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Wonderfully made

A litany for worship inspired by Psalm 139

by Ken Sehested

Merciful One, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you hear my thoughts from far away.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

You know all my comings and goings, and I am never out of Your sight.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

Even before a word forms in my mind and comes from my lips, you already know it.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

You are the One who formed me and planted me in my mother’s womb.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

I have been awesomely and wonderfully made! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

Should I ever forget these things, visit me again to remind me.

Encompass me with your Presence, and lay your hand on my heart.

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

 

Ken Sehested, Circle of Mercy, 9.9.07

 

 

Religious liberty, or social mischief?

Understanding the "wall of separation" between church and state

by Ken Sehested
9 July 2017, Circle of Mercy Congregation, Asheville, NC
Text: Psalm 72
(The text below has been expanded from the original sermon.)

        Not so long ago a sermon on religious liberty would likely provoke yawns. The widespread and diverse claims of “religious freedom” are so common and unquestioned in our culture, they mostly go without notice. (Which, if anything, may be testimony to how tamed our assumptions have become.)

        In recent years, however, a new crop of claims of religious freedom has arisen to give credence to some very old forms of discrimination.[1] Some claims to religious liberty disguise social mischief. How do we distinguish the two?

         First, a little background.

        On a personal level, one of the toughest church-state conflicts I recall happened when we lived in Atlanta. Our congregation, where Nancy was associate pastor, had been given a piece of property behind our church house. Members of the church formed a mission group to build a group home for adults living with developmental disabilities. A few young upwardly mobile professionals in the neighborhood were fearful that such a facility would erode property values, so they began organizing against the zoning exemption needed to build the group home. And they won.

        So . . . was this a religious freedom issue, or just a real estate dispute?

        In recent years the issue of religious liberty has become a hot button in a number of ways. Abortion, of course; but even more dramatically, over whether a company’s health insurance should be required to cover contraceptives. Still in the headlines in numerous places is the controversy over whether county court house clerks can refuse on religious grounds to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

        Barely two months ago President Trump signed his “Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.” It takes aim at the 1954 Johnson Amendment to the US tax code, specifically prohibiting charitable organizations, including faith communities, from formally supporting or opposing candidates for political office. Truth is, though, that law has almost never been enforced even when flagrantly flaunted.

        Just a few weeks ago the Supreme Court ruled that a church in Missouri had been discriminated against when the state refused to subsidize improvements to the church playground. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the state wrongly denied the church “an otherwise available public benefit on account of its religious status.”[2]

        The notion that there should be a “wall of separation” between church and state is, at the same time, one of the more popular notions in our society and one of the most confused. The best way I know to proceed is to lay out a number of premises about what I think is true and what is false. I make no claim to inerrancy. On the one hand, there aren’t easy answers to all the questions. On the other, there’s a whole new pot of mischief brewing, with novel attempts to disguise bigotry as religious liberty. We have some hard intellectual work to do, including the recovery of history, to guide the claims we make and the commitments we take as people of faith and conscience. So let me begin with a list of eight premises.

      1. The “wall of separation” between church and state does not mean public policies are divorced from moral values. Our faith has plenty to say about the impact of moral vision on governing norms. The psalm I read earlier is among the countless texts in Scripture that speaks of holding public officials accountable to the needs of the poor.[3]

      On the other hand, people of faith come to public policy debates without any claim to privileged opinions. That justice should flow like a river is absolutely clear; what the plumbing looks like is a lot more complicated.

      I consider myself a person of relative intelligence, possessing a measure of wisdom, and a vivid moral passion for justice. But I have friends and acquaintances who are at least as intelligent, as wise, and passionate who disagree with me. Until the Reign of God descends and arises in all its fullness, we will always need to debate and negotiate with others about the precise shape of the Beloved Community.

      2. There are plenty of reasons to avoid being identified as a Baptist; but there is one very good reason to claim the tradition. If you believe in the separation of church and state, you must get to know the story of Roger Williams, a Puritan pastor who in 1631 migrated from Britain to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was a troublemaker from the beginning because of his convictions about what he called “soul liberty.” His thinking about faith includes a firm disavowal of the divine rights of kings and clergy alike. He is the one who first used the phrase about a “wall of separation between church and state,” though Thomas Jefferson would later get the credit for this phrase, one that was built into the First Amendment to the Constitution which says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . .”

      It was Williams who said, “Forced worship stinks in God's nostrils."[4] He wrote “It is the will and command of God that . . . a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish [meaning Muslim] or antichristian consciences and worships be granted to all men in all nations and countries.” The Puritans of Massachusetts kicked him out, and Williams fled to the wilderness of what we now call Rhode Island, where he literally formed the first Baptist church in the western hemisphere.

      3. There is a long history of governing authorities wanting to suppress the scope of faith communities’ influence in public affairs. Robert McAfee Brown wrote that such attempts "have been front and center ever since Pharaoh unsuccessfully tried to persuade Moses that religion had nothing to do with Egypt's domestic policy on the status of non-indentured servants." You may already know this quote from Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels who said: “Churchmen dabbling in politics should take note that their only task is to prepare for the world hereafter.”

      One of the most egregious examples of public officials attempting to undermine religious vision comes from 1962. A group of 200 business executives and university presidents formed what was called the Committee for Economic Development. The report they issued from is titled “An Adaptive Program for Agriculture.” One of the recommendations is this chilling statement: “Where there are religious obstacles to modern economic progress, the religion may have to be taken less seriously or its character altered.”[5]

      4. This privatizing of religious faith, removing its claims from the public square, is among the worst results of political liberalism’s damage to our commonwealth. Remanding the moral claims of spiritual vision to the sphere of private life is a bogus way of separating church and state.

      I have in my files letters to the editor in the Asheville Citizen-Times which claim that “our faith is best practiced privately—not forced upon others”; and another, “We must all remember that one’s spiritual faith is a private and personal matter, best practiced in our homes and churches.”

      We operate in an economy that blesses greed: that is to say, an economy that claims the common good will best be served if each pursues their personal interests. The only way to resist the rule of greed is to foster a transcendent vision which upholds a radically different way of envisioning and constructing our common life. One of the greatest reasons for hope we have is the emergence of leaders like Rev. William Barber who call for a “political Pentecost” of moral vigor.

      5. Despite what most of us were taught in school, neither democracy nor religious liberty had many adherents in colonial America.  In the settlements both in Massachusetts and in Virginia, church and state were intertwined. These early immigrants were generally not in favor of freedom of religion for everyone, but only for themselves. In Massachusetts the Congregational church ruled; in Virginia it was the Anglicans. There were severe civil penalties for refusing the dictates of church authorities. It wasn’t until the 1830s that state taxes to support the church were abandoned.

        6. When you boil it down, religious freedom is the product of social consensus formalized in public policy. There are numerous instances of denying claims of “religious freedom.” Polygamy is an obvious example. Parents who refuse medical treatment for children on religious grounds have been prosecuted and convicted by governing authorities. Local zoning laws which restrict new or expanded houses of worship are often upheld. Two years ago Duke University agreed to allow the Muslim student association to broadcast its Friday call to jum’ah prayer over the chapel tower sound system; but then reneged on that agreement when the school became the target of multiple violent threats.

        Here’s what one doctoral candidate at Duke, which was founded by Methodists and Quakers in 1938, said about the university’s reversal: “I’m a secular person. I’m not against religion. I think religion is good. But it has its place—inside the chapel.” This is the kind of so-called “progressivism” that has gutted prophetic speech.

      7. Having said all this, it must also be admitted that dictators love religion. They love it because religion has the uncanny ability to mobilize commitment under the banner of “God told me to do this,” and thereby justify all manner of deceit and brutality. The European settlers of North America employed the narrative of the Israelites conquering of Canaan to justify near-genocidal policies of Native Americans. They quoted Psalm 2:8 ("Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.") and Romans 13:2 ("Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.") to drive native peoples from their lands. The U.S. Supreme Court has on multiple occasion cited Pope Alexander VI’s “Doctrine of Discovery”—which authorized supplanting indigenous populations from the American hemisphere—to buttress their decisions, as recently as 2005.[6]

        During the Nixon presidency, evangelist Billy Graham encouraged the president to expand on the annual prayer breakfast and have Sunday religious services in the White House. Nixon aide Charles Colson later recalled: “Sure, we used the prayer breakfasts and religious services and all that for political purposes. One of my jobs in the White House was to romance religious leaders. We would bring them into the White House and they would be dazzled by the aura of the Oval Office, and I found them to be about the most pliable of any of the special interest groups that we worked with.”[7]

        8. Finally, religious liberty issues aren’t always easy to sort out, which brings us back to what I mentioned at the start, of whether the failed attempt to build a group home was an issue of religious freedom or merely a real estate matter. Common good? Or religious freedom?

