The Christian Right’s New Cause

Last updated on: November 26, 2018 at 8:33 am By Gene Veith

The Christian Right, having fulfilled their cause of getting conservative judges, have a new priority: criminal justice reform.

Does that sound odd? Not restricting pornography? Not limiting abortion? Not protecting religious liberty? I’m sure the Christian activists still support such causes, but their priority right now is addressing the problems with our prisons and the legal system that puts so many offenders behind bars.

Specifically, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, led by long-time activist Ralph Reed, is calling on its 2 million members to deluge Congress with letters, emails, and phone calls, encouraging members to pass the First Step Act, which would reduce mandatory sentences, give judges more discretion on whether to incarcerate offenders, allow early release for some prisoners, give breaks to prisoners who are pregnant or elderly, allow prisoners greater contact with their families, and implement various rehabilitation programs.

Christian conservatives have already persuaded President Trump to support the bill, but the measure is being blocked in the Senate by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx), who are standing on the traditional conservative position of being “tough on crime.”

What is happening? I recall back in the 1970s and 1980s that one of the Moral Majority’s big issues was “law and order.” Is this “compassionate” emphasis, rather than their usual hard-line moralistic approach, a way for Christian conservatives to improve their image?

It may have that effect, but I don’t think that is the main reason. What we are seeing, I would argue, is the continuing influence of the late Charles Colson and his organization Prison Fellowship.

Lots of Christian conservatives, including I suspect a number of the 2000 pastors who have written letters in support of the bill, got their start as activists and as “mercy workers” in prison ministry, thanks to Colson’s organization.

An article in Politico on this issue quotes a Prison Fellowship official:

“This is a base issue for conservative Christian voters,” said Craig DeRoche, head of advocacy and public policy at the Prison Fellowship. “The entirety of the Christian faith is based on a second chance that we all get because of Jesus’ sacrifice.”

Activists on the Left, who also favor criminal justice reform, acknowledge Christian leadership on the issue. From Politico:

“The religious right has been advocating for prison reform for a while, from the second-chances, Christian-compassion perspective,” said Inimai Chettiar, a director at the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice. “Conservative leaders have played a very large part in this.”

In my opinion, the criminal justice system does need reform. Those who oppose big, all-powerful government should be leery of how it exercises its authority to lock people up. Prisons cost an enormous amount of money, eating up a big proportion of state budgets. And “penitentiaries” are doing a poor job of making offenders “penitent,” often being run by the inmates and serving as a graduate school for crime. Prison ministries have done a remarkable job in changing prisoners’ lives with the Gospel and giving them help upon release, dramatically reducing recidivism.

So working with prisoners is a worthy cause and the reforms begun by this bill are probably good ones. I would just like to warn Christian activists not to confuse the temporal with the eternal kingdom. Yes, prisoners need the Gospel. But the Gospel is not a template for how the state should deal with criminals. The state is supposed to punish lawbreakers. That is the vocation of earthly rulers (Romans 13). The church carries out the Gospel. The state carries out the Law.

The Christian Right previously risked making it seem as if the church were trying to function like the state (or even ruling the state) so as to impose the Law. Christian political activists must also be careful lest they err in the opposite direction: Encouraging the state to function like the church so as to impose the Gospel.

To be sure, Christian political activists do not have to fall in either of those extremes. Being willing to champion causes that go beyond the conventional ideology of one political party gives them greater credibility. So does being compassionate, as opposed to being scary.

Photo: Rainerzufall1234 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

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Thanksgiving Leftovers

Last updated on: November 22, 2018 at 3:03 pm By Gene Veith

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One of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving celebration is leftovers. I love returning to the remnants of the feast for days afterwards, not only in full replays but in football grazing and random snacking until nothing is left. OK, I’m weird that way, but there is so much abundance to Thanksgiving and what we are thankful for that one day cannot contain it.

