Look, I know of no other era in the history of the world with which to compare this current political climate other than the German Weimar Republic shortly before the rise of Adolph Hitler. I say this not to compare any current politician or group of politicians to that group, but only to compare tactics to tactics.
I've often wondered how it was that the Nazi's came to power in a country filled with reasonable moderate normal people. Pushed to the brink... sure. Lots of poverty and anger... I can accept that. But still, Nazi thuggery aside, don't right meaning people stand up to lies, half truths, and outrageous behavior? Not ten years before, the exact same tactics that Hitler used to win the Chancelorship of Germany landed him in prison because normal everyday Germans, still smarting from the end of World War I and the reparations that followed, did not and would not believe the lies he was spouting.
I've had my differences with the Republican Party, and in the distant past, I even admired them for a short period of time. But that was a different Republican Party than the one trying to fool the country today. While I might have disagreed with everything George W. Bush stood for, I nevertheless thought that he was speaking the truth (from a slightly skewed perspective) about the world. If Kerry said the economy was bad, Bush would say the economy was good and explain why. I didn't necessarily agree with Bush, but I wouldn't feel that he was just making stuff up. I might have disagreed with the Republican Party, but I listened to what they had to say with respect before I made up my mind on which way to vote.
I tried to do the same thing with the current Republican Party last night. Even though the PAC's and the politicians out there have been spouting off a lot of patently false nonsense lately (Birthers, swiftboating the President on Osama, etc...), I figured that when it came time for the Republican convention all that crazy stuff would stop and the truth (or something like it) would come out and I would be able to judge the Republican party for what they actually stood for and not for some crazy belief that the President was Kenyan, Muslim, Communist, and out to destroy America in some vast conspiracy. Boy, was I wrong.
I listened to the speeches. They were dialed back a bit, but they were every bit as looney as the rest of the nonsense the Republicans have been speaking since 2008. To listen to it, you would think that Barack Obama was the antithesis of everything good and that he had singlehandedly caused every single problem faced by Americans today. You name it, he was blamed for it. And in a vacuum completely - nobody else had done anything wrong in this country. Rush Limbaugh half-blamed Obama for Hurricane Isaac yesterday and the rest of the party seemed ready to follow suit.
I'm not just disappointed. I'm alarmed. To be fair, Mitt Romney is too good for these bunch of crazy people he's been saddled with. The Grand Old Party sounds like a bunch of old people blaming (fill in the blank) for everything from cancer to pollution. I just nod politely and walk away. But, to bring this around full circle, I wonder if that's what the Germans did. Did they really believe half of the crap that the Nazi party was spouting, but assumed, incorrectly, that the more moderate elements of the Party would control things? This is one of those questions that can probably only be answered if the Republicans win and we look back on this same subject four years from now.
I recognize that such hyperbole is almost always false. Everybody claims that a Spanish Inquisition is coming, but nobody really ever expects it, and hence, they rarely ever actually occur. Its just as valid that President Obama might really be a bad choice for this country and that he really will usher in the economic end times. There really is no way to know - since both claims are rooted more in fear and guesswork than based in fact.
Unfortunately that's the only way people are being given to decide. We are presented with our worst fears and told to choose between which apocalyptic future we think is more likely to happen. That's no way to make an informed vote and both sides are to blame.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
2012 Election - Rock or Hard Place?
Before I explain why it's imperative to vote Democratic in this next election, I want to start out by saying how disgusted I am with the current spate of politics in this country. If disrespect and outright lies could block access to the sun, this country would be in perpetual darkness. Both sides of the fence share the blame. Both sides are equally useless in running this country. But, we can't throw out the baby with the bath water. There are some good politicians out there... but there is no good politics right now.
And that's why we all must vote Democratic in this election. It's not because a vote for this party is a stamp of approval for what they've accomplished. They haven't. And it's not an endorsement of what they stand for or stand against - which is mostly a moot point anyway. Its because the other party has been using a tactic for the past four years that will spell doom for the country if it continues for another four years.
