Setting: An uncommonly sunny early afternoon in the Portland, Oregon area. ERIC, a young pastor in his early thirties, emerges onto the front step of his townhouse with two adorable dogs in tow. Sadly, those dogs, despite said adorableness, are consigned entirely to supporting roles, so the dogs who portray them must be calm and well-trained.
Enter stage *far* right: two door-to-door EVANGELISTS, young women roughly ERIC's age. No further identifiers will be given, as this what follows wasn't taken personally; indeed, the point of sharing this now is to highlight more universal experiences of people in similar situations. Both evangelists are carrying Bibles and brochures. The script is not a word-for-word rendition of the true story this play is based on--some sections have been condensed, and others have been recreated from memory, as the playwright was still caffeinating at this point in the day.
EVANGELIST ONE (hereafter E1): Oh my gosh, such cute dogs, are they friendly?!
ERIC: The friendliest.
Dogs scamper delightfully towards the EVANGELISTS, then back to ERIC.
EVANGELIST TWO (hereafter E2): Here, we'd like for you to take one of these *hands ERIC one of the brochures* and we wanted to ask you if you know whether you're going to be going to heaven or not when you die.
ERIC: I'm going to nip you in the bud right there--thank you for asking and for wanting to spread the Word, but I'm already a pastor of another church, so I'm probably not the best candidate for the whole spiel. (Stage direction: ERIC usually leads off with this line when put in this situation, as it automatically crosses him off just about any church's list. It has worked to great effect in conversing with evangelists, whether Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Seventh-Day Adventists--all of whom were unfailingly polite and probably could teach ERIC a thing or two about that level of unconditional politeness.)
E2: Well, that's great that you are, though! So, what would you tell someone that they had to do to get into heaven?
ERIC: I mean, that's about the context and the person really.
E2: But what if it was me? What if I needed to know how to go to heaven, what would you say to me?
ERIC: I'd probably say that I've come to understand Jesus Christ to be the Messiah, my Lord and Savior, that by having faith in Him I now do a ministry of good works, and I hope that when I die, that I will get to go be with the Lord.
E2: Well, that's fine, but you know we don't need good works to be saved, right? *Proof-texts random verse from Paul--and let's be honest, there's so many of them to proof text, so just pick one.*
ERIC: I believe that my faith must be reflected in the works I do, because James wrote that faith without works is dead.
E2: But what about *insert another proof-texted verse from Paul*?
ERIC: I'm not saying faith isn't a part of the equation. But faith has to be outward, it has to be shown by our deeds. By your works, James says, God knows your faith.
E1: So you have to be baptized to go to heaven?
ERIC: I didn't say that. That's confusing mission with baptism.
E1: Because the repentant thief on the cross, Jesus said to him, "Truly, you will be with me in Paradise." And he wasn't baptized.
ERIC (seeing where this is going): No he wasn't. But he didn't recite the Sinner's Prayer, either.
E2: So you think that if someone is just a good person, they'll go to heaven?
ERIC: That isn't what I said, either.
E2: So how can you teach that you need good works to be saved?
ERIC: Because that's what James says. If you believe that faith is necessary for salvation, James says that good deeds are a part of that faith.
E2: Well, just so you know, what you're preaching is a heresy.
ERIC: Okay.
E2: You're sending people to hell with you're teaching, and you're going to go to hell yourself if you keep teaching that.
ERIC: Okay.
E2: Is that what you want to happen?
ERIC: Obviously not, which is why I teach what I teach.
E2: That doing good works is a part of having faith?
ERIC: Yup.
E2: I just can't believe you would do that when Paul says *insert yet another proof-texted verse from Paul here*. Can't you see that the world is ending around us?
ERIC: Look, I do that because that is how I've come to understand Scripture. Scripture says that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night, and even Jesus said that He doesn't know when God will return.
E2: But we're meant to be vigilant! Which means that you will know and should know!
ERIC: Are we meant to know if Jesus didn't know?
E2: God says that we will know, though.
ERIC: But why the immediacy? In John 12, Jesus says that the Word He has spoken acts as the judge, but that judgement doesn't occur until the end of time itself. So why does this saving have to be in one person's life, or yours, or mine?
E2: You think people can be saved even after they die?
ERIC: In so many words? Yup.
E2: What is even the point of that?
ERIC: I mean, that's part of the premise of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke...
E2 (cutting off): You need to stop teaching this heresy. I am rebuking you in the name of the Lord!
ERIC: Um...okay.
E2: How can you be a pastor and teach these things?
ERIC: *shrugs*
E2: You need to repent and live by faith alone.
ERIC (sighing): Look, that's just not how the Bible reads. The apostles didn't just live by faith alone, they shared *all* their possessions and gave to everyone as each had need. They lived their faith by their deeds. And when Ananias and Sapphira held back from sharing in those deeds, Peter condemned them. They died.
E1: No, they died because they lied to the Holy Spirit!
ERIC: ...yes, through their actions. That's what Peter said.
E1: But they were never saved.
ERIC: Sure, okay.
E2: It means that they never had faith.
ERIC: But that's not what James premises himself on. His premise is that there are people like Ananias and Sapphira who purport to have faith but don't show their faith by their actions.