        Religious institutions, including this congregation, are considered tax-exempt. Is this exemption a worthy form of church-state separation? Or does the exemption actually muzzle the church and serve as a kind of bribery to keep our mouths shut? The IRS recognizes two categories of citizens that get to claim a housing allowance tax exemption: members of the military and clergy. And what about the fact that military chaplains are paid by the Pentagon?[8] Do these policies serve the common good, or do they compromise truth for security?

        When Nancy and I were in seminary, the school wanted to be environmentally friendly (and save on heating bills) by installing storm windows. But since the building was on the historical registry, the city’s laws on historical preservation prevented the school from altering the building’s exterior. Common good? Or religious freedom?

        Last year several French cities banned the “burkini,” a swim apparel designed to maintain modesty for Muslim women at the beach. Then someone reminded them that Roman Catholic nuns in traditional attire would also be banned from the beach. The French Supreme Court overturned these local laws. Common good? Or religious freedom?

        Several places in Europe have banned burqas and hijabs worn in public by some Muslim women. Common good? Or religious freedom?

        About a decade ago some of the children in our Circle made the conscientious decision to refuse saying the Pledge of Allegiance that begins each day in public schools. For a time a group of families held a lively discussion about this choice. Common good? Or religious freedom?

        The questions pile up. We are pushed to ask, in what ways does the separation of church and state serve to protect the state? And in what ways does it serve to protect the church and preserve its prophetic voice? On what terms should people of faith be explicitly involved in public policy debates, and when should people of faith maintain its distance from partisan commitments?

        Some of the answers are pretty simple. Others are incredibly complex. So we have a lot of work to do.

        Our testimony needs to be clear: Faith is not an abandonment of the conflicted arena of history, but a fierce engagement driven by a particular bias—though to maintain critical independence and redemptive leverage, we must refuse in some circumstances to wield partisan favor. There are times when we rightly practice modesty in the debate over truth claims.

        Yet our witness needs to be adamant: God is more taken with the agony of the earth than with the ecstasy of heaven. The God of Scripture has an incessant, demanding, and overriding bias in favor of those who are pushed to the margins of our social, political and economic institutions. Placing ourselves on the margin—in any number of ways—is at the heart of our calling. And being at those margins as friends, not as managers, is crucial.

        None of these things are easy. But as Jesus reminded his disciples: I didn’t say it would be easy. I said it would be worth it.

#  #  #

BENEDICTION: Hear this benediction from Utah Philips, labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet and Christian pacifist:

      “The state can't give you freedom, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.”

#  #  #

ENDNOTES

[1] Since this sermon was given, a stunning example of “religious liberty” mischief occurred. On Tuesday 11 July Attorney General Jeff Session spoke at the “Summit on Religious Liberty” sponsored by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. No reporters were allowed to attend, and the Department of Justice has refused to release the text of his speech. Founded in 1994, the ADF offers legal training to equip participants to “effectively advocate for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family.” Although Sessions has pledged to enforce federal hate crimes laws, as a Senator he was opposed to the 2009 Hate Crimes Prevention Act. —Laura Jarrett, CNN

[2]Lauren Marko, “Supreme Court rules for Missouri church in ‘playground’ case,” Religion News Service

[3] “Every era manufactures a heresy proper to the times. Quietism is ours. We call it ‘separation of church and state’ now, but the effects are basically the same. Rather than defend the original meaning of the proposition that no single religion shall be our state religion, we misuse the concept to silence ourselves in the name of spirituality. We ignore the public arena and call ourselves ‘spiritual’ for doing so. We silence ourselves in the name of spirituality. We remove ourselves from things that are ‘passing.’ We aspire to ‘higher things’ than civil justice or care for the oppressed. We forgive ourselves our disinterest in the questions of our age on the grounds that those things have nothing to do with being Christian. Only the laws and the customs have something to do with being Christian, we argue, not the gospel.” Joan D. Chittister, Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir

[4] Letter to Major John Wilson and Connecticut Governor Thomas Prence, 22 June 1670

[5] Quoted in Economic Development, Theory, History, and Policy, Gerald M. Meier and Robert Baldwin (John Wiley and Sons, 1957) n. 2, p. 112

[6] Wikipedia

[7] Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, p. 251

[8] See my Christian Century article, “Loyalty Test: The Case of Chaplain Robertson.”

Loyalty Test: The Case of Chaplain Robertson

by Ken Sehested

Originally printed in the 2 March 1994 issue of The Christian Century

      Lieutenant Colonel Garland Robertson is an Air Force chaplain at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas. He is endorsed by the Southern Baptist Convention's chaplaincy office. His military record includes a Distinguished Flying Cross for rescue of a reconnaissance team in Vietnam during the war there. He has commanded a nuclear missile site. A native Mississippian, he is self-effacing, almost shy.

      Despite these conventional contours, Chaplain Robertson is being booted out of the military (pending appeal). He has so threatened superiors that they have resorted to fabricating a psychological exam indicating a dysfunction personality. Stripped of all duties, he has been removed from the chapel offices and sequestered in a windowless, walk-in closet sized room adjacent to the base runway. He now spends his days writing book reviews for a chaplain's resource bureau against the background of B-1B bomber flights. Any day now a Dyess pilot will begin training on the new B2, and Robertson will hear the verdict on his dismissal appeal.

      Robertson, accused of "flouting" the very authority of the President himself,* has made the transition from obscurity to national attention (prompted by a December 21, 1993, feature in The New York Times). His catapult to infamy began with a January 5, 1991, letter to the editor printed in the Abilene Reporter-News. Responding to reporting of former Vice President Day Quayle's speech assuring U.S. troops mobilized to Saudi Arabia that "the American people are behind you," Robertson wrote that the assertion "must be clarified to indicate that the American people are not united in their decision to support a military offensive against the aggression of Saddam Hussein in Kuwait." It was, he thought, a modest attempt to raise the question of justifiable use of deadly force.

      The backdrop to Robertson's desire for public debate stems from several experiences. The first, from his stint as a pilot in Vietnam. After ROTC leadership during his collegiate career at Mississippi State University, Robertson volunteered in 1968 for service in Southeast Asia.

      "I assumed that our leaders were telling us the truth" about the need to support democracy and oppose tyranny in Vietnam, Robertson said in a recent interview. After a year in the area, he came to believe otherwise.

      Robertson resigned from active duty as a line officer in 1976 to pursue a theological degree. In six years he earned both a Master of Divinity and a doctorate in theology from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Wort, Texas. In 1982 he reactivated as an Air Force chaplain. After initial posting in Florida, Robertson assumed chaplaincy duties overseas.

      While in Germany, his patriotic innocence suffered a second setback in the midst of a course in international affairs and foreign policy. He began to see the connections between U.S. appeals to "vital national interests" and the existence of raw materials—like oil—in other parts of the world. Where U.S. intervention abroad had been justified in terms of protecting freedom, he now sensed other motivations.

      Most immediately, however, the urgency of moral questions regarding war in the Persian Gulf was prompted by direct pastoral duties. "Soldiers were asking me in private what I thought about the impending war," Robertson said. "They had troubled consciences. They wanted to know if [fighting this war] was right."

      Robertson was aware that leaders of many Christian bodies were publicly examining the morality of a potential war. A number were arguing—rightfully, he thought—that a U.S. military engagement with Iraq could not as yet be justified according to the traditional criteria of just war theory. So, out of a sense of pastoral duty, he wrote his fateful four-paragraph letter. Although he identified himself as a Dyess AFB chaplain, he omitted his rank, judging that such an omission would satisfy Air Force regulations regarding public statements.