In that spirit, I am offering you today and for the weekend some outstanding Thanksgiving Day posts that I found on the internet. And after that, for the benefit of posterity and the common good, I will give you a secret family recipe that may well transform your own celebration of the days after Thanksgiving: the famous-to-our-family and mysterious-to-outsiders “White on White on White on White.”

A Definitive Ranking of Thanksgiving Sides. This piece approaches the question of which Thanksgiving sides are the best with scientific (or pseudo-scientific) objectivity: Which ones create the fewest leftovers? Which ones are we eager to send home with guests, and which do we hope to keep for ourselves? Which ones do we have only for Thanksgiving because of tradition and no other time, which suggests that they aren’t really that good? The answers may surprise you.

Gratitude for What We Almost Never Think About. Kevin Williamson thinks about what helps the poor the most, and despite his 18th century chauvinism segues into a celebration of simple economics. “As you cut into that turkey today, remember that somebody did the hard and dirty work of raising it, butchering it, packing it, driving the truck that brought it to your town, stocking the store shelves — and the very difficult work of figuring out how to get all that done, from domesticating turkeys to fueling that truck, a long unbroken line of human effort and ingenuity stretching back to the first guy who figured out how to chip a piece of stone a certain way to make it more useful.” We call it vocation.

Thanksgiving, Gratitude, and Augustine. John Turner reminds us, via Augustine, that there is something even more fundamental than economics that should elicit our thanksgiving and that we think about even less: Our existence.

The Proclamations that Instituted Our Thanksgiving Holiday. The Oklahoma City newspaper printed both George Washington’s proclamation that called for a day of thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November, 1789 (the first year of our nation under the Constitution) and Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation in 1863 that made this a regular observance as a national holiday. Both are very moving. And Washington offers a thoughtful meditation on what a nation, secular though it be, owes to God’s providence (which means not predestination but that God “provides”) in the temporal order.

And now for the recipe. . . .

White on White on White on White

(White #1) Take two pieces of soft white bread. [Note: I know that other kinds of bread, including those with more substantial texture, crunchy grains, and greater nutritional value, are better in every way. But follow the recipe, which depends on soft, fresh store-bought bread. This is a good use for Wonder Bread or the equivalent.]

(White #2) Apply a thick amount of mayonnaise to each piece of bread. [Note: There must be a lot of mayonnaise. Turkey is no longer delicious when it gets dry. A thick application of mayonnaise can in part remedy that problem. You may need to use more the older the turkey leftovers become.]

(White #3) Put turkey on the mayonnaise side of one of the pieces of bread. [Note: You may use dark meat, which actually tastes better, even though it is not, strictly speaking, “white.” You can pile it on high. This is a good use of the little scraps of meat that are usually leftover, since people take the large slices at the dinner.]

(White #4) Sprinkle a substantial layer of salt on the turkey. [It is important to use quite a bit of salt; otherwise, turkey can be bland. The salt should call to mind the first snowfall of the season to come. The sandwich needs to taste salty.]

Then top with the other piece of bread, mayonnaise side down. Do not put anything else on the sandwich. No lettuce (which would be a “green on white on white on white”) or tomato (which would be a “red on white on white on white) or anything else in any combination.

Serve with sweet pickles on the side. Also potato chips, which are also white. For a drink pairing, Coca-Cola, with a strong carbonation burn, is best.

I know this is just a turkey sandwich, but some people do not like turkey sandwiches or do not appreciate them enough. The only way I can account for that is that they are not made properly. Rather, they are made with dry bread, dry turkey, and lots of extraneous vegetation. Try it this way. If you still don’t like it, use softer bread, more mayonnaise, and more salt. By paring down the sandwich to its essence, we are approaching the Platonic Ideal of the turkey sandwich.

And now, in the spirit of people getting together for Thanksgiving with everyone bringing something, what good posts or meditations on Thanksgiving did you come across that are worth sharing with the rest of us? And what tasty recipes for Thanksgiving leftovers do you have?

