All posts by Rod White

The Tantric Propaganda in Green Lantern and Elsewhere

Doing Theology, Film/TV, , , , , ,

Lately, I have had a belated crash-course in the Tantric foundations of the myth-making of our media-driven culture. Today, I am especially interested in the redundant retelling of the myth of the “hero” with which I am surrounded.

All one has to do to find this hero myth is look at the IMDb synopsis of Green Lantern and there is it again:

In a universe as vast as it is mysterious, a small but powerful force has existed for millenniums. Protectors of peace and justice, they are called the Green Lantern Corps. A brotherhood of warriors formed by the different races from entire universe sworn to keep intergalactic order, each Green Lantern wears a ring that grants him superpowers. But when a new enemy called Parallax threatens to destroy the balance of power in the Universe, their fate and the fate of Earth lie in the hands of their newest recruit, the first human ever selected for the Corps: Hal Jordan.

Hal is a gifted and cocky test pilot, but the Green Lanterns have little respect for  humans, who have never harnessed the infinite powers of the ring before. But Hal is clearly the missing piece to the puzzle, and along with his determination and willpower, he has one thing no member of the Corps has ever had: humanity. With the encouragement of fellow pilot and childhood sweetheart Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), if Hal can quickly master his new powers and find the courage to overcome his fears, he may prove to be not only the key to defeating Parallax he will become the greatest Green Lantern of all. 

Christians generally think this story-telling is just innocent fun. But it is also philosophy. It is propaganda. It is worldview shaping. And if one would like to have a robust Christianity that is not consumed by the power of ascendant myths, then it should be seen as an alternative religion. The hero myth calls for faith. It is mainly faith in determination and willpower, in finding the courage to overcome one’s fears and master newly-discovered inner powers (with the help of your soul mate) – and to be the savior.

Esalen and the conquest of Christianity

Jeffrey Kripal, in his book: Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, talks about the man who popularized the invasion of this hero myth, Joseph Campbell.  Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey begins “with a Tantric parable from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Campbell tells the story of a vegetarian tiger cub raised in a flock of  goats who has to be shocked into his own tiger-identity by another tiger, who forces him to transgress his own conditioned feelings of disgust and social propriety in order to eat meat. Campbell summarizes the moral of the parable as the secret of his entire lifework. The moral of the story is, ‘that we’re all really tigers living here as goats. The function of sociology and most of our religious education is to teach us to be goats. But the function of the proper interpretation of mythological symbols and meditation discipline is to introduce you to your tiger face.’”

Kripal summarizes Campbell’s criticism of all religions that claim absolute, exclusive or literal truth. “A conservative Hindu’s belief in the actual existence of Krishna or an orthodox Christian’s belief in a literal resurrection are just as misplaced and mistaken as an orthodox Jew’s or Muslim’s claim to an exclusive monotheism (or the land of Israel). They are all goats fooled by their social systems, not tigers awakened into their deeper human-driven natures through transgressive acts.” The original trailer for Green Lantern shows how the writers were faithful to this idea and the foundational hero myth more clearly than what the movie ended up being.

I am trying to find ways to talk about these things with the people I know and meet. Most of them are not dashing out to read the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna any time  soon. But then, they don’t have to, since his teaching is being transmitted through every media outlet. The “transgressive act” that is usually recommended is to slough off the goat-training of Christianity and become one’s Green Lantern-like tiger self. We are taught that the true religious community is not gathered around the Savior, Jesus, it is a gathering of all the heroes from around the cosmos who are protecting the universe from being subsumed under some exclusive power (in Green Lantern, it is  Parallax — highlighting the power of misperception — calling Neo). You can see where this goes; Jesus becomes another Hinduized Green Lantern, if he is anything.

