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.

Tags: acceptable heresies, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Jesus Christ, politics, State, Authority

Thank You Jimmy Carter

I'm convinced that when you become President of the United States something happens to you as a human being. I don't see how it can't. You'd have to represent the most powerful nation in all the world. More than that you have to lead what it has become. Bear in mind that in modern Statecraft a nation is the sum of it's interests. While we're led to believe the democratic State is made up of the interests of its people, in this day and age the people don't care to know the nuts and bolts of how it all operates. So when and if you get to the top it must change you. Therefore, anytime a former President makes the mistake of telling it like it is, the media must yank him back into line.

On NPR's Morning Edition this morning I heard Steve Inskeep ask President Carter an awful lot of stupid questions. You should listen for yourself, but essentially the interview is set up with Carter on the hot seat regarding his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. He gets a call right after his speech at Brandeis University. Stein wants to know if its true that the former president is losing his mind. Is he senile? Did he plagiarize his book? Did he lie? But the real burning question is "Was his use of language unfair to Israel?"

I love Ken Stein's question "How did you write your book?" President Carter's reply is directly to the question: "With a word processor, or computer." This is legendary journalism. Truthfully, in the fifteen years of NPR I've consumed this has got to be the worst interview--ever! And I heard the Fresh Air interview with KISS frontman Gene Simmons! That was at least entertaining. It proves that for as liberal as NPR claims to be, when it comes to the State of Israel, even liberal American journalists jerk to the right. Stein has to make scandal where there isn't any. President Carter is speaking facts about life in the Middle East as it is. What is truly shocking is that even in this day and age the media can't seem to face reality without spin. It needs to slow the world down, reword, rework and feed it back for the consumer.

I have not read Jimmy Carter's book. But at face value I have to tell you that he hasn't said anything out of the ordinary. Desmond Tutu noted the similarities between Israeli treatment of Palestinians and South African Apartheid back in 2002. The same voices that call Carter anti-semitic said that of Tutu back then. Let's look at this clearly people. Israel's use of Military Occupation hasn't worked for forty years. What it has set is a precident that the US is continuing in Iraq today. And we see how well it is working. If anything the occupiers are failing. The circle of hate and violence has spun out of control. The one President who has ever had the guts to admit that is called crazy, anti-semitic, senile---I'm waiting for someone to say UnAmerican.

Doesn't all this circle back onto what the public expects from a President? Carter's use of the word Apartheid together with Israel is brazen and shocking because the US is neck deep in a "war on terror." NPR can criticize George W. Bush all it wants, everyone is doing that, but what Israel has is somehow working. Somehow they're seen to be the stabilizing force in the region. To deny that in the interest of peace is just too much, even for the "liberal" media.

Note: I'm crossposting this on my Occupation blog, which I've been doing since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. If you want to see more info and links on Military Occupation, check it out.

Tags: Military Occupation, Apartheid, President Jimmy Carter, Steve Inskeep

Jewish member of Iranian Parliament?

In what world is there a Jewish member of the Iranian Parliament? Why ours of course! You wouldn't know it from our news, but it seems Iran is a much more diversified nation than the US seems to indicate. The Jewish newspaper Forward has a fascinating article on Iran's 25,000 Jews.

Tags: Iranian Jews, Forward, USA, Iran, Iranian Parliament

A heads up on Avigdor Lieberman from a Christian Arab in Beit Sahour

A Disaster in the Middle East Is Imminent
Avigdor Lieberman becomes Israel's Deputy Prime Minister
by Samer Kokaly of Beit Sahour, Palestine


Avigdor Lieberman is a well-known personality who always asked about kicking Palestinians out of Palestine. He hates Arabs.

He is now in a position where he can do what he wants and lead the whole Middle East into a real disaster. So how can we expect peace between Israelis and Palestinians while he is in charge?

We send this message to all the people in the world who believe in peace and call on you to join our efforts to stop this man and his catastrophic plans.

The Middle East has suffered a lot for many years from wars and conflicts and I believe that it is the time to think about real peace in the Middle East. We must seek for a new leadership that can achieve peace.

So let's raise our voices against the disaster policies of Avigdor Lieberman, George Bush, Tony Blair, and many others who are only seeking for disaster in the world.

See also:
Haaretz editorial
Antiwar on Lieberman

Tags: Avigdor Lieberman, Middle East, arabs, hate, israel, politics

The most significant word of comparison

"It is becoming increasingly clear to me that what we're going to get is a big, popular, national church whose nature cannot any longer be reconciled with Christianity and that we must be prepared to enter upon entirely new paths which we will have to tread. The question really is: Germanism or Christianity? The sooner the conflict comes out into the open, the better. Nothing is more dangerous than concealing this."