E2: So that just crosses out Ephesians and Galatians and *insert different letters of Paul, since we're at the point that we're proof-texting entire books of Scripture now.*
ERIC: No, it doesn't. Scripture contains Paul's and James' interpretations of God, they're allowed to differ.
E2: Scripture doesn't have interpretation, it's God's Word!
ERIC: ...God's Word revealed to limited and imperfect people like us. Which matters to me. I have to be humble enough to admit that I may not have gotten this right, and that I may have even gotten it all wrong.
E2: How can you even be a pastor if you don't think you got it right?
ERIC: Look...that's not my point. It's about humility. I'm not God. I don't get to judge life and death. And I don't get to say that I have gotten it all figured out when even Jesus said there are things God keeps even from Him.
E2: So you've decided that you need good works to make up for this lack of faith of yours?
ERIC: Again, no. That's not it at all.
E2: So you have faith in your works?
ERIC: I have faith in them in that they come from my own faith in God
E2: Well isn't that humble of you! Putting that importance on your works while kicking out God's grace!
ERIC: I have faith in God because of the grace that was freely offered to me and that I accepted. There's enough room in faith for both grace and works.
E2: No, there isn't. You need to stop spreading this heresy now, because you are sending people to hell, and you're going to be sent to hell yourself. You're going to die and get to heaven and God is going to say to you, "Get away from me, I never knew you."
ERIC: You know, if you arrived at my door to try to sell me on your church, you're doing a really bad job of it.
E2: That isn't what I'm trying to do at all. I'm trying to get you to stop spreading heresy.
ERIC: You're doing a really bad job of that, too.
E2: Well, you need to realize that what you're teaching is heresy and that if you died tomorrow you'd go to hell.
ERIC: It really isn't heresy, though. I know what the Bible does and doesn't say.
E2: Then stop ignoring it.
ERIC: I'm wasn't.
E2 (finally beginning to walk away): Well, reconsider yourself before God.
E1: Such cute dogs, though!
E1 and E2 exit stage *far* right.
ERIC looks at the brochure that has been in his hands the entire time. It outlines a purely transactional "way to Heaven" that doesn't even mention God's love. ERIC tears it up, exhales deeply, and gathers up the dogs who have been sitting patiently throughout the entire play. He takes his cell phone to do what he had wanted to be doing this whole time--open up Pokemon GO. He and the dogs exit.
*Curtain*
(While I have some commentary on this episode--which really did happen today, largely as written (again, I had to recreate some portions from memory in places where I couldn't quite get it word-for-word)--I'm going to save that commentary for sometime next week and just let this story stand on its own in the meanwhile. ~E.A.)
Vancouver, Washington
April 8, 2017
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Friday, April 7, 2017
The Wrath of Sky and Sea Comes from on High
I sit here on my living room couch with my dogs curled up on my lap, watching the winds howl from on high as they rack and buffet the blossoming tree in my tiny front yard. The National Weather Service has issued a wind advisory through the end of today for gusts of wind at over fifty miles per hour, and I can already see the damage those winds are doing, just as they did when a part of the remnants of Typhoon Songda last year.
Meanwhile, half a world away, fifty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles were unleashed upon Syria in retaliation for Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons against his own citizenry in Khan Shaykun that killed over seventy people, some of them children.
I watched the videos of the Tomahawks launching towards their targets this morning. I couldn't bring myself to do so last night. MSNBC's Brian Williams called the whole display "beautiful," but I don't think I ever could.
Tomahawk missiles are considered low-altitude, meaning they may only cruise at an altitude of one hundred feet or so, but here in the second story of my house, even a low-altitude Tomahawk would be crashing down upon me from on high, much like the winds that are screaming and howling at great length outside my windows right now.
Except, I know that there isn't a chance of a Tomahawk headed my way anytime soon. I cannot say the same for the Syrian people, who have to be terrified of what will be next--being bombed by their own government, or being bombed by us in the name of opposing that selfsame homicidal government.
How barbarically and horrifically appropriate, then, that our response to airborne chemical weapons and barrel bombs wielded by Assad against his own people should also come from the sky. In the creation story of Genesis 1, the sky is created by means of separating it from the sea. And the sea was seen by the ancients as a source of chaos, horribleness, and death. Untold monstrous animals lived within its depths. Its waters carried the ships of invading peoples. Even the water itself--moving, life-supporting water--was seen as covering the earth in chaos and darkness as the world was still yet without form and void.
So God said let there be light, and the darkness ceased. And then God separated the sky from the sea.
I realize that as a matter of course, this is not necessarily exactly how creation went--the days of creation are not literal twenty-four hour days, and not all creatures and critters were created in one fell swoop.
But re-reading that story today, in the wake of a week of chemical weapons attacks and retaliatory airstrikes, I begin to see anew why the ancients saw the sky as an offshoot of that source of chaos and horribleness of the seas.
Indeed, those Tomahawks were launched from US Navy destroyers stationed in the Mediterranean Sea. The wrath of the skies was inextricably intertwined with the wrath of the seas.
Just as it was at the time of the creation.
We have come up with new means for the oldest of ways.
But one week from today, we Christians commemorate a new way, the via dolorosa, the way to Golgotha--the way to the cross. It is there that the redemption of humanity, and its liberation from its own sinfulness, begins.
