Babel or Pentecost? - Part 1

(This is an article I wrote in 2007 about technology and faith, when I was somewhat of a Luddite. I'm going to re-publish it here in several installments, and then write about how my views have evolved as the age of social media has dawned.)

I have a friend who is a minister and self-professing techno-geek. He loves computers. He builds websites and plays interactive video games. He even co-hosts something called a podcast - which is like a radio show on the Internet.

As long as we've been friends, I've enjoyed getting on his nerves by calling computers evil and by making fun of people who use them a lot. The funny thing is, because of him, I've been much more of a techno person than I ever thought I would. He's even gotten me started on making my own blog.

The two of us have had an ongoing conversation about whether our rapidly advancing technology is a good thing. My friends thinks that the Internet offers new ways for people to make connections and share information, that it strengthens the bonds of human relatinship.

And he's right! We have gained a lot from new technologies, and we will continue to in ways that we cannot even dream about today. But I am cautious about where this progression will ultimately lead us. Maybe I watch too much science fiction, but this rapid acceleration in what computers can do scares me.

And it's not because I think we're going to end up enslaved to machines like in "Terminator" or "The Matrix." My concern has more to do with how our machines have the potential to distract us from God and the creator/creature relationship. My cautionary tale, therefore, is not one of those movies. It's a story that appears in the eleventh chapter of Genesis, and it describes an ancient race of people who unite briefly in glorious technological achievement, but end up scattered and confused. It's the story of Babel...

From the Pulpit: Risky Faith

(This excerpt is from a sermon preached October 16, 2011 - based on I Thessalonians 1:1-10)

The apostles were quite bold in taking risks, but not taking too many. As he travelled from place to place, Paul developed a keen sense of when to aggressively push with the Gospel, and when to retreat and take a more defensive tactic. The Book of Acts details this balance of sound risk-taking as the Christian faith exploded from a disorganized band of 12 disciples into a powerful religion that has changed the scope of world history.

But even more important than imitating the apostle’s risky faith is the fact that they have imitated Christ himself – Paul says “us and the Lord”. Because the apostles didn’t invent their strategy of good risk-taking. They were imitating what Jesus Christ did on the cross. So what Paul is really telling the Thessalonians is that since Christ was not afraid of risks, and was not even afraid being killed, then neither should Christ’s followers be afraid.

Now it might seem strange to say that Christ on the cross was a risk. It might even seem heretical to put it this way, because it implies that God, by sending his only Son into the world, was rolling the dice – that God was not in control of things. It implies that Jesus was just taking a chance and hoping for the best when he started his ministry. And it implies that this risk failed when he was killed.

So what, then, is Paul getting at when he says that we should be imitators of the apostles and of Christ? What does it mean for us to have a “risky faith” that Paul would praise?

Let’s think back to those games of Risk that I played with my brothers, and specifically to my failed strategy. Recall that I played too defensively, always trying to find a safe corner where I could hole up and protect myself. And recall how I always lost, because my brothers would build up bigger armies by being more aggressive. As it turns out, my risk-averse strategy was actually quite risky. By failing to take any risks, I was taking the biggest risk of all. I was guaranteeing that I would not succeed. Just ask anyone who has started a business. They will understand this principle well.

Now apply this principle to the cross. In order for Jesus to succeed, in order for him win our salvation, he had to die and rise again. And in order to be driven to the cross, he had to have a certain level of aggressiveness and risk-taking in his ministry. If he had avoided all danger and all risk, he never would become our Lord and Savior. Therefore, for Jesus to be completely risk-averse would have been the biggest risk of all.

That’s what Paul is talking about when he talks about imitating Christ. He is praising the Thessalonians for not being so timid and so risk-averse that they can’t fulfill the calling that God has given them. They endure labors and persecutions, but persevere to become examples of faith for churches everywhere.

And we are no different. We are called to be imitators of the Thessalonians, imitators of the apostles, and imitators of Christ. We are called to avoid the biggest risk of all, which is not fulfilling our God-given purpose. We are called to find the balance that comes in taking take good risks.

For Jesus, taking good risks involved speaking the truth about the Kingdom of God and challenging the authorities of this time. For Paul and the early Christians, taking good risks meant going into potentially dangerous places and sharing the good news of Christ. What, then, does taking good risks mean for us?

That’s a question that each one of us will answer differently. For some, a good risk is inviting a neighbor to church. For others, a good risk is volunteering for an outreach ministry that seems a little intimidating. For still others, a good risk is speaking up with an opinion that might not be popular with everyone who hears it. And for some, just to show up at church, or at Bible study, or at a Fellowship meal is a risk – but a risk that is worth taking.

But as Paul has shown, and as my boyhood games of Risk have shown, the true risk – the one that we should always avoid taking – is the risk of never taking one. Amen.

Twant: Micro and Macro Change In The Church

(Today I'm going to share something new. I call it a "Twant." Sometimes when I'm on Twitter, I feel the need to expand on a thought expressed in a tweet. And then I add another, and another, until I have a whole series that comes across like a lecture or a rant. Here's a twant I did this morning on the process of change in a congergation. Once I get permission, I'm going to post a Twitter convo I had on the same topic that generated a lot of replies from other tweeters. For more of my tweets, please go to @revjimmoss.)

Had b'fast w/ local Meth and Bapt mins. Had basically same convo on church transformation I had here last night. With contextual flavor!

Our #1 identified challenge: It's not that our churches aren't willing to change. It's that they see the micro and we tend to see the macro.

Put another way. Church members' vision for change is often more immediate, practical - like putting a rock band in worship...

While clergy's is often more abstract, theological. Challenge is how to pull the two together.

Potential conflict: Micro vision of change still sees basic structure, programs of institution as something to preserve. Just with tweaks.

Macro vision sees the need for deeper transformation in whole way the institution looks and functions.

The good news: Carefully done over time, many micro changes can add up to macro change.

The Invisible Barrier

We moved to our new home a little over a year ago. Like most small towns in the South, it is still quite segregated. There are two distinct cultures, and there aren’t many places that they overlap. The public elementary school is an exception. Not only do black and white children attend together – they also mix socially.

When we enrolled our son in the public kindergarten, we were delighted to find that he made friends easily in his diverse class. He is now best friends with Marcus, a black kid who lives in one of the run-down, destitute trailer parks that lie on the edge of town. It's obvious to adults which kids come from the trailer parks and which don't. At least at that age, the kids don't seem to notice.