I want to talk about this some more, because I think a lot of my loved ones have a religion that is going Tantric under the influence of this incessant propaganda. Myths with which they are unfamiliar are being presented as “new” or “evolved.” Their faith in Christ is seen as “old” or “undeveloped.” Without some decent awareness and some healthy dialogue with the big voices of the media, it is easy to be swept away into their fantasy land. Test out what I am saying when you are watching whatever you watch on a screen in the next month (especially the cop or hospital shows). See how many times you encounter Joseph Campbell’s “hero.” See how many “goats” become “tigers.” Count how many times the word “hero” is mentioned in relation to the 9/11 celebrations. Ponder the training of those famous Filipino inmates.

The Hurricane, the Nanny State and Katniss Everdeen

Building community, Film/TV, , ,
Irene coming to N.C.

I know I could have turned off the TV, but I was a bit concerned about Hurricane Irene. Mayor Nutter said we might lose power for two weeks! Mayor Bloomberg shut down New York! It certainly sounded serious. And, of course, for some people it was extremely serious. David’s sister’s house in the mountains is by a little stream they never expected to pour through their first floor windows!

But, overall, don’t you think the coverage was a bit much? Aren’t we being overseen and instructed a bit too much? I don’t usually agree with right wingers, but it does seem like we have a lot of regulations just waiting to be applied in Philadelphia. We might actually have a “nanny state” already. A couple of girls were caught on TV walking down Main Street in flooded Manayunk yesterday and were also caught on TV being given a citation for doing it! Whatever you do, don’t overtax the “first responders” by being a fool! They are going to overtax themselves by giving you a ticket for violating some statute you never imagined existed. My rule in Philadelphia is, “Don’t forget. Everything is illegal if they want it to be, especially if you are a homeless or unlicensed human.”

Nanny state

We are definitely going the direction of Suzanne Collins’ picture of a super nanny state based on the ever-broadcasting tube in her very popular books for teenagers: The Hunger Games. The trilogy is a very inventive and subversive look at where we are going. I said on my personal Goodreads site: “[The Hunger Games] is an entertaining primer on how to react to a dystopia dominated by manipulative media and a huge military-industrial complex. To no one’s surprise the lessons are: be a superhuman survivor, be super individualistic, be superviolent but moral and, when you are completely burned, be super in love and start over in Eden/home/the wilderness.” (Here is the Circle of Hope Pastors site).

Katniss really does not like to do what she is told. The big problem for the authorities is, every time they try to kill her, she manages to incite a revolution. Plus, she is very good with a bow and arrow – a Rambo for the 2010s. It is a big problem for her oppressors when Katniss’s resistance is televised by the nanny state or televised by the rebels who take over the airwaves — it disrupts their programming schedule! The other day, I found myself wishing that one of my hacker friends had discovered how to hack an alternative feed into CNN and could broadcast a huge crowd of us shouting, “Will you please shut up, already!” We need the info, but not the constant, irrelevant making-news-out-of-nothing that programs us to buy every battery in Target! (I know. I could have  never turned it on. But I did.)

Live out our alternative

What are Jesus-followers to do? We could just do whatever the nanny tells us. Within that constant blather are seeds of actual information, after all, and we like being supportive and nice-looking. We could do like Katniss and find ways to get over the electric fence around our lives and murder our opponents – we like being judgmental, superior and holy-looking, too. I never think either of those solutions is adequate, no matter how many times the myth is replayed in the media. I still think we need to painstakingly work on living as an incarnation of the kingdom of God in the here and now. I think we need to take ourselves seriously as people entrusted with the Holy Spirit and live out an alternative that not only undermines, but transforms the  self-destructing status quo.

When the BW men met last night, their topic was “What do we do in a disaster?” (Timely, eh?) One of the conclusions voiced was that our connection with one another was possibly too weak to survive a disaster. We were either reliant on the government or reliant on ourselves. We agreed that our meeting was a great way to start something. But it was not enough to build the trust that would make one’s brother or sister reliable in a disaster. We don’t want to rely on the TV for our communication and we don’t want to be left alone on the other side of the fence. We really do need each other. To form an alternative community that allows us to be our full selves in the face of the powers that be we need to remember a basic truth Mike and Mimi scripted into  their wedding on Saturday: “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” (Romans 12:9-10)

I may be too optimistic, but I think both the nanny state and Katniss Everdeen are shooting (sometimes literally) for those goals listed in Romans. They just can’t get there without Jesus, and it is hard enough with him.  We need to keep at it with true devotion on behalf of us all.