Through yet another act of violence by the state upon a civilian, a resurrection can then take place...first of one man (or God-made-man). But later...all of us.
As a Christian pastor, then, my heart aches for and is with not only the Syrian Christians whom have been championed by American Christians seeking a more exclusionary refugee policy, but also my Muslim brothers and sisters in Syria who similarly long and ache for peace. A peace that comes from what God has placed in our hearts and so too, in a manner, comes from on high.
In the meanwhile, the winds ratchet up once more. And I fear what the winds will carry next to the people in Syria desperate for peace.
What a blessed relief it will one day be, then, for that peace to be what we remember our world for rather than the wrath that we deliver from both the seas and skies of God's good creation.
Vancouver, Washington
April 7, 2017
Meanwhile, half a world away, fifty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles were unleashed upon Syria in retaliation for Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons against his own citizenry in Khan Shaykun that killed over seventy people, some of them children.
I watched the videos of the Tomahawks launching towards their targets this morning. I couldn't bring myself to do so last night. MSNBC's Brian Williams called the whole display "beautiful," but I don't think I ever could.
Tomahawk missiles are considered low-altitude, meaning they may only cruise at an altitude of one hundred feet or so, but here in the second story of my house, even a low-altitude Tomahawk would be crashing down upon me from on high, much like the winds that are screaming and howling at great length outside my windows right now.
Except, I know that there isn't a chance of a Tomahawk headed my way anytime soon. I cannot say the same for the Syrian people, who have to be terrified of what will be next--being bombed by their own government, or being bombed by us in the name of opposing that selfsame homicidal government.
How barbarically and horrifically appropriate, then, that our response to airborne chemical weapons and barrel bombs wielded by Assad against his own people should also come from the sky. In the creation story of Genesis 1, the sky is created by means of separating it from the sea. And the sea was seen by the ancients as a source of chaos, horribleness, and death. Untold monstrous animals lived within its depths. Its waters carried the ships of invading peoples. Even the water itself--moving, life-supporting water--was seen as covering the earth in chaos and darkness as the world was still yet without form and void.
So God said let there be light, and the darkness ceased. And then God separated the sky from the sea.
I realize that as a matter of course, this is not necessarily exactly how creation went--the days of creation are not literal twenty-four hour days, and not all creatures and critters were created in one fell swoop.
But re-reading that story today, in the wake of a week of chemical weapons attacks and retaliatory airstrikes, I begin to see anew why the ancients saw the sky as an offshoot of that source of chaos and horribleness of the seas.
Indeed, those Tomahawks were launched from US Navy destroyers stationed in the Mediterranean Sea. The wrath of the skies was inextricably intertwined with the wrath of the seas.
Just as it was at the time of the creation.
We have come up with new means for the oldest of ways.
But one week from today, we Christians commemorate a new way, the via dolorosa, the way to Golgotha--the way to the cross. It is there that the redemption of humanity, and its liberation from its own sinfulness, begins.
Through yet another act of violence by the state upon a civilian, a resurrection can then take place...first of one man (or God-made-man). But later...all of us.
As a Christian pastor, then, my heart aches for and is with not only the Syrian Christians whom have been championed by American Christians seeking a more exclusionary refugee policy, but also my Muslim brothers and sisters in Syria who similarly long and ache for peace. A peace that comes from what God has placed in our hearts and so too, in a manner, comes from on high.
In the meanwhile, the winds ratchet up once more. And I fear what the winds will carry next to the people in Syria desperate for peace.
What a blessed relief it will one day be, then, for that peace to be what we remember our world for rather than the wrath that we deliver from both the seas and skies of God's good creation.
Vancouver, Washington
April 7, 2017
Friday, March 31, 2017
Sabbaticals: What I've Learned About What Works
Today marks the last weekday of my three-month sabbatical. The missus and I are taking a staycation weekend so that I don't drive myself nuts with trying to accelerate back into work mode, and then on Monday morning, I head back into the office like I've done for the past five-and-a-half years.
While my sabbatical was primarily utilized to work on several different projects--my Doctor of Ministry thesis and its proposal, a book proposal, and an additional class in my D.Min. program--I also learned a lot about the nature of the sabbatical itself and of what worked and what didn't work. I have come away with a firm belief that any (and I do mean any) parish pastor working on a full-time basis would benefit from one, and so in the interests of promoting the practice of granting sabbaticals, I wanted to offer a few thoughts about how pastors can make the most of one--
Concerning length of time: the guidelines in my denomination are three months of sabbatical after five consecutive years of service. The ratio of sabbatical time to service time tends to vary a bit from denomination to denomination, but in general, at least one month for every two years of service seems to be the minimum. With that in mind, I'd suggest not taking anything less than two months as a sabbatical. There are two main reasons for this--
It means a pastor will have accumulated at least four years of ministry at your current parish, which is an important yardstick--the first year is often the honeymoon period, but years two and three can really make or break a ministry, and not all pastors survive them. It is important to emerge from those years with a clear sense of mutuality and reciprocity so that the church feels invested in its pastor when they begin planning for the sabbatical.
