politics

Being a bishop today

One of the things I learned in seminary is that the church is where the bishops get together. That The Episcopal Church doesn’t truly exist except at General Convention, for instance. In this sense, it is all about the bishops.

Similarly, the role of the priest was as the bishop’s local representative. In practical terms, this is why the rector gets to sit in the Bishop’s Chair until the bishop comes to visit. The deacons, as described in Acts, represent the bishop’s appointed staff to outreach missions.

These descriptions of church are simple, but effective, I think, in conveying the relationship of the orders. What is lost in this description is the place of the episcopate in a changing world.

I have had the good fortune to work in two neighboring diocese that have similar theological interest in grass roots ministry and the role of the Baptismal Covenant. I have also observed bishops in both dioceses doing a lot of things that bishops of a different age would not have needed to do. This isn’t a product of their theology, but of an external and internal reality that has us constantly focused on scarcity. If you think we’re tired of talking about human sexuality, I can only imagine how tired they are!

The weak link in the church from an engineering perspective is at the point of contact. That place in which the church exists where the bishops are. In other words, the more pressure we place on the episcopate, the greater strain the entire structure takes. The more we place the episcopate in the position to do more with less, face an unfriendly media environment, and then come home to a diocese that demands leadership, the more likely the episcopate does not act according to its call and the more it lives in a reactionary mode.

In an episode of The West Wing called “The Drop In”, the president attends a fundraiser hosted by the environmental lobby and Sam writes a speech for the president that is intended to energize them . His speech is undermined by the senior communication’s officer, Toby, whose encourages the president to drop in an admonishment for their lack of policing their radical wing. The episode serves to show the depths that moderates have to go to please everyone, and the way this relatively liberal administration has to cover its butt.

What the episode really reveals, however, is how many in leadership succumb to overprotective behaviors in light of greater truths. Without the text that was ‘dropped in’, the president gains the enthusiastic support of one constituent group, which may lead to the slight irritation of another. With the “drop in,” on the other hand, the president irritates the one constituent group in their own home while hardly reducing the irritation of the other group. This political move, intended to keep the peace between two groups that are occasionally at odds ends up making nobody happy, when they could have walked away with at least one group happy.

The failed leadership demonstrated in the episode wasn’t intended to demonstrate failure, but the difficult circumstances this somewhat liberal president is under in the political climate of early 2001. I think it reveals more, however. It reveals the problem of centralized authority under which humans, more often than not, fail to live up to the leadership we ask of them. It reveals the problem of the perpetually defensive position; in which leaders, in an attempt to reduce stress and anxiety, actually create an environment that breeds it. It reveals the problem with leadership in the 21^st Century is that we have few good examples from which to draw.

If there is any problem in The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, it is centered squarely on the episcopate, precisely where the bishops are conditioned to want it.

I could write here about the move by the Archbishop of Canterbury to centralize authority under himself. How he is assuming a theological position of first among equals that would make him an Anglican pope.

I could write about overseas bishops that are trying to use the instruments of communion to, at one level, direct, and at another, punish the bishops of The Episcopal Church. These irritated bishops seem to have learned nothing from church history, and the places in which the church has attempted to act benevolently, but in practical terms, as tyrants.

I could write about bishops crossing borders and I could write about one bishop telling a second what s/he is supposed to believe and I could write about bishops writing new rules of the game in the ninth inning and I could write about bishops attempting to form an upper and a lower tier in Anglican Communion and I could write about bishops waging intercommunion war in the media, but…

I won’t.

Because the place in the mechanism where all of the pressure resides is at the bishops. Our House of Bishops showed courage to stand up and say what the Episcopal Church stands for. Some formally critical bishops came to General Convention and thanked the Episcopal Church for wading into the difficult waters. Bishops are looking at local budget compromises that are neither theological or strategic, nor are they political; they are necessary. Bishops are facing a church that already looks so different than the one in which they were raised, and they watch with eyes of reservation and excitement.

