Rethinking Faith and Politics

It has always disturbed and confused me how we Christians have often been seen as very narrowly focused on the political and cultural landscape - only seeming to care about two very controversial issues; abortion and gay-marriage. One might add to that how so many people of faith confuse national allegiance with following Jesus. The close ties of the Republican Party with the Religious (Christian) Right has unfornunatley become a litmus test of authentic Christianity where many Republicans of faith, particularly ones in many of our churches, will actually make statements like, "You can't be a Christian and vote for a Democrat." I have heard this comment spoken (without jest) on many ocassions. It is disturbing and completely ignores the broader issues that Christians need to be concerned with culturally, spiritually, and politically.


However, it is also true that many progressive Christians have aligned themselves with the sole agenda of the Democrat party as well. Although I have never heard a Democrat of faith say that you can't be a Christian if you vote for a Republican (though, just because I haven't heard it, it doesn't mean it hasn't been said), it is clear that conservative, progressive, liberal, fundamentalist, the Christian or religious right, etc. all have allowed political party agendas and power to define our faith as opposed to Jesus' teachings being our guide. Wallis is equally critical of the left's dismissal of important family issues and sanctity of life issues that are important to Christian community as well. Too often we have allowed political power platforms from all parties to lead us into notions of misplaced nationalistic self-preservation and led us to justify obvious inequities and injustices around the globe, even in our own nation. It is into this landscape that Jim Wallis' new book, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America, enters and suggest a more faithful and just path to addressing so many critical national and global issues of today.



Wallis' book is a celebration of how social movements with spiritual foundations can address and actively change politics and the important moral and ethical issues around the world. It particularly addresses how the U.S. can be renewed and revived to honestly and humbly face its own disintegration into being world spectators as opposed to authentic activists who seek equity and justice for the whole world, not just for our own selfish desires for resources, power, and control.



In a world of divisions, even within the Christian church, it is refreshing to read and hear from a prophetic voice that challenges Christians to be more than "two-issue" people of faith. His assesment of the Religious Right's single-minded focus on the issues of abortion and gay-marriage is that they have ignored the broader realities of biblical justice and discipleship. Wallis, as a self-titled "progressive evangelical" goes to great lengths and depth to help us move beyond right and left, liberal and conservative, and get down to the business of faithful action that will move our churches, politicians, nation, and world, to genuinely collaborate to discover equitable, workable solutions to the critical global crises of the day. Wallis writes:


As I travel the country, I can see and feel new things happening - I find a revival of faith that is directly leading to new calls and commitments for social justice. That rebirth and renewal is being directly applied to the moral and biblical scandal of poverty around the globe and here at home, to the crises of environmental degradation and climate change that pose such a threat to God's creation, and to the mulitple assaults on human life and dignity that shame our world. (p. 3)



He goes on to add:



...Many of the great social issues we face feel like huge, unmovable mountains: disease pandemics that kill millions, massive inequality that imprisons half the world's people in miserable poverty, human sexual and economic trafficking, dangerous climate changes in the earth's temperature, genocide that no one seems able to stop, so many threats to the sanctity of human life, endless violations of human dignity, and the alarming unraveling of both family and community systems. (p. 3)



Although Wallis' entire book is important for Christians of all political and theological persuasions, I personally found Chapter five, entitled, "Inclusion and Opportunity: The Welcome Table," to be a foundational one that underlies addressing all the other issues. Here, Wallis takes the terminology of the welcome table from an African-American spiritual by that same name. He suggest that this idea, based on Jesus parable of the Kingdom of God about the banquet table found in Luke 14 is, "...an excellent image and metaphor for spiritual transformation and the political strategy needed to overcome poverty." Later in the chapter, Wallis quotes Bono of the Irish rock band U2, who spoke at the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., as saying:



...God is with the vulnerable and the poor. God is in the slums in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. (p. 110)



Bono goes on in that speech to suggest that we need to move away from seeing response to these needs as an act of charity. He says, It is not about charity, it's about justice. (p. 110)



Overcoming poverty has to be about relationships. I would suggest too that this is true of all the issues raised in The Great Awakening. We must welcome people to the table, the poor with the rich, the Christians with the Jews, Muslims, and other faith traditions with the scientist, the Republicans with the Democrats. As long as we continue to use our personal theologies and political agendas to keep us separate, we will never build the important relationships needed to genuinely address the crises in our world today. I believe young people today are getting this as does Jim Wallis. So many young people today just do not understand the uncritiqued loyalty to particular parties where real solutions to real serious problems get swallowed up in political rhetoric and power plays - all the while nothing gets done not only on the world stage, but in our local communites as well. Jim Wallis holds out a great deal of hope for the future recognizing that a younger generation just may be the ones who are emerging to lead us into a more hopeful future of collaboration, of sharing power, resources, and ideas to finally make a huge impact.



