Enchanted Community

BLOG 7/15/15. OF COURSE ATTICUS FINCH WAS A RACIST—MOST OF US WERE.

I don’t know whether to be amused or dismayed at all of the ‘flap’ over the revelation in Harper Lee’s new book that lawyer Atticus Finch was a racist. Those surprised need to review their history a bit. Let me walk you through a bit. The whole South as racist, as were considerable pockets elsewhere. Slavery had not been confined to the South. Many of this nation’s founding fathers were slave-owners, and the Emancipation Proclamation was a milestone but did not eliminate racist tensions.

The two watershed events that ushered in the modern Civil Rights era did not take place until the 1950s: the Brown-vs. -the Board of Education deliverance of the SCOTUS in 1954, and the emergence of the prophetic voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. in that same period. Before that there had been large voices as far back as Frederick Douglass in the mid-19^th century, and a myriad of voices scattered over the years. But the South in which I grew up in the 1930s and 1940s was racist, and that was the accepted norm. I did not live in the more violent sections of the South, such as Alabama and Mississippi where there were so many lynchings and the KKK ran unimpeded. But all Southern states had their tragic episodes.

In my young adult years there were a few racially progressive voices but they were held in contempt by most, or considered Communist. The communal expressions, such as Koinonia Farms in Georgia, or the Highlander Community in North Carolina were on the fringe of things and influential only with a small minority of folk who thought in terms of racial justice.

I grew up in something of a ‘separate but equal’ part of the South. We had our community, and then there was ‘Colored Town’ where ‘they’ had their community. I went to an all-white high school, we had on our coastal town a beach for the white folks and a beach for colored folks, and that was the way it was. I went to an all-white liberal arts college, to an all-white theological school, and was ordained to be Presbyterian campus minister to (at that time) an all-white North Carolina State College. All that said, racial justice was never raised as an issue in the circles in which I operated. My parents taught me to be polite to ‘them’ but not to mingle socially. That’s the way it was.

It was in that period (post WW II), and in Alabama, that To Kill a Mockingbird, and now Go Set a Watchman took place. Atticus Finch would have been considered quite normal to have been a good lawyer in the Mockingbird story, and still a racist. It would have been strange if he had not been. To read the reviews and the shock that he was a racist exhibits a cultural and historical blindness on the part of the reviewers that should send them back to their research.

For the record, I was ordained in the summer just after Brown-vs.-the Board of Education. I had never had any significant engagement or conversation with an adult black person in my life that I recall. But our North Carolina Westminster Fellowship conducted an annual weekend retreat, and that included several black colleges and universities. I was first of all surprised at how hard it was to find a retreat location that allowed for integrated meetings. And it was a one of the only places we could find (sort of a run-down, lacking in maintenance place) that I bunked in a large dormitory room with rusty bunk beds with a gang of black Presbyterian college and university students—an incredible experience for me. I would have been about 26 years old. It was the opening of my eyes for the first time to the issue of racial justice. As a Christian guy it all made sense, and I never found it difficult to take my stance after that. At the same time the context of our Southern culture was pure racist. Martin Luther King, Jr. was just emerging on the scene voicing his clarion message, especially to the white church.

All this to say: Of course the Alabamian Atticus Finch was a racist in his day. Most of us were in that period. That’s accurate history. No one should be surprised. We’ve come a long way, and have a long way to go.

BLOG 7/12/15. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF PRIESTS? AND WHAT ARE THEY?

The pageantry of the visit by Pope Francis in Santa Cruz, Paraguay this past week was fascinating. The adulation of that huge crowd of the Catholic faithful for this unique pope was a sight to behold. At the same time it raises significant questions. This was the first ever visit by a pope to this small and somewhat impoverished nation. There is also a diminishing number of priests in all of those Latin American nations. That means that the vast majority of those Catholic faithful will never, or seldom have access to a priest.

This is not intended to be a snarky blog. There is something awesome about Roman Catholic pageantry, what with all of the robes and processions, and air of reverence. I have been in Rome and have been a guest of some of the Curia, as well as participant in a large papal audience. All very moving. I found so many wonderful Christian brothers within the Vatican staff, and we spent time together is prayer and discussions, as well a con-celebrating the mass. Mine is not to question the sincerity of that Catholic persuasion. But the life of the people of God is lived in the rough and tumble, the “stink and stuff” of daily life, not in a rarified ecclesiastical ethos.