Related articles

Competing desires: Those spiritual clogs

A life in the Spirit,

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.  James 1:13-18

Image result for competing desires
Competing Desires by Naomi White

This may be a bit too much information for a few of you, but one of my grandchildren really has to work on getting the poop out. They are easily clogged up! I don’t know if you have watched a typical baby soil their diaper lately. If you had, you would know that this one baby is working pretty hard! It might take a couple of days to get to poop-stage and then a couple of hours for the great accomplishment to be completed!

The baby’s bowel movements made me think about our spiritual digestion, of course, and James. I have regularly felt spiritually clogged by some indigestible thought or feeling. I have often pondered what it might take too feel less backed up. You might relate to what I am talking about. The classic things that clog us up are the usual dissipations we use to distract us from what bothers us or to temporarily release us from what is. James calls this the practice of our “evil desires.” We drink too much, maybe insult someone when we are unreserved, get a headache and don’t go to the PM, then feel mildly irritated that we are the way we are and that irritation becomes a clog. We get in a relationship that started with sex and then ventured into intimacy, we end  up connected but not committed, we have arguments we don’t know why we are having, we dread the next moment of awkwardness looking for closeness and then that dread becomes a clog. When we go to pray we end up rehearsing our irritations and dreads rather than relating to God. Sometimes we can end up with a real spiritual logjam because we stop praying altogether, it is so unsatisfying – at least the way we do
it!

In just a few sentences, James has good wisdom for how to get things flowing again.

Note the desire.

If this were easy, we’d all be spiritually regular. We need to identify the diet that gives us spiritual indigestion or requires a laxative. With a baby, a parent needs to find out, through experimentation, what is best for this particular being to eat then feed it to them. Our Father has good food for us, too, but we need to cooperate and experiment with what is good for us. This starts, most of the time, with noting what is bad for us. Contrary to popular belief, some of our desires need to be sublimated. Some of them are downright evil. Note that. Employ a great friend or a good therapist to help you.

The other night after “happy mic” we ran into the NA group coming in for their birthday party. Those good people have noted their desire for chemical self-destruction and are very disciplined in their response.

Don’t be deceived.

A lot of people are feeding us crap. My friend and I swore off Burger King again the other day because we noted how we always get sick after we eat there, even though we also always think it is a delicious experience. People are feeding us 24/7 spiritual crap on every communication device they can lay hands on. With the new, popular  worldview that every thought deserves its freedom of speech in the democracy of ideas, we have a tendency to take in everything and pretend we are not affected by any of it.  Our perpetual seat at the intellectual smorgasbord clogs us up.

Two of my friends said on two days that they are overdue for their regular overnight spiritual retreat. I am getting one in the schedule, too. Concentrated time with God clears out the mind and refocuses our desires. Get up every day and pray. Stop  sometime from 11:45-12:02 and pray with the network pastors and staff as they exercise that discipline.

Live the gift.

James can sound like he is just saying, “You are full of evil desires. Stop it!” That is not all there is to it. He starts us noticing what is happening and meditating on the causes. He wants us to wake up and see the evil. But the whole point is becoming new and doing new. This newness does not come from nowhere, it is coming from God all the time. We have the capacity to eat what is good, we just need to eat it. We have been offered the gift, we need live it. James has often been the cause of people suspecting every one of their desires as evil, so they restrict their sense of righteousness down to  following only the proven principles of goodness. But I think the process is a lot deeper than that. Desire, in itself, is not good or bad. We have desires that can come to good fruit. When I move with God’s desires, I am moving with my own best interests and deepest good. I am unclogged.

I have to admit, that even as I am thinking and writing about these things, I can list all the desires that well up in me to compete with my deepest desires to be among the first-fruits of God’s new creation in Jesus. My life is littered with tablefuls of spiritual  gumdrops and Doritos, and there are plenty of good-looking foods that are sure to mess up my spiritual digestive system,  which doesn’t work that well anyway! I have choices to make. It may take a long time to get unclogged sometimes! But now that I have eaten some decent spiritual food this morning, this particular day may not feel so constipated.