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer's letter to his grandmother on August 20, 1933. (Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, Revised Edition, p. 302)

To me this is the most significant word of comparison between America now and Germany in 1933. Our question today is Americanism or Christianity? Bonhoeffer saw and maintained a clear difference. For America it's a lot more ambiguous as we do not have one officially recognized national church. Evangelicalism is being dubbed the national religion by the press by virtue of its' size and political prowess, and of course because of its seeming overwhelming affinity toward the Bush Administration.

In order to ask "Americanism or Christianity?" we have to move beyond the Bush Administration. We have to see it for what it is but not make the current Administration the line of demarcation. Even so, like Karl Barth after WWI, we have to wake up. Our government represents certain interests in the world that are diametrically opposed to Christian faith. And yet every President has to some degree represented himself (yes always a him!) as a man of Christian faith (usually Protestant, once a Catholic).

This little rant is inspired in part by my viewing the film "The Trials of Henry Kissinger" last night.:)

Tags: The Trials of Henry Kissinger, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Americanism, Christianity

How?

Somebody explain to me how the President can be given the kind of authorization he just signed into law in the Military Commissions Act of 2006? I don't really want a long legal explanation beyond a simple description of what entitles this kind of new power. Permit me to think out loud. According to the Bill:

1. 9/11
2. President given power to declare war and govern military tribunals as commander in chief of armed forces.
3. "The Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 126 S. Ct. 2749 (2006), held that the military commissions established by the Department of Defense under the President’s Military Order of November 13, 2001, were not consistent with certain aspects of United States domestic law.
The Congress may by law, and does by enactment of this statute, eliminate any deficiency of statutory authority to facilitate bringing terrorists with whom the United States is engaged in armed conflict to justice for violations of the law of war and other offenses triable by military commissions."

So let me get this straight. We are attacked, congress gives the President power, and now the President's power is total when it relates to Terrorism. Once again, trust the President. He only has our best interests in mind. How are we sure? Because he's an American. Americans always do what is right. If desperate times call for desperate measures, how desperate can the measures get before the clear-thinking authorities are wrong?

Tags: Military Commissions Act of 2006, President George W. Bush, questions

Another Pentecostal documentary, a new study, and more religion and politics

Three things that are interrelated. Last night I saw the 2001 movie documentary "Hell House."
It may still be airing on the Sundance channel and in reruns of This American Life. Michael and I set it up in the dining room here and many other young folks came in and out. A young lady sat on my left who had never before been exposed to a Pentecostal worship service. You may remember that I recently review Jesus Camp.

The Hell House experience is similar to Jesus Camp, but provocative in different ways. Jesus Camp is a much more politically prescient and provocative experience. The subjects of Jesus Camp are harder to watch than Hell House because they are little children. With Hell House, an AoG church attracts thousands of people into a Halloween experience that's really all about sin, culture, and a final invitation for conversion. In Jesus Camp we follow a number of families around in their subculture and then watch their Christian camp experience. Its interesting that I feel like more action is going on in Jesus Camp even though its much more internalized. Hell House is a church reaching out, Jesus Camp is really the day to day (albeit intense) workings of a church subculture among its own kids.

In other news, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has just released a 10 country 233 page survey of Pentecostalism. Bible Belt Blogger calls it "Everything you wanted to know about Pentecostalism." I just have to say that you can read up all you want on Pentecostals and still miss the fact that it is a uniquely lived experience. From the outside looking in, it could appear downright Shamanistic. Having spent a good deal of time in Assembly of God churches I would warn that that appearance is severly misleading. AoG services can be just as boring, maybe more than elsewhere at times.

Always remember too that members inside are as capable of self-criticism as the most vitriolic outside scoffer. A church worship scene from Hell House last night brought back memories of the style of preaching that smacks more of a pep rally than sermon. But I also remember the opposition to this style among professors in my AoG college. I learned well the lesson in my Pnuematology course: "The Holy Spirit's work always points to Christ. Anything other than that is really not Him." I remember that professor asking and really listening to our different youth group "horror" stories. Illicit use of the Holy Spirit's name for personal ego or monetary gain. One woman with tears recounted how she sought in vain the gift of Tongues and was made to feel sinful and unspiritual for not having recieved it in a certain time-frame. My professor expressed his sorrow and assured her that was not AoG teaching but hurtful error.