At the same time, it raises in my mind the previous question: What is the purpose of a priest, and where are priests mandated in the New Testament/Apostolic documents? After all, apart from the original apostolic band, who had a unique role, there seems never to have been anyone declared as clergy at all. Peter himself, in his marvelous First Epistle says that the whole church is a nation of priests, . . . which implies that every believer is a priest, not only to the others within the community, but to the world at large in which he or she operates twenty-four seven. A priest was one who made offerings to God, and who ministered the sacrifices in the Jewish community of the Old Testament. The New Testament church grew out of that culture but then redefined the temple and the priesthood, so that God’s people become his dwelling-place, or temple. Then all become those, who on the merit of Christ’s sacrifice give their own bodies as living sacrifices unto God in order to accomplish his purpose of creating all things new. By virtue of one’s baptism, he or she becomes a priests and a dynamic part of God’s new humanity. It does not take some special rite, or ordination, or sanctity. Whenever one tries to trap the priesthood in some sacralized ecclesiastical figure, then one has already missed the point. Those who minister the life and encouragement and teachings to one another within the community are the priests.

Even the Roman Catholic community found itself in a self-contradiction a few decades ago when there was a shortage of priests, so that villagers did not see priests for long periods, and so took things into their own hands. Those in the villages who were literate obtained copies of scripture, and gathered others at the end of days or weeks to read and to digest and discuss the teachings of Jesus, and they discovered some remarkable things . . . which made them a bit troublesome socially and politically—like: “Jesus came to bring good news to the poor” and that’s us, and we should not be oppressed politically by wealthy and powerful forces.” Thus was born within the Roman Catholic community the Base Ecclesial Communities, which the bishops did not quite know how to handle. “Can you have a church without bishops?” was their question. Can a local church exist with no connection to Rome? The answer is that when every believer is a priest you can have a very dynamic and influential church because no one is cut off from the mutual encouragement and accountability to all of the others priests. Those Base Communities became a very fruitful and troublesome source, yet all the while maintaining their identity as Roman Catholic. It is interesting that on this recent trip, Pope Francis has been apologizing for the excesses of earlier Roman clergy for injustices against the very people they were to have been ministering the life of Jesus. Priesthood needs some serious redefinition in both Catholic and non-Catholic circles. For your thoughts . . .

BLOG 7/8/15. MARRIOTT HOTELS, AIRBNB, AND THE CHURCH

From time to time I have responded to the number of articles about how the Millennial generation is leaving the church. My sense is that they may have been doing quite the opposite, except that they are only leaving the traditional church institutions and then creating for themselves new forms of the church in unexpected places.

My point has been illustrated recently with the report of the panic that the Marriott hotel chain is facing globally. Over the years Marriott has created a whole chain of luxury hotels globally to cater to the desires of the Boomer generation in their global travels. But along comes the Millennial generation that is not at all interested in such hotels, and who travel internationally more than the Boomers, but rather desire Airbnb places to stay, and local color places to investigate, along with the eateries of the local neighborhoods. And as if that weren’t enough, what with the Millennials being a huge generation, along comes the younger generation that is an even larger generation, and who travel even more than even the Millennials do, and who are attracted to the same Airbnb and local places to stay and to eat, and who are not the least interested in Marriott’s hotels.

Marriott has employed major research agencies to help them know how to attract these younger generations.

The traditional church institutions could learn a lesson from Marriott here. Not only are the Millennials less and less attracted to those traditional church institutions, but the majority of the world’s population is now under 23 years of age, and are not at all captive to what has been in the past, but are those forming all kinds of new companies, ideas, cultural forms, . . . and communities of Christians. The older traditional church institutions still seem to think if they can add more activities, or ‘spiff-up’ their institutional forms that they will attract more of these younger generations, but such is not at all the case.

One must stop and realize that Jesus commented that it was he, himself, who would be irresistibly building his church, but he never indicated the form of that church. He was calling out a people to be the communal form of his new creation, or his new humanity, but it wasn’t captive to any ecclesiastical form. It would be like leaven, and permeate its multiple contexts. It would always be recreating itself to meet changing circumstances. So it is that the younger Christian generations are focused on relationships, and on the lifestyle of that new creation—there is a focus on whatever it takes to incarnate reconciled humanity, and to be mutually encouraging, supporting, and creative, and to have integrity with the life and teachings of Jesus. Such emerges in multiple forms and in unexpected places.

