Henri Nouwen: "You do not have to be a great prophet..."

Screenshot from source.

Clowning in Rome: Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer, and Contemplation (1979).

You do not have to be a great prophet to say that coming decades will most likely see not only more wars, more hunger, and more oppression, but also desperate attempts to escape them all. We have to be prepared for a period in which suicide will be as widespread as drugs are now, in which new types of flagellants will roam the country frightening the people with the announcement of the end of all things, and in which many new exotic cults with intricate rituals will try to ward off a final catastrophe. We have to be prepared for an outburst of new religious movements using Christ's name for the most un-Christian practices. In short, we have to be prepared to live in a world in which fear, suspicion, mutual distrust, hatred, physical and mental torture, and an increasing confusion will darken the hearts of millions of people.

It is in the midst of this dark world that the Christian community is being tested. Can we be light, salt, and leaven to our brothers and sisters in the human family? Can we offer hope, courage, and confidence to the people of this era? Can we break through the paralyzing fear by making those who watch us exclaim, "See how they love each other, how they serve their neighbor, and how they pray to their Lord"? Or do we have to confess that at this juncture of history we just do not have the needed strength or the generosity and that our Christian communities are little more than sodalities of well-intentioned people supporting each other in their individual interests?

I was at the book sorting table at Mustard Seed, the excellent charity shop run by the Episcopal church down Woodstock Blvd., when I noticed that someone had brought in a wonderful selection of books by Henri Nouwen. I picked up Clowning in Rome because that book was new to me. Opening it to a random page, I found myself in the "Introduction," where the words above came from.

Nouwen's closing queries haven't lost their urgency, thirty years after his death and nearly half a century after he wrote them. But here's my new query, and I'd love your comments: don't we see some evidence that the church might be actually growing in the strength needed to provide light, salt, and leaven? And here's another question, maybe secondary but fascinating to me as a political scientist: what aspects of this recent growth is being provoked by overreach among those "new religious movements using Christ's name for the most un-Christian practices," and those movements' attempts to enmesh themselves with the structures of political power? (I have more than just the USA in mind.)

One of the ways I try to stay aware of some of today's positive ferment in the church, as well as the ways we're constantly being tested, is the podcast The Convocation Unscripted, which I've linked to several times. I'm tempted to build an index of links to show more evidence, but you can think up keywords and search for them online as well as I can. What I'd love to know is what you're finding out directly through your own experiences and decisions. Still echoing in my mind are the words from John Perkins that I quoted two weeks ago: "I want worship and justice to be done in the same building."

1. Do you see evidence of growth in the church's capacity to challenge oppression, scare tactics, division, climate denial, and Christian nationalist heresy? (Yes, that's my particular selection!)
2. For those yearning to get involved, what are some points of engagement?
3. What new challenges are, in turn, resulting from this fresh energy?
4. How can we encourage each other, give each other times of respite, and make room for joy and lament among us? How do we welcome all sorts of temperaments, including those who usually get on our nerves?

Within myself, I'm finding new love for this messy church that gave me a spiritual home a half century ago, and continues to frustrate and delight me on a daily basis.

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Speaking (very respectfully) of clowns, as Henri Nouwen does in his book, I see that Paulist Father Joachim Lally has recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of his ordination. I vividly remember Joachim Lally from our years in Boston, when I was on the staff of Beacon Hill Friends House and Father Lally was at the Paulist Center, just a short walk away. In those years, his diverse ministry gifts included clowning, but I knew him best from our work together with the organization Social Action Ministries of Greater Boston, where I represented our residence and program center.

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One of the participants in The Convocation Unscripted, Jemar Tisby, is ringing an alarm bell: "Pastors, You Cannot Stay Silent on Civil Rights."

Speaking of respite, here's an extraordinary (but also ordinary in an essential way) post by Beth Allison Barr, "Writing at a time like this."

Something in Nouwen's words about "exotic cults" and "new religious movements" reminded me of this article, "Is It the Voice of God, or Just Craziness?" by Joe Kelly in Quaker Life back in 2000. Now, as then, Joe ministers among Friends of the Light Meeting in Traverse City, Michigan, USA.

You already know that "the far right doesn't have a monopoly on Christianity" but it's nice to see an acknowledgment in secular media. Bill McKibben writes in The Guardian....

...A generation of Americans has grown up convinced that Christianity is a freak show, and another generation – those inside the evangelical tent – have grown old unchallenged in their thinking that scripture somehow demands the various cruelties we’ve seen play out in the “culture wars”.

Micah Bales (Berkeley Friends Church) on "Becoming Servants of the Unknown God."

I’ve never debated any Athenian philosophers. I’ve never even visited Greece. But my situation – and yours – is in some ways very similar to the one that Paul faced two thousand years ago.

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From "The Bible and the Blues" at Reedwood Friends Church, here are LaRhonda Steele and Ed Snyder with "Up Above My Head." (This is the last of the six songs LaRhonda Steele performs in the course of the full meeting for worship; I encourage you to play the whole video.)

(Let me know if you can spot Judy and me....)

Due process, the Bible, and lunacy

Seizing Rumeysa Ozturk in broad daylight.

Source.   

One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
—The Bible

We do it every day, every time I find one of these lunatics.
—Marco Rubio on cancellation of student visa of Rumeysa Ozturk, arrested Tuesday morning.

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Evidence is ever more abundant that, among decisionmakers at the top of the current U.S. government, the law is seen as irrelevant, or even a nuisance, and the emphasis is on aggressive, swift, ruthless, secretive action.

The video of Ozturk's arrest published today in the Washington Post is shocking. A group of men in plain clothes, some hiding their faces, leave an unmarked car, grab her, and whisk her away handcuffed. Her phone has been seized. Before we (or a judge) know it, she is in Louisiana. Her student visa is cancelled. I thought maybe I was growing accustomed to the Trump-era eradication of normal due process, but I guess not, thank God—we should never get used to this. But it's a crushing disenchantment to see this happening in the "Land of Liberty."

(More about Ozturk's experience is here.)

It appears that official outrage against international students and green card holders is directed especially at people defending Palestinian human rights. Questioning U.S. support for Israel's treatment of the Gaza Strip (population 2.14 million) has been casually classified as aiding Hamas (membership 20,000?), but there seems to be no interest in making this distinction, or, indeed, proving anything at all. We are supposed to accept whatever Trump, Rubio, and their operatives tell us concerning the alleged misdeeds of the people they grab.

This is the administration for which 82% of the USA's evangelical or born-again Christians voted. For them, I dedicate a brief Bible study:

The qualities many of us usually associate with God are grace and mercy. Grace is God's goodwill to us and the whole creation—it's something we don't have to earn, in fact can't earn, but we can pass it on in the way we treat others. And when we fall short, this grace is expressed as mercy—compassion and restoration instead of punishment.

“But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them. Because of the righteous things they have done, they will live. Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” declares the Sovereign Lord. “Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?”
—Ezekiel 18:21-23 

The Lord is not slow in keeping this promise, as some understand slowness. Instead the Lord is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
—2 Peter 3:9

As with grace, God is the source of mercy, but also as with grace, we are to pass that mercy on.

