Isaac's Press

Well, at least now we know where some of the snow went that was ordered for the Vancouver Winter Olympics! And we here in western Missouri (to say nothing of all the folks farther east and north) are really, really ready for spring.

In the meantime I proudly demonstrate my dual-nationality status to my neighbors. The sweater is an authentic pattern and style of native people along the British Columbia coast. (It was knitted by my mother back in the late ’70s when I lived in Vancouver. Mom had something of a flair for designing and knitting “decorative” sweaters, this one being the only one I actually wear in public. After tackling this sweater she swore she would never, ever do anything like it again–and she didn’t.)

The mittens are a very recent gift from my good friend Rod Downing in Vancouver (okay, I don’t actually wear them to shovel snow and spread salt–they’re much too good for that–but I’d like to think I’m the only one in town with a pair of official Vancouver Olympic mittens).

And the ball cap: the Royals’ spring training opened last week in Arizona, which I’ll take as a sure sign that spring is indeed on its way, even if the sun doesn’t actually come out tomorrow.

The recent counsel to the church by President Steve Veazey included guidance found in paragraphs 6c through 7d. Unfortunately, not everyone who goes to the Bible seeks the “Living Word,” but instead finds comfort and support for existing beliefs and prejudices. Let’s be honest here: taking biblical words at face value when it comes to the topic of human sexuality, without regard for historical and cultural contexts, can lead to unfortunate results.

Ancient Mediterranean cultural understandings (whether in New Testament times or centuries before) were far removed from some 21st-century societies, although they aren’t that different from some current cultural practices in the so-called developing world. For example, the industrialized West (which includes North America, Western Europe, Australia, and numerous others countries) offers a cultural climate in which same-gender relationships can exist on the basis of equality. But in the ancient world, all sexual relationships existed only between non-equal partners. In the vast majority of cases that meant males were dominant and females were submissive.
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The traditional approach to the issue of baptism (and thus, rebaptism) in the Community of Christ has been to tie it directly to the authority of the church’s priesthood to perform the sacrament. And so I was both relieved and grateful to see that President Steve Veazey chose a completely different route in responding to the leadings of the Spirit to present the new counsel he presented to the church: Apostle Paul’s groundbreaking statement to the Galatians:

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:26-27 NRSV).

By doing so he completely changed the theological landscape: This issue of rebaptism is not about us as an institution, or who holds the power and authority to act, or what makes this faith community different from all others. The central argument is about what it means to be “baptized into Christ.” And so of all the meanings and purposes of baptism, the one that is raised up and made paramount is that to be baptized is to “be buried with Christ and raised with him to be a new creature”–a creature appropriately fit for the new age Christ inaugurates. Membership in this (or any other) institution becomes secondary, although of course still important.
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This month marks the 150th anniversary of the first publication of the Herald, which in its original incarnation was known by the title The True Latter Day Saints’ Herald.

Having served as its most recent editor (well, the last one to actually hold that title and therefore possibly its last), it’s more than a little disappointing to me that the church leadership has failed to even recognize this anniversary, at least so far. No mention was made in the January issue. There is the possibility of that happening at the Community of Christ World Conference in April. And at the time of my sudden departure into early retirement last summer there had been some thought given to introducing a major redesign of the magazine at Conferencetime, as well. I’m not exactly in the communications loop anymore, so if that happens it will be a welcome event.

While I don’t want to stomp on too many “sour grapes,” I do recall during my two-and-a-half-year tenure as Herald editor a considerable lack of ongoing support for the magazine by IHQ leadership. They, of course, had many other things on their agenda: trying to find new ways to make up yearly budget deficits for much of the last decade, for starters; fear of another major schism, this time over homosexuality and/or rebaptism; and, unfortunately, the communications director more recently has been distracted by an embarrassing and disgusting ministerial child-sex-abuse scandal (as well as handling her regular apostolic field assignment).
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It’s been almost a year, I believe, since I preached my last sermon. I recall there was a snowstorm that Sunday that cut way down on attendance (or did it have something to do with my name appearing in the weekly newspaper ad as a warning?). But even in a large congregation blessed with more than a hundred priesthood members, I guess I can’t totally escape “my turn” at the pulpit. And so this Sunday I’ll be speaking in my home Community of Christ congregation, Colonial Hills. (As a bonus, these sermons typically are videotaped and put up on the congregation’s Web site by late Sunday night; updated note: my sermon is no longer available online.)

