Friday miscellanies

A few notes of interest on this Friday:

-- I didn't know about the GAFCON meeting in Jerusalem, made up of conservative Anglican bishops, until a friend told me about it at a wedding reception last weekend. GAFCON stands for Global Anglican Future Conference, and it is being attended by a lot of African bishops who will not attend the upcoming, once-per-decade Lambeth Conference later this year. (The New York Times has an informative article about it here.) I will be curious to read about what influence GAFCON will have on Lambeth later this year, but I cannot imagine that such a meeting is going for the long-term unity of the Anglican Communion. Even if schism is not what they are intending, holding such a large gathering in the way that they are certainly has schismatic overtones. Daniel McClain Hixon has started blogging about GAFCON, so check in on his Gloria Deo blog in the coming days to see what he has to say about it.

-- Luke Wetzel at the It's a Mad Mission ... Sign Me Up blog alerted me to Adam Hamilton's new project of planning to visit every Annual Conference in order to do training sessions in leadership, preaching, and evangelism over the next six or seven years. Adam tells about the plan on his own blog in this post. For those of you who don't know, Adam is the pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, one of the largest churches in the entire connection. (You can read his bio at the church's website here.) He is a great pastor within the UMC, and I think he does as good a job as anyone at showing how megachurches can be a positive force in the larger church. He's also written a number of books that have been influential over the past few years. This new project is one of the most interesting things I've ever seen him attempt, in that he is essentially seeking to exercise the teaching office connection-wide - a role that has historically been reserved for bishops. (Luke Wetzel deals with this issue explicitly in his blog post, pointing out that Adam's references to Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke suggest that his desire to exercise a general superintendency over the church is evident.) This could clearly be controversial. Regardless, I'm glad he's doing it and I hope every Annual Conference will invite him to attend. Our actual bishops do wonderful ministry, but by and large the structure of the church is such that they have to spend almost all their time administrating and very little time actually teaching. Perhaps Adam can offer a different model of episcopal leadership that will open up new possibilities for us. That alone would be sufficient fruit of his new project, but I suspect it will do a lot more good than just that.

-- That sleepy-looking cat over on the right-hand side of this post is Lulu. She may be one of the gentlest, most docile creatures God has ever put on this earth. But Emily and I have discovered something new and quite shocking about her in the past few weeks: She is a holy terror on the mole population of our backyard. Since the weather has started really getting warm, we haven't had a week go by without Lulu dispatching a mole or two. Since she has been raised by people from her kittenhood, she has no idea what to do with them once she kills them. But the ancient wildcat instinct she carries around deep inside of her is plenty to cause her to dispense justice on the little critters when she can get her paws on them. The upside: We have no more mole tracks in our yard. So I guess she's finally earning her Cat Chow.

1000 Words

This is a picture of the front gate of the campamento of the Igelesia Metodista in Tambo de Mora, near Chincha, Peru. The photo of the gate was taken by Hendrix College student Grace Yokem, after the Hendrix mission team finished painting it. The young girl in the picture lives in the community and participates in the church's activities in the campamento.

They say a picture tells 1000 words, and I think this is a good example of that. This old gate, for me, is a symbol of the Methodist Church's work in the area. Tambo de Mora is a struggling fishing community where endemic poverty and substance abuse make for a hard childhood for many kids. It's not the kind of place you'd plant a megachurch, I can assure you. But just like that tough old gate, the Methodist Church under the leadership of my friend, Pedro Uchuya, has stuck with the community in good times and bad (including the severe earthquake last August, which hit Tambo de Mora hard). There is now a new church as a part of the campamento facility, and an active feeding ministry provides nourishment every Saturday and Sunday to over 50 hungry kids. An already-planted orchard inside the campamento's walls will eventually provide fresh fruit to the community, and the area is also used as a place where kids can gather in safety to hang out and play soccer.

I've rarely been anywhere that I saw the Holy Spirit more plainly at work than in that campamento. The kids who live there, and the adults who give so much of themselves in ministry, provide signs of the coming kingdom. I thank God daily for my connection to them.