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
    and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
—Hosea 6:6

Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
—Matthew 5:7

There is one specific aspect of mercy that we and our leaders are not at liberty to ignore. We know this aspect as due process. It's a core principle of U.S. constitutional law (see the Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth), but the Bible witnesses to its antiquity, as in, for example, the quotation at the top of this post: "A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses."—Deuteronomy 19:15.

Concerning the centrality of this principle, jazz critic and commentator Nat Hentoff had the right idea. Back in 1989, he told a story about a visit he made to a conference in Israel:

I ran into a rabbi in Jerusalem, he’s a philosopher, he’s a big macher in many ways, David Hartman. I’d never met him before, and there was a brief respite between the discussions, and I met him in the corridor and he said, “Hentoff, I want you to tell me the most important development in the history of mankind”. And I said, “Due process”. He said, “Right”, and that’s the last I ever heard of him.

The ethic of due process is reflected in several other biblical passages. The Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter 20 and Deuteronomy chapter 5, include this central demand: “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” This may well be the most violated commandment of our political life.

Other examples:

Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow.
—Isaiah 1:17

Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.
—Leviticus 19:15

Ecclesiastes has an acid comment on politics without this ethic:

"If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still."
—Ecclesiastes 5:8

The principle comes up in the New Testament, too, as in the dramatic scenes of the gospel of John, chapter 7, when Jesus shows up in Jerusalem halfway through the Festival of Tabernacles, and begins teaching in the temple court, fully aware of the risk. The authorities send guards to seize him, but ...

Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”

“No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.

“You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.”

Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?”

They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”
—John 7:45-52

As for Marco Rubio calling Rumeysa Ozturk and people like her "lunatics," along with the choice insults he and his colleagues (led by the president) use for judges they don't like, and other targets of convenience, I don't want to push this Bible passage too hard, but it's interesting:

But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council, and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.
—Matthew 5:22; follow link for the footnotes.

Finally:

Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.
—Matthew 7:1-2 

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Here's a sobering perspective from Cornel West's presentation last Saturday at Reedwood Friends Church (sponsored by The Cultural Soul Project):

Democracy ain't nothing but a moment of interruption in the history of non-democratic and anti-democratic regimes going back to the beginnings of the species. And it doesn't last forever. You got to fight for it, sacrifice for it, truth-tell, justice-seek for it. And in the end there is still no guarantee.

(Be sure to watch the whole video; there's plenty more about the spiritual resources we draw on to truth-tell and justice-seek. And you'll get occasional glimpses of Judy and me in the third row!)

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Related posts:  Grace and mercy; Have mercy; Grace and peace.

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Friday addition: Jonathan Last recommends thinking and acting "like a dissident movement" in these specific ways. It makes a lot of sense to me.

Heather Cox Richardson looks at some of the words of J.D. Vance (in 2021) and Curtis Yarvin (in 2022) that might help us understand the American future they and their networks are looking forward to: a future without democracy. What do you think: is the current DOGE chainsaw operation a fulfillment of those stated visions?

Andy Olsen at Christianity Today: How are Hispanic churches in Florida dealing with the state's "double immigration crackdown"?

Alexander Vindman on the shutdown of Radio Free Europe and its sister channels. Checking this evening, Voice of America and its Russian service seem to be frozen on March 15, but RFE/RL's Russian service (svoboda.org) is still alive.

Elizabeth Bruenig asks, "Can Silicon Valley Find Christianity?" As you guessed, it's complicated: "Christianity, they ought to know, is not a life hack: It’s a life-upending surrender to the fact of divine love."

The Council of Europe's Venice Commission provided an amicus curiae brief to Ukraine's Supreme Court on the subject of conscientious objection, particularly in wartime. Page 13 summarizes relevant Quaker experience. (Thanks to Ukrainian Quakers for the link.)

Is Nancy Thomas an official old soul?

The latest list of happiest countries. By the way, John Helliwell (World Happiness Report) tells us: “Negativity is poisonous to happiness.”

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Mavis Staples, with Rick Holmstrom on the guitar: "Wade in the Water."

Peace Sabbath

Love was in the air at Reedwood Friends Church yesterday evening; sentimentality was not. We were praying for peace, but not just in the abstract. Around the meetingroom, tables were set up with displays reminding us about places in the world where love was not the prevailing reality. At one place, a basket stood for donations to help support ministry to the survivors of the recent carjacking in Nairobi that claimed the life of Job Bwayo and one of Carol Briggs' eyes; three of the four victims have ties to our yearly meeting, two of them to Reedwood.

Other tables around the meetingroom held art supplies for those whose worship this evening would take a visual form; one table held origami paper for making paper cranes. Some attenders wrote prayers for a display board. Before going into open worship, we sang "Make me an instrument of Your peace" and the Taizé chant, "Come and fill our hearts with your peace; you alone O Lord are holy."

As I sat in my own quiet place in the room, watching the silent worshippers of all ages move from station to station, I thought of other places in the world where men and women of governments and armies were moving purposefully from station to station, planning the next attack, checking information, adjusting strategy. What if they suddenly caught a glimpse of our meetingroom? Would they recognize that our purposeful activity was significant--in fact, had eternal significance? Some would probably dismiss us as irrelevant or delusional; some would respect us but not enough to stop their own work; some would say that they're working for the same thing in a different way. And perhaps some would think again.

Other churches in our yearly meeting had also turned Valentine's Day into a Peace Sabbath. I loved reading this prayer from Olympic View Friends Church, Tacoma, Washington, circulated by their clerk, Linda Hawthorne:

Jesus we are thankful tonight. Thankful that each year at this time couples in many places have the opportunity to stop, and consider the blessings and love that exist within that unique relationship.

But tonight, we ask for more. Tonight we acknowledge that there exists within us that, which is hateful, is greedy, that which is jealous and violent, and Jesus we know--That is not what we are made for.

Tonight we remember that humanity is made in God's image. God is love, and THAT is what we are made for!!

Tonight we ask for deeper understanding of Love, of Justice, of Peace. We want to know these things, and Jesus, we want to live them!!

We know the Prince of Darkness will always fan our hatreds toward WAR and the murder of God's creation. But the Prince of Peace tells us to LOVE OUR ENEMIES.

Jesus, you have always pointed us to Peace, and Justice, and a manner of LOVE that not only changes who we are but the very world we're in.

Remind us that there is NO PERSON we can ever call ENEMY that YOU have not already called CHILD.

Tonight, shield us from anything that perverts us from being the creation you intend. We wish to know PEACE, and JUSTICE, and LOVE. And we wish to exercise them, that we might truly reflect your image, GOD.

That we might once again be everything we're made for.

Reading this prayer, I remember vividly how the words "Love your enemies" were the key moment in my own conversion. My prayer: among all the people walking purposefully through the corridors of political and military power, might at least the followers of the Prince of Peace face the spiritual power of those words, "love your enemies," and be led to experience conversion? How much would we have to love them for this to happen?

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Righteous links include this standing link to Friends United Meeting's weekly prayer bulletin. Go to FUM's home page for the e-mail subscription form.