      He knew the letter would raise objections, but the resulting furor caught him by surprise. As revealed in documents produced and testimony provided at his September 1993 Board of Inquiry disciplinary hearing, Air Force superiors engaged in a relentless campaign to intimidate Robertson in hopes of forcing him out of the service. The Air Force psychologist responsible for authoring two of the three evaluations of Robertson testified that the wing leadership "wanted his head."* When an initial psychological examination produced no evidence of mental dysfunction, a second was ordered, and then a third. The very psychologist who provided him a clean bill of health the first time reversed his decision with the third, concluding that Robertson exhibited a "personality disorder so severe as to interfere with the normal and customary completion of his duties."* What's more, this latter evaluation was made without an examination, breaching the most elementary rules of conduct for the profession.

      A civilian employee testified that her former boss, the senior chaplain at Dyess, had taken her aside after one Sunday morning service "to tell me he had to get Chaplain Robertson out of the service. Chaplain Elwell went on to tell me that this task must be accomplished by a certain date . . . so that he [Robertson] would not be entitled to full retirement benefits." It seemed evident, she said that he "had been told that part of his job was to remove Chaplain Robertson."*

      Robertson was soon removed from the chapel's preaching schedule rotation "until the completion of Desert Shield/Desert Storm"* (and, later in the year, removed permanently). The Dyess wing commander indicated he would manage Robertson "as an officer can not as a chaplain."* His orders to relocate to Germany in preparation for the arrival of expected casualties from the Persian Gulf were canceled. One by one his other pastoral duties were withdrawn: leadership of the base chapel choir, special educational classes, even Bible study and prayer services with those detained at the base stockade. Later, a full-scale inquiry by the Office of Special Investigations was instigated. Robertson was cleared of a mysterious charge of fraud.

      At one point an officer from the Chief of Chaplains office in Washington, D.C., paid a visit. "He indicated that compromise was essential for becoming a successful military chaplain," Robertson said. "I suggested that 'cooperation' was the more suitable word, but he quickly confirmed his intentional use of 'compromise.'

      "'If Jesus had been an Air Force chaplain,' he told me, 'he would have been court-martialed.' But he said that compromise is necessary in order to maintain a presence." His meaning was as certain as it was unacceptable, said Robertson. In a letter to Air Force Secretary Widnall, Robertson says, "If this senior command chaplain is correct—that compromise is necessary to survive in the Air Force as a chaplain—then reveal this restriction. The Air Force maintains that chaplains are free to proclaim and practice their witness without fear of reprisal. . . . It is important that we not deceive persons who look to chaplains for assistance in spiritual growth and faith development."

      Maybe the most painful part for Chaplain Robertson in this unfolding drama is the lack of support from fellow chaplains. A letter from the Chief of Chaplains office indicated that Robertson was on his own in this affair. Fellow chaplains at Dyess were supportive at first, but the support waned as pressure mounted. The senior chaplain even went to the trouble of rewriting the official statement of mission of Air Force chaplains, adding to the duty of "providing free exercise of religion" the qualifying statement ". . . consonant with 96th Wing Commander directives."* (The editing was later reversed.) Chaplains, in other words, were to function as morale officers in the service of command directives. (Incidentally, military chaplains accompanying troops deployed to Saudi Arabia were given the functional description of "morale officers" for that action, although this designation was later removed.)

      In a February 1993 letter to officials at the National Council of Churches, Robertson wrote: "No minister of a faith community can comfortably encourage anyone to follow the direction of the state as a way to be at peace with God. By functioning as a morale officer, the chaplain only succeeds in encouraging soldiers to accept the preferences of the state without question."

      Thus far, however, Robertson has maintained private support and official recognition of his certifying agency, along with the very public support of a Southern Baptist congregation in Abilene.

      "We are supporting Chaplain Robertson, and we have no intention of revoking his endorsement," said Rev. Lewis Burnett, director of military chaplaincy for the Southern Baptist Convention, in a telephone interview.

      According to Burnett, himself a former Army chaplain, the controversy regarding Robertson could have been resolved much earlier if both Robertson and the Chief of Chaplains office had handled the situation differently. "I don't necessarily agree with the way [Robertson] handled the situation, but I fully respect his sincerity and convictions." And, he continued, the Air Force's senior chaplaincy should have involved themselves sooner and more forcefully as mediators.

      "Garland is the kind of person who stands up for his convictions, and that sometimes hurts him," Burnett said in The New York Times article. However, he did express hope that the Secretary of the Air Force will overturn the Board of Inquiry's recommendation and that Robertson will be reinstated or at least discharged with full benefits.

      Members of Second Baptist Church in Abilene, however, have been more vocal. Shortly after Robertson's case became known last September, the pastor, Rev. Ron Linebarger—himself an Army veteran—called the church into a business meeting and voted "overwhelmingly" to use all available means to support Robertson. Though none of them have met Robertson, the decision of the congregation was announced in a news conference where Linebarger announced that the church wished to "applaud [Robertson] for taking a stand," and expressed the fear that the he was being "railroaded," according to a front page story in the Abilene Reporter-News (September 11, 1993).

      Actually, the precise case against Robertson is itself a source of contention. After his original letter to the editor, the Dyess base commander issued a formal reprimand, citing him with abrogation of Regulation 110-2, on "Political Activities of Members of the Air Force, a charge leading to court-martial proceedings under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (Article 92). One section of that regulation (5-g) notes Air Force members may "Write a letter to the editor of a newspaper expressing the member's personal views concerning public issues, if those views do not attempt to promote a partisan political cause."

      The issue of Robertson's letter to the editor was also highlighted in comments from the Chief of Chaplains office in Washington, D.C. According to Chaplain Lorraine Potter, the chief of plans and programs for the Air Force Chief of Chaplains quoted in The New York Times article, "The argument is not what he said but that he used his position to express political or controversial issues." In a follow-up phone call, Colonel Potter indicated she was under orders to make no further comment at present.

      However, according to the Air Force's own case against Robertson, heard by the Board of Inquiry (BOI) last September, the seditious letter to the editor was in fact declared "irrelevant."

      Three allegations ("Statement of Reasons") were brought to the BOI administrative hearing. The first, that Robertson was "disrespectful in words and actions towards his immediate superior. . . ." Second, that his "leadership skills were below standard." Third, that he was diagnosed as "having a personality disorder."

      After hearing extensive testimony, the BOI threw out two of the three allegations against Robertson—those of "disrespect" and personality disorder. The remaining charge of substandard leadership was sustained, along with the recommendation of an honorable discharge.

      The one allegation upheld by the BOI was substantiated by an annual evaluation, written in April 1991, noting that Robertson's "leadership style produced minimal results."* This marked a radical reversal, however, from his previous assessment, where he was characterized as "an outstanding pastoral chaplain, always eager to help others and consistently displays industriousness, conscientiousness and diligence in his ministry."* The same senior chaplain and base commander wrote and approved both reports.

      The allegation was further contradicted by the sworn statements of two parish council members of the Dyess AFB chapel community, one of whom testified that she felt "that [Robertson] was being censored. . . . [I]f our chapel is going to be the type of chapel where our chaplains are going to be told what they can and what they cannot say when they come before the flock, then we may as well disband the chaplaincy."*

      Responding to Robertson's appeal of an Officer Performance Report, the Air Force Judge Advocate wrote, in part, that "What the applicant characterizes as pastoral, fairly falls under the characterization of political activity."*

      Robertson responds that it is Air Force authorities, not he, who are engaging in political activity in their recommendation of dismissal. He wonders whether federal funds are being used to turn the chaplaincy "into an agency promoting a kind of civil religion. If the power of the state is unrestricted, then those of us who minister to members of the military forces are guilty of sacrificing the souls of our comrades on the altar of nationalism."

      Moreover—and more importantly, insists Robertson—the very integrity of the military chaplaincy is at stake in this case. His appointed legal advocate agreed. In a final summary statement, Air Force Captain Shaun Riley argues:

      "Discharging Chaplain Robertson would not only be a gross injustice to him and his family, but will also call the constitutional legitimacy of the military chaplaincy into question in subsequent actions. If the government discharges chaplains who refuse to compromise their religious beliefs, speech and teachings to appease military commanders, we will . . . have created a religious body, under federal salary, that exists soley to support government policy and objectives. Yes, this is government establishment of religion in its purest form."

      Robertson is convinced that if the military chaplaincy is to retain any semblance of its Gospel mandate—if its function is to be more than that of morale officers supporting command decisions and U.S. foreign policy directives—then it must be demilitarized. The religious agencies will certify their respective chaplains must "reclaim their pastoral offices" and must be free to speak to the points where religious convictions and command directives collide, said Robertson. This means chaplains must come under the direct employment of their sponsoring bodies and must serve without the privilege of rank.

