There is No Compromise with Hatred

I've been hearing a lot lately about how Donald Trump, as a constitutionally elected President, deserves a chance to govern, that we should rally around him. Then the plan for his first 100 days came out. Then his cabinet picks. Then his deferring of Security briefs to Mike Pence. Then his staff.

I know, I know. I probably wasn't going to be jumping for joy for any Republican picks, and even some of Clinton's picks likely would have irked me, had she won. Trump doing everything in his power to affirm for me that he shouldn't have any power whatsoever doesn't make the "rally around the President" thing any easier, though.

I'll deal with it, as will other progressives and liberals, by going along with the things that we have to and compromising where we can. Hopefully we'll be better about that than Republicans ever were with President Obama. But there is one thing that the folks pushing for "patience" seem not to understand, and so I want to make it abundantly clear right now.

There will never be any compromise with hatred.

Ideological points, policy positions, differences in philosophy on governance, these are all ideas that can be altered, softened, or tweaked in order to make them more palatable to everyone. Compromise, "we'll give you this, and you'll give us that..." used to be the lifeblood of governing in the US.

But you can't compromise on hatred. You can't just "half" hate something, a lesson we have learned repeatedly over the course of our history.

One of the great talking points against Clinton during the primary was her previous support of DOMA and DADT. At the time, they were seen as compromises, and actually embraced by many as a way to advance the rights of the LGBTQ community. They didn't work for a very simple reason: they were based on accommodating hatred,  and so in the end what we found is that whatever gains the LGBTQ community received from them were negligible because what we were left with was empowered hatred.

When it comes to hatred, you cannot compromise. You either join in it or reject it.

So here is my final answer for myself, which I hope will be echoed by others. Compromise IS important, and I will try to allow myself to see the good the Trump administration will try to accomplish.

But if he pushes to register Muslims? I will reject that out of hand with extreme prejudice. Likewise if he attempts to take away hard earned rights from the LGBTQ community. Racially motivated laws will also be named for what they are. There will be no compromise with them, they will not be amended to a form suitable for everyone, they will be named, rejected, and opposed in any way we can, and the proponents of it marked, remembered, and held accountable.

Because when you compromise with Hatred, all you end up doing is enabling and empowering it.

If we claim to serve a God of love, that is simply something that we cannot do.

Reader Question- The Role of Atonement

David lived before ever seeing the most important in event in all of history. Does it make spiritual sense, let alone logical sense, to discount the atonement? He can uproot the sycamore tree and move any mountain. Are we to believe some things are impossible for God?

Why didnt Paul have at least an entire letter talking about being tormented night and day by remembering his sins "despite" the finished work of the atonement. The church was hesitant but God arranged his acceptance! -Richard
-----

Thanks for writing in, Richard.

I read your question a couple of times and was uncertain of what exactly you were pushing at... if you were implying that -I- was discounting atonement, or society in general, or what. I often feel like I am in an ongoing conversation with people who I read regularly, and so I suppose it is possible that this is a continuation of a conversation you've been having with me through reading my posts... in which case, thanks for reading, but I'm not dead sure where we are at.

As it happens, Atonement plays a key role in my theology, for the very reasons you posited in your question. David, who never knew Jesus, is believed to have received atonement, and Paul was able to do his work without being crushed by the guilt of his previous life, meaning that atonement played a real part in who he was... his sin wasn't just forgiven, it was removed from him entirely.

I believe both of those things intrinsically.

For my other readers who may not know, Atonement is the theological code word for the forgiveness of sin, the sealing of the rift that separates humanity from God. There are thousands of variations on how precisely this works, but I have rarely found much value in that particular conversation... the theological details are just that, details. Stuff worked out by God that can be fun to talk about, but since it is by God's action, we don't need to know HOW it works, only that it does.

As I reread your question now it occurs to me that your question might be in response to an earlier comment I made in condemnation of those who commit "sins against the Spirit," that is, use the Word of God to separate people from the Love of God, like those who use scriptural arguments to drive people away from the church or hate others. This is mentioned in three of the Gospels and what exactly they are talking about is open to interpretation.

At the end of the day, I do not believe that any Sin is unforgiveable, and I certainly do not believe anything is impossible for God, but I was working within a worldview where certain sins are treated as differently from others, less forgiveable, etc, and therefore pointing out that the only sin ever described as "unforgivable" is the sin people commit when they use God's message of Love as a vehicle of hate. 

My theology of atonement tells me that judgement belongs, always and only, to God. That people do not need to use or even know the correct names and forms to receive it, and that no sin is powerful enough to remove us from the influence of God's love. But in the end, that isn't my call. I'm not here to tell God how things should work, but to tell people how to behave towards others.

At the end of the day, the people who use the Scriptures as a tool of hatred and division are, in my theological understanding, committing the greatest sin possible to commit, in that they are presenting a version of the church that, rather than being a welcoming beacon to all who seek it, is instead seen as a force of judgement, illogic, and derision.

That sin will probably be atoned for, in the end, though it will be God's call, not mine. But that certainly doesn't mean that I am not called to draw attention to the sin, and where possible, preach against it.