Theology of Mission

If you read this blog regularly, you know that I spent most of May in Chincha, Peru. When I talk to people about my ongoing work in Peru, I am often challenged about why I go at all. "What about needs closer to home?" I am often asked. "Isn't there plenty for the church to do here?"

The answer to that is "of course." There are more needs close to home than we will ever be able to meet. That's the nature of the world in which we live. But I also think there are very strong reasons for engaging in mission with the global church. Perhaps the main one is that, when you meet fellow Christians from other parts of the globe, wonderful relationships develop. I have one such relationship with the Rev. Pedro Uchuya in Peru, and I consider him a true spiritual mentor and brother in Christ.

But beyond that, there are some real reasons related to the nature of the church and the nature of salvation that call us to be in mission with our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. The church is a global body, after all, and it simply won't do to resort to some kind of localism (or nationalism) when it comes to the way we go about being in ministry. Just because there is a call to be in ministry in local communities does not mean that we can't also be in ministry with other parts of the world. For places like the United States that are particularly blessed with material resources, that is important to remember.

Another reason I think it's important to engage in mission is that doing so helps to move us outside of our cultural bubbles and into a mode where we are more open to being transformed by God's grace. Going far away from home, into a different cultural context where (oftentimes) a different langauge is spoken, can be a jarring experience. But it is in that very experience that we are opened up to the wonderful things God is doing in the church. Without our crutches of comfortability, we have to rely on God's grace - which, in reality, is all we've got anyway!

I write about moving "out of the bubble" through mission in my current column in the United Methodist Reporter. In the article, I reflect on why I think foreign mission is important with specific reference to my recent trip to Peru. I'd be curious to hear what you think about mission as well. And I would be interested to hear about your own mission trips (and larger missional relationships) and what you think is important about them. Peace ~ !

What is an evangelical?

What the heck is an evangelical?

I wrote this blog post a couple of years ago about stereotyping evangelicalism, and I readily claimed an evangelical identity for myself. What I did not include in that blog post was any kind of real description of what it means to be a Wesleyan evangelical (although that's really what the substance of the post was about). As a people who trace their roots to the evangelical revival in England in the 18th century, Methodists should be wary of anyone who wants to pigeonhole the identity of evangelicals into a certain political persuasion or ecclesial affiliation.

So I was a little disappointed to read the comments of author Christine Wicker, who was interviewed recently in the United Methodist Reporter about her new book, The Fall of the Evangelical Nation. I don't know exactly how Ms. Wicker would define evangelical, but it is clear in the interview that her working understanding isn't exactly nuanced. The way she uses (and conflates) terms like Religious Right, evangelical/evangelicalism, exclusivist, and fundamentalist suggests that she has a pretty narrow concept of what constitutes an evangelical.

I think Ms. Wicker is playing into the way in which the media has unfairly stereotyped public perceptions of evangelicalism. But in a way, she is also representing a long-standing attitude within mainline Christianity, which has long seen evangelicals as lower-class, unsophisticated, and uncouth.

Frankly, that's an attitude I would like to stop. In this blog post last year, for instance, I talked about what it means to be a Methodist believer. Going back in our history, John Wesley understood the definition of a true Methodist as one who pursues holiness of heart & life. Wesley certainly understood himself as an evangelical. For a true Wesleyan today, you might say that the very definition of an evangelical is someone who is intentionally seeking to respond to God's grace so that he can be transformed (sanctified) by the work of the Holy Spirit - and furthermore, who seeks to share that wonderful gift with others through works of piety and works of mercy.

Consider also that in Peru, all Protestants call themselves evangelicals. In fact, that's the word they use to describe the alternative to "Catholic" - not "Protestant" but rather "Evangelical." (For instance, when I was in Peru in May, I had a conversation with a friend who said, "My family has been evangelical for 5 generations," meaning that they had been Methodist for that long.) Our Peruvian brothers and sisters use the word in its original Reformation sense, which, when you think about it, is really a more positive term than "Protestant."