Let’s live the gift. In Jesus, God gave birth to newness is us, too. No matter how difficult the process feels to you today, eat what’s good. Good is coming to you and meeting good desires in you. Let it work right through you.

Thoughts on Unmet Relationship Expectations

Building community,

But to the one who had told him this, Jesus* replied, ‘Who is my mother, and who are
my brothers?’ And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’ Matthew 12:48-50

A lot of commentators have a lot of reasons why Jesus appears to be so cold to his family when they show up outside the house where he is teaching. But let’s be honest, the main reason for this awkward scene is that Jesus is a very difficult child and a puzzling brother. Like so many of our loved ones, Jesus does the unexpected – or he keeps doing what we have come to expect and we still don’t like it. Like I had to quit in the middle of that last sentence because Nat, in the next room, started having his predictable one-year-old issues – predictable, but still not what I had in mind.

I just spent the weekend with a house full of my children and their children and three grandchildren have come home with me; so I know what I am talking about. During our nice time together, we were all kind of difficult in our own way, because we are all kind of difficult in our own way. According to my siblings, I was  a spectacularly weird part of their family (and I get the idea that they are being kind to talk about things in the past tense).

So let me reiterate what I think Jesus was getting at, as he was being difficult: If you are looking to your relationships, even your blood relationships, to get you through, you are probably in trouble. If you are going to spend your whole life waiting for loved ones to do what is expected or to fulfill what you need, you will be waiting a long time. Mary’s son and her children’s brother was God-with-us and they could not rely on him to fulfill their expectations! If you are looking to your friends and family to sustain you, you are probably disappointed right now. Who knows? Maybe we are friends and I am disappointing you as I write this sentence!

Even your dear friends and family need to get their worth from God, same as you, if the relationships are going to be sustainable. Their worth cannot be in the quality of the relationship. Their value cannot be merely in what they mean to you. No matter how many times the movies tell us that all we need is family and friends to get by, we don’t get by that well even when we have the family and friends. Someone is always in the next room complaining about what they aren’t getting as quickly or as completely as they think they need.

My lesson: If I desire wonderful relationships (and I do) I need to keep my eyes on my primary relationship with Jesus. My desires, my neediness, my unfinished stuff, my general weirdness clutters up my relationships until all they feel like is inadequate. And the same thing is happening on the other side of each relationship! Being a brother to Jesus, is my deepest hope for my other relationships, as well.

When Jesus asks, “Who is my family?” I intend to say, “Me!” That is my first step in realigning myself with God. If any other unaligned pieces are to come into place, like all those wonderful relationships I cherish, answering “Me!” daily is my best hope of making that happen.

That seems very simple, until the baby starts crying, or the spouse starts complaining, or the friend moves away. Jesus can end up in the middle of our “house,” where everyone is clamoring after what they need or what they think should happen and end up wondering out loud, “Who are my mother and brothers?” He is difficult like that, thank God!

Low Hanging Fruit

The Mission, ,

All definitions seem to require some relationship to sex these days. The “urban dictionary” defines low-hanging fruit as: “Girls who are somewhat hot – but not too hot, and who often work in positions of high public interaction but with low-barriers-to-entry, thus making them open and attractive targets on the one hand, but often self conscious and/or harboring self esteem issues on the other. This, as a whole, makes them susceptible and quite receptive to any overtures from the opposite sex. I.e., They are the easiest of fruit to pick.” The use of the phrase: “Salty just can’t stop picking that low-hanging fruit; he just brought home his fifth receptionist this month.”

I love/hate the postmodern democracy of truth demonstrated in the Urban Dictionary, even though it is frightening. It is sort of like an intellectual horror movie. I can see what is going to happen to the thinking, but I keep watching anyway.

