My SAT Essay

In response to 9-11, America has been plunged into a perpetual, so-called "War on Terror"--a fight against fear. Our Commander-in-Chief's stated goal is to subdue, even eradicate, terrorism by devastating its capacity to harm the American people. As the number of casualties, both American and Iraqi, mount, Pres. Bush has sought to rally support for his aggrssion by remaining the public that "staying the course" takes "courage and commitment" to "democraic ideals." But I wonder. What does he mean by his se of the word "courage?" Is courage the attempt to eradicate fear or to subdue those who would seek to strike fear in our hearts? Is courage even, as modern wisdom might suggest, resistance to fear or mastery thereof? I'm inclined to believe that courage is not so aggresive. Courage is the resolve to face any circumstance--including one's fears--in the most just, merciful and humble way one can, even if to do so is to cause one's self pain.

This is why, though our President may believe and would ask us to believe otherwise, courage is not inherent in the act of making war. Courage abides in the waging of peace. Though peace may at the most desperate of tims require the show/use of force, it takes no pleasure or pride in pain afflicted, only in the harm preempted (and I a not referring to how our current Administration has chosen to misuse this term). The courage inherent in peace--thusly suspect in war--lies in peace's refusal to exploit advantage for another's loss. Peace is quintessentially other's inerested. Even in times when force is the only recourse left to thwart an enemy's malicious action (not intent), peace never uses more force than absolutely necesary to neutralize (in physics terms, not modern military jargon). Once advantage is gained peace relinquishes th exercise of power because to do otherwise tends toward the unjust, unmerciful and arrogant. The courage of peace lives in the hope of a day when passivism can be a sustainable reality.

Those currently in political power in the US may use the language of courage and may truly even possess it, but their policy of aggression in response to terror neither exercises nor requires it. It simply requires a dogged determination to get back at or go after those we feel have or may one day wrong us. Such behavior could be very easily and accurately labeled "cowardice"--a label we quickly assign when we are on the receiving end or are teaching our children why not to fight. And in as much as courage and cowardice are antonyms, language used to describe them and behaviors attributed to thm would have to be mutually exclusice--at least for the most part. Wouldn't they?

The Skill to See

Last Thursday I had lunch with a dear friend and partner in imagining and being the change we'd like to see in the world. Troy and I spent much of our time together conversing about his newly confirmed post as pastor of the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Sandy Springs, GA (a newly incorporated city that sits right up against North Atlanta). He was bouncing ideas off of me and asking for my feedback, which I shared for what it was worth.

One of our brainstorm exchanges involved how best to inspire new imagination among his parishioners about what it means to be church, which for the many would require the development of previously unused muscles. Though under-developed, Troy explained, such imagination is very much a part of the Presbyterian tradition and, in fact, are the same intuitions that led to previous innovations in the Presbyterian tradition now recognized among congregants as "the Confessions." Of course, one seldom thinks of tradition handed down to her as innovations of the past, but that's what Troy wants his congregants to see: that it is faithfully Presbyterian to re-imagine and re-form routinely what it means to be church.

He asked what I thought about how best to go about teaching this. I asked what was wrong with the way he had just articulated it to me. I went on to describe what it might look like from week to week: him finding a particular confession that he could use as justification for an act of innovation today. And his response was, "No, because that would develop the wrong muscle."

His response, like getting the wind knocked out of one, stunned me for a moment. The insight was just so keen. He reckoned immediately what that practice would produce fully formed.

Upon witnessing it, I recognized that being able to project what the fruit of a particular course of action might be is a skill lost to many leaders. Many are either too arrogant to even want to consider the possible unintended consequences of a proposed action or their vision is too immature and experience too limited to forecast accurately that far out. One forces plans forward that should have been interred on the drawing room floor. The other clings to the familiar because it is so easily predictable and, thus, perceived as safe or puts her energies into pseudo-innovations toward status quo or worse ends.

We see daily in the national political news the results of an agenda that under estimates then disregards its negative impact on the lives of people—even now that it has almost fully formed—"none is so blind as he who would not see." Yet, maybe sadder still, one is left to wonder what good is missed when other leaders don't innovate simply because they can't see how.