And because I am angry that bishops (and standing committees) short-sightedly did not approve the election of Bishop-elect Kevin Thew Forrester. And I am angry that the Archbishop is short-sightedly providing the stake that is wedging the Anglican Communion apart. And I am angry that we are approaching a time in which all will have to decide to ratify a document that will irrevocably change the very nature of the Anglican Communion, sacrificing our revered via media in favor of autocratic rule.

And two of the finest men, who live lives of honesty and integrity, whom I serve with pleasure and excitement, have the worst job in the church. It is a sad day when a lack of leadership on the part of the rest of the world, makes it so hard to be a bishop today. May God bless them and the work they do, helping bring the Kingdom nearer to the people of Michigan.

Jul 28, 2009
Finding the conservative voice
“The Conservative voice has left the church.” This is the statement so often repeated throughout the coverage of the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church.

As the argument goes, since 2003, virtually all of the conservatives have left and all that remains are a bunch of crazy liberals and a few loan voices crying out in the wilderness. If this were even remotely true, it wouldn’t be so laughable.

Somewhere between 7 and 10% of Episcopalians left the church in the last six years. That includes the attempted mass exodus of several dioceses. Let me now rerun the phrase: The conservative voice has left the church. Let’s do the math. 10 + X = 100%. So the conservative voice was only 10% of the church? Another phrase that was tossed around: “most of the conservatives have left.” Most implies the majority, so again using the upper maximum 10%, then as of 2002, conservatives accounted for 19% of the church. In other words, simple arithamatic discredits this argument wholesale.

So why have so few journalists done the math? And why is “most of the conservatives have left” a convenient excuse?

The inherent trouble has nothing to do with a ‘conservative voice’ or numbers of conservatives in our midst. It is with our understanding of who “owns” the church. In The Great Emergence, Phyllis Tickle calls this the greatest argument in any reformation era: the question of authority. But in our American, brutish and thuggish understanding of authority, the more appropriate word is ownership. This is the phrasing the ‘conservative voice’ of The Living Church uses when it bemoans the departure of “the orthodox”. Othodoxy (literally, ‘right belief’) has at its core, not only an implied certainty, but a strict sense of ownership, as in “we hold the right belief and therefore must lead the unorthodox”. When one claims that they posses ‘right belief,’ it inherently implies that differing theologies are wrong, and by small extension, heretical. This is the very volley lobbed at The Episcopal Church with regularity over those 6 years. It should read in the news as “small splinter group believes The Episcopal Church is run by a vast Left-Wing Conspiracy.”

Believe me, conservatives haven’t left the church. A few political ideologues have for sure. But walk into a rural or suburban Episcopal church and take a random sampling, asking these questions:
1. If money were no object, what would you want done to your church?
2. If your church burned to the ground, and you had millions of dollars to work with, what would you do?
You would no doubt get a wide variety of answers, especially in college towns and in areas of dramatic change. But for most Christians, and especially Episcopalians, I think the responses would look a lot like this:

1. If money were no object, what would you want done to your church?
- “Redo the roof.”
- “Fix the windows”
- “Install that elevator we’ve been putting off.”
- “Go crazy: get all new carpeting, restain the pews, and buy some brand new linens!”
- “Buy new choir robes; we’ve had these for 10 years!”
- etc.
2. If your church burned to the ground, and you had millions of dollars to work with, what would you do?
- “Rebuild it.”
- “Make a facility that meets our current needs.”
- “Tear down the Parish Hall, that’s what needs to be redone!”
Of course I’ve prejudiced the responses. I also know that the second question would get people to think outside the box, especially in terms of using the money to invest in mission, not a new church building. But what I don’t expect from either question is a truly radical (or liberal) response: let’s build something new. All of these responses represent the ‘conservative voice’ in the church, because even when the freedom to change for the better is given, the choice is to live with, fix, or replace.

If I were given unlimited funds, I would salvage a few beautiful things from this church, tear it down, and start anew, not only shaping it to our present needs, but trying to anticipate the needs of the future. This includes a worship space that allows for a liturgical team that is disabled, a facility that is flexible and can accommodate significant changes in attendance, and allows us to express the theology we profess. That’s a pretty liberal voice.