For four years, the Republican party has done everything in their power to block any form of legislation from moving forward. Good, Bad or Indifferent - the legislature of this country has sat on its duff for the last four years while the situation that got us into this mess has continued to fester and grow. Now, I don't think the Democrats are entirely blameless in this. They haven't exactly tried to reach across the aisle. But mostly I blame the Republicans who have basically said since President Obama's inauguration in 2009 that they were going to do everything in their power to block him from accomplishing anything.
If the Republicans win the election it will prove to both sides that preventing anything from getting done is the way to proceed politically in order to destabilize the other parties power. This is the absolute wrong precedent to set in bicameral politics. Once we start down that path, once we show that doing nothing has political advantages, this country will cease to exist as we've known it.
Of course, if the Democrats win it doesn't necessarily mean that the tactics of the Republican party will change. And it doesn't mean that if the Democrats gain the power to accomplish things that they will do so wisely. But something has got to give in Washington gridlock. Our nation's survival depends on it.
And if nothing changes... then a third party will need to be created in order to end the loggerhead.
And that's why we all must vote Democratic in this election. It's not because a vote for this party is a stamp of approval for what they've accomplished. They haven't. And it's not an endorsement of what they stand for or stand against - which is mostly a moot point anyway. Its because the other party has been using a tactic for the past four years that will spell doom for the country if it continues for another four years.
For four years, the Republican party has done everything in their power to block any form of legislation from moving forward. Good, Bad or Indifferent - the legislature of this country has sat on its duff for the last four years while the situation that got us into this mess has continued to fester and grow. Now, I don't think the Democrats are entirely blameless in this. They haven't exactly tried to reach across the aisle. But mostly I blame the Republicans who have basically said since President Obama's inauguration in 2009 that they were going to do everything in their power to block him from accomplishing anything.
If the Republicans win the election it will prove to both sides that preventing anything from getting done is the way to proceed politically in order to destabilize the other parties power. This is the absolute wrong precedent to set in bicameral politics. Once we start down that path, once we show that doing nothing has political advantages, this country will cease to exist as we've known it.
Of course, if the Democrats win it doesn't necessarily mean that the tactics of the Republican party will change. And it doesn't mean that if the Democrats gain the power to accomplish things that they will do so wisely. But something has got to give in Washington gridlock. Our nation's survival depends on it.
And if nothing changes... then a third party will need to be created in order to end the loggerhead.
Monday, August 20, 2012
I'm Pushing Up Against My Own Limits
God continues to lead me into uncharted territory and I'm no longer sure where I stand. I could use a little advice from all my blogging friends.
In finishing the book on the Spiritual Journey of U2, I've been thinking about what it means to serve out on the frontiers of Christendom - the area that, unfortunately, must now include a great deal of the United States as well. Theologically this is an area where most people probably identify themselves as religious, or spiritual, but do not identify with any particular church or religion. These people, clearly, are out there hoping for someone to show them the right path, but being either too stubborn to follow it or, having been burned by the experience before, hesitant to be lead into another soul crushing experience. What sort of theology must one adopt in order to reach these people?
I don't believe its a question of telling two different stories - one to believers and one to non-believers. I think its a question of how you engage non-believers and lead them to want to become believers. One of the issues that keeps coming up in the U2 book was how Bono could get so many people to become involved in very Christian causes (like social justice, poverty, AIDS, etc...) while on one hand being very forward about his own religious beliefs and on the other hand including all those non-believers into the mix. It probably helps being a rock star. ;) But it's interesting that so many people will recognize the importance of helping others if there isn't a religious tag associated with it, and then, ironically, lambasting religious people for not doing enough to help others.
The Geek Community has a great many people that are very anti-religious... and yet, I believe that the Geek Community is a caring community that could be a wonderful force for good in this world. But beyond their usefulness to the world, I believe there are a number of people in this community that are searching for Christ without knowing who it is that they seek, and every time the search leads them back to church, they are turned off by the notion of what the Church has become. How do you counteract that while still remaining part of the very thing that causes them such turmoil?