And secondly, honestly, anything less than two months would have been *way* too short. I purposely took the entire first week of my sabbatical as a vacation--I usually take the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day as vacation and didn't in order to get all my proverbial ducks in a row for this sabbatical--but even with that week of vacation, it took a *long* time to fully unwind from the responsibilities of running a parish day-in and day-out. If I'm being completely truthful, it probably took me most of the month of January--a full third of the sabbatical. In a two-month sabbatical, that would have been half of the sabbatical. Two months needs to be the minimum. Three is preferable.
Next: don't neglect your usual spiritual habits just because it's sabbatical. While I wasn't always at a church on Sunday mornings, I kept up with reading the Scriptures, studying commentaries, and taking time out of the day for prayer, and I absolutely needed that while away from my primary spiritual community (the congregation I serve). It gave me time to keep them centered in my life even as my life did not revolve around ministering to them, but it also gave me time to spiritually recharge after five-plus years of rewarding, but sometimes intense and even overwhelming, ministry.
Be intentional about how you're going to spend the sabbatical! At my congregation's 2016 annual general meeting--a full eleven months before my sabbatical would begin--I presented them with a one-page outline of why the sabbatical was important (besides it being a part of my contract) and how I planned to use the time away. The parish board of directors, with the counsel of our regional minister, set up an ad hoc pulpit supply committee to fill the pulpit for the past three months. And I set out specific personal milestones for each month of the sabbatical that I expected to meet with each of my projects. All of this planning took the better part of a year to put in place, but it all made the sabbatical go very smoothly.
On a similar note--the sabbatical needs to advance a pastor's skillset somehow. Frankly, most continuing education programs aren't enough. Certain classes in seminary are already likely to be at least partially dated when they're taught, and with five or more years in the rearview mirror, they've only become more obsolete. It doesn't have to be returning to the academy like I have done--there are all sorts of ways to update a ministerial toolkit. And quite simply, being able to update skills is so critical in today's church, in which congregations across the country are struggling because they're operating out of a mid-to-mid-late 20th century paradigm in an early 21st century world. Congregations are bubbles, and it is easy for that bubble to become a time capsule as the rest of the world passes on by. Don't let that happen.
Be realistic about how that advancement will happen, though. Neither the church or pastor should bite off more than they can chew for the sabbatical, and neither should try to do separately anything that may have been left undone when the sabbatical begins. It is only three or so months, after all--not the full year of the Biblical sabbatical model in Leviticus--and setting aside some time to recharge (like the staycations I took/am taking to begin and end my own sabbatical) needs to be a part of those months. So consider this the "Rome wasn't built in a day" maxim, but for sabbaticals.
And finally, acknowledge that a sabbatical is a substantial gift for any congregation to give to its pastor. Many congregations do not grant their pastors a sabbatical, and pastors eligible for one may not be able to accumulate the required service time before concluding their ministry at that particular parish. If you're searching for a new pastorate, be sure to ask about the possibility of a sabbatical if it is not brought up during the discussions about salary and benefits, and if the congregation says no, be prepared to either do some education on the topic (if it's simply a matter of not being aware of the trend of granting sabbaticals to pastors) or to accept that they may be signaling their lack of long-term interest in you (if they simply refuse to consider inserting a sabbatical into any letter of call or contract).
I hope this is a helpful resource, and if you are interested in seeking some sort of sabbatical policy at your own congregation, let me know how I might be of further help. When done correctly, sabbaticals can be a Spirit-led and productive gift furnished to pastors from congregations, and after experiencing one for myself, I adamantly believe that they are a crucial part of optimally setting up both church and pastor alike for the most fruitful time together possible. It is, then, a part of the Gospel work to provide such means for self-improvement, and to be responsible stewards of these means so that they are maximized for the benefit of all the people of God.
Vancouver, Washington
March 31, 2017
While my sabbatical was primarily utilized to work on several different projects--my Doctor of Ministry thesis and its proposal, a book proposal, and an additional class in my D.Min. program--I also learned a lot about the nature of the sabbatical itself and of what worked and what didn't work. I have come away with a firm belief that any (and I do mean any) parish pastor working on a full-time basis would benefit from one, and so in the interests of promoting the practice of granting sabbaticals, I wanted to offer a few thoughts about how pastors can make the most of one--
Concerning length of time: the guidelines in my denomination are three months of sabbatical after five consecutive years of service. The ratio of sabbatical time to service time tends to vary a bit from denomination to denomination, but in general, at least one month for every two years of service seems to be the minimum. With that in mind, I'd suggest not taking anything less than two months as a sabbatical. There are two main reasons for this--
It means a pastor will have accumulated at least four years of ministry at your current parish, which is an important yardstick--the first year is often the honeymoon period, but years two and three can really make or break a ministry, and not all pastors survive them. It is important to emerge from those years with a clear sense of mutuality and reciprocity so that the church feels invested in its pastor when they begin planning for the sabbatical.
And secondly, honestly, anything less than two months would have been *way* too short. I purposely took the entire first week of my sabbatical as a vacation--I usually take the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day as vacation and didn't in order to get all my proverbial ducks in a row for this sabbatical--but even with that week of vacation, it took a *long* time to fully unwind from the responsibilities of running a parish day-in and day-out. If I'm being completely truthful, it probably took me most of the month of January--a full third of the sabbatical. In a two-month sabbatical, that would have been half of the sabbatical. Two months needs to be the minimum. Three is preferable.
