Eight years later.

Like eight years ago, I’m up all night.

I was 19 years old and working on the college newspaper. It was pub (pub for publication, not for adult beverages; after all, we were good Assemblies of God Bible college students) night; we were working around the clock to crank out our debut issue. The system was causing problems, stories weren’t getting tied down, and tempers were starting to flare. It was about this time of the night that I ran over to a gas station to get coffee for the crew, in the hopes of starting a second wind.

Some of us lost our minds that night, but we were able to push the issue to print in the nick of time. Daylight was beginning to creep across the horizon in the Twin Cities, I was looking forward to sleeping. My head hit the pilllow in my down room around 6 AM. Delicious sleep.

At a time my body told me was far too soon to wake up, I heard a bunch of hubbub out in the suite area. I wanted them to shut up, I just needed to sleep. Then, Josh barged in my room and told me to wake up and mentioned something about the World Trade Center. I rolled over, too tired to understand what was happening.

Then it occurred to me: the World Trade Center? I was exhausted, but realized something was horribly, horribly wrong. I overheard something half-asleep about planes crashing and dragged my carcass out of bed. In the next room, a fuzzy picture of an ABC News special report and a smoldering set of New York skyscrapers graced the screen. Then one tower fell. It was absolutely surreal television.

Our classes were cancelled and a special chapel was held. Jim Allen, whose voice often tested the limits of our patience and constitution in class seemed strangely reassuring that day as it boomed out in prayer. Chapel, which was usually full but not packed, was spilled out into the halls surrounding. Afterward, I stepped outside. No planes or helicopters in the sky. The sun shone brightly, a beautiful day by any other standard. I went back to my dorm and tried calling my dad at work. The cell circuits were jammed and stopped allowing calls. I tried again, same response. I was alone in my room, unable to cope with the fact that a terrorist attack took place on American soil. I panicked, melted down, tired, unable to really grasp everything that was happening.

Sometime in the duration, the second tower fell. And the Pentagon was hit. And another plane was grounded in a Pennsylvania field, reportedly redirected and heading for the White House.

I was finally able to get through to my dad. “Tell me I’m still dreaming.”

“I’m afraid not.”

I broke down.

“What’s happening?”

“Only the Lord knows.”

Not exactly reassuring, but true. It was vintage Dad.

I finally got it together and hung up with my dad. I got dressed and went over to a friend’s apartment, where we sat and watched the events unfold on NBC. Smoke covered Manhattan. President Bush made a hasty announcement from what was likely an underground bunker somewhere.

Downtown Minneapolis can be a very busy place. It was dead that day, as the government shut down the entire downtown business district as a potential high-risk target.

And, of course, nothing has been the same since. Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, which has made flying in America an absolute pain in the butt to this day. We entered two theaters of war. The stock market plunged. I started a job at Best Buy, where they had to pull back the new Dream Theater record due to the album cover depicting the New York skyline surrounded by fire. The night Bush addressed Congress, the entire store stopped to pay attention.

And people actually gave a crap about one another for a while. American flags went up everywhere, leading to the cliche flag bumper sticker and yellow ribbon magnet stickers on cars. We rallied around the fact that we were attacked, and ready to take care of whoever the enemy was.

Here we are, though, eight years after the fact. The country has never been more divided, as ideologies have torn the country asunder; the logical extrapolation of relativist/pluralist nonsense. For a while some people tried to argue that the events of 9/11 were an inside job. Thankfully, that nonsense was debunked. We are still in the throes of war and whether or not we may agree with what is happening, the reality of the matter is that we have soldiers there who are giving and risking far more than most of us at home ever will. Radical Islam still permeates a good part of the world, and is beginning to choke out European heritage and the birthplace of Western civilization.

In a way, things make even less sense now than they did on that day, and I’m fully awake. We could have crumbled on 9/12, but we didn’t. We decided that government and policy was more important than each other. There is serious talk about the state of the union and the future of a United States of America.

We are doing to ourselves what no one could do to us, and no one really cares because we refuse to find common ground. We, to borrow from Tolkien, have abandoned reason for delusions of grandeur, read: madness. Stubbornness can be an admirable trait, but when we steadfastly refuse to pursue truth and avoid falsehood, particularly in favor of clinging to ideologies that routinely fail when given a democratic majority, and further refuse to train our children to think critically and develop their rational functions, stubbornness is to choke ourselves to death.

No, at the rate we’re going, it won’t take planes or dirty bombs to cause this amazing American experiment to fail. We’re doing to ourselves right now.

[This is  major essay submitted for one of my classes last quarter. It earned an A, which gave me great satisfaction. Enjoy. --b.]

***

The traditional model of Christian missions is to go to another culture or people group, set up a church facility and invite people in. This is what has become known as a classic “missions station”, and it has been criticized by experts in comparative religion as well as put into disuse by missionaries themselves for its Westernizing and syncretizing effect in the cultures missionaries have attempted to reach with the Gospel.¹

While not referred to as a missions station, Christian attempts at social justice right here in America in no small part resemble the missions stations of a bygone era in overseas missions. Though well-intentioned endeavors, what has happened is that, like the advent of hybrid Christian-native religious practices in the Caribbean and Latin America as a result of the slave trade, the model has been turned on its head. As homeless shelters, drug rehabilitation centers, food pantries and urban outreach efforts, all of which are noble Christian responses to serious domestic concerns, have become a part of the American cultural landscape, rather than addressing and resolving said concerns, they have become dependent upon them.

