2/16/2007

Goodbye



For the final episode of Little House on the Prairie they smashed up the town and then blew it up. A fire broke out on the grounds of the M*A*S*H set and they managed to write it into the plot of the final episode. I have no fancy ending to this blog. Just a redirect.

2/14/2007

update on mom

Keep praying. My mom was admitted to the hospital the night before last for the fluid surrounding her internal organs. She is starting the pill form of chemotherapy. They asked about whether they should look into hospice care yet and were told no. This is a hopeful sign. Thanks for all the love and support.

2/12/2007

Should I take the Leap?

I'm leaning more and more towards switching to my Wordpress site and just leaving this one up for archives. Main reason: few returning visitors, few comments anyway. Reason for not: blogger's email to post feature. Reason to leap: blogger's comment feature is so cumbersome that I think most folks give up trying to comment. That's my theory anyway. Reason for leaping would be that Wordpress's comment feature is much easier to use. But by looking at my blog you wouldn't know that. Anyone else gone this route and had issues?

2/11/2007

and then Hope

Almost as soon as I finished that last post the song "Hope" by Mason Proffit began on my ITunes. The lyrics go:

"There's a mountain/there's a lake/there's a people who God did not forsake/there's a river Lord and there's a way/and there's one small word we all need to say/

Hope/for a world of lovin'/hope for a time of givin'/hope is a word worth livin'/let's live together"

the rational mind, waiting, and suffering

Sometimes the most important muscle in my body, the pulpy mass in my head in which I feel emotion, use cognition, read, process and disseminate information, and focus my will and energy, is no defense against the darkness I sense coming my way. I'm talking about my beautiful mothers body suffering. I'm talking about the knowledge that one day I will not be able to call or see her anymore. I can't process that rationally and I have no defense against that realization.

Being physically surrounded with loving family and friends is a defense. But it offers no rational defense. How is my emotion and my intellect so intertwined? How can I hear medical descriptions so easily with my head and possible decisions with such a straight face and feel nothing? How can I describe what's happening with such ease and ask for prayer and at the same time know that the future offers no defense against the darkness of such personal loss? My good friend said a week ago as we walked along the Chicago Lakeshore that there really is no defense for death. No rationalization. No ease. You know its coming and that's all.

The clinical descriptions of the physical toll offer no defense. You can know what stage you're in or not but the pain is still there. How can I have all the faith I need, how can God be all I need and yet my body doesn't know that?

My wife just told me how much she loves my mind. We attended the same college but not the same way. The same classes but not the same way. Even studied together but did not process the learning the same way. When she hurts emotionally she actually gets physically ill. I tend to compartmentalize it and feel very little and a hellofalot at different times. Never just when its helpful at the moment.

I want to be alone but I do not. I want to hurt but I do not. I pray and I feel but I do not know with my mind whether any of it works right. My faith is not in what I feel or see. It just is.

2/10/2007

keep praying

Thanks for your prayers. Mom got home around 1:30am this morning. The tests revealed that the cancer is on the move throughout her internal organs, heart, liver, and kidneys. She will return Monday for more tests. They gave her meds for the stomach pain and at this point she can remain home. This is difficult for us all emotionally. Mom was quite hopeful for healing and now feels resignation again. The waiting and fear are quite hard to deal with. Mom and dad may still be able to keep their Bed and Breakfast date next week. Pray for that. Thanks for caring and being present with us with your prayers through this difficult time.

2/09/2007

please pray

I'd like to send out a general plea for prayer for my mom. Months ago I wrote about her battle with cancer. She and my dad are now in the Emergency Room and doctors are running a battery of tests for the next four hours.I just got off the phone with my dad. He says that the doctors seemed very concerned.

There's a good chance the cancer has spread to her stomach and elsewhere. Please pray for dad right now. When someone you love is in this kind of pain it is a peculiar kind of misery. You wish you yourself could somehow be the one to hurt instead. Dad was planning this beautiful getaway over her birthday next Thursday at a Bed and Breakfast and he's worried they won't be able to do that now.

Thanks for your prayers.
remind me that i'm the same guy i was yesterday. walk with me and just
be who you are.

