Our Independence Day

The Fourth of July was always one of my favorite holidays growing up. The City of Paragould hosted a municipal fireworks display on the grounds of Paragould High School, and we'd always head up there with the rest of the town to wait until dark so the show could begin.

Like any other holiday, the traditions surrounding the day itself could sometimes obscure the reason you were celebrating in the first place. But all it took was one replay of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." to remind me that I should be "proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free."

I take seriously the liberty that we enjoy living in American society. I've had the opportunity to travel some in my life, and I admit I wouldn't want to live anywhere else - at least not on a permanent basis. And I think there's some truth to the old saw by Churchill that democracy's the worst form of government, except for all the other forms of government. As a pastor, I particularly appreciate the way I am able to gather my flock for worship and preach the gospel as I am called to do without any fear of government persecution. Not all Christians have that same privilege.

But then, I also agree with theologians like Stanley Hauerwas, who argue that liberal democracy is dependent on an essentially violent mythos. It defines a peace-loving and democratic "us" over against a depraved and totalitarian "them," which must occasionally be engaged militarily in order to remind "us" both why we need to stick together and why our way of life is superior.

But on an even more intimate level, liberal democracy also posits property rights as one of the fundamental liberties on which society is based. This means that consumer capitalism has to be allowed to flourish in as unfettered a form as possible, which as an economic philosophy encourages us to disregard the good of others in our own individualistic "pursuit of happiness." And if you doubt the violence of that particular modus vivendi, you only have to look at the suffering of hardworking people at the hands of large corporate employers, the suffering of unborn children in the womb at the hands of abortionists, and the suffering of the environment at the hands of all of us in our chronic overconsumption.

So, is there a way we can celebrate a kind of freedom that is not freedom against tyranny, but rather freedom for something good and holy? We see evidence of such a freedom in Galatians, where the Apostle Paul says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free" (Gal 5:1). This freedom teaches us that we are neither bound by our sinful nature nor by the law that would serve ultimately to convict us in showing us a holiness that we cannot achieve.

But it is also more than a freedom from these things. It is also a free for something wonderful.

"The only thing that counts," Paul says, "is faith working through love" (Gal 5:6). And to that end, he encourages us to "live by the Spirit," which we can know we are doing when our lives - as individuals and as the church - are bearing fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Such a life is a life of freedom.

And that life was offered to us on our true Independence Day, which didn't occur in 1776 but rather in 33 A.D.

Which way to a Worldwide Church?

As I indicated in my last post, I've been writing a commentary that addresses the "Worldwide Church" amendments that annual conferences of the United Methodist Church are debating and voting on this summer. That commentary is finished, and you can download it at the following link:

"Which way to a Worldwide Church?"

I know some annual conferences have already met. But for anyone from an annual conference that has not yet met - like my own Arkansas Conference - I'd ask you to consider the point of view in this commentary. (Heck, you might even want to read it even if your annual conference is already over.) There have been a number of 'pro' and 'con' arguments put forth for the restructure of the church, and I don't think any of them have considered adequately how the change to our church's polity could lead to a form of nationalism that has always been destructive of the Christian Church and destructive of Christian discipleship.

For the record, I am against the Worldwide Church proposal as it has been put forth. We definitely need to do something in the long run about the way the Constitution of the UMC is biased toward the American church, but this proposal is not the way to go.

I welcome conversation on this topic - both critical and constructive - in the 'comments' section of this post. I'm eager to hear others' thoughts, particularly points of view that have not been raised in many of the conventional 'pro' and 'con' arguments over the Worldwide Church amendments.

I also hope that church folk will bear in mind how significantly our ecclesial life can be affected over the course of years by today's changes in how the church is organized and governed. The devolution of our connectionalism may seem the easiest answer to our challenges in the present. But we should be careful not to sow the wind, lest we someday have to reap the whirlwind.

What (or who) is driving history?

The presidential campaign season has become an all-consuming affair for many in this country (and particularly for the national media). We were distracted by the Beijing Olympics for awhile, but now that those have passed and the Democratic and Republican National Conventions have redirected our attention, it seems that all eyes are trained on the issue of who our next president will be.

I have friends who are wholehearted Obama supporters and friends who are wholehearted McCain supporters. My own column work and blogging makes me interested in the genre of op-ed writing, so I read a lot of columnists from both the liberal and conservative persuasions as well. (Come to think of it, that would make for an interesting blog post in and of itself: Who are the best op-ed columnists out there?). Inevitably, as we draw closer to the election, the extremist tendency in everyone's views seems to get dialed up.

And here's what gets me about the points of view that I hear in person and read in print -- in the polarized atmosphere of the campaign season, people on both the left and the right tend to view their own party's candidate through rose-colored glasses while seeing the other's side's guy as a laughable, almost-inconceivably bad choice for president. In the process, the Democrats think a President Obama would restore dignity to the Oval Office, repair our damaged reputation overseas, bring in universal healthcare, balance the budget, end the war, and rewrite the tax code to be more just. Meanwhile, Republicans thing a President McCain would reform the damaged Republican party, enable true bipartisan legislative work, protect us from Islamic extremism, face down a resurgent Russia, keep spending low and taxes lower, and make government less intrusive. As the expectations of each side for its candidate get higher, the demonization of the other side gets more intense.

I had a conversation with a good friend today who reminded me of a frequent refrain in the work of John Howard Yoder: The real force driving the world is not the United States of America; it is not freedom & democracy; it is not capitalism; and it is certainly not Barack Obama or John McCain. It is, rather, Jesus Christ. And the body politic that Jesus leads is no nation-state. It is the church.