#Clergylivesmatter

It's an old, sad, pattern. Allegations of abuse inside a church's walls begin. People are ostracized, members driven away by the old guard circling the wagons. Counter attacks fly. Character assassination of the accusers spreads through the rumor mill like wildfire, all working to discount the credibility of the victims. People insist that they will withhold justice until they have heard both sides, all the while ignoring the fact that only one side is speaking publicly.

We spent huge amounts of time in school examining these patterns, learning the ways to predict them and subvert them before the call for fair judgement became complicity in abuse. Barring our oldest clergy, I doubt a single pulpit thumper like myself got through school without studying it somewhat, and younger clergy spent significant time with it.

But we still see it. It's rare, but it's there, and every time it comes to the same thing. Abuse is about power, and power gropers in the church always tend to follow the same lines. And there is always someone there to defend them in the name of "fairness," or to protect the reputation of the institution.

Frankly, I think it's time we toss out the reputation of all our institutions. They do more harm then good.

So when I see similar patterns emerging elsewhere... I find them very hard to ignore.

In the same way that a great number of clergy do what we do because we want to do good, a great number of police are the same way. But the power seekers are there, and the thing about power seekers is that they seek power. They establish themselves deep into the bones of the organization, until it becomes a layer of protection around them that the folks just trying to do their job don't get.

In the church, when an abuser comes to light, a lot of people who don't condone the abuse still try to hide it, again for reputation's sake. But in the end, that doesn't work, because the abuser isn't just going to stop. Why would they, having been caught and then PROTECTED? Power is their drug and they WILL pursue it, until like any addict, they go too far, and then when it is impossible to hide, the reputation that would have been tarnished is instead destroyed. You still can't talk about priests in social circles without people bringing up rape and pedophilia. How many generations of good priests will it take to clear that shame? Five? Six? Will it ever be cleared?

We don't know, because it hasn't happened yet.

I've spoken to many people, some of them police officers, about the rise in police violence awareness. They protest groups like Black Lives Matter in the name of preserving the reputations, and raise hashtags like #bluelivesmatter in order to protest the backlash against peace officers. But here is the thing... you can't protect good cops if you are protecting bad cops.

Again, look to the church, at all those hard working priests have been tarnished, forever, by the actions of a tiny minority. What if the Church had responded, owning it's abusers and removing them so that the world could see that the safety of parishoners was more important than the church's reputation? We failed to get that right, and I don't know how long we'll pay the price.

The public opinion on police is turning, but it might not be too late for the Cops of the United States to do the right thing, removing their abusers from power and showing that the safety of citizens is more important than the reputation of the fraternity.

But so far, it hasn't happened. So far, all I see are wagons circling and the fraternity looking to its reputation, rather than the safety of the people.

And it feels depressingly familiar.

 

The Worst Thing About Trump

How could you pick just one, right? He lies so often and so blatantly you start to wonder if he even really has a concept of what truth IS. He regurgitates populist tripe against minorities, he treats women as objects and laughs about it, demands loyalty beyond what any President should receive and, to top it all off, doesn't seem to be a very good businessman, either.

But none of that is the worst thing about Trump. The worst thing about him, by far, is his effect on other people.

I'm not even talking about the people who grow more and more frightened the closer he gets to power, though that is bad enough. No, I am talking about the everyday Americans who go into public forums to stump for their candidate and promptly turn into horrible people.

Yesterday I stared in horror as a member of my congregation posted meme after meme excusing the behavior of Trump while attacking Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea! Not Hillary, not even Bill, but their daughter, apparently for being the child of rich parents, which I always thought would never be a crime according to Republicans.

I've seen Trump Supporters, people whom I love and can vouch for as loving people, attack transgendered people as potential rapists. I've then seen them claim that bragging about sexually assaulting women should be seen as unfortunate, but normal, behavior. (So why are worried about trans people?) I've seen them excuse the murder of young black men as an acceptable, if unfortunate (maybe) consequence of law and order. I've seen them advocate prison, exile, or even execution for political rivals. I've seen them applaud violence against protestors while passionately condemning email use, heard them cheer for "bombing the shit" out of terrorists while claiming to fear refugees from the countries they want to "bomb the shit" out of, and I have even seem them do these things scant minutes after praying to a loving, compassionate God that they claim to believe in!

It's a tough place for a Pastor to stand in. I've seen colleagues of mine forced to tone down their rhetoric in the name of some illusory political "fairness" as they get attacked by Trump supporters in their congregations, wondering if their ability to do ANY kind of ministry might get eclipsed by the demand that they not reveal how the things he does are so antithetical to the Gospel.

It's not easy for politicians, either. I've watched Trump supporters demand other conservative politicians walk in ideological lockstep with the Donald even if it means betraying their core ideals, as if this election was a football game and we could pressure the politicians to support the nominee like forcing players to support the quarterback.

I'll probably get a comment or two about how this post is biased, how it doesn't cover both sides, but this, very simply, does not happen with Hillary Clinton. You don't see anyone out there saying that every Secretary of State should use their own private Email Server, or that Benghazi was a perfect execution of foreign policy. No one holds up Clinton's flaws to claim that they are virtues, no one has ever described her as the perfect candidate, or denied the roll that politics has played in her career. She just isn't that kind of candidate. People support her, not because she is the perfect human being, but because she is the most qualified for the job, or barring that, because she, quite simply, isn't Donald Trump.

