Another year of grace…

 46 years ago today. . . on the hottest day in July on a Nebraska prairie in a rural Lutheran church, a pastor was made. . .  Most of the men in that picture are long gone to be with the Lord. . . some of us are still here. . . the good work is completed by God's grace and whatever was built upon the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone, remains.

Christianity and the nation. . .

Somewhere along the way, the uneasy relationship between politics and religion became more comfortable -- at least for churches.  The issues seemed clearly religious to those within the Church, or at least the leaders, but not so much to those outside the faithful.  In face, an increasing number of Americans began to see religion itself as primarily about politics, primarily political instead of essentially religious.  I am not sure how deeply this is felt or addressed but it shows in the issues themselves.

To a great number of those outside the faith and even to some in the Church, the positions of the Church became more a political stance with a religious justification than a theological position with political consequences.  Voting on election day became part of the issue itself and not simply what Scripture says about this or that and then, to some, it became more important than the theological truth itself.  Those within the Church do not see this because it is natural for doctrine held to have implications for how you think, how you live, and, in this case, how you vote.  I fear this is what has happened to the sex issues that have been so prominent in the news both for Christians and those outside Christianity.

Abortion became on of those political issues with a stance which had religious justification but was not primarily a theological issue.  The pro-life movement which seemed to win big at the level of the courts seems to have lost the hearts and minds of people within the Church as well as those outside.  If the primary focus on this issue were theological -- what the Scriptures said -- it should not be so easy to have lost the fight on the individual level.  But that is the point.  Your stance on abortion is more likely to be seen as a political stand than it is to be identified with a moral truth flowing from God's Word.  It became easy to disagree about abortion while remaining united in the core theological truths.  The issue was a free issue on which Christians can rightfully disagree because it was largely political and not essentially doctrinal or theological.

I am not sure how the shift from theology to politics took place but it has -- even in the minds of some within the faith as well as those outside.  This is not simply true for abortion but also for sexual desire and gender.  In the minds of many, the basis for a judgment on these issues has shifted away from what God says to what desire says or what society holds.  These were once theological issues -- exclusively so but with practical implications for life and life within society.  Are they still?  Or are they simply political issues with political judgments upon which Christians may marshal different theological resources to support their position but none is exclusively religious.

It is not simply reflective of those on the right but also on the left.  Christianity with its source(s) of divine truth is simply source material to be used as you desire to give theological meaning to what is largely a political or social position.  Little will change in the hearts and minds of the faithful until and unless this changes and we rediscover that it is doctrine, theology, and Scripture which directs what we hold to be true and right.  Only then will we surrender the positions of our hearts and minds to the judgment of God's Word.  

The question is then when people join a congregation are they looking for a theology that fits their politics or are they looking for politics that reflects their theology.  Are conservative people being drawn to churches which reflect those conservative values or are they drawn to churches which hold to the faith of the Scriptures (which one might think was a conservative thing to do).  Looking for a good fit in a congregation has become largely the pursuit of one in which political views are shared and this comfortable fit beckons them in rather than one in which people confess a common faith.  They tend to stay more because they have ideological beliefs in common than because they share a common faith.  This, according to some social scientists like Ryan Burge, is the reason why membership in evangelical churches seems more stable than in others.  In others, in which politics has replaced the theology, the narrowing of political views has resulted in a winnowing of the membership.

Happy Fourth!

Here in the South it is not uncommon on the patriotic Sundays (nearest Memorial Day, July 4th, Veteran's Day, etc...) for churches to have patriotic services.  A color guard brings in the flag.  Patriotic songs are sung and perhaps a Sousa march is played.  A sermon inevitably addresses the sacrifices of those who paid for our liberty with their lives, on the need for national repentance to regain God's favor upon our nation, and on the special status of America before God.  I do not know if this is done in other nations but here it is common to weave together the fabric of faith and patriotism, at least on certain Sundays of the year.

I consider myself a patriotic American.  I am jealous about the good name and noble virtue of American exceptionalism in the world.  I am in awe of the faithful folk who have stood guard against our enemies and whose blood was shed on battlefields far and near for the sake of this nation and the freedom we value so highly.  I grew up carrying those white crosses adorned with poppies out to the cemeteries of fallen soldiers.  I still shudder when the guns of a military salute go off and tears well up in my eyes at the funerals of veterans when a soldier gets down on one knee and presents the flag to the bereaved on behalf of a grateful nation.  But there is no American flag inside the nave or chancel of this church and there should not be.