Next: don't neglect your usual spiritual habits just because it's sabbatical. While I wasn't always at a church on Sunday mornings, I kept up with reading the Scriptures, studying commentaries, and taking time out of the day for prayer, and I absolutely needed that while away from my primary spiritual community (the congregation I serve). It gave me time to keep them centered in my life even as my life did not revolve around ministering to them, but it also gave me time to spiritually recharge after five-plus years of rewarding, but sometimes intense and even overwhelming, ministry.
Be intentional about how you're going to spend the sabbatical! At my congregation's 2016 annual general meeting--a full eleven months before my sabbatical would begin--I presented them with a one-page outline of why the sabbatical was important (besides it being a part of my contract) and how I planned to use the time away. The parish board of directors, with the counsel of our regional minister, set up an ad hoc pulpit supply committee to fill the pulpit for the past three months. And I set out specific personal milestones for each month of the sabbatical that I expected to meet with each of my projects. All of this planning took the better part of a year to put in place, but it all made the sabbatical go very smoothly.
On a similar note--the sabbatical needs to advance a pastor's skillset somehow. Frankly, most continuing education programs aren't enough. Certain classes in seminary are already likely to be at least partially dated when they're taught, and with five or more years in the rearview mirror, they've only become more obsolete. It doesn't have to be returning to the academy like I have done--there are all sorts of ways to update a ministerial toolkit. And quite simply, being able to update skills is so critical in today's church, in which congregations across the country are struggling because they're operating out of a mid-to-mid-late 20th century paradigm in an early 21st century world. Congregations are bubbles, and it is easy for that bubble to become a time capsule as the rest of the world passes on by. Don't let that happen.
Be realistic about how that advancement will happen, though. Neither the church or pastor should bite off more than they can chew for the sabbatical, and neither should try to do separately anything that may have been left undone when the sabbatical begins. It is only three or so months, after all--not the full year of the Biblical sabbatical model in Leviticus--and setting aside some time to recharge (like the staycations I took/am taking to begin and end my own sabbatical) needs to be a part of those months. So consider this the "Rome wasn't built in a day" maxim, but for sabbaticals.
And finally, acknowledge that a sabbatical is a substantial gift for any congregation to give to its pastor. Many congregations do not grant their pastors a sabbatical, and pastors eligible for one may not be able to accumulate the required service time before concluding their ministry at that particular parish. If you're searching for a new pastorate, be sure to ask about the possibility of a sabbatical if it is not brought up during the discussions about salary and benefits, and if the congregation says no, be prepared to either do some education on the topic (if it's simply a matter of not being aware of the trend of granting sabbaticals to pastors) or to accept that they may be signaling their lack of long-term interest in you (if they simply refuse to consider inserting a sabbatical into any letter of call or contract).
I hope this is a helpful resource, and if you are interested in seeking some sort of sabbatical policy at your own congregation, let me know how I might be of further help. When done correctly, sabbaticals can be a Spirit-led and productive gift furnished to pastors from congregations, and after experiencing one for myself, I adamantly believe that they are a crucial part of optimally setting up both church and pastor alike for the most fruitful time together possible. It is, then, a part of the Gospel work to provide such means for self-improvement, and to be responsible stewards of these means so that they are maximized for the benefit of all the people of God.
Vancouver, Washington
March 31, 2017
Friday, March 3, 2017
National Speech and Debate Day
I did not know this (after all, I've only got a finite amount of mental RAM, and most of it is taken up with whisky trivia and strong opinions about barbeque), but today is National Speech and Debate Education Day. As you may or may not have known this as well, and may or may not know the impact that it has on truly thousands of students' lives every single year, I wanted to take a bit of time away from working on my doctoral thesis proposal to list out a few:
To get it out of the way first, there's the financial impact. Speech and debate paid for a not-unsubstantial sum of my expensive liberal arts education at Lewis & Clark College through a scholarship fund that I still happily donate to as an alum. My working as a coach made living as a college student and then as a graduate student a little more economically doable. And simply having my travel expenses paid for to travel to cities that I had never been to before--Boston, Washington D.C., Atlanta, San Diego, and more--was a privilege.
There's the experiential impact: The only award I've kept from my entire speech and debate career is a commemorative gavel from my senior year of college when I was invited, along with two friends on the debate circuit, to represent the United States against the Irish national debate team at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Continuing the time-honored tradition of Irish dominance at these debates, my American teammates and I got our asses kicked, but being invited to give that speech, in representation of both college and country, is a humbling experience that I will never, ever forget.
There's the interpersonal impact: I've met friends on the speech and debate circuit in both high school and college who remain good friends to this day. We would spend entire weekends arguing out in classrooms across the country over public policy and values, and today they remain valued sparring partners who tell me when I might be onto something and when I need to question my assumptions. Some of them I trust more than any pundit, any talking head, and any rando with a blog (like, say, me) to tell me what's what.
There's the impact of teaching and mentoring: I had some truly fantastic coaches in high school and college who made it their business to ensure that I was not just putting in the effort, but that I was set up to succeed. It's one thing to simply exhort someone to work harder; it is entirely another to teach them how to work *better.* And when I went into coaching myself, first for two years at Lake Oswego High School and then for two years at City College of San Francisco, I tried to emulate as many of the traits of my past coaches that I could.
