December 5, 2011

Gospel Redistricting: How Adent is redrawing the landscape

Posted by HMC Pastor under Economic Justice, Justice
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A quick search for at chron.com confirms my suspicion: tis the season for redistricting. Sunday’s Opinion section had a great visual of how important redistricting can be in swaying votes one direction or another. On Friday the Houston Chronicle editorial  talked about Texas’ “improper standard or methodology” for redistricting that did not adequately “reflect the interests of voters.” All parties are up in arms to gain as much as they possible can. I understand that. But what’s really at stake is fairness, equality, and democracy. John Branch‘s cartoon from the San Antonio Express-News captures what seems to be going on right now.

I bring this up because redistricting -or something like it – is at the core of the Advent season. All four of the gospel story tellers quote Isaiah 40:3-4 to define and defend the ministry of John, who came to prepare the way for Jesus.

‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
   make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
   and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
   and the rough places a plain.

In other words, his job is to change the landscape. What does redistricing mean for this Gospel prophet?

The first thing he does is show up in the wilderness, dressed like a weirdo, or at least an outsider. Both are things that stamp him as being on the margins of society. Jerusalem, the city, the temple, the palace, they were the Centre, where all the power was. The ancient Jews saw Jerusalem as being at the very center of the universe, the locus of God’s activity. Everything good came from the Centre; including all meaning in life. Margins were for outcasts and social deviants.

But this is precisely where John shows up! Under the downtown I-45 viaduct looking homeless, powerless, and out of place. And here, at the margins, he does and he says something extraordinary: He proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

We moderns read right over this not knowing how forgiveness operated in 25CE. You didn’t kneel gently down beside your bed and pray the Lord your soul to keep. No! You had to take days to travel to Jerusalem, to the temple, and buy an expensive animal, and pay for it to be killed at the right time in the right way by the right people. How are sins forgiven? Sins are forgiven at the Centre, by the seat of power, by practicing Temple Piety. It didn’t happen at the margins, in the wilderness, or where most people actually lived. Only at the Centre.

Forgiveness of sin was a major business. A Religious-Industrial Complex you might even say.

But this message of forgiveness from John? This… was not that!
The Margin is not the Centre.
John is not the religious establishment.
Baptism is not expensive Temple Piety.

Religiously. Financially. Politically, John has just turned the world upside down. In doing this he fulfills the very content of the message Mark was preaching as narrator. Level the playing field. Down is up, up is down. Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
To those on the margins, his was a message of Comfort. “Comfort, comfort, my people says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her, that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”

But to those in the Centre, his was a message of repentance: “every mountain and hill will be made low.”

And I’m drawn to John’s integrity: what John says is supported by what John does. The two can not be separated. John didn’t just walk the streets shouting and singing “Comfort.” Oh my no. Had he done only that, history would not have shined on him. No, he rearranged the orders of society in such a way so that people not only heard comfort, it was their reality as well. Comfort was the new order. And everyone was invited to live into this new reality.

What is perhaps most intriguing is who responded to John. From “the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem…” From the margins and from the centre people came streaming to hear news that is good for everyone, for all of us. In other words, both those who had a lot to gain from John’s redistricting plan and those who had a lot to loose responded to the good news of comfort and equality for all.

Will it be the same for Texas? Will we see redistricting in light of the advent story, and allow power to be shared with those in the margins?

Whether you come from the Margins or the Centre the message is the same for us all: God’s mission of justice and human flourishing changes the landscape of our world. Comfort, O Comfort my people, says your God. Prepare the way of the Lord. Repent, raise valleys, lower hills, and challenge the ways we’re accustomed to living

 

October 24, 2011

Is there a sweatshop in your backyard?

Posted by HMC Pastor under Justice, Wage Theft | Tags: , , , |
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You might be surprised that sweatshop labor is in your backyard. I was! Sweatshop stories are typically from overseas and surround well-known companies. For instance, according to laborrights.org the official inductees of the 2010 Sweatshop Hall of Shame are: Abercrombie and Fitch, Gymboree, Hanes, Ikea, Kohl’s, LL Bean, Pier 1 Imports, Propper International, and Walmart.

But that’s all a world away. Right?

Faithfully demonstrating against sweatshop labor and wage theft

 

Sadly, no. I joined about 60 others Friday afternoon at a Heights area wholesale clothing company on 25th Street to confront the owners for their illegal and immoral practices. Two employees contacted The Houston Interfaith Worker Justice Center after the company failed to fully pay them their last couple of weeks of employment. What was learned is shameful.

While working at the warehouse, the workers made shoes & bags for production, sorted large clothing shipments, and loaded and unloaded merchandise crates. They worked 6 days a week sometimes up to 12 hour days, often with no breaks and in a cramped space with no fire extinguishers, marked exits, or adequate ventilation, among other safety and health violations.