Photo: “Thanksgiving Leftovers” by J Wynia via Flickr, Creative Commons License

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Applying the Two Kingdoms on Capitol Hill

Last updated on: November 15, 2018 at 12:02 pm By Gene Veith

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At the Rural and Small Town Ministries conference I attended, I got to hear from Rev. Dr. Gregory Seltz, the former Lutheran Hour speaker who now heads the Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty

This office was established by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod to represent the church body’s interests and to promote its causes in Washington, D.C. Doing this was somewhat controversial. Lutherans are encouraged to get involved in their societies, including political causes, by virtue of their vocation as citizens. But the church, as such, is NOT supposed to get involved in politics. This is because Lutherans believe in the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, in which God’s spiritual rule (Kingdom of the Right)–as manifested in the church through the Gospel–is distinct from God’s temporal rule (Kingdom of the Left)–His providential presence in the secular realm and His work through vocations, including those of government. Still, while the church operates spiritually, as an earthly institution–with property, by-laws, buildings, and legal obligations–it is also a part of the Kingdom of the Left.

I was pleased to hear Dr. Seltz say that the goal of the Lutheran Center for Religious Liberty is precisely to apply the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms, as well as the related teaching of vocation!

He said that “I’m not in D.C. to make us a more political church, but to get the government off our backs so that we can be the church.” Indeed, I would add that the issue is not so much the political activism of Christians but the activism of the government in intruding into issues that were traditionally the concern of churches, such as moral questions (legitimizing abortion and homosexuality), the nature of families (instituting same-sex marriage), and tenets of theology and the Christian life (limiting religious liberty). But the Center’s emphasis on religious liberty does not impose the church’s teachings on anyone and does not make the church complicit in the exercise of governmental power. Rather, it is a defensive posture against political power when used against the church.

Dr. Seltz said that the Two Kingdoms teaching is summarized in Christ’s words that we should “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). So what are we obliged to “render to Caesar”? We have assumed that this is automatic or a matter of merely passive obedience, but this is a positive command. What are our responsibilities, in our vocation as citizens, to the state? The moral law, in its first use (to restrain evil) does apply to the Kingdom of the Left, and we are to love and serve our neighbors in our vocation of citizenship. But how do we do that?

The Center uses the motto, “Christian Public Engagement–Reformation Restraint.” Dr. Seltz says that the theology of Lutherans makes them approach public engagement differently than other Christians. “God is already at work in the Lefthand Kingdom, and He works through non-Christians too,” he said. “We know that, so we have a natural restraint. We don’t want to burn the house down.” But “that restraint means we sometimes do not do anything, which is wrong too.”

Exactly how to apply the doctrine of the Two Kingdoms in different situations requires thought and study. Dr. Seltz told me that he wants the Center to explore this teaching in greater depth and to develop resources on the subject. The Center puts out a semi-weekly e-mail bulletin called Word from the Center, which gives a Two Kingdoms application to the issues of the day. This should be of interest to many readers of this blog. You can sign up for that bulletin here.

Dr. Seltz is a brilliant communicator, filled with ideas and tossing off insights at a rapid clip. I can see why he did so well at the Lutheran Hour and am sure that he will be effective in this new role, talking to politicians and being a Lutheran voice on Capitol Hill. Here are a few other of his bon mots, with my comments:

“Don’t look at whether your life is successful but whether it is useful.” (THAT, my friends, is vocational thinking. The purpose of vocation, contrary to how some Christians see it, is not your personal self-aggrandizement, but loving and serving your neighbors.)

“We need to recover the family as an institution, not a relationship.” (YES! I know that the word “institution” has a bad connotation today, but that is exactly the mindset that needs to change. The family–comprising marriage and parenthood–is an institution, an established objective reality that we need to conform ourselves to. Not just a personal “relationship” that we can enter into or leave depending on how things are going.)