Hypothetically, if the problem of drugs in a metropolitan community was solved, a drug rehab facility would have to be closed, thus putting people out of work and money invested, usually by churches and upper-middle class benefactors, in facilities wasted. Or a converted hospital intended to be a one-stop refuge for all sorts of social ills: a homeless shelter, drug treatment facility, workplace training, urban ministry; what is to be of such a complex (and there are several of these around the country) if these problems were solved?

These attempts at social justice, though undertaken with good will and intent, are no different in spirit and scope than the obsolete mission stations of missions efforts past, and I intend to argue that they, rather than address the myriad problems of urban and suburban America, exacerbate them. Further, and more subtly, I intend to argue that our churches have themselves become missions stations, exacerbating a culture in decline from its Judeo-Christian ethical moorings. In brief, as we institutionalize, we minimize.

***

“Chinese is not a language, it is a speech impediment!”

– an unnamed missionary wife from the 1981 biopic Hudson Taylor

***

Missions stations were the primary mode of global evangelism from the medieval period up to the 19^th century. Missionaries would reach their intended destination and build a church, greet the natives and work to compel them to faith in Western Christianity.² It should also be noted that missions efforts were inexorably tied to the expansion of colonial power, with European powers viewing those heathens who were open to the faith as easily subjected to their encroaching respective political, military and cultural empires (Africa). Those who were not so welcoming would simply be trampled and conquered (Latin America) or abandoned (Japan).

If the point of the missions station model of evangelization is to bring the masses to a place in order that they get exposed to the message, it also doubles as a cultural foothold. The missions station is symbolic of the missionary bringing his or her culture to an unfamiliar people, the church is symbolic of a specific value set, for the missionary from that period, the church is a slice of home, with the hope, shared by missionary and country, that it is a seed for growth to come.

It is precisely for this reason that the mission station model was refuted an abandoned: not only were some parts of the world syncretized by the fusion of Christian faith and traditional religious practices,³ but the notion of cultural supremacy created resentment. Feudal Japan was very hostile to the missionary efforts of Catholics after Xavier, as depicted in the powerful historical fiction of Shusaku Endo’s Silence. The crusades left an entire culture hostile to Jews and Christians. Is it then any surprise that the post-Christian West is fundamentally hostile—or worse yet, ambivalent—toward Christians, their message and lifestyle?

The West may have seen the rise of capitalism, monarchies, empires and democracies, as well as Christian faith, but the two are not intertwined: that divorce was made very clear in the Enlightenment. Rulers from Constantine to Hitler tried to corral the power of the church toward their own motives with varying degrees of success. This is especially true in America, where the religious vote has been courted by nominees from local leaders to the presidency. The underlying message of our history is clear: our churches are and have always been American mission stations. As Charles Chaney has frankly said it: “The missionary task is one task.”⁴ The failure to recognize our churches as missions stations does not mean they are not. And if our churches are found to be missions stations, our ministry efforts are guilty by association as well.

***

“We have seen it out here in the West, where beside our rivers and lakes our towns expand; the first petal it puts forth is the Church—the second is the theatre.”

– an unnamed Unitarian minister, as quoted in Life: the Movie by Neal Gabler

***

It is generally common knowledge that for years the church and her adherents led the way in regard to caring for the sick, elderly and poor in America. The social gospel of the late 19^th century emphasized Christian charity, some would argue at the cost of soteriological efficacy.⁵ All across the country, Catholic, Methodist and Baptist hospitals dot the cityscapes, from major metropolitan areas to farming towns on the byways. Nursing homes, homeless shelters, entire quasi-franchised drug rehabilitation centers all were fueled by Christian compassion for the less-fortunate and desperate. These facilities and programs were designed to alleviate suffering, an attempt to cure social ills and better the general welfare of the communities in our nation. And yet here we are, well into the 21^st century, and these problems still persist and are as prevalent as they ever were, possibly worse.

Of course, the sick and poor will always be with us; about this Jesus was certainly correct. That said, if the problems we have set out to address have not been solved or even appear to be improving after an entire century (and counting, both before and after) of Christian charity and attempts at social justice, we must stop looking at how bad the situations have gotten and begin to analyze our methods, ethical standards and theological basis. Given the fact that the presence of churches has not stemmed the tide of cultural postmodernism and the rise of post-Christian America, is it then any wonder why our attempts to make our cities and towns better places have also not solved issues of drug abuse or homelessness?

At this point, I slightly digress to address a potential criticism of my thesis, that these “American missions stations” have actually expounded problems than adequately addressed them. It is true that hospitals and clinics do not make sickness worse (though a day spent in a urgent care waiting room might convince one otherwise), that would be the correlation-causation fallacy. And that would be a valid form of refutation, but for hospitals and clinics, and even then a point for the thesis can be made. There are those who, for whatever reason, will habitually show up in emergency rooms and urgent care centers trying to work the system. And therein lies the problem: it’s a system.

***

“There’s a great soup kitchen in downtown Scranton. Delicious pea soup on Thursdays.”