And here is my worry... this is just the effect of Donald Trump, the candidate. Imagine his behavior modeled, not by a presidential candidate, but the President of the United States. Imagine the normalizing effect that would have on these behaviors, as people saw their WORST impulses exemplified, EVERY DAY, by the most powerful person in the world?

Don't tell me it wouldn't happen. I already see it happening every day. But this is just the beginning. Donald Trump has to be defeated, because if he isn't, his effect on the American People will only get stronger.

Remembering the Irish

So lately I've seen a few people link articles discussing the way that Irish immigrants were treated in the early days of colonization and our history as a nation. My family exists in a way that oddly straddles that line... my Dad is descended both from wealthy protestant Irish who founded several quite profitable ventures (I hear the McCurdy Department Store is still going, they are distant family) and potato Irish who were Catholics. It's a tradition I'm very proud of.

So I want you to take my full meaning when I say I do not wish to belittle the harshness those immigrants faced, true blue institutional racism placed up against them, difficult barriers that had to be overcome, used and abused and discarded by countless regimes until they clawed their way into the power structure and were able to enact change. It's part of my story, I know it, and I know that while it resembled, in some ways, the plight of the African American slave, it was not the same experience. I've never seen the mileage in rating suffering, but bad as my ancestors suffered, the African slaves suffered worse on average.

But that doesn't matter.

Even if the Irish suffered the way the Africans did, even if they had it worse, it would not excuse the way that story is being used now, or the implications that because we "got over it," so should they.

One of the refrains of the Old Testament is the near constant reminder of the Jewish people that they had been slaves and immigrants, once. There had been a time when they were without a home, a time when they had been without safety, when their very existence depended on the whims of another.

"A wanderin Aramean was my father," they are called on to announce at Passover, a declaration that all they have is a gift, a vast improvement over what was and a call to remember to be kind to the wanderers and sufferers of today. Slavery, according to Biblical law, was meant to be a temporary state, to keep someone a slave for life was an insult to the traditions, slave owners always called upon to remember the time when THEY were slaves.

So if the Bible means anything to you, if you claim to follow its word, you'll know that the recollection of Irish oppression and subsequent oppression dick wagging contest to be an exercise in futility, a betrayal of the very concepts you claim to adhere to.

Because if your ancestors did suffer in the way you claim, that should not be a call for others to "get over it," but rather a call to sympathy. In time, the Irish fought their way into the power structure, became the power brokers, fought and earned the respect we now take for granted. Instead, when you look and see others fighting for their right to exist and be respected in this nation, we should remember the time when we were the outcasts... and ally ourselves with them.

Because we knew what it was like to be treated as less than human, we would never DARE to do the same to anyone else.

For Politics, I want a Politician.

I am so over this election season.

I am particularly over it as a person with a platform who occasionally gets a call or a visit from someone who wants me in their camp.

For starters, my ability to do the kind of things they usually want me to do is pretty darn limited. I do not speak FOR my church, rather I speak to them, so I don't have the authority to, say, have the church back a candidate, as that could get my church into some legal trouble, as would signs in my yard (which is the church's yard) etc.

But what I am really tired of is politicians telling me that they aren't politicians. "I'm not a politician, I'm a Marine!" You see, that's a false statement. I know that because there are certain things marines do, as part of being a marine, and things politicians do. Running for office is not a part of being a Marine. It is, however, a part of being a politician.


You can deny being a bus driver all day. If, however, your job is driving a bus, then you are a bus driver.

Some have transitioned to using the phrase "career Politician" but that really doesn't help, either. Especially at the State and Federal levels, our politicians face a great many challenges, many of which will only be dealt with through compromise, the ability to say and hear what you and others believe and arrive at workable solutions. Simply having good ideas isn't enough... you need the ability to make those ideas reality. (Something certain third party candidates conveniently forget.)

So when they say they aren't "career politicians" what they mean is that they are amateurs. If I am sending my daughter to her first day of school, I don't want to hear how the person driving her bus is an amateur. That wouldn't make me want to support their bid for bus driver. Why, then, would that be something I want for the one who will guide policy for her school system?

So yes, Candidate shaking hands with steel workers despite cutting their workers rights, you ARE a politician. And by your own admission, probably not a good one, or at least not an experienced one. At this point in History, we need our A team, not the JV. This isn't Amateur hour.

So point me to the politician. Here's hoping they have good ideas, too.

When I support the Flag

During the Olympics, I am always at my most patriotic. It really is pretty silly, but during the Games, even if it's a sport I know nothing about I will hoot and holler for the folks who fly the same flag as I do even if I have no real understanding of what is going on. Even my daughter, Katrina, got dolled up in red, white, and blue and joined me in cheers of "Hoooray, for the USA!" much to her two month old bewilderment.

So on this September 11th, I watch as American Flags big enough to cover football fields are trotted out... and I have a slightly different reaction. Because this isn't the Olympics anymore, and in this moment, the stars and stripes represent something a bit different than they did.