It is about fruit picking

The more traditional way I want to use the phrase ‘low hanging fruit” relates to  farming (of course!). It means that when I stray off my running path in Southern California and steal oranges from the grove (not that I ever did that!), I will be able to reach the fruit that doesn’t require that I also steal a ladder. In marketing terms, “low  hanging fruit” are targets or goals that don’t require too much effort to achieve.

Circle of Hope’s “low-hanging fruit” appear to be mostly picked. This may also be true of your personal missional “grove.”

When we first started out in mission, we were sort of the only game in town. Urban
church planting was not so popular — and, to be honest, just living in Philadelphia was not as popular as it is now. We had the “marketing niche” (if I dare say that to some of you) mostly to ourselves. These days, we can throw a rock in every direction from Broad and Washington and hit a church plant sponsored by all sorts of denominations, some from within Philly and many from without, especially by the branches of the fractious Presbyterians. There is plenty of room for everyone’s mission and we love them all. But the proliferation of church plants has depleted the stock of low-hanging fruit that made our mission somewhat easy – at least easier than most missionaries face when they are on a mission. Just the young, semi-Christian people fleeing Lancaster could fill a few new church plants, it seems. We have our own contingent at 19G. Now they are spread out among a lot of good opportunities for growth and service.

Reaching the further fruit

So what we need to do now is come up with strategies and methods for reaching the fruit that is beyond our normal, easy reach. This is very good, since that is the crop  we were planted to reach in the first place. We are slowly but surely figuring out how to do that. We have great infrastructure and general methodology for incorporating new people into our new kind of church. But we need to perfect the specifics of picking that individual “orange” that just happened to get ripe at the top of the tree.

We hope our methods are incarnational, not merely attractional. But we always use a mix of methods. One example of this is the recent discussion at BW about how to relate
to teens (fruit that often can’t sit still long enough to be picked!). We have some nice specimens in our basket already, but their friends are not going to fall into our laps because we have a meeting and make fliers. Events might be part of our plan, but the biggest part will always be people in mission who are loving and who see themselves as harvesters all the time, and who can’t rest until that farthest orange is in God’s hand.

Some people will always see orcharding as violence done to a tree, I think. I see it as a good metaphor for our role in God’s spiritual garden.

Last Twelve Weeks of Shalom House?

The Mission,

[The ShalomHouse Guidance Team has posted this a couple of places — why not here, too? You might be a future member, or someone who will help!]

In 12 weeks Shalom House might end and its function distributed among the Circle of Peacemakers. We don’t want that to happen. So we are going to tell you our story for twelve weeks to see if your convictions and prayer can keep the flame burning bright.

We have a great idea for proactive peacemakers — SHALOM HOUSE.  We are trying to become excellent promoters because we have a do or die opportunity: we can either find the people who are called to do this great work, or we can close it down.

Before I go any farther, let me remind you that we live in the middle of the biggest war machine the world has ever known. The cost in lives and dollars of the Afghan and Iraq wars is staggering (unless you can’t stagger anymore, you’re so used to astounding numbers!). Just think of this one fact — the United States maintains troops at more than 560 bases and other sites outside our country! Unless we close our eyes to it, that is what our country is, primarily — a persistent warmaker. If you are 21 right now, half your life has been associated with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq!

Christians need to talk and act about this situation. We do talk and act as a church. Shalom House leads us to keep our minds and hearts open to what our country is and what we can do about it. As an intentional community devoted to proactive peacemaking they make the big difference a group can make when they concentrate. The house doesn’t just speak out against things, they act to build the alternative way of life, not death, that  Jesus inaugurated with his resurrection.

We have had great people find the house and live in it for the past four years. Really, we are just now ready to build on what they organized! Even when a few people lost their commitment and even lost their faith, the house was a great witness for peace and has lead the church in all sorts of things we would not have normally done. Right now, our mainstay, Mimi Copp, is about to complete her final term. Another  house member is considering leaving. A new house member is considering joining. But we are up in the air because the house is not sustainable as a community and a mission with too few people in it. We have one in, one maybe-in, and one maybe-coming. That won’t do it. The Guidance Team is unsure we should keep the house going if we do not have enough people who want to be a part of it. The thought of closing it breaks our heart, so we are making sure we have tried everything can do before we move on to other things.

