One Big Damn Puzzler

It's the name of one of my absolute favorite novels - everybody should go to amazon.com now and buy a copy of One Big Damn Puzzler.  Do it.  NOW.

OK, now that you've bought it, and hopefully read the wonderfully funny, moving, and thought-provoking tale of cross-cultural experiences that makes one wonder about the nature of charity, justice, and civilization, we can take up that conversation.  Oh, wait, you just now ordered the book and it didn't instantly download into your brain?  Well, crap.

Ridiculousness aside, the book addresses just those themes, with the central question that lingers for me being perhaps one of incredible importance - what does it mean to be committed to justice in a cross-cultural context?  How do I, as a white U.S. American, authentically stand in solidarity with others in the world who have been wronged by the U.S. government or U.S. economic interests when those very people who have been wronged hold to a different idea of justice?  What if my idea of justice in fact poses a greater threat to their well-being than the initial injustice did?

In the novel, the people of the island have been victims of atrocities from a now-defunct U.S. military base - most notably, a rape and dozens of injuries from land mines.  A do-gooder lawyer from the U.S. comes to seek redress for the islanders, but he doesn't get that providing financial reparation for a society that uses yams as their de facto currency is likely to cause more harm than good...and it does.  The artificial limbs formerly used to replace mine-shattered legs are, by the end of the book, used to replace amputated limbs of the island's many diabetics, as the influx of cash and goods from the U.S. (like Coca-Cola and junk food) destroys the formerly healthy way of life on the island.

In its heart-breakingly funny way, the book is a cautionary tale for all of us who proudly bear the label liberal or progressive in this world, and who care about issues of international justice.  When working for justice, make sure the cure isn't worse than the disease itself - stand in solidarity, be a voice...but dear God, keep your eyes open and listen to the people.  There's no solidarity without authentic dialogue, and without solidarity, there's no justice.

Of Waffle Fries and Marriage Rights

So, I am really in the thick of the Chick-fil-A hulabaloo.  I worked for a summer at said fast food chain, selling chicken sandwiches and waffle fries.  Now, I'm a straight ally of the LGBTQ community living in Logan Square, the Chicago neighborhood that has now moved into the spotlight as one of our aldermen has promised to block the building of a new Chick-fil-A (the city's 2nd franchise) on Elston, just east of the Kennedy Expressway.  Alderman Moreno, and now Mayor Emanuel, are saying that they have no interest in allowing a franchise run by a family who flaunt their "Christian family values" and donate unapologetically to groups that work against gay marriage.  Mayor Tom Menino of Boston is also joining in, pledging to keep Chick-fil-A out of Boston and, in particular, off the Freedom Trail.

So, my two cents.  First, the Cathy family (who own Chick-fil-A) are most assuredly and unapologetically opposed to gay marriage.  And probably civil unions, adoption rights, partnership benefits, and God only knows how many other things when it comes to LGBTQ people.  This is, of course, defended as being traditional "family values," which is essentially the argument that Ozzie and Harriet had the only sort of acceptable family structure, and everyone else is sinning.  I should point out that the scriptures provide a wide variety of family models, most of which would be abhorrent to the average 21st century U.S. American of any religious background.  Lest we forget, things such as polygamy, concubinage, the seizure of women in war for forced marriage, and all kind of restrictions on women's rights are "biblical."  They don't jive nearly as well with the New Testament family codes...but then again, most arguments against homosexuality come from the Old Testament.  Life is complicated, and exploring this topic is not the principle focus of this entry.

All that said, I'm not shy about identifying myself as a straight ally who supports full rights, of every sort, for all people regardless of their sexual orientation.  I DON'T think a couple of cherry-picked verses that are ripped out of their historical context and aren't being properly interpreted through the Gospel ought to guide our convictions about whether or not LGBTQ folks are entitled to the same rights as the rest of us.  I have no interest in giving my money to the Cathy family just so they can donate it to a cause I find abhorrent.  I won't spend a cent of my money at Chick-fil-A until I can rest assured that my money won't go toward the continued denial of basic freedoms to people who love people of the same gender.