In finishing the book on the Spiritual Journey of U2, I've been thinking about what it means to serve out on the frontiers of Christendom - the area that, unfortunately, must now include a great deal of the United States as well. Theologically this is an area where most people probably identify themselves as religious, or spiritual, but do not identify with any particular church or religion. These people, clearly, are out there hoping for someone to show them the right path, but being either too stubborn to follow it or, having been burned by the experience before, hesitant to be lead into another soul crushing experience. What sort of theology must one adopt in order to reach these people?
I don't believe its a question of telling two different stories - one to believers and one to non-believers. I think its a question of how you engage non-believers and lead them to want to become believers. One of the issues that keeps coming up in the U2 book was how Bono could get so many people to become involved in very Christian causes (like social justice, poverty, AIDS, etc...) while on one hand being very forward about his own religious beliefs and on the other hand including all those non-believers into the mix. It probably helps being a rock star. ;) But it's interesting that so many people will recognize the importance of helping others if there isn't a religious tag associated with it, and then, ironically, lambasting religious people for not doing enough to help others.
The Geek Community has a great many people that are very anti-religious... and yet, I believe that the Geek Community is a caring community that could be a wonderful force for good in this world. But beyond their usefulness to the world, I believe there are a number of people in this community that are searching for Christ without knowing who it is that they seek, and every time the search leads them back to church, they are turned off by the notion of what the Church has become. How do you counteract that while still remaining part of the very thing that causes them such turmoil?
Monday, August 13, 2012
I No Longer Believe In Coincidences
I have detailed here recently my decision to enter the Commissioned Lay Pastor program. In that post, I mentioned how I had heard the call and then had it confirmed through prayer and the "coincidental" timing of Matt Cain's Perfect Game. Since that time, the coincidences have been coming fast and furiously.
When my power went out a month or so ago, and I couldn't watch the television program that I'd been wanting to see nor check my e-mail on the computer, I picked up a dusty volume of In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day that my good friend Andy had given me one year for my birthday, and I started to read it. Here was a book about being bold in your faith and answering God's call in your life. More importantly, here was a book that described the author's call in such a clear and concise way that I recognized it immediately as the exact same description of the way God had called me. It was the ultimate confirmation that what I had heard God tell me was authentic and that I needed to be bold. One clear line stood out in the author's reminder to me personally that often times God's call makes absolutely no sense to the person being called. It was an interesting coincidence.
After I made arrangements to begin the process of joining the CLP program, I admit that I still had no idea what God was asking me to do. I'm not Grade A religion material. God laughed when I asked whether he wanted me to go to seminary out of high school. But I had confirmation that God wanted me to go to the program even if he wasn't telling me why.
The hang up was in the idea of the CLP program itself. Its designed mostly for mission programs - when a church is trying to reach into a new community and needs someone who speaks that language (whatever that language might be) - a church might designate someone to take on the trappings of a pastor for a short period of time in order to better serve that new community. But what community did I belong to that wasn't already a part of the church? I only speak English, and then only barely... ;)
At the end of my last preaching assignment, I was asked to deliver the benediction. As of the morning of the service, I still had not thought what to say. I was preaching about why I was no longer looking for a career in film making. But I still have a passion for film and other geeky things. I was struck with a bizarre idea to use film quotes from familiar movies as my benediction - things like ET saying, BE GOOOD! Well, this was highly unorthodox... even for me... but when the time came to deliver my benediction I stood before the church thinking it was a really bad idea and realized that I had no other idea for what to say as a benediction. I delivered the benediction as I had prepared it and the congregation loved it.
Where this gets interesting, coincidentally, is that the next day at work I was telling my co-worker about my benediction and she laughed and said, "I wish my church was more like that. I'd actually want to go more often." Boy that really got me to thinking... what language did I really know, what language could I really speak? I am fluent in GEEK!