There's the inner belief impact: I grew up with a speech impediment that I spent long hours in speech therapy as a child to overcome, and being able to give speeches and debate publicly was the equivalent of a quantum leap forward for my confidence and assuredness with the English language. I have no doubt that I would not be able to preach and teach the way I do today without that confidence that speech and debate gave me.
And perhaps most importantly, there's the critical analysis impact: speech and debate, quite simply, taught me how to think. It taught me how to approach scholarly evidence, how to determine credibility, how to do research, and so much more. I learned about all manner of public policy and political philosophy this way, little of which I would have learned in any other venue short of intensively reading newspapers and theory textbooks every single day.
Competing at such a high level in anything does things to you--it warps the way you live by throwing your daily life and rhythm out of balance. It gives you a different perspective on, well, living. To compete at the level I did, especially in college, took a lot out of me in early mornings, late nights, marathon tournaments and practices, and frequent cramming sessions. It had the capacity to make me very irritable, emotionally fragile, and immature. I had to grow up in a big damn hurry, and I didn't always do it well.
But the positives far outweigh the negatives. The people I have met along the way, the experiences that I carry with me, and the sheer tonnage of what I have learned of the world and its people and institutions have all shaped me profoundly for the better, creating a debt of gratitude to an academic class that I picked up as an awkward teenager that I will never be able to fully repay.
In South Africa, there is a concept known as ubuntu that has no good English translation because of the fundamental differences in worldview that come through in language, but it teaches, basically, that who I am is tied up in who you are--that my humanity is fundamentally shared. I am who I am because my coaches, teammates, competitors, and peers were and are who they are.
And I could not be more grateful for that fact, that I got to be influenced by those whose work in speech and debate has made for a more engaged and thoughtful world.
Vancouver, Washington
March 3, 2017
To get it out of the way first, there's the financial impact. Speech and debate paid for a not-unsubstantial sum of my expensive liberal arts education at Lewis & Clark College through a scholarship fund that I still happily donate to as an alum. My working as a coach made living as a college student and then as a graduate student a little more economically doable. And simply having my travel expenses paid for to travel to cities that I had never been to before--Boston, Washington D.C., Atlanta, San Diego, and more--was a privilege.
There's the experiential impact: The only award I've kept from my entire speech and debate career is a commemorative gavel from my senior year of college when I was invited, along with two friends on the debate circuit, to represent the United States against the Irish national debate team at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Continuing the time-honored tradition of Irish dominance at these debates, my American teammates and I got our asses kicked, but being invited to give that speech, in representation of both college and country, is a humbling experience that I will never, ever forget.
There's the interpersonal impact: I've met friends on the speech and debate circuit in both high school and college who remain good friends to this day. We would spend entire weekends arguing out in classrooms across the country over public policy and values, and today they remain valued sparring partners who tell me when I might be onto something and when I need to question my assumptions. Some of them I trust more than any pundit, any talking head, and any rando with a blog (like, say, me) to tell me what's what.
There's the impact of teaching and mentoring: I had some truly fantastic coaches in high school and college who made it their business to ensure that I was not just putting in the effort, but that I was set up to succeed. It's one thing to simply exhort someone to work harder; it is entirely another to teach them how to work *better.* And when I went into coaching myself, first for two years at Lake Oswego High School and then for two years at City College of San Francisco, I tried to emulate as many of the traits of my past coaches that I could.
There's the inner belief impact: I grew up with a speech impediment that I spent long hours in speech therapy as a child to overcome, and being able to give speeches and debate publicly was the equivalent of a quantum leap forward for my confidence and assuredness with the English language. I have no doubt that I would not be able to preach and teach the way I do today without that confidence that speech and debate gave me.
And perhaps most importantly, there's the critical analysis impact: speech and debate, quite simply, taught me how to think. It taught me how to approach scholarly evidence, how to determine credibility, how to do research, and so much more. I learned about all manner of public policy and political philosophy this way, little of which I would have learned in any other venue short of intensively reading newspapers and theory textbooks every single day.
Competing at such a high level in anything does things to you--it warps the way you live by throwing your daily life and rhythm out of balance. It gives you a different perspective on, well, living. To compete at the level I did, especially in college, took a lot out of me in early mornings, late nights, marathon tournaments and practices, and frequent cramming sessions. It had the capacity to make me very irritable, emotionally fragile, and immature. I had to grow up in a big damn hurry, and I didn't always do it well.
But the positives far outweigh the negatives. The people I have met along the way, the experiences that I carry with me, and the sheer tonnage of what I have learned of the world and its people and institutions have all shaped me profoundly for the better, creating a debt of gratitude to an academic class that I picked up as an awkward teenager that I will never be able to fully repay.
In South Africa, there is a concept known as ubuntu that has no good English translation because of the fundamental differences in worldview that come through in language, but it teaches, basically, that who I am is tied up in who you are--that my humanity is fundamentally shared. I am who I am because my coaches, teammates, competitors, and peers were and are who they are.
And I could not be more grateful for that fact, that I got to be influenced by those whose work in speech and debate has made for a more engaged and thoughtful world.
