A Weakened Church and the Political Fallout — part two of previous blog

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A Weakened Church and the Political Fall Out (Part Two of the previous blog)

By Charles Peek

More than one dear friend responded to the last blog by noting somewhat apprehensively that he, she, and/or other family members are barely associated with Church and wondering what I must think of them.  I replied to each that I thought she or he was the same good person I’ve always thought them to be, the same person I’ve long admired . . . and one whom I wish either felt called to the Church as it is or to the work of helping to make the Church what it should be.  In making my case for the Church, I was not seeking to judge them in any way.  I was saying, you are wonderful people, I need you, the Church needs you, the “Church for you doth wait.”

There is more of the case to be made, of course, but for the time being I’m laying that aside. I’m laying it aside in part, full disclosure, because finding how to say what’s in my heart has been agonizing. But, in this post, I’m laying it aside in order to say something about the political fallout that comes in the wake of a Church weakened by the absence of bright and dedicated people, one fall out being that The Church is then often left in the hands of a prejudiced and greedy tribe of people, a tribe that is undeniably having a great effect on today’s political landscape.

God works in and through the world as surely as he works in and through the Church, sometimes it seems even more so. Some portions of the Church at least might have been said to have been leaders in the Civil Rights era, but who of late has been doing most of the leading in terms of environmental or LGBTQ rights and protections? How many of those rallying in support of public schools are there because they are baptized and how many simply because they are teachers who love their students?

In the wake of the last election, there has been an awakening to the job before us in making people aware of the connection between moral values, the public good, and state and federal policies, and more grassroots effort to show people who care how to care effectively.

[Light the Way Rally to make immigrants welcome, Kearney, Nebraska]

We will not mistake how vital this is if we think a moment about the nature of the forces that today oppose truth, integrity, and justice.  We are combating Fascism!

Fascism is the very “ism” against which so many Americans and others gave their lives to fight in the Second World War.  It is a political philosophy that exalts nation and race above the individual and that stands for a centralized, autocratic government headed by a dictatorial and often capricious leader favoring economic and social regimentation and surviving by the forcible suppression of the opposition.  (You will find this same description almost anywhere you “google.”)

If many do not recognize this in the new rallying cry “America First” that often turns out to be “America Only,” in the rise of white supremacist organizations, in a budget that furthers the wealth of the wealthiest while depriving most citizens of ordinary and decent living standards, in the blundering tweets and badgering press conferences, in the repression of the vote among the opposition, then there’s a great deal of eye-opening needed indeed!

Our reckless President has just been, as I’ve been composing this, in one of the two or three potential tinderboxes of the next world war. If that doesn’t lead you to prayer, I’m not sure anything will!

Working for justice and peace, truth and integrity, is now more than ever what it means to be a responsible citizen, a lover of one’s country and fellow citizens.

[NOKXL pipeline rally, in a freezing blizzard, Grand Island, Nebraska]

A poem I ran across in Cape Rock by V. C. McCabe, entitled “The Ethics of Horses,” offered two memorable lines.  The first, McCabe’s own, lamented the cultures that “produced such pedigreed/jackasses to coronate as kings.” The second came in a subscript to his title, a quote from T. S. Eliot: “The general ethos of the people they have to govern determines the behavior of politicians.” And here is another (from Wordsmith) in the same vein: “No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices” Edward R. Murrow.

The implications chill me to the bone, don’t they you?

They encompass a conversation we had with fellow marchers at the PFLAG “Pride” March in Kearney a Saturday ago—we were noting that, had we been in the streets before the election, we wouldn’t have had to be in the streets following it. We forgot that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

[PFLAG rally/Pride March, looking up to the tip of the line of marchers, Kearney, NE]

Despite the dire times we now live in, I believe God is out there at work in and through the world as well.

Out there in the struggle as we used to say, out there on the streets, in the rallies, in the work of those who, whatever other relationship they may or may not have with God, they have a sense of right and wrong that has prompted them to take action.  They fight for Truth.  And they fight in a great tradition of struggle.