      The Air Force Secretary's decision is due any day now. She can choose to reverse the Board of Inquiry's judgment of an honorable discharge without pension ($29,000 annually in Robertson's case). Her decision could be significant in answering Robertson's fundamental question:

      "Are we ministers of the state or of the church of Jesus Christ?"

#  #  #

*Quotes so noted are taken from the transcript of testimony of the 16-17 September 1993 Air Force Regulation 36-2 Board of Inquiry, an administrative hearing presided over by three Air Force Colonels to collect evidence and rule on the Dyess Air Force base commander's recommendation of honorable discharge for Chaplain Garland Robertson. This article was based on a personal interview with Chaplain Robertson, January 17-18, 1994, at Dyess Air Force Base.

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  11 July 2017  •  No. 127

Invocation. “I will bow and be simple, / I will bow and be free, / I will bow and be humble, / Yea, bow like the willow tree. / I will bow, this is the token, / I will wear the easy yoke, / I will bow and will be broken, / Yea, I'll fall upon the rock.” —a Shaker hymn, “I Will Bow and Be Simple” performed The Christmas Revels

Above: Photo by Gus Ravenwheel

Abbreviated issue

This week’s column is brief to allow for some maintenance.

In his classic book on spirituality and prophetic life, We Drink From Our Own Wells, Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez writes:

        “At the root of every spirituality there is a particular experience that is had by concrete persons living at a particular time. . . . The great spiritualities in the life of the church continue to exist because they keep sending their followers back to the sources. . . . Spiritual experience is the terrain in which theological reflection strikes root. Intellectual comprehension makes it possible to carry the experience always comes first and is the source.”

        Articulating the faith—in commonplace terms or literate—is always secondary to actual living in the midst of particular, often mundane, circumstances. But we all profit from those whose capacity with words throw light on our common journey.

        In recent weeks I’ve been especially taken by the reflected experience shared by two friends. Below are excerpts.

        Finally, we close with a word of victory from the war against ISIS—which raises the question, what has been won?

§  §  §

Micah Bucey, associate pastor of Judson Memorial Church in New York City, received a damning letter after the recent “Gay Pride” march. I love the way he responds with a fierce mercy and also by affirming this movement in the context of a larger Movement:

        “. . . But this year, our Pride March will be a Resistance Riot, a queer agenda that moves beyond the gay one, an embodied reminder, not only to you, but to ourselves, a reminder that we are only as queer as the last person we’ve saved, that we are only as queer as the last battle we’ve fought, that we are only as queer as the last opportunity we took to step outside our complacent commitments to assimilation and nudge ourselves back to the revolution that saved our lives in the first place.” —you can read the entirety of Micah’s response on Facebook

§  §  §

Greg Yost, formerly a high school math teacher, is among the founders and leaders of Beyond Extreme Energy, an environmental group that focuses on opposing natural gas pipelines and storage facilities. (Methane, the primary component in natural gas, is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.)

        In a recent sermon in our congregation, Greg used Jesus’ statement, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39), then recounted his Witness for Peace trip to Nicaragua when he was 19, during the US-backed Contra War during the 1980s, when the US attempted to overthrow the country’s democratically elected government.

        “. . . That short time in Nicaragua in 1986 was a defining moment in my life of faith. But I want to be clear about what it has meant subsequently. Despite the physical and spiritual drama, I did not experience the trip as some hard-won climb to a higher spiritual vantage point. Rather, it has been less about elevation and much more about orientation. It decisively affected the direction of my life’s compass needle. It has made me hold some things looser and other things much tighter than I ever would have otherwise.

        “I offer this testimony confident that many of you will have experienced a similar orienting moment in your own life of faith. If you have, I invite you to reflect on it now. One time-tested way of speaking of such things is using the language of ‘conversion.’

        “I know common religious misuse and abuse of that word may have made it off putting for some, but I’d invite you to let your guard down. Think about what it means. It’s well and good that together we have such varied ways individually of conceptualizing our spiritual lives. One way that is so, so powerful is that of simply following Jesus. We know from the gospels enough about who he is and what he will dare to do to know that moments of decision, or conversion, are an essential requirement for joining him along that way. He told us, plainly and repeatedly, that his way leads to a cross. No one sets a course thus by happenstance.”

§  §  §

Benediction. “There will be a jubilee / Oh my lord oh my lord / There will be a jubilee / When the children all go free / Yeah they'll lay down their swords / They'll study war no more / There'll be a great big jubilee.” —The Devil Makes Three, “There’ll Be a Jubilee”

#  #  #

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  4 July 2017  •  No. 126

Processional. “Memory,” Barbara Streisand.

Above: Maze Overlook, Canyonlands National Park-Utah-Photo by Tom Till

Special issue
MEMORY AS SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE

Introduction

        Broadly speaking, there are two forms of memory loss, and both involve history.

        Many of us have cared for, or now care for, loved ones enduring the ravages of dementia. It is heart-breaking, exhausting work. But this is not the topic of this column.

        The other form of memory loss is a spiritual condition which also leads to brutal historical disordering but on a larger public scale. Theologically speaking, this kind of confusion—as to whom we belong, to whose purposes we are called, and over which security terms are trustworthy—leads to deceit, to violence, and to death.

        This special issue was inspired by an article by my friend and colleague Joyce Hollyday, celebrating the departure of one of our congregation’s youth on a Witness for Peace delegation to Nicaragua. In 1983 Joyce was among the founders of Witness for Peace, a faith-based response to the Reagan Administration’s secret war against the government of Nicaragua, funded by illegal (some would say treasonous) sales of weapons to Iran

        “I’ve been part of a lot of failures in the past three and a half decades,” Joyce writes. “Despite all our efforts for justice and peace, the world is a colossal mess. . . . Back in the 1980s, when I went to Nicaragua, I was an editor for Sojourners. One morning a call came into the magazine’s office from a friend in Congress. He reported that he had just come from a military briefing in which the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had announced:

        “‘We could have invaded Nicaragua if we could have gotten the damn Christians out of the way.’”

        (Read Joyce's essay, “Making a Difference.”)

        Getting in the way of all sorts of traffickers of human and environmental misery is not the only thing we do in joyful response to Jesus’ summons, but often it’s a starting place. Such work doesn’t always “work.” We carry on, not so much to succeed but simply to breathe.

        It’s always nice, though, to get an inkling of the results.

#  #  #

Invocation. “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with God. God walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labor is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.” —C. S. Lewis

Call to worship. “Precious Memories,” Alan Jackson.

¶ Memory recovery. The University of Virginia “is planning to build a large and visible memorial to commemorate the contributions of an estimated 5,000 enslaved people who helped build and maintain the school founded by the third U.S. president.” (See the artist’s rendering at left.) —Susan Svriuga, Washington Post (Thanks Sally.)

More than 50 times the Pentateuch uses a variation of this statement, “Remember you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord Your God redeemed you” (Deut. 15:15). Similar expressions occur more than 100 times in the rest of the Hebrew Bible.

Hymn of praise. “When there was no ear to hear / You sang to me. . . / When there were no strings to play / You played to me. . . / When I had no wings to fly / You flew to me. . . / When there was no dream of mine / You dreamed of me.” —Grateful Dead, “Attics of My Life”

¶ “A people’s memory sets the measure of its political freedom.” —Wilson Carey McWilliams

Confession. “‘Remembering the future’ is at the heart of our redemptive calling. Remembering the future is what we ritually practice in the celebration of the Eucharist, communion, the Lord’s Supper. People on the Way of Jesus are by definition an unreasonable people—if, by reason, you mean . . . that respect comes at the price of threat.” —continue reading “Remembering the Future: a World Communion Sunday sermon”

¶ “To forgive is not to forget, but to remember in a different way—in a way that no longer holds us captive to the past.” —R. Schreiter, C.PP.S.