2/07/2007

Blogging Bethge Chapter 10

Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, Chapter Ten

“Finkenwalde: 1936-1937” pgs. 493-586

Other Works consulted:

The Way to Freedom: Letters, Lectures and Notes, 1935-1939, Edited by Edwin Robertson, Cleveland: Collins-World, 1977.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Life in Pictures, the Centenary Edition, Fortress, 2006.

Daring, Trusting Spirit: Bonhoeffer’s Friend Eberhard Bethge by John W. de Gruchy, Fortress, 2006.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Life in Pictures, the Centenary Edition, edited by Renate Bethge and Christian Gremmels is a “must-have” when going through Bethge. It offers a pictorial chronology of every person, event, and writing pertinent to the time. By way of example, pg. 100-101 offers photos of Bethge lecturing at the Behrenhoff estate in 1936 and the cover of the issue of Evangelische Theologie where Bonhoeffer’s article “On the Question of Church Membership” appeared. With such a complex chapter as this one, I think you’d do well at times to peruse the wider angle lens that this book offers.

The first paragraph of Bethge’s chapter ten is a reflection on the seminary’s role in the three stages of the German church struggle. Just where Finkenwalde ends abruptly its’ significance is interwoven with the life of the church. Bonhoeffer is left without a building, its occupants are conscripted or imprisoned, but his mission remains unchanged: be a Christian and serve the church! Chapter ten concentrates more heavily than nine on the changes within the Confessing church that weakened it to outside pressure. In the end, the closure of the seminary took place very quickly and unexpectedly. In my reading I felt so belabored by the weight of changes within the church as a whole, that when the expected arrests, searches, and imprisonments finally took place the outcome was a severe drop in the momentum. The action continued for as long as possible, and then it stopped.

Bonhoeffer and the Finkenwaldians were so dedicated to their task, so firm in their resolve, that their faith seems to overwhelm the outcome itself. Yes they are physically removed from their work, very similar to nonviolent resistance itself. And why can’t it be seen that way? Their work itself was a form of resistance without arms against the State. They worked the democratic process at the very point at which that process was denied. Later in the chapter, after the arrests and closures have begun, we find a very unique act of civil disobedience. Bethge writes:

“No attempt was made to prevent Bonhoeffer’s return to Finkenwalde on 5 July. He sent a delegation from the seminary to Dahlem, where an important service of intercession was planned for 8 August. This developed into an open street demonstration because the police had cordoned off the church. The protest march by the excluded congregation was one of the very few instances of spontaneous “revolt” against National Socialism during the thirties. That evening, after vain attempts to disperse the crowd, the police made a large number of arrests. About 250 of the demonstrators, including some ordinands from Finkenwalde, were taken in trucks to the prison in Alexanderplatz where they were temporarily detained.” (580)

A “still life” scene stands out to me from this chapter. On July 1, 1937, Bethge and Bonhoeffer entered Martin Niemoller’s parsonage only to find that he’d just been taken away by the Gestapo. Upon their arrival they found themselves, together with Franz Hildebrandt and Eugen Rose, under house arrest. Bethge wrote:

“Thus they became involuntary witnesses to a seven-hour search in which every corner of Niemoller’s study was painstakingly examined; it eventually led to the discovery, behind a picture, of a safe containing thirty thousand marks that belonged to the Pastors’ Emergency League. Everyone was astounded at the meticulous tidiness of Niemoller’s desk, which contained neatly written verbatim copies of his sermons; it was something no one had expected of the spirited man.”

That little touch of humanity jumps out of the text at me. With darkness all around, in the face of tremendous fear, these pastors all noticed the unexpected tidiness of their friend’s desk. In my work through chapter ten (and remember with my reading its not just this chapter its all the other texts I can get as well) I couldn’t feel content with just the facts as they were. I must find the touchstone, the connection between my own place in the twenty first century and this time I’m reading about, such as things like music making, vacations, illness, or the weight of travel.