Finally, Walter Russell Mead's article God's Country? in Foreign Affairs is worthy of attention. He seems very interested in what Evangelicals can contribute to foreign policy. He writes:

"Evangelicals are likely to focus more on U.S. exceptionalism than liberals would like, and they are likely to care more about the morality of U.S. foreign policy than most realists prefer. But evangelical power is here to stay for the foreseeable future, and those concerned about U.S. foreign policy would do well to reach out."

Well this will make somebody happy. It would be very difficult for me to sit at a table with Richard Land with an open ear toward most anything he has to say on foreign policy or the environment. I went over all this with Ron Sider last year.

Tags: Hell House, Documentary, Jesus Camp, Pentecostalism, Foreign Policy, Walter Russell Mead, Foreign Affairs, Evangelicals, Ron Sider

Are ideas bulletproof?

Are Ideas Bullet-proof?
Musings on Idea, classical liberalism, and Christian liberation in the face of postmodern evil.


I'd like to consider the main idea imparted in the movie V for Vendetta with Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving. That idea is most memorably expressed in V's words to Mr. Creedy,

"Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bullet-proof."

I think I could safely summarize the Moral of this movie (if you like Morals to tales) as the victorious freedom of Free Thought over against tyranny. You will notice in the movie that music, art collection, and satire are all illegal forms of expression unless controlled by the will of the government. The heroes of the movie correctly recognize and appreciate art for it's ability to allow the human spirit to soar above tyrrany. "V" is a classically trained antihero who wakens the public from their slumbering freedom to overthrow the tyrant by virtue of their great ideals.

Let me point out why this simple story poses no threat to contemporary Western governments. The heart of the victorious "idea" in this movie is based on a belief in human nature that came to prominence during the Enlightenment. In case you haven't been paying attention, the reigning system of the thought now is Post-modernism, essentially a critique of the modernism that had it's roots in the Enlightenment. Within postmodernism arguments are not won or lost on the basis of collective rational thought. Competing arguments each have their spheres of influence. Within America's form of liberal democracy capitalism very easily uses postmodernism for it's own purposes, namely the spread of free enterprise. Agendas that are throw-backs to modernist times are now packaged conveniently in postmodern thought for today's audience. In previous days the idea of an African American Woman representing American foreign policy would have been thought impossibly too progressive, feminist and liberal. Condoleeza Rice has broken all stereotypes as an evangelist for the new face of postmodern neo-conservativism.

To be sure, the moneyed and the powerful still have an agenda for the world. But we are hard pressed to see one single imperial power. "V" as a simple literary device can stir our passions to fight the Power. But what power? How do the money'd and powerful continue control? By distributing the power to various associations. In this way the Democratic western powers manage to further an old agenda forcing free trade on would-be players, isolating non-players, and when necessary "protecting" themselves with invasion and occupation. Power and control are exerted over time and usually in the face of resistance so that action is always in the name of defense. This way we don't feel either controlled by the powers or part of the powers.

Let me get back to "V"s statement. "Ideas are bulletproof." In "V"s world the truth of this statement has the perfect lighting and contrast. In our world we have little need for such statements. But what about an area of our world that has constant media attention, so much so that a generation has passed and we in America think we know about it so much that we aren't paying attention? I'm speaking of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Palestine. Have more resolutions been passed concerning this little region than any other in the history of the International Community? I would say yes. And yet what has the UN ever been able to do to stop Israel from controlling every aspect of this region? The building of the Wall? Making the resident's lives a living hell? Nothing. Israel is right in the center of America's vision for Democracy in the Arab world. America wants to force this kind of democracy on the Arab world.

Iraq is America's attempt to Occupy (like Israel's long work in Palestine) a sovereign country for it's own good. The Iraqi Occupation swears that it is the new seed of democracy that the region wants. At least the Americans are swearing that.
My friend Jon walked into my office recently and said of Hezbollah, "It is an idea. You cannot kill an idea." Well that remains to be seen. If bullets won't work, maybe psychology, greed, torture, propaganda, and "good will" will. If the American people will go along with this radical way of seeding Democracy to weed out terror long into future governmental administrations, it will take a terrible toll on our own psyches. It takes a certain kind of morality to pull of an Occupation. A lot of self delusion. The reasoning must be: "If we can't kill their new ideas we'll at least keep it from infecting our own."