Can history survive Hollywood? Amazing Grace is almost upon us. No feature-length movie can do justice to the complexities and the cruelties of the slave trade, (as one trivial example, remember how Amistad reduced John Quincy Adams's Supreme Court speech from 8-1/2 hours to about ten minutes?), but by using the lens of this one hymn, maybe Amazing Grace can shed a new and specific ray of light on the subject.

Another intersection of faith and politics: W. Clark Gilpin's Sightings essay, "On the Migration of Religious Ideals," summarizes the hazards of the Puritan "City on a Hill" vision of America when taken out of its chastening spiritual context of humility. Gilpin's essay references Willam Pfaff's New York Review of Books essay, "Manifest Destiny: A New Direction for America." These essays coincide (?) with Brian McLaren's refreshing "Advice for Barack Obama." (Thanks to Simon Barrow for the McLaren/Obama item.)

Two items from the latest issue of In Communion, the Orthodox Peace Fellowship quarterly: The Orthodox Church issues an Iran appeal, "Step Back from the Brink of War"; and a Word Made Flesh staffer in Romania, Monica Klepac, writes on "Peace with My Body."

Speaking of Word Made Flesh, its founder Chris Heuertz recently spoke at George Fox University's chapel service during mission week. He definitely made my Right Sharing heart sing.

The current issue of Carleton College's alumni/ae magazine, Voice, includes a fascinating article on marriage surname conventions and innovations, "What's in a Name?" Their Web site provides a worthwhile appendix to the article.

For fun: Map lovers and ship lovers can unite in appreciating this Hurtigrute Web site, showing the positions of the Hurtigrute ships plying the coast of Norway, with links to the ships' webcams.

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Warm thanks to all who wrote to me on and off this weblog site in connection with my mother's death. I'll be leading the memorial meeting for her at her nursing home in Zion, Illinois, March 3, 2 p.m.

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Heaven done called: I just found out from the WXPN Radio Web site that Homesick James Williamson died in December at the age of perhaps 96. To hear Jonny Meister's affectionate "Blues File" tribute to this wonderful singer and slide guitarist, go to xpn.org/blues.php, look for the "XPN Blues File MP3 Download" pulldown menu, and choose "Homesick James."

I couldn't find any Homesick James video clips on YouTube or Dailymotion. (If you find any links, please tell me!) I'm comforting myself with a clip from another outstanding guitarist, Lightnin' Hopkins (1912-1982). (Watch it now, before it gets pulled. I had to find a substitute for one of the clips I used in an earlier posting--Howlin' Wolf's "How Many More Years.")

Worship seeking more understanding

I've decided that the best way to confront my inner curmudgeon is, when I find myself getting irritated and judgmental, to ask myself, "Aren't you of (at least) two minds about this yourself?" Or to put it another way, I shouldn't pretend that my settled views on a subject have been settled all that long!

To take an old example, it sometimes irritates me to hear George Fox taken out of context in support of views that he wouldn't have agreed with, as in the citation of "that of God in everyone" as the supposed core of Friends faith. (Here's Lewis Benson's take on this phrase.) The problem with getting too judgmental about this now is that, when I correctly demand that the words be read in context, I can forget how important, how liberating Fox's insight was to me when I was a young Christian and brand-new Quaker. If I can just take the time to remember that early excitement, and suppress my more recent sourness, then I can tenderly link those beautiful words to another important Foxian soundbite: "Christ has come to teach his people himself." Although "that of God in everyone" is misused in the service of modern Quaker liberalism, the theology behind it (which is the same theology that's behind "Christ has come...") was as creatively disruptive to the conventional Christianity of his time as our Quaker faith and practice should be creatively disruptive to the conventionalities of our time--and with the same liberating effect.

Can I apply that same patience and honesty to my puzzles about worship? This line of thought was kicked up by my recent Web rabbit-trails, the inevitable chasing down of tantalizing blog essays that happens every time I visit emerging-church and evangelical-rebel sites like theooze.com. Today I went to an outdated link on last month's conference on "The Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future." It turned out to be a call to "... Evangelicals to recover the conviction that God’s story shapes the mission of the Church to bear witness to God’s Kingdom and to inform the spiritual foundations of civilization"--in part by letting that "story" be the primary shaper of worship.

Although I sympathized with the Call's familiar critiques of theory-centered, performance-centered, and ego-centered worship, I found myself getting prickly as I was confronted by its stern imperatives for worship: "to recover the historic substance of worship of Word and Table and to attend to the Christian year, which marks time according to God’s saving acts." In other words, liturgy and lectionary (and, unbidden, my judgmental inner voice kicks in: icons, candles, incense, majestic and dignified gestures, and eventually, the ancient squabbles over who is entitled and licensed to stage-manage these procedures for our vicarious benefit, and who exercises quality control).

Okay, to be perfectly honest, when I attend worship in a Russian Orthodox church, my tears can flow freely in the presence of these elements. And also: I cherish my experiences of helping host Taizé services at Reedwood Friends Church. And there are icons on my desk and two more behind me.

Even so, if it were up to me, worship would be outwardly pure and austere. In my fantasies, the community gathers in subdued joy, simply and reverently sits and waits on the Holy Spirit, responds with sincerity and mutual forbearance to the Spirit's inward and outward manifestations and our often fumbling attempts to be faithful, and at some ripe moment recognizes that meeting for worship is over. Before or after that adventurous hour (using the word "hour" loosely), we also gather for "education"--to help each other understand the issues of being a biblically-informed group of disciples who want our practice to match our faith, and who want to design processes of access for children and newcomers to be in possession of all the information, and all the models, that we have drawn upon for our encounters with God.

At our regular meetings for church governance, we would, as a community, prayerfully agree on what additional elements might be added to the worship period to serve our primary hunger to entrust our worship to the Holy Spirit. Will we reserve a space for our pastor or another person to provide reflections on the Bible or discipleship or implications of faith, or to invite the rest of us into a deeper commitment to Christ? Will we invite musicians and song leaders to contribute to the worship time, giving a few minutes of sheer joy to those who yearn to express their love of God and God's people with abandon, and perhaps nudging those of us who might otherwise stay too cerebral in worship? Will we dedicate some time to the collection of offerings, reminding ourselves that stewardship is part of the earthy reality of discipleship? Might someone be designated to speak directly to the children during worship?

As we add or subtract these elements, are we mindful of the overall balance of programming--does it still assume the primacy of the Holy Spirit, does it honor Christ as the head of the church, or are we tempted to take over for fear the Spirit will leave us high and dry? Or has our community become a place where it's not safe to ask that basic question, and it's better to confine ourselves to "planning worship" by shifting attractive segments on an all-too-human collage?

I admit that I've provided an idealized fantasy, although I've experienced parts of it at one or another of the many Friends meetings I've attended. In real life, we have to negotiate between our ideals (listed variously!) and the realities of custom and expectation and cultural patterns. Most Reedwood Friends are willing to sing a line in a praise song about "lifting our hands" but won't actually lift their hands! At Ministerios Restauración I'll lift my hands before we ever get to that line. The point is, I love the plainness of Friends traditional waiting worship because the rich texture is supplied by expectation, by the drama of the Divine encounter, and by the discipline of what my Quaker "godmother" Deborah Haight called the inward liturgy. But isn't that just me? How can I justify universalizing my preferences and looking askance at the spiritual delicatessens offered by the emerging church and the ancient-future folks?