Vancouver, Washington
March 3, 2017
Friday, February 24, 2017
Book Review: Healing Spiritual Wounds by Carol Howard Merritt
Carol has built her reputation as a Christian writer and speaker off of the systematically-laid out vision for a new church that first came through in her debut work Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation, but Healing Spiritual Wounds is a bit more organic and much more introspective. Recognizing the Jonah-esque internal turmoil that is increasingly commonplace for people raised in the faith and feeling the need to then leave it, Healing Spiritual Wounds is part-how-to guide, part-testimony, and part-apologia for the church's own complicity in the emotional scars that so many people bear today.
Given that subject matter, you might expect such a book to be a genuine emotional drag, or at least a slog to get through. And while yes, at times the words on the page *are* difficult to read, it is often because they are supposed to be difficult to read. If there is a common denominator to be had across Carol's body of work, it is that she is a pastor and writer unconcerned with what I have come to term as the "Church of Be Nice and Chew With Your Mouth Closed." Not that there isn't virtue to chewing with your mouth closed--there is--but that such virtue is dwarfed by the far more soul-sized virtues that Jesus enumerates in Matthew 23 as the "weightier matters:" justice, mercy, and faith.
In these virtues, it is imperative to recognize that the church has at times failed both its adherents and its communities--a case that Carol makes not with wrathful fire or blithe indifference, but with carefully chosen words of care and compassion for both the church and the people whom it has hurt, people of whom Carol recounts throughout the book as realizing that the presence of the church in their lives was akin to a poison which required an antidote.
If it is painful to hear of the body of Christ seen, and likened to, a poison, it should be: realizing the harm done in the name of Christ by profoundly flawed people is a painful process. And it would be easy for a book on such a topic to simply be an exercise in pain, but that is emphatically not the case in Healing Spiritual Wounds, as Carol presents a blueprint of sorts for the healing that must take place--healing not only for individuals hurt by abusive churches and communities, but healing for the church itself as a living, breathing entity still very much capable of the sort of kingdom-building to which it was commissioned in by the Risen Christ in the Gospels. This blueprint centers around her fundamental belief in the love of God and its radically deep, inclusive, and lifechanging nature, and it serves as the good news of a book that may otherwise bear a foreboding title for many.
And from this good news we get a sense of the depths of Carol's hopes in and for the church. There is a great deal of work to do in building the body back up after the waves of sex and financial scandals, the use and endorsement of conversion therapy, and now after the 2016 elections the selling-out of previously strongly-held principles concerning modesty, humility, and sexuality in order to elect Donald Trump as president.
But we are a resilient people, and with the tools that Carol proffers to us in this book, we can stand to be even more so going into the future. Because God knows, seeing the pain and violence taking place already in 2017, we shall surely need those tools, and her words. If you are interested in learning more about how people have come to heal with their church-inflicted injuries, or if you yourself are struggling with the pain of past church experiences, you very likely will not regret the time and money you sink into reading this book.
Vancouver, Washington
February 24, 2017
Disclaimer: I have maintained a friendship with Carol for several years ever since inviting her to speak at a regional church conference. However, I was not materially or financially compensated in any way for my review, and all opinions in this review are mine, and mine alone.
Saturday, February 18, 2017
You Regret Your Vote. What Next?
Here's just a sampling:
@realDonaldTrump You failed everyone with Price, Mulvaney, Mnuchin and ur swamp friends. Given a do-over I would SO vote @HillaryClinton.— The Forgotten 80% (@TrumpTrain4444) February 15, 2017
@realDonaldTrump I wish I could take back my vote. Made a mistake. I expected more professionalism. You owe an apology for that press conf.— Fernando A Sosa (@FernandoASosa2) February 18, 2017
Since I'm living in regret tonight I would like to say that I officially REGRET voting for @realDonaldTrump Russia is toying with you duh— 자와나 (@JayyyJaegseun) February 16, 2017
I believe all of these folks when they say that their regret for having voted for Trump is sincere. And while confession is generally good for the soul, part of confession from a Christian perspective is always what comes afterward: penance. We teach that repentance must not only be sincere, but substantive--it must result in not just a change of heart or nature, but also in spiritual fruit that you and others can benefit from.@realDonaldTrump SO ANGRY AT YOU AND YOUR AIDES FOR PUTTING OUR COUNTRY, MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS AT RISK!!! CAN'T BELIEVE I VOTED FOR YOU!!!— Hawaiianbarbee (@mariamichelle) February 15, 2017
So, if you have come to regret your presidential vote last November, what can you do to repent, to show penance? Here are just five ways to do so:
1. OWN YOUR VOTE. Don't try to diminish it by saying you had no idea that Trump would do the things that he has spent the past four weeks doing--plenty of people were trying to warn you of that, and for whatever reason, you chose not to listen when the moment of truth in the voting booth arrived. This isn't me saying "I told you so," this is me asking you not to try to sweep your enabling of Trump under the proverbial rug, because it is important for the efficacy of ways #2-5.
2. If you have friends who are genuinely worried about their well-being because Trump represents an existential threat to their livelihoods, listen to them. Really listen, too. Don't talk over or interrupt them. Ask them how you can help them. Then, do what they ask of you without debating them or playing devil's advocate.
