The 2008 Election - A Rearview Mirror Look

They say that you're not supposed to talk about politics and religion. I wonder if that means that people are not supposed to talk about these subjects publicly at all, or whether it just means that you're not supposed to talk about them together at the same time. Perhaps politics and religion are like two substances that, when mixed together, undergo a hypergolic reaction and burst into flames. Anyway, I've been careful in my blogging not to do as “they” say. I hope I haven't set anyone on fire (but maybe it would be good if I had). And I'm about to talk politics and religion again. Why here instead of on my other blog, The Well Run Dry? Because I'm in the midst of covering alternative transportation and peak oil on that blog, and I don't want to interrupt the flow. So if you are flammable, you may want to stay away from this blog post.

The election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States has produced some rather interesting reactions from various sectors of the American public, including reactions from many leading members of the Religious Right. According to a recent article in The Daily Advertiser titled, “Clergy Urge Prayer for Obama,” James Dobson told his radio audience that he was “bereft” after the election, “in the midst of a grieving process...over the loss of things that (he) has fought for 35 years.” Earlier in the year, he had threatened to sit out the 2008 election if John McCain was chosen as the Republican nominee, but later reversed course and endorsed McCain after McCain's pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate, stating that “it's probably obvious which of the two major party candidates' views are most palatable to those of us who embrace a pro-life, pro-family worldview.” There have also been stark warnings from Georgia Republican congressman Paul Brown calling Obama a Marxist with a Nazi agenda. And there is a Roman Catholic priest in South Carolina who told his parishioners that any who had voted for Obama needed to do penance before partaking of holy communion.

On the other side of the aisle, there are reports of joyful dancing in the streets among Democrats and those who call themselves “progressive.” Many of their spokespeople have called this election an historic moment in which old racist and class barriers were broken, and they speak of the dawn of a new day of “tolerance” and “diversity” and “progressiveness,” dwelling much on the symbolic value of this past election.

To both sides, I have a few things to say, things that will be very hard to swallow. Since I am a conservative evangelical Christian, I will start by addressing the conservative side of the aisle.

As I have said, I am a conservative evangelical Christian. I believe that the Bible is actually the inspired Word of God. My theology is summed up in the Apostles' Creed. I believe that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and that becoming a Christian means repenting of one's sins. I also believe that homosexuality and abortion are sins, because the Bible says that they are. Such beliefs are in direct contradiction to the views of most people aligned with the Democratic Party. In fact, I disagree with Barack Obama's position on these issues.

Yet I voted for Barack Obama to be the next President of the United States.

Some who know me will say that I voted for Obama because, like me, he is black. Others will question my Christian credentials, unable to grasp the reasoning behind my vote. Really, though, it is very simple to explain. My vote for Obama was not because he is black, although there are advantages to having a man like Obama in the sort of public spotlight granted to presidents. Obama – urbane, thoughtful, educated and well-spoken – is a powerful contradiction of the stereotypical def'-jammin, jive-talkin', b-ball, gangsta-thugga-rappa portrayal of black culture typically presented by the mainstream media. This stereotype is frequently the only portrayal shown in mainstream entertainment, so that when real-life events force people like Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, Nelson Mandela or Barack Obama into public view, it's a surprise to many. Now at least, America gets to be surprised every day for the next four years.

Why then did I vote for Obama? Because the conservatives, Republicans and members of the Religious Right proved themselves to be supporters of a corporatist agenda that benefited a small group of rich elites while destroying poor nations and the poor of this nation, as well as destroying the earth. The evidence of that destruction has been well-documented on my blog, TH in SoC, in the posts titled, “Fighting With Broken Weapons” and “The Sins of the Right.” Here I will list just a few examples: the Iraq war, which was started on a pretext solely to seize Iraqi oil; the subsidizing of biofuels and genetically-modified food which inflated the price of basic food and lead to widespread hunger; the expansion of the private prison industry, which brought many people convicted of nonviolent crimes into long-term slavery while forever depriving them of the right to vote; the promotion of global laissez-faire neoliberal trade policies which destroyed the local farms, manufacturing enterprises, natural resources and economies of foreign nations while enriching Western corporations; the privatizing of public utilities and services in order to enrich private corporations at the expense of the poor and working-class; and the refusal to admit the reality of anthropogenic global warming and environmental degradation.