– Creed Bratton, NBC sitcom The Office

***

The Christian response to real people’s suffering in our midst is to create systems. Systems do not care for people, they fulfill perceived needs and perceived requests are inherently prejudicial statements. Homeless shelters do not solve problems of homelessness because they only treat the immediate symptom and operate with an implicit premise that there is enough of a long-term need that a church or non-profit is justified in making such an investment. Even a Christian homeless shelter will not solve homelessness, if for no more obvious reason than Christian salvation does not come with a home, a soup kitchen does not keep a person full, but rather gives the down and out another option for shelter or food tomorrow. Similarly, inner city ministries are reliant on the premise that inner cities are dangerous, violent places and they also happen to be sinful. Christian drug rehabilitation programs rely on a similar premise as the homeless shelter: if the problem weren’t long-term, there wouldn’t be such a push for investing in facilities, materials and manpower.

Again, we see that these are problem-based solutions; cynically, they are solutions looking for problems. Could it possibly be, then, that our churches operate in a similar way: that they exist to address the perceived sinfulness of the saved and secular? If one historically has come from the other, is there a way to say no with a straight face and sober mind? The reality of the matter is that our ministry efforts are a direct reflection of how we view ourselves, a window into the soul of a faith community. Frankly, if what we are doing is out of some misguided sense of civic duty, then we have already failed to act in Christ-likeness and we have failed ethically. We cannot extend a hand of compassion while our collective head is turned and the other collective hand is pinching shut the collective nose.

As the Great Society government initiatives of the 1960s have proved, soulless disregard for the personal nature of social problems has left in its wake nothing but cultural devastation and dependency. Housing projects destroyed the once-proud fabric of African-American communities, welfare payments took away the incentive for disadvantaged people to find work, the poor got poorer while also losing their (owned) homes for (rented/subsidized) ‘housing’. Governments are not supposed to be in the business of compassion, the terms ‘government’, ‘business’ and ‘compassion’ are prima facie mutually exclusive in the supposedly constitutionally democratic West. And, while the term ‘church’ should invoke the imago Christus, perhaps in actuality, it should be included amongst the aforementioned as well if the Church operates in such a cold, problem-based manner in response to the needs of those the Church has mandated themselves to reach.

Thus another problem arises in relation to these missions stations, an existential Catch-22: do these outreaches exist to address particular needs with the intent of ending them, or do they exist to address a need that will never go away? While a third way also exists (what if there is no endgame in mind?), it ultimately would fall into the second category, the lack of endgame thinking would seem to indicate that there is no end to the various social ills, or else they would strategize in a way that would show they are interested in ending problems instead of unintentionally embracing them.

These organizations, and the people who staff and support them, are not acting out of malice: many of these people are Christians who take their faith seriously. They are simply unaware of the unintended consequences of our outreach efforts, but are all for changing things for the better. If the missions station model has been largely abandoned overseas, why do we still rely on it here in the States, which are admittedly post-Christian? And why has there been so little second thinking on the matter?⁶

In our zeal to serve God and the world with compassion and a message of repentance, in a way that sometimes seems to reflect Machiavelli’s prince more than Christ’s great commission, we have othered the downtrodden. My reasoning is based in a criticism of overseas missions: many times I recall it was commonplace for missionaries to come to churches wearing the garb of the culture they were working with and have slide shows of desperate mothers and children in examples of extreme poverty, only to eventually get to a picture of the missionary, usually in American business casual or a classic minister’s suit, preaching at some kind of crusade or church with a financial appeal at the end. Though they have definitive Christian foundations established and have their own native missions efforts, America still is eager to send missionaries to South America and Africa. During the Cold War, it was thrilling to hear about Bible smuggling operations past the Iron Curtain, underground church meetings and escaping the police. A similar excitement exists today with missions efforts into the so-called 10/40 window.

I’m afraid that we supported these missionaries because they offered a kind of sex appeal: these are exotic people with exotic traditions, if for no other reason than they are merely different than the Scandanavian American nuclear family sitting in a church in the upper Midwest, transfixed by the stories of how badly these people need the gospel we’re going to take to them. And the reasons for reaching these people are not entirely pure, when 1) we have already othered them; and 2) Evangelical mission is heavily guided primarily by eschatology rather than compassion: “…And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”⁷ What, then, is the reason for domestic social justice ministry? Genuine compassion, a desire to see things change or perhaps is it white guilt? Perhaps it is, to varying degrees, all of them.

Though the culture has dramatically shifted away from Judeo-Christian moorings, our strategies have not; in so doing, there has been a dual syncretism taking place: these ministries accept the fact that they will not make things better and simply keep operating for the sake of operating, and those who are recipients of these outreaches always have options that keep them in a cycle of dependency. Neither option is very palatable, but very much rooted to the reality of the situation.

The aforementioned one-stop urban missions stations that began to spring up in the 1990s came from a megachurch model that saw its height of popularity in the late 80s and early 90s. Such an idea is reminiscent of Oral Roberts’ failed City of Faith complex, itself an unorthodox syncretism of faith healing and medical practice that ended in embarrassing fashion in 1989. A one-stop urban missions station developed in a former hospital in Los Angeles was the brainchild of an charismatic megachurch in Phoenix, which linked the missions effort to the church they were planting in the same area. The model was so blatantly similar that the pastor’s son became the pastor and director of the LA enterprise. A similar effort was started in New York by the same people who launched LA, and the idea began to grow.

