The Organ of Meaning

Okay. I need to post in response to the responses on my post (they’re mostly on Facebook).

I should have made it clear that my beef was mostly with people who are Christians undercutting and slandering someone else who is also. The whole socialism is a peve of mine, but not that big of a deal. I apologise if anyone feels offended by how I presented the comments about socialism, but I will not be apologising about the ones about slandering a brother in Christ. Take it as rebuke or whatever you want to call it.

To summarize: dis your brother and I’ll get pissed, but dis politics all you want I’ll just debate it with you.

I’m glad.

I have a few complaints though. I am disappointed in a whole lot of my friends.

Honestly, I don’t care at all who you voted for. I actually do completely understand why you voted for McCain, and I would not have been enormously disappointed if he would have won. I lean left and I do so because of things in my faith in Jesus Christ and many of the teachings of Scripture that move me that direction, but I absolutely understand and agree with the teachings that also agree with the McCain-Palin platform. The importance of one issue over another is something that we have to decide for ourselves and with the help of God who guides us. Yes the president-elect that I backed up with my vote has some views, and political leanings that I do not agree with, but there are also important ones that I do agree with and as I prayed and read and listened and learned I came to a place where I was absolutely certain that I was supposed to vote for Barack Obama.

Let me say these few things though:

• The AntiChrist will probably not be an American president, especially one who is a Christian and says things like “I am a Christian… I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life.”
• For those of you who claim to be a Christian, Barack Obama is a brother in Christ to tear him down publicly and to purposefully undermine defame him in the hearing of other people is, without a slight doubt, sin.
• Democracy is not something that is ordained as a political system that is more or less ordained than any other system… including socialism. It is not something that is we can claim that God inherently supports. (And, I’d like to point out that Marxism and Leninism may be founded in many of the same principals as socialism it is not the same. We have never had an actual socialist state in history.)
• The same (if not the inverse) is true about capitalism.

All of my posts on my blog also go to Facebook and I am tempted to tag people on this, but in light of what I am saying to some of my friends (and I do consider them to be friends and family in Christ) I will not, because I do believe that it would (in effect) be mocking them in public as well. I love you all, for real and my concern is not in your politics, but in your reaction to dissapointment. You (plural) are great and I think better of you than this, because you are.

As I read and learn more and more about the history of the basic branches of the Protestant church I find that the pattern of too-hard - too-soft - just-right in almost every run down of their distinctives and doctrines. There are issues of the “real presence” in communion, baptism (both child and believer’s), church political structure and its interaction with the secular politics, defense of the doctrines (or dogmas), the interpretation of the Bible, the nature of God, the nature of salvation and election… I find truth and different kinds of “missing it” in all of them.

Am I Goldilocks with my theology? Will I find the high Papa Church always too big, and hot but with the right firmness? Will the Mama church always be too soft and cold, but the right size? And the infantile church “just right”? And will I find myself thrown out of the house altogether?

Maybe the metaphor of the story breaks down around here - finding the extremes too much but comfort somewhere in the middle. It’s as if I’m looking for the medium sized, hard and cold… and not all of them go with the same system (Papa, Mama, Baby)…

Is it that I just find myself uncomfortable in every house but still welcomed… as if the bears welcomed Miss Locks into their home to stay.

[1/19/08]

Man! It’s been a while since the last time I wrote for you fine people. A lot has gone on since April 3. The semester has ended, family visited, friends engaged, earthquakes (here and around the world), flooding (here and around the world)… a lot.

I am affected by all of those things. I have been praying for the tragedies and celebrating with the good things. But, I mostly write here when I’m processing things that are on my mind. This is one of those times for sure.

On May 7 a number of influential leaders within the Evangelical Movement within American Christianity released a document they have termed “an Evangelical Manifesto.” Over the past week and a half there has been a lot of buzz about it in the “blogosphere” (I hate that word).

I had read the summary (PDF) that they had posted on the site and liked what it had to say so last night I took the time to read the entirety of the declaration, and I must say that I like it.

The content of the document addresses a number of issues that are used to define what it means to be an Evangelical Christian. These definitions are sometimes just defined in themselves but more often defined in light of what we (yes, I am definitely one of them) are not, it is done simply by saying so. In my reading of the manifesto, it comes across as specific and forceful but respectful of those who would disagree.

The thing that I have found the most encouraging is the fact that many of the issues and conclusions that have been settled upon are the same things that I have wrestled with and landed on.