Go ahead and ask the people at your church this Sunday those two questions. I am utterly confident that the ‘conservative voice’ is alive and well. I dare you to prove me wrong!

NOTES and LINKS:

I have long-argued that we have over-simplified our understanding of liberalism and conservatism, especially since the 1990s, when sexual ethics became not only the center, but the exclusive province of the political debate. The church has similarly fallen prey to this misunderstanding of these classic terms.

One of the most misunderstood notions of the church’s role in the liberal/conservative debate is to occupy “the middle”. This is often interpreted narrowly to mean abstaining from debate or by not taking a stand for an issue that is perceived as liberal or conservative. This position, is, in its practical application, conservative. For instance in voting, the threshold requires 51% of quorum to vote YES. So not casting a ballot, leaving the room after quorum is established, or voting to abstain all count as voting NO. This applies the conservative ideology of maintaining the status quo. For more thoughts on the moderate position, visit here.

Lastly, I have written many wonkish blog posts about this subject on my other (political) blog. If you want to read extensively my understanding of political affiliations, visit this sequence here and here.
Jul 23, 2009
“Stop hitting yourself!”

You know the old form of teasing. The one where the bigger kid grabs your right arm and uses it to punch your left shoulder. “Stop hitting yourself!” he exclaims and then laughs. Then he does it again.

I can’t help but feel that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams is that teasing bully and The Episcopal Church is the one getting abused.

At General Convention, going on right now, a resolution D025 passed in the House of Deputies and in the House of Bishops. It now faces a review process before being confirmed, but the heavy lifting is done. The resolution states the heart and mind of The Episcopal Church like nothing that has come before. It is gorgeous, beautiful, stunning, and honest. It declares who we are as Episcopalians and I am glad to be one. To read it for yourself, go here.

The overly simplistic description of this is to say that the Convention affirms our process of discernment and that process is open to anyone of any stripe. For some, this is twisted (through bizarro-logic) to imply “bring on the gays!”. Overly simplistic and an utter distortion, but in a 24-hour news cycle, we come to expect distortion.

Here is where my image of the bully forcing the victim to hit himself while pinning the blame squarely on the victim’s shoulders (or hand as the case may be) comes into play. In this pretty fair article by Laurie Goodstein from the New York Times, the author attempts to place this resolution in a context. If you scroll all the way down to the end, notice who gets the last word: Abp Williams. Here is what he said to the Convention:

“Along with many in the communion, I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that will push us further apart.”

Putting this into a (il)logical argument:

People that are mad at you are quitting the team. Regardless of your authority, your arguments, or your good faith, you will be held solely responsible for their actions.

or

Even though you are the international whipping boy, if you keep proclaiming your innocence, we will have to continue scourging you. If only you’d confess, this would all go away.

or

You shouldn’t have worn that dress. You invited the sexual assault upon yourself.

And you secretly like it.

The illogic of these examples is proved by the very foundation of the Western judicial system. In this case, the burden of proof begins and remains on the part of the victim (to prove that s/he is the victim of a transgression). In this case, the victim switches, doesn’t it, because according to Abp. Williams and GAFCON and Akinola, etc., conservative Anglicans are the victims of a deep transgression. If they were to take the case to court, they would become the prosecution and TEC would become the defendent. In this arrangement, it would be up to the prosecution to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the defendent (TEC) was directly and solely responsible for a criminal transgression against the prosecution (conservative Anglicans). Since we have come to no clear conscensus and little agreement, the burden of proof still rests with them, even light of heavy-handed political documents like the Windsor Report.

So here is where the second half of the statement from Abp. Williams comes in:

“If we — if I — had felt that we could do perfectly well without you, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

Gee, thanks! That’s like saying “you know, you aren’t half as ugly as your sister!” What a compliment, Rowan!

The optimist in me says that this is the Archbishop’s acknowledgement that he needs TEC and that the Anglican Communion really can’t work without us. The pessimist in me points out that he’s thought about it, and he isn’t above cutting us off. This reveals a sinister and political side to Abp. Williams that he is ordinarly careful to conceal. That his theology of reconciliation can allow for separation. That preservation of the international church is more important than the very theology and scriptural authority he uses to defend his positions.

