One place where there are no bailouts.

http://www.jsonline.com/features/religion/42036042.html

I’ve been to the Corner House, though not for a ministry event. Frankly, the decision is hardly surprising; though probably not for the official reasons, granted that money probably is a factor. The reality of the matter is that mainline churches are getting pummeled, as recent reports indicate across-the-board for American Christianity. As the mainliners grow more and more theologically and politically liberal (and the Corner House was unquestionably a left-leaning haven), there is less and less a need for anyone to go; why go to church when you can be political? The only revival going on these days is of the neo-American Civic variety.

College students, who were targeted and exploited by shady registration drives and shadier 527s in the fall, and are decreasingly interested in traditional religious practice, are responding in kind. Basic economics: no demand, decreasing supply, decreasing capital, decreased in-house morale, decreased influence, irrelevance. May as well close up shop before they close it for you. On the other end of the spectrum, we see something similar: while the mainliners generally look like the College Democrats, the evangelical campus ministries generally look like your local mega-church or emerging whatever. All both are is a microcosm of what they ultimately want: donor-voters and tithing church goers.

Notice neither is necessarily interested in furthering the cause of Christ, reconciliation and personal renewal. Sometimes taking care of the in-house stuff gets to be so messy that actual ministry gets lost in the mess. And I get that, it’s not easy taking care of infrastructure stuff in parachurch life. The churches tend to secretly despise the fact that you’re competition; the supporters want their newsletters and students need your time and attention.

(And then there’s the self-employment tax, which I understand all to well, being that I just wrapped up my last annual masochism session with the IRS about 12 hours ago. Harder, hit me harder! I digress.)

It’s an uneasy existence, one that I have enjoyed for the past eight years. But the reality of the matter is that away from traditional constructs and vestiges, it’s a razor-thin margin of error before a ministry loses its moorings and becomes a social club or a voting bloc, worse yet, irrelevant or worst of all, like the Corner House; that is, extinct. It’s not like theological or political liberalism is the enemy here; I don’t intend for this to be misconstrued as some conservative blather about how everything is going to hell. The point here is only that when you begin to move away from a relatively independent identity and begin to reflect another, more established system, the slide toward mediocrity and irrelevance is tough to reverse.

In business, Circuit City wanted to be Best Buy and ended up imploding in the process. Starbucks and Krispy Kreme expanded too aggressively and are at a bottom line crossroads. In church circles, the attempts of smaller churches to grow in the same fashion as megachurches has left them either in financial trouble or assimilated into those megachurches, as the megachurch era mutates and gives way to the insipid McChurch era. Don’t think the mentalities aren’t somehow unrelated. Our government has passed two trillion dollar bailouts, is looking at at least two more, and has authorized the Federal Reserve to print billions of dollars; what do you think is going to happen? None of these decisions are governed by any sense of principle, only by the need to grow, expand influence, control and dominate. Church is not in the business of business and ought not behave in such a way.

If religion is whatever happens to be the focus of a person’s ultimate concern, and I believe that Tillich was right to define it this way, then what failing campus ministries–amongst the others heretofore mentioned–reflect is not the suffering Christ, but those ultimately beholden to self-interest. There is no morality in natural selection, only the need to exist another day by any means necessary. The Corner House was devoured by its own motivations, that which it spawned. So shall we all, should we ignore this cautionary tale.

Part of growing up is screwing up. Many times, people are defined and refined by their foibles and pratfalls. Sometimes those mistakes are chalked up as learning experiences, sometimes there is no grading curve and people are marked forever by their mistakes. A basic lesson in moral philosophy is that without the bad, there is no way to determine what is good; Eastern philosophy talks about this in terms of yin and yang, equilibrium.

Could it be that the converse is also true: without good, we would not understand what is bad, evil, wrong?

I would like to take this in two directions: first, in an ethical consideration of the need of an arbiter of good; and second, a consideration of the nature of the God-man, that is, Christ.

Democracy does not lend itself well to ethical principle. The concept of critical mass bears this out: if a good or service (and, for the sake of this conversation, societal actions) attains a level of popularity, that product or action ceases being new or innovative and entrenches itself into the cultural status quo. Things start out innovative or cutting edge and, for its survival, strive toward mediocrity. Ten years ago, the concept of Facebook or MySpace was virtually unheard of: today, Facebook or MySpace has exploded from its entrenchment in young adults into the middle-aged crowd. Those of us who are online check our accounts multiple times a day; going without it long enough creates abnormalcy, leaves unfulfillment. 20 years ago, cell phones were a luxury afforded by the elite and upper-middle class, now cells are not only ubitquitous, but people are texting (or checking Facebook.)

Societal trends and behaviors are no different: something can explode onto the scene and be labeled innovative, dangerous, revolutionary or whatever, and after time be de rigueur. Thomas Kuhn (and Michael Polanyi before him) talked about this kind of thing in terms of paradigm shifts, perhaps what I’m talking about here is paradigm integration. The construct does not necessarily collapse–though it can–but is at least added on to or renovated. Or, more caustically, the frog dies from the slow boil of cultural hegemony.

The rise of the naturalistic, atomistic West and the devolution of ethics and philosophy from sources of wisdom to deconstruction of language and situational ethics are not unrelated.

Ethics may not necessarily require God, but it is certainly hard to derive ethics from something like Darwinian naturalism or semiotics. That, and while people may disagree about original sin or total depravity, we can all agree that people are generally prone to stupidity. Dan Quayle can get ripped for his unorthodox spelling of ‘tomato’, while companies spend gift money on lavish junkets and bonuses. There’s stupid and then there’s stupid, but they’re both stupid.