During the Olympics, the Flag represents passionate athletes coming together and competing to the best of their ability in a celebration of athletic achievement that, somehow, manages to transcend some (if not all) of the political difficulties that surround them. Those athletes are our champions, and the flag is lifted because in a way that I don't entirely understand, those athletes represent all of us. Their victory becomes our own, no matter who they are or where they come from.

The flag I saw today, as football kicked off, was different. It came at the start of the game, not in a time of victory, with participants and observers alike instructed to rise and honor it. This was done with additional edge to due the events being memorialized today, as well as a knowledge that several athletes had vowed not to do so. Suddenly this wasn't an act of celebration, but rather a litmus test on national TV. Do you respect the flag? Here you are, the cameras will be on you the second you don't. Do you?

That's not Patriotism. It's peer pressure.

I've attended many pro games live and I have always stood during the national anthem. Given certain prohibitions in my theology concerning idolatry, it has always been vaguely worrying, but I always figured that, like during the Olympics, the flag served as a symbol... by respecting it, I was showing respect to everyone it represented.

Today... I'm just not sure that is the case. Today we are informed by many that the flag, to them, represents something other than freedom. It has become a symbol of fear and oppression. And rather than deal with that head on, we have proceeded to shoot the messenger, to burn jerseys and lash out at people saying that they do not feel included under it's promise.

For a Flag that is supposed to represent Liberty and Justice for all, that is a pretty harsh condemnation in the form of what was supposed to be defense. Suddenly social media is full of those who leap to the defense of the piece of cloth, rather than seeking to understand why others might not feel that the piece of cloth is serving its purpose as being representative of them, as citizens of our nation.

Once that has happened, my idolatry detector is blaring full blast. Once the piece of cloth has been elevated above the people it is meant to represent, our values have gone fully out of whack, and the flag comes to represent injustice and conformity instead.

Now, context will always matter. When I am in a situation where the flag represents us as a nation, whole and without exception, celebrating our champions together in times of victory, I will respect it every time. But when it is used as a litmus test, demanding that we ignore the realities of our world in the name of jingo blinded patriotism, I won't.

Because the flag can be a symbol of both freedom and oppression. The former is a symbol worthy of respect. The latter is a symbol that MUST be rejected, if the true promise of the former is ever to be truly realized.

The Dangers of Pop Theology

One of the questions that often gets thrown my way by my atheists and others who are not regular participants in a life of faith is WHY people believe things a certain way. The Bible being the beautifully complicated document that it is, why do belief patterns seem to run one way so often?

It's the sort of thing that often gets lampooned by internet memes and the like, where the Bible clearly takes one stance that no one cares about, and vaguely mentions another that is seen to be almost mandatory to the faith.

One simple example: what is your visual picture of Hell? It doesn't even matter if you don't believe in it, it's a prevalent enough cultural concept that you've probably imagined before. So what do you see when you think of it?

Did you imagine a multi-level prison with wards for committers of various sins being punished in ways that were poetic justice for those sins, with the Devil alternately serving as ruler over it or Highest security prisoner?

A lot of people do. It isn't the ONLY cultural representation we have, but it is far and away the most prevalent, to the point that even if a Westerner thinks Hell doesn't look like that, they have at some point rejected it and chosen something else. It is the standard.

But here is the thing about that standard... it is utterly non-Biblical. There is very little Scripture to support it, and virtually nothing that could have built the picture independent of other sources. Building a concept of Hell exclusively from the Scriptures would build varying vague images of an eternal waiting room, a refiners furnace, or simply oblivion.

The image we have was largely crafted by Dante Alighieri for his Inferno, which was then borrowed and modified by countless other writers for their versions. The poetic justice bit seemed to resound the most powerfully and so, for many people, that is simply what Hell is, despite the problematic worldviews that can come from it, most obviously the picture of physical suffering as deserved punishment.

But largely, it's just a detailed picture. No matter what your picture of hell, if you believe in it, you believe it is a thing to be avoided, and so the specifics are largely window dressing. But if such a central tenant of belief can be formed so profoundly without any regard for the actual Biblical record, where else can such things happen?

When I was a teenager, I believed that homosexuality was a sinful lifestyle. So when someone asked me recently about why people believed such a thing, I decided to start with myself... why did -I- believe that?

The most obvious reason would be the Biblical message, right? It's supposed to be where all of this starts, after all. But that wasn't it. The Bible doesn't talk about ANY sexuality as often as you would think considering how fixated the church and Christians can be about it, and homosexuality is being discussed only a fraction of those rather rare instances. And of those instances, none were particular relevant to me in my faith education. I have to look them up... they're not just resting in  my head, ready to power my theological understanding. So whatever influenced me that way, it wasn't the Bible.

The next usual suspect would be my childhood pastor, who is easy to track down because he was also my Dad. It probably won't surprise many people to know that Dad is one of the foundational influences of my theology, especially my theology of being a pastor. Nearly everything I do as a pastor is either an acceptance of something I learned from him or a rejection of it. When it comes to homosexuality, though, Dad was also largely silent (except in near constant messages about the importance of loving and respecting EVERYONE, which at last count includes homosexuals) and so my belief that homosexuality was sinful can't be laid at his feet, either.