(Sidetrack: You might justifiably point out that both ancient and contemporary worship practices have included periods of silence, and that some of the most eloquent explanations of the role of silence have come from outside Friends. But I'm not talking about silence as a discipline or element of worship. Friends don't worship silence; unprogrammed waiting is a foundation, not a module or an enhancement; its purpose is to anchor all our worship on the leadership of the Spirit. Even when we can't honestly say that we've "felt" the leadership of the Spirit directly, we benefit from our faithfulness and from our unwillingness to cover up that perceived absence. We programmed Friends with our slightly more elaborate worship patterns, are ideally not pre-empting God's leadership, but that's true only if our "additions" are based on corporate discernment. It's no fair shoehorning the open worship into a stuffed program as a nice Quaker ornament or a gesture to appease the traditionalists--or, worse yet, as a meditative device to reinforce the three points of the sermon.)

The awkward truth is that Friends have been practicing variations on the minimalist approach for three and a half centuries, and we've either not dared believe that it would serve the larger world of believers, or that larger world has voted with its feet against our approach. Globally, we can't even scrape together the population of Dayton, Ohio, to attend worship on our model (and far fewer if we only include the most minimal version, unprogrammed worship). It would be wicked for me to suggest that everyone else is voting for form over the possibility of genuine, Divine encounter. Therefore, judgmentalism becometh me not.

Still, I love our clean approach! At the same time, I am very grateful that the ancient-future folks, the emerging churches, and the spotlight they've shown on the issues of integrity in worship might now give us a new chance to offer our approach to the ecumenical conversation. As for my curmudgeonlike tendencies, I admit that when I visited one of the bloggers who commented on that conference, David Fitch, and rabbit-trailed over to his own church, I was most intrigued. Somehow, most of my petty finickiness was held in check--although you'll probably be able to guess what gave me a slight blip, here less than elsewhere. Clicking around the church's site, I saw a lot of neoquakerism (I promise never to use that word again!) including this lovely statement on being church: "At Life on the Vine we are a family committed to each other and to Jesus, the Head of our household. When we assemble for worship, his message is preached, his Spirit is present, and his people are restored, healed, and gradually conformed into his likeness. We invite you to participate, test the spirits, and allow the Holy Spirit to form your life."

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The title of this post, "Worship seeking more understanding," is a reference to a book I've mentioned before, Worship Seeking Understanding by John Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, a gem of a resource on thinking about integrity in worship--and, in fact, this week's first righteous link. (While you're there, look at their interesting item on Epiphany in missional churches. Do I get any points for "attend[ing] to the Christian year"?)

PS: To sum up one of my critiques of ancient/future worship discussions: I want to resist the false dichotomy that might be set up between liturgical and narcissistic, implying that the only way to get out of consumerist and individualistic worship is to wheel in a liturgical model, or, in some markets, an attractive boutique selection of models. The Spirit-rich minimalism of Friends worship ought to be a third way, but let's be honest: How much individualism and inner-flashlight Quakerism (thanks, Ruth Pitman) has crept under the pious cover of unprogrammed worship?

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(Part four is here.) (Part one.) (Part two.)

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More righteous links:

Bill Moyers continues to provide amazing fuel for prophetic discussions: starting with the Christmas story, his "parable for our times" challenges the destructive recalibration of the words "liberal" and "conservative."

More prophetic fuel, on Iraq, in two national newspapers: Robert Kaiser writes on "Trapped by hubris, again," and John Burns reports that "U.S. and Iraqis are wrangling over war plans." The single scariest line of the latter article, in the face of the Bush escalation: "'This is an enemy that will trade space for time,' one officer said." Apparently, our side is willing to trade wounded and dead bodies for time.

Once again, Martin King's remarkable April 4, 1967 speech (see my comments of two years ago) got lots of attention around the King holiday this year. Here's an example from norwegianity.com. I think it is impossible to overexpose King's words in our present moral leadership vacuum.

If you're free Wednesday evenings, starting January 31, and can get to Reedwood Friends Church, join us for the latest session of our Center for Christian Studies. Larry Shelton will be leading a class on "Christ and Covenant Community." The 6:30 class is free, and is preceded by a reasonably-priced simple meal at 5:30. For more information, write to Carole Spencer, cspencer (at) georgefox.edu.

Here's an interesting, brief article in English, "Are there Protestants in Russian civilization?", on the Web site of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists.

Last Saturday, The Roadhouse Podcast celebrated its 100th edition. Congratulations to Tony Steidler-Dennison! However, my favorite recent show was #98. Given the price of CD's and the scarcity of blues broadcasting (with all due thankfulness to KMHD-FM), without Tony's podcasts I think I'd satisfy my blues cravings almost exclusively with the tried-and-true names of the past. Tony gives his listeners risk-free exposure to some of the best of new (often independent) blues artists, along with some contributions from the more established performers. Keep at it, Tony.

Speaking of blues, Friend Derek Lamson has a new Web site with links to an MP3 file of his song "One Cool Cup of Water." On one of our Wednesday evenings at Reedwood, last August, I recorded a few of Derek's songs. So, while he may be in Burundi today, he can also be on your computer screen:

Where our hearts are, and who cares?

Some theological debates are worth having. For example, Protestants are rightly proud of the principle that we are saved by faith, not by works. (Romans 4; Galatians 3:6-9; Hebrews 11.) Others counter that genuine discipleship requires action as well as belief because "faith without works is dead" (James 2:14-20; 1 John 3:17-18; Matthew 25:32-40).

Friends are among those who say that both sides are correct. There are two different definitions of "works" at play (sorry!) here. We cannot reach our full stature in Christ with pious practices, ceremonies, or self-enhancing efforts. The letters to the Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews make it clear that the sacrificial system had its chance, and simply didn't get us where we want to go. The only law we now require is the one that God is ready to write on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33-34, echoed in Hebrews 8:10 and Hebrews 10:16).

However, our faith is communal, not merely individual, and we are helping each other live in that unguarded covenantal closeness to God, guided by the laws written on our hearts, that is the essence of Quaker faith (and not Quaker only!). Therefore, we (ideally) don't just stay in our separate orbits. We rightly ask each other whether "God's laws on our hearts" is a reality for you, for me; and whether we are in touch with our hearts or are perhaps numb from addiction or fear or injury. The question, "How is our faith bearing fruit?", is not a denial of the primacy of faith, it is an invitation to go deeper in faith, to put more life-weight on it.

We don't expect each of us to be identically gifted in biblical insight, or in intercessory prayer, or in prophetic civil disobedience ... or, for that matter, in spiritual maturity and confidence. That's why it is all the more important that we lower the barriers of autonomy and learn to ask each other, tenderly, even with tears, about where our hearts are. The point is not a sudden and dramatic restoration of the whole Friends Church (aka Religious Society of Friends). The point is to begin where we are, building a community of love one relationship at a time.