Read this book. Use it for a study group in your church, book club, or just among friends.

The Heaviness of Busyness Eased by Prayer and Connection

Sorry. It's been awhile since I've taken the time to write anything personally on this blog. I don't really know if its writers block or the fact that I have felt unmotivated to write anything lately. It could have a lot to do with busyness. I read an article quite a while back - sometime in the 1990's, I think. It was in The Door magazine, which was once called The Wittenburg Door back in the day. The article was entitled, "Busyness is a Sin." I'm finding this out the hard way - by continual being busy. Yes, I work, and work has its own busyness. But, within that, the urgent continually gets in the way of the important. Maybe that's where the sin comes in. We often get distracted by the urgent in other people's lives, which demands time from our own when we genuinely care and want to be connected to others and see them succeed or to try and meet their spiritual or other needs. Or, urgent things in our own lives come up that strip away our time and attention to things that are important to developing and planning for the future.

This past Sunday, as we offered an extended time of prayer in one of our worship services at church, I felt the heaviness of busyness. Worship, in some ways, has felt like just one more thing I have to do. I felt the need to offer this extended time in prayer as a call to our congregation to be a people of prayer - not just a people who do stuff. An inordinate amount of time goes into just showing up for activities and programs so we can feel like something's going on. It seems, in this culture, it takes a lot of effort for people to be quiet, listen, pray, reflect, and genuinely prepare for the future. It can be overwhelming - the amount of activity we have to keep up. So, as I am feeling my own need for extended prayer and reflection I encouraged people to come around the chancel to pray while some ambient music played softly in the background. I suggested to them that maybe someone out there needed someone to pray with them and that they could seek out our Interim Pastor or myself or a friend and just come together and pray and connect with God and one another as well as to be in prayer for certain groups in our church.

After inviting the congregation into this time of prayer, I walked off to the side and knelt behind a column at the front of the church - expecting to be out of sight. However, my attempt at invisibility was not to play out as I had hoped. After a minute or so in prayer I felt someone slip up behind me and kneel down, placing her hand on my shoulder. Then she began to pray in a whispered voice for me. For me. This is the first time I remember, in the 13 plus years I have been at the church, that anyone has just come up to me and just prayed for me in such a personal, affirming, and uplifting way. She prayed for me to have a vision for the future. She prayed that I would feel confident in God's call wherever that took me. She prayed that I would have the energy I needed to accomplish what was before me. She affirmed me for who I was and what God might be doing in and through my life. For the first time in these many months, even years, I felt the heaviness of busyness lifted off my shoulders and a renewed sense of meaning and purpose creeping its way back into my spirit. All it took was the genuine, heartfelt prayer of a former youth group member, now gone off to college who had returned for a weekend visit. The Holy Spirit must have drawn her out of her pew that morning just for me. Just a couple of minutes of prayer and connection can make all the difference.

Will busyness invade my life again? Yes, of course it will. I'm not so naive to believe it's done for in my life. I will continually need those moments of prayer and connection, both in solitude with God and in connection with others, in order to keep busyness in check and move forward into God's future. Because of this young lady's prayer for me, I feel more confident about that now - not because it's anything I can control, but because it's something for which I have hope.

Thanks ER! You have blessed me beyond what you'll ever know.

The Domestication of Jesus (a video message by Brian McLaren)

I have recently finished reading Brian McLaren's new book, Everything Must Change. I am working on a review of the book that will appear on our blog site Feasting on Books soon. However, I discovered through McLaren's website, Deep Shift, and YouTube, this video vignette of Brian sharing about some of the issues he brings up in the book. It's a powerful message to all of us who claim to be followers of Jesus but who also find ourselves in a culture of Christianity where Jesus has become little more than a token symbol we wear on our shirts, bracelets, hats, or other apparel (even license plates). McLaren challenges the current status quo in how we have "domesticated Jesus."

