotha, he and his followers hoped that the end of the world was just around the corner. That is, they believed that God would one day soon tear open the heavens, come on down, judge both the living and the dead, and bring history as we know it to an end. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place” (Mark 13:28-31).

            Of course, Jesus got it wrong. Perhaps sensing that Jesus’ words were a bit bold, years later the writer of the Gospel of Mark has Jesus temper hopes for his speedy return by having Jesus add, “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (13:32).

            Nevertheless, the earliest Christians continued to hope that Jesus would soon return. To give one of the more humorous Biblical examples, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians concerning virgins considering marriage, “in view of the impending crisis, it is well for you to remain as you are . . . for the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:25-31). Unfortunately, his advice probably made for some very old bachelors and maidens. Jesus did not return in those virgins’ lifetimes.

            The last 150 years have seen a huge upsurge in predictions about the immanence of Jesus’ return. The largest wing of Christian Fundamentalism, Premillennial Dispensationalism, is committed to reading the Bible and newspaper headlines about the Middle-east as if they were secret codebooks that reveal how Jesus will return any minute now.

            Of course, all of such predictions, whether they are found in the Bible or are being made by TV preachers, are wrong. For all their Bible studies on Revelation and their adding and subtracting of millenniums to dates for the State of Israel; for all their book, TV and Christian radio warnings of the end-time battles at Armageddon or Aleppo, for all their Left Behind novels and YouTube movies of Jesus floating down from the clouds, so far, Jesus has not returned.

It is no wonder, really, that from day one Christians hoped for Jesus’ return. Life was tough. From job loss to imprisonment, from slavery to—in some cases—being fed to the lions, choosing Christianity meant choosing for membership in the bottom rung of society. So early Christians directed their hopes towards escape by means of a deus ex machina—the god who sometimes suddenly appeared on a crane at the end of Greek dramas to save the hero. Early Christians hoped for a similar sudden, liberating reappearance of Jesus.

            And many people still hope for Jesus to save them from the trials and tribulations of this world. In a way, we understand. Terrorism. Crime. Taxes. Deficits. The chaos of the Arab Spring, North Korea and Afghanistan. New public values when it comes to sex, being gay, abortion, and on and on—no wonder the world seems out of control to some people. They put their hope in a belief that Jesus will return on the clouds and save them from all this. Soon! Maybe this year!

            The trouble with putting your hope in a miraculous return of Jesus to earth is that instead of trying to do something here and now to make the world a better place, you are mightily tempted to wait for Jesus to do it for you. If Jesus is going to return to judge the world and cleanse it from all evil, then why should we bother to do anything ourselves? The kind of Christianity that focuses on Jesus’ return makes for a week-kneed Christianity that has no energy for social action, unless it is the sort of social action that calls sinners to repent and be saved before the Day of Judgment.

But all such hope for the future is vain, based on wishful readings of the Bible. Whatever mysterious way Divinity works with and among us to make the world a better place, it won’t be Jesus returning on the clouds that seals it. Like the story of Adam and Eve, Biblical texts about Jesus’ return, whether in the gospels or Revelation, are all written in the language of myth. They're important texts, full of meaning and insight, but they're nothing like history.

            So what ought we base our hope on? Well, according to 1 Corinthians 13:13, "And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” What this text suggests is that we’ll never really understand hope until we understand that love is the greatest. Hope is love's legitimate child.

I don’t mean to be simplistic here. I’m offering a sort of “think global, act local” solution to our feelings of hopelessness. Our hope for overcoming this world’s woes is, naturally, partly rooted in the mysterious presence of God in and among us. But if God is present, much of the mystery of God has to do with how God inspires us against our baser instincts to nevertheless root our lives in love for neighbor. Whether you are a parent, a pastoral care worker, a money manager, a nurse, a CEO of a company that produces useful widgets, each of us can find ways appropriate to our position for putting our neighbors—our children, fellow church members, customers—in a better place tomorrow than today.

It is as the Apostle Paul said, more wisely than with his words of advice for virgins: “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing . . . Love never ends. But as for prophecies they will come to an end . . . for now we see in a mirror, dimly. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

(For more on this theme, see the entry for June 4, 2011, "The End of the World." Feel free to leave a comment, too!)