So I was at a loss. The Bible hadn't taught me to judge homosexuality, neither had my pastor growing up. So who did? Easy. Practically everyone else. The sinfulness of homosexuality was just sort of accepted and talked about, it was a thing people assumed, then when called upon to justify found helpful texts. This even included homosexuals, who whenever they talked about the faith simply assumed that part of them was considered taboo and either rejected faith because of it or continued faith in spite of it.

The origin of such theology likely predates even the Scriptures, hearkening back to a very simple human trait... fear and disgust for the other, a concept that the Scripture Writers struggle with even in the midst of calling upon us to reject it. We feel it, we see it in others, and if we are ever called upon to acknowledge it, we scramble for our justifications wherever we can find them, from a handful of scriptures removed from context to poor understandings of biology to a call to cultural purity.

The fact that many people believe a thing is not a reason to automatically reject it anymore than it is a reason to automatically espouse it, but it is important for people of faith to examine their beliefs and know where, precisely, they come from. Do you believe that the Bible is the basis for your faith? Great. But is it really, or are you simply following the herd?

Christians are called upon to love God with all of their hearts, minds, and strength. That means we can't just take the simpler, easier route. Faith is hard work, not an excuse to stop thinking. Challenge your beliefs, examine their sources, before you find yourself hurting someone else in the name of God, only to learn that God never told you to do what you were doing.

I wonder what level of Hell Dante would craft for that.

Dear Katrina-

Hey there, little girl.

Yesterday I found myself thinking about the fragility of life and how quickly things can be taken from us. It occurred to me that, if something happened to me over the next few years, you might find yourself wondering who I was, and that this blog might be a place you could go, when someone told you about, to learn about me from me.

I am writing this letter under that assumption. Hopefully when you actually do read it, you will do so with me just a call away, giggling over how silly I'm being, because parents can be silly sometimes. But in case you need it, I'll be glad to know I did this.

Because, sweetie, my title, "Pastor" is a very, very loaded one. You'll know this from your mom, your uncle, and your Grandfather as well, but you'll also live in a world that has a lot of its own ideas of what a pastor is, and what someone like me might stand for, and I always wanted you to know who I am, or was, from me.

And now that I have said I want to do this, I find myself unsure of what exactly to say.

I hope you'll know that I did my best to care for people, which to me meant listening to them, sitting with them, talking to them, and trying to make sure that they knew they were loved by God. That is what people want from me, the truth of God, and that is my understanding of that truth.

That God loves them. And, since I am writing this to you, I hope you know that God loves you. And I mean YOU. Not the you that you could potentially be or the you before you screwed up or even the idealized you absented of sin and pain, but the you who exists today, whoever you are.

I often spend time imagining what that YOU will look like and I know it is almost impossible. It is certainly difficult to do so without creating unfair expectations. Maybe you'll love all the geeky stuff I do, maybe you'll just roll your eyes at me when I try to make you watch Star Wars. Maybe you'll like music, or just plug in your own music (if music even still requires plugs!) when I play mine. Maybe you'll walk in the faith like me, or seek out your own path.

As a preachers kid myself, I know the uncertainty of that path, and I hope I can play my part in as powerful a way as your Poppy did for me.

There may be more of these in the future as thoughts occur to me. We'll see. But above all else I want you to know how loved you are. By me, by God, by so many others. And knowing that, I hope you also love yourself.

Love,
Daddy

Clothe the naked, feed the hungry... if they join?

Just had someone walk into my church, into my office, and blurt out that they wanted to join. I'd never seen them before in my life. So I talked to them for awhile and determined what they really needed was help paying for clothes and groceries. That part was easy... five minutes later I'd given them a voucher to the local grocery store, and then addressed the church membership thing.

"Tell you what. We worship on Sundays at 9 for the Summer, then transition to 10 am in the fall. Why don't you come and worship with us a few times, see if it connects with you, and then we'll talk about membership. In the meanwhile, good luck. Take this voucher to the local grocery and they'll take care of you." I wish I could say that this was the first time I saw something like this, but it isn't. Someone needs help, comes to a church, and leads with membership in the hopes that will loosen the ol' purse strings a bit. A few years ago I might have been angry at the ones doing it, feeling that they were manipulating me, but then I remembered that this is a learned behavior. Somewhere along the way, the lesson was learned that the best way to get help from the church, or other faith based organizations, is to prostitute your soul. And that means that we, as the church, have been ROYALLY SCREWING UP, because we were the ones who taught that lesson. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that "saving souls" was the goal, and pursued it by holding physical needs ransom. I mean we HAD been commanded by Christ to make disciples, we had also been commanded to feed the hungry. Why not kill two birds with one stone? It even comes with a built in guilt removal mechanism... if the person then doesn't follow through with a conversion essentially obtained by force, then we get to play the role of the manipulated "holier than thou," the party just trying to tend to the needs of the world only to be disappointed by the dishonest souls we found. But it's bullshit. Because we are called to feed and clothe those who need it. We're not called to make them sign on the dotted line first. And in the meantime millions of people who maybe could use the comfort the gospels truly preached could provide see them only as an elaborate con, the devils bargain they are forced to sign in return for things they desperately need. A trap. Why wouldn't they want to escape it. There are a thousand justifications for this behavior but each and every one of them boils down to a power trip... using our ability to assuage the needs of those we find to force them into a behavior, rather than by trying to make that behavior appeal. We are met to witness to them... instead, we try to take them hostage.For millions, the damage has already been done, yet another reason (amid MANY) that people will never, ever, trust the church. Christians, we are called to feed the hungry. To house the homeless. To clothe the naked. To tend to the sick, to visit the prisoner. We are also called to witness... but that means showing people the love of Christ. If the love they are shown is the love of a pistol held to their head while we wait for them to sign the dotted line... is it any wonder that people leave?