This set off a fury of thought about reaching out to my fellow Geek brothers and sisters as a community and hopefully engaging them in a dialog that led to Jesus. But wait... that's absolutely crazy, right? Is this not just my own wishful thinking? God, please send me out to talk to people, but don't send me to people I can't understand? I was looking for a way to serve God on my own terms. God clearly had other more important things for me to do. Surely he was calling me into ministry with the homeless or battered women or drug users or something. Geeks? Be serious, Will.
I put the thought aside and continued to wonder what it was that God was calling me to do. All I knew was that he would have something good for me to do and that sooner or later he would reveal that plan to me.
Yesterday our Pastor returned from his sabbatical. He had been gone for a little over three months - praying, resting, and renewing his faith in God and Christ. He had also been to the General Assembly - a gathering of the entire Presbyterian Church in the United States on a national level. It was at the GA where church policy was discussed and made and where our commitment to Jesus was always refreshed. This was the first time I had seen our Pastor since he'd left for his sabbatical and I was curious as to what he was going to preach.
Coincidentally, he told the congregation that the Presbyterian Church in the United States is committed to bringing forth over 1000 new congregations in this country in the next three years - and none of them are to be based in church buildings. The National Church has recognized the fact that we ought to be outside our church building preaching to the people out there, where the people are. This was, in fact, that subject of my first sermon. The National Church has further recognized the fact that these new congregations ought to be started by bringing together unchurched people with common interests and forming communities with them - like, say, a group of bike riders or a bunch of people who hang out in coffee shops, or... maybe... even Geeks.
PZOW! Lightning!
Here I am, about to enter classes that will allow me to preach to a new faith community and the only faith community I can think of preaching to is the Geek Community and then the national church basically jumps in and says we need volunteers to preach to the Geek Community. Total coincidence, right? Purely random.
So, I'm talking to my Kenya group about these thoughts and feelings and my pastoral advisor says to me, "Oh by the way, Will, another member of the church came to me this week and said that they had decided to become a Commissioned Lay Pastor as well." I'm telling you, there is something in the water at my church.
The more I travel the world and speak to Christians the world over, the more I read about the Christian experience, and the more I experience Christianity myself, the more convinced I am that there is NO SUCH THING AS A COINCIDENCE. This is like deja vu in the Matrix. If you experience a coincidence, you have been witness to the moving of the Holy Spirit in your life. God's motives may be mysterious, but his methods are on display for all to see. You see coincidence, I see divine appointment.
It seems as if God has given me my answer and my call. Tomorrow I meet with my official ministry liason for the CLP program and then my last step will be to bring this forward to my church governing board. I now have some idea what God has planned for me and I am eager to get started on the next step of my journey.
And now I feel safe to begin my next post... Jesus was a Geek. Come back soon.
When my power went out a month or so ago, and I couldn't watch the television program that I'd been wanting to see nor check my e-mail on the computer, I picked up a dusty volume of In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day that my good friend Andy had given me one year for my birthday, and I started to read it. Here was a book about being bold in your faith and answering God's call in your life. More importantly, here was a book that described the author's call in such a clear and concise way that I recognized it immediately as the exact same description of the way God had called me. It was the ultimate confirmation that what I had heard God tell me was authentic and that I needed to be bold. One clear line stood out in the author's reminder to me personally that often times God's call makes absolutely no sense to the person being called. It was an interesting coincidence.
After I made arrangements to begin the process of joining the CLP program, I admit that I still had no idea what God was asking me to do. I'm not Grade A religion material. God laughed when I asked whether he wanted me to go to seminary out of high school. But I had confirmation that God wanted me to go to the program even if he wasn't telling me why.