I Remember the Man as a Boy

(This title comes from a song by Michael Kelly Blanchard on his Imago Dei CD)

A few weeks ago I received word that a boy I had known from my home church in South Carolina died. Of course, I knew him when we were just boys in middle and high school primarily. But, we both had grown to become men. I went into Ministry, he a Systems Analyst. I lost touch with him and his family over the years (especially since I left South Carolina and moved to KY and now live in Indiana) and even back then we were not what you might call close friends. We did not go to the same schools, but we did go to the same church and I remember him, his brother (who was closer to my age), sister and his parents with great affection and respect.

I knew him by the name David but his family called him Davis. I remember Davis as a very funny, sharp witted boy who was quick with the humor and generally just fun to be around. You never really knew what he might say (or do). Usually, it was something fall-down, rolling over laughing kind of stuff that might cause you to snort your milk out of your nose if you had just taken a drink. I have a lot of fond memories of that because I enjoy humor and laughing. I believe God gifts people like Davis in this way, because God knows there are people like me who need people around them to help them laugh and enjoy life.

With all that said though, Davis’ death is very saddening to me on several levels. One, I wish we had never lost touch. I received an email from Davis’ sister where she made the comment, “I wish you could have known Davis as he grew into a man.” Indeed I wish I had been able to - not only to know him as he grew into a man, but also his sister and brother as they have grown into the young woman and young man that they are today as well. Another level of sadness is just that Davis was so young when he died – 40. It may not seem like a fair assessment, but it always feels so much more tragic when people die so young. Finally, I am also saddened that Davis, his brother and sister, as well as their parents have had to endure so much pain and heartache over the prejudices, hatred, violence, and discrimination imposed upon them by others, especially by people who say they believe in and follow Jesus - the church. You see, Davis was gay. Over the years, I knew this about Davis and also that his brother Paul is gay and his sister is lesbian. But, I never really knew all the things this family has had to endure. It deeply troubles me that the church, people who say they follow Jesus, would treat people who are gay and lesbian with so much hatred and discrimination that they are willing to be violent and reject them to the point that they are, in many congregations unwelcome. It is an issue that the current church is going to have to deal with in more healthy and genuinely open ways so that people who are gay and lesbian and their families don’t feel like they have to pretend and try to blend into the woodwork of their congregations as if they don’t really exist or that the issues are not real and hurtful when they feel the sting of rejection and isolation. The church needs to be available to gay and lesbian people and their families and surround them with the love of Christ. I could wax on about this, but I want you to read Davis’ mom’s story, which is about her own struggle and hope for the future. She has given me permission to post her op-ed piece which she wrote back in 2000 entitled, From My Heart:

From My Heart by Margie Candler (originally an op-piece March 2000)

On the day after Thanksgiving in 1979, I went shopping for Christmas gifts for my children. Once I arrived home I carefully locked everything up and began to look around for a place to hide the key. I finally decided a good place would be a pine cone arrangement located in our bedroom. I began to move some of the pine cones aside and saw a small piece of paper folded up many times. I pulled it out, unfolded it, and saw these words, “Dear Mom and Dad: I love you very much. I hope you will not find this note until I am at least 18 and out of the house, but I am gay. This is not your fault. I am still your son. I love you, Paul.” He was 15 years old. He later told me that he had placed that note in the arrangement when he was 11 years old. I remember feeling so stunned, actually numb, and thinking, “I can’t handle this.” I never thought of my son and what he was going through in trying to understand himself.

My husband and I both grew up in the Southern Baptist Church. Our families were very active in the church. We taught Sunday School, served on various committees, and my husband served as a Deacon for many years. All three of our children were brought up in the church. We were there almost every time the door opened. However, when our eldest son conveyed to us through that note that he was gay, I thought only of myself and what “other people” would think. Would our friends turn against us? Would the church ask us to leave? I did not think about the courage it must have taken for my son to tell us of his homosexuality. I did not think what he must be enduring in coming to terms with his sexuality.

I know now that my husband and I dealt with the issue the best we knew how considering the bad information we had at the time. But oh, how I ache in my heart for putting my son through what he had to endure. I so regret those days and weeks that he had to go through, while we tried to get him to change. How sad, that he and other gay children go through the agony of trying to learn to accept who they are only to feel the sting of rejection from their own parents. Paul has told us he knew he was different from the time he was six years old. He didn’t know what being gay was, he only knew he was not like some of the other boys in our neighborhood. He must have felt so alone, with no role model or anyone with whom he could talk or ask questions. We are so fortunate that our son has such a strong personality. We could easily have lost him to suicide. Many of our gay young people commit suicide, in the depths of despair, when their families and society reject them.