“Life is cross-centered.” (Dr. Seltz’s actual topic at the workshop he gave was “Suffering in Christ, Living with Hope.” He applied the Theology of the Cross to our suffering and grieving. We should not be surprised when trials and tribulations come. But Christ is with us, taking up our crosses into His.)

“Grief does two things to us: it can drive us to despair but it can also drive us closer to God, because we have nowhere else to go.”

“God’s blessings are not to show us how strong we are, but how strong He is.”

“Pro-life is not just fighting for life at the beginning, but also at the end. Versus the mentality of getting rid of children that get in the way and getting rid of old people that get in the way.”

Photo credit: Dr. Gregory P. Seltz, via LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford.

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Where the Action Is in Ministry

Last updated on: November 13, 2018 at 9:29 am By Gene Veith

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As I keep harping on in this blog, the white working class in rural small towns and rust-belt cities has become the largest demographic of the unchurched in America. They also have the lowest marriage rates and the worst problems with drug addiction, including heroin. These folks in what used to be America’s “heartland” used to be the backbone of our churches, but today church growth and evangelism efforts are aimed mostly at high status groups, such as the Millennials, the college educated, and affluent suburbanites.

This has been bothering me, especially now that I have moved back to my roots in small town, rural Oklahoma. So I was happy to be among the representatives of our congregation to the Rural and Small Town Ministry conference last week in Kansas City, sponsored by the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod as part of its work in this demographic.

I learned that 60% of Americans in rural and small town areas are unchurched. I’m still trying to learn what happened since the days of my childhood, when small towns were booming and virtually everyone went to church. I know that many small town economies have collapsed, the young and college educated have moved to the cities, the population is getting old, and hard working men who injured themselves got hooked on the opioides the doctors prescribed them and, once the medical profession cracked down on narcotic pain relievers, turned to heroine instead. But I still don’t understand wha happened to cause the collapse in church attendance. (If any of you have theories, I’d be glad to hear them.)

I also learned at the conference that 50% of LCMS congregations are in the rural and small town category. Many of these churches have become extremely small and so struggle financially. But they are serving these forgotten people.

Also, over 50% of new seminary graduates get their first call to one of these rural congregations. Few of them can afford vicarages, so many of those newly-fledged pastors find themselves in culture shock–finding themselves in a community sometimes with a population of only a few hundred; isolated, “in the middle of nowhere”; with an unusually low salary as they try to pay off their student loans–so that they are eager to take another call the first chance they get. Since these rural churches depend on placements from the seminary, their new pastors often have little experience in ministry in rural settings, even though these can be especially challenging. And yet, at the conference, I heard pastors who stuck it out and grew to love this kind of ministry in this kind of setting.

I was pleased to see that the LCMS and all of these little churches are doing a lot of invaluable ministry in this context. Those of us at the conference, nearly all of whom were from churches like these, were given some good ideas and heard some inspiring teaching.

For example, our daily Bible study was lead by Rev. Dr. Roosevelt Gray, Director of Black Ministries for the LCMS. What a gifted Bible teacher he is! He told about his experience evangelizing and working with addicts, prostitutes, and other seemingly hopeless men and women in the black urban centers, whose problems are now those of small town rural America. He said that these people often believe that their sins are so great that God could never forgive them. Dr. Gray told of his own background, growing up in rural Alabama. His only exposure to Christianity was the hell-fire and brimstone preachers. As a child, he learned that “God was big and was mad at me.” He was afraid of God and, as he grew older, wanted nothing to do with Him. Later, a young woman he wanted to date–and would later marry–said that she would only go out with him if he went to church with her. He did, and it was a Lutheran church, where he learned about God’s love for the world in Christ (“‘For God so loved the world’–not ‘for God so hated sin’–‘that He gave His only begotten Son. . . .'”) and where he heard the Gospel for the first time.