Hymn of lamentation. “By the waters of luxury, we sat and tired to sing again / hung our harps of the traffic signs, ‘cause the music could not come. / In our capital captivity, heated and cooled by central air, / in an alien land that we made for ourselves, we tried to remember home.” —Ken Medema, “By the Waters of Luxury”

Words of assurance. What can we do? We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue to build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar. . . . We can re-invent civil disobedience in a million different ways. In other words, we can come up with a million ways of becoming a collective pain in the ass. . . . Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” —Arundhati Roy

Professing our faith. “If you want to be remembered, give yourself away.” — William Bryant Logan

Hymn of resolution. “Though the nations rage from age to age, we remember who holds us fast; / God’s mercy shall deliver us from the conqueror’s crushing grasp. / This saving word that our forebears heard is the promise which holds us bound, / Till the spear and rod can be quelled by God who is turning the world around.” —Gary Daigle, Rory Cooney & Theresa Donohoo, “Canticle of the Turning”

Hymn of intercession. “Lord Remember Me,” Ruthie Foster, featuring the Blind Boys of Alabama.

Short take. “When people say to me that the [monuments to the Confederacy] are history . . . it immediately begs the questions, why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings [540 alone in Louisiana], nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame. . . . So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission. There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it.” —New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landreu, explaining why the city recently removed statues commemorating the Confederacy. Read the full text or watch the video (23:04).

Left: Statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee being removed in New Orleans.

¶ “I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessing cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others.” —excerpt from “17th century nun’s prayer”

By the numbers. The establishment of Confederate monuments [numbering more than 700], which crested between 1900 and 1930 and again during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, didn’t end with the 20th century. Their numbers actually have been increasing. In North Carolina, for instance, 35 monuments have been added since 2000, according to a University of North Carolina survey. One, dedicated in Mitchell County in 2011, commemorates 79 men “who died for their freedom and independence.’’ And not for slavery. —Rick Hampson, USAToday

Offertory. “Lord Do Remember Me,” Mississippi John Hurt.

Preach it. “Essentially, a church is a community that keeps alive the dangerous memories of its classics. The memory of Jesus, for example, disconcerts all present reality, including that of the church, because He essentially afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. . . . This is a dangerous occupation.” —David Tracy

Can’t makes this sh*t up. The “Colfax Riot” (see historical marker at right) was not a riot but a massacre. During Reconstruction, following the Civil War, a Fusion-Republican party (coalition of black and white citizens) made significant electoral gains in Grant Parish, Louisiana. A group of white vigilantes attacked the Colfax courthouse in an attempted coup d’état. Most of the 150 African Americans killed were murdered after they surrendered.

¶ "The one who delivers the blow forgets. The one who bears its mark remembers." —Haitian proverb

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which began hearings in 1996, is the most well known of dozens of such efforts in other countries. The goal for each has been to face a brutal history of repression in order to set the stage for public healing. Here is a list of such commissions elsewhere, including one in Greensboro, NC.

¶ "Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." —Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh (A.A. Milne)

Call to the table. At this table of remembrance, the Blessed One is at work disremembering your soiled and sullied moments, saying, “Won’t you join me in disremembering the slights you still clutch?”

        “Behold,” the Spirit whispers to all with ears to hear, “I am doing a new thing, beyond your wildest dreams and favored calculations!” —continue reading “Remembering in a different way: A call to the Table

¶ “The body remembers what the mind forgets.” —Martha Manning

¶ “In In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies, David Rieff quotes approvingly the suggestion of a Northern Irish writer that the next memorial to Irish history should be ‘raising a monument to Amnesia, and forgetting where we put it.’” —Gary J. Bass

¶ "Hope, like every virtue, is a choice that becomes a habit that becomes spiritual muscle memory. It's a renewable resource for moving through life as it is, not as we wish it to be." —Krista Tippett

The state of our disunion. A Confederate memorial in front of the Anderson County, South Carolina courthouse bear this inscription: "The world shall yet decide, in truth's clear, far-off light, that the soldiers who wore the gray, and died with Lee, were in the right.”

Best one-liner. “One day we’ll wake to remember how lovely we are.” —Bruce Cockburn, “Wait No More”

For the beauty of the earth. A flock of starlings in startling performance. A film by Liberty Smith and Sophie Windsor Clive, music by Nomad Soul. (2:00.)

Altar call. “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to

emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.” —Howard Zinn

What to tell the children? “. . .You tell them / To stand up and fight. / Remind them of all the lawful atrocities / Committed in the sick and twisted history / Of this violent country. . . / Tell them love will win this war, / But only if we remember / That love is not just one unending cuddle puddle, / But fierce as a mother bear protecting her cubs.” —Rachel Kann

Benediction. “Remember your ancestors. Say their names out loud and often. Give thanks that you are not alone. You are not creating this movement out of nothing. It’s been done over and over again. Your work is simply to offer new gifts to old work.” —Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

Recessional. “When I am laid, am laid in earth, / May my wrongs create / No trouble, no trouble in thy breast. / Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate. / Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.” —Alison Moyet, Dido’s Lament from “Dido and Aeneas” by Henry Purcell

Lectionary for this Sunday. “O God of justice, ignite the hearts of our legislators with your commitment to truth and your demand for justice. May their hands be large enough to reach across the bloody divisions in our land.” —continue reading “Give wisdom to legislators,” a litany inspired by Psalm 72

Lectionary for Sunday next. “To the Blessed One of Heaven does my heart heave its burden. / For release from my shame, I wait all the day long. / Silence accusers; still every sharp tongue. / For pardon amid failure, I wait all the day long.” —continue reading “All the day long,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 25

Just for fun. When sculpture and kids interact.

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Of thee I sing: An Independence Day meditation”

• “Remembering the Future,” a World Communion Sunday sermon

• “Remembering in a different way,” a call to the Table
 

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.
 

Liberating Bible Study

Laurel Dykstra and Ched Myers, eds., Wipf and Stock, 2011, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Here is an excellent compilation of 25 essays dealing with social justice issues as they are dealt with by biblical writers and by current activists. ‘The bible is a record of displaced and dispossessed people who have found a communal identity…. It provides an important perspective for reflecting on responsibilities toward refugees…. The bible is a book by and for refugees…. First century Christianity in Asia Minor, as reflected in 1 Peter, faced the same issues as did the church in Central America in recent years’ (p 198,199).

        The book has well defined subject matter: chs 1-10, the Hebrew bible; 11-19, Jesus and the gospels; 20-25, the Epistles. I found the last section the most moving as the writers dealt with issues of sanctuary: the church as counter-cultural, the biblical emphasis on hospitality, and a powerful poem reflecting on Vancouver’s east side street life of the homeless.

        The fiery trial (1 Peter 4:12) is not so much a case of persecution by outsiders but of collusion with the enemy, capitulation to consumerism, the profit motive, conformity to values diametrically opposed to a gospel celebrating G-d’s favour toward the poor. The ‘Christian nations make and sell the bombs, train the torturers, create and refuse the refugees’ (p 210). A powerful section deals with 17 political dimensions that appeared in the Galilee of Jesus’ day and contemporary forms (‘top down social organizations and control’, p 149-151).

        A powerful look at the bible’s treatment of social dynamics.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

The Power of Parable: How Fiction BY Jesus became Fiction ABOUT Jesus

John Dominic Crossan. HarperCollins, 2012, reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Crossan examines Jesus’ parables and identifies what he calls the ‘challenge parable’ as Jesus’ chosen teaching tool for urging his followers to probe, question and debate the absolutes of religious faith and the presuppositions of social, political and economic traditions. He proposes a three-fold typology for the parable genre: riddle parables (allegory) (eg Sower and the Seed, Mark 4); example (seeing the lost things (Luke 15) and challenge (his major category)(p 244). He then presents the four gospels as mega parables, interpretation by the gospel writers challenging and enabling us to co-create with G-d a world of justice, love and peace.

        Crossan invites a new perspective involving the probable setting of an oral tradition. ‘Would there have been an absolute and respectful silence, for say an hour plus as Jesus performed his story? Or would there have been interruptions and pushbacks, agreements and agreements, not only between speaker and hearers, but among the hearers themselves?’ (p 95), an audience participation involved a class reversal of traditional expectations (eg the Good Samaritan). Challenge parables are participatory—because provocative—pedagogy. The gospels are challenge parables not by but about Jesus.

        Crossan presents a non-violent Jesus who rejects rhetorical violence. But what of the violent metaphors Jesus uses (ie ’hypocrites’, especially in Matthew 23)? Here Crossan sees the gospel writers as parable writers; ‘does Jesus change his mind or does Matthew change his Jesus?” (p 187). ‘The power of Jesus’ parables challenged and enabled his followers to co-create with G-d a world of justice and love, peace and nonviolence’ ( p 252).