It is one of the gravest of sins to presume God's loyalty to a people or a land and to interweave faith and patriotism.  The resulting fabric will not be faithful to either cause when we assume that God is one of us (Americans or any other nation and people) and when we declare ours the only righteous land and citizenry in the world.  We do not do our nation or our faith any good by beating our chests and proclaiming God in our hip pocket.

If you are a patriotic American, then pray for the our President, the members of Congress, your Governor, state legislature, judges, mayors, and all levels of civil servants elected and appointed.  Do not pray for those you like or those with whom you agree but for all manner of leaders in the kingdom of the left.  Pray for their wisdom, for their faithfulness, for their faithful exercise of the powers entrusted to them as servants of the people, and pray for them to be people of truth and integrity who love justice, who act mercifully, and who carry the solemn mantle of public service humbly.  And while you are at it, do not speak so disparagingly of our politicians that no one of good repute and noble character would deign to serve the public good.

If you are a patriotic American, then render unto Caesar the things that are his as your civil, patriotic, and solemn duty.  Don't cheat on your income taxes and call it the great national sport.  Don't sit at home while others cast their ballots for people, initiatives, and referendums.  Don't be a silent minority or majority but engage the issues, causes, and conversations of the public square, guided by principle and faith as well.  Don't refuse to speak circumspectly or to act virtuously but show forth good citizenship as best you can until and unless to do so would violate God's law.

If you are patriotic American, then teach your children our history -- the good and the bad -- and urge them to give nothing less than their best for the cause of liberty, the rule of good law, and the common good.  Teach your children the sacrifices of those who went before them on lonely beachhead, in jungle heat, on thunderous wave, and cloudy sky to protect, preserve, and defend our freedom.  Teach your children not to squander this legacy of liberty in the pursuit of selfish endeavor or to justify lustful desire but to pursue it with honor, integrity, and virtue.  Teach your children to honor the flag without confusing flag and cross and thereby diminishing both.  Teach your children how the government works and prepare them for their own time when they must pass the torch to their own sons and daughters.

If you are a patriotic American, cheer on the defense of the defenseless, the protection of the vulnerable, the cause of the unborn, the aged, and the infirm, and challenge oppression, hatred, and bigotry in all its forms.  Honor life as precious gift and not as the prerogative of  rich, the powerful, or those who intimidate.  Refuse to allow life to be valued by the almighty dollar, the parade of accomplishments, or how productive one can be.  Protect rights without dismantling morality or diminishing virtue or surrendering right to wrong, goodness to evil.

Going to worship on a Sunday close to a national holiday and raising up the flag where Christ alone should reign helps neither patriotism nor the faith.  Be wary of those who intermix and confuse the two for they are prone to abuse one for the sake of the other.  God is not an American but live your life and profess your faith so that your patriotism will not diminish your faith and your faith will ennoble your life as citizen and both will be honored.  I know that there will be those who might take offense at what I have written but a patriot is more than someone who waves the flag a couple of times a year. 

Some good times. . .

Listen, watch, eat, drink, and give thanks for our nation and its cherished freedoms. . .   This is not quite the Bicentennial -- which itself got caught up in budget problems and our first non-elected President.  It will certainly be better than the debacle of 1926, caught as it was between two world wars.  I might be better than the 1876 celebration.  But this is not a party and it is not even Trump's party.  It ought to be a moment in which we try to figure out again what freedom means and how to live out the legacy of liberty we have inherited.  But don't forget it is a holiday.

 

American ideals and values. . .

I do not keep up on such things so when I read an article about and viewed a video showing the more recent US embassies abroad, I was shocked.  They are not merely modernistic but ugly.  Instead of visually portraying the values of America, they are less than successful implementations of bad architectural ideas designed more to offend the eye than stimulate the mind.  If this is the best way we can spend our money, we are in bad shape.  For all the fuss about Trump's addition to the White House, where were these voices when our tax dollars were being wasted on ugly, banal, trite, and soon to be dated facades behind the workers doing our business around the world?

But, of course, this is not simply about embassies.  Government buildings around the nation have suffered the same problem.  They do not manifest the values of strength, stability, and a connection to our American past but make odd and icky statements about the architect.  It is positively embarrassing.   I wish it applied only to government buildings but it can be said of art galleries, music halls, schools, universities, and, yes, to churches.  We seem immune to taste when it comes to the buildings we construct.  There is no sense of what happens inside or there is the admission that to be functional it must also be ugly.  Beauty is an American ideal (O beautiful for spacious skies...) and one that should not be inconsistent with the public face of government and other institutions in our cities and in the cities of the world where Americans do our bidding.