However, I will confess that I have some serious issues with denying people permits to build their businesses because of disagreement over how the corporate management of the company donates their money.  On the one hand, I would love to see Chick-fil-A get shown up.  I would love not to have a Chick-fil-A in my neighborhood.  On the other, I do wonder about the First Amendment here, and object to political action like this in protest over the values and political donations of a given corporation when that corporation at least follows the laws and does not discriminate in its hiring practices or against clients.  Like I said, I find it abhorrent...but I really do wonder if the best way to address that is a permit denial.  It IS a limitation of freedom of speech; what will the nation look like if we start making all our business permit decisions based off how the politicians issuing them feel about the stated political beliefs of the business owner?  I really do think that's the wrong road to go down because it DOES limit freedom of speech.  I'd rather we mobilize and not give them a dime of our business.  That's MY freedom of speech in action.

This is Africa

This entry is not, in fact, a commentary on the atrociously hot weather we've seen in Chicago this summer.

No, I've had West Africa on the brain these last few days.  I recently read Whiteman by Tony D'Souza, which is a fictionalized account of the life of a U.S. American volunteer in northern Cote D'Ivoire during the beginning of the civil war that was going on while I also happened to living next door in Ghana.  The book, which is worth tracking down and reading, dwells some on the subject of belonging (he's the white man in an all-black village), loneliness (and the things which it drives us to do), and reconciling privilege (he can leave the violence) with belonging (but he doesn't know how to leave and go to a home that's not home anymore).

It's taken me, in my mind, back to my own four months (a comparative blink) in Ghana, and the places around the region my travels took me.  Mali has been especially on my mind lately.  Since it's gotten very little attention in the U.S. media, a brief recap of the past few months...

-Mali is a large West African nation, 2/3 of which is sparsely populated desert.  Most of the national population is black, sub-Saharan African - groups such as the Bambara, Malinke, and Dogon, with nomadic Peul populations, as well.  There is a significant Tuareg minority; these are a nomadic desert people who are ethnically and culturally more like the Berber people of North Africa...the average person from the West would describe them as being similar to Arab people.

-The Tuareg have always felt isolated and persecuted by the Malian government, which is dominated by the black population.  They've taken up arms in the past against the government in hopes of forming a separate state.

-In the winter, the Tuareg launched a new uprising - a much better armed one than in the past thanks to many Tuareg serving as mercenaries in Libya and obtaining arms left over from the conflict there.  The Malian military was being trounced.

-In the spring, some Malian military officers staged a coup, removing the long-serving (and democratically elected) president. They blamed him for the military failure, accusing him of not giving them adequate weapons and supplies to fight the Tuareg.  The African Union, and rest of the world, immediately condemned the coup and threatened the military government with total isolation and possible intervention if they didn't step down.  A provisional civilian government has since taken over, but with the specter of the military junta weighing heavily over them.

-In the meanwhile, the Tuareg effectively took over the northern half of the nation; much of their success came through allying themselves with militant Islamist groups interested in creating a Sharia-led Islamist state.  The international community refuses to recognize their new "nation," which is now racked with in-fighting between the Tuareg nationalists and Islamists.  However, the international community is reluctant to get involved, as the largest regional power, Nigeria, is beset with religious strife of its own and is afraid that fighting the Islamists will result in Nigeria's own Islamist militants declaring an all-out war on the government.

So, now you know the story.  I spent two weeks in Mali, roughly half of which was with the Tuareg in the yes-it's-a-real-place city of Timbuktu.  And...Timbuktu's disappearing.  Its new Islamist masters disapprove of the presence of tombs, shrines, and monuments to Muslims of other times and of other strands of Islam, so they're destroying them.  The Tuaregs who I stayed with in Timbuktu may very well be among the fighters.  One of the models of democracy in the region is now a shredded mess.

And...it's heartbreaking.  I love West Africa, and there is perhaps no harder thing to love in this world.  Every step forward seems paired with a step back...or two, or three.  Sometimes, it comes from internal problems; more often, it's the by-product of foreign meddling, colonialism by another name and with less accountability.  God, help us.

A Game of Thrones, or Indecision America 2012

So, we all know I'd never get political, right?