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How do our structures serve us in this task? Many of our churches and meetings have elders or the equivalent, and I've appreciated the discussions of eldering that have appeared in our blog community (for example, Marshall Massey's survey and the comments that followed; and also see the comments on this item on Mark Wutka's blog). Although I do think that some spiritual gifts lend themselves to eldering more than others do, I also think Marshall's cautions about exalting the elders is a good one, especially since the main obstacle to eldering has almost nothing to do with gifts. It has to do with interpersonal barriers of almost pathological individualism. More than once, I've heard from those who've been approached to serve on elders or on a meeting of ministry and counsel, "Who am I to talk to someone else about their private life?"

The reason I appreciate Marshall's unromanticizing of elders is that the correct answer to this question applies to all of us, not just to the person who uses genuine or false modesty to avoid service as an elder. "Who are you? You are a brother or sister in discipleship. I need you to listen to me and talk to me. I need to be able to tell my beloved community—but sometimes not to everyone—how my heart is doing. I need you to dare to respond to me, even taking the risk of being wrong, which isn't the end of the world, because we already have a commitment to each other's well-being."

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Among Friends, neither elders nor pastors enjoy exalted status. They exercise functional leadership, not leadership by virtue of status, and if their roles are not functional in a given situation (such as a tiny meeting where it truly works to have the roles carried out informally), filling these "offices" should not be a priority. But communities that may have become complacent and ingrown sometimes overlook one important aspect of those roles: the ministry of providing access. Having a designated pastor is one way that the meeting serves newcomers, the wider community, and those who don't participate in the tacit networks of long-time members, to help put them in touch with the resources they need. This is true whether the "resource" is instruction, access to the pulpit to follow a prophetic leading, referral to others who are more able to meet a particular need, sources of food or clothing for people whose paycheck or welfare check didn't last the month, or pastoral care and counseling. I'm not arguing that the pastor should be the only or even the prime contact person for any of these situations, but by liberating someone for pastoral service, the meeting is making that access far more consistent. In any case, when nobody has a specific concern for the ministry of access, the community probably might as well be dead to the world.

A pastor of a rural Friends meeting once told me about a woman in his community whose husband was abusing her. The local sheriff was a friend of her husband's. She went to the pastor for help because he was a visible access point for ministry. It was not a spiritually exalted role, but was nevertheless lifegiving in that specific situation.

Likewise, elders are also points of access. Some of us are comfortable confiding in just about anyone, or have good intuition about whom to approach. But the meeting that publishes a list of elders is, in effect, saying that "these people have committed themselves to be accessible for concerns about individual or corporate spiritual health." They may not be any more spiritual than the rest of us, but they've agreed to be more visible simply to provide that access. They've also agreed to a discipline of confidentiality. And, while we should all be willing to intervene when we see a brother or sister apparently suffering from heartsickness, and our structures may provide other roles, committees, and individuals to do those things often done by pastors and elders, I think it's helpful and maybe even urgent for the meeting to let its members and attenders know that some Friends have a specific commitment to accompany those in distress. And that access to that accompaniment doesn't depend on being socially connected.

Reedwood Friends Church makes this "access" a regular feature of meeting for worship. In the printed bulletin, and sometimes in the announcements at the end of meeting for worship, we are told that anyone who wishes to speak with an elder can go to a particular spot, and the elders take turns being present at that place for a period of time after the close of worship.

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Sometimes I wonder whether, in our nice, congenial, and dysfunctionally private existences as Friends meetings and churches, there aren't people living the sort of tortured realities that Ted Haggard was apparently living during his leadership at New Life in Colorado Springs. (Background: read his PDF letter of confession and apology.) Given the choice offered by our culture—self-gratification with whatever rationalization numbs the conscience; or uncreative suppression of sexuality, with whatever secret compromises enable public compliance—our churches need to do a lot better at providing safe eldership to the anonymous brother or sister and the celebrity alike. I've seen more than one Friends meeting deal with "outreach" issues of addiction and abuse with theoretical correctness but with an assumption that this concern serves outsiders, not anyone inside the church. Wrong!

One of the worst consequences of not being deliberate, thoughtful, and explicit in providing for human hearts in distress, is that when distressed people come to our meetings, they exercise (without any malevolent intent) a disproportionate influence on us nice people. When someone comes to my meeting and says, "There's too much Christ language, too much salvation language" (yes, it does happen even in a member church of Evangelical Friends International!), our options should not be limited to those polarized twins, abject codependence or defensiveness.

Of course, we should check to see whether our faith language has become formulaic; we owe that to ourselves as well as to newcomers. But we can also ask whether the allergic reaction to Christian language is the symptom of a wound that deserves tender attention. We're not just moderately Christian, subject to political negotiations about how much language to use and to balance out with other constructions; we're Friends of Christ, and those with the least commitment to the future of this precious friendship don't get veto power over how we express it and embody it. But they are entitled to our genuine, active, painstaking love, a love that at times dares to ask, "How's it going with your heart?"

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An irony: American churches that stress the importance of faith over works (often those tending toward legalism or doctrinal purity) have a skewed definition of works. They minimize "works" of justice and mercy, but often seem to value the "works" of formalism: using the right words, observing the behavioral rules of the holiness culture, and so on. Now, it's a bit easy to make fun of these double standards, but I'm not sure I'm totally sold on the opposite approach—serene ignorance of the cleverness of sin and addiction. To risk an oversimplification, both groups need to grapple with the messy reality of being embodied believers. Maybe a greater effort at dialogue would help.

A tangent: What does it mean to use Scripture verses the way I used them in the first paragraphs of this post? Last week I criticized the "Pokemon-card methodology" of biblical interpretation. I do not use verses of this beloved text as power cards to trump opposition, but as a sign that I've looked for evidence that my thinking is in resonance with the foundational document of our faith community, and to open up a dialogue with anyone who cares as much about that document but sees it pointing a different direction. In the eternal dimension of God's commonwealth, I cherish the "elders," the ancient ministry and counsel, whose words were collected by the church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in forming the Bible.

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Righteous links:

I've criticized the American media's almost unrelieved negativity about Russia more than once, and Konstantin's Russian Blog has sometimes been my ally in this effort; he keeps finding awkward instances of double standards. He's found two allies of his own recently: N. Petro's article, "Sticking it up Vladimir the Impaler," and Mark Ames's article, "Where is America's Politkovskaya?" In both cases, I'm linking to Konstantin's own blog rather than the sources because I also recommend reading the comments on his blog.

The OOZEletter also gets a pair of links for their latest issue. Last week I gave my own thoughts on Saddam's impending date with the gallows; here's OOZE's take: "Jesus Says about Saddam: 'Hang Him! Hang Him High!'" ... and a reflection on Ted Haggard: "God's Heroes: Speaking Out about Ted Haggard."

Civil Justice: I've appreciated watching the development of the Georgia Civil Justice Foundation's campaign to promote "fair play" as the foundational value of our civil court system (helping citizens deal with pressures to reduce the independence of the judiciary through such alarmist pitches as tort "reform").