Yes, To the Right Things

As you may have already read, I believe church exists to resource good in the world. My own personal sense of mission is to know, be known and help others come into their own. Just yesterday it dawned on me just how these two impetuses tend to interact with one another in my life.

I don't have or want much. Stuff doesn't matter much to me. What I do have are some wonderful relationships. They are my resources, and it's my relationships that I seek to marshal when someone comes to me with a need.

Now, I can imagine that some of my friends get sick of me calling them on others' behalf, but that's alright. And from now on I will probably feel even less self-conscious about it. You see, it just dawned on me yesterday that one of my purposes in the lives of my friends (for we all have a purpose in each other's lives) is to keep them missionally honest and missiologically engaged. I am a bleeding heart and have no problem reminding my friends just how much we've been blessed. It's not about guilt, however, it's about gratitude. Real gratitude (appreciation) let's love continue, by passing it on.

Don't get me wrong. It's not always easy. Some of those I love want me to sign a promissory note in blood before they're willing to give to someone else. If it happens to be someone with whom I share faith communion, all I can do is smile to myself. For them, reserve is stewardship. They don't want to be careless with what they attribute to being from God, for God or God's (as in church resources). I can't blame them for that. Additionally, I suppose, like anyone else, they don't want to be taken advantage of. What amuses me is that I can't think of one time Jesus admonished his followers to avoid being taken advantage of. However, I can't stop thinking of instances when he asks us to give ourselves away. "As you have freely received, freely give."

Good stewardship, like ownership, is not just about knowing when to say no; it's about saying yes to the appropriate things.


Eavesdropping

Last night I overheard my mother-in-law say the most self-effacing, others-interested thing I had ever heard her say in affirmation of Leslie. I am thankful for the chance to have heard it. It was healing.

Malnutrition

Today I attended a church service at a pretty prominent church. Sadly, it was for the most part a voyeristic exercise to begin with. I did not expect much. Still, my heart broke as I listened to the sermon. I would wither away of malnutrition and be of no good to anyone if I had to eat that each week. When did the 'gospel' become so empty and self-interested?

Do we really believe that trials come to take our "praise [(in this case, a verbal affirmation of God's goodness)] to another level?" Did the Human One set us free simply so we could sing and shout about how we've overcome? I mean no condescension. It just hurts me to hear and know how many people are trying their best to live in that, because that's what they've been taught God wants from us.

...on being Seventh-day Adventist

As a member of the Emergent growing, generative friendship, I am learning to appreciate fully the church in all its forms, which can be most difficult when it comes to Seventh-day Adventism, my home, because I know its faults. "But God gives more grace."

Last night I had an enlightening conversation with a fellow SDA who is quite close to me. It was yet another variation on a conversation I have had many times before. It generally goes something like this. The person I'm talking with quietly or jokingly expresses some discontent with Adventism, never harshly, mind you, but almost like one would speak of someone who might be within ear shot. It's the kind of criticism one could easily explain away if they had to. At some point, I'll commiserate by deconstructing the very thing that’s got them sore, and before I know it, I find my conversation partner defending the faith from me as if I meant it harm. It's uncanny how predictable it can be.

Knowing that despite my hopes and efforts to the contrary my recollections are apt to be rife with bias and woefully reductionistic, in recounting what happened last night I will only seek to recall my own offenses. My primary offense last night went something like this, "If the hope of God is to reconcile the whole world unto Godself, embracing the entire earth in God's resurrection (basically, what it means to be 'missional'), then I struggle to see how all our calculating of prophetic times and interpreting ourselves to be the (definite article) "remnant" spoken of throughout scripture and figured prominently in the imagery of Daniel and Revelations, who against all odds remain true to God, gets us there." Now, of course, I was hardly so eloquent or coherent. And, mind you, my deconstruction was in response to some things about the SDA dynamic my conversation partner (in jest) just didn't want to be bothered with anymore. Nonetheless, this statement changed the tide of our conversation. [Read More!] Perhaps it was too incisive.