If things, moments, behaviors are or they aren’t, then those things by default are either good or not good. Hegemony and critical mass–both democratic patterns of behavior–act in a way that blurs and then paints over the line. The reality of the matter, though, is that the very inception of any noun is, by default, the moment it is open to scrutiny. And what is open to scrutiny is subject to unintended consequences.

The struggle I’m working through is the nature of Christ: how is a man who knows no sin defined? What can refine that? If Jesus was, during his time here, fully man–and I believe he was–does it really matter that he was sinless pre-crucifixion? What defined Jesus in that context was that he was falsely accused and wrongfully executed, but he was sinless, hence the resurrection. Sin and death are inextricably linked; the resurrection is, in no small part, a paradigm implosion.

How could a person like that relate with anyone? Goody-goodies are precisely that for a reason. We can’t stand them. Maybe that’s why he needed to be put down. And perhaps that is why he could live with such profound compassion, and so much prophetic authority against the religious. Jesus, the incarnation of the God who is, is the envoy of a God who has no definition other than being. Being and rightness (or, righteousness) then have to be linked somehow. Bonhoeffer says as much in his ethical musings, and I think he’s right. Creation ought to reflect creator, any disunion is separation; Jesus then is the creation-creator: his life means more because of the attempt of fallen man to define him than anything before. Sinlessness doesn’t mean anything until then, Jesus is a good guy until faced with death, at which point he becomes the Christ.

The question that extends from this understanding, though, is somewhat disconcerting: what is it that Jesus taught while he was with us? Clearly, doing good doesn’t cut it. Repentance from sin is an aspect, but no one could claim Jesus as their salvation pre-resurrection. Our soteriology is utterly reliant on the death and resurrection of Christ; the Christ-event is a unifying portal between creation and creator. But the kingdom of God Jesus preached was not his atoning sacrifice; that would be senseless.

I do not intend to minimize the Christ-event, but want to understand what Christ’s work was prior to the Christ-event, especially as we approach passion week. The crucifixion and resurrection change everything, this much is obvious, but it is only obvious contextually, that is, to us in the [post-]Christian West. Could it be that the Christian ethic, that is, union with God and walking in repentance, is all there is to it? Are we to model Christ and his teachings, or live in the resurrection? Am I the only one who sees these as not necessarily entangled?

This obviosuly lends itself to the “what about those who have never heard?” conversation, but I don’t find that germane to this conversation. Your feedback is welcomed.

Analysis of the AG Trust: Concluding thoughts

First, it should be made abundantly clear that though my response to the Trust is strong in tone, I do not believe it is a bad idea. Basic lessons in critical thinking show that one can have a right conclusion even if the steps taken to the conclusion are inaccurate or illogical. Though it shows no regard for those who have suffered under loan debt before, it is a step in the right direction.

Second, funding methods remains a serious question. We are in a crappy economy. Endowments from coast-to-coast are suffering, and while there would be great investment promise in index funds right now, the high-reward corners of the market remain toxic. A faith promise system will fail and would be nothing better than bad stewardship of an important capital campaign.

More troubling is the fact that the Assemblies of God’s ministers-only retirement investment system was at least partially funded the same way financial institutions made money behind-the-scenes before the market collapse: quasi-mortgage securities. The Assemblies made loans to its churches in order that they could build facilities, which is sketchy enough, and a key reason why I–while I was then a member of the A/G clergy–never joined MBA: I could not, in good conscience, make money off the repayed interest of congregations. No matter what AGFS says, I remain utterly unconvinced that the risk inherent in church loans is in any way less, um, risky than other parts of the market that have decimated business, communities, families and portfolios.

Of note is the fact that, in 2008, at least one major loan to an A/G ministry that would have gone into deep delinquency elsewhere was forgiven essentially by itself. (When you can essentially bail yourself out, who needs Scrooge McBarack? And how is that ethical, proper or a show of managerial conservatism?)

All that to say that denominations making loans to its member churches is bad business, and approaches an ethically reprovable level. It also shows a potential Morton’s Fork: if the economy continues to tank, and churches somehow default on these loans, it shows poor judgment and threatens the autonomous church model instituted by the Assemblies at its outset; if the economy continues to tank and churches remain unaffected, it shows that thse churches are completely detached from society, reinforces the affluent, white people stereotype and are not reaching out into the surrounding communities.

Third, transforming the economics of Christian higher education is no small matter: it takes time and dedication. That said, a renewed emphasis on educational reform is absolutely needed. The reports came out this week: Evangelicalism is suffering, and according to an op-ed piece in today’s Christian Science Monitor, it’s heading for a major shakedown. (I completely agree with Spencer’s take, for the record.) Things have to change all the way around, if these universities are going to survive in the long-term: ideologically, financially, educationally and in terms of personal development, it all has to be seriosuly reexamined if it is to be worth the significant investment the A/G seems to be willing to make in its future.

Further, such a move unintentionally demands that the Assemblies reconsider its eschatological stance. There is a statute of limitations on terms like “imminent”, “imminent” means inevitable and soon, like “I have to finish my taxes before 15 April,” or “If I have Taco Bell tonight, there will be serious [read: imminent] gastrointenstinal issues in the morning.”

If Jesus is coming soon, why bother? Why Bible college? Why Bible camps calling people into ministry, if there is no ministry in the future because of the impending parousia? Who’ll drive the bus?

These kind of decisions have intractable ramifications on the Assemblies’ statement of faith. A move to establish a long-term financial investment in future generations means that we cannot reasonably believe that Jesus will actually come back for at least six to eight more years; the two lines of thought are mutually exclusive. Belief governs behavior, attitude precedes action.

There is some soul-searching that needs to be done when rolling out such an ambitious enterprise. It turns out that soul-searching needed to be done anyway.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration. Your feedback is welcomed, with the caveat in the “about” section in effect.