Oh, please.  I breathe politics.  So, of course, presidential election year is a time when I'm hyperventilating, as it were.  It doesn't help that we're faced with the current slate of candidates.  The back history of this blog reveals a lot of harsh criticism of President Obama coming from this disillusioned left libertarian; I still hold that most of it is deserved, even if I'm willing to recant that my electability concerns have been put to rest by the overwhelmingly awful cast of corporate-funded cretins put up by the Republican Party.  That all said, I just hope to be proven wrong that a second Obama term will be marked by less kowtowing to big money and its political agents.

Then, there's Mitt Romney.  Aside from the fact that the man has the raw charisma of limp spaghetti, the thought of him as president is chilling to me, and rightly so.  Let's put aside the obvious areas of incompetency shown by Romney in foreign policy (which are being put on display for all the world now as he takes a tour of Europe and the Middle East), and stay away from speculation.  Let's look at what is verifiable fact.  This is a man who has...

-Reminded us that "corporations are people, too, my friend."  The notion of a business interest being defined as a person is repugnant to me, and all other sentient beings, especially since we all know that this is merely a legal way of allowing corporate entities to donate money in politics without limit or accountability.  It's legalized corporate bribery - and the man who would be king is a big supporter of this.

-Will not release tax returns.  Everybody does this when running for president.  We like to know that our presidential candidates are willing to keep their financial dealings on the up and up...and like to keep their money invested in the nation which they, ostensibly, love like nothing else and would make tremendous sacrifice to serve.  The evidence suggests that Romney's chief loyalties lie with personal profit, not national loyalty.  Why else hide the documents that would shed light on this?  Furthermore, we all know he's in an income bracket that makes even the fairly wealthy Obamas look like the Clampitts before they struck oil.  We even know that the tax exemption on his wife's prize horse is higher than the average household income in the U.S.  I don't suspect he has the interest of the little man in mind; I frankly suspect that he wouldn't even know what price a box of pasta goes for at a grocery store.

-Made his fortune in finance.  The list of the biggest donors to each campaign was released this week; Obama's is a mixed bag, while Romney's big money donations have almost all (9/10) come from finance.  You cannot tell me that Romney will not be Wall Street's stooge in office.  He knows this world from the inside, as he made a fortune in precisely the kind of dodgy financial dealings that most of the rest of us see as the PROBLEM in our national economy, not its solution.

I have no intention of voting for either of them (Green Party!), but if the biggest threat we face as a democracy is the empowering of superwealthy business interests in the political system, then Romney is the last person in the field who is fit to occupy the White House.  Crony capitalism needs to stay a part of our nation's past; please read Twain's The Gilded Age for a look at what things might look like if we keep on this course.  We serve a God who consistently shames the wealthy and powerful and chooses the poor and weak; we've got to follow in that path if we want to see justice in this land, and world.

Pulpit Safety Belt

The good folks at Emanuel in Dayton got me one of the best graduation gifts imaginable - a pulpit safety belt.  You see, Kevin the klutzy pastoral intern made a definite impression on God's faithful people on internship by falling out of the pulpit on my sixth Sunday.  The best part - I had mentioned, in the sermon, my utter lack of any sort of discernible coordination.  If that is not proof that God has a sense of humor, and that it is a sick one, then I don't know what is.

So, as a little nod to one of my more memorable homiletical acrobatic acts, they presented me with a "pulpit safety belt" in a frame.  It's going to hold a place of honor in my office here; it only seems right that everyone coming into my office be made aware that Pastor Kevin can't be relied on for good bodily coordination.

But, as I think about, there's a lot more to the idea of having a pulpit safety belt that thrills me, inspires me.  I WANT to be the kind of preacher where the safety belts need to be fastened, seats and tray tables in their upright and locked positions.  The Gospel isn't safe; why should its public proclamation be any different?  I want to deliver the goods, so to speak; I want the word of Christ crucified and risen for us to resound not just on Sunday morning, but every day.  I long to see it at work, transforming this sad, broken church/neighborhood/city/state/nation/world/cosmos.  I don't want our - my - public proclamation to be just another limp, impassive, unrelatable bit of bad theological pabulum that in no way, shape, or form speaks good news to our brokenness in the interest of being comfortable, safe, or "relevant."  I find it tremendously ironic that in our effort to be comfortable, safe, and "relevant," the Church usually comforts itself into a stupor, undermines its own security, and ceases to say a single meaningful thing to a world that is hungry for the Gospel.