No more sympathetic exchange. From that point on I was expected to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what it was I meant. I hate that. Adversarial (in the legal sense) conversations never accomplish much good. Nonetheless the same enculturation I was in the mist of deconstructing makes it very difficult to back down from a hermeneutical, apologetic challenge. So I pressed on. At some point I brought up how missionally problematic the SDA sense of identity is (Rev. 12:17), substantiated primarily upon some hyper-contextual shenanigans, misappropriating certain New Testament phrases like "the testimony of Jesus Christ" and "the spirit of prophesy" (undoubtedly my second offense).

It was then that something unexpected happened. My dialogue partner, who is a generation more mature than I, confessed that, although she considered such phrases very much indicative of the SDA church, she didn't see them as the exclusive expression thereof. This surprised me because she, consistent with most those of her generation who were raised in the SDA church and now hold the positions of power, is very pro-Adventist, and such an adjudication is not the party line. My conversation partner went on to rationalize that her position was the difference between being a literalist and taking a more reasoned approached. By way of example, she suggested that literalists have a hard time differentiating individuals from the institutions Adventists believe are indicted in eschatological prophecy.

For the first time in my life, I felt compassion for literalists. It became apparent to me that literalism was the only consistent way one could expect to interpret biblical prophecy. And how could one avoid literalism with all the emphasis put on prophetic time calculation and 'precise' reading of scripture distinctive to Adventist doctrine (Daniel's 2300 Days Prophecy, its postulates and corollaries)? Absent literalism, how could one expect for the millions of Adventists in the world to be 'reasoned' in the same way about the same things? Whereas some variation in interpretation is to be expected, free-spiritedness (an open interpretation of scripture) is not prized in a cultural homogeny (like Adventism) whose identity is predicated upon (biblical) accuracy and (doctrinal) distinctives: "I am, because you're not."

All of this again raises a question for me—that I expressed last night (possibly offense number 3)—that I have wrestled with for a few years now. At what point is it disingenuous for me to claim to be SDA when I have deconstructed/reconstructed or flat out disagree with much, if not most, of what is distinctively SDA? I truly want to honor the best intuitions of my denominational tradition, which birthed and nurtured my theological imagination for so many years, even though in integrity I must critique much of its teachings and practice. For years now I have always confessed up front when people start asking me what I believe—and what they really mean is what do Adventists believe—that I am not the best example of Adventist theology. At most, I now consider myself a "post-Remnant Seventh-day Adventist". I am totally through with believing that what sets me right with God at the same time makes everybody who is otherwise committed suspect.

Which brings me to a new nagging question. What are the effects of living out of this hermeneutical dualism that my dialogue partner describes as exemplary of the more reasoned approach to dogma—this striving to maintain distinction between individuals and their aggregate institutions that Adventists believe are indicted by scriptural prophecy? It's a continuation of the whole "God hates the sin but loves the sinner" motif. I believe his mantra has for too long blinded us to any possibility of joining God in the redemption of God's good world. The most we could ever hope to accomplish believing this is to save individuals out of world before it all crashes and burns.

Thus, as night follows day, so it follows that the SDA church as an institution as well as its individual members have been and remain largely complicit in some of the greatest injustices perpetrated in the earth. And why shouldn't that be the case? For as much as individual members may cultivate reasoned and nuanced beliefs for sanity sake, the institutional constructs are allowed to remain the same—in misbegotten honor of God who changes not—whether or not they accomplish anything for the good of God's creation.

God doesn't change (if we hear that as a statement God makes of himself) because God is inerrant. Such infallibility does not transfer to us or our constructs, systems or institutions just because we claim God. As creatures of a Creator God who is always creating and whose creations are always evolving, our expectation should be the need for continual re-formation, I would think. Thus, the reoccurring need to deconstruct in order to reconstruct based on what we understand more fully today than we did yesterday. What I continue to wonder is: Can I do this and in integrity to self and in fairness to the group still call myself Adventist?


post-Colonial

Ever wonder what life after colonialism looks and sounds like? Read this!