The Audacity of Hope

This is, by my count, the eighth attempt I've made to restart the blog since the birth of my paternity leave ended in July. Not that I've been inactive since then... there has been a lot going on in the church and Nerdfighters will be able to testify (with varying levels of irritation) that I have been loud and proud flying my political colors in the forums during that time, but not a lot of faith based posting.

This has been largely due to the fact that, well, I've been fairly angry lately. This has at least something to do with the general reduced amounts of sleep I've been getting (which are nowhere close to what my wife has lost in rest in that time, so I'm not complaining too much) but mostly to do with my attitude towards the election rolling down the tracks towards us.

I'm frustrated, in that vein. Frustrated with the willingness of certain groups to wield hate as a political weapon, even while sacrificing their ideals to the votes it gains. Frustrated with the general reduction of politics to meme warfare, predicating entire political stances on emotional reactions rather than an examining of fact and circumstances.

My attitudes towards Donald Trump have been plainly stated... if you want to see that, check it out here. While I do support Clinton, stumping for her is not what this blog is supposed to be about, and so other than that stating of my preference (which most people who read this probably already knew) I don't want to spend too much time doing it. Instead, I'd rather like to say something about the Democrats that I have enjoyed ever since that first Obama campaign...

I will take a party that runs on hope over a party that runs on fear EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

It would have been easy for the DNC to simply run a hate-fest... inflaming fears of what a Trump presidency could mean to various constituents would be pretty standard for the current climate of politics, a 4 day tale of doom and gloom meant to hide the failings of Hillary Clinton behind a red painted coat of fear. But they didn't.

Oh, they certainly named the stakes, but the polls make it clear that American minorities do not need a picture painted... the unanimity of their polling in favor of Clinton is nearly unprecedented. Instead, the DNC chose to highlight hope... showing how much we have achieved, and rather than hiding from what MAY happen, choosing to guide what WILL happen in the future.

A White House built by slaves now home to our first African American President and his family. A woman nominated to take his place. Muslim Americans proud of their sacrifices for their country and enraged at the insults toward their son. A left wing of the party bolstered by unprecedented levels of youth involvement thanked and recruited to push their revolution further, not scolded to get in line but invited to stay plugged in and keep the party honest.

A recognition that the US has a long way yet to go... but also that we have the tools to get there. A candidate who in response to her mistakes can name her successes, her victories and her passions. As I held my daughter while Michelle Obama spoke I remembered why I care so much about this stuff... I want her future to be as bright as possible. I want my daughter to live her whole life seeing that it is clearly possible for a woman to be President by the most obvious route, raised in a political climate of hard work and hope rather than hatred and fear.

This won't matter much to my atheists, but to Christian readers (I have those, right?) there is a video circulating that compares the opening prayers of the RNC and the DNC. The RNC had the better prayer, no doubt (which is hardly surprising, as the RNC has stopped even pretending to represent non-christian interests) but as a Christian it was obvious to me that the message of Christianity, a message of love, welcoming, and hope, the Bible I always read growing up, was found not in quoted platitudes from ancient texts or coopting of ancient hatreds, but rather in the welcoming hope of the DNC.

Was the DNC more Christian? Certainly not explicitly, and not in the way such a word has been weighted in todays culture.  Was it more Christ-like? Beyond even the shadow of a doubt.

And that is why I will always choose the Audacity of Hope over the Hysteria of Hate.

Stop Handing the Idiots Microphones

So I've been toying around with new and exciting ways to increase the viewership on my blog. Anti-Trump stuff seems to be popular, even more so than when people ask questions to get me talking about sex if not quite as much as when I've developed cancer. It's not a CRAZY number of hits... 2,000 is a really stinking good result for me, so nothing truly viral just yet, but I think I've found a way to to make that happen.

So I have decided, sometime in the next week or so while I am still on Paternity leave, to say something extraordinarily racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted. I'll write it in the blog, maybe I'll post a video about it, as well as leaving a few quick shares here and there on social media.

Now at first, I know this will just make my usual readership confused and angry. Likely some who liked my approach to Christianity will feel betrayed. But the real good will be when someone goes beyond disappointment into true anger.

They'll share it, outraged, and demanding others share in their outrage. Most won't but some will, scattering the message further and further until it gets picked up by some rights group that publicly denounces me, all the more loudly for the obvious hypocrisy between the new direction and earlier posts. (Bonus, it increases hits on earlier posts, leading to comparison pieces and "where did he go wrong" interest stories! See Phelps, Fred.)

Eventually, on some slow news day or a HEAVY news day in some way relevant to my chosen form of bigotry, some reporter will seek me out, asking me to share some context for my statement. Presented with what someone like me always seeks, a platform, I double down on my statement, further antagonizing the world and pushing the clicks machine.