Sensing the excitement, a denominational branch in Wisconsin was hoping for a similar effort in Milwaukee. A Milwaukee-area health care provider finally donated an old hospital complex in 2000, and ambitious churches and denominational leaders rallied behind what some bragged would be Milwaukee’s own version of the LA operation. Nine years later, the dilapidated complex sits largely vacant, some of it parceled off to developers, a fraction of it actually used for ministry and efforts to keep it alive have nearly caused a financial implosion for the denominational chapter. More tellingly, the neighborhood where this complex is has not been rejuvenated in the least by their presence; Milwaukee’s most dangerous years, including being in the running for being the “murder capital” of the US, were during the nine years between the opening of the complex and today. They may not have contributed to making things worse, but clearly, things are not getting better in the central city. With or without them, Milwaukee, a once-proud city with a great sense of tradition, continues to rot with few silver linings around the myriad dark clouds.

The same denomination is the parent of a major Christian drug rehabilitation program, which proudly cites an 86% long-term success rate.⁸ The program is a fusion of drug rehab, Christian discipleship and personal renovation, with facilities and programs all around the world. Its advent was the subject of a compelling, best-selling book in the early 1960s and is a major recipient of donations and denominational manpower. After over 50 years of existence, a major US initiative to crack down on the drug trade and thousands upon thousands of dollars in donations, rehabilitation ministry to drug addicts is as needed as ever. It is true that they were the benefactors of failed domestic policy, they have also failed to resolve one of the most troubling domestic problems America faces.

***

“For the poor you will always have with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me.”

– Mark 14.7 [ESV]

***

In the zeal of wanting to improve our communities, Christians have devoted countless hours and an enormous amount of money and manpower in the attempt to cure some of the social ills that have plagued our culture for seemingly as long as America has been a country. Some efforts predate the nation, others came from the grassroots of the American churches and revivals. While we ought to admire the efforts of those who have tried to make the world a better place, in the same manner, we ought to face the sobering reality that we not only have not solved these problems, but have accidentally perpetuated them by creating institutions and programs that only address these issues as extensions of sin.

In conclusion, and to be fair, these efforts are not the only ones worthy of criticism: first, no one person or organization has adequately tackled issues of homelessness or drug addiction. One must, when considering the gravity of the matter, consider whether or not Jesus was right when he suggested that these problems may never go away. How seriously do we take his advice? It seems to be that the best remedy for overcoming such problems lies within the will of those who are homeless or addicted. Shelters can be exploited and rehab can quickly turn into relapse, but the determined person, surrounded by a supportive community can overcome.

Second, these Christian social justice enterprises are a direct mirror image of the Church’s utter inability to grant others the grace of humanity needed to be made whole. As the missions stations of old failed to adequately bring the message of Christ to cultures, the American missions stations which dot the landscape from one coast to the other—that is, our churches—have a myopic, sin-oriented perspective that permeates everything we do, giving off a sense of persona non grata to anyone who is different than us. Like the religious leaders of antiquity, Evangelicals have a difficult time seeing people for their inherent value but for their sin status. A properly Christian ethic addresses those who are poor or afflicted with compassion, while flatly refusing to other those who may not be ‘one of us’. The fusion of proselytizing with charitable work has left these well-intentioned organizations insufficient in regard to both: if our churches cannot adequately convey the gospel to the surrounding culture, what gives us any hope that our social justice efforts will adequately address the serious needs of our suffering neighbors?

In short, perhaps we, the Christians, are the ones who need to be rehabilitated.

1Guenther, p. 457

2A good example of this is found in Hovland, p. 144

3Some would argue that the early patron saints were, in fact, a syncretism of Christian faith and pre-Christian European gods.

4Chaney, p. 52

5The social gospel movement’s advent during the same time period as the holiness movement’s tent revival meetings and healing crusades is, in all likelihood, not mere coincidence.

6Multiple searches for criticism of urban ministry efforts or missions stations models of Christian evangelization, over multiple academic and periodical databases, yielded nothing that directly relates to this matter. The auxiliary material is included in the bibliography and has influenced this work, as noted elsewhere, but to this specific concern, the voices are eerily quiet.

7ESV

8While they do good work, the 86% statistic only tells so much: it neglects those who are dismissed or withdraw from the program, and it, like the 50% divorce rate tossed about several years ago in churches, comes from a 1975 government study. (Citation withheld to protect the organization.)

My friend and former pastor found these words of mine good enough to repost after I commented on his post on existential anxiety, aka, my wheelhouse. So I figured I ought to put them out here, too, for all five or six of you to read.

It’s almost as if you were begging me to comment! You had me at exist, friend.

What you’re saying is spot on, but I would add one key caveat: the doing and being dichotomy can be dangerous even for the sincere believer. Many, many Christians suffer from existential anxiety because they feel as though they need to be an active (or hyperactive) part of the church machine, involved in everything, part of anything, anything to quell those same existential anxieties.

And, to our discredit and convicting shame, we’ve for a time catered to fulfilling the superficial anxieties rather than addressing the serious existential concern of what it means to be the people governed by the resurrection. This issue of which you speak–and speak rightly–is not a sin problem as much as it is a human problem. To be a person of the resurrection is to be identified with the living Christ and the God who is necessary and sufficient. The subject without a clause is the subject to which we ought to be subject.

To be a believer is not to be forgiven or to have been delivered from the past; it is, indeed, to be an entirely new creation. The moment it becomes us versus them in any way (and it is too easily and subtly reduced to such bigotry) is the moment it ceases to be truly Christian and, ironically, exemplifies the type of existential anxieties that plague the nameless soul.