[Medgar Evers lying in state]

Our Federal system was born in a Greek revival, a rebirth of the belief that Truth, along with Goodness and Beauty, is our foremost connection to the Divine. Today, support for truth and integrity comes face to face with today’s frequent disregard for any sensible notion of Truth, a disregard once again seen notably in “high places.” It is the disregard found in the late Roger Ailes’s dictum that it doesn’t matter whether or not people get the news as long as they think they are getting the news. His recent death, accompanied by sobbing reporters from Fox News, reminds me of one of my great character flaws: I rejoice in certain obituaries! (And I’m returning to blogging about “truth” later this summer.)

In last Sunday’s gospel reading, Jesus tells his questioning disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (Please note that, in context, Jesus was not proclaiming some sort of Christian exceptionalism as the text is often contorted to imply today). The Gospel writer’s attribution of skepticism to Pontius Pilate (“What is truth?”) may or may not be historically accurate, but it is clearly meant to suggest Jesus is the Truth not in contrast to other true things but in contrast to skepticism about Truth, in contrast to cynicism about being Truthful, in contrast to the neo-nihilist ninnies who have emerged from behind the Trump curtain.

Here is a report on one of the ninnies: “There was nothing else in the hearing quite as stunning as the top lawyer in the White House telling the top lawyer in the Justice Department that lying in the White House was none of her business” (Margaret Carlson, The Daily Beast).

That ninny is surrounded by the current crowd of politicos, again from the tribe of those who claim to be deeply religious and feel persecuted because their bigotry sometimes brings down a torrent of criticism, a crowd whose religion tells them that Jesus doesn’t care about serving justice and protecting the marginalized and feeding the hungry! Tell me the Church is not the poorer for being in the grip of such folks as these. Tell me the nation is not the poorer, our politics are not the poorer when it is these wolves who have been left in charge of the sheep!

And note that, in their Fascist repression of their opposition, these jackals take names! When Desiree Fairook recently laughed at the assertion that one of these bigots was a fair man—she was arrested for it! That is what happens when court is in Session (forgive the pun!) and good folks are not found for the jury!

This is the pedigree of those the President just rewarded with his “religious liberty” order, his “defense” of those who don’t like to be called uncaring or bigoted just because they are!  His campaign promise was to “get rid of that horrible Johnson Amendment.”

Now, the Johnson amendment prohibits nothing from the pulpit except the actual endorsement of candidates. As Linda Greenhouse points out, it doesn’t apply at all to “political exhortations.” And, it shouldn’t. After all, as a recent editorial in my hometown paper, the McCook Daily Gazette, put it: “It is unrealistic to expect churches to keep political, social, and moral issues completely isolated.”  I’d ask even more strongly, in the words of Oscar Romero, “A word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed—what gospel is that?” (Sermon April 16, 1978, in The Violence of Love).

In any event, the Johnson Amendment has been invoked only once over the case of a pastor who directly charged his congregation about a presidential candidate not to vote for . . .  hardly a record of abuse, but then these folks like to feel abused . . .  it’s good for raising money!

Our President likes to attach the name Johnson to the amendment because Lyndon Johnson proposed it, but this is mostly meant to obscure the fact that it was put into effect by Dwight Eisenhower. Apparently, the so-called pastors, the wolves in sheep’s clothing Jesus warned of, want indeed to eat their cake and have it, too—to keep their tax exemption and tell their listeners who to vote for or against.

No wonder then that, in the Bible belt where the Johnson Amendment is anathema, further political fallout from the distorted gospel of a weakened Church is presaged in this dire headline: “Mississippi’s Richest County Uses Police Checkpoints to Enforce Segregation” (Alan Pyke, ThinkProgress). Just guess who cheered from their pews and pulpits!

Or, even more evidently, think of one of the proponents of the House-passed Health Care bill, who said that public health hindered people from coming to Jesus because, as he explained, so many come to God only because of sickness!  This God that likes sick people to grovel their unworthy way to Grace, well, that’s quite a different God than I know. It is apparently an idea current now in some alt-right religious circles, the very sort of circles made more prominent by the decline of those churches who preached a “social” gospel, those churches who have most suffered from the lack of affiliation of those citizens who, otherwise, are most agreeable to its teachings. (And wouldn’t a better title for the current health care bill approved by the House be “Go Fund Me”?)