Bad enough, right? Not being paid for working in sweatshop conditions. But there’s more! In talking with the employees it was discovered the workers were never paid overtime and were both making below minimum wage. In other words: their wages were stolen.  They are currently owed over $6,500 in stolen wages.

These two workers who are part of the working families that help create our city’s economy, deserve more than sweatshop working conditions and stolen wages. They deserve more than having their former employers run out the back door when presented with documentation of their abuses. They are only two of thousands of Houston workers subject to these types of corrosive jobs which threaten the well-being of our communities and economy.

Wage theft in Houston is prevalent, but unquestionably illegal. The Texas Legislature passed stricter provisions against wage theft which took effect last month. Questions linger as to District Attorney Lykos’ willingness to pursue cases against employers who steal wages. But there are no questions that the Houston community stand in solidarity against this behavior. Area faith leaders, Houston Interfaith Worker Justice Center, Good Jobs-Great Houston and OccupyHouston folks all stoodFriday with these two workers who courageously confronted their employer. And we’ll keep doing so as needed.

I stand with workers because as a Christian the God I follow loves justice. And as I’ve said elsewhere, “The work of justice ultimately demands only one thing from you: that you believe God.” Do we believe God when he says worship (ie fasting) is less important than justice? God asks in Isaiah 58

Is not this the fast that I choose: 

“We demand justice” & “Stop Wage Theft” posters as The Peace Pastor tweets out updates on the our meeting with the fleeting employer

 

   to loose the bonds of injustice,
   to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
   and to break every yoke?

As Jose Eduardo Sanchez, with HIWJ said, “All religions believe in justice, and we work with faith leaders to ensure workers have the respect and dignity they deserve.” Indeed. Many will read this on Sunday, your key day for worship. As you do, consider that God values justice more than worship.

If you or someone you know has had or suspects you have had wages stolen, please contact Houston Interfaith Worker Justice Center (713.862.8222). They can and will help! If you are interested in learning more about wage theft, standing in solidarity with workers, advocating for living wages or safe working conditions, or going on a delegation like described here, contact Laura Boston at HIWJ: lboston@hiwj.org.

Do justice Montrose and Westheimer, love kindness Midtown and Beltway, walk humbly Space and Energy city! You’re be blessed if you do & blessed if your persecuted. And together, we’ll be the remedy to the world’s great problems.

First published on Marty’s Houston Chronicle The Peace Pastor blog on October 23, 2011.

 

October 21, 2011

Is God mean? Local groups living otherwise

Posted by HMC Pastor under Economic Justice, Fair Trade | Tags: , , , , , |
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The other morning we were singing the African American spiritual “Be still, God will fight your battles (if you just keep still)…” My four year old son, ever the consistent ethicist, blurts out, “NO he won’t, because God’s not mean, fightings mean.”

That’s true, we’ve worked hard to teach our kids that fighting, hitting, kicking, biting, pushing or just plain being mean are not acceptable behavior. Sometimes words are the most destructive thing we can do, like using the word “hate.”

So why would it be ok for God to do those things?

Terribly, some in the church think so. For instance, a celebrity preacher from Seattle recently made headlines with his in-your-face sermon, shouting how much God hates people. Here’s an excerpt:

“Some of you, God hates you. Some of you, God is sick of you. God is frustrated with you. God is wearied by you. God has suffered long enough with you. He doesn’t think you’re cute. He doesn’t think it’s funny. He doesn’t think your excuse is “meritous” [the word he's looking for here is "meritorious"]. He doesn’t care if you compare yourself to someone worse than you, He hates them too. God hates, right now, personally, objectively hates some of you.”

Or let’s not forget that the world is supposed to end today in a blaze of glory, according to one self-proclaimed prophet. Harold Camping, in the news for his missed prediction of doom back in May, is back today spouting a sad doctrine of God’s mean and hate-filled behavior toward us. In his twisted theology, earthquakes, death, chaos, violence and pain are all in store for people who don’t believe exactly like Camping.

But is God really mean? Does God hate, and kill, and judge like these men suggest?

Not according to most Houston area Christians I know. These groups reveal God as a God of love and not violence or hate. They live out a love for all people, expecting nothing in return, and are committed to the common good.