The key to using a word with such a rich and complex meaning as "evangelical" is to use it carefully, and that's what bothered me about Christine Wicker's comments in her interview. Not only is it not fair to evangelicals to simply equate them with fundamentalists, it does a real disservice to the evangelical tradition of which Methodists are an important part.

I'd be interested to hear your comments about your perception of the word "evangelical" and whether you understand yourself to be one.

Two articles worth reading

Eric Van Meter has got a new article in the United Methodist Reporter as a part of his "In Therapy" series that takes a creative look at how young adults relate to the UMC. In his ususual, insightful way, Eric takes aim at how the church tends to want to "package what it values" so that young adults will buy into it. The problem, as he sees it, is that what the church is packaging (or re-packaging) is oftentimes a "connectional web" of structures, processes, and institutional forms that offer little sustenance to the hunger that young adults feel for true Christian community.

He doesn't say it exactly this way, but I think a lot of what Eric is talking about is the way in which the church so often tries to offer a program for something that can really only be lived. What young adults want is what the grace of the Holy Spirit teaches them to want, deep in their souls: sacrificial discipleship in a community of Jesus' friends.

Also, I don't know how I missed this one, but John the Methodist (of Locusts and Honey blog fame) also has a really good, short article in the Reporter where he looks at the issue of calling in ministry. Countering the oft-heard statement that you should "only go into ministry if you can't see yourself doing anything else," John cites numerous biblical examples of calling where figures such as Elijah and Jeremiah remained faithful to the calls even when their own lives would have been made easier by doing something else.

I would want to qualify John's closing statement: "Those of us who serve in full-time ministry ... do not do so because we find it blissful. We do so because we are called." In one sense, he's right - but only if you define 'blissful' as the kind of sugary, superficial consumerist gratification that the world names as happiness. For that matter, the article's title: "A calling: not the same as happiness" evokes the same distinction (only with 'happiness' instead of 'blissful').

It may be the case that calling or vocation should be understood not through the world's definitional claims but rather through the new meanings for words like happiness, bliss, joy, and love that we learn when we are formed in the community of the church. The Johannine account of what it means to be a follower of Jesus is key in this changed understanding. Take, for instance, Jesus' words to the disciples in John 15:15: "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." There, we have an example of how Jesus' calling on the disciples opens up new meanings to them - specifically, they know Jesus himself in a new way, and that will change the whole lens through which they view the world.

Another Johannine example is in 1 John 3:16 - "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." Again, in our day to day lives, we don't often equate love with sacrifice unto death. But here, we have love redefined for us - and this has connections to what we ultimately understand happiness and joy to be.

So I think calling can and does bring real happiness. But only if we understand what real happiness is all about. I would go so far as to say that the experience of ministry is sublime. The practice of ministry itself is a means of grace that can open up levels of deep joy and love one would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

John, I hope your time away from L&H has been restful. You are missed.

Glory to God the Father

This seemed appropriate for Father's Day (or Mother's Day or any day) ...

"My dear young friends, like the seven men, 'filled with the Spirit and wisdom' whom the Apostles charged with care for the young Church, may you step forward and take up the responsibility which your faith in Christ sets before you!

"May you find the courage to proclaim Christ, 'the same yesterday and today and forever' and the unchanging truths which have their foundation in Him. These are the truths that set us free! They are the truths which alone can guarantee respect for the inalienable dignity and rights of each man, woman, and child in our world - including the most defenseless of all human beings, the unborn child in the mother's womb. In a world where, as Pope John Paul II, speaking in this very place, reminded us, Lazarus continues to stand at our door, let your faith and love bear rich fruit in outreach to the poor, the needy, and those without a voice..."

- Pope Benedict XVI, speaking in Yankee Stadium, April 20, 2008

The Hendrix debate: a recap

I'm home from Annual Conference now, trying to get caught up after a very interesting few days in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I know I've spilled a lot of ink on this blog discussing the Hendrix issue over the past few weeks, but I wanted to share a few thoughts on the results of the debate that occurred Wednesday morning on the floor of the conference. After this post, I'll get back to my usual fare of Gen-X, church-related posts.