There is room for 3-4 people in the house. They make one, preferably two year commitments. They make a huge difference just by being there, much more as they get good at proactive peacemaking. You can be young or old, married or single, male or female, from Circle of Hope or not — all sorts of people are welcome. You just need faith, a commitment to proactive peacemaking, and a willingness to live by the simple rule that aids the community life and mission of Shalom House.

If you are interested, read through our blogsite, or talk to the Guidance Team Leader, Jane Clinton. If you know of someone who should be interested, even if they don’t live in Philly, please let them know about us! And please pray about our future. We are writing you with our plans and progress because we trust that whether we are on a particular team or not, we are all in this together and we all care about each other.

Incarnation is the Answer to Bad News Church

The Mission, , ,

I was in Turkey last week. My body still thinks I am there. My mind is definitely still there.  It was a difficult pilgrimage in some ways. But it was a very stimulating one in almost every way.

For the first week, Gwen, my dears friends, and I fulfilled a long-held vision of taking one of the famous sailing cruises through the Aegean. I had very little idea of what I was getting into, especially since I let my friend do most of the planning. When I showed up in Bodrum, I met the people with whom I would be sleeping and eating on our little boat: two Belgians, four Dutch, two South Africans, four Americans, including me, and four Turkish crew members. They were nice people.

What I want to tell you about today is the small experiences I had of introducing myself to people whose English leaves a little bit lost in translation. Being the pastor of Circle of Hope is odd enough in the  religion-saturated United States. Explaining it to the post-Christian Belgians and Dutch is even odder.

The bad news church

For instance, my now-new-Belgian-Facebook-friend was very puzzled about my very existence. In Belgium the national government still owns the church buildings for the state-subsidized religious groups. My new friend was very interested (as a former mayor) that the people of my congregation actually pool their money to support my work.   Belgium is still highly influenced by the Catholic church, even though in 1967 about 42% of the population attended mass weekly and now it is only about 5%. My friend was also a bit shocked that I was married. When the subject of church came up, the first thing she had to talk about was celibacy! She was very concerned about the sex life of priests, since there has been a major sexual abuse scandal in Belgium for the last several years. I was meeting another person telling me the bad news about the church.

I think we forget that people are not necessarily antagonistic toward faith in Jesus; they really have no idea about faith in Jesus.  They think it is about connecting to the bad news church. It is hard to imagine an intelligent person in Belgium signing up for the state-sponsored Catholic Church, run by deviant, politically-savvy  priests holding meetings in empty, historic buildings. The only “issue” my friend had to offer when religion came up in our conversation was about celibacy! How unusual that I can have a wife! A sexually-active being, serving a community that supports his leadership — revolutionary!

Judgmental experiences

More poignant, perhaps, was my small conversation with a  Dutch passenger. She had some Christians in her background, so she was more in the know. Apparently, there is a “Bible belt” in Holland. She had ancestors from there and even knew about Mennonites, who got their start in the Netherlands. As soon as we started talking about Christianity, she made it plain that she was not happy about how churches judge others and hold to their bizarre convictions. Her first thoughts revealed her feelings about the notorious time there was a breech in the dike and people from the Bible belt would not come to help with saving the land because it was Sunday and they would not work on the Sabbath. It was the bad news church, again. But when I described to her what we were living as Circle of Hope, she almost immediately softened up. It struck a chord with her. She smiled at me and said, with a Dutch accent, “I would come to your church.”

Honestly, I think she is hungry for something. It is like she has been deprived of the church by a bunch of numbskulls who somehow took it over! I hate to be so negative, but the Catholic church still marching around in medieval costumes and the revival of Calvinist propositional-legalism is disastrous for evangelism. I know I am not supplying a lot of evidence for that, but I keep running into the bad news. What self-respecting Dutch person is going to ally themselves with people with so little love in their hearts that they would rather be “right” than serve their neighbor?