• Fair Play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O26MbTexwxI
• Adversarial Process: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY5GwQSoAsA
• Independent Judiciary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljFs03lp3U4

While we're on the subject of the Bible, I'm grateful to Paul at Shower of Blessings for telling us about Slate's "Blogging the Bible" feature.

A couple of weeks ago, I was worried about the music clips disappearing from Youtube and similar services. Blues are rare enough as it is! But in the last few weeks, a whole crop of new blues clips has blossomed on Youtube. [However, many have been removed since--hence the substitution, below, that I made in April 2009.] Here's just one, by a man whose music and presentation both move me very much, Otis Spann. He and Albert King were the first two blues musicians I ever heard--thanks to the legendary 1960's radio personality on WCFL Chicago, Ron Britain. As I said some time back, for decades I listened with admiration to Otis Spann's music without ever knowing what he looked like when performing:

The golden age of evangelism, part two: Alan Rutherford

Shortly after I posted last week's comments, Alan Rutherford and I had lunch together and we talked about some of the points I raised. Alan has given dedicated service over many years to Reedwood Friends Church, but these days he and his family are worshipping elsewhere. He talked about his search for integrity in evangelism and in worship. I encouraged him to contribute his thoughts to this blog, and offered to help by asking some specific questions. Here are my questions (in italics) and his responses.

Johan: 1. From the post itself: What are some of the features of postmodern society that may make it a more promising arena for evangelism? And, ... 2. What are the specific requirements for effective evangelism imposed by postmodern society?

Alan: (I'll respond to these two questions together.) Whenever we can unearth common ground between our biblical story and the prevailing world view, we can use it as a starting point for sharing. For example, Christians were skeptical about modernity's myths of progress (peace, prosperity, and salvation for all), or should have been. The same skepticism has become widespread in postmodern society. Look at the way NT Wright describes it: "postmodernity has come along and basically blown a raspberry at modernity and said, you know, all your righteousness is as filthy rags... you’ve just been building the tower of Babel, and God is coming down to have a little giggle at it and to confuse your languages."

We can also frame the Christian story as an alternative to the mythology of empire. Actually, it is already expressed that way throughout the New Testament. This should resonate with people who've had it with up-to-here with empty promises of salvation, peace, and prosperity from the "war on terror," global capitalism, the religious Right, or irresistible forces such as the media or Walmart.

I'm not sure that evangelism is getting easier, however. I am reminded of Rebecca Manley Pippert's account of the history of Investigative Bible Discussions, which she helped InterVarsity develop back in the 60s or 70s at Reed College. She recalls that discussions were pretty lively back in the day. Most students receiving a liberal education were unreceptive to the gospel, if not openly hostile. Fast forward to today: Pippert reports that Bible discussions at Reed are much more serene. You'd think that Generation Y postmoderns would condemn the Christian story as oppressive, but she reports that they politely listen, as they are inclined to listen to other peoples' perspectives, especially about spirituality. Instead of regarding one's faith in God as something to investigate (like a fact in a test tube), it is seen as one's perspective.

I confess that I'm not much different. I regard the faith of my Buddhist next-door neighbor, the one across the street, or the Hare Krishna couple two doors down, with respect; I don't believe they're on the right path, but it's their path and I feel reluctant or unable to steer them toward mine. Besides, I know they've heard the Christian story plenty of times, because they grew up in Christian homes and societies. And I don't have much faith in my own ability to retell it effectively enough to convert them back to Christ. Our effort (as a family) goes into living lives with integrity and lots of interaction with our neighbors, who know we're the Christians on the block and the ones who throw most of the neighborhood parties. When I was young, I was taught that apologetics was the key to converting those from other faiths. I just can't imagine that working now. When we discover that our faith in Yahweh is more than just an objective fact in a test-tube, but a story, a relationship, a covenant, and a community, then we are thinking in terms which will resonate with our contemporaries.

Johan: 3. What role does worship and the worshipping community play in evangelism?

Alan: Worship's primary role is not evangelism. Worship can only be done by those who recognize the worthiness of God. It is directed toward God, rather than the congregation or unbelievers. Theologians from more liturgical traditions talk about worship's ability to form us as a community. Here are some interesting quotes: Stanley Hauerwas: "One learns through common practices like the liturgy. Practices and rituals help the story of one's life take shape. One learns that as a Christian one is here to be a glorifier of God; one's whole life depends upon that." NT Wright: "Christian worship is humbly adoring the Creator God and thereby being renewed in his image." Marva Dawn: "Worship is a subtle but strong formative agent... To focus the worship on evangelistic introduction deprives our children and ourselves of the deeper nurturing they and we need to live as Church and deprives God of the intimate worship due his name." Samuel Wells: "Through story, sacrament, and Spirit, God has given his people all that they ned to live with him. The church's creative energies are largely concerned with preparing its members to be able to respond by habit to unforseeable turns of events." This last quote, from his wonderful book Improvisation: The drama of Christian ethics, reflects Sam Wells's view that rituals are an opportunity to practice, with our bodies, the Christian disciplines. (See here for comments on this book.)

I would like to see churches intentionally equip themselves for evangelism, especially those communities who emphasize social justice, because they are usually allergic to it and never get around to it. That's too bad, because they could learn to do it with such integrity, I think.

Johan: 4. How do Christians provide for different temperaments, different ways of understanding the relationship between symbol and reality?

Alan: Clearly, different Christian denominations represent different temperaments and ways of thinking. It's easy to see how this came about. Each one came about in a unique time and place, shaping its personality, how it pictures God, its doctrine, its language, its liturgy, etc. These differences do not necessarily fade over time, either, because of natural processes of assimilation: communities attract and keep people who feel at home, and gradually lose those who don't.

Should we rely solely on denominations to achieve the diversity in the Body of Christ that Paul calls for in I Corinthians 12? Surely not. Worship ought to bring a diversity of temperaments and understandings together around Christ's story. If it doesn't, 'communion' has no meaning at all.

I'm not saying that all denominations should be abolished. After all, if we believe that Christ came for the whole world, we should expect to see numerous different cultural manifestations of the Church, and enjoy it for its rich diversity and for the message that it sends: that dead white guys didn't think up the Church, Christ did.

Pastors and leaders should constantly ask themselves, are we providing enough variety in our messages, worship, and programs, to accommodate different gifts, temperaments and understandings of God?

I'd like to take a look at Robert Stephen Reid's The Four Voices of Preaching. Brazos Press's blurb says this new book identifies four distinct voices that preachers gravitate toward: teaching, encouraging, sage, and testifying. Reid encourages preachers to claim their voice rather than embracing a one-size-fits-all approach. I wonder if this could be used as a tool for serving the different needs in a community.

Johan: 5. What challenges might you specifically address to Quakers, based on your inside knowledge of our myths, conceits, and valid insights?