The debate on the proposed changes to the Hendrix charter took place the last morning of the Annual Conference session, but the preparations for that debate took up a lot of my time from Sunday evening through Tuesday night. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can read the posts over the past couple of weeks to acquaint yourself with the issue).

I got some good advice on Monday morning from Dr. Rebekah Miles, an elder in the Arkansas Conference and a professor of ethics at Perkins School of Theology, who told me that if I had any expectation of winning the vote, I would need to build a coalition. That task fell primarily to Danny Redding-Rhodes and myself, who both came into the conference session as advocates of a continued strong clergy presence on the Hendrix Board of Trustees. What we found (partially to our surprise) was that there were a whole lot of folks at the conference - laity and clergy alike - who felt the same way. Some of them were people like us, i.e., young clergy types who graduated from Hendrix. But many of them were people like Beka Miles, who have been involved with the Annual Conference for much longer and who just couldn't understand the clergy trustees' reasoning in advocating for a diminished clergy presence on the Board.

So what I basically did on Monday and Tuesday was to talk to anyone who was interested about what a reduced church connection on the Board might mean for long-term relations between Hendrix and the Arkansas Conference. We also talked about a compromise resolution, that would either ask the Board to raise the total number of trustees or suggest that the 5 spots being debated would be reserved for clergy but could be drawn from around the connection (rather than just from the Arkansas Conference). I mostly did not have to seek out people to talk to; instead, they kept finding me! I'll admit that there were a few folks who seemed to side with the clergy trustees' position simply because they were respected, established voices in the Annual Conference. That was a little frustrating; I am an advocate of heeding the voice of wisdom and experience, I also don't think that it should be an excuse for shutting off reason.

When Wednesday morning came, the debate that happened was the liveliest moment in a session that was otherwise dominated by reports and presentations. Those of us who opposed the measure were given 3 speeches of 3 minutes each. Our speeches were made by the Rev. Fred Haustein (pastor of St. James UMC in Little Rock), Karen Millar (a layperson from FUMC in Searcy, AR, who has been a delegate to General Conference), and myself. The clergy trustees actually had 5 opportunities to speak in favor of the proposal: there were the 3 "pro" speeches, but they were sandwiched in the middle of a two-part presentation by the Rev. Bud Reeves, who was the clergy trustees' representative in arguing for the proposal. Following the speeches, Danny Redding-Rhodes moved that the vote be held by written ballot rather than by voice. He gave an eloquent explanation of why such a method was needed, which was primarily so people could truly vote their conscience (the bishop, after all, was one of the named supporters of the trustees' presentation and was mentioned in Bud Reeves' closing remarks). No one spoke against Danny's motion, and it passed by probably 85-90%.

After the votes were tallied, the trustees' proposal passed by a count of 338 in favor to 253 against. We did all we could, but in the end we just got beat. Thus, as clergy rotate off the Board of Trustees, the five newly-freed up positions will be filled in a much different way than before.

Overall, this was a very good experience for me. I learned a little more than I knew before about the politics of the Annual Conference, and I also got to experience about how Christians of goodwill can disagree and still remain friends afterward. I think that both sides of the debate truly attempted to go about the politics of the situation in a Christian manner, and that is very important.

Some final thoughts:

-- I had a few people tell me after everything was said and done that this debate was much different than previous Hendrix debates. In the past, the debate is usually between a 'pro-Hendrix' faction and an 'anti-Hendrix' faction, and it can turn quite vicious. The debate this year was really between two 'pro-Hendrix' groups, and many folks thought that the disagreement itself served as proof that there is still a lot of passion left for the Hendrix College-Arkansas Conference relationship. So in a sense, even the defeat of our efforts revealed a small victory. I hope that the passion for Hendrix will grow and will help keep Hendrix within the church's fold over the long term.