These are just a few sins of the Right. Many more have been documented in books such as the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, and on websites such as the OXFAM site, Casaubon's Book and Navdanya by Vandana Shiva. Eventually these things would lead to the ruin of the United States and any other nation which allowed its economic elites to practice such sins. But the coming ruin has been accelerated by the increasing speed of manmade climate change, as well as the decline in resources due to Hubbert's Peak. Because of resource peaks and climate change, our present corporatist economic system is breaking. Yet under President Bush and the Republicans, average working-class people are being forced by their government into continued reliance on that system while being deprived of the ability to build a safety net of alternative systems. After examining the public service records of John McCain and Sarah Palin, I was convinced that these two persons would have continued the corporatist agenda pursued by President Bush. Therefore I voted against them.

The American evangelical “Religious Right” has sought to portray the Republican party as the party of godliness, Christianity and “family values,” stating that the Republicans are the most “pro-life” of the two major parties. I personally believe that the spokesmen for the Religious Right have been acting simply as builders of a political power base for candidates who have a corporatist agenda. The leaders of the Religious Right have pushed two issues to identify whether a candidate has a “Biblical” worldview and agenda, yet they have ignored the fact that the Bible does not confine itself to just two issues. Also, the Bible defines being “pro-life” much more broadly than just being against abortion. Abortion is sin – make no mistake. But oppressing and robbing those who have already been born is just as much of a sin as killing the unborn; yet the Religious Right is silent when it comes to condemning the murderous practices of rich Western elites.

But suppose I were to believe that the leaders of the Religious Right are sincere in their lobbying and use of political action to try to make America a “Christian” nation. It would be a great stretch to believe this, since they are just as vocal about opposing issues about which the Bible says nothing, issues like mass transit (since when is that a sin?!) and climate change legislation. Still, what if I were to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they sincerely think they are doing God's work? I believe that I would still end up scratching my head in wonder at them. Take Sarah Palin's statement to James Dobson before the election: “I'm going to know, at the end of the day, putting this in God's hands, that the right thing for America will be done.” Indeed, there were many prayers and calls for prayer made by Religious Right leaders in the days up to November 4. One minister at an Iowa McCain rally prayed for a McCain win because an Obama win would cause Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists to think that their god is bigger than the LORD. Let's assume then that religious evangelical conservatives were wholeheartedly committed to the rightness of their cause and to their strategy of political action as a means of advancing the Kingdom prior to November 4.

What then did November 4 teach them? Things certainly turned out differently than they had hoped and prayed. God didn't give these people what they asked for. Does this mean that God does not exist? Is God weak? Was it merely that these people did not have enough faith? Or could it be that they are mistaken about who God is and what He considers important? Most of us evangelicals have been down the political action road before. For years, I unquestioningly supported the Republican party as the party of God and country. For years I actually believed that it was possible to make a nation Christian in character through laws and elections. Much later I realized that this approach cannot work, because it's impossible to get unsaved people to act like Christians via political action. God is calling His people to live on this earth not as supporters of earthly empire, but as strangers, aliens, and witnesses of new life. Certainly all the political agitation of the Religious Right has produced less-than-stellar results. In fact, the country has gone very much in a direction opposite to that in which the leaders of the Right were trying to lead it. Yet they are unwilling to think on the implications of this. Perhaps it's true that the mark of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting a different result.

I assert that while the American Religious Right has stated that it's agenda is to use political action to create a Christian nation, its real agenda has been to legitimize the agenda of the rich and powerful, and to promote American (and Caucasian) domination of the world. Their narrow focus solely on homosexuality and abortion galvanizes potential members of their political power base, yet it poses no threat to established economic elites.

What then of the Left? The Left has historically been a critic of the greed and excesses of the Right. The Left has produced many spokespeople who were fearsomely anti-corporate and anti-capitalist, people like Saul Alinsky, Martin Luther King, and folk singers such as Woody Guthrie. Yet in recent years, traditionally “left-leaning” mainstream media outlets have re-defined the “Left” solely in terms of rejecting Biblical sexual morality and being “progressive” regarding sexual issues. This too poses no threat to established economic elites. Thus we were told during the Democratic primaries that we should vote for Hillary Clinton because she's a woman with “progressive” values, and that a vote for her would be a vote for “change!” We know how Barack Obama was able to market himself as a “progressive” candidate, a “change agent,” with a message of “hope” and “inclusiveness” for America. Now that Obama has won, the mainstream media focus has largely been on spokespersons and proponents of sexually “alternative” lifestyles who are celebrating and giving their views on the meaning of Obama's victory for their cause.