To such communities, for the emerging generations, the familiar old institutional churches are easily and readily ignored. The emerging churches (to return to the hotels phenomenon) are much more reflective of the Airbnb than of the traditional hotels, that have been so sought out by the older generations.

It will be interesting to see where all of this goes. I, for one, think that there is enormous hope for that which the Millennial and iY (or whatever the younger generations is to be called) will be creating by way of fruitful and creative communities. I’m sure they will redefine neighborhoods, and communities of God’s new creation to be incarnational in those redefined neighborhoods that the older generations never imagined.

Stay tuned . . .

BLOG 7/5/15. THE FRIGHTFUL MISUSE OF THE TERM: EVANGELICAL

I am continually appalled at how frightfully so many journalists and pundits seem to mindlessly misuse use the term evangelical Christians to tar everything that comes out of a certain provincial group of conservative Christian folk as: evangelical. They really do need to do their journalistic homework a bit more carefully. Yes, granted, there is that strand of ostensibly Christian folk who tend to always have a negative attitude toward so much of the political process, and who call themselves ‘evangelical’ and they need to do their homework more carefully also.

The term evangelical is a noble word which is from a Greek word that speaks of thrilling and exciting announcement, or inescapable good news. It is not a Christian word, though it is the word the New Testament writers chose to speak of the whole of the announcement of Jesus Christ, his life, death and resurrection, as well as his teachings. Those writings also have Jesus, himself, using such a term to describe his message of the arrival of the dominion of God, of God’s new creation by his own presence among his hearers. It is because of this that the first four books of the New Testament are called: gospels, or evangels.

At the same time, to identify this as a conservative agenda is a bit mindless. If anything, the teachings of Jesus are radically progressive, calling for a whole new order—“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17). Jesus began his ministry with the announcement that the Spirit of God was upon him and anointing him to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to those who were captive, and the recovering of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those oppressed. Near the end of his earthly ministry he, likewise, told his followers that the criteria of his judgment of all humankind upon his return would be how they had ministered to the hungry and thirsty, how they welcomed strangers (immigrants?), how they visited those in debtors prison, and cared for the sick.

Does that sound like a conservative agenda? Jesus says profound things about economic justice. He gave us the parable of the rich fool who did well and built bigger barns (stock folio?), and who died before he could enjoy it. He gave us the parable of the unjust steward who was forgiven his huge debts (corporate welfare) but was not willing to forgive his own minor debtors. Or he gave us the account of meeting with a crooked tax collector by the name of Zacchaeus, who after spending time with Jesus then repented and promised to give half of all he owned to the poor, and to restore whatever he had defrauded folk of. That is an evangelical response.

Or maybe: “Blessed are you poor, woe to you rich” would be the topic of some good preaching (Luke 6:20 ff). (Have you noticed that you don’t hear many self-proclaimed ‘evangelical’ preachers offending the wealthy, or protesting the 1% dominance of the wealthy in our society?) Or the whole of the Sermon on the Mount which spells out the agenda of Jesus in terms of righteousness, of identification with the poor, of mercy, of peacemaking, and even the willingness to suffer and persecuted for righteousness sake.

True evangelicals are for the life and agenda of Jesus Christ. They are for reconciliation, and incarnational love. Their hallmark is not what they are against, but their passion for Jesus and their joining him in his quest to seek and to save those who are totally screwed up. There are Catholic evangelicals, Protestant evangelicals, evangelicals for social action, charismatic evangelicals, … evangelicals of every stripe, but evangelicals by New Testament definition who are just ordinary wholesome fruitful followers of, and worshipers of Jesus, and guided by their obedience to his teachings.

To the pundits: Do your homework a bit more carefully before tarring so many of us with your misunderstanding of the adjectives you throw around so carelessly. There, I’ve said it!

BLOG 7/1/15. IS A CHRISTIAN NATION A MYTH?

In the light of recent SCOTUS decisions, and many other events in the news, there have been all kinds of embarrassing rhetorical outbursts from well-meaning advocates about this being a ‘Christian nation’ one that is abandoning its responsibility, or its heritage, or its integrity. That raises the question about whether any nation can ever truly be called a Christian nation?