        A wonderful exposition of parables by and about Jesus.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  28 June 2017  •  No. 125

Processional. “Stand By Me,” Steel Pan band at the 30th anniversary Flatbush Frolic in Brooklyn, NY.

Special issue
PATRIOTISM

Invocation. “To the one unchanged  / Yesterday and today  / Oh YHWH  / I will try to stay awake  / Take my last breath of faith  / As I wait for you to come / Take me beyond  / This land undone  / Over the flood  / By your word, spirit, and blood.” —Josh Garrels, “Words Remain”

This was once on the tip of our national tongue. “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled there will be America's heart, her benedictions and her prayers. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” However, should we succumb to the temptation of “wars of interest and intrigue, . . . fundamental maxims of [US] policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. . . she might become the dictatress of the world.” —President John Quincy Adams, Washington, DC, 4 July 1821

One of the first treaties signed by the US, with Tripoli (now Libya) in 1796, rejected any notion of theocratic governance, stating that "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." —Wikipedia

Call to worship. “O God of justice, ignite the hearts of our legislators with your commitment to truth and your demand for justice. May their hands be large enough to reach across the bloody divisions in our land.” —continue reading “Give wisdom to legislators,” a litany inspired by Psalm 72

Good news. This is an extraordinarily moving story from National Public Radio about a music therapist and a dying patient. Listen (5:08) or read the transcript. —Erika Lantz 

Hymn of praise. Monastery of St. Clare, Lusaka, Zambia.

¶ “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.” —Charles De Gaulle

Confession. “Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.” —Thorstein Veblen

During the Spanish-American War of 1898, “As our armies were committing massacres in the Philippines (at least 600,000 Filipinos died in a few years of conflict) [and waterboarding was used in interrogation], Elihu Root, our secretary of war, was saying: ‘The American soldier is different from all other soldiers of all other countries since the war began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, of law and order, and of peace and happiness.’" —Howard Zinn, “Put Away the Flags”

¶ “Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.” —George Orwell

Among the sacred Independence Day traditions in the US is the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Matt Stonie set the current record in 2015, eating 69 hot dogs (and buns) in 10 minutes. Stonie is ranked the No. 1 eater by Major League Eating. (Yes, that’s a thing.)

You do propaganda; we do public relations. Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud's American nephew. During World War I, he used his uncle's psychological theories to aid the war effort through propaganda in Europe, playing on people's subconscious desires and fears to achieve favorable results for the Allies.

        “When I came back to the US,” Bernays recalled many years later, “I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it, so what I did was to try and find some other word.”

        Bernays, considered one of the founders fathers of the public relations professions, developed the concept of public relations as “the engineering of consent” which he called “the very essence of the democratic process.” —Jonathan Langley, “Creating Consumers: Psychology, Propaganda and the Economy”

Decibel freedom. “. . . we have the right and obligation to protect what others have fought and died for.” —letter to the editor, Asheville Citizen-Times, from a motorcyclist rejecting calls for stricter enforcement of vehicular noise regulations

¶ “It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.” —Voltaire

Words of assurance. “Burdens now may crush me down, / Disappointments all around, / Troubles speak in mournful sigh, / Sorrow through a tear stained eye; / There is a world where pleasure reigns, / No mourning soul shall roam its plains, / And to that land of peace and glory / I want to go some day.” —MetroSingers, “Someday.”  See all Charles A. Tindley's lyrics to this hymn.

Over the past decades the aphorism “'freedom is not free' has become a popular patriotic refrain. But we forget that, in 1953, Army Chief of Staff General Matthew Ridgeway used the phrase to identify the difference between those who torture their captives and those who, like us, believe the disavowal of torture is among the 'self-evident truths' dating from our Republic’s founding. The 'cost' of freedom entails moral accountability. —excerpted from “The cost of freedom entails moral accountability: The need for truthtelling about the CIA’s torturing practices”

¶ "Lost souls escape their loss of control in patriotism." —Dr. Samuel Johnson

Professing our faith. “I want our nation to listen to a poet who dares to unchoke love from bellowing patriotism. One who will resuscitate the word with the sharp rib-cracking pressure of truth, so that the gasp of the future may rush into our lungs, that we might breathe together and survive our broken hearts.” —Rivera Sun, “Sing the Body Politic, Electric,” CommonDreams

Hymn of resolution. “This is my song, O God of all Nations / A song of peace for lands afar and mine / This is my home, the country where my heart is / Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine / But other hearts in other lands are beating / With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.” —Indigo Girls, with Michelle Malone, “Song of Peace (Finlandia)”

Short story. “Some years ago, on a visit to the Maritime provinces of Canada, we took a history tour of St. John, New Brunswick, and learned details of a narrative I vaguely recalled. St. John’s story is uniquely tied to US history.

        “The city's legacy dates to 1783, shortly after the Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolutionary War, when British Loyalists fled to Canada. Terms of the Treaty stipulated reparations by the new U.S. Congress for those whose properties had been destroyed or expropriated. Congress decided to leave the matter to the individual states. You can imagine how far that went.” —continue reading “Of thee I sing: An Independence Day meditation”

¶ “Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to its victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is, nobody really possesses it.” —Simone Weil

Hymn of intercession. “From the north to the south / from the west to the east / hear the prayer of the mothers / bring them peace / bring them peace.” —Yael Deckelbaum & Prayer of the Mothers, “This Land”(English translation of Hebrew and Egyptian Arabic lyrics), a 14-member ensemble of Jewish, Arab and Christian women

When only the blues will do. —Layla Zoe, “Don’t wanna hurt nobody”

By the numbers: National standing takes a hit. A new Pew Research Center poll of citizens in 37 countries around the globe found that only 22% of respondents have confidence Trump will act wisely in international affairs. Previously, President Obama had a 64% rating. Favorability ratings of the US also dropped from 64% to 49%. —John Bacon, USAToday

Offertory. “Your Eyes,” Anoushka Shankar.

Preach it. “Here is the mystery, the secret, one might almost say the cunning, of the deep love of God: that it is bound to draw on to itself the hatred and pain and shame and anger and bitterness and rejection of the world, but to draw all those things on to itself is precisely the means, chosen from all eternity by the generous, loving God, by which to rid his world of the evils which have resulted from human abuse of God-given freedom.” —N.T. Wright

Can’t makes this sh*t up. In his first four months in office, “drain-the-swamp” Donald Trump has granted more waivers for former lobbyists to work in his administration than Obama did in eight years. —Matthew Yglesias, Vox

Call to the table. “What many of us have been attempting to do—build a thriving multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-faith, egalitarian democracy out of the rubble of slavery and genocide—has never been achieved in the history of the world. Some say it can never be done. Is America Possible? That’s the question we face right now.” —Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow,” Radical Discipleship

The state of our disunion. “This nation is founded on blood like a city on swamps / yet its dream has been beautiful and sometimes just / that now grows brutal and heavy as a burned-out star.” —Marge Piercy, in “Circles on the Water”

Best one (long) liner. “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.” —George Washington, 2 December 1783 letter (Original spellings as shown. Thanks Courtney.)

For the beauty of the earth. Blooming cacti. (3:27 video.)

Altar call. “The devil lies to the kings and gets them blind drunk on his wine of Patriotism and they fill their subjects with the same stuff and tell them that their fatherland is in danger and they must fight to protest it. That is a lie of the Devil.

        “The highest type of patriotism is to refuse to fight with carnal weapons and stand by Him who taught us to love our enemies and put up the sword.

        “O Reader, don't let the devil fool you on this false notion of patriotism. . . . Will we, followers of the Prince of Peace, dedicate our bodies to the god of war to murder or butcher our fellow man? God forbid!” —W.S. Craig, writing in the “Repairer” publication, April 1918, rooted in the Free Methodist denomination and “radical holiness” movement

Benediction. “The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?” —Pablo Casals

Recessional. “Listen, smith of the heavens, / what the poet asks. / May softly come unto me / your mercy. / So I call on thee, / for you have created me. / Most we need thee. Drive out, O king of suns, generous and great, every human sorrow from the city of the heart.” —“Heyr himna smiður” (“Hear, Heavenly Creator”), 12th century Icelandic poem, put to music by Thorkell Sigurbjornsson, performed by Eivør Pálsdóttir (click the “show more” button to see all the lyrics)

Lectionary for this Sunday. “This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice.” —Matthew 10:42, The Message

Lectionary for Sunday next. “Who,” asked the Apostle, in another part of his letter to the early church living in the belly of Rome’s imperial rule, “Who can deliver [us] from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). His response? Disarmed lives, shaped by disarmed hearts, by the power of God and in the manner of Jesus, whose purpose openly contradicted the mighty Caesar’s claim to be the “author of peace” and “lord and savior” of the world. So that all life again may be precious. —continue reading “Precious indeed: Reflections on a post-bin Laden world”

Just for fun. Jordan Klepper puts Trump's defense-heavy budget into perspective on The Daily Show. (1:07 video. Thanks Abigail.)