Every day, our son comes home talking about how Marcus did this, and Marcus said that. They clearly have a close bond. He knows nothing of the different reality that Marcus goes home to each night. They truly are from different worlds. At this young age, however, those different worlds have not yet erected that invisible barrier that keeps segregation and all its consequences in effect - even 40 years after schools were integrated.

When it came time for us to have a birthday party, we realized just how strong that invisible barrier can be. Naturally, our son wanted to invite Marcus to the party. We were dismayed to discover, however, that we had no way to get in touch with Marcus’ parents to extend the invitation.

School regulations prevent the giving out of any personal information about a student, such as a phone number, and the children aren’t allowed to pass out invitations for private parties. We didn’t even have a way to find out Marcus’ last name, short of relying on our son to ask him and remember it when he got home (which didn’t work). And even if we did have his last name, in this day and age, there is a strong chance his legal guardian has a different name.

If it had been a child from our “side of the tracks,” we could have used our social connections to find out who the parents are and extend the invitation – but we simply don’t know anyone from Marcus’ world. The segregation is still that profound. So profound that in a town of a few thousand people, we found it impossible to make a connection with the parents of a child our young son had made such a strong connection with.

As I read books and have conversations with colleagues about how to do effective outreach ministry, the common theme that emerges is “building relationships.” We must get to know the people we wish to reach out to and build friendships and trust. These different worlds will always be separated by that invisible barrier if we can’t share our lives and not just our resources. What better way to begin building such relationships than by celebrating a child’s birthday together?

When we told our son that his best friend couldn’t make it to the party, he cried. My prayer is that this experience isn’t already building his barrier.

From the Pulpit - "Rejoice!"

(An excerpt from my sermon on September 18, 2011)

Think about how joyful the Israelites must have felt when God delivered them from the hands of Pharaoh. And think about how joyful each one of us can feel when we understand how we’ve been forgiven and saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. We can truly rejoice! We, too, can sing out loud, and jump up and down for joy just as the Psalmist describes the people of Israel doing.

But how many of us have ever done that? How many of us have gotten so excited about God’s grace that we literally erupted into song and dance? How many times, in our worship service, has the confession and the declaration of forgiveness been a time for unrestrained rejoicing instead of just a recitation of words? And how often in our everyday lives do we burst forth with visible joy because of the mercy we receive in Jesus Christ. Perhaps we’ve had a moment or two in our lives where we were profoundly affected by a realization of God’s grace – but how many of us make true rejoicing a regular spiritual practice?

In our church, and in many Presbyterian churches, we tend to take more of the stoic approach. We often make the argument that highly emotional expressions of faith can be done merely for show, or are the result of getting caught up in a moment. Often, such expressions are not a sign of deep, personal happiness. Jumping up and down and shouting “Praise Jesus” can be just as forced and just as routine as reciting liturgy can.

And neither way is necessarily superior to the other. Both can be authentic or inauthentic expressions of faith. What really makes for a joyful response to God’s grace is not what we do on the outside. It's not what other people see and hear. It’s what God sees and hears. And God pays attention to what is deep down in our hearts, not what we’re doing with our hands or our mouths. So we should express our praise in whatever way opens our hearts and lets God know how joyful we are - whether that involves dancing in the aisles singing “Awesome God” or standing still and reverently singing "A Mighty Fortress."

Which means that in the church, we need to be mindful of two things as we create space for rejoicing. First, we need to honor the fact that different people rejoice in different ways, and be careful not to discourage any authentic expressions. If someone feels moved to wave their hands during an upbeat hymn, that would be OK. And it would be just as OK for someone else to remain still – as long as their hearts are open to God in honest rejoicing. In a time when evangelism is becoming more of a focus, a church that is unable to create such space will limit the amount of people it can reach.

Such a church will also limit the rejoicing of its own people, which brings me to the second thing we need to be mindful of. And this is something the Psalmist reiterates. The joy that the Israelites felt every time God delivered them never lasted. For whatever reason, they were not able to take that intense feeling of excitement in the moment and let it deepen in the lasting joy that lives in the heart. Instead of trusting in God’s continuing love and guidance, they trusted in themselves, in false gods, and in whatever else they could find. In short, they didn’t nurture their joy - and it got them into trouble time and time again.

Which is why it is so important for us to work hard at rejoicing, and rejoicing authentically. We can’t take worship for granted, assuming that it’s good enough just to say the right words and keep the right traditions. We must consistently check ourselves to make sure it is truly rejoicing – that it is coming joyfully from that place deep, deep down in our hearts. And the same goes for the rest of our church life – whether it’s our education programs, our fellowship, our mission work, or our daily devotions. If we authentically rejoice in all those things, we will be able to keep our trust in God and the good things God has in store for us.

From the Pulpit: "Divided We Fall"

An excerpt from the sermon I preached on September 11, 2011, based on Romans 14: 1-12. It was preached as much to myself as to anyone else, for I have often been guilty of the judgmentalism that Paul decries in this passage.)

In the time immediately following the 9/11 attacks, there were a variety of different interpretations of what happened and opinions about what should be the response – but there was also unity and a shared sense of purpose. For a short while, we were truly one people, coming together to mourn a terrible loss and somehow pick up the pieces and move on.

But that unity soon disintegrated. It did not take long before the nation split back into the usual factions. Instead of respectful discussion that fostered a shared vision, our different perspectives led us to name calling, finger pointing, and political opportunism. We became a nation of two camps at war with each other as much as with the terrorists. In the last couple of years, as we have added an economic crisis to our list of challenges, this divisiveness and hostility has only intensified – and the nation as a whole is suffering.

As we see in the 14th chapter of Romans, the earliest Christians had similar problems with divisiveness and infighting. For them, the point of controversy was differing practices involving food. Some of them fasted on the Lord’s Day, or only ate vegetables, while others ate whatever they pleased. To us, such a dispute dispute might seem trivial, at least in comparison to the issues that we face today. But in the early church, such a conflict could have destroyed their fragile new fellowship. Paul knows that peace and unity must be maintained, which is why he is so clear about them not condemning one another over these food practices.

He says this: “Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall.” And this: “Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.” And finally, this: “Each one of us will be accountable to God.”

Three times Paul makes the point that judgment is God’s business, not ours. But that’s not all Paul says. He goes on to turn the message of warning about God’s judgment into a beautiful statement about God’s love and mercy.