1. “Contrary to widespread misunderstanding today, we Evangelicals should be defined theologically, and not politically, socially, or culturally.”
2. “First, to be Evangelical is to hold a belief that is also a devotion.”
3. “Second, Evangelical belief and devotion is expressed as much in our worship and in our deeds as in our creeds.”
4. “Third, Evangelicals are followers of Jesus in a way that is not limited to certain churches or contained by a definable movement”
5. “The Evangelical message, “good news” by definition, is overwhelmingly positive, and always positive before it is negative.
6. “Evangelicalism should be distinguished from two opposite tendencies to which Protestantism has been prone: liberal revisionism and conservative fundamentalism.”
7. “Our second major concern is the reformation of our behavior… We confess that we Evangelicals have betrayed our beliefs by our behavior.”
8. “We call humbly but clearly for a restoration of the Evangelical reforming
   principle…”
9. “We call all who follow Jesus to keep his commandment and love one another, to be true to our unity in him that underlies all lesser differences…”
10. “We call for an expansion of our concern beyond single-issue politics…”
11. “We call for a more complete understanding of discipleship that applies faith with integrity to every calling and sphere of life, the secular as well as the spiritual…”
12. “Above all, we remind ourselves that if we would recommend the Good News of Jesus to others, we must first be shaped by that Good News ourselves…”
13. “We must find a new understanding of our place in public life… we are fully engaged in public affairs, but never completely equated with any party, partisan ideology, economic system, class, tribe, or national identity.”
14. “In a society as religiously diverse as America today, no one faith should be normative for the entire society, yet there should be room for the free expression of faith in the public square.”
15. “Let it be known unequivocally that we are committed to religious liberty for
    people of all faiths, including the right to convert to or from the Christian faith.”
16. “e see two equal and opposite errors to avoid: coercive secularism on one side… and religious extremism…”
17. ” We Evangelicals trace our heritage, not to Constantine, but to the very different stance of Jesus of Nazareth. We all believe that Jesus’ Good News of justice for the whole world was promoted, not by a conqueror’s power and sword…”
18. “We do not see insults and attacks on our faith as “offensive” and “blasphemous” in a manner to be defended by law, but as part of the cost of our discipleship that we are to bear without complaint or victim-playing.”
19. On the other hand, we repudiate all who believe that different values are simply relative to different cultures, and who therefore refuse to allow anyone to judge anyone else or any other culture.”
20. “We respect the right to be wrong. But we also insist that the principle of “the right to believe anything” does not lead to the conclusion that “anything anyone believes is right.” Rather, it means that respect for differences based on conscience can also mean a necessary debate over differences conducted with respect.”

These are some of the statements that I believe define the content of the document very well. If you have any interest in the other 20 pages that surround them, if this sounds very different from what you believe Evangelicals to be, please take the opportunity to read this. You may understand us - you may understand me - better.

The PDF is available at EvangelicalManifesto.com.

For the past few weeks I’ve been pondering the situation in Jena, LA.

There has been a ton of outrage about 6 black high school students who have been charged (and in one case convicted) of 2nd Degree Attempted Murder against a white student. The story is a bit convoluted and has raised the ire of much of the nation.

The short version of the story is this:

At Jena High School, there was a tree that was understood by many students to be the “White Tree” where only students who are white were allowed to sit. On August 31, 2006, a freshman, asked the principal if he was allowed to sit under the white tree” and was told that he could sit wherever he wanted to. The next day, three nooses were found hung from the tree which understandably upset may of the black and surrounded community. The students who were found to have hung the nooses were suggested for expulsion by the principal, but the decision was reduced to suspension by the school board. The superintendent called the nooses a “prank,” even though the FBI and other federal officials later said that it “had all of the markings of a hate crime.”

On September 6, in response to a number of interracial fights, an assembly was held with the local DA speaking to the students. At one point the District Attorney stated, “With one stroke of my pen, I can make your life disappear.”

The racial tension and the fallout from the noose incident continued for months, with people reacting organized and civil ways as well as with outbursts of frustration that, at times were violent or destructive.

In December, the entire story hit its climax. On December 1, five black students came to a private party at the local Fair Barn, they were told they could not enter without an invitation. A white man stepped in and a fight began between the black minors and the adult man. All six were asked to leave. Once outside another fight occurred involving multiple adult white men, one of which was charged with simple battery; none of the black students were charged. The next day, at a convenience store, a white man who had been in the fight ran into several of the black students from the night before. An argument ensued and the man pulled a shotgun from his vehicle and threatened the students with it. Somehow the students got the gun from him… they were later charged with theft of a firearm, second-degree robbery, and disturbing the peace, the white man who threatened them was not charged with anything.

On the 4th of December a white student was beaten by the now-famous six students. He was knocked out, suffered a concussion and cuts and bruises on his head. He attended a school “ring ceremony” that evening. The six black students accused him of taunting one of them, Robert Bailey, Jr. who had been on the losing end of the fight at the barn. The six were expelled and charged with attempted second-degree murder… all of them were underage at the time, but all but one of them are being tried as adults.

The students, because of the poverty many of them were raised in, were not able to afford lawyers and had to be defended by a public defender. Mychal Bell is the only one to have his case go to trial thus far. The public defender, did not challenge the all-white jury, nor did he call any witnesses even though a coach at the school had stated that Mychal was not involved in the fight. Mychal was convicted as an adult and faced up to 22 years in prison, his conviction was appealed and he will now be re-tried as an adult.

That’s the short version of the story… there is so much more to it. The outrage and controversy has spread like a wildfire - 16,000+ YouTube videos, 30,000+ blog posts (one more), far more than a thousand groups on Facebook. Also, about 30,000 visited Jena to protest, accompanied by a petition with 428,560 signatures asking for a review of the incidents by the United States Department of Justice. My name is on that petition…

Here is what I believe should happen, with the information that I have at this point:
The “Jena Six” should not be “freed.” They should, on the other hand, be tried for the fight as juveniles. They did commit a criminal act of attacking someone for something he said. While what he said may have been taunting, racist and insulting, it is not illegal and he has every right to say it under the constitution. The school may have the right to punish him under school guidelines.

The man who produced the shotgun should be charged with something, possibly making terroristic threats.

The district attorney should be permanently suspended from his position for his threatening remarks toward the Jena High School student body.

Also, if there is sufficient evidence to convict, as juveniles, the Jena Six, they should serve out their sentence on a far lesser charge, with a fair jury and with a competent attorney.

Overall, people did illegal, immoral and plain wrong things in this whole event. Not every white person in Jena is guilty, not every black person in Jena is innocent… there was transgression from both sides and we should be able to hear equally what both have to say.

Oh, and unless it’s a Halloween decoration, a noose is never “just a prank”.