My vote for Obama was not a vote for sexually “progressive” values, but a hope that he might tackle a far more difficult job, namely, the preservation of our country from ruin at the hands of economic and political elites. The danger is that the elites of our country may succeed in defining “progressive” values solely in terms of “alternative” sexual morality just as they defined evangelical conservatism solely in terms of sexual morality. Defining societal values in these terms poses no threat to the members of these elites, and allows them free rein in continuing to practice immoral deeds which enrich them while ruining, robbing and enslaving the poor of the earth. Yet by their actions, these elites are on the verge of destroying our nation and our planet.

Therefore I have a challenge for Mr. Obama and the Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. If they are as “progressive” as they have been saying they are, they will quickly enact legislation to break the power of the rich and to prevent the possibility of any one individual or small group of people gaining inordinate wealth or power over the many. They will tell the truth to the American people about our present economic, environmental and energy crises, rather than trying to maintain the unsustainable American lifestyle of ever-increasing consumption. They will lead us into a truly sustainable way of life in which each person's needs – not greeds – is met. And they will remove the power of multinational corporations to extract the wealth of poor nations while destroying the people of those nations.

A good legislative/executive agenda for the first year of Obama's presidency might well look like this:

• Break up economic monopolies and oligarchies in America, starting with the media. Enact rules and laws preventing one man or corporation from owning more than one percent of all newspapers, radio/television stations or Internet media services. Period.

• Stop bailing out failed businesses that are dying because they based their business models on unrestrained growth of profits. The Big Three automakers don't need a bailout. If they are to be saved at all, let them re-tool to make railroad rolling stock and components, or to make bicycles. Poor “Joe-the-Blogger” Americans do not want to be turned into collateral for bailouts given to cover the bad choices of the rich.

• Repeal all government regulation enacted by the Bush administration to prevent poor and working-class people from finding alternatives to products offered by big business. Abolish the National Animal Identification System for starters. Abolish all rules and laws which hinder small businesses through excessive regulation while letting big business off the hook.

• If you want to “stimulate” the economy, require creditors to forgive the majority of debts owed by members of the working class, and to forgive all subprime mortgage debt. This will rein in many of the excesses and evil effects of our present credit economy, and will force a change to a more sensible economic arrangement.

• Bring American troops home from their far-flung bases, ASAP. Bring the troops home from Iraq NOW. They never should have been sent there in the first place.

• Repeal the Patriot Act NOW.

• Shut down Guantanamo NOW.

• Start NOW to build the policies and infrastructure that will help Americans live in a future with far less natural resources and energy. This does not require new leaps of technology, but simply requires that we honestly face reality. This is imperative, because a poorer, lower-energy, lower-consumption future is coming our way whether we like it or not.

Obama, you and the Democrats have identified yourselves as the “progressive” party, the party of “change.” How about it? Are you enough of a change to enact an agenda like this? Symbolism means nothing to me; I'm only interested in deeds. Show me what you've got.

Wanted - A Good Bard

Lately I've been exposed to some interesting music videos from the late 80's and early 90's. One captivating example is the Billy Joel video The Downeaster Alexa. It tells the powerful, evocative story of fishermen struggling to make a living and provide for their families against the backdrop of the depletion of their fisheries by overuse and environmental damage. It's a very good video from a technical standpoint, and The Downeaster Alexa is a strong song, a good story well-told. Its lyrics were pounding in my head last Saturday as I rode my bike along the Columbia River in the early afternoon, pushing against a hard wind while yellow leaves fluttered and went airborne and gunmetal-colored clouds scudded overhead.

That song and its story have got me thinking. Christianity is also a strong, rich, multilayered story, and its bards should be just as skilled, just as excellent as artists like Billy Joel, if not more so. Yet the last time I checked out a “Christian” bookstore, all I found was commercialist cheese. My blog, TH in SoC, was in part a protest against the commercialism which has taken over Christian culture in recent decades. Hearing The Downeaster Alexa has aroused a hunger in me. I need a good story. Good stories, skillfully told, instruct and inspire pilgrims on their journey and help to keep them oriented toward their goal. But I don't know where to look for a good story. I am wary of going to the usual places to find stories, fearful that I will be charged lots of money for mediocre work.