We took Paul to psychologist after psychologist, trying to find one that would tell us he could “cure him.” We were fortunate that in the years of the early ‘80s, the four psychologist that we talked with told us, “Your son cannot be changed. It is you that needs to change your attitude.” After hearing that for the fourth time, I decided that if I wanted to keep a relationship with my son, then I needed to learn something about homosexuality.
Back in 1980 there were no books in the bookstores about homosexuality. I had to go to the bookseller and ask them to order the books I needed. I remember the embarrassment I felt in having to ask for some of the titles. But I knew if I wanted to learn something I had to be strong enough to ask. Reading one book, would always lead me to another. Thank goodness they usually have a list of other titles in the back, that would lead me to other books. One of the first books I read was Now That You Know, by Betty Fairchild and Nancy Hayward. I wish I had received a copy of that book on the day I found the note. It would have explained so much for me and I may have understood a little better. But I didn’t have it and I didn’t understand. Due to that lack of understanding, Paul ran away from home on several occasions. At first he left for brief stays before returning home. Six months later, due to the pressures my husband and I put on him to change, he ran away from home for the final time, at the age of 15. He was gone for a year.

Unless you have experienced it, you can never fully understand the hurt and ache in your heart when you know your child is out there, somewhere, alone. You worry about his safety, his lack of money or food. You worry about whether he is dead or alive. You worry about who will influence him and what will happen to him.
We did not know where he was until six weeks later. He finally called and told us he was in New York City. He has said that he felt like the only way he could survive was to get away. His life was not easy on the streets of New York City. Most of his story is in the book by Chastity Bono, Family Outing, along with his brother Davis’ story. It’s not a pretty story, especially in the beginning. My husband and I both thought that after we had come to terms with Paul’s homosexuality, accepting his friends into our home, that he felt our acceptance. It wasn’t until we read his story in Chastity Bono’s book that we realized that due to our silence on the issue, and our not being willing to talk to anyone about it, both of our sons still felt the sting of our rejection.

As Southern Baptist, who were uneducated about homosexuality, we understood only that the word homosexuality meant someone who was different, who didn’t fit the norm and was rejected by society. When our child suddenly applied that word to himself, we had to come face to face with what we had been taught all our lives and the person we knew our son to be. Our thoughts were: Where did we go wrong? What did we do as parents that caused this to happen? We now know these are normal feelings for most parents. It’s easy to blame yourself, when in actuality, there is no blame on anyone’s part. Our children are just who they authentically were meant to be. I have come to believe that my children are gay, not because of my failures as a parent, but because of genetics. Although no studies are conclusive, evidence strongly indicates a genetic component. But even if it were not genetic, it no longer matters to me. I love my children. I am proud of the person they have become… good, kind, thoughtful, loving human beings.

But, in the meantime, our silence was hurting our son. We were silent about our son’s homosexuality for 12 years. We talked to each other about it, and yes, we had talked with our minister, but other than that, we were silent. It was not until Carole Lender and Leslie Johnson, two wonderful women in our community who also have gay sons, started a PFLAG group (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) that we finally started the coming out process. PFLAG is a national organization that promotes the health and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons (GLBT), their families and friends. PFLAG changed our lives. We now met other parents who had gay children. Other parents who also loved their children, were willing to speak out in a positive way, and didn’t care who knew they had a gay child. PFLAG gave us a place to share our feelings and to learn about homosexuality. We learned, first hand, what gay people endure. We heard so many sad stories. Many were much worse than what our sons had faced.

One young man sat at the meeting and cried as he shared his story. His father was a minister. His father had become seriously ill and was on his death bed. The young man went to see him, and his father’s last dying words to him were, “I hate you. You are going to Hell.” The young man could not reconcile with those words. His pain was beyond belief. How sad it is that families are torn apart over homosexuality, often times beyond reconciliation.
And then, there is the story of Cliff. Cliff had finally told his parents he was gay. His sister told him that once their mother learned this information about her son, she took all of his pictures down from the walls and said she no longer had a son. When Christmas came that year, his mother sent him word that she could not stop him from coming home for Christmas, because his grandmother would wonder why he didn’t come, but if he came, he needed to find another place to stay. Needless to say, he didn’t go.