Well, sorry, but remove sensible thinking and you get, surprise, insane thinking!

Here, for yet another example, is the statement made by U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador during a town hall meeting at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston. After a woman suggested that the lack of health care was essentially asking people to die, Labrador replied, “That line is so indefensible. Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” You can match that with the statement of another congressional representative from Oklahoma who claims homosexuals are “different from human beings.”

“These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him. A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief. A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.” Proverbs

We have not been active, been vigilant enough to see that these evils did not get a stronghold on our government.

Here might be one way of framing a question about the political fallout of a weakened Church.

By most accepted estimates, there are somewhere in the vicinity of 7.8 billion volunteer hours given in America by 60+ million volunteers. These statistics count only organized efforts, e.g. blood drives, food pantries, disaster relief teams, etc.  They are not counting the “help the neighbor next door get to the doctor” kind of private help, which, if added, would enhance the stats. In my own state, Nebraska, 73% self-identify as volunteers, making us the #3 state in the nation per capita for volunteering. Of course, here, self-identification might inflate the figures.

Now, clearly, not all those volunteers are Christians, nor of any religious persuasion.  What a blessing is the service of any led for any reason to volunteer. I’ve been on marches and pickets and demonstrations where I suspect the proportion of churched folks is a minority.

If we don’t want lies, if we want not to tolerate callous bigotry and denigration of intimidation of others, if we want to restore some measure of sanity to our political system and our public lives, we will all need each other and all need to find places to fight the good fight. Actions can be prayers, too, and as Grandfather Burden points out in Willa Cather’s My Antonia, “The prayers of all good people are good”!

At the same time, it is an absolute scandal that it is white, male, affluent, so-called “evangelicals” who were a major force in electing our current President and his unprecedented mendacity, and it is they who continue to be his most consistent supporters despite his being the chief of the tribe of bragging bigots and “pedigreed jackasses” who’ve sailed into power across the Ark of Salvation’s weakened wake.

Kearney, Nebraska

May 26, 2017

 

Church and the folks never or no longer interested (Part One)

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Church and the folks never or no longer interested in it (Part One)

by Charles Peek

There are a lot of good people, people I respect and admire—who wouldn’t be caught dead in a church.  Well, I guess that is when some of them might be caught there. You know, you die and where else is there to go to get a send-off?

But I wish they were “churched.” I wish they were part of the Church at large or my little piece of it.  I would enjoy their company and their presence would help make the church a different place than it often is.

I know they all have many reasons they have either never been interested or are no longer interested, never felt “called” or felt the Church was not the place where a “call” could be lived out. Believe me when I tell you, I’m well aware of everything that failed to be attractive to them, everything that may have made Church seem to them like hostile territory.  Like the Psalmist, I “dwell” there and know it firsthand.

Now, some people who were once members or whose families were as they grew up often give good reasons for leaving.  For instance, they’d never given much thought to the Church’s obsessions with sex, but when their son or daughter turned out to be gay, well they got tired of being around people bashing people like their kid.  Or they knew something of Christian history, some of it not very pretty, and didn’t want to be guilty by association. Who would want that?

And today folks who have never been or are no longer “believers” have a support system—there is a parallel universe where organized atheism is readily exploiting those issues…without, I might add, too much trouble, without even much blow back, but also without much backing from any objective history, either.

Despite the Church’s share of responsibility for the lack of allegiance or interest from which it now suffers, it is worth noting that it is not as though there has been a vigorous national debate in which the Christian Church lost. It is much more like a subject we don’t even want to address, a topic on which we don’t even want to enter. It is unimportant; it is a settled issue in our minds. We live and think as though the Christian Church could not possibly matter…not any more at least.

Now this might change.  There are some signs that, for the Church, too, “the times they are a changing.” Pope Francis seems to be transforming the image people have of the Church from the image it has so lamentably deserved to something more like an image of what the Church is truly called to be.