I've started wanting again to be an artist. Not to (starve while trying to) make a living at it, mind you. Being an engineer is a reliable gig and it gets the bills paid. But I want to be an artist, not as a way of making money, but as a way of learning to tell the best and most edifying of stories. As Aaron Tate once wrote, “So I write a book of life/using the best words I can find/for some struggler to snuggle up/when the world becomes unkind.” I want to learn to tell good stories as a freewill offering. But this means two things: first, learning the craft of good storytelling, whether poetry, visual art or music; and secondly, being a living, breathing example of what I preach. It's the second part that's the hardest, since often I am tempted (and sometimes I yield to the temptation) to act in a way that denies the truths I profess. Anyway, I've been itching to start practicing guitar regularly again.

But that alone won't satisfy my hunger for a good story. I want especially the sort of stories that can be packed into short, pithy poems. I can take these with me and remember them when going to work or when stuck behind my computer doing a project. Maybe I should search other people's blogs, since I have recently been learning many though-provoking things from the blogosphere. And blogs are freewill expressions; most bloggers don't ever dream of making money from their writing, so the commercial motive is not present to corrupt what they say. Are there any blogs by skilled bards out there? Does anyone have any suggestions?

A Scripture for the Election Season

As anyone reading this blog can probably tell, I've started regularly reading the Bible again. It's something we were compelled to do in my old abusive church, and something I did for a bit even after I left. But work got busy and other projects took up my time, and my regular reading became highly irregular. I don't know that I feel very guilty about this. Maybe I should, since the psychological damage I experienced in my old church environment did not go so far as to render me incapable of bringing myself to read.

Anyway, that's all water under the bridge now. But a couple of weeks ago I read something in Deuteronomy that hooked my interest, and I went back again tonight to study it in more detail, because I wanted to write about it for this post. The oddest thing happened while I was studying the passage, and it had nothing to do with what the passage was saying. I had to remind myself that I am not in the Assembly (the name for our old church) anymore, and that I am not preparing a “word of ministry” for Sunday morning. I'm just re-formatting my soul's “hard drive” and re-installing software that had gotten corrupted, if you get my drift. It's amazing how much it takes to fix good and noble things after bad men have gotten their hands on those things to screw them up.

But on to the passage. It is Deuteronomy 17:14-20, and it reads thus:

When you have come to the land which the LORD your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me”; you shall surely set him king over yourselves, whom the LORD your God shall choose: one from among your brothers you shall set king over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because the LORD has said to you, “You shall not go back that way again.” Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart not turn away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.

It shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, out of that which is before the priests the Levites: and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them; that his heart not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he not turn aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel. (Quoted from the World English Bible, a public domain translation.)

Among the things that struck me from this passage was the command that the king of Israel must not be a materialist – “Only he shall not multiply horses to himself...neither shall he multiply wives to himself...neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.” The Bible elsewhere equates greed with idolatry. Getting “stuff” was not to be the king's priority, and his choices and lifestyle were to be a reflection of this.

What was the king's priority to be, then? The law of God, the word of God – the king was to study it in order to obey it, that his reign might be an expression of the justice of God on earth, and that the king might remember always that he was simply one of the sons of Israel – "one of us," not superior to his brothers and sisters – and that all people are under God.

Note the contrast between the distraction of lusting for material possessions versus remembering the justice of God.

I am not quoting this passage in order to argue about what a “Christian” nation should look like; nor am I trying to force America to submit to the law of Moses. But if one looks at our most recent leaders, one sees a remarkable contrast between what this passage in Deuteronomy says and the character of the lives of our leaders. In order to get into elected office, they must both have and raise lots of money. While they are in office, they are servants of a corporatocracy, and after they leave office their corporate masters reward them richly with extremely lucrative appointments to leadership roles in the private sector. I think of former President Clinton, who according to some reports is one of the richest ex-presidents ever, and who was still busily shoveling dollars into his bank account as of the beginning of this year (See http://www.newsweek.com/id/105650, and http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html?pagewanted=print, for instance.) But I also think of the greed of President Bush and the Republicans, as seen in such things as their tax cuts for the rich and their multi-hundred-billion dollar taxpayer-funded “bailouts” of their friends in high places.

In short, I see our former, present and (possibly) future leaders stuffing themselves with earthly wealth, gorged to bursting with possessions, and unable to stop themselves from their continued bingeing. While I am not reading or discussing the Deuteronomy passage in order to push some political action plan, I guess I am thinking about this passage as an aid to help me understand why our government seems so warped right now. Understanding is a key to coping.