Around this time, some other outlet sympathetic to the views I have adopted in this fit of mercenary hatred will share me, complaining that others are seeking to suppress me. At that point I'll put up a GOFUNDME for aid, and likely pay for my daughter's College if I invest wisely afterwards as thousands rally to protect my right to be an asshole.

Where things go from here depends. Maybe I get a regular spot commenting on a hate based website, eventually dissolving into the furniture, or maybe things go further, statement after statement hitting the publics offence button hard and continuing to drive hits, links, and shares, which in so doing finance my life (as by this time I am probably no longer welcome in my Christian denomination anymore, but obviously no one will report on that.)

Meanwhile, around the world, people of the group I have attacked are given one more reason to believe that everyone of faith hates them... because when someone preaches tolerance, it doesn't move news stories, but when the most insignificant pastor in the world starts preaching hate, the world can't hand him a microphone fast enough.

I'm not here to claim that these people's influence is negligible... that would be an insult to all who have been hurt by preachers like these over and over again. We who oppose them within the Christian faith do need to work to be louder, as loud as we can, so that the message that Christianity is a faith of fear and hatred can at least be actually challenged in the public eye.

But that is hard... really, really hard, when the media trips over itself to boost one side of the signal while neglecting the other. So for the love of all that is Holy... could we PLEASE stop handing these idiots microphones?

Naming your Demons

Do you believe in Demonic possession? After Orlando, I am starting to think that I do. 
-Kasey

-----

I know what you mean, Kasey.

As it happens I am currently doing prep work for a Biblical text where Jesus drives many demons out of a man who was suffering from possession, and it's the sort of text that always can be counted on to raise questions for people whose pastors encourage that sort of thing.

The role of demonic possession in the mindset of the church is a fascinating one. With a few notable exceptions, most modern churches (at least as we practice in North America) do not deal much with direct demon possession, and so the possessions we read about in the scripture are often interpreted as well known modern phenomena seen through the lens of an ancient Worldview. The most common I've encountered (and even was guilty of myself) was interpreting the Demons of Bible times as mental illness.

As a quick sidenote, that kind of mindset can be DEVASTATING to people suffering from mental illness, because it often leads to horribly harmful methods employed to deal with the mental illness in question. Preachers are not psychologists. Short version, read the Bible however you like, but encourage those with mental illness to get professional help. Don't ask the pastor to "fix them." If he is willing to, I can promise it won't end well.

Back on topic, facing such a subject in the wake of the Orlando shooting did put the entire concept back on the burner for me, so to speak, and so I have an answer for you, of sorts.

It does not bother me too terribly to think of what happened as something driven by a demonic force, but with one important caveat... if you choose to look at it that way, you need to see that the shooter was not the only one driven in such a way.

More and more stories are coming out of the shooter as a homosexual wracked by guilt and self loathing, driven to do a horrible thing by hatred for others that was born in hatred of himself. You want to call that a demon, I can live with that. But I am seeing that demon, and others like it, all over the place these days.

People claiming that the victims got what they deserved because they were at a gay club. People claiming that this justifies fear and hatred of Muslims. People who don't particularly care because the victims were largely POC.

People driven to say horrible things by something dark inside them, something they don't even recognize within themselves. Something that possesses them.

Most of us on social media are aware of someone or other who strikes us as horrible for one reason or another, and usually there is someone else, often a mutual friend, who will defend them, saying; "Look, what he said was horrible, but he is a great guy if you know him, would do anything for a friend..."

We seem beset by people who are, if you know them, good people, but capable of great acts of fear and hatred at even the slightest provocation.

Call it demonic possession if you wish, or just evil. Call it human nature if you tend towards pessimism. Call it a form of mental illness in the worst cases if you must. But what is important here is not that you see it in others and shake your head and sigh.

Because often we want to call something demonic in order to absolve ourselves of it. If someone was driven by horrible evil, then we who are NOT horribly evil, could never be capable of it. But that isn't how demons work. If the Orlando shooter was driven by demons, those same demons could drive you, and, I would argue, possibly already do. So we can't just wash our hands of such forces, regardless of how we classify them.

Instead, recognize how those same demons are at work inside of you. Name your demons, be they homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, ableism, whatever forms those dark entities of fear and hate can take. Confront them, and try to defeat them. If you don't eventually the person hurting others in a way you can't even imagine... will be you.

Concerning Orlando

Those who follow my sermons may have been surprised to notice that yesterday I didn't preach about what had happened at the Pulse in Orlando... which was due to the fact that I only heard about it right before Church started, and I hadn't had time to process the event or even absorb any of the details.

That the shooting is horrible is obvious and does not require me to harp on it. That folks who are LGBTQ still have to worry about this sort of thing happening to them is a sad commentary on where we are as a nation, but plenty will be written about that. I am not in a position to comment on the shooter, if what he did was due to his faith, due to his political beliefs, or due to mental illness, or if the three all go hand in hand.

I don't know. If it IS faith, then it isn't my faith to comment on, though I have seen some Islamic scholars beginning to do so themselves, and so I will leave them to it.

My commentary goes to some of the others who, like me, can only react to it in the cute little ways they find so witty. I'm a pastor, a Christian leader, and Christians, you are disappointing the hell out of me this morning. Disappointment isn't even the right word... I am pissed off.