We also heard from Rev. Craig Muehler, Navy chaplain and Director of LCMS Ministry to the Armed Services. A big proportion of the men and women who volunteer for military service come from rural areas and small town communities, which also have a large proportion of veterans. Chaplain Muehler told us about the synod-wide Operation Barnabas, a one-of-a-kind ministry to military families and veterans.

Chaplain Muehler said that may veterans, especially those with by Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, are tormented with guilt about having had to kill people in combat. They are convinced that what they did will exclude them from salvation. Again, what they need is a full understanding of the Gospel. Also, though, Chaplain Muehler told about the often transforming impact of teaching the doctrine of vocation. Drawing on Luther’s treatise Whether Soldiers Too Can Be Saved, he has explained to soldiers and veterans how the military vocation, in which they “bear the sword” in a Romans 13 chain of command, is a legitimate calling from God, a way to love and serve one’s neighbors, even when that means killing the enemies who threaten them.

Again, we see that Lutherans have some distinct advantages in ministering to these groups, both in our teachings and in our being already placed in these communities.

Photo: Wholtone [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

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Most “Nones” (& Lots of Christians) Believe in New Age Religion

Last updated on: November 1, 2018 at 4:39 pm By Gene Veith

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The growing number of “Nones,” those who profess no religion, makes many observers assume that America is becoming secularized–materialistic people living in a material world, above us only sky. But a Pew Research study shows that, to the extent traditional religions like Christianity are fading, they are being replaced by a more primitive, animistic religion as taught by the New Age Movement.

In fact, one reason that traditional religions like Christianity may be fading is that they too are being pulled in the animistic direction, as a startlingly high number of Christians are embracing New Age beliefs.

Pew Research asked Americans whether they believe in four characteristically New Age–but also animistic–teachings: psychics, reincarnation, astrology, and that spiritual energy can be located in physical things.

Here are the findings, from New Age’ beliefs common among both religious and nonreligious Americans:

[Citation: ‘”New Age’ beliefs common among both religious and nonreligious Americans.” Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (October 1, 2018) http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/01/new-age-beliefs-common-among-both-religious-and-nonreligious-americans/ See Grant of License.]

Read also the accompanying discussion of the findings.

Notice that the majority of those whose religion is “Nothing in Particular” believe in things with spiritual energy, psychics, and reincarnation, with almost half (47%) believing in astrology. Furthermore, they believe in such things at a higher rate than do members of any other religious demographic.

We often tend to assume that there is little difference between atheists and agnostics, but this study shows that agnostics are surprisingly open to New Age-type beliefs. A majority of agnostics (56%) believe in at least one of these spiritual tenets, with 40% believing in objects with spiritual energy, nearly a third (31%) believing in psychics, and over a quarter (28%) believing in reincarnation.

Atheists are much more consistent materialists, with only just over a fifth (22%) believing in at least one of these New Age tenets.

Among professed Christians, members of Black Churches (72% believing in at least one) and Catholics (70%) are more credulous when it comes to New Age teachings. Then come the supposedly sophisticated mainline Protestants (67%).

Evangelicals are the most skeptical, next to the atheists, but with a still-surprising 47% believing in at least one of the New Age beliefs.

Now, of course, as in all such studies, we need to attend to issues of definition. “Believe spiritual energy can be located in physical things”? Well, a Christian who believes in creation, incarnation, sacraments, and vocation might assent to that, although the Christian view of such things is not of “spiritual energy” as such. Interestingly, evangelicals, who tend to be non-sacramental, scored the lowest in that area (24%), while Catholics scored among the highest (47%)–though not as high as “Nones” (61%).

How do you account for the popularity of these New Age beliefs among both non-Christians and Christians? It isn’t because of some greater rationality and the march of scientific progress. Christianity is surely more rational and scientific than worldviews that are open to astrology and reincarnation. But that so many non-believers are open to such mystical beliefs is a good sign, suggesting that their supernaturalism might be directed to the true supernaturalism that also embraces what is natural.