-- The debate would have been a lot closer if the 'anti-Hendrix' people in the Annual Conference had simply stayed on the sidelines and not voted. As it was, the clergy trustees' greatest allies in the vote were the very people who would like to see Hendrix completely disassociate from the church. (And yes, that ought to tell you something about the value of the trustees' argument that the charter change will actually strengthen Hendrix's UM connection). Take for instance this e-mail sent to me from an admitted 'anti-Hendrix' Arkansas pastor: "I voted with you although many in my group voted against. Their reasoning was that a diminished number of Arkansas clergy will separate us further from Hendrix and lead to our ultimate separation - which in their opinion (and mine to be honest) is a good thing. I think we have started down that road. Good effort though. I was impressed by your arguments. Many who voted against you were voting against a connection with Hendrix." Now that e-mail is simply remarkable to me. I hope the Hendrix folks realized how much they were pleasing their erstwhile opponents.

-- I learned that it is very, very difficult to oppose the powers-that-be in any situation like an Annual Conference session. The list of people on the Hendrix Board of Trustees who supported the charter proposal included the bishop, our current episcopal candidate, the director of conference ministries, two district superintendents, and a collection of some of the most respected large-church pastors in the conference. Heck, I respect those folks an awful lot myself! But though everything was conducted civilly and with an attempt at fairness, there were some subtle ways that our position was at a disadvantage simply because of who they are compared to who we are. That's just tough to overcome, when you are already working against the inertia that exists to vote with what the college wants to happen. I don't know the answer to this, except that it proves Beka Miles' advice about coalition building, and even when you do that it will often not be enough.

-- Politics, even church politics, is about a whole lot more than the arguments at hand. The arguments undergirding the charter proposal that the Board of Trustees was pushing were not particularly good arguments. In fact, they were largely weak. We were able to answer each one of them, such that they were either exposed as flimsy in and of themselves, or else they were easily answered with reference to ways Hendrix's goals could be met without reducing the number of Arkansas clergy trustees. And then we proceeded to get beat by 85 votes. All the stuff I mentioned above had a bearing on that final vote, plus plenty else. Making good arguments is key, but it ain't enough by itself.

-- The relationship between Hendrix College and the Arkansas Conference could have a very bright future. I'm no doom-n-gloom guy, regardless of the fact that my position got beat. Do I think the charter revision will hurt the college-church relationship down the road? Yep. I would be pretty foolish for having taken the stand I did if I didn't think that. But the clergy trustees I spoke to both before and after the debate are honestly convinced that the connection could grow in new and exciting ways, regardless of how many clergy trustees there are. Who knows? Maybe they're right. And in the meantime, the work that campus ministers like the Revs. Wayne Clark and J.J. Whitney are doing at Hendrix will continue, and that's a good thing.

So for those of you who have been wondering when this seemingly interminable debate would terminate, that time has come. I admit I've been dealing with some real feelings of let-down and depression over the past two days, but that will pass. It's time to move on.

[Note for conspiracy theorists: If you want to read something that will drive your conspiracy radar nuts, check out the online interview with Alex Khalaf, this past year's president of the "Hendrix Humanist Association," in this Secular Student Alliance newsletter from October 2007. In it, Mr. Khalaf reports that a Hendrix Board of Trustees member sent him an e-mail congratulating him on the founding of his atheistic organization and wishing him good luck in being able to "advance the cause of enlightenment" in the Hendrix community.]

A reply to clergy trustees

This year's session of the Arkansas Annual Conference begins tomorrow in Hot Springs. That means that the proposed changes to Hendrix College's charter, designed to reduce the elected Arkansas Conference clergy members on the Board of Trustees from 10 to 5, will be taken up very soon. I brought attention to this issue through this blog post on May 28th. In it, I linked to an article I wrote opposing the proposed changes in the Arkansas United Methodist, which explains why the changes are a bad idea.

Then, in this blog post a week later, I linked to a letter the clergy trustees have written in response to my article. That letter has now been published in the most recent (June 6th) issue of the Arkansas United Methodist, together with a column by the Rev. Bud Reeves, who is one of the Hendrix clergy trustees. Both those articles attempt to respond with reasons why the proposed changes should be passed by the Annual Conference.