One Hundred Percent of Everything

Oh my. For most congregations, just as the new church year gets started, the fiscal year soon enters its last quarter. How is your congregation set for the big push to “make budget?” Will members give it an Old Testament tithe? Or at least a few thousand dollars?

Money is an issue. Most churches struggle with declining membership and fewer givers. At the same time, churches need more staff than ever because church members don’t have as much time and energy for voluntarism as they used to. Today’s congregations pay people to have great Sunday Schools, delicious coffee, bookkeepers, and so on. Even thriving churches struggle with soaring expenses.

Unfortunately, the economy—and markets—haven’t exactly been thriving, have they? So again, will your church members give it an Old Testament tithe? Or at least a few thousand dollars?

At least, that’s how we normally frame the church budget crunch. But I’d like to put a different spin on the matter. Instead of talking about Old Testament tithing—one of the few Old Testament laws that gets any press on modern pulpits—I’d rather talk about being one-hundred-percent stewards. Rather than make a big push in the last quarter for a few extra big checks, I’d like church members make it their Christian ambition to imagine how they can put everything they have: money, time, talents, visions, and dreams—put everything they have in the service of the good and neighbor.

The one-hundred-percent steward idea also had deep roots in the Old Testament—but more as a blessing than a law. You will remember that, in the creation myth, God tells Adam and Eve that their job is "fill the earth and subdue it." Subdue sounds a bit negative, but it isn't meant to be. What God is saying, actually, is that Adam and Eve were blessed with the responsibility to make all of creation, including themselves, prosper. The fact that this is a blessing, rather than a command, becomes obvious when you contrast the Genesis story to other ancient Near-Eastern creation myths, such as the “Enuma Elish.” In those myths, people were created as slaves to work earthly gardens to provide food for the feast tables of the gods in heaven. In fact, the early parts of Genesis can best be read as a satirical response to these other creation accounts. The point of Genesis, here, is that the Jewish God blesses rather than condemns; he gives the garden to human stewards to care for and enjoy, rather than as a prison farm without an exit.

 So Genesis tells the story of early humans trying to do the amazing things with their lives that God wanted them to do. For example, besides making the garden grow, we read in Genesis 4 that Jabal herded animals, and Jubal learned to make beautiful music with harp and flute. Tubal-Cain figured out how to make tools of bronze and iron--the world's first industrialist. And so on. Filling the earth and subduing it is code for using our human brains and hands and culture to give our lives divine meaning and purpose.

The thing is, we get to do this with our whole lives, all the time. Or, to put it in the words I began with, Genesis portrays humans like us as giving one hundred percent of our lives developing the gifts and opportunities God has given us.

            Modern one-hundred-percent stewards offer their hobbies and pastimes, their authority at work, their spiritual and physical gifts, their education, thinking, emotional intelligence—they offer it all to God and their fellow humans to make both the earth and their lives more, now, what God wants them to be forever.

            One-hundred-percent stewards might be executives who build new factories for profit and for employment. One-hundred-percent stewards might be model-train enthusiasts who share their hobby with kids who need Big Brothers. They are farmers who grow crops that save the soil rather than eat it up. One-hundred-percent stewards include the GM employee who dreams of putting his kids through college while making the best trucks he or she knows how. Oh, and yes, one-hundred-percent stewards give generously out of their financial resources to make sure that the church is a blessing to them and in the world, as well. And this especially happens when the church is a community of people who are into building community where people wear love on their sleeves.

            Genesis is an invitation to put moralistic, rule-bound, if-you-tithe-then-you're-perfect Christianity behind us. Instead, the creation account invites us to freely use our entire life, all our culture and energy, our job and hobbies and church participation—everything we are and have to help make the earth and our neighbors everything they need, thrive.

            It takes wisdom to be a one-hundred-percent steward—wisdom that Adam and Eve seemed to lack. It also takes courage to see all your skills and gifts and money as the total budget God put you on to be the kind of human he hoped for in Eden. But there is also no life like it.

            Especially for congregations full of such hundred-percent stewards coming to the end of their fiscal years!

The Liberal Church: Anything Goes But Nobody Shows?

A few years ago, one of my children, new to the Toronto area, was looking for a church. He visited a lot of United and Unitarian congregations along the way. What he found, for the most part, were small struggling churches where most of the membership was female and older than 65. His comment to me was, “Anything goes, nobody shows.”