I've gotten enough campaign mail in the last month to choke a camel. Most of it has very little effect on me, since I know who and what will get my vote in this election, and I hold no illusions about any of the candidates I am voting for. Yes, I am voting. But I am also doing other things as I see fit, in order to adapt to the future I think we will all face. Am I cynical? Maybe not; maybe I'm simply being realistic. But I'll be glad when, after this Tuesday, my mailbox contains only bills again.

A Prayer for Hard Times

Our Father which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil:

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

Amen.

I'd like to consider for a moment Matthew 6:9-13, commonly known as the Lord's Prayer.

It is a “pattern prayer,” taught by our Lord as a pattern of the priorities which we should have when we pray, the things we should all be wanting when we ask. It was given under circumstances remarkably like those we face today. In giving this prayer the Lord was addressing a group of people who held an otherworldly hope of a coming age in which righteousness dwells. This group of people, while large in terms of absolute numbers, was yet a very small percentage of the total Jewish population of Palestine at the time. They lived in a world dominated by corrupt and self-serving elites, from the rulers and agents of the Roman Empire to the self-seeking leaders of the Jewish political/religious class (Pharisees, Saducees, Herodians, tax-collectors) who had sprung up to accommodate the Roman occupiers and conquerors of Palestine. The members of these elites used their power to devour the poor and powerless who were under their reign. The Lord's Prayer was a prayer for hard times, given to people living in hard times.

Therefore it is a good prayer for today, a day in which those Christians who seek to conduct themselves as strangers and exiles on the earth must live in the shadow of a corrupt, dominating, exploitative global system – a system which has invaded every area of common life, including the religious/evangelical institutional realm. In considering this prayer, I think it may be helpful to study each of its clauses and ask what it is we are really praying for when we recite each of its requests.

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Yes, Lord, teach us reverence. Our society has so corrupted us that we mock everything and consider everything a joke. Teach us to appreciate those things that are worthy of honor, to give reverence where reverence is due. Above all, may this world learn to hallow Your Name.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

May righteousness reign on earth. Lord, You see the injustices perpetrated by the powerful against the poor, and how it seems that the powerful will never be brought to any earthly justice. Lord, behold the wars started on the basis of lies, in order that rich, powerful elites may steal the resources of other countries. Lord, behold the exploitation of the poor by the rich, the unjust imprisonment and enslavement of the poor by the rich, the swaying and corrupting of earthly governments by the rich, the destruction of the earth in order to satisfy the appetites of the rich. Thy Kingdom come. Bring in a day of judgment and justice in which these evils will be righteously and swiftly stopped. And prepare us for that day by turning us away from unjust deeds in our own lives. Maranatha.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Yes, Lord, we repent of asking to be rich, of asking to be spoiled, of living as materialists, of overconsumption. We simply ask for our daily bread, our needful bread for the coming day – knowing that in the days now upon us the answering of this prayer must rightly be regarded as a miracle, for which we will give thanks.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Lord, we know that hard times will bring out the worst in many people. May we be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Deliver us from vindictiveness.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Lord, in the coming times, may we behave honorably. May we not face a temptation so severe that we would compromise ourselves or deny You by our words and actions.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Remind us in the coming days that no matter what happens, You are still enthroned in Heaven. We acknowledge that You are still in command.

Thoughts, anyone?

People I Meet (And Run From) In My Dreams

One thing about enduring interesting times is that a person who does so spends a long time afterward processing what happened to him. That processing tends to show up at night, in the things that go through a guy's head during R.E.M. sleep.

So it is with me. It's been over five years since the last time I attended the abusive church I described in my blog, TH in SoC. For the first several months afterward, I very regularly had dreams about some of the more difficult people in the group (that includes almost all of the leaders, by the way), people that were a royal pain in the ... uh, neck to me. Most of that time I was quite angry. It finally occurred to me that I should do things to distract myself from rehashing the things I'd had to put up with during my involvement in the group.

During that time God providentially arranged for me to be assigned to a long-term consulting engineering contract in downtown Los Angeles, so I had to ride the Metrolink every day (expenses paid by my company, of course), which I had never done before. It was a welcome change of scenery and I encountered loads of new faces and new situations. During that time I also took a night class in creative writing at a local community college. Yet there were too many mornings when I'd wake up after a night of dreams re-hashing and processing old situations and encounters with old familiar faces, and I'd wonder why I never dreamed of work or school or riding the train instead.