Let me say first off that I deeply respect all the clergy men and women who serve on the Hendrix Board of Trustees. For anyone who knows these folks, a quick glance at the list is all it takes to realize that these are some of the most beloved and respected pastors in Arkansas. Their collective wisdom and pastoral experience far outstrip my own. Some of the people on the list are among my close friends and mentors. So I approach this task with more than a little bit of fear and trembling.

But regardless, I think it is important to respond once more on this blog, for those of you who are following the debate. We need to examine the method of reasoning that the clergy trustees are using. Doing so, I contend, will show that it is deeply flawed. Since the clergy trustees' letter and Rev. Bud Reeves' column cover the same ground in pretty similar ways, I will deal with the issues they raise together. I you would like to download a version of the following response in a Word document, you can do so here. Okay, on to the matter at hand...

The trustees' letter takes issue with the title of my article, which suggests that the future of the Hendrix - UMC connection is "uncertain". The clergy trustees then proceed to describe many of the good church-related activities that are going on currently at the college. I am aware of these ministry efforts, and they are encouraging to me. In fact, I believe in them so much that I have joined in them several times over the past few years, including taking leadership roles in four Hendrix mission trips, preaching at a Hendrix chapel service, meeting with the 'Future Preachers of America' ministry group, and speaking at a 'Tuesday Talks' vocational luncheon. It is nice for the clergy trustees' letter to point out this work (which is largely directed out of the chaplain's office by the Revs. Wayne Clark and J.J. Whitney), but it entirely misses the point of why I suggest that the future of the college-church relationship is uncertain in the first place. The reason the relationship is rendered uncertain is exactly because of the proposed action of the Board of Trustees, which substantively and permanently diminishes the Arkansas Conference's connection with the college.

Since the clergy trustees' letter takes issue with the title of my article, allow me to take issue with the title of theirs. The title of their letter reads, "Hendrix trustees: proposal enriches college/church relation". As justification for this claim, the text of the letter states that the revised charter will allow the college to "broaden the participation of United Methodists by drawing in lay leaders and by making space on the board for clergy representation from beyond the Arkansas Conference." The letter then goes on to do what every clergy trustee or Hendrix administration official with whom I have spoken or e-mailed has done: Situate the context for the proposed changes in the issue of Hendrix's desires for growing national prominence.

This reasoning implies two things that are simply incorrect: First, that the language of the current Hendrix charter inhibits Hendrix from drawing in 'lay leaders' and 'clergy representation from beyond the Arkansas Conference'. And secondly, that a permanent change to the charter is necessary in order to 'make room' for these supposedly underrepresented groups.

In truth, there is nothing in the Hendrix charter that keeps the college from asking nationally prominent UM clergy or laity from serving on the Board of Trustees. Ironically enough, the clergy trustees' letter itself admits that 18 of the current 30 lay trustees are United Methodists. That, in and of itself, shows that there is ample room on the Board for lay United Methodists. And if the Hendrix administration wants more, it can simply ask some when current non-UM trustees rotate off. Likewise, if the need is for more nationally-prominent UM clergy, then the Hendrix administration should simply seek some of them out.

In much the same way, there is no reason that a change in the charter is necessary for Hendrix's rise in national prominence. The real problem behind this aspect of the debate is the subtle suggestion that we are dealing with a zero-sum game. That is, the clergy trustees are suggesting that a growth in national prominence (coupled with a large number of national figures on the Board) requires a diminishing of the Arkansas Conference presence. There is no reason why this should be the case. If the idea is for there to be a true enrichment of the college-church relationship, then the best way to do it is to maintain the current strength of the Arkansas Conference relationship while finding creative ways to add trustees from other areas of the country.

A change of the magnitude to the Hendrix charter we are being asked to consider requires that a compelling case be made to the Annual Conference for that change. We have seen no such compelling case.

Since the Arkansans who are delegates to the Arkansas Conference are going to have to grapple with an argument by 10 Arkansas clergy trustees, who will try to convince them why 5 of those same trustees shouldn't exist, let me close with some thoughts on the importance of the relationship between the Arkansas Conference and Hendrix College.