We learned that our other son is gay when he was 22 years old. He had a much easier time of being accepted by our family. By the time he told us that he is gay, I had studied and read enough about homosexuality to understand and accept it without being concerned at all. I was able to tell him what I wish I could have told my older son and that is “I love you. It does not matter. You are still my son and I’m proud of you.”
Our daughter came out to us as a lesbian in 1993. While she was fearful of the coming out process, she knew she was loved and she knew she would never be rejected by her family. What a joy to be able to share in their lives. To feel a closeness that we would never have experienced had we not been willing to understand them.

One thing Paul said that will forever let me know he has truly forgiven us our mistakes in our journey to acceptance. When he was asked if his relationship with his family had ever truly healed. He said, “I don’t harbor any resentment toward my parents. My parents are like heroes to me.” Thank God for children who will forgive and who understand we had to have time to learn, to become educated and change attitudes.

Many people try to tell us it is a choice. Well, I ask you to think about it for a minute. Can you imagine anyone who would choose to live a life in which they are hated and discriminated against? Why would someone choose to be something that horrifies their parents, which could ruin their chances of advancement in their careers or possibly even lose their jobs? Would they choose to be gay even though their religion condemns them? Would they choose to be gay even when it could cost them their lives because of homophobic people who hate gays?
The hate and discrimination that is shown by society toward our gay loved ones is wrong. Society tries to portray gay people as being deviant, child molesters, and promiscuous individuals. The media focuses on a small segment of the gay community and implies that this is how all gay people live their lives. They ignore the fact that there are many gay persons who live their lives the same way as you or I do. All people deserve to be treated fairly and loved as fellow human beings.

Our children have caused us to rethink all of our beliefs, to re-examine our own prejudices, and to have an open mind. They have made us more aware of the hurts in this world and helped us become more caring about other people who are considered “different.” We can honestly look back today, and know we have been truly blessed.
Our goal now is to try to educate others, and through that education try to eliminate hate and discrimination against GLBT people. My husband and I have been active members of PFLAG for approximately 7 years. Through the help of PFLAG, and our children, we have learned to counter-act the thoughtless words and ignorant remarks made by others. My husband and I have learned that if we want our children to have respect and equal opportunities in life, then we must work to gain that opportunity, not only for our children, but for all gay persons. We have learned that it’s not our children who need to change, it’s society that needs to change. Our children are okay the way they are.

While my husband and I have not lost our faith, we have been extremely disappointed in our denomination’s stand on homosexuality. In the beginning, my faith was a hindrance because of all the bad information about homosexuality was instilled in me from the time I was a child growing up in the Baptist Church. But later, I realized that my strong faith in God has given me the courage to speak out against bigotry and hatred against anyone who is different.
On May 8, 1993, our oldest son, Paul, told us he was HIV. I felt so helpless. I was engulfed with fear, fear about what was going to happen to him and fear about the difficulties he faced in combating HIV/AIDS. While I have always felt myself to be a strong person emotionally, I was not prepared for something of this magnitude. Educating myself on the issue of AIDS has been one of the biggest challenges of my life. Many people think that this disease can’t happen to them. Unfortunately it can and does happen to all kinds of people. We are all vulnerable to becoming involved with AIDS, either directly or indirectly.

Several months ago, Chaplain Steven Charleston, of Trinity College, wrote about the church’s silence on the issue of homosexuality. I think his words not only fit the issue of homosexuality, but also the issue of AIDS. He said:

The silence of well meaning educated people who pretend to have an enlightened view of homosexuality while quietly tolerating the abuse of gays and lesbians in their own communities. The silence of our elected officials who have the authority to make changes, but prefer to count votes. The silence of the majority of “straight” Americans who shift uncomfortably when confronted by the thought that gays and lesbians may be no different from themselves, save for the fact that they are walking targets for bigotry, disrespect, and cheap humor…. We are men and women surrounded by the silence of our own fear. Our fear of those who are different. Our fear of taking an unpopular position for the sake of those who can not stand alone. Our fear of social and religious change. Our fears come in many forms, but it always comes silently. A whispered joke. A glance to look away from the truth. These silent acts of our own fear of homosexuality are acted out everyday. Through silence, we give ourselves permission to practice what we pretend to abhor. With silence, we condemn scores of our neighbors to live in the shadows of hate. In silence, we observe the suffering of any group of people who have been declared expendable by our society. I resolve to never allow this silence to have the last word.

I, as one mother who loves her children and aches at the pain visited on all our gay and lesbian children, refuse to be silent.