Of course, I'm also reminded of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 2, in which he talks about how the success of the Gospel in Corinth had nothing to do with Paul's skillful proclamation, but everything to do with the Spirit acting with power.  Maybe that drive toward stupor-like comfort, false safety, and fake relevance are quelching that Spirit.  Maybe our great failure in the pulpit is in deciding that we know better than God, and that our knowledge tells us to pull our punches rather than confront the world's brokenness that encompasses so much of who and what we are.  Maybe we need to stop playing it so safe to spare folks from the whiplash of the Holy Spirit's moving, active work among us, and instead tell people to buckle up, because God is here, and God isn't driving the speed limit.

Queen of the Sciences, or, the Theologian Strikes Back

This is a hill I'm willing to die on.  I am not going to pull my punches on this one; proceed with caution.

I was sweeping earlier and, despite all my best efforts to be mindful and live in my present experience, I was thinking about the struggles that I've faced as someone who is both an intellectual and trained theologian going on to doctoral work in New Testament, and a person of faith awaiting call as a pastor.  There are two camps that have been particularly a thorn in my flesh - those who aren't "religious" and think that all I've done is waste my brain on "Jesusology" (which isn't a REAL academic discipline), and those who come out of fundamentalist/evangelical traditions and do not understand what academic theology is and assume that I must, of course, agree with them in their ultra-literal butchering of the scriptural witness.

Both camps need to be called out - the former simply for not grasping the fact that theology is, in fact, a rigorous academic discipline and not just "Jesus loves me" fluff, and the latter...oh dear.  The calling out of my sisters and brothers in rather more conservative traditions must be for creating the sense in broader society that Christianity equals stupidity.  The former attitude irks me; the latter infuriates me.  I will try to keep it under control.

So, first - a word to those who do not think that theology is a legitimate academic field of study.  How many ancient languages did you have to learn for your law degree?  I had to learn two for my M.Div.; by the time I have my Ph.D., I'll have had to prove competency in both of those, plus two more languages of academic study.  Neither ancient language uses our alphabet, by the way, and one of them isn't even Indo-European.  Then, with those two languages, I am asked to be able to analyze, with deep knowledge of historical and social contexts contemporary to the writing of each of 66 separate documents (most of them anonymous or by multiple authors and editors), the entirety of the Bible.  I also have to be conscious of how to read them in a way that encourages and inspires people's sense of faith - academic knowledge of them as historical objects or works of literature isn't enough.  

Of course, to be able to do that, I need to be a well-trained writer and public speaker.  I also need to have an incredible depth of grasp of the entire history of Western thought - a good grounding in philosophy, the sciences, history, and literature is essential.  I very specifically have to be an expert in 2,000 years' worth of religious, spiritual, and theological reflection in the Christian tradition.  I also cannot be ignorant of other religious and spiritual traditions, so while becoming an expert in Christian, and especially Lutheran, thought, I also have to be at least conversant in the theology and practice of other major world religions.

Did I mention that, in addition to these things, I also have to be an ethicist?  And a teacher capable of providing instruction to everyone from cradle to grave?  Oh, and I also function as a non-clinical counselor - gotta have a good grasp on psychology, both in terms of theory and counseling practice.  The road to my degree could be paved ten times over the papers that have been written and the pages that have been read and, at the end of it, every person in ministry is a polymath capable of doing everything from discussing the relationship between process theology and the general theory of relativity down to fixing the church's toilets.  You can take your MBA and shove it where the sun don't shine if you'd still like to argue that my degree isn't "really" a degree.  Yes, it is a vocational degree - so is an M.D. or a J.D., and I don't see people lining around the block to discredit them.

That all said, I now have to address the body of folks who are, while a good lot of folks on the whole, are just the same responsible for me having to rant just to prove that, in fact, theology is an academic discipline.  Fundamentalism has so infected the soul of U.S, American Christianity that, unfortunately, the average person outside the Church has no idea that not at all Christians aren't conservative evangelicals.  It breaks my heart that my sisters and brothers in more conservative traditions have been so successful in dumbing our faith, and themselves, down to this point.  Christianity GAVE BIRTH to the university, furthered the expanse of the arts in the West, supported so many different academic developments...and now has become a by-word for ignorance and deliberate denial of logic and reason in the name of supporting a literal reading of the Bible which the Bible itself, at no point, advocates or supports.