I have found in John deGruchy biography of Eberhard Bethge a third angle to the events Bethge writes about in chapter ten. In Daring, Trusting Spirit (pgs. 28-43) I learned of the significance of the vacation where Dietrich and Eberhard learned of Finkenwalde’s closure. From this new outside look we can see the community formed between these two men that carried them beyond their seminary’s physical closure and provided a linchpin for their continued work. Bonhoeffer needed someone worthy of trust who could keep him grounded and focused. The bond between these men began at Finkenwalde, deepened in the Collective Pastorates, and then continued through the conspiracy and imprisonment.

“The fifth session at Finkenwalde ended on 11 September 1937. The two friends spent the next two months at Marienburger Allee 43 with Bonhoeffer’s parents and took a holiday together during October in southern Germany. This pattern of vacationing together at the conclusion of the Finkenwalde sessions was now firmly established, and it would continue for the next few years in the new context for the seminary, the “collective pastorates” in Koslin and Gross-Schlonwitz.”

With key insights from the as-yet untranslated letters between Bonhoeffer, Bethge, and others, deGruchy brings out this special bond between the two men that Bethge himself doesn’t seem to relate in his biography of Bonhoeffer. Bethge is himself the important missing key to understand how easily it seems Bonhoeffer moved from Finkenwalde to the collectives.

The book we know as Life Together began as lectures given during the height of Finkenwalde’s influence, and became a working manuscript after the seminary was closed. What sort of godly hope fills this work, which began with a distinct audience of German students whose end was the German front line and imprisonment! It is pretty clear that without the tragic end of Finkenwalde and yet the strong belief in the little books contents to form new community again we wouldn’t have this book at all. Before reading this chapter of Bethge I had a certain impression of Life Together as a rather naïve attempt at community that lacked any trial by fire. How wrong could I be?!! The whole book was tried by fire. The adherents held on to its principles in the face of great fear and loss. The practices laid out in this book stayed with its writer and editor, long after Finkenwalde closed. As a gift to the Church, Life Together has managed to speak to the Church across time and culture in ways that never could have been imagined.

2/05/2007

Jen

My sister Jen has a great eye for photography. Of course, her kid subjects are the cutest in the world too! They just happen to be my offspring.

Brimlow reviewed

Sub Ratione Dei has once again "beaten me to the take" with his book review of Robert Brimlow's What About Hitler? This is another reminder to me that I need to get back to blogging Bethge. I do have a plan for less TV at night and more Bonhoeffer. In my defense, my HP all-in-one printer "gave up the ghost" today, delaying my work schedule.

clarification

When I said catalogs I meant catalogs for office supplies and packing materials. Not catalogs from fellow publishers. I keep those of course.

one idea for cheap shipping

It takes money to make money in a book publishing venture. Sometimes the
shipping costs alone are enough to really hurt. Here's one idea I've
come up with for packing boxes. Instead of the plastic bubble wrap, use
your shredder on the metric tons of print catalogs that come in.
Shredding can be cathartic and, once started, can feel almost like
pyromania! Take out your anger on the advertisers and put it to good use
for packing! I now have a big trash bag full of shredded paper for
shipping.

2/02/2007

the sexual identity debate

For the most part I have kept quiet on the whole gay marriage and sexual identity debate raging in the Church. Much of the reason for my silence has been, as with many topics, the innane level of dialogue on the subject. Decidedly "pro-gay" spokespersons tend to leave no room for anyone claiming that they left the gay lifestyle. To leave the gay lifestyle, for some, is to be a liar. Well, I have too many friends who have left it to believe that. Anyway, Halden Doerge has posted Eight Theses on Sexual Identity and Christian Ethics. I think he's right on target, with an honest approach to speaking theologically for the Church on sexual identity.

2/01/2007

choice and the future

It used to be that we had a lot less choice in our faith. Nowadays we live in a glut of choices. Questions themselves are "invitations" to "deeper truths." But discipleship, cross-bearing, and repentance are not simple rational decisions. They take commitment. If we are unwilling to see ourselves as part of a grand and deeply flawed human attempt at acceptable and sociable form of the Western one quarter world religion then we are not ready to learn and move on. The Pats and Orals of our world may shame us, but they should also teach us about Christianity gone completely acceptable and functional.