#  #  #

Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Give wisdom to legislators,” a litany inspired by Psalm 72

• “Of thee I sing: An Independence Day meditation”

• “Jonathan & ee cummings: The secret of freedom,” a story about my grandson
 
Other features
• “The cost of freedom entails moral accountability: The need for truthtelling about the CIA’s torturing practices”

• “Precious indeed: Reflections on a post-bin Laden world”

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.

Precious indeed

Reflections on a post-bin Laden world

by Ken Sehested
4 May 2011, on the fifth anniversary of my grandson’s birth

        I spent more than an hour pouring over the newspaper Monday morning, whose oversized front page headline boldly proclaimed “A nation united” above its story of Osama bin Laden’s death. Rarely have I felt more disunited, disheartened, discomforted. Literally dispirited, the Holy Spirited-pledge to make all things new now mocked by Sunday crowds awash in frenzied rejoicing over assassination. All this, barely a week after Eastern morning, with its renewal of baptismal vows “to renounce Satan, and all his works, and all his promises.”

        Locally, the newspaper included theological justification in the words of a local pastor, who suggested that the military’s raid “sends a message that their lives [those killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks] counted and their lives were precious.”

        Precious. Precious, indeed. Their deaths can never be undone, or justified, or written off as collateral damage, which is how Gulf War veteran (turned terrorist bomber) Timothy McVeigh rationalized in 1995 the deaths of those children in the Murrah Federal Building’s day care center in Oklahoma City.

        Precious indeed. But not only those lives, not only the lives of our kind, our tribe, our sect or nationality or religious orientation. All lives, as many of us were taught to sing in Sunday school—red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world. Precious indeed, not because they are innocent but because they are vulnerable.

§  §  §

        “There is no flag,” Howard Zinn once wrote, “large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” And violence, of every sort and under whatever party motto, national creed or religious sanction, is a form of evangelism for the Devil. No matter how secularized we become, we never quite shed the notion that violence can be redemptive, that by our ingenuity, combined with fortitude, we can make history come out right. That conviction, however piously or impiously held, is the only real atheism.

        Nonetheless, innocence—like beauty—always seems to be in the eyes of the beholder.

§  §  §

        Upon return from my first visit to Iraq in 2000, I approached the U.S. customs agent with more than a little trepidation, since our government had criminalized travel to that land, backed by dual threats of fines and jail time.

      "Why were you there?" asked the official, staring at my customs forms. I could have withheld the fact that I’d been to Iraq, since that visa was issued separately, leaving no mark in my passport beyond the Jordanian entry stamp.

      "To assess the impact of the U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq," I replied.

      "Are they [the sanctions] working?"

      "Well," I said, "they're certainly killing a lot of people.”

        In a tone of voice which seemed to say I'd told him more than he really wanted to know, the customs agent handed back my passport and said, "O.K., have a nice day."

        You may remember those sanctions, according to a 1995 UNICEF study, were responsible for the deaths of an estimated 500,000 children, mostly from simple disease, the result of the 1991 “Desert Storm” bombing campaign’s targeting the country’s water purification, sewage treatment and electrical grid infrastructure. In the resulting poisoned environment, simple diarrhea became a deadly epidemic.

        When then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was interviewed in May 1996 on "CBS 60 Minutes" news program, reporter Leslie Stahl asked: "We have heard that a half million children have died [as a result of sanctions against Iraq]. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

        To which Albright replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it."

        In the political calculus of hard choices, some lives are not so precious and can be balanced against other valuable commodities.

§  §  §

        None of us are immune from the emotions of rage. Indeed, the lust for vengeance is itself rooted in the longing for justice. And the flowering of that soured root is as old as Genesis.

        In its fourth chapter, the Bible’s opening book accounts the threat of Lamech, great-great-great grandson of Cain, son of Adam and Eve, who famously murdered in brother Able. By Lamech’s day, the tradition of redemptive killing had inflated by a factor of eleven.

        “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold."

        To restore honor and avenge the loss of nearly 3,000 precious lives on 9/11, the U.S. launched a war against Iraq, which had nothing to do with the terrorist attack. The most conservative estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths run into the hundreds of thousands, upwards of a million. For that purpose nearly 5,000 U.S. soldiers have died, another 30,000 wounded, with the national credit card tab in the trillions of dollars. Not to mention Afghanistan. And the meter’s still running.

        During most of the decade past, “God bless America” became the staple benediction to our political leaders’ speeches. Ironically, of its 41 appearances as a verb in the Newer Testament, “bless” as an imperative occurs only twice: “Bless those who curse you,” Jesus taught (Luke 6:28); and similarly, from the Apostle Paul, “Bless those who persecute you” (Romans 12:14).

        “Every war already carries within it the war which will answer it,” wrote the German artist Käthe Kollwitz, censored and threatened by the Nazis. “Every war is answered by a new war, until everything, everything is smashed.” Needless to say, we all want peace. Our problem is that we also want what we cannot get without war. Once loosed, it feeds off its own fury.

        “Who,” asked the Apostle, in another part of his letter to the early church living in the belly of Rome’s imperial rule, “Who can deliver [us] from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). His response? Disarmed lives, shaped by disarmed hearts, by the power of God and in the manner of Jesus, whose purpose openly contradicted the mighty Caesar’s claim to be the “author of peace” and “lord and savior” of the world. So that all life again may be precious.

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©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  21 June 2017  •  No. 124

Processional. “We Are Not Alone,” Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute Singers.

Above: "This photograph captures a whale behaviour called ‘spy hopping’, where whales poke their head above the water to take a look around and see what’s happening above the surface.” Photograph off the coast of Queensland, Australia, by Mark Seabury, featured in National Geographic’s 2017 Travel Photograph of the Year Contest.

Imagine a disaster so severe that everybody in three of our most populous states—Texas, Florida and New York—were suddenly forced from their homes and made to run for their lives. That’s how many refugees are on the move today.
        Or imagine 630 school buses being filled, every day, half of them children, to be transported to who knows where, over hostile roads and drowning waters, arriving where they are unwanted—considered a burden or even a threat.
        War, persecution, or severe food shortages—sometimes all three, each cause compounding the others—are currently forcing 65 million people from their homes. Ours is the worst refugee crisis in written history. —more background at “World Refugee Day: What you should know,” CNN
        For more information about World Refugee Sunday, see last week’s “Signs of the Times” column. Each year 20 June is designated by the United Nations as World Refugee Day. Many churches mark the occasion on the Sunday before or after. But any time is a good time.

Invocation. “One day at a time sweet Jesus / That's all I'm askin' from You / Just give me the strength / To do everyday what I have to do." —Judy Collins, “One Day At a Time”

Good news. Recently three Indonesian soccer players (football, to most of the globe) made an unusual political statement after scoring a goal: Each assumed a traditional prayer position associated with Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. The photo (right) was posted on the team’s Facebook page with the following comment: “Because different beliefs will not prevent us from achieving the same goals.”
        The photo comes at a particularly important time in Indonesian history, as the rise of less tolerant Islamist political factions in the country in recent months has threatened Indonesia’s more moderate and secular government. —Siasat

Call to worship. "Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there." —Rumi

Not so good news. If you missed it, catch Trevor Noah’s Daily Show commentary (3:02 video) on the acquittal of the police officer who killed Philando Castile during a traffic stop in a St. Paul, Minn. suburb.  For a transcript of his comments—particularly his skewering of the NRA, see Caroline Framke, Vox.

Take this brief survey (1:38 video) of the historically high number of refugees. You’ll be surprised to know who’s hosting most of them. —AJ+ (Thanks Harold.)