Yes, I said it - there is not one verse in the scriptures that says "the Bible is without error and should be taken literally."  You can play the "all scripture is God-breathed" argument from the Pastoral Epistles, but the definition of inspiration used by fundamentalism is NOT one found in the scriptures, nor in Christianity until after the Reformation - the permutation of it most popular in this country didn't emerge until the 19th century.  Check it if you don't believe me.  Perhaps I speak too strongly, but belief that the Bible is 100% without error is heresy because it ascribes perfection, which is only held by God, to a product of human hands - even if they were inspired by God, people were involved.  It cannot be perfect, and viewing it as such creates such an intellectual nightmare for anyone with a modicum of intelligence or sense that it has, and will continue, to destroy the Church's witness to anyone unwilling to check their brain at the church door.

I say all of this as someone who grew up with this.  I grew up with people whose idea of a science curriculum was anti-scientific and rooted in the indoctrination of its students into knee-jerk, lock-step literal biblical creationism.  Guess whose faith is smaller and weaker - the person who worships the Bible rather than God and cannot accept anything other than a literal 6 day creation account, or the person who reads the Bible and grasps the heart of its message of salvation by grace through faith in Christ and is still able to see the value in evolutionary theory?

I've been harsh, probably too much so...and for that I apologize.  But I cannot keep my silence - the deliberate and willful ignorance which fundamentalist Christianity forces upon its adherents is despicable and contrary to the Gospel...and destructive to the ultimate health and well-being of God's faithful people and their call in this world.  I just can't keep quiet in the face of that anymore.

Getting Dirty

So, since moving in here in Logan Square, I've started gardening.  It's been a little bit of a project, since I do not, in fact, have any green space.  This was not necessarily what I'd been hoping for in a living space, but at least there is ample space and sun for the next best thing - a container garden.

It didn't take too long to get set up; Colleen and I made a trip to Home Depot and got five planting pots, a bunch of soil, two tomato plants (Earl Girl and Beefsteak), a red bell pepper plant, a banana pepper plant, and some cucumber plants.  Within a few hours, they were planted, watered, and left to grow in the hot Chicago summer sun.

And...grow they have.  I'm just now starting to get my first fruits of the season, some six weeks or so after planting, but I've got two tomatoes starting up, have already had two banana peppers with some blossoms back on the plant now, some promising bell pepper blossoms, and a cucumber on the vine.  I've even added on an indoor herb garden in my bay window, giving me lots of fresh basil, parsley, oregano, rosemary, and sage...I've had a bumper crop of sage this year.  It's exciting, watching these green, growing things do what God created them to do - grow, thrive, bear fruit.

In the midst of all this, I've been finding myself fall more and more in love with tending to green, growing things.  There's nothing quite like taking care of a garden, no matter how small.  It reaches deep in to who I am, roots me back into the rich soil out of God creates us in Genesis, restores me to the original work to which God called humans in the beginning.  

The sensory appeal of all of it, too - the cool, gritty feel of dirt on my hands, the smell of tomato leaves, the sound of wind rustling through the pepper plants and of water soaking into soil, the vibrant colors of green leaves and yellow blossoms, and (eventually) the incomparable taste of food fresh from the garden.  It's spiritual; I feel as fed as a child of God in my faith from working the soil (even in my pots) as my stomach will feel when those tomatoes ripen on the vine and become the first caprese salad of the season.

In all of this, I re-discovered a song that I'd had stuck in my head while on a tour of coal country in central Illinois back in April (another entry on this is forthcoming).  The protagonist in the song is just a poor farm kid who's always got the red clay of his work on the land all over him.  So, he wonders - "But when I pass through the pearly gates, will my gown be gold instead?  Or just a red clay robe with red clay wings and a red clay halo for my head?"  I sure hope so.  I sure hope eternity is marked with the red clay and black topsoil out of which we have come, and that things will be like in the beginning - all of us, working in God's garden, tending the beautiful land which God made and entrusts to us.