Consider how our lives are only meaningful insofar as they arise out of a story, which we are given and in which we live. We don't just hatch out of eggs, ready and able to take on the world from our births. We are the products of families and communities and traditions, and we do not have the freedom to divorce ourselves from those sources of our identity. We can try to do so, but the result will leave us with lives that are morally unintelligible and based on the arbitrary of emotive choice. We Christians, of all people, should realize this. We are the ones who have been grafted like a wild olive shoot onto the tree of Israel, who "now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root" (Romans 11:17). The branch forgets its rootedness in the tree at its peril.

Hendrix's connections to the United Methodist Church of Arkansas (and its predecessors) are not generalized and conceptual; they are historical and concrete. Many of us have heard the stories of Captain W.W. Martin's role in bringing the college to Conway and his financial subsidies that kept the doors open in difficult times. We all know the high number of clergy who have served as college presidents. We can look back in the college's history and see how much investment the People called Methodists in Arkansas have made to Hendrix, allowing it to grow into the great college it is today. This is the story that Hendrix arises out of, and it is what gives the college its identity.

In addition, in the opening section of the Hendrix charter, we see that historical and concrete connection through the express purpose of the college's existence. Article 1, Section 3 states, "The purpose of the corporation shall be (1) to own and operate a co-educational college at Conway, Arkansas, and such other schools, academies, and colleges at Conway or elsewhere as may be deemed advisable; and (2) to carry out the plans, past and future, of the Conferences of the United Methodist Church in Arkansas for the development of Christian education through this institution." That statement strikes me as remarkable. Hendrix College has a two-fold purpose etched into its very charter, and that purpose is to be a college and to be related to the UMC in Arkansas for the purpose of Christian education. In that sense, the argument about Hendrix's growing national prominence is contrary to the college's very purpose for existence if such prominence comes at the expense of its Arkansas church ties.

I am a strong proponent of increasing Hendrix's national prominence, so long as that growth does not come at the expense to the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church. The reason I am compelled to oppose the proposed charter revisions is that they would, in a real and concrete sense, diminish that connection. But then again, I don't think this is an either/or issue. I think it should be entirely possible to grow in national prominence and grow in the sense of the Arkansas Conference connection. The key issue is how we go about doing both.

I admit that there is a certain oddity to being a clergy person opposing a course of action that all the clergy people on the Hendrix Board of Trustees support. You might ask, "Don't they know better what path Hendrix should take?" And here I think it is important to note the reason that the Hendrix Board of Trustees has to take proposed charter revisions before the Annual Conference in the first place. The constitution of Hendrix's governance is set up so that the church has some guiding oversight to major projects or changes the college wants to make. The presence of clergy trustees is one aspect of that oversight. But the requirement to take proposed revisions to the Annual Conference is another. As a member of the Annual Conference and an alumnus of the college, I think it is both appropriate and helpful for us to consider a perspective different from one that would substantively and permanently reduce the Arkansas Conference - Hendrix College connection. When delegates to the Annual Conference prepare to vote on this issue, I hope they'll consider what the long history between the college and the church in Arkansas means and how voting 'yes' to the proposed revisions would affect that relationship in the future.

Obama as the Democratic nominee

As the results come in for the final Democratic primaries of the season, CNN is projecting that Barack Obama is going to have enough delegates to push him over the top in the race for the Democratic nomination. That means that Senator Obama is, in fact, the presumptive nominee from the Democratic Party for president of the United States. That, in and of itself, is a hugely historic moment. Whether you consider yourself a Democrat, a Republican, or something else, the fact that Senator Obama is going to be the nominee for president in the general election is (as Wolf Blitzer just mentioned) an example of "history unfolding" in our nation's long political story.

This blog is called Gen-X Rising, and it purports to comment on issues concerning Gen-X'ers and their connections to faith, church, and community. One of the CNN commentators made a really interesting comment just a few minutes ago when he compared Sen. Obama to recent presidential candidates like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and George W. Bush. He identified all those guys as 'Baby Boomers' and he said something to the effect that "Obama is something different. He comes after all those guys." The commentator pointed to all the questions about the Vietnam war that have followed those other candidates throughout the years, and he suggested that, because such a question does not apply to Obama (who was too young for Vietnam), he is in another category. This commentator did not mention Generation X, but that is the group he was presumably talking about.