In fact, it suggests that Christian beliefs that come close to these beliefs or that fulfill the yearning for them might be points of contact for reaching these folks. For example, the desire for “spiritual energy in physical things” might mean that Christians should emphasize the sacraments. The attractiveness of astrology might mean that Christians should emphasize God’s providence; that is, His rule over all things, including the future. The belief in psychics might lead to an interest in how the Holy Spirit speaks through human beings in the prophetic words of Scripture. The belief in reincarnation is a yearning for eternal life.

HT: Rick

Illustration by Activedia via Pixabay, CC0, Creative Commons

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The Chapel of Contemporary Spirituality

Last updated on: October 21, 2018 at 10:05 pm By Gene Veith

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When I was in Houston last week, my brother and I also visited the Rothko Chapel. We found it very emblematic of contemporary spirituality.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970) was an abstract artist who was commissioned by Houston art collectors John and Dominique de Menil to create a “meditative space” employing his paintings. The Rothko Chapel was completed in 1971, a year after the artist committed suicide.

Described by its website as “a sacred space” open to all, for all faiths and all religions, the chapel is made of rather nondescript masonry and concrete. Inside are eight walls surrounding benches. On each wall are black panels, the artwork painted by Rothko.

You meditate by contemplating the black paintings. There is no color. Nothing organic or alive. No windows to the outside. No symbols or representations or anything that references anything in the world. No meaning. Nothing aesthetic.

Of course there wouldn’t be. Rothko was an abstract artist. But his chapel is a monument to religious abstraction. This is “spirituality”: disembodied, oblivious to anything physical or human. Staring in the grey, empty space at the black panels is like shutting your eyes.

I do get it. This expresses the Zen quality of Nirvana as “nothingness.” In meditation, you empty your mind of all transitory content, all sense impressions, all distinctions. This calms the spirit and enables you to contemplate the Void, perhaps to attain enlightenment so as to transcend the illusions of life and to cease existing. This is Gnosticism, the spirituality that rejects the material world, including its Creator. This is the spirituality without religion that believes the objective world is void of meaning, so that we must look for meaning only within ourselves.

The chapel includes in side hallways the great “sacred texts” of the world’s religion: a Bible, a Quran, the Baghavad Gita of Hinduism, the Mahayana Sutras of Buddhism, a collection of Native American myths, a Book of Mormon. The idea is that this chapel is for all religions, all of which are fundamentally, “spiritually” the same. But what it really expresses is how different the religions are!

A Christian chapel is full of “things.” Crosses. Depending on the church tradition icons and crucifixes. But even churches that draw back from those will have flowers. Stained glass windows, letting in gloriously covered light. Or at least regular windows letting in regular light. There are musical instruments and song books. A pulpit where an actual human being will preach. The Rothko chapel, signs and brochures admonish us, is to be a place of “silence,” but Christian chapels are places of singing, reading, preaching, speaking, and praying. (Not silently meditating, but praying, with language, one person addressing Another Person.)

Today even Christians and their churches can succumb to abstraction. God becomes just the solution to a philosophical problem, an intellectual abstraction, rather than the living, active, Holy One of Israel. Our doctrines too can be reduced to abstractions, a set of correct answers to check off, rather than the key to reality. Christians, unlike many religions, believe in the Creation. They believe that God became flesh in Jesus Christ. Who died on a Cross and rose from the dead. God communicates Himself by means of the water of Baptism, the bread and wine of Holy Communion, the paper and ink of a book, sound waves in the air. And Christians live out their faith in the world, in their vocations of family and the workplace and the state, and in those vocations in which we love and serve our neighbors God Himself is working as He governs not just His spiritual kingdom but also His temporal kingdom.

The Rothko Chapel, though, is a fine expression of what contemporary spirituality so often amounts to. But it should remind us of the radical difference of Christianity. And it encourages us to bring the fullness and the light of Christianity to those whose spirituality is empty and full of darkness.

Photo: Houston-Rothko Chapel by Stefan Klocek via Flickr, Creative Commons License

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