He reminds us that the Lord is able to make us all stand, despite our weaknesses, and that all of us who are brothers and sisters in Christ belong to the Lord. We all live to the Lord, and we all die to the Lord. And because the Lord rose from the dead, so shall all of us who believe in him.

It’s a stunning lesson in humility and grace. None of us are perfect and none of us are saved by our own merit. Therefore, none of us have a basis to claim superiority over any other member of Christ’s body because of the differences that we have.

Because of this, if he were here today, Paul would likely have a thing or two to say about the direction our national discourse has taken since 9/11. He would also caution us that our tendency to bicker and to judge one another makes us weaker. It threatens our unity in the same way that the early church in Rome was threatened by constant arguments over their different practices.

And the same is true of our Presbyterian denomination. Our national church body has been embroiled in a contentious debate for more than 15 years over different ideas about the ordination of homosexuals. And the two sides have been extremely judgmental of one another, using harsh labels such as bigoted, heretical, hateful, and wicked to describe one another.

I have even heard people, on both sides of the debate, question the very faith of those who hold the opposite opinion. I believe that if Paul were here and heard such judgments being made, he would say something similar to what he told the Christians in Rome. For perhaps the most striking portion of this passage is when Paul says this about the different believers with different notions of what is right:

“Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord, and give thanks to God.”

Paul is clear that it’s not a matter of who is faithful and who is not, or who is sinful and who is not. Because we are all faithful, and we are all sinners. And we are all saved only by the grace of Jesus Christ that is given through his death and resurrection. This common bond of salvation should be more than sufficient to keep us united and respectful to one another when we have disagreements.

Cautiously Bold

Last week, I started a conversation on Twitter about changing worship forms and then continued it here on Pastor40. My basic point was that church leadership should be boldly blazing a new trail of creative worship expression and not be bound by "the way we've always done things." There was general agreement about the overall need for change, but my friends/colleagues also offered a healthy dose of caution. Here is a summary of their caveats:

1) The labels of "traditional" and "contemporary" are problematic in and of themselves. What is considered traditional in one place might be quite radical in another. Also, "contemporary" is a constantly moving target. Any new form of worship expression, if accepted, quickly becomes tradition and "the way we do things here."

2) Worship is not a marketable product that we should adapt to fit the demands of our target demographic. Instead, it is the embodiment of Christ as expressed by the congregation of believers. In other words, worship is the corporate expression of the church's faith carried out for God's benefit. It is not a tool for attracting new members.

3) Worship style is not the change that is needed. Too many churches fall into the trap of thinking that a contemporary service is the answer to their membership decline. But any form of worship can be rote, boring, and uninspiring. And any form can be an authentic, compelling, and attractive to newcomers. What truly makes for great worship is that it comes from the heart of a faith community that truly loves and serves God. Often, the changes that need to be made go a lot deeper than the worship service.

4) Change should happen gradually. By nature, churches are organizations that value stability and continuity - especially in this era of rapid social, political, and technological change. For many churchgoers, worship is the only aspect of their lives that is still familiar and makes sense. Small, almost imperceptible changes carried out methodically over time are much more likely to be accepted and embraced.

5) Change must come from the people, not from the pastor. In churches that have successfully re-formed their worship, the impetus has been from the ground up. Clergy have a role in facilitating and resourcing new visions, but it is impossible to force something new on a congregation that does not want it. This requires that lay people take ownership, that pastors maintain a delicate balance of leading and following, and that everyone trusts that the Holy Spirit is the one in charge.

6) Change requires long-term pastoral leadership. In many churches, the members have seen a number of pastors come and go in their time. As a result, they have difficulty investing in change with a leader they expect to be leaving after five or six years. Research is beginning to show that for lasting congregational change, pastorates of much longer duration - at least 15 to 20 years - are required. This requires a heavy dose of patience on the part of clergy (admittedly not my strong suit), and time for the membership to develop a deep and abiding sense of trust.

Every one of these caveats from my friends/colleagues is valid. Pastors who feel called to transform worship and any other aspect of a congregation will run into brick wall after brick wall if they do not heed their wisdom. Nonetheless, these same caveats can also become stumbling blocks. It's a double-edged sword, because they can also become excuses not to seek changes at all.

In the churches I've served, I've noticed that people will rarely oppose new ideas in an outright fashion. They will, however, throw speed bump after speed bump into the process, often in the form of one of these caveats, until the idea becomes unworkable. Often, there seems to be one or two lay leaders who are informally appointed to this role of reigning in the pastor's vision. It's a systems issue, and church systems are norioiusly resistant to change. Change-minded leaders can unwittingly become part of the system's resistance to change if they overuse these caveats.

Which is why, despite my agreement with all of the above cautions, the comment I liked most from this conversation was just the opposite. It was from Greg Smith, who has own blog So What Faith.

"I, for one, am of the mind that we must do more not less to encourage the conversation at the parish level and to be bold in our experimentation with new possibilities, including those for worship."

As long as we keep that attitude, these caveats will serve us well, not be a stumbling block.

Do The Math: If We Weren't At War...

The reality is that we are at war, and that we can't just snap our fingers and immediately get out - even if we wanted to. But as an exercise, let us consider what we could be doing with the money we're spending on our two wars if we had never gone there in the first place.


Amount spent in 2010 on Iraq and Afghanistan: $170.7 billion.

Annual cost to pay one person for full-time time work at $10 per hour: $20,000

People that could be employed at that rate with $170.7 billion: 8.5 million

Number of officially unemployed people in the United States: 13.9 million

Employing 61% of the nation's unemployed: Priceless

The problem is not that the government can't afford to directly provide jobs during this economic crisis. The problem is that it is unwilling to do so because it has other priorities. In the coming election, let's consistently ask our leaders if jobs and the welfare of the middle and working classes has really been their top priority.

The Dreams For Tomorrow vs. The Reality Of Today

(This post is Part 2 of a series on the struggle to maintain idealism. Part 1 can be found here.)



Earlier today, I became involved in a discouraging conversation on Twitter. It focused on the matter of worship in the mainline church and whether new styles are practical and/or necessary. I was trying to make the point that for many people, traditional worship is rote and uninspiring. They attend more out of duty than for a genuine and exciting experience of God’s presence. Because that sense of obligation is fading as the church gradually recedes from the cultural mainstream, changes will be necessary if the church is to remain vital and strong in coming decades.