Really? Is that the best that can be said of the liberal church? Perhaps. Over the past month the press has been full of similar negative assessments of the liberal Church. This recent spate of articles began with Ross Douthat, a Catholic, writing in the New York Times, on July 15. In an article entitled, “Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved,” Douthat accounts for the steady erosion of liberal church membership by arguing that liberal churches, “often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism.” Then on July 28, Margaret Wente, writing in Toronto’s The Globe and Mail, argued that the liberal church’s move to a “more open, more inclusive, more egalitarian and more progressive” faith has been a colossal failure, in part because the United Church now offers, “intellect, rationality and understanding” instead of spirituality and social activism instead of the gospel.

And then, of course, there is the irascible Tom Harpur, who contributed his nationally syndicated column to the Northumberland Times on July 30. Entitled, “Tsunami Due for Religion as We Know It,” Harpur argues that, “the ‘half-gods’ of the old religion are in the process of being taken apart.” The half-gods Harpur refers to are a witch’s brew of the worst of Christianity: unbelievable doctrines, literalistic understanding of ancient texts, and disgraced priests and evangelists. Interestingly, Harpur doesn’t just go after the liberal churches, but all churches. Before the end of his article, however, Harpur also offers a note of hope for those of us who want the best for the future of faith. He writes that, “the end of religion as we have known it is the beginning of something much greater,” that is, “the evolution of the highest spiritual attributes of human kind.” Unfortunately, he is very vague about what these attributes look like, or how we might achieve them.

The most interesting of the recent commentaries on religion comes from Diana Butler Bass, author of the acclaimed Christianity After Religion: The End of the Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. Writing in the Huffington Post on July 15, (“Can Christianity Be Saved? A Response to Ross Douthat,”) Butler Bass makes the point that it isn’t just the mainline churches that are declining—all churches are, including Evangelical churches. So, for example, the denomination I left this year has been losing members for years, and is a shadow of what it was twenty years ago. Recent commentators have pointed out that one in ten Americans considers himself or herself a former Catholic. Were it not for immigration the Catholic church would be a shell of what it is now. The most conservative large American evangelical church, the Southern Baptists, have also been declining for at least ten years, having lost, by some estimates, nearly 20% of their membership.

Like Harpur, Butler Bass is nevertheless hopeful, though she’s also more specific. She argues that that the future of Christianity is with churches where “a form of faith that cares for one's neighbor, the common good, and fosters equality, but is, at the same time, a transformative personal faith that is warm, experiential, generous, and thoughtful. This new expression of Christianity maintains the historic liberal passion for serving others but embraces Jesus' injunction that a vibrant love for God is the basis for a meaningful life.”

I like the direction Butler Bass is suggesting. In her book she argues that whatever is happening in our institutional churches, and no matter how suspicious people are of those institutions, it is clear that the public at large is still deeply interested in, and engaged in, spiritual pursuits.

But to get to young adults like my son, our churches have to be more than places where anything goes. They also have to be places where he can find warmth, community, friendship, purpose, and a humble longing and awe for God.

And come to think of it, that’s what I’m looking for too.

We All Have Our Moments

We all have our moments.

I remember one, in particular. I was seven or eight years old, and had just graduated from Beginner Swimming at the neighborhood pool on Geneva St. in St. Catharines. A summer earlier I had merely earned a participation certificate for that class--so passing was a big deal.

Privileges accrued to those who passed Beginner Swimming. The largest was permission to dive from the high board--if you dared. Many kids didn't. Some climbed the ladder, walked to the end of the board, looked down, and turned back. Climbing down they had to squeeze by all the kids on the ladder waiting their turn to dive. Not pleasant.

Well, I passed, and so Ernie and John and Art and several other neighborhood kids dared me. Even now I remember clinging to the chrome railings, standing nose to back of shin of the kid ahead of me, and the sandpaper-like feel of the plank. Soon I was above all, looking down at the postage-sized pool fifteen feet below. I see it all as clearly as if it was yesterday.

Then--the moment. Flex knees, bounce up and down an inch or two. Notice friends out the corner of my eyes. Wonder about bright reflection of sun on pool. I think that maybe I can still back out. Maybe I will! But my body is ahead of my brain, overriding my caution. I realize I'm committed. The dive is a go.