But mostly, it reveals a bully that figures that:

(hand+opposite shoulder) x hitting = culprit

What a strange way to see the world.

Jul 14, 2009
Chicken, Egg, or None of the above?

The often-missed lesson of the chicken egg argument is that it is virtually never the presenting issue.

Let me lay out the question so that we can see the problem:
Which came first:
the chicken
or
the egg?
At first blush, we can see in the question a simple matter of creation. In fact, it seems to get at the root of how we see the creation of everything: is it realized in a full form, or does it grow from a starting place?

The question then becomes the source of a creepy ideo-philosophical discussion about evolution, because we know better than to think either option fully encompasses the discussion. Obviously, before their was chicken or egg their was a proto-chicken that would evolve into the chicken we know today. This argument has played out in the classroom as children are held hostage in a so-called “war” between creationists and evolutionists. But that further muddies the water away from the original conundrum.

The question of eminence: who gets first crack at the world: seems ridiculously shallow in any context. Isn’t this reminiscent of the disciples in Mark 9:34, arguing over who is the greatest? Or of the audacious request of the Zebedee brothers a chapter later: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory”? And to push this analogy even further, do these images not represent an utter ignorance of Jesus’ ministry as well as a rejection of Jesus’ attempts to prepare the disciples for his death?

So what is the question of the chicken and egg really about? I might make this suggestion. Isn’t there a greater question about how these two elements of life served creation in its past, its present, and its future? What place does the egg have in the world and how does that compare with the place of the chicken? Can we not eat both of them? Can we not eat the egg as the product of the chicken? Can we not recognize the efficiency of the production process here?

This makes me think of a similar cliche: “it’s like apples and oranges”. Taken in this light, are they not both fruit? Are they not both edible and useful? And are they not better for us than a Whopper?

Perhaps it is in our nature to spend time in contemplation about the universe and its creation and order. Perhaps it is even useful (in some ways) to argue over the shape and purpose of all that is. But isn’t it of greater use to think about the ministry itself? Isn’t it far greater to speculate on the wonder of creation, rather than seek to define it? Isn’t that the wrong question?

May 28, 2009
Seminary Truths 101

I am currently reading Tony Jones’ The New Christians. It is as close as any book has come to describing the work of the emergent church in the current moment. It is a great book.

However, I did get to a section that I found deeply troubling. Throughout the book, Tony inserts Dispatches—a short description of a real person with real circumstances. These are people he has interviewed and written up a descriptor for them. These dispatches are intended to illustrate the point of the chapter. The chapter on theology ends with what he calls “Dispatch from Seminary: Legalisms of the Left”. I don’t intend to give an in depth description of this dispatch, but its basic premise. Jones describes a friend Bob, an Episcopalian, who was described as leaving behind “a successful career in marketing and consulting” to attend seminary. He lived in San Francisco, so the seminary of choice was no doubt the one nearby in Berkley. The long and the short of it is that Bob felt that this seminary was not only too liberal, but had its own sense of fundamentalism—that differences of opinion or thought were not allowed. After two years, he dropped out and moved to Austin, Texas.

Jones attempts to make this story about two things: institutionalism and politicalism. His point with the former is that the seminary’s primary interest is not training priests, but defenders of the church, guardians of the institution. And his point about politics is that the Left is as guilty of blind political ambition as the Right; that the institutionalized political stance is the secondary mission of the educational staff. I think Jones, like Bob, has missed the essential point of this story. The point, as best as I can see it, is not the problems inherent with seminaries—let alone this one—but with Bob’s preparedness and theological footing. As a recent seminary graduate, I can attest to the fact that the time before and during and after seminary is among the most emotionally and intellectually trying times of my life. You face previously unrealized truths about the church, scripture, and certainly the nature of God. More importantly, you are asked to face the truths about yourself—about who you are in the midst of this. You are asked to profess, not the church’s faith, but your own—what brought you to this moment—and to describe your call to ministry. I can’t help but wonder if Bob’s angst toward his experience in seminary isn’t simply a projection of his own confusion. Further, his location (San Francisco) should have prepared him for the politics of his seminary. That he reacted in this way seems to say less to me about the institution than it does about him.