In Cairo, for instance, while noting that demagogic populism does not help the cause of peace, Pope Francis called the Church to “an education in respectful openness and sincere dialogue with others, recognizing their rights and basic freedoms, particularly, together, to be builders on civility.” The New Yorker called this a “Revolution of Tenderness.” *

In my own church, our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s call to be part of the Jesus Movement has also offered encouraging signs of change.

Still, the book is not in yet on whether such a transformation in the church will last…or even actually take place.  Many churches may just continue as institutions housing “organized religion,” a derisive description implying that, though there seem to be some fairly clear Jesus teachings, nevertheless the Church charged with promoting Jesus seldom emphasizes or practices them. Somewhere, the Church, that “wonderful and sacred mystery,” gets lost in the Church, that often odd and disappointing institution.

Even “revolutions” don’t usually take place over night, of course, so, for at least a while longer, we are stuck with the Church we’ve got. Which brings me back to people who’ve left or never belonged.  Usually, when people tell you why, the reason takes some form of “I found the church to be made up of imperfect people.”

It is certainly hard to quarrel with that! I’m not sure where they find to go where the ‘perfect people” are, and I have no reason to find out since I wouldn’t be let in, wherever it is. (Sure, go ahead, think Groucho Marx.)

Now, many of my closest friends are among those who have never belonged or no longer belong. At least they were close friends until this blog may have changed their minds. I seldom choose to quarrel with what is, after all, their business. The Greek word ecclesia (as in ecclesiastical) means “called out,” and I’ve come to believe that some are called, some are not. They may not be.

Still, just as I know firsthand the ugly truths that turned them off, I also have firsthand experience of the effect their absence has on the Church.  If you were thoughtful enough that the Church’s neglect or distortion of significant issues was important to you, then when you left, the Church became an even more imperfect place!

I have met many very good people on political protests for over 50 years now.  Their absence from the Church has made the Church a poorer place. (And sometimes the absence of any Church in their lives has made them the poorer, too.)

The Church is poorer for being sometimes left in the hands of people who have warped the Christian message into a package deal of all the old wrongs now sanctified in the name of Jesus.  The absence of good people from the Church—the absence of many champions for peace and justice—has left a vacuum quickly filled by new devils worse than the first.

I would never blame all, not even most of the Church’s ills on those who have never been or are no longer interested in it.  Nor would I blame all, not even most of society’s ills on a weakened Church in its midst.  Still, doesn’t it strain belief just a bit to think that there is no cause and effect relationship when the increase in many of those ills coincides with the increase in lack of participation in the life of our churches.

Take just as a sample list these ills: children growing up with no sense of anything larger than secular society, readers with no understanding of basic spiritual concepts and no way of tracking what’s biblical in their literature and art, a culture of greed where, increasingly, there is little or no moral disapproval, an Orwellian abuse of words and their meaning, a paranoid belief in military power and the devastations of domestic gun violence, a rapidly increasing gap between rich and poor, the decline of civility and discipline in our schools and among parents of little leaguers, the resurfacing of racist militancy, the election of a Dickensian Congress and several State Houses, overcrowded penal institutions useless for purposes of reform, the regular acceptance of misleading ads and claims in every branch of the media.  You can no doubt add to the list.

Is there no correlation between our current ills and a church weakened by the absence of some of society’s most enlightened members?  I’m reminded of a voice I heard repeatedly, “A people who do not know their saints will surely soon enough see an increase in the number of their sinners.”  True, that voice was mine! But I still think it might be on the right track. Life is, after all, choice; and choice does, after all, have its consequences.

Perhaps the next Great Awakening in American history should be the people now out there in the streets rallying for truth and justice returning to overwhelm the Church with their presence, any Church that will have them, any Church that the Spirit of the Living God is willing to use them to transform. They might be Quaker meeting houses or Methodist hymn sings. Even God’s frozen people.  Even the Curia!

• The Pope’s words were noted recently in the blog Speaking Truth to Power (STTP), probably the one blog I recommend the most highly of several I look at regularly and read thoroughly.

Forthcoming: Part Two: A Weakened Church and the Political Fall Out

Kearney, Nebraska May 10, 2017