Hymn of praise. “Behold Our God,” Praise and Harmony Singers.

On Monday 19 June, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) refused to confirm that his colleagues would have as much as 10 hours to read, debate and propose amendments to the American Health Care Act (AHCA), narrowly approved, 217-213, by the House of Representatives. Its purpose is to replace President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA).

“Obamacare” was originally a pejorative term for the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” It was signed by President Obama on 23 March 2010, The legislation was debated in multiple committees, as well as full floor debates, in both the House and the Senate for 12 months, during which time 161 Republican amendments were approved. It then survived legal challenges in the US Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. As of April 2017, 55% of the American population approved of Obamacare; 42% disapproved.

¶ “According to new results released [23 March] by Quinnipiac University Polling, only 17% of Americans are in support of Donald Trump and Paul Ryan's American Health Care Act (AHCA). Most of those polled—56%—were outright against the AHCA, and 26 percent were undecided.” —SFGate

Though he led a victory party in the White House Rose Garden with Republican leaders after the AHCA’s approval, saying the bill was “incredibly well crafted.” Trump later referred to the legislation as “mean” and needed to be “more generous” in a private lunch with Senate leaders. —Bob Bryan, Associated Press

Confession. “The pain of suffering and of longing, which can often be felt even physically, must be there, and we cannot and need not talk it away. But it needs to be overcome every time, and thus there is an even holier angel than the one of pain; that is, the one of joy in God.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

See John Oliver’s humorous take on the Senate’s version of the American Healthcare Act (3:48 video).

Hymn of supplication. “Holy Mother, where are you? / Tonight I feel broken in two. / I've seen the stars fall from the sky. / Holy mother, can't keep from crying. / Oh I need your help this time, / Get me through this lonely night. / Tell me please which way to turn / To find myself again.” —Eric Claption & Luciano Pavarotti, “Holy Mother”

Among the differences between the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) and the new American Health Care Act (aka “Trumpcare”) is the word “American.” This is one of the ways Congress will Make America Great Again.

Words of assurance. “Give thanks and rejoice you storm-tossed pilgrims: the Stiller of Storms is at your mast, hushing the wind and calming the waves. Listen now you barking jackals: A diligent Voice will sever your tongue and seal your mouth forever. Give thanks, you orphan and widow; rejoice, you refugee.” —continue reading “Let Wisdom’s Way Endure,” a litany for use on Refugee Sunday

Professing our faith. “We are God’s odd ones. And according to the Jesus story, God is more taken with the agony of the earth than with the ecstasy of heaven. Connecting the purpose of Jesus with the drama of Creation is the heart of Christian confession. Everything else is footnote.” —continue reading “Wade in the water: Baptism as political mandate”

Left: Art by Ricardo Levins Morales, ©RLM Art Studio

In a poll of 2,000 Americans, the media company Morning Consult found that 35% of responders did not know that Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act are the same thing. —Kyle Dropp & Brendan Nyhan, New York Times

For more background on health care legislation, see:
        •special issue of “Signs of the Times” on health care.
        •”Health care as a fundamental human right.”

One new story, two new essays:

§ “Jonathan & ee cummings: The secret of freedom”
        Recently, when Nancy picked up our 3-year-old grandson Jonathan from preschool, out of the blue he said, “Ja-Ja (her grandmotherly nickname), ee cummings wrote poem.”
        “Did you learn that at school, Jay?” Nancy asked. “No,” he said from the back seat.
        “Did your Mama teach you that?” “Yes.”
        “Is it the one that begins with ‘i thank you God for this most amazing day’? she asked. At which point he began quoting the rest of that verse with her.
        Neither could remember the second stanza, but Nancy began the third, with Jay keeping up: “I who have died am alive again today. . . .”
                 "how should tasting hearing seeing
                 breathing any — lifted from the no of
                 all nothing — human merely being
                 doubt unimaginable You?”
        “Ja-Ja,” he said. ‘You left out ‘touching. . . .’” (click the title to continued reading)

§ “God and stuff: Lawnmowers, banking boodle, and the Spirit’s traffic in human affairs”
      When you stick it to your neighbor, you’re sticking it to the Abba of Jesus. When you shorten the breath of those on the margin, you are simultaneously constricting the Breath of the Spirit in your own lungs. In vivid Pauline language, greed is synonymous with idolatry (Colossians 3:5); when your belly (e.g., your desires, your security demands) becomes your god, you are the “enemy of the cross” (Philippians 3:18-19). I can assure you, those texts are never read in White House prayer breakfasts. . . . (click the title to continued reading)

§ “Is an attack on one an attack on all? The brutal consequences of our nation’s gun fetish”
      We are a nation awash in guns, increasingly inured to violence that doesn’t happen on our street or zip code or time zone, and increasingly addicted to militarized response to threat at home and, especially, abroad. The recent shooting of legislators in a public park, of those practicing for a charity baseball game, could be a teachable moment in how we might disentangle ourselves from these deathly habits.
       Will it?
       I wish I were more hopeful that lessons will be learned, penitence declared, restoration initiated, communal bonds recovered. People of faith, however, know that hope’s foundation lies deeper than present circumstances permit, however unfavorable. . . . (click the title to continued reading)

When only the blues will do. Fredrik Strand Halland, 12 year-old Norwegian, plays Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Texas Flood.”

Preach it. “Remember, you were a slave in Egypt. . . .”  (Deut. 24:17-18) is at the core of biblical faith. Memory fosters fidelity; amnesia leads to ruin. The witnesses who testify to one or the other are the immigrant, the orphan, and the widow, signifying those most at risk in the unfettered market’s madness. —kls

Can’t makes this sh*t up. Only days after President Trump accused the nation of Qatar of being “a funder of terrorism, and at a very high level,” Trump then signed off on a $12 billion deal to sell them US jet fighters. —Margaret Brennan & Kylie Atwood, CBS News

Call to the table. “Break the bread of belonging / Welcome the stranger in the land / We have each been a stranger / We can try to understand.” —Gary Rand, “Breaking the Bread of Belonging”

The state of our disunion. “We aren’t stupid.” (Republican aide, explaining why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked a parliamentary rule allowing the American Health Care Act to skip committee hearings and go straight to the floor for a vote.) —Dana Wilbank, "What Republicans are doing while you’re distracted by Sessions and Comey,” Washington Post

For the beauty of the earth. Meet the deepest place on earth—the Mariana Trench, in the western Pacific Ocean—and some of its inhabitants. —Sandbrero (1:22 video. Thanks David.)

Altar call. “The Creed,” Alexander Gretchaninoff, performed by the Russian Metropolitan Church Choir, Paris.

Benediction. “Child the time has come for you to go / You will never be alone / Every dream that you have been shown / Will be like living stone / Building you into a home / A shelter from the storm.” —Josh Garrels, “White Owl”

Recessional. “Adagio for Strings,” op. 11 by Samuel Barber, performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Lectionary for this Sunday. “Jump for joy, oh people! For amid the screaming commercials and blithering campaign ads, the Redeemer has heard our aching voice.” —continue reading “Bounty and abundance,” a litany for worship inspired by Psalm 116

Lectionary for Sunday next. “This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice.” —Matthew 10:42, The Message

Just for fun. It took a builder 25 hours to construct a massive triple spiral structure using 15,000 dominoes—less than 1.5 minutes to come down in precise order. (1:47 video. Thanks Oliver.)

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Featured this week on prayer&politiks

• “Let Wisdom’s Way Endure,” a litany for use on Refugee Sunday

• “Jonathan & ee cummings: The secret of freedom,” a grandparent’s story

• “God and stuff: Lawnmowers, banking boodle, and the Spirit’s traffic in human affairs,” an essay

• “Is an attack on one an attack on all? The brutal consequences of our nation’s gun fetish,” an essay 

Left: Mural art in Az’atari Syrian Refugee Camp in Jordan, 2013, in collaboration with children and the organizations AptART and ACTED.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Language not otherwise indicated above is that of the editor, as are those portions cited as “kls.” Don’t let the “copyright” notice keep you from circulating material you find here (and elsewhere in this site). Reprint permission is hereby granted in advance for noncommercial purposes.

Your comments are always welcomed. If you have news, views, notes or quotes to add to the list above, please do. If you like what you read, pass this along to your friends. You can reach me directly at kensehested@prayerandpolitiks.org.