Thankfully, the severity and frequency of the dreams has diminished quite a bit since then. I'm not really angry anymore. And if you want to talk about a change of scenery, I now live a thousand miles away from So. Cal. Yet even here there is an occasional night when old faces and old scenes insinuate themselves into my dreams.

Maybe I should write a song about this. Jackson Browne wrote “Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate.” Billy Joel wrote “River of Dreams.” Shawn Colvin wrote “Diamond in the Rough,” which has a memorable line, “I have lost too much sleep and I'm gonna find it.” If I have another “flashback” dream, I'll write a song titled, “Hey you! Get out from under my eyelids, man!” Then I'll have a good wry laugh. Does anyone out there from a similar background find that they're still “processing” things? How do you deal with it?

* * *

I attended Saturday evening service at the local rescue mission. Afterward, I asked one of the staffers a bit about the mission and the sorts of people they are seeing as visitors. He told me that while most of those who come to the mission are over 25 years old and dealing with substance abuse problems, there are some who come because they are victims of the current American economic mess. We talked about the needs of the residents and opportunities for volunteers to help out as he handed out bed tickets to a line of waiting men and the light rail trains rumbled by in the darkness outside. As I was leaving, he invited me back and said that I was welcome anytime. I may indeed make a return visit soon.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I'm going to hook up with some bicycle riders and go on a long recreational ride. It's more fun to do it with a group than to ride by myself. The weather should be good. And I have a post in the works which I will publish soon, titled, “A Prayer for Hard Times,” a look at the Lord's Prayer found in Matthew 6.

A Faith for Hard Times

Sometimes I work too hard at writing. I wrote a little story for my most recent post on my other blog, The Well Run Dry; I intended to just bang out a cute, quirky little allegory, but I spent way too much time doing research on Wikipedia and other sites in order to provide enough detail to make it believable. This post on From SoC to Points North will take a lot less time.

First, I want to point out a very good article, “Helps to Spiritual Renewal,” written by Margaret Irons, webmaster of the Assembly Reflections website. She came out of the same abusive church from which I also escaped. Her article is at http://www.geftakysassembly.com/Articles/Recovery/HelpsToSpiritualRenewal.htm.

It seems undeniable that hard times are ahead for our world, and particularly our nation. The most helpful thing when facing hard times is to have a clear-headed, adult perspective. This is especially true for Christians, who are supposed to be a display of wisdom in the midst of hard times, instead of clinging to erroneous beliefs that lead to disappointment and harm.

I recently finished reading the book of Numbers and am now in Deuteronomy. One thing confronted me inescapably: the knowledge that God is holy and that He punished nations which turned to wickedness. This is why He told Israel to conquer the nations of Canaan. But He told them that while, if they lived according to His law – if their deeds were a reflection of His character – He would bless them, He also told them that if they too turned to wickedness, He would punish them in the same way that He punished the nations they dispossessed.

People in the “post-modern” West don't like hearing this, and they tend to get very agitated and hostile whenever the holiness of God is mentioned. Yet that holiness is a fact, as is the fact that we have all fallen short of it. The failure extends across all lines – Left and Right, rich and poor, red, yellow, black, white. The evidence of our failure is the mess we have made of our country and of the world. “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” But God has promised to the repentant an inheritance just as He promised an inheritance to Israel. One day, His people will inherit a new earth. The future heirs of the earth are known by this sign: that they are gentle and meek – Matthew 5:5. The first element of a faith for hard times is to acknowledge that God is holy, and to humbly accept His judgments and wait on His vindication.

There is a second element. I visited the Russian church I wrote about last week. I didn't understand everything (though I had a capable translator), but one day I'll write more fully about the parts I did understand. One thing that struck me was a hymn they sang at the end of their service. They sang it a cappella, with multiple parts, in a peculiarly Russian rhythm. I have to say that it was beautiful. My translator told me that it was Psalm 121 set to music, and since I had my English Bible, I opened it to that psalm and read it while everyone else sang. I was struck by another thought: that God has promised to keep His people. He is the unfailing Keeper of His people. “The LORD will keep you from all evil. He will keep your soul. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time forth, and forevermore.”