OK, I’m done now.

Captain McCluskey days

“Ah, I guess I’m gettin’ too old for my job. Too grouchy — can’t stand the aggravation. You know how it is.” — Sterling Hayden as Captain McCluskey, The Godfather

My nerves are about fried these days. I feel like I’m in entropy. Though I never intended for this site to be a place where I vent and treat it as some kind of exhibitionistic diary, I think I need it to be such tonight.

We just finished three weeks of transitioning out of our apartment, putting our stuff into storage and are now living with the parents until our time here finishes just after Memorial Day. Realistically, life may not be normal again until August.

I’m getting to be this crotchety this soon, I don’t know if I would want to know me come summer. The stress is cracking me. I jumped the gun and unloaded on some poor schmuck on Facebook the other night. I was right, but I was also very, very wrong. Looking back, I should have just left it alone, or at least given the benefit of the doubt. Little things, AKA the bane of my existence, pile up and get under my skin. The one descends to four, even breaking through to the unhealthy levels. A typically benign case of OCD has gotten noticeably more dominating, I find myself rationalizing ways to blow off some steam, leaving me generally lethargic. The time I get to myself I find teeming with ennui. When I’m busy, I’m too busy; when I’m not I’m bored. It’s not a good cycle to be in. And then there’s school. Lots of work ahead to plow through.

So I’m here at work during audit, with a moment to reflect. To breathe. Finally.

Things really aren’t that bad. Tax season kicked us in the nards, we were broke for almost two weeks recovering from what is our last massive self-employment tax payout. Now we’re stockpiling cash, readying for the big move. Wife’s job is set and waiting a final rubber stamp; I finally am getting a break and hammering out details. We’re working on acquiring a mortgage. I’m back in an exercise routine that kicks my butt in a good way. We have so much to look forward to.

And I’m self-destructing from stress.

So I’m going to take some time to regroup, get things together, get my life back in balance and see what happens from there. I’m cutting off Facebook and temporarily shrinking my world. Spending some time in the scriptures, getting back to reading The Imitation regularly. And writing out here in a way that doesn’t blow people apart.

The information age has shrunk our world to an uncomfortable size. All this access to information and data hasn’t necessarily improved humanity; sometimes I wonder if it makes it worse. (This past winter, I read Anthony O’Hear’s After Progress, which served as affirmation of such sentiment. Highly recommended.) Things are more convenient, but convenient doesn’t necessarily mean better. It makes mincemeat of the disposition of the learned and unlearned, the savvy and crude, the sacred and the profane. But if this is the great equalizer, I’m already skeptical of egalitarian worldview: I don’t need this. Perhaps we could all stand for less of it.

Of course, this is a lesson learned after the meltdown. What can I do but take stock, clean up and start over?

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.

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.

Analysis of the AG Trust: part three

Research and Development

“The very first project of the new Assemblies of God Trust is to commission a remake for the Foundations For Faith course to bring its approach into modern times. Six years equals a generation of elementary kids. We are over six generations behind.

Does learning doctrine have to be boring? Can learning doctrine ever be really fun? The group of children’s pastors we brought together to rewrite the curriculum believe it can and will be fun.

The new approach will not change the 16 Fundamental Truths, but will enable us to more effectively teach the next generations — generations who don’t know what it is like to live without a computer, Game Boy, Xbox or cell phone or the Internet.

The Research and Development Initiative of the AG Trust will provide the funds to enable our Fellowship to produce innovative, cutting-edge educational materials to teach timeless truths to all ages.”

Research and development usually entails working on developments and ways to improve or redesign what a company has to offer. One will note, however, that at some point, Ford stopped developing the Pinto once they found out that car exploded from a fender-bender.

You can read the Statement of Fundamental Truths here. The problem that arises from efforts called “research and development” in regard to the 16 tenets is that there is something else called “doctrinal purity”. In fact, what the Assemblies is talking about when it comes to updating Foundations for Faith has nothing to do with research and development and everything to do with repackaging for subsequent generations.

And there is nothing wrong with updating for future generations of young people (and old people, for that matter), provided that what is proclaimed as truth corresponds rightly with theology and is properly epistemic. The fact that the curriculum has not been updated in six generations (for whatever reason, Christians love to refer to people in terms of generations) shows that doctrinal purity, and not research and development continues to be at the fore. The firebrand pastor has been dictating–and still does dictate–how things are operated from Springfield to its affiliated district offices.

I appreciate the tough spot in which the leadership of the Assemblies of God finds itself, from the very top to district officials to university presidents and presbyters. On one side, there is scholarship, some of whom are pastors and faculty, who stop short, in classrooms and offices, of saying that the Statement of Fundamental Truths is broken and needs a revisit and renovation. The intention, generally, is not spite or ill-will, but preservation of the movement and or intellectual integrity.

The other side–again, generally–are those who find Jesus to be the answer to all the questions, who think the solution to real-life societal and ecclesiastical issues is more of the Holy Ghost, who find these serious questions to be a sign of apostasy and a pre-tribulation, premillennial rapture of the church and represent a desire to resort to primitive Pentecostalism.