  • Newspring is a center for social entrepreneurship and business nurturing in the Spring Branch area of Houston. Because of their faith in the God of love, they are creatively and realistically addressing the instability in our community.  Robert Westheimer says in their promo video, “Newspring’s mission is economic development. Our vision is a community that offers people good jobs. Where stable incomes keep people out of the food pantry’s and resale shops; where children can stay in the same school.” 
    Good jobs are practiced through the Newspring Art studio, where local high schoolers are encouraged to create and sell artwork; through the annual Business Plan Competition at Houston Community College (Spring Branch campus); and through business development and microlending. Newspring practices God’s love not just for the whole person, but for the whole community.
  • Healing the Brokenness is a cooperative ministry of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. They live out God’s love by addressing some of the most pressing issues of our day, such as violence, poverty, racism, migration, economics, etc… Their vision is ”Bringing together Christian leaders from across racial, socioeconomic and denominational lines for a time of fellowship and learning with some of the world’s leading scholars.” On Monday morning October 24 Michael Emerson of Rice University will speak on the topic “How Race Works in the Contemporary U.S.” A leading scholar on Race, he ”will explore the factors shaping racial inequality and race relations today, and consider how we can constructively address the issues of brokenness.”
    This lecture series clearly identifies hate and mean-behavior as being outside the nature of God, and speaking words of healing into those places of pain.
  • Ten Thousand Villages is one of the world’s oldest fair trade organizations, begun by Mennonite missionary Edna Ruth Byler whose love for God and people sought “sustainable economic opportunities for skilled artisans.” This store spreads goodness across borders by supporting global artisans through the Christian faith.Ten Thousand Villages is a fair trade store in Rice Village (2424A Rice Boulevard, Houston, TX 77005) that sells organic fair trade coffees and chocolate, clothing, jewelry and household items, toys and decorations. Volunteering, shopping, and living Fair Trade is a direct expression of God’s love for all.

None of these groups operate out of a theology of God’s hatred. None of them think God is mean.

On the contrary, the very point of their existence is to embody a God of love through both word and deed. So celebrate life, love, and faith today. And together, let’s work to put an end to the mistaken ideas that God is mean, or hates anyone. It’s just not true. And thankfully, there are plenty of folks who know that already. I hope you’re one of them!

Houston: God loves you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

P.S. I’m glad you’re still here!

 

October 21, 2011

“It’s a girl!”

Posted by HMC Pastor under Nonviolence, Peace | Tags: , , , , |
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This one’s from the archives as we celebrate a very big day in the Troyer household: my daughter’s 1st birthday. She has helped me to imagine a different world. This was written soon after her birth.

In 1945 over the desert of the South West United States a code was devised to indicate whether the impending test was successful or not. President Truman would receive a short message saying either, “It’s a boy,” or “It’s a girl” – and he would know instantly the result. The test went forward, the bomb went off, blinding light exploded across the sky, the proverbial mushroom cloud ushered the world into the atomic age, and, with one short message the President heard, “It’s a boy.”

Boys, apparently, are inherently violent. A “girly” response would have meant failure.

Today my wife and I celebrate the profound joy of hearing one year ago the sweet words, “It’s a girl” ring out in our delivery room. Welcome to the world Clara Sue!

And with people of good faith around the globe we celebrate that the activity of God in our world is the making of peace, not war. As the father of a newborn baby girl, I celebrate an alternative message that says she is not a failure, not of lesser worth than her big brother. As the father of a 3 year old son I celebrate an alternative message of Christian peace that clarifies masculinity is not tied up with violence and militarism.

The words of the prophet Isaiah from 2:1-5 reveal peace to be the heart of God’s intention for the world. Jesus life and teachings connect peacemaking to an alternative perspective on both power and gender. God, and man, are  NOT inherently violent. Women, girls and nonviolence are not weak.

I am gracious my children will hear this message from church and scripture, because our culture sends a vastly different message indeed.

I remember in 4th grade being picked on by the school bully. I was pushed down from the top of the slide, and taunted with “sissy” when I refused to fight back. This fall our country has been sideswiped by the suicide deaths of multiple gay teens taunted to death for not being properly masculine.  In the recent election cycle over and again I heard conservative woman candidates challenging the patriotism and dove-like tendencies of male incumbents with phrases like “Man up!” or “Put your man pants on.” One Senator who opposes ratification of the New START nuclear weapons treaty with Russia has called the President “soft” and demands it be “beefed up” with multi-billion dollar spending on new nuclear weaponry.

We live in a world where might makes right. Where power is defined militaristically instead of morally. India and Pakistan have recently joined the ranks of nuclear powers, Iran and North Korea are soon to follow.  Everyone defines security based on the might of weaponry: from fire and iron to horses and long bows, guns, artillery and the ultimate weapon of annihilation. With 4-8 nukes aimed at Houston every second of the day, our world is not becoming insane; insane is the new normal.

Another example of how insanity has become our new normal are recent reports of the depravity of the wars our country is fighting in our name, even while we worship.  Bush’s just war retaliation against Afghanistan for the pain of 9/11 turned quickly into Obama’s “Good war” with nothing good to show for it. Iraq followed all too quickly though thin evidence of justification has completely disappeared. In both countries, however, more and more reports have come out since Wikileaks posted over 90,000 documents online regarding civilian deaths, torture, and military war crimes. We’re implicated in a complete systemic failure of moral and spiritual imagination.