The hang up was in the idea of the CLP program itself. Its designed mostly for mission programs - when a church is trying to reach into a new community and needs someone who speaks that language (whatever that language might be) - a church might designate someone to take on the trappings of a pastor for a short period of time in order to better serve that new community. But what community did I belong to that wasn't already a part of the church? I only speak English, and then only barely... ;)
At the end of my last preaching assignment, I was asked to deliver the benediction. As of the morning of the service, I still had not thought what to say. I was preaching about why I was no longer looking for a career in film making. But I still have a passion for film and other geeky things. I was struck with a bizarre idea to use film quotes from familiar movies as my benediction - things like ET saying, BE GOOOD! Well, this was highly unorthodox... even for me... but when the time came to deliver my benediction I stood before the church thinking it was a really bad idea and realized that I had no other idea for what to say as a benediction. I delivered the benediction as I had prepared it and the congregation loved it.
Where this gets interesting, coincidentally, is that the next day at work I was telling my co-worker about my benediction and she laughed and said, "I wish my church was more like that. I'd actually want to go more often." Boy that really got me to thinking... what language did I really know, what language could I really speak? I am fluent in GEEK!
This set off a fury of thought about reaching out to my fellow Geek brothers and sisters as a community and hopefully engaging them in a dialog that led to Jesus. But wait... that's absolutely crazy, right? Is this not just my own wishful thinking? God, please send me out to talk to people, but don't send me to people I can't understand? I was looking for a way to serve God on my own terms. God clearly had other more important things for me to do. Surely he was calling me into ministry with the homeless or battered women or drug users or something. Geeks? Be serious, Will.
I put the thought aside and continued to wonder what it was that God was calling me to do. All I knew was that he would have something good for me to do and that sooner or later he would reveal that plan to me.
Yesterday our Pastor returned from his sabbatical. He had been gone for a little over three months - praying, resting, and renewing his faith in God and Christ. He had also been to the General Assembly - a gathering of the entire Presbyterian Church in the United States on a national level. It was at the GA where church policy was discussed and made and where our commitment to Jesus was always refreshed. This was the first time I had seen our Pastor since he'd left for his sabbatical and I was curious as to what he was going to preach.
Coincidentally, he told the congregation that the Presbyterian Church in the United States is committed to bringing forth over 1000 new congregations in this country in the next three years - and none of them are to be based in church buildings. The National Church has recognized the fact that we ought to be outside our church building preaching to the people out there, where the people are. This was, in fact, that subject of my first sermon. The National Church has further recognized the fact that these new congregations ought to be started by bringing together unchurched people with common interests and forming communities with them - like, say, a group of bike riders or a bunch of people who hang out in coffee shops, or... maybe... even Geeks.
PZOW! Lightning!
Here I am, about to enter classes that will allow me to preach to a new faith community and the only faith community I can think of preaching to is the Geek Community and then the national church basically jumps in and says we need volunteers to preach to the Geek Community. Total coincidence, right? Purely random.
So, I'm talking to my Kenya group about these thoughts and feelings and my pastoral advisor says to me, "Oh by the way, Will, another member of the church came to me this week and said that they had decided to become a Commissioned Lay Pastor as well." I'm telling you, there is something in the water at my church.
The more I travel the world and speak to Christians the world over, the more I read about the Christian experience, and the more I experience Christianity myself, the more convinced I am that there is NO SUCH THING AS A COINCIDENCE. This is like deja vu in the Matrix. If you experience a coincidence, you have been witness to the moving of the Holy Spirit in your life. God's motives may be mysterious, but his methods are on display for all to see. You see coincidence, I see divine appointment.
It seems as if God has given me my answer and my call. Tomorrow I meet with my official ministry liason for the CLP program and then my last step will be to bring this forward to my church governing board. I now have some idea what God has planned for me and I am eager to get started on the next step of my journey.
And now I feel safe to begin my next post... Jesus was a Geek. Come back soon.
Thursday, August 09, 2012
43
At some point on my birthday every year I am reminded that I share this day with the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki by the United States - an act that finally brought World War II to a close and that was so horrific, nobody has felt the urge to repeat it since. Every year on my birthday, the Japanese have asked the world for peace and for an end to the threat of nuclear war. I can think of no greater birthday wish than that.