Much to my surprise, I received a good bit of resistance from the group of mostly progressive church leaders. Where I thought I would find abundant resonance to the idea of boldly blazing a new trail of creative faith expression, I instead received a litany of reasons why change efforts are risky/impractical/unnecessary/irresponsible/arrogant. On the whole, my desire for a new vision was not affirmed, and even the concept of moving forward was brought into question.

I ended the conversation with a frank expression of my frustration, accusing the participants of splitting hairs and lacking vision. Upon further reflection, I admit that my reaction was a bit rash, but it is born out of a deep and genuine angst over the prevalent “we fear change” mentality in the mainline church. It’s an angst that I imagine everyone in that Twitter conversation shares on some level, and it can lead even those who are favorable to change to respond negatively when others call for it. I’ve caught myself doing it sometimes.

The reason this happens is related to my previous blog on idealism and its tendency to fade over time. I observed that a lot of people (especially ministers) harbor high ideals for changing the world when they are young and in school, but gradually let go of these dreams as they become established in the real world.

One reason for this was revealed by today’s Twitter conversation. In an environment such as seminary, students are encouraged to think about the future. Discussions of what the church should look like in 10, 50, or even 100 years are common.

Once we hit the ground, however, and must deal with the day-to-day realities of a congregation, the focus changes dramatically. There might be precious little time to consider what worship should look like in 20 years, because we are consumed with what we’re going to do this coming Sunday. And in every church I’ve been in, staff and committees have rarely talked about what will happen more than six months into the future.

In such “present-centered” work environments, idealism naturally takes a back seat to practicality and realism. It’s no surprise, therefore, that concerns about how current church members will respond to change take precedence over what will happen in a generation if we don’t change.

Which is where most of the folks I got so frustrated with on Twitter seem to be. In theory, they might agree with the need for an evolving long-term vision of worship. In a seminary class, we probably would have had the kind of affirming, uplifting conversation about this that I was hoping for. We would have been free to focus on the larger sweep of church history and where we are heading beyond the horizon of the current church season.

But on a random Wednesday morning, when we’re all neck-deep in our preparations for another Sunday and another busy fall, it turned out differently. Instead of the forest of idealism, it was all about the trees of reality, about “what we are doing right now.” And right now, as much as it might be needed, it is quite difficult to be an agent of change in an institution that is so steeped in tradition.

Anyone leading a traditional mainline church faces this tension between long-term vision and short-term practicality. For the next five to ten years, I know that my church will continue to thrive with the same service it’s been doing. But if we want to remain vital beyond that, we have to start today in forming a new concept of worship (and a lot of other practices, too).

So the question I pose is this: How do we honor both? How do we be sensitive to the concerns of the present day without sacrificing our long-term future? Or do we have to choose?

Cling To Your Idealism - Part 1

A couple of years ago, I was talking with a colleague of mine about some difficulties I was having in my church. One of the issues concerned prophetic statements I had made about health care and some other social issues. My friend concluded that the conflict was in large part a spillover from the angry national political climate, but he also placed some of the responsibility on my shoulders - observing that even in my late 30s, I am still quite the idealist.

He was quick to qualify his charge, saying that idealism can be a very good thing - but the implication was clear. Idealism is something that is fine for students in a classroom theorizing about changing the world; but real people out in the real world, and especially pastors, need to get over it if they want to avoid trouble and get anywhere.

In my time in the church and in politics, I have seen many people “get over” their idealism. From seminary classmates with whom I shared pitchers of beer and dreams of a social justice movement in the church; to fellow ministers who have been slowly seduced by the allure of bigger steeples; to partners in political blogging who transformed from bold critics of the system to dependents on the status quo – in all of these, the basic pattern is the same.

Grow up. Go to school. Come to understand the evils of the world and its systemic nature. Develop big dreams and plans for changing the world. Graduate. Go out into the world. Realize that changing the system is a lot more difficult than anticipated. Watch a lot of friends and colleagues do well by abandoning their idealism and conforming to the system. Watch a few struggle painfully by continuing to fight the system.

Ultimately, the process forces young idealists into a difficult choice. In the movie “The Rainmaker,” the rookie lawyer played by Matt Damon asks the grizzled veteran who defends a criminal corporation, “Do you even remember when you first sold out?” What he’s really asking is if the lawyer made a conscious choice to abandon the principles of his youth, or he if he just woke up one day and realized he had drifted away from them.

My sense is that most ministers who lose their idealism drift away. They might not even realize it is gone, thinking they are still fighting for those same lofty principles they developed in seminary. But bit by bit, they might soften their language from the pulpit and edit their words in the newsletter. They might shy away from the challenging programs and study topics, instead making choices that are less controversial and more popular. Slowly but surely, they become cogs in the system they once decried, and they come up with a variety of justifications for why they shouldn’t pursue a bolder, more prophetic style of ministry.

In the next installment of “Cling To Your Idealism,” I’ll unpack some of these justifications, and I’ll examine some ways in my own ministry I have felt the temptation to abandon the lofty ideals of my youth.

From the Pulpit: More Than A Wish

(This excerpt is from the sermon I preached Sunday, August 28, 2011 on Hebrews 10: 19-25)

When I was growing up, my grandmother would call us in October each year and tell us that it was time to take to take a look at the “wishbook.” By this, she meant the big Sears catalog which contained pretty much their entire inventory. We were told to go through each page carefully and circle the things we might want for Christmas.

And we did so with great enthusiasm, sometimes letting our imaginations get away from reality. For as my brothers and I eventually learned, just because we circled something in the “wishbook” in October didn’t mean that it would automatically appear under the tree on Christmas morning. Sometimes, our wishes came true. Sometimes they didn’t.

As Christians, we can sometimes think about the Bible and the promises it contains as our spiritual “wishbook.” We might flip through its pages, read over some of the verses, circle the ones that we really like, and then hope that they turn out to be true. Which means that we sometimes think of God like a loving grandparent at Christmas, dispensing presents and making all of our wishes come true.

But just like wishing for an expensive toy at Christmas, approaching the Christian faith like that can also lead to disappointment. When we see God as nothing more than a granter of wishes, we start to lower our spiritual expectations as a lot of those wishes fail to come true. And we begin see the Bible as nothing more than a book of improbable dreams. Before long, the disappointment can cause us to stop believing the promises of God’s Word altogether.

But the good news is that the Word of God is not a wishbook. It’s not something that we leaf through in order to think about the things that we want. Instead, the Scriptures could be called our “hopebook.” As we will see by looking at today’s passage from Hebrews 10, the difference between what the word “wish” means and what the word “hope” means makes all the difference.