Don't look away this is our history

A story was related to me about a caucasian man with liberal sympathies who prided himself in his appreciation for all that the Civil Rights movement did to change his more redneck kind. He happened into an African American bookstore in downtown Chicago and meandered around poking through books. As he headed to leave he was taken by a large photo of a public hanging. He gasped and staggered loud enough to attract the attention of the shop owner. As he quickly turned to bolt for the door the African American man stopped him and said in a kindly way,
"Don't look away. This is history. This is Our history."

We could assume that the shop owner had no right to share this lesson. That this man was part of the solution. That he didn't need that reminder of his history. Why should this man who is not racist be confronted with a racist past not his own? Because he is an American. Because he is white. Because he is Christian. These three things make inherent claims to nobility and social responsibility. Whether that's true or not is not at issue here. If he wants to be any of these he must not lower his gaze from their shared history, which forms his identity.

I use this story to get at what I'm trying to do with all these "acceptability" posts. The dark sides of our religious story are as important as the inspiring biographies. When was the last time you read a history of an Evangelical or Pentecostal figure that wasn't just a hagiography?

Not so rough, but not necessarily right

Evangelicals and Pentecostals, now in the Mainstream, are not as rough around the edges as their fathers. They've moved their window dressing up nine floors. They're not quite so fundamentalist, so dogmatic, so doctrinaire, so old. As I look back at the battles my father fought with an eye toward my own future, I can't honestly say I'm happy to see all the errors he fought go, if it means my generation swings to new extremes.

Maybe the Hell Houses and fire baptizers are finally ignored as irrelevant, but will the prospects of no hell and closet tongues leave us any better off? Maybe we're laughing at the old, but averting our gaze from the new silly hubris. What good are theology and doctrine if they don't serve to empower the Church into being for others?

Acceptance and social dissonance

Jesus’ preference for the poor is a source of social dissonance. Miraculous healings, exorcisms, and social intercourse with a Samaritan woman known for her many failed relationships were all unacceptable activities that put his larger public relations in jeopardy. Further, he didn’t use key opportunities to his advantage. After one miracle the people were ready to make him king by force, but he refused and left them. One suspects that Pat and Oral could easily teach Jesus a thing or two about successful teaching, leadership, and evangelism.

A Christian faith that prefers the weak, the marginalized, the unsightly and unsound is an unacceptable faith in this day and age. Any faith whose talk is not carefully guarded and edited with an eye toward contributions is just “irresponsible.”

Acceptable while controversial

What is fascinating and staggering to me is how, in America, no amount of controversy surrounding a media personality who claims to speak for God will always hurt their influence. The two cases in point are Pat Robertson, head of CBN and Regent University, and Oral Roberts, founder of Oral Roberts University. Both of these men are extremely controversial, but just where we might feel confident that their words have the power to destroy their impact, the opposite occurs. Their ratings go up, donations seem to increase instead of flattening, and attendance at their state accredited universities remains steady.

Now, both Pat Robertson and Oral Roberts are charismatics, and most anyone under the gun would distance themselves from both of these men. What most everyone who I know agrees with is that these men are not really God’s spokespersons, and that in fact, if pressed we could say they are false prophets whose influence has done a lot of harm over the years, politically and for the Name of Jesus. Would it be too much to say that these men are Acceptable?

In this day and age Pentecostals and Evangelicals are very good at saying what they are not in order to maintain a squeaky clean, acceptable image. If Pat and Oral are part of our heritage, they are the Black Sheep. They’re always putting their foot in their mouths and embarrassing those of us who are a lot less assuming. But maybe what’s a little harder to ignore is that in many ways they put this thing we call Evangelicalism on the media map. They proved that the American public was ready for something new with Christianity that emphasized two things: the unacceptability of being Christian and poor, and Miracles On Demand. Aside from these ideas running against the grain of emphasis in the Scriptures, they sure caught on in PostWWII and PostVietnam America. Pat and Oral gave, and continue to give, what the People want: assurance during hard times. That is not necessarily always ignoble, and so what you have is religion that always reaches felt need. The thing about religion that always meets a felt need is that it becomes the sum of what it promises and nothing else. So we’re left with a ten billion dollar a year Jesus merchandising industry, while “the least of these” (Matt. 25:31-46) move further and further into the Western Church’s rear view mirror.