BTW if you want to see a presidential library that epitomizes the brutal, harsh forms of bad taste, go to Chicago.  The Barack Obama Presidential Center opens to the public on June 19 but it has already been surrounded by controversy for its appearance and for its cost.  If you Google it, controversy will be the first thing to come up.  It is more than stark but a modern version of the harsh concrete forms of the past one would have thought discredited.  It has been called everything from a tomb to a tower of doom but it is the kind of look you might expect the publisher of George Orwell to have put on 1984.  The ordinarily friendly The New York Times called it “The Obamalisk.”  Clad in gray limestone, at a distance the tower is a textbook example of the bare concrete typical of the Brutalist style of architecture once thought passe.  It is an eight-story, windowless structure prison for the eye.

In the Church such lack of attention to beauty, proportion, and a space that befits the sacred ground of God's presence is unforgivable.  We build houses of God for the people of God rather seldom in the life of a congregation or a community of faith.  We ought to be it right when we do.  Why must we signal our disconnect with our past or display our ignorance of what happens within House of God when we do put up a new building?  I wish it were simply aesthetics but it is much more.  We define our buildings when we build them and then they define us for as long as they stand.  Churchill said it but it is obvious wisdom.  If we are going to be judged by our buildings, let us at least be judged by their eloquence and not by their ugliness.  Really? 

Creedal Christianity. . .

I suppose in some absolute sense, it is possible for a church body to maintain the orthodox Christian truth about God without explicitly being creedal but why?  Why would this even be sought as a possibility?  Why would an orthodox Christian group speaking of the Triune God refuse to speak the creedal confession of that God formed over time to expression the Biblical and eternal truth of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?  That is the mystery that I find so difficult to crack.

It leads to another question.  Is it possible to still be orthodox and catholic but say something very different from what has always been taught, so long as one does not explicitly deny an article of faith?  In other words, is it possible to speak differently of the Trinity without necessarily denying the doctrine of the Trinity?  To put it more generally, is it possible to separate clearly and cleanly the language and formulations of such a doctrine so essential to the definition of Christian without denying what the Church has always said over time?  That is a real question.  

For creedal Christians the connection between doctrine and its expression is solid and, if not concrete, so very tightly woven together that it is at least suspect if one insists upon the doctrine while trying to formulate a different expression of it.  So it raises a red flag when an individual or group insists upon the orthodoxy of their Trinitarian confession while at the same time distancing themselves from the creeds where from early days the Church has brought together what the Scriptures say so that it may be universally confessed.  Of course it does raise such a red flag.  The benefit of the doubt does not accrue to the person making that claim but insisting that doctrine and its expression are two very different things and refusing the historic shape of that doctrine in creedal form.

This is at the heart of controversies that plague us today.  It is not simply about the Trinity.  Everything from the rites practiced to those who are admitted to the altar rail are subjects that test the limits of the connection between doctrine and its expression or practice.  While it might seem that some who are suspicious of those who live on the edge of such a deep and abiding connection are attempting to control, the reality is that without the expression manifest to the doctrine, how is anyone to know whether the group is actually holding to the doctrine at all?  Those who refuse the creed must constantly be tested to see if the doctrine is in place without the expression.  Those who refuse the rites of the Church must be constantly tested to see if the doctrine is in place without the expression.  Those who refuse to practice the Biblical stewardship of the Lord's Table must be constantly tested to see if the doctrine is in place without the expression.  It is a never ending circle.  Without the expression, there is no confidence at all.

While it is true that even with the creeds, liturgy, and faithful practice of fellowship there might be and certainly can be errors -- words alone do not guard against error -- the place of the creed, the shape of the rites, and the regular practice of close(d) communion give the rest of us and the folks in the pew something to judge against and an implicit standard by which all practice is judged.  Without this expression and practice, there is only the endless question.  For the Church, it is not enough that the doctrine might be held but that it is held, confessed, and lived.  It is not enough for the faithful that the true and catholic faith might be believed but that it is confessed in the creed within the rite as well as in the confession of that body.  It is not enough for the faithful that a rite or the lack thereof might be still contain the faithful doctrine but that by the practice of the rite there is a formal expression of what is believed in which the faithful have confidence that what is given and received within that rite is catholic and apostolic.  It is not enough to have the regular practice (not speaking here of discretion which is always allowed in exceptional cases but not regular) be claimed without its formal expression to those who would approach the rail.  All of these insist that doctrine and its expression and its practice are all intimately connected and, while distinguishable, not essentially different.  We are our  creeds.  We are our rites.  We are our practices.