66,000 civilian deaths in Iraq alone, over 20 times the civilian casualties of 9/11, cry out for us to lament and repent of our ways. Obama lauds his troop withdrawal yet masks the reality of tens of thousands of paid and non-accountable mercenaries who filled the void. Troop surges and counter-insurgency campaigns continue unabated in Afghanistan without any acknowledgement that it simply is NOT working. Drone attacks in Pakistan have amassed more flights in the last month than in the previous 5 years, killing thousands of innocent lives. The Tea Party demands fiscal responsibility while maintaining blind and unquestioned devotion to the military industrial complex and its record budget. President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the lawyers who justified the policies have paraded around our bookstores and televisions defending the practice of torture which is now known to have been widespread.

Boom-“It’s a boy!” “Man up!” Bullying. Torture. War. Rendition.

This is the world my kids are growing up in. What, my friends, do we have to be thankful for today?

I am thankful that God is re-creating our world in the image of shalom and not empire. I am thankful that God is transforming swords and bombs into plowshares. I am thankful that my children will hear the gospel of peace and not war. I am thankful for the power of women and nonviolence and that I have the blessed responsibility to raise both. I am thankful that Jesus, and not Truman, Bush or Obama, is king. I am thankful that “the Prince of peace is Jesus Christ. We who were formerly no people at all, and who knew of no peace, are now called to be a church of peace. True Christians do not know vengeance. They are the children of peace. Their hearts overflow with peace. Their mouths speak peace, and they walk in the way of peace (Menno Simons).” May it be so for you today my friends. May it be so for our world. AMEN.

 

October 21, 2011

The World’s Day Against the Death Penalty

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“Every day the sun comes up is world day against the death penalty,” says Rick Halperin. He says the world community stands in near unanimous protest to this barbaric practice. The United States is like a passenger left behind on the docks as the world ship sets sale without us on this issue, waving ‘bon voyage’ to we and our strange executioning bedfellows: Iran, China, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc… Today as we celebrate “World Day Against the Death Penalty,” Texas, which stands as the western capital of capital punishment, stands nearly alone.

The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and Amnesty International co-sponsored a local event yesterday to hear the stories of 2 Texas exonerees and a keynote address from Halperin, former director of Amnesty International and current Director of the Embrey Human Rights Program at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Anthony Graves brought the audience to tears sharing his heartbreaking story of how “one man with too much power” stole 18 years of freedom from him (over 12 on Death Row).  Graves was finally freed October 27th, 2010 and works passionately to bring an end to the system that twice set dates to execute this innocent man. Clarence Brandley’s story, like graves, reads like a modern day story of racism run amok. His freedom came after 10 years on Death Row, though perhaps “freedom” is too strong a word, considering he is still required by the state of Texas to pay child support for the years he was unjustly incarcerated for a crime he did not commit.

The stories of these two men are in no way stories of how “the system works,” proving that the system can and does protect the innocent by exonerating them. Left to itself the judicial system would have never in any way freed these men without the consistent, demanding, investigative work of those outside the system such as The Innocence Project.  These outside voices stopped two innocent men from being murdered by the state by creating an “issue” the system doesn’t admit exists. The system is perfectly designed to kill people, whether guilty or innocent, and has no room for claims of innocence, says Halperin. The very recent case of Michael Morton, exonerated and released just last week after 25 years in prison, clearly tells this same story.

The Worst of the Worst
Several stories stood out to me from yesterday’s event, both wrestling with the idea that the death penalty exists to rid society of “the worst of the worst.” Who are the “worst of the worst”? What do we mean by that phrase? First, Haperin told the story of Rwanda, a country seared into memory by the horrific genocide of a million people in 1994 simply because they were “unlucky enough to be born Tutsi.” The perpetrators of genocide would likely fit the bill, ‘the worst of the worst’ for most of us. Clearly the death penalty fits the crime here, and Rwandan society would be better today if they “rid the world” of these bad guys. However, instead of death, Rwanda sought for years to abolish the death penalty in response to the atrocities, doing so in 2007.

What about terrorists? Do they deserve death? In the case of the Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh was prosecuted in a federal court and executed for the deaths of 8 federal officers. His accomplice, Terry Nickels, was convicted of killing the other 161 people, but received life in prison without the possibility of parole. One of the key reasons being Nickels’ confession of finding “religion and remorse.” Halperin notes Nickels conviction was for “TWENTY TIMES” (emphasis Halperin’s) more people, and yet his jury did not see fit to execute him.

Halperin also told the story of Gary Ridgway, who is safely behind bars never to threaten society again. Over the span of several decades, Ridgway brutally murdered over 40 woman in the hills between Seattle and Tacoma (he confessed to killing 71). Known as The Green River Killer, he is clearly someone we need to be protected from as ‘the worst of the worst.’ So why wasn’t he executed? Because the families of the murdered woman decided to seek life in prison without the possibility of parole. The serial killer promised to lead prosecutors to the bodies, but demanded the death penalty be taken off the table in return. The famlies wanted the bodies, and knew Ridgway would never hurt again.

These stories solidify the system for its capricious and arbitray inequality, rather than any sort of ‘blind and equal justice’ that death penalty advocates suggest. Some die, some are spared; even innocence can’t stop justice.