That leads to a question: Is Barack Obama a Baby Boomer or a Gen-X'er?

Most estimates of the years that encompass the Baby Boomers look at those people born from around 1946 to 1964/1965. Unlike the difference between Generation X and the Millennial Generation (which is purely based on a distinction of perceived cultural separation and the standard measure of 18 to 20 years for a generation), the Baby Boomer generation is actually based on demographics. When American G.I.'s returned from World War II, there was a sharp increase in the number of births in this country (a trend that probably had as much to do with the end of the Great Depression as it did with the end of World War II). And that trend continued until the mid-1960s (when divorce rates increased and widespread contraception had an impact on the birth rate).

Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961. That means that, by any measure I've ever seen of the generational boundaries, he is a Baby Boomer. He's a very late Baby Boomer, and he is certainly a Boomer who was too young to be affected by the military draft or by Vietnam. But he's still clearly a Boomer.

Then again, there's something that seems really Gen-X about him. I think this is what the commentator on CNN was picking up on. There is something about Obama that doesn't seem to fit with the Clintons, Bushes, and Gores of the political world. Whether it's his race, his personal history, the crowds he attracts, or his "Change we can believe in" message, there's just something that just seems to identify Sen. Obama with Gen-X'ers (and even Millennials).

In exactly this way, I think this quality of Obama marks him as a transitional figure in the history of the United States. It is, in some ways, similar to the role that Bill Clinton played in 1992. At that time, you had a Greatest Generation figure (and World War II veteran) - George Bush the elder - as the sitting president. He had followed a generationally similar figure in Ronald Reagan. But Bill Clinton was not from the Greatest Generation; he was clearly a Baby Boomer. And the country's choice of him over Bush was a sign of the passing of the torch, in a generational sense. When Clinton was elected over Bush, the leadership of the country had passed from the generation that won World War II to the Boomers.

Now here is Obama. Like I said, he is still a Baby Boomer. But look at the clear cultural differences between he and Hillary Clinton (and especially John McCain). Chronologically, he is a Baby Boomer. But influentially, he is Gen-X'er and Millennial through and through. And so I think this night marks something significant in the history of the country. In terms of presidential politics, the Baby Boomers didn't even last a generation (just 16 years, assuming Obama can beat McCain in November). Now it is time for the Generation X'ers to lead.

(God help us.)

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[Update: If you'd like to read CNN's next day report on Obama capturing enough delegates to secure the nomination, you can read it here.]

Too many screens

Long day, lots of e-mails. The upcoming issue of the proposed changes to the charter of my alma mater, Hendrix College, has consumed me somewhat over the past few days. Through blogging, e-mailing, and telephone conversations, I have spent a lot of time on this issue. I'm really happy that people are taking notice and taking the time to get in touch. That's a good sign. On the other hand, I haven't been doing much else!

I want to take a break from the Hendrix discussion to point to my new column in the United Methodist Reporter. I've missed a couple of issues because of the Reporter's heavy coverage of General Conference, but Gen-X Rising returns in the newest issue with my piece on 'Bucking the TV tendency'. In this article, I look at the role that our connection to electronic screens plays in our day-to-day lives.

This might seem like a non-issue at first glance, but I think it has a pretty profound effect on the way we think about human relationships. Whether it is your cell phone, iPod, laptop, or whatever, the screen that you communicate with throughout the day is designed to make your life more pleasurable/convenient/ easy. But the thing about your interaction with screens is that you are always the master, and the relationship is always one-way (in the sense that you can control the screen you are using or turn it off when you want).

Because we are so formed as human beings by our daily habits, the role that electronic screens plays in our lives has repercussions for how we understand relationships in general. And that, of course, has a lot to do with how we think about our lives as friends of Jesus and friends of each other.