According to Webster’s dictionary, “to wish” is to “desire or long for something, to make a request.” “To hope,” means “to wait for something with a feeling of confident expectation.” Those last two words, “confident expectation,” are the key to what we have in our Christian hope. It’s not a matter of maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t. Hope involves certainty, conviction, and perseverance. Listen to the phrases that emerge as the author of Hebrews describes the hope that he has in the salvation that is in Jesus Christ:

“Since we have the confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus.”
“Let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith.”
“Let us hold fast to our confession of our hope without wavering.”
“For he who has promised is faithful.”

And finally, it’s all done as “we see the Day approaching” – meaning that all of our certainty about the things we hope for comes from the knowledge the Kingdom of God is at hand.

Unfortunately, when I was a kid flipping through the Sears wishbook, I never had that level of confidence in what I was circling. If I had truly hoped instead of just wishing for what would appear under the tree on Christmas, I would have gotten that BMX bicycle; video game system; that ultimate LEGO set; and even that gigantic backyard waterslide. All of those fantastic toys that I never received would have been mine.

Fortunately, as we seek to know Jesus Christ, to grow in grace, and to go forth into the world with hope – we do have that certain confidence. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the promises of the Kingdom are not a matter of “if” – they’re a matter of “when.” They’re not a matter of “might,” they’re a matter of “shall.” And they’re not a matter of “maybe,” they’re a matter of “absolutely.”

The Origins Of Sunday School And The Call To Compassionate Innovation

Have you ever wondered how the great Christian tradition of Sunday School got started? It was in England during the late 1700’s, just as the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. Large groups of poor people had moved into the cities to work in the new factories. Children as young as eight were hired for brutal six-day work schedules. On Sundays, which was the only off day, the children blew off steam by smashing windows, breaking into homes, and pickpocketing the city’s residents.

Eventually, an Anglican layperson named Robert Raikes decided that the plight of these children was something Christian folk should be concerned about. He started a school on Sunday to teach them reading and writing, the Bible, and proper morals – the only way these poor children would receive any sort of education. The “Sunday School” was born. Raikes, who was also a printer, published large sheets with the Ten Commandments and other Scriptures verses on them – the first-ever Sunday School curriculum.

Over the next few decades, the idea spread across England and to the United States, eventually being offered for all people – not just the poor street children. It wasn’t long before Sunday School become an essential part of the culture and the church’s witness to the world.

What Raikes accomplished with his first Sunday School was nothing extraordinary. His program didn’t require a huge investment or some sort of miraculous intervention like the Parting of the Red Sea. It simply took a basic concern for needy children, the willingness to try something new, and the perseverance to stick with it and make it work.

As we begin a new year of Christian Education around the nation, I hope we can continue to teach the children and adults of our time with that same compassionate vision. I have always said that there is no more important task for the church than educating the people in the faith.

I also hope that we can be open to new ways to spread God’s Word that respond to the changing conditions in our world. We are not facing the same problems that Raikes faced with the new factories and the children in the street – but we certainly have our own challenges and our own calling that is unique to our context. May we be faithful witnesses to God’s love in our time with the same sense of compassion and love.

From the Pulpit: The Other Side Of The Boat

(This excerpt is from the sermon I preached at Clarksville Presbyterian Church on August 21, 2011. It is based on John 21: 1-14)

It is a good thing to have some self-awareness about the traditions we keep and why we keep them, and to be willing to update some of them when it is necessary. That is the lesson that we learn from today’s story from the 21st chapter of John.

All night long, the disciples have been out on the lake, and they’ve brought in absolutely no fish. Their nets are completely empty haul after haul. But then, just as the sun is beginning to come up, they see Jesus standing there on the shore. Being unusually honest for fisherman, they admit to him that they’ve caught absolutely no fish. Jesus tells them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. And as soon as the disciples move their nets, they began to catch more fish than they can haul into the boat.

Now as I’ve already suggested, I don’t know much about fishing - especially about fishing with nets from a boat. But obviously, something had happened in that lake that night. Something changed. Whether it was the wind, the temperature, or the water currents – conditions were different than what they were used to, and the fish weren’t where they had always been. The techniques that had worked in the past were no longer working. The solution was not to completely change what they were doing. They were still going to be fishing in the lake with nets from a boat. But they did need to makes some adaptation, some updating of their technique, to continue catching fish.

In the same way, we as the church are in a time of changing conditions. And because of this, we are struggling to balance tradition with the call for new practices. And it's hard for us, because we are a body of believers that is steeped in tradition, some going back as far as 2000 years or even longer.

What has made the church so strong and so resilient throughout its history is its ability to resist every trend and fad that comes along in culture, and to instead stay true to our beliefs and our core practices. As a result, even as the world is rapidly changing around us, and even as other institutions rise and fall, we can always count on the church being here as an authentic and consistent witness to the salvation that is found in Jesus Christ.

So our calling is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and abandon everything that has made the church great. But in these changing times, we are being called to update some of our techniques. If we want to give the most effective witness we can in today’s world, we can’t be completely tied to “the way that we’ve always done things.” We must be willing to fish from the other side of the boat, because like or not, the fish that we are meant to catch are not where they used to be...

... In our particulr time and place, when Jesus calls on us to fish from the other side of the boat, he is calling us most urgently to update the way we do evangelism and outreach. Those are the areas where, despite a lot of hard work and a lot of good efforts, we are pulling up empty nets. It’s not that our church and other churches in the community have not already been doing good outreach ministry. We have many very dedicated people who put in a lot of hours at places like the food pantry, Project Care For, the Ruritan’s thrift store, Madeline’s House, and other places that have helped a lot of people. It’s not that these ministries have failed. Not in any way.

But the reality is that these efforts are no longer enough. I don’t have to quote a bunch of statistics for us to realize how tough the economy is – and we are now entering the fourth year since the bottom fell out. Many people who used to have good jobs are facing the unimaginable strain of long-term unemployment, and many others are learning to scrape by on a fraction of what they used to earn.

In Mecklenburg County, these increasing economic needs seem to be especially urgent, and the structures we have in place to help people are being strained to the breaking point. Here in Clarksville, Project Care For has been shut down since June for lack of funds – which is not the first time this has happened - and the food pantry has burned through all of its reserve supplies.