Halperin had me in his sights when he invited citizens to see abolition not as “an human rights issue but as the human rights issue around which all others revolve.” Those who stand against the death penalty, are standing on the right side of history. For the death penalty will undoubtedly be abolished in the US as it has been in 170 countries worldwide. On this, another beautiful day when the sun came up, I’m wholeheartedlystanding with the World Against the Death Penalty. Will you?

 

October 5, 2011

Enough! It’s time to end the war and wage a Just Peace

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As the longest war in US history enters its 11th year on October 6, it’s time to say “Enough!” War, as Martin Luther King Jr said, is “an enemy of the poor” and has brought us to the worst economic decline in nearly 100 years. As I’ve said earlier, “We’re scheduled to spend $113 Billion in Afghanistan in 2011 alone, good money we don’t have that could easily be used for good causes here at home. We’ve also lost over 1500 service men and women, with 10,000 wounded.”  Military Spending in Context pointed out that “the United States will spend more on the war in Afghanistan this year, adjusting for inflation, than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War combined.” When it comes to war I say: Enough!

But the war, the deaths, the occupation and exploitation, all come marching home again. Martin Luther King Jr. went out of his way to connect poverty with war. On April 4, 1967 he said in his speech From Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence :

There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

War is not just an enemy of the poor, but a catalyst of poverty, both at home and abroad. Republican President Eisenhower famously said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.” By those standards, there is an ever-growing number of folks we’re stealing from every day. The corporate greed which has seen skyrocketing salaries for the uber-rich while resources are cut from our most vulnerable is a catastrophic moral failure. The outrageous waste of money, resources, fuel and human work hours on the arms race is an industrial and creative crisis. And the channeling of poor families into the military to fight wars they do not support and did not have a say in is wrong. When it comes to neglect, demonization, and creation of the poor I say: Enough!

In his article about the World Council of Church’s efforts to wage a just peace in place of the obsolete Just War theory, Andre Gingerich Stoner urges “Christians to stop building, training with or paying for these weapons.” Sunday was “World Communion Sunday,” a day Christians orient ourselves to the global body of Christ which demands a higher allegiance than we give to any nation state. Christ’s church has no walls, no borders, and no military. And her members live radically different lives than those whose concepts of “sovereignty” are limited to governments. As one Protestant Reformer said, ““The Prince of Peace is Jesus Christ. We who were formerly no people at all, and who knew of no peace, are now called to be a church of peace. True Christians do not know vengeance. They are the children of peace. Their hearts overflow with peace. Their mouths speak peace, and they walk in the way of peace.” When it comes to Christian support of Obama’s “Good War,” I say: Enough!

Enough of war; enough of poverty; enough militaristic christianity.

This is not the only possible way to live. It’s how we’re choosing to live today. Will we choose it for another 10 years?

We certainly don’t have to. Join me in waging peace, not war, and share in following:

  • We will repent for ways we have contributed to this war
  • We will pray for peace, justice and reconciliation
  • We will renew our commitment to teach peace to every generation and to provide youth with meaningful alternatives to military service
  • We will encourage and call people from our congregations to serve on Christian Peacemaker Team delegations around the world
  • We will offer our support to local military personnel and their families as they deal with the trauma of this war
  • We will reach out in friendship to local Muslims
  • We will join our voices with many other people of faith who are calling for our national leaders to end the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, recognizing that such visibility is fueling a growing insurgency movement and adding to the daily suffering of ordinary Afghani’s.

Enough of war! It’s time to wage peace.

 

September 13, 2011

Standing with History against state-sponsored, church-approved executions

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Let me tell you why debate audiences who cheer the death penalty frighten me.

On January 5, 1527 the first Protestant reformer was killed by state-sponsored, church-approved authorities under what they believed to be “God’s will.” Felix Manz was the first of more than 25,000 Protestant martyrs known as Anabaptists (Mennonites are Anabaptists), drowned in the Limmat River in Zurich by Christians who claimed to base their entire faith one being “justified by faith alone.”  That same year, King Ferdinand declared drowning (called the third baptism) “the best antidote to Anabaptism” (a pejorative title that simply means “Re-baptism”). Michael Sattler and many others were not, however, lucky enough to die by drowning. The sentence against him read, “Michael Sattler shall be committed to the executioner. The latter shall take him to the square and there first cut out his tongue, and then forge him fast to a wagon and there with glowing iron tongs twice tear pieces from his body, then on the way to the site of execution five times more as above and then burn his body to powder as an arch-heretic.”

Anabaptist Dirk Willems, later recaptured after returning to the ice to rescue his pursuer from drowning. Dirk is executed days later by Christian authorities.

 

As my spiritual ancestors were killed by the thousands, they sang songs of praise and pleaded with their audiences to put their trust in God, all in the midst of cheers for their death. The angry chants for blood are reminiscent of ancient Roman chants for death in the Colosseum. The links between church and state are as valid to discuss now as then. I share these examples precisely because how absurd they sound on our American ears, so used to ecumenism and the religious diversity of our time. Sure, we disagree about doctrine and worship practices, but we sure as hell don’t kill each other anymore for them. We’ve all grown up a bit, haven’t we?