A similar story can be found in David Brock. His book, Blinded by the Right tells, in part, of his time at the University of California (Berkley) in the mid-to-late 1980s. It is there that he switches political allegiances because of 1) the perceived excesses of the campus’s liberals and 2) the positivity of a staunchly conservative professor that mentored him. Brock’s story is, in fact, a tragic one of a rise to prominence in the conservative movement of the 1990s through hack journalism and his subsequent fall as his “friends” cannibalize his political career after he is outed as gay. Far from an indictment of the Left—or, to some degree, even the Right—this story served to expose the manipulative nature of the conservative movement at the time—and the degree to which it was willing to go to achieve absolute victory.

I see Bob’s case in light of David Brock’s—that his own personal baggage—about faith, spirituality, politics, decency, truth, etc.—is his primary source of angst. The location and institution merely expose it. His departure from seminary, though difficult, is probably what he needed. I hope that somewhere Bob is dealing with why he reacted this way, and so strongly.

I will examine the role seminary plays into this discussion in a future post, especially in light of our current need to re-examine the role seminary has in the church.

Further Reading:

Tony Jones. The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, (2008)

David Brock. Blinded By the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative, (2002)

Apr 28, 2009
Why shrinking is a good thing

A new story in the New York Times by David Streitfeld highlights an initiative underway in Flint, Michigan. The basic principle is to use the existing Land Bank to shrink the city.

The principle is this: the city’s footprint is too big for its foot. In the 1950s, some 200,000 people lived in Flint, and the city anticipated that it would grow to 350,000. Today, it is at 110,000. There are blocks of the city with noone living there and even more with only a few residents.

The plan is to orchestrate a mass reimagining of the city, inviting people to “trade up” to a new home in a better part of town and then return the old property to wilderness and green space.

It is definately worth a read, and the page includes an audio interview as well that is worth listening to. I think this is great stuff and should be taken up by other cities.

Apr 22, 2009
Doomed to repeat
A recent conversation with a friend gave me pause.

We were talking about history, and I think I was rambling about being a fan of “recent” history (perhaps more accurately described as an interest in cultural studies, but oh well). I then made these three statements (in paraphrase):
1. I’m interested in the post-World War II history.
2. I’m interested in WWI era history.
3. I’m not that into WWII: I think it has been over-examined / over-described / over-inflated.
And then it hit me like a freight train. We are doomed to repeat it. Of course, we aren’t doomed to repeat that in the same way, but we are doomed to create unnecessary horrors because we forgot to learn one simple thing: why.

Let me explain myself. World War II, as we all know, has several primary conflicts:
1. A European land / air war
2. An American / Japanese war
3. The Holocaust
Our perpetual focus on the Holocaust and the evil expressed by Hitler’s Nazi-controlled Germany certainly serves as a terrifying testament to the evil of which humanity is certainly capable.

At the same time, we neglect to examine why Hitler acted this way. We either smooth it over, simply suggesting that he is “pure evil,” making the moral of the story to avoid electing leaders with a simultaneous God and inferiority complexes. As if we could even pick a Hitler out of a lineup before he amasses power.

The other response is to hide our heads and suggest that because Hitler was evil, there is no point in determining why: as if his reasoning were so tainted, we could not possibly hope to gain anything from it. This is much more dangerous. We witnessed this line of argument after September 11, 2001: al-Qaeda gave us many reasons for these acts of murder, before and after, but we decided to ignore them.

What occurs to me, however, is that a new problem arises from this. Not only are we ignoring the simple, localized Why–the one that must have made sense in 1939 to this group or in 1941 to this group–but also the bigger Why. The Why that spawned the conditions that led to WWII, the uneasy European alliance, and the humiliation described by many Nazi sympathizers in the 1930s. The Why can be found, of course, in the Great War.

Now, the reason I said at the beginning that I was more interested in World War I is this: we can see in WWII the direct face of evil, whereas WWI is the quintessential example of human misunderstanding. Instead of personifying evil in a single national figure (Hitler), WWI possess a high level of moral ambiguity–no obvious “rights” and “wrongs”. It was believed at the time that it was the war that would end all wars, but it served, in some ways, as the benchmark by which the next war would need to surpass.