The answer is that no nation is inherently Christian. Nations, especially those democratic nations, reflect what sociologist call: the dominant social order. But even that is not always true. There is within some segments of our own nation the misguided belief that our founding documents, such as the constitution, were intended to be Christian foundations for the new nation founded in the 18^th century. Even that is ill informed. Most of those influential in writing the Declaration of Independence, and especially the constitution, were deists, . . . and deists with a large influence by European philosopher John Locke mixed in. Such a statement as: “. . . and endowed by their with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is not based on Christian theology, but on deistic beliefs with a large influence of John Locke giving it that flavor. When you state that every citizen has the right to pursue happiness, you are opening a wide door to all kinds of ethical, moral, and libertarian pursuits.

It is absolutely true that some of the founding fathers came to this country seeking some new ‘promised land’ where they would not be persecuted for their Christian beliefs. You get towns named New Canaan in New England because of that. Some of the colonies did try to set up something of a theocratic government. There were very strict, and sometimes embarrassing, episodes in trying to enforce an interpretation of Christian morality on one hand, or the attempt to discern witches on the other. Most of the waves of immigrants brought their traditional religions and church expressions with them, i.e., the Reformed Church in New Jersey, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Anglicans in Virginia, Catholics in Maryland, etc.

The loud deistic voices were those of James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. They all tipped their hats to the Christian principles but were not that much formed by them. John Adams may have been one of those giants who was consistent in his Christian profession, but he was also a master politician. The genius of our three-branched government is that it prevents any hasty change of the order. But it always turns out in the end to demonstrate what (I think it was) Winston Churchill stated, namely, that democracy is the worst possible form of government if it weren’t for all the rest.

The truly transformational influence in such a nation as ours would be for the Christian community (the church) to be dynamically formed by its own radical ‘Kingdom principles’ and so to become the sons and daughters of light in what is so often a context of economic idolatry, greed, injustice, inhumanity, ethnic hostility, etc. The idols are multiple. But those who are of Christ’s New Creation are to be like light and leaven, and to be so in the marketplace, in the back streets, and in the corridors of power, courageously exercising the true weapons of our warfare, which are formed by the teachings of Jesus. We are never promised temporal success. We are only called to be faithful where we are, and to burn brightly in our particular context of darkness. We are always aliens and exiles, pilgrims and strangers, . . . but we (the church) are God’s nation of priests. We are promised suffering,

Our Biblical model is more like Israel in exile in Babylon, where we are exhorted to seek the welfare of the cities in which we dwell, knowing that our stewardship of our calling is what God ultimately uses to accomplish his eschatological purpose—but nearly always realizing that a Christian nation is something of a myth.

Happy Fourth of July!

BLOG 6/28/15. DOES SILICON VALLEY HAVE SOMETHING TO TEACH THE CHURCH?

It’s fascinating to read about those young guys in the Silicon Valley syndrome, who have initiated those incredibly successful companies that have altered the whole landscape of our lives. I read about Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Steve Jobs of Apple, among others. They each had some vision of something that could be done that had never been done before. They knew that there was a huge potential out there with the public, and with hardly any training in doing start-ups, or in business, they were consumed with making their vision into a reality. They broke a lot of rules, and rankled a lot of folk in the process.

What is interesting is that they were not driven by any need to be making money. They were driven by the vision of what they could do to make the world a better place, and to meet a need. They spent creative time trying to find the best way to make their vision into a reality, and with a focus on the persons who made up their target users. Some of them proposed that any such start-up company, such as theirs, should reinvent itself every ten years lest it become ossified with existing patterns that had already become obsolete. But the very intentional focus on the needs of the consumer is what is interesting. Nothing was taken for granted.

The church actually started out with an unambiguous mandate by Jesus to his disciples to go and make disciples, i.e., to do with others exactly what he had done with them. Invite them. Spend time with them. Patiently teach them, and mentor them, and coach them—it was a one-on-one mandate. The ultimate goal was that Christ be formed in every one of those whom they discipled. Paul could say with complete candor: “Be imitators of me, even as I am also of Christ.” He would write to his young disciple Timothy that he should pass on to believing men and women the same gospel that had formed him, and so that they in turn could do the same to others. The community of believers was to be self-multiplying, and the goal was for each person who professed faith in Christ be able to himself, or herself, make disciples—to so equip them that they would be contagious and reproductive—not to build large prestigious impersonal congregations, but so that every believer and every community of believers would be continually engaged in the same mission as that of their Savior.