The fish have moved, and our traditional nets of outreach ministry are no longer adequate. As a church and as a community, we are being called to cast our nets on the other side of the boat. We are being called to dig deep not just into our financial resources, but into all of our talents and skills and energies, to come up with new and more effective ways to help those who are struggling in these difficult times.

This summer, I have been in conversation with the other three pastors in our downtown area about ways that our community can better meet these needs – and our own Mission Committee has discussed this as well. We all agree that it’s going to take a different approach than just handouts of food or money. What people need the most are things like jobs, education, childcare, and transportation – things that are not as simple as paying an electric bill, but that in the long run provide a much greater benefit.

Over the course of the coming months, my hope is that these conversations can continue and that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, something can begin to come together - some type of new ministry. I can’t say what this new ministry should look like. It’s going to require a vision that is much broader than one pastor or one church. But I can say that it will require us to cast our nets on the other side of the boat, to do more than “what we’ve always done.”

Poverty Misconception #9 - "Poor People Are Lazy"

As the economic crisis grinds into its fourth year, it is clear that many people are struggling through no fault of their own. Whether it’s from long-term unemployment or from having to settle for a new job at a fraction of their old pay, a lot of undeserving people are slipping from the middle class into poverty or near-poverty situations.

Nonetheless, despite the clear systemic reasons for these struggles, many conservatives are maintaining a “blame the poor” attitude that has been prevalent for decades. Since the Reagan years, we have been fed the inflammatory stories of the welfare queens, shamelessly driving their Cadillacs to pick up their monthly government checks. This false image has been used to portray the poor as lazy and unwilling to work, and it has helped justify numerous cuts in social spending.

“The poor have no work ethic” was an inaccurate, un-compassionate, and self-serving attitude back then. These days, with so many more suffering unjustly, the “blame the poor” attitude is downright despicable. Anyone who has worked with outreach agencies or ministries to the poor knows how much of a gross generalization it represents.

When I helped start a food pantry and assistance ministry in my former town in South Carolina, I learned how difficult it is to make blanket statements about the poor. They are as diverse in their attitudes and work habits as the rest of the population.

Some of the people we served do fit the conservative’s stereotype. They acted very entitled. They never said, “Thank you.” Every week, they were back with a different sob story and a different need. They were only interested in hand-outs, never in any opportunities to improve their education or job skills. One even pulled up in a Cadillac and yakked away on a cell phone as she stood in line for her food box.

But that does not describe the majority of the people. Most were very humble and grateful for what they received. Their needs were genuine, and they took advantage of any opportunities that they could to improve their situation - but many were limited by age, medical issues, or handicaps. A surprising number were not lifelong welfare recipients who had no intention of working for a living. Instead, they were honest, hard-working people who had fallen on a temporary hardship. Our ministry, as well as the government programs such as unemployment benefits, played a large part in getting them through that time.

If I had to guess, I’d say that about two-thirds of the people were genuine hard-workers who were being held down by circumstances beyond their control. Only a third fell into the “lazy, no work ethic” category – a reality that I have witnessed in many agencies in many different contexts. Nowadays, with so many more people applying for unemployment and coming to outreach agencies for help, it is likely much fewer than one in three who match the conservative’s stereotype.

Which makes it all the more despicable that Fox News and others are waging a campaign to blame the poor for their difficult situations. At a time when they’re trying to pin the economic crisis on their political opponents, it doesn’t make much sense to harp on about the personal failings of those who are struggling. Shouldn’t they be saying that it’s all Obama’s fault, not the fault of the poor? Wouldn’t it be better to cast the lower classes as victims instead of villains?

As we continue this series on misconceptions about poverty, we’ll see why this and other falsehoods are proclaimed so religiously, often in ways that seem politically unwise and logically inconsistent. They’re all part of a long-term campaign, going back to the early 1980’s, to shift the basic attitudes of Americans toward the “least of these” and to reorient the way we live together as a society.

(Please click here and here for the first two installments in this series.)

About The Emergents, Part 3 - The River Washes All

Something new is happening in the American church, but describing it is not a matter of saying “who’s in or who’s out,” or even “who gets it and who doesn’t”. It’s a matter of affirming that God’s grace is creating a new reality in all churches and in all Christians, in ways that are wonderful and mysterious. We need not divide ourselves in the process. My one beef with much of the emergent theory I have read is that it has an unspoken attitude of “we get it, and they don’t,” or “we’re the future of the church, and they’re not.”

Please don’t misunderstand the nuance of this argument. There are many harsh critics of the emergent movement who accuse them of being everything from rebellious teenagers to heretics. I am not at all one of those critics. I applaud the emergents for their efforts. They are fulfilling a vitally important role in this transitional period. They are kicking down a lot of doors into the new reality, and they are reaching a young urban population that more traditional churches could never reach.

The nuance, therefore, is not that the emergents are misguided or irrelevant. It is a very necessary movement, but it is an incomplete one. The nuance is that they are one expression of the many ways God is calling forth something new - not the only one or the definitive one.

In fact, the entire spectrum of the American church is being transformed. Tony Jones, a popular emergent author, has offered the image of a tiny lifeboat casting itself away from a giant cruise ship as a metaphor for the emergent movement. But I suggest a different and less divisive image. Let us consider a river that is in floodstage, that is overflowing its traditional banks, and that is carving forth a new reality from an old landscape. Picture a scene where water (The Holy Spirit) is freely flowing across places in the church that haven’t seen water in eons, and it is washing away all of the accumulated dirt and rocks that have been desposited by three centuries of modern institutionalism.

In some ways, this flooding river is uncovering traditions that have been buried for centuries – such as ancient liturgies, mysticism, icons, labryinths, and contemplative prayer (to mention just a few). These practices are being rediscovered across the spectrum of church styles, not just in emergent congregations. For example, my very traditional Session has begun to use lectio divina (an ancient method of guided meditation on Scripture) as part of its monthly routine – a very significant break from the all-business approach of the modern era.

In other ways, the river that is carving away all the sand and mud of modernity is digging up some brand new practices. One emergent church I read about recently has a “tattoo night,” where members invite friends to receive a spiritually-themed tattoo, enjoy fellowship, and participate in a brief worship service. Such an event would horrify my church members, but it makes perfect sense for in a youthful urban setting.

The same river can look quite different as it flows across different landscapes, and the same is true of the Holy Spirit. It’s the same Spirit that inspires my Session to do lectio divina, and that urban congregation to do “tattoo night.” In both places, the sands of the old are being washed away, and the new reality is coming forth.