Alan: Postmodern society is impatient with many familiar categories such as high class/low class, new/old, left/right, east/west. We all know that distinctions also abound within the Church, as I was just mentioning. There are three main branches, Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox, and more punctilious distinctions within Protestantism too numerous to mention. Each denomination is defined in part by its own liturgy, that is, what form does its worship take. Recently, worship leaders from many traditions have begun using ancient forms of worship, borrowing from other traditions, creating new forms, and mixing them together in surprising ways--to the consternation of many. This has not, however, come as a surprise to those who are familiar with Postmodern forms of creative expression. Architecture, literature, music (especially hip-hop), video, and fashion all have an eclectic, cut-and-paste quality, sometimes known as pastiche. They all express the impatience with the strictness of Modern categorization that I was talking about. In light of this, Quakers find themselves at a unique disadvantage since their liturgy excludes many forms of expression. What is a Quaker to do if they discover that reciting creeds or performing certain rituals can be a powerful, meaningful response to God?

Another challenge I have is, what do you do with those have never enjoyed a direct, first-hand experience of God? This describes a lot of Christians, including me. I joined the Friends church because of its ethical teachings that come right out of the Bible (but that many had forgotten): plain speech, simple living, and the peace testimony. What got to me was the emphasis on experience. I'm not saying experience was used over and against scripture by Evangelical Friends, as it is in the unprogrammed meetings I've attended. But Evangelical Friends give experience roughly equal status to scripture. This has its dangers: it leads to doubt in those who never sense God; it gives more authority to those who sense God than to those who don't; it fragments the community because experience is often very personal; and it often rests on the fallacious idea that if one simply checks their leading with scripture, and finds no conflict, then it's from God. What I'm suggesting here iss that it's quite possible for one's personal leading to be in harmony with scripture, nothing wrong with it whatsoever, but it's not necessarily a message from God. How can one know?

When someone rises in open worship, and says something somewhere between half-baked and ridiculous, I have a problem calling that worship. I may have spent the week reading scripture or Christian writings by diligent thinkers, or listening to Bach chorales. I find it hard to come into a meeting where anyone who feels they are led by the Holy Spirit is invited to speak. How can one know? I've been told one could "feel" it, both by those who said appropriate things and by those who spoke rubbish. Perhaps the good stuff was from God, but I don't believe the rubbish is. Probably nobody does. At this point in my life, I would rather participate in beautifully crafted, time-tested, Biblically-rooted liturgy--even if it's empty for some of the people in the room--than to be lectured from someone who's about to be eldered.

Johan: 6. What are some intriguing features of other Christian communities you've been visiting or hearing about?

Alan: We attended a Holy Communion service with some Lutheran friends of ours this summer. One of the steps in preparation for communion is sharing the Peace, in which worshipers turn to each other and offer the greetings of peace that Jesus spoke on the first Easter. When this moment came, my friend Wayne made a beeline for my son Henry, extended his hand to him and said his name and some kind words. They had been "butting heads" throughout the day, and this was an offer of reconciliation. To me it was like an acting out of Matthew 5:23..."when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled..." Liturgy can give worshipers a template and opportunity to practice the gospel story.

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Johan's PS:

In an earlier post, I touched on the subject of worship and the dilemmas it raises for those of us who, like the Reedwood Friend I quoted there (not Alan, by the way), resist any symbolism in a worship context. That Friend asserted that we do not need symbols to get in the way of our communion with God. We do not need artful props to simulate or represent the divine encounter, we need the divine encounter itself, and anything else is vain ornamentation.

In my conversation with Alan Rutherford, he brought up an interesting point: Friends may advocate for Quaker worship as allowing the freedom to respond directly to the Holy Spirit, but we often seem unaware of the ways other Christians have addressed and met this desire. My own observations back Alan up: we sometimes seem smug and insular in our criticisms of other Christians, rather than actively involved in an ecumenical discussion where we actually compare our ideals and traditions.

Without that kind of active exchange, I fear that what we Friends are doing is using vague rhetorical shortcuts to bless a way of worship that actually suits the particular temperaments of those of us who show up for Quaker worship. I believe our goal should be universal access (note: that's not the same as universal acceptance), not pious feathers for our own cozy little nest while we preach lifechanging evangelism and radical hospitality.

It doesn't need to be this way. There are sound underpinnings to the Quaker way of worship, including its hybrid forms--programmed meetings with one or more times of open worship--but we need to do the important work of engaging each other and the ecumenical world to test, explain, and refine those underpinnings. (Great example.) If the cost is granting that some other traditions also have sound underpinnings, is that so bad?

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Righteous links:

Two of the churches that are getting noticed in our area for their worship and evangelism are The Bridge and Imago Dei. I've not been to either, but other Friends have given me favorable reports.

"Evangelism Plus": John Stott reflects on where we've been and where we're going. "The Gospel of Green" by Bill McKibben of OnEarth Magazine. Sorry for the sour note but see the comments for documentation of the anti-Christian mood among many progressives.

Christianity Today: Contemporary reflections on whether we should stand with or against culture?

Finally: Some sobering words in Quaker Life from Santosh J. Chandy, "Quakerism: does it work now?"

Perspective

A year ago yesterday, Judy and I spent much of our 25th anniversary on one of the historic Columbia River Highway walking trails. For our 26th anniversary, yesterday, we chose an urban variant: First we parked at OMSI. After buying something from their gift shop and leaving a message for a friend there, we set out on the Eastside Esplanade path along the Willamette River. We walked to the Burnside Bridge, crossed the river, walked ten blocks west, and strode bravely into Powell's bookstore. (Bravery is required there to resist temptation and ward off bankruptcy.) I added another couple of urban miles by making an additional loop to Way of a Pilgrim bookstore, specializing in Eastern Orthodox books and icons, at NW 21st and Hoyt. Reunited at Powell's, we escaped from there only $30 poorer. We returned to OMSI via Tom McCall Waterfront Park and the Hawthorne Bridge.

Inevitably, I've been thinking about how fast these 26 years have gone by, but also how much has happened in that swift passage of time. At the beginning, in 1980, the future meltdown of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is nearly unimaginable, and the Cold War (with the U.S. boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics) is a dominant paradigm. Also that year: El Salvador unravels further with the killing of Archbishop Romero; and Iraq attacks Iran, opening their savage eight-year war. In U.S. politics, the unholy alliance between evangelical Christian elites and right-wing politicians solidifies, as Bible-believing Christians are urged to favor the nominally religious Reagan over the evangelical incumbent Carter. A few years later, the names have all dramatically changed, but so many of the patterns are the same.

How much has changed in the Quaker world? In his talk at the 1976 Friends World Committee triennial meeting in Hamilton, Ontario, T. Canby Jones noted a trend of convergence, without (if I remember correctly) using the word: evangelical Friends were becoming more interested in silence and social justice, and liberal Friends were becoming more interested in theology and the Bible. We traded amusing anecdotes about people in one branch being totally unaware of the existence of Friends in other branches—not much has changed there, except that the Internet is a much cheaper way of exchanging anecdotes and reinforcing superiority than conference attendance.