Incarnation is the answer

On one hand, I have nothing to prove. A person who wants Jesus can find him in the least likely places. We don’t worship the Christians or their churches. I am not the church’s history. On the other hand, we have a lot to prove. We are an incarnation of the kingdom of God, the presence of the future, as the Holy Spirit lives in us. If someone bumps into me, they should meet the love of Jesus. If they talk to me, they should hear some truth that resonates in some empty place in them prepared for God.

The old church is about gone in Europe and it is quickly disintegrating in the United States. Praise God! But do we have the followers who have the courage to incarnate what is next? Do we have people who can demonstrate the Lord’s truth and love to hungry people?  I hope to be among them.

Muslims Are Just as Nominal

A life in the Spirit, , ,

I had a very enlightening pilgrimage (as you expected). You will hear more (as you expected).

I am not recovered from my nine-hour direct flight from Istanbul to JFK, then my three-hour van ride home. So maybe I am not so coherent. But I want to offer one reflection for you to ponder. If you think the United States seems like it is descending into a religious wilderness (which it is), do not think it is alone among the nations. We often receive a lot of images on the screen and in other news media of hundreds of Muslims praying in the street. It looks like Islamic people are very religious. Some are, of course. But from my scant collection of evidence, I get they are just as irreligious as the rest of us, in general.

We were chatting with our boat captain about the call to prayer blaring over Bodrum. He said it was all pre-recorded and plays automatically. We asked him if he prayed five times a day and he said quickly and dismissively, “Nobody prays.” We were not sure we were always communicating with our Turkish-first friend, so we checked again. He said 98% of the people did not pray. Some of the women were devout.

OK. That was news.

In Istanbul, at the Blue Mosque, Gwen and I were “befriended” by Zeki, a handsome young, light-eyed Kurd.  He gave a great tour — both of us shoeless, Gwen in a scarf, me in a skirt to cover up my infidel legs. We asked Zeki how many people prayed when the muzzein called them to prayer. He said 45% — but then he “works for the mosque.” He also told us that women don’t usually go to the little space reserved for them in the mosque to pray, they really like to pray better at home.

Hmmm.

I think most of the Christians I know don’t pray, either — certainly not five times a day (unless you count OMG as a prayer).  Christians and Muslims alike, at least in the big cities I experience, are all going to the mosque to sell carpets, so to speak, because their god is profit, or at least their god is keeping themselves as comfortable as possible.

I am so glad we are aspiring to something better. Right now we are perspiring, right along with Istanbul. But I hope we will not be breaking a sweat for profit, alone. Let’s pray five times today and see what is happening in the Kingdom of God. Something is happening in post-Christendom and post-Islamdom; we are right at the beginning of a new era of real Jesus-following. I’m excited about it.

Set the Holes Aside for a Day and Eat Cheese

The Mission, ,

I am one of those people often accused of being anti-American. That’s not true. I am not anti-American, I am just so pro-Kingdom of God, it looks like I am anti-American in comparison. If I get thrown in a lion’s den  (like Daniel) or if I get run out of Thessalonica, (like Paul) for not pledging my allegiance to whatever power is usurping God’s place, that would be an honor. So I suppose that compounds the issue.

But I don’t think Jesus is anti-American in the slightest. So I am not. I doubt that he’s happy about everything the government does, but I leave that to him to work out. While He is working on that, I have no doubt he loves every American right down to the hairs on their heads — and I know he loves his people who are all over the fifty states. Did you know there are over 220,000 Christian churches in the United States? That’s one for every 1500 people, or so, I think. God is one with them.

I don’t think we could say that God loves the “typical” American, since there isn’t one,
or that he loves what typifies Americans when sociologists talk about them. But there are some general characteristics that are probably worth lauding on the National
Holiday. Last night, I mentioned a few things I considered a blessing:

  • country music
  • rich people like Jon Bon Jovi giving away money (like to Habitat for Humanity and Project Home),
  • the government’s support of home-buying and family-building
  • the optimism that says things like “who says I can’t do that?”