Which brings me to my central point in this series on the emergent church, a point which will reveal both the traditional and postmodern nature of my convictions. Being transformational, being led by the Spirit, and being an agent of the new thing that God is doing in the American church – it’s a very contextualized experience. In fact, it is happening in every context across the spectrum of our practices and beliefs in ways that are impossible to categorize or even recognize.

In Part 4, which will be the final installment in this series, I will propose some new terms and different ways of describing the new reality that are more inclusive of the entirety of the transformation that is occurring.

Poverty Misconception #10 - "Let Them Use The Emergency Room"

(This is the first in a series on "The Top 10 Misconceptions About Poverty," based on Marie Antoinnette's alleged statement, "Let them eat cake.")

The conversation usually goes something like this:

"Did you know that there are nearly 50 million Americans who don't have health insurance?"

"Yes, I did. But those numbers are inflated. The actual amount is more like 16 million."

"Well, either way, it's too many. Whether it's 5% or 15% of the population, isn't it shameful that so many people in a society as wealthy as ours don't have basic access to health care?"

"What do you mean 'don't have basic access'? Even a homeless person can get health care when they really need it. Emergency rooms are required by law to treat anyone who comes through their doors. It's not like people are dying in the street."

At this point, the conversation invariably devolves into an argument about emergency room statistics, the benefits and savings that come with good primary care, and how much the current system increases everyone else's costs. And anyone who takes a serious look at the situation will know that emergency rooms are not the solution to our health care woes. At best, they're an expensive band-aid - but I won't bore you with the statistical argument here. That's been well-documented in other places.

Instead, I would like to point out the fallacy that is inherent in even attempting to make the emergency room argument. Even if it were a viable solution to the problem of the uninsured, why would someone on the right even suggest it? It goes against the entire conservative philosophy.

The one consistent belief that I have heard expressed by conservatives is "the power of the individual" - the notion that first and foreost, people are responsible for themselves. Self-interest, both at a personal and a corporate level, is the fuel for our economy. They object to a national health care system, and to anything that resembles socialism, because they believe at a fundamental level that it is not the government's role to ensure the people's welfare. The free market, powered by self-interest, is the way to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

So isn't the argument that the uninsured can use the emergency room for health care antithetical to this conservative philosophy? Because the insured patients that go to a hospital pick up the tab for the uninsured. What could be more socialistic than that? The "haves" are carrying the load for the "have nots."

Wouldn't a more consistent argument from the conservative side be to just tell the uninsured, "Tough. That's what you get for being lazy?" I've heard a few jerks say that, but most conservatives I know are compassionate people and want to do something to help those without access to health care. And most understand how complicated the actual solutions are going to be.

The real problem, then, with saying "let them go to the emergency room" is that it's a lazy answer. It's a way for a conservative to shut down a conversation, instead of digging into the more nuanced layers and issues which might expose some contradiction in their conservative beliefs.

So instead of launchging into a barrage of facts of figures on the impracticality of the ER solution, which will only lead to defensiveness, perhaps the best response is to agree and then take the discussion deeper - to say something like this: "Yes, letting them go to the ER might be something we can do for now. But why don't we talk about some solutions that are feasible for the long term, that don't involve just letting the insured patients pay for the uninsured."

You're not likely to get a ringing endorsement for a national health system out of such a conversation, but you might get past that reflexive and and completely impractical suggestion that the emergency is the solution to our problems.

About The Emergents - Part Two

(Click here for the first installment in this series.)

Instead of drawing sharp lines between emergent and non-emergent churches, which creates an unhelpful “us vs. them” mentality, perhaps we should think of it as a spectrum. The old way of doing church is on one end, and the new way is on the other. All Christians fall somewhere on the spectrum.


Here’s the key to understanding the spectrum, and where the emergents sometimes misunderstand the situation: The Holy Spirit is moving and shaping the new reality from all ends of the spectrum – not just from the emergent end. The new reality, which is the product of the 500-year shift that we are all going through, exists above the spectrum and emerges from both ends of the spectrum. Which means that the new reality will not be the result of everything changing, but of some things changing, and some things staying the same.

This new reality will be organic in the way it involves. We can’t neatly divide the church into those who are working for change and those who are working against it. It is not a matter of one group or one ideology triumphing over another. The new reality is the result of the struggle between the desire for something new, and the desire to hold onto what is good – a struggle that exists on some level in every church, in every faction and ideology, and in every individual believer. Which is why all need to put ourselves somewhere on that spectrum and understand that God is working a new thing in and through us no matter where we might stand.

So it’s not a matter of deciding “who’s in or who’s out,” or “who gets it and who doesn’t”. It’s a matter of affirming that God’s grace is creating a new reality in all churches and in all Christians, in ways that are wonderful and mysterious. My biggest concern with much of the emergent theory I have read is that it has an unspoken attitude of “we get it, and they don’t,” or “we’re the future of the church, and they’re not.” We need not divide ourselves in such a dramatic way.

Top 10: Let Them Eat Cake

When told that the people had no bread, Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake." A few days ago on Facebook, I asked my friends to share contemporary examples of the same type of ignorance and lack of compassion. Here are the top 10 responses:

10) Let them use the emergency room.

9) Poor people have no work ethic.

8) They'll just use that money for alcohol and drugs.

7) Poor people have it good these days. Most of them have cell phones and
televisions.

6) Poor people in America would be considered wealthy in some countries.

5) Give a man a fish...

4) Jesus said that the poor will always be with us.

3) It's the job of churches, not the government, to help the poor.

2) When the Bible talks about the poor, it means spiritual poverty.

1) Whatever you do, don't raise my taxes.

In future posts, I'll unpack each of these statements and show why they are misguided or outright false.

Do you have any to add to the list?

About The Emergents - Part One

The emergent church movement began among a group of frustrated young evangelical leaders in the late 1990’s. It is difficult to define or even make generalizations about, but the emergents are postmodern in outlook, open-minded in their practices, and appeal primarily to younger generations in urban areas. In many ways, I share their feelings and their frustrations, especially at the inertia and intolerance that is often prevalent in more traditional modern churches. And I certainly don’t believe, as many critics do, that the emergents are a fad that will soon fade into obscurity.

In fact, I’m quite a fan of the emergent churches, and would probably belong to one had I not been called into small-town ministry. I admire what they do and feel they are a very necessary part of 21st century Christianity. But I have a few concerns about some of the emergent theory I have read.