Yet somehow, and all too often, in the intervening generations, and millennia, that church has  been subverted from that vision, and has focused on an institutional form that so very easily takes its eye off of those individuals, those persons, whom Christ sent the church to reach, and instead puts the focus on the impersonal church institution: its organization, its professionals, its buildings, its status and prosperity—but not on making disciples of individuals who will be salt and light in the neighborhoods of need, . . . and of continually planting new church communities.

True disciples move into the areas of greatest need, and to those persons who are looking for answers. They spend time with those responsive persons until those persons also become equipped to be the communicators of the new life of Christ. Christian communities would do well to stop frequently and ask themselves what is their vision and how does it relate to what they are called to be and do, . . . and then be willing to make the radical shifts necessary to fulfill that calling. When the church becomes ‘church-centered’ or ecclesio-centric, then that church has already been subverted and is essentially useless in the mission of God.

What the Silicon Valley guys have demonstrated was actually the plan of Jesus for his church two millennia ago. And where it is practiced today, the church is emerging in new forms in with new vitality. But it takes courage for church leaders to confront their own subversion. Alas! And all to few have either the faith or the courage to engage in dismantling such subverted churches.

BLOG 6/24/15. CONVERSATION, HOSPITALITY, AND RACIAL RECONCILIATION

The horrific shooting in the Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston last week has brought the issue of racial reconciliation before us, full-screen, as a nation. We have heard a lot of speeches, and watched much breast-beating about the issue, . . . but to get to a real reconciliation, and rapport between races requires more than dramatic speeches, or protest rallies on the capitol steps, or signing a protest on a website. To achieve authentic reconciliation requires time spent in real conversation with real others who are different, and so to come to a mutual appreciation of each other.

I am a product of the segregated South. I grew up in the 1930s, way before the civil rights days of the 1960s-70s. Segregation was the way it was. There was a “colored community” and a “white community” and there was not a whole lot of communication between them. There was a white high school, and a black high school existing in fairly close geographical proximity, but with not any communication between them, no inter-school athletics. I was taught to be polite “to them” but it was a presupposition that somehow “they” were inferior. That was just the way it was, and I innocently and unquestioning accepted that understanding, and so much that I now look back on with genuine embarrassment.

I actually never had any significant communication with black adults until my days in campus ministry in North Carolina in the 1950s. Our Presbyterian campus ministries had an annual statewide weekend retreat, and that included several all-black colleges and universities. The problem was that most retreat centers were still segregated. We found one that was not segregated, owned by the United Church of Christ. It was pretty primitive, but all of us guys were housed in a large dormitory-type room with bunk beds, and for most of us, white and black, it was our first experience of being in intimate one-on-one encounters with those of the other race. I would have been about 26 years of age at that time—and that was my first encounter and the first conversations I had ever had with my black counterparts. All of the mutual caricatures and all of the complications of injustice and prejudice soon were on the table. But it was a huge step for me in understanding the cultures that had formed us.

Later I would be teaching in what was an all-white Bible conference in upstate New York, when an inner-city church planter brought in a gang of black kids fresh out of the projects in Newark, which was (to put it mildly) a learning experience for all of us. But I had to teach those high school guys every day for two weeks, and we became bonded. Honest conversations often take time, and can surface anger and pain and all kinds of bad attitudes. Later one of those young men, as a university student, would integrate our congregation in Durham, North Carolina. It was his first involvement in the segregated South. He would often stay in our home, and would become like a son to us. I became very sensitive to the fine print of racial injustice in those civil rights days of the 1960s primarily through such experiences of conversation and hospitality.

Later I would become acquainted with a remarkable black civil rights hero from Mississippi, and invited him and his family to spend a week in our home while he taught with me at a local seminary. It freaked-out some of my white neighbors, but it was a wonderful occasion of the blessing of hospitality in coming to racial reconciliation. My wife and I would subsequently spend time with him in his home in Mississippi. We became totally bonded to each other as dear friends.

In the aftermath of the Charleston shooting, I want to advocate inviting acquaintances of other races into one’s home for coffee, or beer, or whatever, and begin to build the bridges of true reconciliation and mutual understanding and love. This is the only solid foundation that will ultimately lead us into a new day, and it is certainly the calling of God’s New Creation folk.