I had to ask myself whether I really believed this. It's easy to distort Biblical promises of God's care and safekeeping to mean that He will give each of us a Mercedes-Benz, a lifetime supply of gasoline, a McMansion all paid for, perfect health, and a trophy spouse. Then when things don't work out according to our greeds (as opposed to needs), we get “disillusioned.” I don't believe that God has promised an easy life to anyone. In fact, when the Bible mentions people who have an easy life, they are usually numbered among the wicked. But God wants His people to trust Him – even in the times now upon us – that He will be our Keeper. What that means, we will all find out shortly. But whatever the shape of His keeping, it will be evident in the end that He did the right thing by us.

I'm thinking of heading over to a local rescue mission tomorrow for Sunday service. I'll come bearing gifts for the offering box – not money, but things like toothpaste, toothbrushes, shaving gear and the like. (Things like clothes and underwear also go over very well.) I'll tell more about it next week.

P.S. This is slightly off topic, but today I read a major news article about several states illegally purging voters from their voter registration rolls prior to the November Presidential election. The Republican party is trying to take advantage of this to influence the election. The news article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html?em. Please let others know about this, if you would. Fellow bloggers, let's do what we can to ensure that this election is honest. Thanks!

Perils and Promise of Christian Community

On my other blog, The Well Run Dry, I have been writing about how the present global system known as the “official economy” is breaking, and how it is necessary for those who are not rich or powerful to begin building safety nets of alternative systems. One such system that I mentioned in a recent post is cohousing as a form of communal living in which community members could provide mutual support to one another.

After I wrote that post, I started thinking to myself, “What have I just written??!” Two things came immediately to mind: the relatively smooth experiences of some members of a secular cohousing community I recently visited, and my experience with communal living many years ago while a member of an abusive, unhealthy church. It seems from reading the Lord's commands in the Sermon on the Mount and the Upper Room discourse (Matthew 5-7; John 13-17) that Christians should have no trouble living communally when necessary, and that in the midst of widespread uncertainty and economic hardship, Christians should be a model for others to imitate. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just like I have loved you; that you love one another. By this everyone will know that your are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Why then was my experience of “Christian community” so screwed up? I know the answer: I was hoodwinked into joining a fraudulent organization that was not a genuine church, but merely one man's personal empire established to exploit its members. But I found after leaving this “church” that the founder's attitude was typical of many leaders and would-be leaders in modern evangelicalism. It is an attitude that loves hierarchy and domination, and the culture of that attitude is widespread in many parts of the American church.

So I guess I have a question: can Christians associate regularly with each other in a non-hierarchical way? Could Christians form cohousing communities in which every decision was reached by mutual consensus? Or are we doomed to be forever looking for popes to rule us? Will we always be easy prey for would-be religious empire-builders? I'd like to think we can get beyond that. (By the way, I'm not protesting the Biblical prescription for leadership in the Church. But I am protesting the obsession many wanna-be leaders have for trying to establish a pecking order in every situation where Christians come together.)

I ran across a Wikipedia article describing an encouraging example of a community that seemed to get beyond that. According to the article, “Clarence Jordan was a Baptist scholar and theologian who founded Koinonia Farm, a small but influential religious community in Southwest Georgia” in 1942. Koinonia was a radical community whose members regarded each other as equals, shared possessions, and practiced ecological stewardship. They were also racially mixed, which swiftly brought them into conflict with their neighbors, including the KKK. From Koinonia Farm arose organizations like Habitat for Humanity.

Mr. Jordan is an intriguing character, and I intend to find out a bit more about his life. One other thing about him is his “Cotton Patch Gospel” translation of the New Testament from Greek into early 20^th Century American English, Southern style. Check out his translation of Matthew 21:12-13: “Then Jesus went into First Church, pitched out the whole finance committee, tore up the investment and endowment records, and scrapped the long-range expansion plans. 'My house shall be known for its commitment to God,' he shouted, 'but you have turned it into a religious racket!'” I like the sound of that!

I checked out the small elderly church I wrote about in my last post. This weekend I think I will check out a Russian church. (Imagine that – a black man visiting a Russian church. And why? Because the American church seems so vacuous!) I know how to say good morning, good afternoon, good evening and farewell in Russian, but after that I'm lost. The week after next, I may attend Sunday service at the local rescue mission. (Why there? I'll explain in another post. I'll just say for now that I think I'd be more likely to meet the Lord among poor people than at a glitzy megachurch.) After that, I'll take a Sunday off to go on a long bike ride and do some thinking and evaluating.