But here’s the thing: their executions were perfectly legal! Laws dating back over a thousand years prohibited re-baptism at the pain of death. Was it legal? Yes! Was it moral? Absolutely not. Was it “Christian”? Undeniably no. 20/20 hindsight proves the absurdity of practicing state sponsored killing for heresy. Jesus proved the absurdity of killing adulterers in John 8:7, teaching us what once was considered a just cause for execution can and should be modified over time. After all, the Hebrew Scriptures demand execution for a surprising number of offenses, most of which we would recoil from in horror, not stand up and applaud. For instance: adultery, lying about your virginity(Deut 22:20-21), blasphemy(Lev 24:14-16,23), breaking the Sabbath(Ex 31:14, Numb 15:32-36), and evangelism (Deut 13:1-11, 18:20) are all just causes for executions.  By these standards, Jesus was guilty as charged, his execution being perfectly legal. No wonder the crowds cheered!

So last week, and last night, when the GOP debate audiences cheered Governor Rick Perry’s execution record which today will increase to 235, I got scared. Scared because we’ve gotten it so wrong in the past. Scared because the church has never really gotten it right. We’ve so often been on the wrong side of the death penalty, supporting death in ways that today are clearly understood to be 100% incongruous with our faith. Like when my people were killed over the form of baptism, or when countless Jews were killed in the Inquisition because their commitment to God was too strong to be swayed by evangelism-by-sword, or when the German church worshipped God on Sunday’s then “rendered to Caesar” by executing millions of innocents during the week (it’s a marvelous thing to note that Germany has not executed anyone since WW2, having rightly learned the lessons of abuse of power).

When, dear readers, have we ever gotten it right? Perry’s claim that he’s gotten it right 100% of the time is perhaps (though unlikely) correct; but his absolute certainty is shameful and lacks historic precedent. Exploding in applause at the mention of such a widespread and unexamined  death machine is counter to both history and moral health.

Today I stand with history on the side of caution and humility against the state-sponsored, church-approved executions of Steven Woods (today), Duane Buck (Thursday), Cleve Foster (next Tuesday), and Lawrence Brewer (next Wednesday). The abolition of the Texas death penalty is inevitable. Either we will choose to stand for the humane treatment of all people (guilty or not), or we will, like everyone before us (see Germany post-WW2) make mistakes so horrendous and innumerable we will be forced to repent and change our policy. Either way, this absurd cycle of violence will come to an end.

Here I stand, remembering history. As a follower of one whose blood was shed by state-sponsored, religion-approved executions, I have no other choice. Dear God, forgive us for killing guilty people like your Son Jesus, Felix Manz and Michael Sattler, Steven, Duane, Cleve and Lawrence. I pray they come to know the grace and peace that comes only through knowing you. May their victims family’s be free from hate to know the peace of Christ which surpasses all understanding. May we learn from our past mistakes and stand with history against the death penalty. Jesus, executed and now risen, have mercy on us! AMEN.

Anyone who is without sin, feel free to pull that lever.

 

September 1, 2011

Pre-emptive war rhetoric steps outside Christian tradition

Posted by HMC Pastor under following jesus, Nonviolence, Peace, War | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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President Obama is not Christian enough for some mysterious reason even though he’s a professed Christian. Mitt Romney is not Christian enough because he’s Mormon. All kinds of litmus tests are established for when its ok or not ok for our national leaders to step outside of Christian wisdom and thought.

Recently, several candidates have taken a calculated step away from classic interpretations of Christian doctrine and ethics in at least one key area: war. Is it OK or not OK for our leaders to step outside the Christian faith on what should be one of the most central issues of our time?

At a weekend engagement with a Texas VFW, our fine governor distanced himself from Sixteen hundred years of accepted Christian practice, saying, “We must renew our commitment to taking the fight to the enemy, wherever they are, before they strike at home.” Having tried to blatantly establish himself as the “Christian” candidate of choice in his August 6 prayer “Response,” it can’t go unnoticed how novel an idea preemption is!

Indeed, herein lies the problem. The novelty of preemption should not be lost on Christians who come from nearly any and every branch of Christianity, including: mainline, evangelical, Pentecostal, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox - all of whom have no room for preemptive strikes in their accepted doctrines of either Christian pacifism or Just War Theory.

Here’s a little refresher course in how we Christians have fought, and not fought, for the last 2 millenium. For the first 300-400 years of our history, Christians were largely pacifists and abstained from military service. After the Constintinian shift which attempted to ”christianize” empire, theologians sought pragmatic ways to restrain violence and “fight fair.” The very concept of fighting fair would have been anathema to the early church, but nontheless, they developed tried and true rules for establishing what came to be known as a “Just War.” These principles have, with few exceptions, guided mainstream Christianity ever since. Here, according to justwartheory.com, are the basics: 

  • A just war can only be waged as a last resort.
  • A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority.
  • A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause. Further, a just war can only be fought with “right” intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.
  • A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success.
  • The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace.
  • The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered.
  • The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants.