BLOG 6/21/15. NOW HERE’S AN EXAMPLE OF “SAFE SPIRITUALITY”

In the light of the recently released Papal Encyclical on global warming, a prominent presidential candidate, and Roman Catholic himself, is reported widely to have said: I don’t get economic policy from my bishops, or my cardinals, or my Pope, . . . I think religion ought to be about making us better people, and less about things that end up getting in the political realm.” One wonders if this person has ever taken time to read his Bible. Or does he see all the teachings through the Bible through a lens of ‘spirituality’ that eliminates any reference to justice, or mercy, or the stewardship of creation, or the obligation to care of the poor, or provide for the homeless, or to take the wanderer (immigrant?) in, or provide for the hungry? Has he ever read the Beatitudes, or the Epistle of James?

If said candidate wants to be a better person, but wants to avoid anything that might get into the political realm, he has a much different definition of ‘better person’ than anything I find in scripture. This week we’ve looked in the newspapers and seen very disturbing news about violence, racism, poverty and declining income for so many, . . . and then comes the release of the new Papal Encyclical on global warming, which runs head-on into the denials of so many in the industrial and economic principalities and powers. It is more convenient then, to go to Mass, confess that: “we have done those things we ought not to have done and left undone those things we ought to have done. There is no health in us. I am most miserable offender. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. Amen” . . . but then let’s not get too specific. Let’s keep it in the realm of safe religion; let’s become better persons in the abstract.

I, though out of a thoroughly orthodox Protestant tradition, never take the pastoral deliverances of the Roman Catholic bishops, or the papal encyclicals lightly. The North American bishops were light years ahead of the politicians on international armaments, and the necessity of peace agreements, and nuclear control. Politicians tend all too much to be in the pockets of those who finance them. The bishops, and cardinals, and the pope can say things that need to be said, and that local pastors and priests find too threatening because of the presence in their parishes, or congregations, of those such as the above quoted presidential candidate.

The Christian faith is very this worldly. “This is my Father’s world, he shines in all that’s fair” on one hand, but “ . . . and though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet” is also a present reality. The stewardship of creation, and the care of the environment, and a whole plethora of others pressing issues staring us in the face, are matters of our Christian calling to be one with our Lord Jesus Christ in “making all things new” and in working to cause the kingdom of God and will of God to be realized here and now, even as they are in heaven. In Jesus Christ the Age to Come has invaded this age, and God’s New Creation people are called to be agents of the gospel of peace, which is all-inclusive. And it does have, inescapably, political and economic and social—and often unpopular—implications.

The kind of “safe spirituality” that the above quoted politician is seeking is therefore sub-Christian, if not a downright denial of that for which Jesus suffered and bled and died on the cross, which cross was to reconcile heaven and earth. And to profess Christ, then, in its integrity is never safe . . .. and it will be fascinating to see how the members of congress who invited Pope Francis to address them cope with his moral message. Prophets come in unexpected forms.

Peace!

[[If you profit by these blogs, invite your friends to subscribe. Thanks.]]

BLOG 6/14/15. WHY DO ‘ALIENS AND EXILES’ NEED OFFICIAL APPROVAL?

Here’s a question for which there is no simple answer, but which any Christian community will need to face up to: Why does any such community, which the Apostle Peter describes as aliens and exiles / pilgrims and strangers, need the official sanction of ‘the powers that be?’

Such a question has risen frequently in recent years as many college and university administrations have insisted that any Christian group seeking approval as a campus organization, and ability to use college facilities for its meetings must, therefore, conform themselves to the college’s guidelines that forbid discrimination, including discrimination against those belonging or holding office who are not confessing Christians. The problem comes that when you want the blessing of the college administration and the use of college meeting rooms . . . then you must play by their rules.

But, . . . does a colony of brothers and sisters in Christ need, or even want, the approval and official status of the powers? Do they need to meet in college-owned properties, or need sanction to advertise as an official campus organization? Certainly such prohibitions by campus powers are discriminatory in their own right, but then they are the existing authorities within the college, and they can make the rules. Taking the college to court in a lawsuit begs the question.

Christians, by their nature, are a counter-cultural bunch, and whole different order of humanity. They have their own authority and their own guiding lines. They have their own New Creation understanding and calling. Whenever they must submit to other authorities and guidelines, they have already forsaken something of their calling. (Do they even need to ‘own’ church property?)