This week marks the third Sunday in Advent (the Sunday of Joy), and not surprisingly the theme is “Proclaim the Good News.” Now comes the fascinating/weird part: the Gospel lection is Luke 3:7–18. Its connection to either joy or good news is not, however, immediately apparent. You may wish to go find a Bible right now to read the entire passage.

Unlike the unofficial season of “Christmastime,” which is filled with carols and angels and a swaddling-clothed infant (or secularly, decorated trees, Santa, and “Jingle Bell Rock”), with Advent we get John the Baptist. In this passage he starts by calling the crowd seeking baptism a “brood of vipers.” It’s not just that they are all snakes―they are the children of snakes, as well! Furthermore, they don’t even get credit for being descendants of Abraham. Put in contemporary terms, I suppose, that means you don’t get a free pass just because your mom and dad went to church faithfully every Sunday. It’s what you do―not just what you intend to do but your actual behavior. Ouch.
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Classmates in my rural Missouri elementary school always responded the same breathless way when they found out I had been born in Canada: “But you can never be President!”

True enough, the U.S. Constitution rules me out. But back in the late fifties and early sixties it was widely assumed that any kid (read: little white boys) could grow up to become President of the United States. Today that idea just sounds absurd.

In my case, the myth was bolstered by the presence of a man who daily walked the streets of the city right next to my hometown. Harry S. Truman was the last U.S. President without a college diploma. Yet he was probably as well educated as any President before or since thanks to his passion for reading, especially history. That makes Truman more an exception to the myth than validation of it.
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Here in the USA we’re observing Columbus Day, a Monday holiday set aside to honor the “discoverer” of the Americas. But, of course, that’s utter nonsense, except maybe for Italian-Americans, who are still a pretty formidable lobby. Aside from the fact that Columbus got lost (and never actually set foot on the “mainland”), he was a racist, a greedy mercenary, and responsible for introducing deadly diseases to the locals. But other than that, yeah, let’s put his name on a holiday.

Being a transplant from “up north,” I still harbor (aka “harbour”) vestiges of this day’s deeper meaning for the northern component of the continent. Granted, I was forcibly removed from my homeland by my parents when I was a mere four years old, so I was in no position to protest. Mom and Dad didn’t just move us here to Jackson County, Missouri, in the mid-fifties (I’m certain my two older brothers got the window seats in the back of our ’54 Chevy); we “gathered to Zion.” There was a lot of that going on back then in the RLDS Church (thankfully, we take a different approach now that we’re Community of Christ).

There’s much that I could say about that, in both a religious and social context, but I’ll save that for another time. Let me just note in passing that the move meant I would grow up not knowing how to ice skate, much less play hockey—talk about denying me my God-given Canadian birthright! I tried to learn when I returned to live in Canada, as a young adult, but had what I’ll just term “mixed results.”

I was getting somewhat proficient at the skating part; the “stopping and/or changing directions part,” especially during pickup hockey games with other guys from the Vancouver congregation—not so much. But that’s why they put boards around a hockey rink, isn’t it? Years later, after my six-year sojourn there had ended, the guys admitted to breaking my hockey stick in half to “end the curse” on the team. I think they were joking.