So let’s be clear: there is absolutely no way for a pre-emptive war to be called a “Just War.” It’s a new thing, with zero support from the great ones like Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, etc… No one save the embarressing Crusaders (who even Wheaton College and Campus Crusade for Christ distance themselves from now) and perhaps the German Church have tried to Christianize preemption. So is it OK or not?

Perry is, unfortunately, not the only powerful politician (current or potential) who is trading his faith for a war ethic with little or no resemblance to the classic Christian thoughts and rules. Recent debates have brought out strong voices for war with Iran, claims that we need to do “everything necessary,” and strong militaristic language that echoes the drumbeats preceeding Shock and Awe. A former VP is touting for all to hear how torture needs to proudly be the new normal in American policy. Perhaps its just a sign of the times that our current President, as hawkish and war-minded as any, absurdly won the Nobel Peace Prize. His policies are as wrong as his receipt of the award.

One thing is becoming ever more clear: no matter who wins in November 2012, the myth of redemptive violence will live on.

How do you, dear Christian readers, feel about having one of your most ancient and sacred theories (Just War) trampled as if it were nothing? What does it mean when we cease trusting accepted Christian practices as normative? Do we today have the right to stray from the accumulated wisdom of our ancestors? When do Presidents have the moral authority to step outside of Christian wisdom and thought? And, when they do, who is willing to hold our candidates accountable on this key issue like we hold them accountable on various other issues?

As someone commited to making peace through peace and not war, I do not hold as most Christians do to the Just War Theory. But it makes sense to me that if you’re going to hold to a theory, you should hold to the theory. Particularly when lives (so many lives!) are at stake, and trillions of dollars, and our own moral health. Shouldn’t we be more commited than ever to those Christian convictions that have guided us? Now is not the time for novelty. Now is the time to make peace.

If I could just find a candidate willing to step away from Just War in the other direction, my vote might become a little more clear.

 

August 26, 2011

Conversations with myself

Posted by HMC Pastor under Uncategorized
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I have it from a reliable source it’s okay for me to say the following sentence out loud (and actually mean it): “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

 I spent the last 3 days at a local FaithWalking Retreat trying to excavate why that’s true. I learned there are multiple ways to define “being fully human” and that Jesus is the best definition from Jim, how our thoughts about God affect our prayer life from Trisha, how the Psalms call us to be open to God from Sue (my mom!), how being in control displaces God from the throne from Steve, and how hard ministry can be on a pastor’s family from Karen. I even learned a lot from Bruce Willis the movie star, who showed up Tuesday night to teach us how our past wounds can significantly limit our ability to be radically obedient to God.

Conversation with myself, by Lorry Acott-Fowler

 But I learned the most in conversations with myself. Certainly not because I was the smartest person in the room: far from it! That was how the retreat was designed: with cycles of input, solitude, and small group sharing. Questions and journals guided my conversation, and prayer bathed it, but the time was mine to grab my shovel and start digging. Why can’t I do what I want? What holds me back? Why are things like total obedience to Jesus, full transparency in prayer, believing I’m worthy of love so hard? Am I more interested in obedience or just looking good?

As someone called and employed to talk to others, I was surprisingly out of practice with talking to myself. But my FaithWalking guides opened up safe space to talk, learn, and dig. The picture to the right, passed on to me last month by my spiritual director, sums up well my experience: it’s appropriately called Conversations with myself.  Paul, the author of the sentence I quoted above, goes on to say “it happens so regularly it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but its pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge (Romans 7 in The Message).” The retreat was an opportunity for me to sit down with several covert rebels and invite them to come into the light and give control to God.

That Paul was authentic with his Roman friends gives us permission to be open with each other in the same way. The good news and the bad news about that is this: I’m not sure we as citizens of planet earth can be transformed in any other way. Genuine personal transformation (the kind our HMC mission statement says we’re all about) doesn’t happen by stumbling upon more information. I don’t think it’s come for you in the 150 or so sermons I’ve preached or the 150 or so sermons I’ll preach in the coming years. How could it, when we put our one hour worship service up against the Goliath of western mammon-culture which demands unconditional allegiance and obedience?

The times in my own life I’ve experienced accelerated spiritual growth and transformation have all happened digging deeply into conversations with myself in the context of loving community. Not Sunday School, not sermons, not incurring huge debts to attend seminary, not guilt inducing condemnation for failed morality. It comes when I open myself to a process of personal transformation. Then, and only then, can I be the follower of Christ I hunger for so deeply. Then, and only then, will we as a congregation be “Transformed by God to Transform the World.” To the degree we have all found this at Houston Mennonite- I give thinks. To the degree we haven’t- I vow to embrace a more holistic vision of discipleship and personal transformation for individuals and our congregation.