I am not naive. I've been on the other side of the equation. I've experienced war first hand (well, as first hand as one can get from a satellite in orbit over a war zone). I've cheered at the death of the enemy in real time - before the somber music and cool video game effects appeared on CNN days later. I've been through all the justification responses and righteous indignation that I've ever wanted to have in a lifetime. In the end, war is still wrong. Dead is still dead. And blowing stuff up is still no way to bring about peace.
We all know it. Deep in our hearts, we all know that any sort of killing is wrong - but we are so obsessed with it that we can't fathom any other concept. The peace we offer is done so with the threat of the big stick backing it up. That is not a way to make a lasting peace as it only lasts so long as we can guarantee our security. We are forced to constantly threaten death to our enemies in order to maintain peace and security.
I've been thinking about this a lot over the past few weeks because of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado. Our love affair with guns and violence is ingrained into our culture in such a way that it has become a part of our American identity. There is no simple solution to the idea of preventing these shootings from occurring in this nation, but the one wrong headed approach to this problem is to suggest that guns are part of the solution. If a rogue nation attacks the United States we don't defend their rights to have weapons and then suggest that we should let all rogue nations have free access to weapons as well because it's their God given right. No. Instead we pound them into dust, confiscate their weapons, and do our best to make sure that these weapons are never again allowed in the hands of those people who seek us harm. Why can't we do the same thing for guns in this country?
To find a solution to a problem, we first have to be willing to change. And I'm not sure that we're ready to go there yet. Our desire to own weapons is tied to our notion of freedom. Owning weapons is not yet associated with death and killing and maiming and the harming of the innocent. Our desire to protect our freedoms from other nations is strong - even unto the point of killing others to maintain them. Peace, real peace, does not come from strength of arms, but from strength of soul. It is not enough to be able to kill every single man, woman, and child on this earth a thousand times over. If we want a lasting peace, we need to be able to build up every single man, woman, and child on this planet and help them to achieve their best life. A first step toward that goal would be to stop trying to kill them.
Now that's a birthday wish I could really get behind.
I am not naive. I've been on the other side of the equation. I've experienced war first hand (well, as first hand as one can get from a satellite in orbit over a war zone). I've cheered at the death of the enemy in real time - before the somber music and cool video game effects appeared on CNN days later. I've been through all the justification responses and righteous indignation that I've ever wanted to have in a lifetime. In the end, war is still wrong. Dead is still dead. And blowing stuff up is still no way to bring about peace.
We all know it. Deep in our hearts, we all know that any sort of killing is wrong - but we are so obsessed with it that we can't fathom any other concept. The peace we offer is done so with the threat of the big stick backing it up. That is not a way to make a lasting peace as it only lasts so long as we can guarantee our security. We are forced to constantly threaten death to our enemies in order to maintain peace and security.
I've been thinking about this a lot over the past few weeks because of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado. Our love affair with guns and violence is ingrained into our culture in such a way that it has become a part of our American identity. There is no simple solution to the idea of preventing these shootings from occurring in this nation, but the one wrong headed approach to this problem is to suggest that guns are part of the solution. If a rogue nation attacks the United States we don't defend their rights to have weapons and then suggest that we should let all rogue nations have free access to weapons as well because it's their God given right. No. Instead we pound them into dust, confiscate their weapons, and do our best to make sure that these weapons are never again allowed in the hands of those people who seek us harm. Why can't we do the same thing for guns in this country?
To find a solution to a problem, we first have to be willing to change. And I'm not sure that we're ready to go there yet. Our desire to own weapons is tied to our notion of freedom. Owning weapons is not yet associated with death and killing and maiming and the harming of the innocent. Our desire to protect our freedoms from other nations is strong - even unto the point of killing others to maintain them. Peace, real peace, does not come from strength of arms, but from strength of soul. It is not enough to be able to kill every single man, woman, and child on this earth a thousand times over. If we want a lasting peace, we need to be able to build up every single man, woman, and child on this planet and help them to achieve their best life. A first step toward that goal would be to stop trying to kill them.
Now that's a birthday wish I could really get behind.
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