Ultimately, my point was that we should walk around our city (and country) and find
something good in it like Paul did when he went to Athens. He told the Areopagus this, “As I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. “ In the forest of  temples built to worship demons, Paul found a possibility. He found something he could report as good. I like that.

Life should be about seeing the Swiss cheese all around us instead of focusing on the holes. This should not only apply to the country, but to our intimate relationships, as well. It is all too easy to take a little trip around the “city” of our children, or birth families, or spouses, and note all the distressing issues, maybe even idols — and then get depressed, get scared, get mad, or get judgmental. It is great to walk around the “city” of our intimates and see what is good, even see where something in them is reaching out to the unknown God, or to imagine the unknown way God is going to save them in their distress.

I think that is how Jon Bon Jovi could walk around North Philadelphia with wise guides like the leaders of Habitat for Humanity or Project Home and see homes in the holes. That is how you and I can look around ourselves or our intimates and see wholeness in the holes. Who says we shouldn’t do that?

A Little Tweet of a Defense of Twitter

The Mission,

Not too long ago, one of the staff decided we needed to be on Twitter, as Circle of Hope, to talk to Tweeters. About 20 million Americans access Twitter about once a month. A lot of them are in the age group we like to influence. A lot of them influence the age group we like to influence.

So the staff got excited about this initiative and put the word out on the Dialogue List. We are @CircleofHopeNet. They even put a tweety on the announcement! They didn’t mean it to be a major use of their time; just more fun ways to get the word out.

Not too long afterward a person wrote in to the Dialogue List and said, “This is sad.” Not too long after that another person wrote in and said, “Unsubscribe!” We had a micro-protest about Twitter! No doubt there are many other people who would have protested or unsubscribed had they checked their email!

Gentle defense

I would like to make a gentle defense of Twitter-using. In the interest of full disclosure, I am @rodofcircle. I use it mainly for fun. The fact that I wrote this blog will also be made known to my few “followers.”

My main defense is this: Twitter is a tool. You don’t have to be a tool of Twitter. It is like
anything else.

Using a tool implies that you are making something. In this case Twitter could be building some community with people who use Twitter.

Not using Twitter is fine. Just because the staff is communicating that way doesn’t mean we have all succumbed to virtuality or that Joshua will be on a jumbotron next week at the PM. If you know of someone who is addicted to Twitter and not making relationships face-to-face, please do what you can do to help them. But not using Twitter out of some prejudice or knee-jerk reaction to anything faddish seems kind of ungenerous, maybe even fearful.

Gentle criticism

One the other hand, just going along with every social-networking thing the world produces isn’t necessarily action, either. Being tossed by every whim of technology could corrupt your soul. We are being assaulted on every side by some new invasion of our humanity by communication devices. Resisting is important.

I am not sure the Apostle Paul would have used Twitter; but it wouldn’t surprise me if he loved it. When Paul is working on how believers relate to the world, he has a lot to say (just do a little search of “world” in the internet Bible program). To the Corinthians he said,

“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.“ He finds it kind of obvious that we would lose our purpose if we left the world, somehow. He’s all about the mission.

I suppose the Twitter-objectors might be judging the Twitter-users of the church and deciding not to associate with such immoral people. I doubt it. (But I am checking.) I  suspect they are more concerned that we are becoming like the foolish people of the world, sucked into our devices and calling it relating. If that is their point, I think they have a good point. I think Paul’s point is that we don’t need to leave the world before our time. We’ll be associating until the time for associating is up. I think I am agreeing with Paul when I say that we don’t need to be “of” the world, but we do need to transform it. If God can be a baby and end up a slave to the world, I can hold my nose and use Twitter to communicate with the Twitterians.

Actually, I think Twitter is kind of fun. But I don’t recommend it to people who don’t want to use it to communicate for some eternal purpose. I don’t really do much, consciously at least, that doesn’t have some connection to Jesus, so Twitter is just one more thing. If you aren’t able to use it for mission, reject what you like. If I am trying to make an eternal difference, just pray for me if you think I am using questionable means. For me, Twitter is just another chance to give some news, be vulnerable, share a small touch of love or joy. It is like a tweet, but it is still music.