Both sides are guilty of one thing: appealing to doctrinal purity. In terms of doctrinal purity, the latter has a natural, home-field advantage; while the former needs to watch the tongue for fear of being placed under suspicion. Faculty at A/G Bible colleges don’t get tenure, at last check, but a series of one-year contracts. If they don’t like you, they can replace you, saying they choose not to renew a contract. And they have not been afraid to replace, because those administrators are beholden to regents, many of whom represent the latter.

Tenure is a controversial topic right now in education in general. I believe tenure should remain a part of the academy, but not in its current–unaccountable and broken–form. And if that needs reexamination, so does this concept of “doctrinal purity”.

What you’ll notice by the above link to doctrinal purity is that there is no direct link to anything about the A/G’s Commission on Doctrinal Purity. Their fingerprints are all over anything that has anything to do with doctrine, position papers or theological development (if there is any) coming from headquarters. It’s like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, or the Gestapo: faceless and beholden to its own special interest.

The 1800s brought about a number of significant developments in American religious life: the Second Great Awakening, the rise of the tent meeting, the Holiness movement and the crisis cults. When one also considers the number of catastrophic events endured by the United States in the 19th Century–two economic collapses, the War of 1812 and the Civil War, Lincoln’s assassination, the oppression of the American South by carpetbaggers and robber barons, etc.–it creates the perfect stew for the explosion of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity, first in Europe in the 1890s, then here in America, incidentally, in yet untamed Kansas on New Year’s Day 1901.

I make a brief historical pitstop to say this: nothing that happens anywhere in American life occurs in a vacuum. The flowering of tongues as a new Christian distinctive is neither a sovereign move of God nor an overreaction of human limitation pressed against an undefinable, unqualifiable experience. [Though, in the interest of full disclosure, I tend to think more toward the second than the first.] That statement alone will rankle more than a few, but it’s the truth: it corresponds with reality and is epistemologically sound. Everything that happens with the birth of modern Pentecostal Christianity makes perfect sense when given a historical backdrop. It does not diminish the events, it makes them real. Reality lends these things gravitas.

And reality, frankly, is not what we do very well.

Among the other religious developments were the crisis cults, and Christian flash-in-the-pan heresies: the rise of the Amish, the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, their heritage found in the Millerites (as we’ll see, the Holiness movement is a child of Miller as well), Latter Rain, multiple anointings/blessings (Charles Parham himself preached somewhere between 10-12 ), the Social Gospel, and one could by extension include the Ku Klux Klan and other supremacist movements as well. They all–minus the Social Gospel–preached sanctification as isolation: the Amish still drive buggies, the Mormons moved west, the JWs essentially hid until the date of the end came and went (…and came, and went…and came, and went…) and the Holiness movement latched up with everything from abolition to temperance, beginning what I have long referred to as “bomb shelter Christianity”.

The reality of the matter is that movements that heavily rely on “doctrinal purity” are fundamentally unsure. And you cannot hold something as fundamentally true when it has not happened, thus eliminating the final four of the 16 tenets. So, in the face of anxiety and uncertainty, and in the effort to assert a fully-human existence, a movement needs purity, and to vigilantly defend itself against thorough examination, even from itself.

This disturbing trend exists in all the crisis cults. The Assemblies, itself not a cult by any definition, would be wise to step away from such a sordid, unwitting relationship and allow itself to be scrutinized, examined and reworked for the sake of integrity in theology and openness to criticism; at the very least, for its very viability in the near future. If what we believe is true, we ought to welcome it. If what we believe is not properly theological, then we as those bound to truth, should be welcoming of examination. This is not mere semantics or word-play: little things matter. A statement of faith not only allows for institutionalized opinion, but for open and honest scrutiny.

The fact is that the Assemblies of God excels in doctrine, but suffers in theological development. A wholly Pentecostal theology has been sought, but by those who have been kept on the outside (Amos Yong, Clark Pinnock, et al) or forced out, when faced with a preponderance of the evidence (Edith Blumhofer, et al): and these are the people, off the top of my head, who have done the research and attempted to offer help for development!

The Assemblies needs to raise capital to develop a theological task force–many of whom are already in house–to move past fundamental truths and toward sound Pentecostal theology. Simply retooling Foundations for Faith and making the 16 tenets palatable for a new audience is unacceptable when there is so much more work to be done. In this respect, the A/G is no different than the federal government’s answer to problems in education: throw more money at it and make it more entertaining, make them take tests and meet centralized standards. The conscience of the Assemblies is clearly part of the religious right, though unable to be a part of the political process. What business does a generally-conservative laissez faire voting bloc have working within methods that are clearly progressive/statist? (Pro-lifers should also be put on notice this way.) Change the culture and you change things, change things at the top and you can expect two responses on the ground: muted, suppressed hostility or unconscious acceptance.

A conscious people wouldn’t need to fear the approval or contempt of “doctrinal purity” in the first place. Thus, it appears that the AG Trust is banking on unconscious donations based on thoughtless acceptance. After all, thinking about the matter at hand only seems to get one in trouble. There is a better way, and there is hope for the future. The AG Trust  as it is now is neither. The frustrating fact is that it could be a catalyst toward both.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration. Part four forthcoming.

In praise of spirit over letter

With all the hubbub surrounding politics regarding deregulation and oversight, it seems a good time to mention a few related things.