I’m gracious to have gone FaithWalking this week as my love of Jesus and the mission of God deepened immeasurably. But more than anything, I give thanks for the conversations I had with a guy named Marty, who, as it turns out, had a lot to teach me after all.

 

August 22, 2011

What I learned about how I’m wired by being un-wired for over 2 weeks

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For the last couple of weeks I’ve been on vacation. Many of you know this by my lack of response to your comments. Our family trip was fantastic for its ordinariness. But one aspect of my time away was wildly meaningful for me: I unplugged. That’s right, I took an extended tech-Sabbath, a time off and intentional distance from email, cell phone, twitter, facebook, blogging, and all things wired. I said “No” to constant connectivity, rested from stats and the beep of attention, entrusted my work to others, and stopped being wired.

It was utterly marvelous!

And terribly difficult. Nearly impossible actually. Like an addict going cold turkey, the first couple unwired days were a failure of epic proportions. I knew it would be hard, but not like that! I was contantly thinking about blog comments that needed approval, emails that demanded answers, my tweet stats (would my precious followers be patient with me while away, or would they run?), work left undone. I snuck multiple peeks at every social networking site I’ve ever joined, including an ancient blog I haven’t touched in years called 20First Century Heretic. All I wanted to do was get my hands on something, someone, wired. It was pathetic.

The spiritual nature of my chosen combat was evident, ”I do not uundersand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate (Romans 7:15).” Clearly being unwired taught me how limited my freedom really was. And how wrapped up in cyberspace my identity and ego had become. I was allowing myself to be defined based on the sense of worth that technology afforded.

Let me say more about that. Technology and the social networking it affords has an insatiable way of making us feel important, noticed, and valued. With every tweet, text, beep, post, message, or link that comes our way, we’re reminded that somebody somewhere knows us, wants to connect with us, maybe cares for us, or best of all: needs us. For those of us who know teenagers who rack up 4-10,000 texts a month, you know it’s not so much about what’s said as it is being connected and that feeling of worth that comes with being noticed. From a work perspective, our “value” is sometimes based on our availability and/or quick response time. Somewhere along the way I picked up the notion that people will value my ministry higher the quicker I respond. To be out of touch, to let emails sit? How would the world survive without me?

Being stripped of all that during my tech Sabbath reminded me once again of what “Sabbath” really is. Sabbath is a Hebrew word that simply means: stop, rest. It’s also a word pregnant with religious meaning which calls us to a non-anxious existence. God, as it turns out, was not anxious about the work accomplished during the first 6 days of the week, and therefore could rest on the seventh. If God – caretaker of the entire cosmos – was not anxious, why should we be?

And yet anxious I was: no more stats to prop up my ego, no more tweets and texts to reinforce my self-worth. And no more social networking to distract me or enable me to put off more important work that beckons. No more ability to send emails to make sure my work universe doesn’t fall apart. Just me. And the people I was physically with.

But what I learned most came from being with people  actually in the same room with me. As an introvert, technology proves to be a great way for me to connect with others and express myself. But I also love, crave, and need the real thing. Technology can so easily become disembodied information swapping, but we’re wired for so much more. I learned how deeply I am wired for relationship, particularly embodied, ongoing and consistent connections that go beyond single-issue or superficial levels. And I learned that I can too easily use virtual reality to distract from connecting with those I’m physically with. 

Let me be specific: dialogue is much easier, deeper, and more meaningful in person than online. Online dialogue is terribly stunted, particularly in a blog setting such as this, where back-and-forth, give-and-take discussion rarely develops. Most blogging is a monologue followed by a series of comments that mostly take on a negative effect. But imagine the same exchange happening over coffee instead of in cyberspace. You may both still disagree, but you would word arguments differently, listen for nonverbal cues, pay attention to emotions (and be more adept at reading them!), share in small talk and focal exchanges and ultimately work together more than work against one another. No one would dominate the conversation.

So what does this mean for me going forward? If a 2+week tech Sabbath was meaningful, how do I plan to incorporate what I learned in my week-to-week life?

  • Continue the practice of one day a week of tech-Sabbath. As a pastor, Friday’s are my Sabbath day.
  • Limit my email checks to 3 per day, rather than having my hotmail open at all times I’m on the computer.
  • Limit my stat and blog comment check-ups and responses to once per day, or less.
  • Prioritize face-to-face and phone conversations more than email and social networking.  
  • Continue to work hard at building genuine relationship with you, my blog readers.

Oh yea, and before we left my wife went to this museum called The Library that displays artifacts called “books” which they allow you to take with you. I read two quality novels that were strikingly unimportant, which made them delicious for a guy who works in such an important job as “ministry.” Add that to the list: reading a novel at all times for my emotional health.

By all means, give a tech-Sabbath a try! If you do or already have, let me know what you learn about how you’re wired. Thanks.

 

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