The second Monday in October generally causes me to stop and reflect on my appreciation for dual citizenship. I used to say every American could benefit from living outside the USA, at least for a few months. But after watching “tea parties” and health-care forums the past few months, there are some folks in this country I’d rather the rest of the world not see too up close and personal. Nonetheless, the university term my now-twenty-something kids each spent in Europe (my son in London and my daughter in Seville, Spain) were wonderful experiences for them.
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The local TV news this morning featured a story about a new billboard that appeared overnight on eastbound I-70 here in my hometown of Blue Springs, Missouri. I suppose it’s nothing more than an extension of town-hall meetings and “tea parties” recently that offered all sorts of nut-jobs their fifteen minutes of fame—or infamy, as the case may be.

This billboard features a hammer and sickle, but it could just as easily have a swastika. I’ve concluded that many of the folks screaming about “socialism,” “communism,” and “Nazism” really have no idea what those terms mean. They just want to make their target look bad. And, once again, President Obama is the target.

So is this incident, like so many others, based on race, or class, or ignorance, or fear (of the known or the unknown)? Maybe all are part of it, or not. We’ll never know for sure. But I don’t think that’s what this is all about, anyway. As “the Preacher” points out in the opening verses of Ecclesiastes :

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow.
All words are wearisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has already been, in the ages before us.
The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.

It’s as if we’re all isolated in our own time and space—and that’s all that matters: my current moment, my immediate needs, operating within the scope of my knowledge and understanding and beliefs. And so it means I can say whatever the heck I want to say, when and where I want to say it, perhaps even with an assault rifle in my hand.

Apostle Paul had this to say to the Galatians: “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits?” (4:8-9)

The writer of the Colossian letter adds this counsel to those who had “received Christ Jesus the Lord”: “…continue to live your lives [to walk] in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ” (2:6-8).

Perhaps this is really about “elemental spirits” “and “principalities and powers” rather than just a bunch of individual nut-jobs screaming their heads off, which is essentially what that billboard is doing, too.

There’s a new Starbucks commercial airing, promoting their new instant coffee (really!), in which a series of different people are asked to compare instant to fresh-brewed.

It ends with a guy at a town-hall meeting who stands up and screams, “I can’t taste the difference! I can’t!”

How can you tell the difference between race-baiting, class warfare, fear-mongering, and just plain old ignorance? I think having “eyes of faith” helps. Maybe we’re too sophisticated these days to use terms like “elemental spirits” or “principalities and powers” or (dare I say it without being grossly misunderstood) “demons,” but that doesn’t mean they (whatever “they” are) aren’t there. At least for those “in Christ,” we need not fall prey to them. There is hope.

Rodney King

Let’s start with the assumption that each individual believes he or she is right and other people are wrong. In computer geek language, it’s our default setting. I know that sounds harsh, but sometimes you have to be brutally honest—and I had to start somewhere with this.

Sure, there are those among us who do actually hold open the possibility that other people may be right some of the time, or even that they’re likely to be right. Apparently that’s not the norm, however (case in point: recent scenes from town hall meetings on health care in the USA). Of course, everybody has a right to their own opinion.

Among other things, this helps explain why there are so many religions in the world, and why there are so many subdivisions (denominations, sects, cults, and “lone rangers”) within them.  Religious professionals, of course, have necessary terms for this situation: orthodoxy (right thinking and right doctrines within the religion) and orthopraxy (right ways of doing and practicing the religion). It’s the way we determine who’s faithful and obedient and who’s a heretic. It worked well centuries ago for the Spanish Inquisition (when others saw how adept the Spaniards were at it, they joined in, too).Although in less extreme forms, it’s how we do many things even at the start of the twenty-first century.

In short, it appears religions just have to have boundaries, sometimes rigid and unmovable and at other times more fluid or perhaps just a bit hard to find. There ends up being a point where you’re either in or out, accepted or excluded, good or bad, saved or damned. But just because it’s worked this way for centuries doesn’t necessarily mean it must continue to be so. That, I believe (and apparently I’m not alone in thinking this) is where we are today. Whether you call it a shift in the space-time continuum or just a breakdown in all we hold dear and true, we live in unsettling times.