3. Put your money where your mouth is. Donate to the ACLU, Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, or any number of other organizations doing the good work that needs to be done during the next four years. If your finances allow, set up a recurring donation.
4. Get involved yourself. Attend a protest. Write or call your Congressional representatives and senators. Explain exactly how and why you came to regret your vote and ask them to act as a check on Trump's various excesses.
5. And finally, remember this profound feeling of regret that you feel now when Election Day 2018 and Election Day 2020 both roll around, and cast your vote accordingly, with forethought, care, and deliberation.
This list is by no means exhaustive. It is meant to be a springboard, not an index. I encourage you to get creative with regret (man, we clergy really don't say that enough, do we?). I hope that, instead of just wallowing in it, you can find life, energy, and meaning in it. Our consciences exist to make us better people, and I pray that for you just as much as I pray that for myself.
We're in for a long four years, brothers and sisters. Be there for one another. Even if you weren't before. Especially if you weren't before.
Vancouver, Washington
February 18, 2017
Friday, February 10, 2017
I Follow an Executed Savior
Reading the stories about this bill initially, I thought it pretty standard fare for the death penalty-happy South, which has typically used capital punishment as a means to rid itself not of the worst of the worst criminals, but of violent black people while more frequently sparing the lives of its violent white people (a phenomenon that is most certainly not limited to the South--rather, quantitatively, most executions take place there, especially in Texas and Virginia).
And truthfully, the firing squad may in fact be more "humane" (air quotes very much intentional) means of execution. By this point, drug companies that want no business in state-sponsored death have refused to sell their drugs to state governments for the purposes of executions, which in turn has forced those state governments to search for alternate drugs from alternate sources, usually shady compounding pharmacies that operate on the very boundaries of DEA and FDA law--and likely sometimes over said boundaries.
Put a different way--it would be like, instead of going to a government-regulated marijuana dispensary (which I'm not condoning either) here in the Pacific Northwest, you instead went to the home of your friend's sketchy-as-balls friend who hands you a bag of something that may or may not in fact be marijuana. And then it is used by the state to kill you.
So I'm more than happy to see lethal injection go the way of the dodo. Honestly, I always saw it as a convenient sort of mask that shaded from us the true sadism of what it is we were doing, which basically entailed forcibly paralyzing a person and then inducing a massive and painful heart attack until they died. All of which they may or may not have felt--but could not register pain thanks to the paralytic--because the sleeping agent administered at the very start may or may not have actually worked. It's a lie to tell ourselves that we execute people humanely--we execute pets more humanely than we execute people.
None of which might matter to the fine folks down in Mississippi, but it sure as hell does to me, if for no other reason than I serve, follow, and worship a Savior whose execution by the state was not only unjust, but torturous as well. If there ought to be a common maxim in Christian political ethics, it must be that regardless of whether you believe in killing in self-defense or as a part of just war theory, Christians do not gratuitously kill, and certainly do not gratuitously torture.
Yet capital punishment constitutes both of those things. It is not as though methods like lethal injection have made us more humane, no, they have simply masked our sadism, and in truth, we were always that sadistic. We still are.
While the shock and awe I have seen from friends so far is the mention of methods like the gas chamber and the electric chair, what bothered me most about this entire story is a thrown-away line in the middle of the Washington Post article--the legislator sponsoring this bill is, among other things, a Baptist pastor. And this pastor-turned-lawmaker spoke of the need for justice for the parents of a daughter raped and killed twenty-five years ago.
To which I would simply say--justice has and is being served. Life imprisonment without parole is human justice, and this condemned wretch who did this still awaits God's justice. After all, it was Paul (who himself, like Jesus, was unjustly executed by the state) in Romans 12 who wrote, "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'"
I want to know what this pastor-turned-lawmaker does with verses like these. I want to know what he does with the reality that he, like me, professes faith in, and allegiance to, an executed Savior.
I wear a cross around my neck for a reason--it isn't to identify me as a Christian, although it does. It is to remind me that in the inhumanity of the cross there lies my own humanity. It might well have been me crucified and hurling insults at Christ like the two who were crucified alongside Him did. Not because I would have been a violent rebel against Rome in a past life, but because Jesus wasn't a violent rebel against Rome and yet He still found himself flogged and crucified. Which means that it could just as easily have been me up that cross too.
It is, by the by, why the cross I wear is also equal-armed--an equal-armed cross, in the tradition of the Red Cross and the flag of Switzerland, represents peace. I find peace in the knowledge that I follow an executed Savior. I find peace in knowing that it was not enough simply for Christ to die and be resurrected, but that we had to kill Him and yet He was still brought back to us.
I hear similarly moving sentiments from many of my colleagues about the power of the cross, and I would well imagine that this fellow in Mississippi might say something similarly reverential about the cross as well. But it is hard for me to see how the cross has made him a better servant to his fellow children, not when he seeks still more crosses upon which to lash the bodies of the wretched.
But was not one cross enough? Did it not take one death of a single condemned man to save the world?
Why can we not leave our barbarism at that?
It is something that I continue to fail to comprehend.
Vancouver, Washington
February 10, 2017
Image of church and cross courtesy of Wikimedia
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