My moment has arrived. It is too late to back out. But the actual terror of my headlong dive hasn't yet begun. Already triumphant in my emotional brain, the rational part of my brain is nevertheless still thinking belly flop, mouth-to-mouth, and giving up the ghost. I remember this moment. It is almost unbearable but also, mysteriously, lovely.

And then it was past. I swam to the edge of the pool, and like an idiot lined up to do it again. But what amazes me, even now, is that I don't remember my (by all accounts, graceless) dive. Or hitting the water. But I do remember my moment before.

I've had a few more since. The moment between saying, "hi," on the telephone and asking her out on a date; the moment between stretching out my hands and catching my first child at his birth. Last night, there was the moment I stood in the pulpit before my new congregation for the first time, just having been introduced, but not yet launched into my sermon.

Once again, it was mysteriously lovely--a reminder that there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the sun; a time for endings, but a time for new beginnings, too. Thank God.

Playing at Doctrine

  

          The study of doctrine has always been a pleasant preoccupation for me—one of my favorite things. There is no explaining it, really. Why do some people like getting their hands dirty gardening? Why do others spend hours scouring Kijiji.ca for bargains or Ancestry.com researching family roots? I don’t know. But I love reading about, thinking about, and sometimes even writing doctrine. It’s a hoot. Except for one thing.

          You see, other people, and even whole institutions (churches, usually) are also preoccupied with doctrine. Except that for them it doesn’t seem to be a fun thing so much as a weighty thing. Some take doctrine so seriously, in fact, that if you don’t agree with them they will argue with you. They might even send you nasty letters and emails, or publish articles denouncing your views, or even threaten to have you tossed out of the church. All of which seriously deflates the doctrinal imagination and takes the fun out of doing theology.

            Early in my ministry, for example, I was asked to give a talk about God’s creation to a lady’s society from a neighboring church. I broached the topic of cosmic and biological evolution. I had just spent a year of full-time graduate study, at seminary, exploring these topics and so I was eager to share what I had learned. However, a few days after my talk I received a letter from this society, signed by all of its members, warning me that if I didn’t repent of my evolutionary theology I was headed for hell. I had been having fun trying to fit the Biblical and Scientific pictures together; the women were so aghast with my musings that they made sure I was never invited to speak or preach in their church again.

            And that is the problem with doctrine. People take it far too seriously. One imagines that getting doctrines right about creation and or evolution, about infant or adult baptism, or about pre- or post- or a-millennialism—one imagines that if getting these doctrines right was important to God, he would have been a lot clearer about them in scripture than he actually was. Which brings up another doctrine, of course. Is scripture’s teaching about so much that we take so seriously divinely inspired, or is it a result of the limited knowledge of merely human writers—or both?

            The truth is, for the first millennium and a half of Christianity, when most followers of Jesus could neither read nor write, it was sufficient for Christians to know the basics of the story, memorize the Apostles' Creed and Lord’s Prayer, and do as your priest told you—especially when it came to the obligations of neighborly love. And theology? Doctrine? Well, that was the preserve of a tiny minority of scholars who carried on a lively debate about many things that never entered into the consciousness of most Christians.

            These days, a lot of scholars bemoan the fact that people are not reading anymore, and that the doctrines and teachings of the church are therefore beyond most folks’ understanding. As a result, Christians now tend to go to their churches not out of a deep intellectual commitment to its doctrines, but for community or out of habit or for some other reason. I’ve bemoaned this fact myself, in articles published in scholarly journals. I guess, in a perfect world, we’d all wish that everyone had a lot more knowledge and wisdom.

            But there is another, brighter, side to this coin. You see, when people are no longer preoccupied with theology or with making sure that everyone else toes their church’s doctrinal line in the sand, people are freed to focus on the main thing. The main thing isn’t assent to pages and pages of truths Christians in other traditions disagree with. No, the main thing is loving our neighbors. In fact, for most of us loving our neighbors is hard enough all by itself.

            Nevertheless, I have to admit that for the sheer joy of it, doctrine is still my playground. And for the times I mess up I expect God will just pick me up again, dust me off, and say something like, “That’s okay Johnny. Go and play some more.”