There are so many interesting aspects to the Great War, but let me use only these few components:
1. It began with a single assassination.
2. The countries involved were forced to mobilize in a show of strength.
3. The German military put into place a principle of “mobilization means war” (think: threats should be treated as threats–not bluffs)
4. After the war, France and Great Britain, operating from a place of hurt and vindictiveness, encouraged the United States to support harsh, draconian punishments on Germany.
The simplicity of the situation is made insufferable by our willingness to ignore it. Germany, the aggressor, was treated like a pariah and was therefore emboldened to reconstitute their military strength. Germany, the responder, was not only acting to protect and defend a weaker ally, but it was simply calling a bluff. France and Britain, the victims, used the international community to humiliate and dehumanize the German military. France and Britain, the defenders, responded to a hostile occupation of territory with a harsh rebuke in an attempt to make it so that this kind of war would never happen again. This, of course, planted the seeds that made Hitler’s climb to power incredibly easy. A similar relationship to conflict can be found in the last several decades in Israel, in which pro-conflict candidates have had a stranglehold of the top post, while pro-peace candidates are boxed out.

My point? By 1) focusing solely on the atrocity, 2) classifying it as evil, and 3) only occasionally asking why, 4) we set ourselves up to repeat the very conflict 5) by ignoring its precipitating causes.

The Holocaust doesn’t happen without WWI. And WWI served as a very different conflict from WWII.

What are our simple misunderstandings today? What are the things that will get us involved in a conflict now that will cause a greater atrocity tomorrow? Is it possible that we are already in the midst of part 1?

The church’s failure in WWII, especially, are well documented and obvious. But perhaps its time we learned our lesson from history.
Apr 22, 2009
12 things the Church can do to save itself

There are so many things that we do–right and wrong. Most of them go unexamined. The following list of twelve things is intended to shed a light on how we actually behave, and hopefully, reveal ways to make worthwhile changes.

12. be as we say
The cliché is to not only talk the talk but walk the walk; but I would alter the emphasis. For many Christians, they actually believe we are all walking the walk. So the emphasis shouldn’t be on the walk but on walking. We should operate continually as faithful people.

11. welcome the stranger
Another thought that everybody knows intuitively, but hardly do we think about what “welcoming” really implies. Not just sitting there and letting somebody sit there, too, but engaging and showing a kind heart to others.

I heard once that we read the parable of the Good Samaritan wrong. The context of the Samaritan to the Jewish people didn’t simply mean an outsider or outcast, wrongly accused and cast aside, but that Samaritans were a murderous and vile people, with a long history of brutality and inhumanity. That someone so evil could be found to be doing something good is truly revolutionary. If we are to overthrow the hypocrite label, we ought to recognize that we actually persecute evil and find ways to be charitable, despite our prejudice.

Now that we are recognizing that the undesirable is worthy of love, let’s recognize what it actually means to include a stranger into the group. How are we meeting their needs? What are they asking for that we can or cannot provide? Are we inviting them to even ask this question? And what are we doing to help transition someone from stranger-to-friend-to-partner?

10. treat children as the present, not the future
One of the things we assume is that our relationship as adults with children is that we have knowledge to impart on them and that they have to behave a certain way (also prescribed by us). Our theology tells us that children are full members of the church, but our practice tends to exclude them. So here’s the real suggestion: recognize that as children age, they are perpetual newcomers—seeing the church for the first time—and consummate life-long members—who can point out everything that is out of place. Children must be treated as both, today.

9. reflect on what is being said—sometimes with words
Apologies to St. Francis, but as he pointed out, we can communicate a great deal with our actions, not just our words. The truth is, we are already communicating something with our actions. What do we give the majority of time to? What do we focus on? How do we spend our money? What are our priorities? And what are we communicating when we do use words?