The next question I would ask is how can I be different? In "V"'s world the new superhuman test experiment arises from the inferno as the moral conscience of the nation. The perfect creation intended turns against the creators as their moral superior. Where does it get this moral superiority? As I said before, it is classical training from the Enlightenment. (Not of course, taking Nietchze's critique of morality into account.) The Christian Church in the film is part of the fascist matrix of control. Christianity makes the people impotent. This is not a unique idea, and neither is it necessarily true to history or human nature. Humans are not necessarily more noble for having discarded religion.

For myself, I can't find satisfaction in an argument for human nobility out of itself. Retorting that noble actions just as easily arise from the same humans that do the evil is just exercising contradiction.
Reminds me of a Monty Python skit that went thusly:

M: I came here for a good argument.
A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
A: Yes it is!
M: No it isn't!
A: Yes it is!
M: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
(short pause)
A: No it isn't.
M: It is.
A: Not at all.

(http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/sketch.htm)

The argument that faith always play victim to power doesn't work. It doesn't have to be true. I must bear witness that the opposite is true. The only way to make a stand morally and personally, as I see it, is with an active faith in the Jesus of the Bible. He alone embodies the reality of the new Kingdom that we dream of . A Kingdom of mutual submission, freedom from want, an economy of abundance, freedom for captives, healing and shared power. In worship and communion in Christ's church I'm taking part in His realities. I am becoming the kind of person able to resist the dark oppressive realities of the money'd and powerful. Ideas can be manipulated and subdued. They can be forgotten or ignored. A faithful life of service to a Higher Power effects real change.

Tags: V for Vendetta Movie Review, The Enlightenment, Post-Modernism, Politics, Anarchy, Hugo Weaving, Ideas are bulletproof

Red and Blue God review

Red and Blue God. Black and Blue Church: Eyewitness Accounts of How American Churches are Hijacking Jesus, Bagging the Beatitudes, and Worshiping the Almighty Dollar
by Becky Garrison, Jossey-Bass, 2006.


Christianity. Politics. Satire. The three make up an unsavory trinity that is both painful and sweet. Kind of like the fun of preaching a funeral and then running away laughing before the real preacher shows up.

Not that I've ever done that.

There was a time when a little magazine called The Wittenburg Door cornered the market on this trinity. Then came The Simpsons, South Park, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Pretty soon religio-politico satire became part of mass culture. Even so the question remained, were Christians laughing? I don't know the answer to that. I just think they should be.

Red and Blue God. Black and Blue Church is serious reading from a seasoned Christian satirist. Becky Garrison, senior contributing editor for the Door, is serious about shedding light on the glaring inadequacies in both left and right Christian politics. Beginning with her time spent as a chaplain at Ground Zero soon after the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, Garrison illustrates the difference between real ministry and real love, and sick instances of making a buck in Jesus name. From Ground Zero she moves to the Republican National Convention in 2004. She mills around both in the ultra right circles and at the leftist demonstrations outside. Becky, we learn, is the daughter of an Episcopal priest who was raised to hate all things Conservative. So out of rebellion she flirted with Republicanism in college. The result is a savory and yet sympathetic roasting of each side with a serious interest in picking up the slag that both overlook.

Issues such as homosexuality, abortion, school prayer, AIDS, and poverty get new treatment with all the nuance revealed that more people should know about. Just when you think you've got the issue's pros and cons in hand, Garrison reveals the way Church people ignore and distort real issues and bury their work gloves. See what I mean about serious? So is the book funny? At times I smiled, laughed aloud, dropped my jaw in disbelief, or groaned. How do you make a book serious and funny at the same time? I don't know but Becky Garrison did it. In addition to her own stories and reflections, she packs the book with Door interviews, luminary quotes, and even a great song lyric from the Austin Lounge Lizards titled "Jesus loves me (but he can't stand you)".

This kind of book creates a problem for me as a pencilneck. A brief history of Satire as a genre reveals that it has a very fragile effect. Take for instance Jonathan Swift's book Gulliver's Travels. No doubt intended as a satire and parody, it was instantly popular as some sort of child's fantasy and later as proto-science fiction. Would it have become one of the classics of the English language if people had gotten the joke? Well, when Swift got more pointed with his book A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick his readers did get the joke, and they were not laughing. He faced harsh criticism for its' "bad taste" and came close to losing his livelihood.