I kept the July 1980 issue of Friends Journal because of an article by Parker Palmer, "Quakers and the Way of the Cross." He says,

I realize that the Christian story holds little merit for some Quakers, that within the Quaker community many are struggling to find new myths and symbols and images to bring meaning to a "post-Christian" world. And yet, I do not know how else to speak of my experience in life except in terms of crucifixion and resurrection. I look around me, and within me, and find the devastation caused by the threat of nuclear war; the relentless oppression of the weak and the poor; the impact of an econmy fueled by greed and a politics which relies on the tools of cercion and violence. And as I see these things, I find myself unable to speak of them as mere "social problems." I can only speak of a continuing crucifixion, a crucifixion of the Christ within every woman and man. And as I see these things, I am unable to find ultimate home in a multiplication of projects and programs for "social change." However important these things may be, I am compelled to reach deeper for hope, beyond our own works into the mystery of resurrection which only God can work among us.

Palmer continues with a sensitive walk through the outward and inward "stations of the Cross" that illuminate these opening words—stations and soul-movements such as recognition, resistance, acceptance, affirmation, and liberation.

Projects and programs will continue to come and go, along with the temporary heroes and villains who animate them. Their impermanence does not make them unimportant, it just makes me more concerned to locate them in a deeper story; in fact, in the ancient story of oppression, resistance, and liberation, of crucifixion and resurrection.

I even dare to think that the Quaker story must stop inflating itself and take a more modest and supplementary place. After three decades of idealistic Quaker-boosting, I am growing weary of cycles of complacency, gloom, and timid revival. I want to be watching and joining God's work in the world, not caught in some self-absorbed eddy. We Quakers have at least one important function in the wider Christian world—demonstrating to ourselves and everyone that church really can be as simple as a community of people who want to live with Jesus at the center, helping each other work out the processes and ethical consequences of that life. But we don't even do that one thing if we're so endlessly fascinated (or irritated) by our specialness.

None of that specialness need go to waste, actually. It's not the stuff of community that bothers me; we need to furnish our home with the furniture of shared references, models, doctrines, decisions, controversies. But I want that overstuffed home to be an incubator for people who will collectively have the spiritual sensitivity and prophetic courage to put the highest priority on the needs of people who've never heard of us, rather than on the perfection of our internal categories. Then today's projects and programs will take their place (as many already have, no doubt) in the ancient drama of crucifixion and resurrection.

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Two songs: Last Sunday, at Reedwood, we sang a chorus by Martin Reardon that included these words:

Shout to the earth His name
Let the whole world know His name
That Jesus is alive and He reigns on high
Shout to the earth His name.

A few hours later, at Ministerios Restauración, we were singing these words from Juan Carlos Alvarado:

No basta solo con cantar.
No basta solo con decir.
No es suficiente solo con querer hacer.
Es necesario morir.

(By itself, singing isn't enough; by itself, saying isn't enough; it's not sufficient just to want to do; it's necessary to die.)

Going back to "Shout to the earth," I have friends who would rather die than sing songs like that; maybe that's why they might need to sing that song just once, and try to understand why, for some of us, in some sense, that is the whole business of discipleship. (Let the whole world know His name, not because we Christians, we Quakers, are better than anyone else—we're not—but because in that name we speak truth, we resist, we create, we sing, we love.) And I have friends who seem to think that singing choruses with the right words is all there is to being a Christian. Of course, they're wrong; you also have to write a brave-sounding blog.

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I thank Sean's Russia Blog for a link to this interesting article by Charlie Ganske on Russia, the Middle East, and the complicated influences of oil prices on Russian-American relations. Another case of "the more things change...."?

Another awkward chorus

Last Sunday at Reedwood Friends Church, we sang the chorus, "I surrender all," whose lyrics include these lines:

All to Jesus, I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

...

All to Jesus, I surrender;
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.

Our guest speaker, Brent Laytham (our current scholar-in-residence) gave a sermon on the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus at which Thomas wanted, and got, bodily evidence of the resurrection. Jesus commented, "So, you believe because you've seen with your own eyes. Even better blessings are in store for those who believe without seeing"—which I interpret as, at least in part, a blessing upon us, upon me.

During the open worship that followed, I felt strongly moved to get up and say that singing a song like "I surrender all" brings up all sorts of integrity issues for me. Learning to sing that song "I surrender all" without blushing is probably the central work of my life.

This chorus (I continued) should actually be half of a twinned song, the other half having all the "I and me" pronouns replaced with "we and us."

For one thing, if William James was right when he said, a century ago, that there's an irreducible minimum percentage of us who'll never have spiritual feelings, who just aren't wired that way, the lines "Let me feel the Holy Spirit, Truly know that Thou art mine," will be an invitation to fakery or despair. It's a similar situation to the one Thomas would have been in had he not had the opportunity to put his fingers on Jesus' wounds. (Perhaps it's another variant on the whamo theory of grace—see last week's post; God's hammer comes down when we don't get the promised sensations or we lose track of the lies we need to tell in order to impress people.)

But the promises of God were made to the community, not just to individuals, or to the particular individuals who touched Jesus' wounds or who can honestly say that they "felt" the Holy Spirit. And as a community we have a corporate stewardship of relationships, promises, blessings, strengths, even as those qualities ebb and flow in individuals. I do get strong impressions of God's love and power, and the person next to me in worship is entitled to benefit from that reality even if he or she doesn't have that experience personally. That person might have far more insight into the human psyche, however, and might be just the one to restore my perspective when I'm in despair about a relationship. This isn't theory, by the way; it's my experience.

So living in community, and experiencing blessings and holiness and transformation in community, is vital for me. On my own, "I surrender 12%." The only way I'm going to approach surrendering ALL is in active dialogue with other believers as well as in the transparency of honest prayer.

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Can America be defeated? General Newbold is among the retired high officers of the U.S. military who are making their Iraq-war criticisms public these days. A recent Time essay included this observation, as quoted in the New York Times: "While General Newbold said he did not accept the rationale for invading Iraq, he wrote that 'a precipitous withdrawal would be a mistake' because it would tell the nation's adversaries that 'America can be defeated, and thus increase the chances of future conflicts.'"

Obviously, America can theoretically be defeated—we have no divine dispensation exempting us from the ordinary contingencies of conflict. I think he means to say that America's adversaries would think that America could be defeated simply by pressing us until our national endurance ran out and we gave up. The way to avoid such a defeat, according to this logic, is to remain patient until victory comes.

My problem with this common reasoning, aside from the political manipulations involved in defining "victory," is that it leaves out another implication: America will never admit error. We would rather kill more people and suffer more of our own losses than say, "We're sorry, world, but we've put our wisest minds on this problem and we now realize that, with the best of intentions (?), we adopted the wrong strategy." The "don't tell our adversaries that America can be defeated" line also assumes that our adversaries are monolothic and rigid, will remain adversaries indefinitely, and we will never see their point of view and find points of agreement.

I'm utterly and completely fed up with the "sending signals" school of thought that worries about what others will think if we do the right thing. If the USA does the right thing in Iraq for a change, maybe the world will think, "Hey, the USA has more capacity for reflection and humility than we thought. Time to be less resentful about their enormous power, and be more collaborative." Let's try it and see!

On the other hand, if sending consistent signals is the whole point of being a nation, let's forget about democracy and let George and Dick do all the thinking, and signaling, for us.