The church, often in its times of greatest exponential growth has been an outlaw group. Such was the early church. The Roman Empire sought to exterminate the Christian church, seeking them out in their assemblies and persecuting them ruthlessly. Nevertheless, the church grew in mind-boggling ways. It was free to be flexible,even elastic, and to operate under radar, to avoid the principalities and power that would force them to adopt the authority of the state. This was the case for the first several centuries, . . . until the church was adopted by an emperor ostensibly converted to the Christian faith, and who made it the official religion of the Empire. But such adoption came at a tragic price: the church became captive to the empire. It was a trade-off: you Christians pray for the Empire, . . . and the Empire will take care of you and grant you all kinds of ‘perks.’

This has been termed: Christendom by some historians, i.e., the identity of the church and the Empire: “God save the queen!” or “God bless America!” To oppose the primacy of the empire would be to be unpatriotic, so the church is captive to the principalities and powers, even when the principalities and power are engaging in policies that are vastly unjust and inhumane, and in violation of the very teachings of Jesus.

Alas! . . . but the principalities and powers, the empire, has granted the Christian church all the ‘perks’ of tax exempt status on church giving and church property, and that makes the church vulnerable to the empire, and not being able to always be what it is called to be and to do, not always able to be light in the darkness.

Meanwhile, there are vibrant companies of Christians in many, many campus setting that do not need official sanction, and have found places to meet not subject to the secular guidelines of the campus authorities. Or, when the Cultural Revolution expropriated the church properties of the church in China, much of the church went underground and grew unimaginably, so much so that these several decades later the church in China is arguably the largest Christian church in the world. Occasional rumors leak out of a vibrant, though horribly persecuted Christian community in North Korea. That’s just a taste-whetter. The question is still: Does the Christian community need official sanction by the ‘authorities’ of this present age, or does its essence as the community of the Age to Come almost require it to avoid such? Controversial? You bet!

BLOG 6/10/15. JUST WHERE DID ‘CLERGY’ COME FROM?

That may sound like a weird question coming out of a guy who has been designated ‘clergy’ for sixty years, . . . but honestly, I don’t find such a designation anywhere in the New Testament documents, and I am so often embarrassed at some of the persons out there on the public stage who so designate themselves, and who love to be called reverend, and who don’t seem to personify much that Jesus taught about “those who would be great must be servant of all.” I have discovered a whole lot of poor lost souls in my career who were “in the ministry” looking for themselves and trying to find some significance for their lives. They became church professionals, and far more institution-keepers than true teaching shepherds.

Someone (maybe G. K. Chesterton?) whimsically commented that the church was far too serious as an enterprise to be left up to clergy.

Having said all of that, there are also those remarkable persons who have brought life and health and nurture and equipping to multitudes of saints across many centuries, who have been in the category of clergy. If one looks at the communities of Christian faith across a broad spectrum of the church in the world, there are nearly always those who have emerged from within the community who are those of authentic faith and discipleship, those persons of love and of wisdom, to whom the community actually looks for leadership. Such folk are often the ones who are the actual overseers, or wisdom figures, or models who give healthy leadership. They have most often never been to theological schools, and have never sought importance, but have been true shepherds.

Some studies show that the whole idea of clergy emerged about the time that the Emperor Constantine made the Christian faith into the official religion of the Roman Empire (or soon thereafter), and wanted his new-found (ostensible) faith to have the same accouterments as the pagan religions did, i.e., priesthood, sanctuaries, liturgies, etc. But at some time in the shadowy past there emerged the whole notion of a special designation of sacralized persons, called clergy who were other than the ordinary followers of Christ. Somehow this also seems to be a contradiction of Biblical documents in which all of God’s people are to be “equipped for the work of ministry” (Eph. 4), or, that we are “a nation of priests” (I Peter 2:9). . Or, that, as Peter also wrote: “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that in the world . . .” (II Peter 1:2-4). It doesn’t get much better than that.

I have had a wonderful adult career being one who has sought to form folk in that knowledge that, in turn, forms them into the divine nature. I have always rejoiced to be able to be a teacher and a mentor and a model for all kinds of wonderful people. I am at this point in my life also the recipient of the gifts of those who have, and continue to encourage and nurture me. But the reason that such have this role is because they are authentic, wise and knowledgeable models and mentors of what they are teaching, . . . not because of a divinity degree from some theological school, or some rite of ordination that designates them as clergy.

This is to say that the designation of some as clergy still confuses me. My snarky response to folk is that you can call me all kinds of bad names, only don’t call me ‘reverend.’ There, I’ve said it. I’d love your feedback, and your recommendation of this Blog to your friends.