Unlike factoid writing, satire uses irony, which makes the assumption that the audience is on the side of reason. Brozowski and Mazlish have written that satire

quote:

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"assumes a civilized opponent who is sufficiently sensitive to feel the barbs of wit leveled at him. To hold something up to ridicule presupposes a certain respect for reason, on both sides, to which one can appeal. An Age of Reason, in which everyone accepts the notion that conduct must be reasonable, is, therefore, a general prerequisite for satire." The Western Intellectual Tradition From Leonardo to Hegel, p. 252 (1960; as repub. in 1993 Barnes & Noble ed.)

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Satirists are constantly accused of nihilism - attempting to destroy and leave nothing - when truthfully their attention is itself a flattering of the object. Take for example the occasion of Stephen Colbert's "flattery" of George W. Bush at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner April 29, 2006:

quote:

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"We're not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone." Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term."

---

The reactions to this scathing satire were mixed. Some liberals lauded Colbert as a prophet. But the question on many people's minds was "how could Bush just sit there beside Colbert so unaffected?" If the satire were such a sharp rebuke did the President just not get it? Or did he feel completely removed from the joke?

In an interview for SMH the "king of sophisticated satire" Tom Lehrer remarks, "'I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them." The article goes on to articulate the difference between what Lehrer regards as witty humor, what is difficult to satirize, and what is off limits. Just because something can be turned into a joke doesn't mean it has serious effect.


Satire has many devices, but used effectively it has a constructive end in mind. With Christians I see satire used as a painful way of showing love. Pouring iodine on wounds, it creates strength and builds an immune system in the object. In our day and age it can rouse our political sympathies and play off them, but because the American audience is largely immune it rarely sparks interest or changes minds.

The Church is a body with many very different members, offering a picture of diversity and impartiality in who can be called part of the Body universal. In service to the Church satire creates a boundary situation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that "only in the conflict of wills does genuine life arise." (Sanctorum Communio) Satire has the potential to show us greater possibilities and help us laugh at the uniformity we needlessly demand. A recent story in the Wittenburg Door imagines various leading social activists (Ron Sider, Tony Campolo, and Jim Wallis) as rap gangster archetypes. Ron Sider with bling hung all over him talkin' smack is the most outrageously diverse and "other" idea possible!


The Trinity Foundation which publishes the Wittenburg Door embodies a way of life that begs to differ with those who think of satire as criticism without responsibility. They sponsor The Dallas Project, a challenge for religious folk to adopt 10 to 20 families who are homeless or on welfare to turn their lives around. The Oklahoma and Dayton projects provide affordable housing. As a ministry they try to live the first century Christian experience of community in a section of row housing in Dallas. A few years back I visited and witnessed first hand testimonies of lives destroyed by the effects of rich televangelists, but brought full circle back into the Church through their community. They also run a nationwide victims' help line for those taken in by televangelists. Yes, I found out this is serious business.

The Door has used satire as a patient, humble, kindly healing resource for an Evangelical subculture badly in need of the ability to laugh at itself. It takes the long view of that project. In the short term the jabs get very dated. In the long term it's stated mission is "to bring down to size those persons, institutions, and movements of whatever perspective - any and all - who abuse religion or use it for their own personal benefit." Within that long tradition, Becky Garrison, for instance, is not shy about asking why clergy affiliated with Yale Divinity School, who talk so much about the social gospel, will bankroll clergy with a lifestyle befitting the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. (Red and Blue God pg. 100-101.)

I have a lot of hope for satire as a genre. I happen to think it communicates the nuances of faith with a lot of potential. But then the cynical side of me (the same one that feeds my love for satire) wonders if ours is a society that can appreciate satire effectively.
Yet I notice that satire, like faith, makes no sense to the uninitiated. It takes a community to instill faith effectively. Oscar Romero reminds us that "we are workers, not master builders-ministers, not messiahs." If Jesus is about saving people and not institutions than, in the long view, faith is a sensible proposition. In the same way though satire may not sway the masses or unseat institutions it might plant some seed and paint a picture. To borrow an old line from a Larry Norman song, "a song can't stop the world, but it might stop you."

Satire
Wittenburg Door
more reading on satire
Tom Lehrer interview

Tags: Becky Garrison, Satire, Politics, Book Reviews, Trinity Foundation, Wittenburg Door

Why We Fight

This film on the military industrial complex looks really good! The site has lots of clips.
I wish it were showing here in Chicago.
Why We Fight: A film by Eugene Jarecki
A must see once it's portable.


Or view it here on Google's Video library:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1422779427989588955

Tags: Why We Fight, Eugene Jarecki, Documentaries, Politics, Military Industrial Complex, Eisenhower