I’ve recently reviewed threeunacceptable movies” that feature ecstatic spiritual worship and worldviews in uncomfortable ways. I would venture to say that most Evangelicals and Pentecostals would feel uncomfortable watching themselves worship through the lens of someone outside their camp. Let’s return to the place where I started: scanning the room in order to be comfortable and window-dressing unwittingly. I believe that there are things about Christian faith, and in that I include evangelicals and Pentecostals, that put personal faith on the spot. It will draw unwanted attention. To raise children into this faith and to use every available means (the media) to evangelize are very heavy responsibilities! With these propositions, faith is moving from the personal to the shared and finally to an assumed collective in a very fast way that isn’t easily controllable!

Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Window dressing and Acceptability

It happens whenever I’m in the presence of glossolalia (speaking in tongues) or of a prayer for immediate healing. I quickly scan the room and do a mental recall of who is present and how this will be perceived. If I remember that we’re all friends and family, I feel safe. If I remember that someone present may not understand, I feel uncomfortable. Will this be shocking, interesting, or unacceptable? The experience is not unlike forgetting that you are half undressed and standing in front of a window. If you live on the first floor of a house along a busy street you would consciously never do that. But if you live ten floors up it’s not a big deal. Yet even high above the street, you might scan for a high powered telescope.

In the last year I’ve written quite a number of articles related to Evangelicals and Pentecostals in the media. 2006 happened to be the year to do that. It was almost as if the media had removed the roof we’d all been hiding under and stuck a 300 watt bulb and a video camera on us. There was (and is) a scramble for acceptability. Many churches feel strongly that they are under attack and so they go on the defense. Others feel confident that with God on their side, their position is invincible. What’s fascinating is that regardless of how Pentecostals and Evangelicals are pressed, they have a ready defense.

If there’s pressure on the political Right wing to change, there’s a ready Left winger available to answer questions. Mainstream Evangelicals have so much experience with Pentecostals at this point, that they are a welcome part of Evangelical heritage. Of course, it’s notable that many Evangelicals love the fact that many Pentecostals don’t speak in tongues! A historical review of Pentecostalism reveals that the movement’s acceptability and growth owe a lot to two things: demographic shifts and the openness to new forms of communication. Now it just so happens that these same things contributed to the growth of Evangelicalism!

But here’s the hard question, the elephant in the room if you will: If child-birth and radio or television waves form wave this movement-ship is sailing on, what happens when the baby grows up or when ratings change? The answer to that question should reveal that exciting new religious movements, at the end of the day, have to face the same thorny issues that every religion faces---even if they squirm and claim not to be religious! To boil it all down, these include the Nature of Discipleship and Public Relations in a changing age. Suddenly, things get a lot more complicated.

Five Acceptable Heresies infecting Evangelicals and Pentecostals today

Five Acceptable Heresies* Infecting Evangelicals and Pentecostals today

  1. Sin is the cause of illness and poverty. It is never God’s will that Christians ever be poor. Furthermore, Christians should embody the latest and finest the world has to offer because they represent the Good King who always blesses His Children.
  2. Nations are endowed by God with the unquestionable right to exact authority over persons. This right is likened to God’s salvation power. The State’s power is more important than the church’s power as it regards human civil freedom.
  3. Christians should embody the ideal Nationalist citizen. When an Evangelical leads the government, Christians have a unique opportunity and responsibility to spread Christianity.
  4. Christians should be pioneers in using every available new means of technology for the dissemination of their way of being Christian. There need be no consensus on what a Christian is, the Bible speaks for itself. There need be no question of whether the technique itself raises new issues for living. Use it and God will take care of the rest.
  5. As long as Wars are fought in behalf of a nation, the Christians in that nation should be important arbiters of the goodness of that War. Their theology of war should center on the Sovereign State’s authority and on assurance from that State that it has exhausted every other available means.

*By “acceptable” heresies I mean, for the most part, practical heresy. These are meant to illustrate how our talk of Jesus doesn’t match our practice of His Kingdom ways.