I don't want to suggest that your vote is not important. And I don't think it is inconsequential that Obama might make a serious difference in the healthcare crisis in this country, or that a McCain appointment to the Supreme Court might bring us one step closer to ending the abortion holocaust in this country. But it is vitally necessary that Christians put this presidential campaign into the proper perspective.

In He Came Preaching Peace (1985), Yoder writes,

"[T]he primacy of Christians' loyalty will show in our sense of ultimate values. In the minds of many serious people, what really matters about human history is the creation of institutions which will create and distribute material abundance, and will guarantee human rights. This is what we read about in the history books. These things do matter. And generally Christians do much to help achieve them. But what matters most, the real reason that God lets time go on, is his calling together of his own people through the witness of the gospel. Not buildlng and protecting a bigger and better democracy, but building the church is God's purpose; not the defeat of communism, or of hunger, but the proclamation of his kingdom and the welding of all kinds of men and women into one new body is what we are here for. Kings and empires have come and gone in times past and shall continue to come and go until the day of Christ's appearing. For Christians to seek any government's interest - even the security and power of peaceable and freedom-loving democracy - at the cost of the lives and security of our brothers and sisters around the world, would be selfishness and idolatry, however much glorified by patriotic preachers and poets.

"Not only in Abraham's time was it a testing of faith to be called by God to abandon all else out of loyalty to that 'city whose builder and maker is God' (Hebrews 11:10). Even more today, when nationalism has become a religion for millions, will the true depth and reality of the Christian profession of church people be tested when they must choose between their earthly and their eternal loyalties.

"What is our allegiance? It is to that people 'elect from every nation, yet one o'er all the earth.' Our nationality? Christian."

Intersection of faith and politics

In a recent column, Charles Krauthammer writes, "The God of the Founders, the God on the coinage, the God for whom Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving day is the ineffable, ecumenical, nonsectarian Providence of the American civil religion whose relation to this blessed land is without appeal to any particular testament or ritual."

That's a fine statement, for a Deistic view of the Creator of the universe. As Krauthammer rightly notes, it has indeed been held by many politicians since the 18th century as a way to unite diverse populations into one body politic. But it contains an insidious underside, because what it really attempts to do is to convince people to give up their confessional belief in a God with particular attributes in favor of another god - that of the nation-state.

Liberal democracy instinctively insists that accepting the lordship of nation is a necessity if the population in question is extremely diverse (i.e., comprised of a large variety of ethnicities and confessional traditions). But what of the confessional traditions themselves? For instance, are Christians to accept that the way of life called for by the triune God can be simply circumscribed so that it fits neatly into the cultural and political expectations of a secular state?

This is a troubling problem, and it cannot be solved by the insistence on the part of many in the church that "this is a Christian nation" or that anything the state calls on us to do is simply to be accepted. I write more about this in my current column in the United Methodist Reporter. I would welcome your thoughts.

American Civil Religion

Every culture has a form of civil religion, where certain cultural values are treated as quasi-religious beliefs, important figures are treated as prophets or priests, and ideas or symbols are treated as gods. It is just that in the United States of America, our civil religion has a certain level of potency that most other cultures do not reach. I'm not sure why this is the case, except that our culture has a messianic quality to it deriving from our history (settling a new "Promised Land" through a belief in manifest destiny) and our founding beliefs (a form of political liberty unseen in the world up to that time).

If you don't believe this to be the case, witness the debate that goes on anytime the use or abuse of the American flag is brought up. It is one of the most potent of our religious symbols. On this and other blogs, and in the United Methodist Reporter, a seemingly minor recent debate over whether the flag is appropriate to use in the sanctuary ignited visceral reactions on the part of some. Wrapped up in this is the key to understanding the flag (or other pagan icons) as sacred symbols of civil religion: the mere suggestion of circumscribing its use in certain contexts is regarded by many as blasphemy.

As one Methodist wrote in this letter to the editor, "As for our flag, the symbol of freedom -- when it leaves the sanctuary, I leave with it." (Munch on that sentence awhile. Conjure up an image in your mind of what it would look like to leave a sanctuary following the flag. Think about all that it suggests: what you are turning your back on, where you are placing your loyalties, what you are implicitly claiming to be the true "symbol of freedom," etc.).

I bring all this up because of this post written by John at Locusts and Honey. You need to read the Billy Abraham article to which he refers (you can get it from John's post or access it here). It is a penetrating analysis on the religious orientation of President Bush, but what is much more important is the wider context of American civil religion that Prof. Abraham sketches. And underlying it - because Bush is a Methodist and this plays into Prof. Abraham's essay - is an absolutely devastating critique of United Methodist practice.

For instance, Abraham writes, "The operational (if not canonical) theological ideology of United Methodism over the last generation is constituted by a vapid pluralism that makes room for any and all the options that make the rounds. In fact one way to read the ruling orthodoxy of United Methodism as developed in the sixties is to see it as the adoption and then freezing of crucial aspects of American civil religion as it was practiced in the mid-twentieth century. It is surely no accident that the code-words of the functional theology of United Methodism are more or less the code-words of recent American culture. Both are saturated with the language of diversity, multi-culturalism, pluralism, and inclusivism. Both are exceptionally nervous of any kind of robust confessionalism; both want to be formally open to evangelicalism but are paranoiac about its volatility and independence. United Methodism in the United States is an echo-chamber of contemporary American debate and political polemic" (p.13).

To refer back to another recent post on this blog, that explains a heck of a lot about the Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors campaign in the UMC. It is essentially a business-model marketing scheme that aims toward good American citizenship. And it has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.

If reformations didn't destroy so many good things in the inertia that gets built up through the process of destroying idols, I would say that we were in dire need of a reformation ourselves. As it stands, there is little to distinguish American Protestantism from American Civil Religion. And that means Jesus is probably going to spew us out of his mouth.