The first and biggest concens is about the way the emergents sharply define themselves over and against the rest of the “non-emergent Christians.” There seems to be a clear line drawn between the insiders and the outsiders, between “those who get it” and “those who don’t.” Does the distinction have to be so black and white?

Tony Jones, in his 2008 book The New Christians, uses the image of a tiny life raft that has cast itself away from a giant cruise ship - which represents how the emergents have broken free from the traditional church. Could Jones have chosen a more divisive and alienating metaphor? Does Christianity in America need to think of the wonderful new thing that is “emerging” as a rebellion and a separation? Or are they throwing the baby out with the bathwater when they write books with titles such as Everything Must Change (by Brian McClaren)? Does everything really need to change? Perhaps we need a better metaphor.

In a recent conversation with a friend who considers himself emergent, I pushed him to define the movement beyond just saying “we’re postmodern,” or “we’re doing things differently.” He had trouble coming up with a concrete answer, but he eventually said, “We’re guided by the Holy Spirit, not by what we’ve always done.” Which is more or less the same description that Tony Jones offers:

“Emergents tend to have a stronger belief in the third person of the Trinity… Emergents trust in the Holy Spirit more than they trust in the methods of doing church.”

And I agree with that sentiment, too. Being led by the Spirit and not by convention is something we strive for everyday in my very modern, very traditional church - and something at which we often succeed.

My challenge to the emergent movement is this: What is being said of the Spirit-led nature of the emergent movement, and what makes them such an authentic and relevant expression of the Christian faith, can also be said of many traditional-looking churches. Just because a congregation has traditional worship services, traditional music, traditional programs, and traditional people does not mean they are bound by the old conventions and deaf to the leadings of the Spirit.

Perhaps the emergent movement should think of itself not as something separate and uniquely led by the Spirit, but as one branch of a whole new reality that the Spirit is calling forth - a new reality that is transforming the entire spectrum of faith. My feeling is that most emergent writers would agree with this sentiment, but perhaps some of the backlash to their efforts comes because they are perceived as a rebellion and a rejection of what traditional churches are doing.

(In part two of “About The Emergents,” I will offer an alternative to the lifeboat metaphor for thinking about how the emergent movement fits into the 21st century reality of American Christianity - one that is more inclusive of the Spirit-led transformation that is happening all types of churches.)

It's Time For The Circus To Leave Town

When I was kid, back before animal rights was even a consideration, the circus was the most exciting event that came to town. There was so much to see and enjoy – the elephants and tigers, the acrobats and trapeze artists, the clowns and the funnel cakes. When that big tent went up next to the Civic Center, we all knew that we were in for a once-a-year treat.

Well now that we’re facing this national debt/credit crisis, and now that the 2012 election is finally getting into gear, we all have a front row seat for the circus that is American politics. But before we take our seats to enjoy the greatest show on earth, please consider this: It’s been fun, but it’s time for the circus to leave town. There’s a reason that it only stays in one place for a few days at a time, and that’s because it doesn’t take long for the fun and excitement to wither. Then, we see the circus for what it really is - a noisy, smelly, unsightful mess - and we’re grateful when it moves on to the next city.

When it comes to politics and the media coverage of politics, the American people have had enough of the circus, too. No more tricks and illusions. No more annoying donkeys and bloated elephants who can only seem to stink up the place. No more clowns who only play to the audience and ignore the real issues. It’s time to send all three rings, and the media that encourages them, packing.

I think we can all agree on that it’s time for the circus to go. The only question, is, what does this mean? How do we get our politicians and the media focused on what matters?

A) Throwing out the elephants and the donkeys by supporting a viable third party
B) Reshaping the existing parties from within from cultivating better candidates
C) Working to change the electoral system to allow for more choices and
less corporate influence
D) None of the above. Politics and the media will never change. The
solutions will come by changing people’s hearts and minds through other
avenues.
E) Who cares? I just want another funnel cake.

A Pirate Looks At 40

The song that inspired the title of this blog. Just replace "ocean" with "church", and "pirate" with "pastor", and it sums up a lot of my feelings.

Left vs. Right Does Not Define Us

Back in June, I went to the graduation ceremony at the local public elementary school. One of the teachers, who happens to be a member of my church and a card-carrying Republican, spoke briefly of a new after-school program that she has helped initiate. It is designed for children who are in danger of not having the basic skills necessary to begin first grade - a type of program that is quite common around the nation, but that had been sorely lacking in this rural Virginia county.
I was choking back tears as this teacher called about two dozen children to the stage – most of them from desperately poor African American families – and presented them with hugs and certificates. Knowing that she also invests a considerable amount of her personal time making home visits and tutoring these students, it dawned on me what a significant difference she makes in the lives of young children who have an incredible number of obstacles thrown between themselves and academic success.

This remarkably dedicated kindergarten teacher reminds us of how incomplete and misleading the typical left vs. right dichotomy can be. It would be easy to consider her Republican voting record and her conservative views on issues such as abortion, gay rights, and gun control, and to conclude she has little in common with folks on the left. From this, it would be easy to assume that, like some Republicans, she takes a “blame the poor” attitude toward poverty issues and has little compassion for those who are suffering in this economic crisis. Because of such stereotyping, it would be easy to ignore the fact that she is dedicating her life to helping poor children in a woefully underfunded public school system.

Those of us who get pigeonholed into easy categories of left/right and Democrat/Republican often fail to see the common bonds we share with our so-called political enemies. We cannot allow differences on a handful of “hot-button” issues to be exploited by those with political agendas and ambitions. If people of good will and legitimate concern for the common welfare continue to beat up one another based on these outdated categories, more sinister forces that have no concern for the people or no particular stake in partisan politics will further consolidate their power.

A prime example of this sinister tactic is the recent attack on teachers’ unions in many states. In this budget crisis, in what should be a time for the people to rally around its education system and proclaim that it is always a top priority, we have allowed partisan politicians trying to increase their own power to bitterly divide us. People who care deeply about the same thing have been duped into throwing stones at one another, to the great detriment of our nation’s children. Shame on them, and shame on us for taking the bait.

So before you place yourself in staunch opposition to someone because of who they voted for or how they feel about one of those wedge issues, please consider the deeper, non-partisan values that might be shared. Both sides might be surprised if we can steer the conversation away from the oppositionalism that is consistently fed to us. “Seek common ground” is not a naïve, pie-in-the sky slogan. It might be our only hope.