One of the things that makes Christian theology beautiful is its spiritual revolution over the letter of the law. It is this philosophical shift that inspired American limited, restricted government, enshrined as a constitutional democratic republic. (For the record, I choose my words carefully: I do not advocate that this is a Christian nation founded by Christians, however, we do see a clear influence of, amongst other motivations, the scriptures in the formation of America.) As we see a concept of Christian liberty as taught in the New Testament (a proper reading of the New Testament proclaims what we should or can do, rather than what we cannot), we see in the Constitution clearly defined limitations on government, not citizens. Sadly, that concept has been routinely ignored, particularly in recent years by all parties and branches in government.

With the controversial bailout package passed by Congress came much discussion about the sources of our recent economic meltdown. Typically, Democrats blamed deregulation while Republicans blamed lack of oversight.

Constitutionally-limited government is predicated upon the decency or goodness of a nation’s citizenry. Tocqueville said it thus: When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great; noting that the concept of American liberty was so intertwined with fervent preaching of the Gospel that it was clear the source of goodness was in the churches and places of worship from city to countryside.

Decent people need not be placed under the thumb of excessive stipulations or legalities. Decent people accept people who will preside over and defend constitutionally-limited government, which is why we have presidents and not kings, premiers, chancellors or tyrants, as well as a Congress that has specifically enumerated powers. When decent people preside over the halls of government, there is no concern for trespassing on those powers because their role is clear, defined and accepted: service, not dominion.

Again, an axiom found in scripture that has lasting repercussions beyond spiritual affairs: Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.

People who need strict boundaries and black and white rules are people with no sense of responsibility or self-control. Because they lack a basic inner sense of right and wrong, and have never been exposed to the concept of natural law, they are hardly more than animals: selfish creatures constantly starved by the insatiable hunger for self-gratification. People who are dangers to themselves because of their reckless self-interest are people who need straitjackets and restraints.

Self-interest, and a good dose of deception, caused the fall. Self-interest is the antithesis of liberty.

Federal codex and regulations now exceed 25,000 pages of legal mumbo-jumbo, while the Constitution has been replaced with the US Legal Code, full of enough thou shalt nots to make even the most embittered wayward soul, having a propensity toward complaining about faith-based legalism, cringe. Clearly, we are a people who are a danger to ourselves governed by people whose self-interest is political ideology instead of the vigorous defense of the Constitution and their fellow Americans.

Clearly, we are a people who necessitate tyranny. As Tarkin aptly put it: Fear will keep them in line.

Which brings us to the current economic meltdown. Things were allowed to get this bad by everyone:

-Government which held mortgage lenders hostage in the name of politically-correct egalitarianism and then got into the debt management business with high risk mortgages via government-sponsored entities. The same party that advocated the destruction of black neighborhoods in the name of public housing projects passed the original Community Reinvestment Act and its modification, which is directly to blame for the mess we’re in right now;

-Banks and other financial entities that offered variable and adjustable rate mortgages with impunity and disregard for their own well being (see also: Countryside, amongst others), as well as buying up bad debt portfolios from others (see also, Brothers, Lehman, amongst others);

-Those who borrowed without consulting an attorney or doing due diligence before signing the paperwork for their own inevitable execution;

-Government again, for failing to do anything until there was no choice but to engage in socialism the likes of which may completely destroy free enterprise in America;

-And finally, taxpayers for not throwing a second Boston Tea Party over such a blatantly risky, taxpayer-funded, Yuan-funded potential fiscal apocalypse.

The reality of the matter is that this mess is neither the Democrats’ nor Republicans’ responsibility. It is not because of regulation, deregulation or oversight. It is because we are a nation of irresponsible, nihilistic sub-humans, by irresponsible, nihilistic sub-humans and for irresponsible. nihilistic sub-humans. ‘People’ hardly suffices to adequately explain who we have become in ‘civilized’ society.

Corporate lawyers pour over legislation in order to find loopholes, so they can do what is wrong without breaking the law. McCain and Feingold were able to get campaign finance reform from dream to reality, only to see the 527 nightmare, while a certain presidential campaign is living high off the hog thanks in part to donations amounting to just underneath the disclosure threshold. In a culture poisoned by power and greed (in no particular order), what do you expect? 501 tax exemption, a perfectly-decent allowance for charitable organizations, has allowed a whole bumper crop of crisis cult health-and-wealth ‘churches’ that live apart from the burden of taxation, only to line the pockets of sleazy snake oil salesmen preaching their offensive and heretical doctrines, while well-intentioned organizations trying to attain 501 status to do meaningful religious or charitable work need to go through miles of red tape to the status so many others appear to abuse.

[EDITORIAL ASIDE: Given the cultural climate we have now, further given that we will be facing up to a trillion-dollar deficit in the upcoming months, rest assured that balancing the budget will include finding fresh manflesh for the Uru-khai. Churches and synagogues, the cross hairs are upon you, your property and your income, I mean, donations, irrespective of who heads the next administration. The sun is setting on you because of those who abuse the privilege of exemption. Indeed, night cometh, when no man can work.]

I advocate neither morality nor Christianity as the solution, mainly because mob rule is already entrenched within our borders. The only stability that will come will be by force and not from the goodwill within us as people. It has already begun, and while I do not hold any particular eschatological stance, mostly because there is so much work yet to be done that it is utterly presumptuous and absurd to look to the stars, we can see the foundations of [potentially friendly, potentially not] totalitarianism laid in our civic and federal halls.