8. look in the mirror…but not too much

I don’t mean this in a vain way, I mean, actually look at the church. What do our buildings look like? Is our worship vital for the people that are here? How are people showing their devotion? If we don’t take time to examine ourselves and how we operate, we cannot possibly understand what others are trying to communicate when they stay home on Sunday morning.

When we look in the mirror, we tend to look at the same things—our hair, for instance. But it isn’t just our hair, it’s the part, or the hairs that are sticking up, or the cowlick that you can never do anything with. How much of our time is wasted on character flaws and not things that we are likely to be able to change? Are we too busy looking at our hair to notice the bags under our eyes? How did they get there? Did we get enough sleep or did we have a wild time last night? Or did we get up too early in the morning? Spending too much time in front of the mirror means that we aren’t spending enough time outside.

7. get out of the church building
We seem to spend all of our time around and in our church building. We put great care in its maintenance and incredible interest in how it is decorated. We gather every week to worship in the building. And yet—it seems to end there. We need to get out more and participate in the life of the community in a visible way.

6. realize that the more we cater to one group, the more others don’t feel welcome
The funny thing is that this isn’t a criticism. We love to be inclusive, so we talk a good game about having enough stuff for all people, but the truth is that niche markets aren’t always bad—we just have to realize that we are catering to a niche market and what that means. As the church gives more opportunities for seniors (its most prominent group), it gives fewer opportunities for youth and young adults. Planning programs during the day (9-5) means nobody but retirees is likely to show up. Planning programs late at night means that few seniors are likely to show up (or adults with young children that would otherwise be in bed). The point is that we should know who we are and who we want to be.

5. stop using free-market economic theory to direct congregational development
We must move away from operating our churches as if they were spiritual Wal-Mart stores. We don’t have a product to sell and we don’t want to pitch anything to willing consumers. Not only does this seem antithetical to our morals, but it runs counter to our theological foundation. In church terms, this means less focus on what ‘programs’ we are running and more interest in what living in community actually looks like. How can we actually live together and practice spiritual discipline?

4. children and youth are not a commodity
Similarly, we must stop seeing our children and youth as a commodity—something either extracted like oil from the ground or sold (or stolen from us) to an eager and hungry congregation. Not only must we allow children and youth to be a part of the church, we must help them demand that place—draw the passion for participation out of each one.

3. get rid of junk and salvage treasures
The church has a lot of trash: physical, emotional, and historical memory. We have collected practices that no longer matter to us—or have lost any sense of meaning; and yet we still do them. I joked with a friend after his ordination that, as he was offering the chalice, and saying “The blood of Christ, shed for you,” I was going to say (or dare his wife to say) “damn straight!” Of course he was glad that I did not (nor did his wife), but in some way, I was actually being serious—cheeky, but serious. The word ‘amen’ doesn’t have the same cache today, nor does it describe our spiritual response to God the way “damn straight!” would. If we got rid of all of our Christmas Pageants and Easter Egg Hunts and flowering crosses—what do you suppose we could do to spark our imaginations?

2. learn from the church’s mistake with Galileo
It is much easier for the church to lash out against what it doesn’t like—easier still in the Internet Age for individual Christians to call for the crucifixion of others—than for it to deal with reality. The problem is compounded by an irrational belief that it similarly cannot deal with being wrong. For Roman Catholics, this is especially difficult. But the truth is that we have done some incredibly nasty things and strangely, centuries go by before we apologize—let alone seek to amend for it. What do you think the impact on the world would be if we confessed to all of our sins in a timely fashion? What would it mean to those that don’t feel as if they could trust us? Is it possible that humility and a humble heart might actually work?

1. learn from Galileo himself
The theory that struck fear in the heart of Rome: that the earth is not the center of the universe: is an essential analogy for us today. Virtually everything above is dealing with the notion that perhaps Christians and the Church itself, is not the center of the universe. That we, in fact, revolve around the sun (or son). That we not only are failing, but have failed. That we are not the only ones that revolve around the sun, either—there are many planets—7 more, in fact. We are just lucky enough to inhabit life. This analogy is about reorienting relationship. It could also be described this way: instead of seeking ways to attract young people to church, perhaps we should find ways to be relevant to young people.

Apr 8, 2009