So what’s a religion (denomination, congregation, sect, or cult) to do? It can, of course, cling to its default setting. But if it can’t condemn sinners to eternal damnation for crossing boundary lines, where’s the fun in that? Okay, that was a bit harsh, wasn’t it? Let me rephrase: Without clear boundary lines, how do we determine what we believe anymore? How do we distinguish our group from the next one? How do we even settle a religious or theological argument?

I discovered a new word not long ago, orthoparadoxy, in An Emergent Manifesto of Hope (Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones, eds.; Baker Books, 2007). One of the essays was by Dwight J. Friesen: “Orthoparadoxy: Emerging Hope for Embracing Difference.” Here’s a quote:

“The ministry of God’s people has always been understood as a ministry of blessing—from God’s call to Abraham, with the promise that Abraham and his descendants would be a blessing to the nations, to Paul’s charge to the church in Corinth: ‘All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation’ (2 Corinthians 5:18). Orthoparadoxy is an effort to make God’s main thing the main thing for all the people of God: reconciliation. Not sameness or agreement but differentiated oneness—where the fullness of one can be in relationship with the fullness of another. Orthoparadox is right paradox—holding difference rightly. Orthoparadox seeks to hold difference, tensions, otherness, and paradoxes with grace, humility, respect, and curiosity, while simultaneously bringing the fullness of self to the ‘other’ in conversation, not to convert or to convince but with the hope of mutual transformation through interpersonal relationship.” –pp. 204–205

Wow, wish I’d thought of that. At least I’m passing it along.

Basically, the thought is that in our post-modern, post-Christian, post-denominational (and whatever other “post-“) world, we live out our lives as believers, including our search for Truth, in a state of constant paradox. It’s a life of certain uncertainty (or is it uncertain certainty?), of being in and out at the same time, of being chosen and marginalized, of possessing knowledge while surrounded by mystery, of discovering an abundant life through sacrificing our life in loving service to God and our fellow human beings. Truth is somewhere in the mix, and it can only be approached (but never fully grasped) within the tension of the search.

What would it mean, then, if our denominations, starting with our congregations, embraced orthoparadoxy? How radical would that be? Or just how very Christian? This doesn’t begin to deal with the challenge of “lone rangers” in our midst, but for the rest of us, it might be worth a try.

For 23 years my idea of church has been confused with the reality of my employment. Well, that was then. It’s time to take a good, long look at that now that my job at Community of Christ International Headquarters has ended and I’ve been drafted into an early and unexpected retirement.

A little perspective is probably in order here. While this has been a strange summer for me (not unlike having the summer off, waiting for school to start up again in September), it is by no means the biggest crisis of my life. Those well-meaning folks who’ve suggested I re-read Kubler-Ross’s “stages of grief” may have a point, I suppose, but it just seems a bit over the top. Nobody died here, although perhaps it’s correct to say my old job did (or was it killed? hmm).

If I have a regret it’s that I didn’t get to write a final Endnotes column for the Herald. In my first one for the January 2007 issue I joked that the real reason I took the editor’s job was for the chance to write a monthly column of personal reflections, tinged with theological and spiritual implications. The downside was that I had to agree to edit the rest of the magazine. I’ll be honest: deep down, that wasn’t a joke.

Endnotes is history, at least for me. But in its place is “ForeWords.” Back when the church still had a publishing house I would all too often begin work on an author’s book manuscript with what he or she would term the “FORWARD.” That, by the way, is a pretty good way to piss off a book editor from the get-go.

Endnotes made sense as a title because it appeared on the final page of the magazine. ForeWords carries something of the idea that we’re moving ahead into unknown territory. And that sums up where I stand in regard to work, life, and church. It’s also a good preview of what I’ll be blogging about now and then.

I’ve known quite a few people in the church over the years who survived challenging local-church situations by focusing on district, region, stake, and World Church activities. In some ways it’s been the reverse for me. In time everything will shake out okay, I think, but in the interim I’ll have some re-thinking and re-visioning to do. My concerns could turn out to be a “micro” version of the larger faith community’s “macro” task. God’s not done with me (or us) yet. Read the rest of this entry »