When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

The principles of American liberty are beautiful, yet nothing compared to the liberty of following the way of Christ. Reason, charity, faith and self-government are ideals nearly lost in the throes of those blindly following Hegel’s dialectic (on both sides). As a philosopher, a Christian, a theologian, husband, brother, son and human, existence without these core tenets is existence bound first by chains of the soul, then by chains of the body.

We spent decades fighting for the full liberty of our human brothers because of the color of their skin. We spend millions of dollars fighting for the liberty of oppressed people in the Middle East. Why are we not vigorously defending the liberty of America? How can we assail tyrannous ideology overseas and ignore the rising tyrant(s) within our own borders? Or overturn the death-inducing letter of the law there, but to return to the death-inducing letter here?

Where is the spirit of the law in American society today?

A regular, no-lead feature

[a weekly note from Facebook, now here:]

So I’ve followed the price of crude oil since before Rita and Katrina sent things reeling what is now more than a few years ago. I’ve seen all sorts of stupidity in the reporting, but this is the one I’m most amazed by, more amazing than the two weeks where the same reasons the price went up were the exact same reasons the price went down.

I have Yahoo Biz in the bookmark toolbar on Firefox (and if you’re not on Firefox, or on browser not from Microsuck, what is wrong with you???) and I check it every business day, two to three times. On Tuesday, the coverage begins to amp up for the Energy Department’s release of stockpile information, usually late Wednesday morning. Without fail, the genii at the Associated Propagandists, er, Press business section, cite Platts for an estimate of what the report will be. Platts, a self-professed “leading global provider of energy and metals information” and a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill (yes, the textbook people) has been, without fail, wrong. And not just wrong, obscenely wrong.

For five weeks in a row now, Platts has royally screwed up the estimate. Today, from the AP’s Madlen Read’s 11.13 AM report: “The Energy Information Administration, an arm of the U.S. Energy Department, said the nation’s crude inventories rose by a hefty 9.4 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 15. That figure was much higher than the average analyst forecast for a 1.7 million-barrel increase, according to energy information provider Platts.”

1.7 goes into 9.4 over five times. That means that Platts was off by roughly 550%! Last week, when I got so fed up with the absurdity of estimating the guvment’s report that I e-mailed the AP and ripped them for using bad information on a weekly basis, they were off by about 300%.

So the folks with the Associated Propagandists seem to be in on the fix. They seem to have a vested interest in using bad information to spread unwarranted panic through estimate information that is routinely inaccurate in a way that makes weatherpeople look like the precogs in Minority Report.

Stay tuned every Wednesday for the latest findings.

___

3 September: Nary a word from the AP about Platts or estimates, only the Energy Dept.’s actual findings. I’m not going to be so presumptuous as to say that one man took on the Associated Press and won via the power of the interweb, but I’m just saying that four weeks after a certain writer contacted the AP and three weeks after said writer started keeping published track of the mistakes, and lo!, was there no word of the incompetent ones at Platts to be found.

And oil continues its nosedive. Now the prices need to follow suit. Better time than ever for the elected moronity in Madison to repeal or suspend the minimum markup law.

___

Well, Platts took Labor Day off, it seems.

As reported by the Associated Propagandists today:

Platts estimate: gas supplies down -1.8M barrels

Energy Dept: gas supplies down -1M barrels

Platts off by 40%

Feel confident about McGraw Hill’s textbooks yet? If Platts is this crazy, what do you think they’re passing in print?

___

24 September:

Platts: +1.5M barrels

Energy dept: -1.6M

Platts off by 200% the complete wrong way.

___

1 October:

Platts: + OR – 1.5M barrels of crude stocks

Energy dept: + 4.3M barrels

With a THREE-MILLION BARREL SPREAD, the brain trust at Platts still managed to get it wrong anywhere from nearly 200-400%.

Gas stocks:

Platts: – 1-3M barrels

Energy dept: + 900K barrels

With a TWO-MILLION BARREL SPREAD, Platts again misses from almost 200 to 400%, while also going the wrong way.

Next week, expect the analysts to finally get it right with a spread from +30M to -20M. They may as well, since they can’t seem to hit water falling out of the boat.

___

Last week’s hijinks out of the way, Platts managed to blow it yet again…

Crude stocks:

Platts est.: – 1M barrels

Energy dept: + 8.1M

Margin of error: Off the wrong way by 900%

Gas stocks:

Platts: + 2M barrels

Energy dept: + 7.2M

Margin of error: about 300% off

And, added to the fray this week, distillates:

Platts: + 1M barrels

Energy dept: – 500K

Margin: Off the wrong way, 150%

Platts surveys analysts in the market to come up with their wild prognostications. Should you trust the markets when these clowns are overseeing the supplies? Probably about as much as trusting Washington with the bailout.

Cheers!

___

Platts took yesterday off (due to Columbus Day), but they’re back for another week of wild guesses…

Platts Oil: +3.1M

Energy dept: +5.6M

Platts Gas: +3.5M (approx., according to the Associated Propagandists)

Energy Dept: +7M (ditto)

So they missed each estimate by about double. New week, same misses.

Yes, I’ve returned. Like a dog to its own vomit.

Now that I am less encumbered than I was before, I return to the blogosphere. News, sports, music, movies, philosophy, religion, politics, life. All with strength, without compromise and toward meaningful conversation. I hope to keep the bitterness or acrimony down, and to keep the ideas up.

All that, and I just couldn’t resist the urge to publish again.