The comments that I am seeing on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media are, I believe, the sort of thing that would get Jesus flipping tables in temples. Those who see this as justification for hatred against Islam, or for pushing laws to treat them as second class citizens, are disgusting.

And the most infuriating of all are those who see this as a proper punishment for LGBTQ people. If you are saying things like that, then you are using your faith to justify hatred, to justify violence. You are breaking a bunch of Biblical admonishments and ignoring basically the ENTIRE message of Christ himself. You are sinning, plain and simple.

You're also being a miserable excuse for a human being.

And it isn't going unnoticed. Millions of people who have never experienced faith are seeing you RIGHT NOW and either deciding for the first time or being confirmed in their opinion that if THAT is what faith is, then they want no part of it. Hell, if that is what faith is, -I- want no part of it.

The sermon I did preach yesterday talked about people who use law to try to keep score, to be able to make the claim that they are better than others, to reject the idea that we are saved by grace through faith in exchange for a sense of smug self-righteousness, when the scriptures try to remind us that there is neither slave nor free, Jew or gentile, male or female.

The people who died in Orlando, who are still dying in Orlando, are people, murdered, leaving devastated friends and family in their wake. What they did, who they did it with, does not change any of that. It is a tragedy, full stop.

But the cowards who hide behind a weak understanding of their faith to justify their hatreds and prejudices, those who put on a smug "I told you so," to use this instance to justify previously held hatreds and grievances, to those who would DARE to use the name of Jesus Christ so that what happened seems like a victory...

You are an embarrassment to our faith, to all of us. You are every reason why we as Christians are distrusted in the world today. People making provisions against us at this point is a matter of self defense, not of religious intolerance. You are an active hindrance to the gospel, sinning against the Holy Spirit, literally the only sin in the Bible ever described as unforgivable. You are standing between people and Christ and actively working to deny them his love and while I believe in forgiveness of Christ in this particular moment that idea makes me feel ANGRY, rather than safe.

And to everyone else... I'm sorry. They don't speak for me, or for countless others, but frankly I couldn't blame you if, in this moment, you had a hard time caring about that.

Reader Question- A Problem of Evil

What do you think of answering the problem of evil by supposing that God used to be omnipotent, but voluntarily gave up some of that power to make room for humanity -- therefore (1) there are things God can't do on God's own anymore, and (2) it's up to us to repair the universe and heal the broken pieces that God can no longer reach?
---Ben

--------------------------------

Thanks for the question, Ben!

It certainly is an interesting way to approach the problem of evil, and offers an answer. I even agree with it to a certain extent... the idea that the existence of humanity in the world enables the possibility of evil part, certainly.

It's the thought process on omnipotence where I start to quibble.

I'm a huge believer that theology can't just explain things. With the diversity of ideas to be found in the scriptures and the commentaries that have come after, simply having a workable grand theological theory isn't enough for me. I need that theory to serve a purpose, to be itself part of the Good News. 

And for me, that requires that God's Omnipotence remains intact.

Like I said before, my personal approach to the problem of evil is similar to this one wherein I believe that there are things that God DOESN'T do because at some point in the process God made a choice concerning free will, allowing humanity to choose it's own course. The way I think of it, however, God still COULD do those things. Whether or not God acts is a choice, rather than God having given up the agency to act.

I resist Process theology, and other similar schools of thought that solve the problem of evil through downplaying the Power of God, because to my mind, once you have taken that path, you haven't just removed a power level from God, you have removed God.

I am not interested in a God who means well, but can't effect the change in the world we'd like to see. That is a God who basically exists to bring the world into existence, and everything else is up to us. So what then is the point of Christ, or the Holy Spirit? The God this leaves us is a God who made us, and maybe even loves us, but now is basically ineffectual.

I'd rather believe in the God that is more problematic theologically (so WHY can't you stop Bone Cancer, again?) but can actually be effectual in the world beyond Aunt Nellie style well wishes. I like the idea that though God has chosen not to intervene now for whatever reasons, God will someday, and while I do believe that we are called to work in the world to make it a better place, that the onus for that work does not, ultimately, lie with us.

If the only way to reconcile ourselves with God is to make God no longer God, I feel like it would be more intellectually honest to simply be atheist.

Still, a good question! How we think about these different theological approaches, and why we favor one approach over another, is a very important part of how our worldviews and our faith interact.

The World is Not Our Enemy

What do you think of all the Christian fixation on Transgendered people in Bathrooms? -Anonymous

----

I don't think much of it at all, Anon.

Sometimes I wonder if there is a certain type of person in the world who feels the need to have an opponent in life, a fight to win. Since everyone wants to be the hero of their own story, you pick a target you're pretty sure you can beat. Targets may vary, especially as the world changes. Ethnic minorities and Gay people, for instance, used to be much easier targets than they are now (Though they certainly get way more than their share of persecution.) and so it seems that lately people have decided to go to war over where, precisely, a Trans person is permitted to pee.

When the person looking for a fight is Christian, the impulse usually comes from a certain mindset that can be quite prevalent in North American Christianity. We want to be in the Lord's Army, we want to fight the good fight. To be seen as warriors for the good! Superheroes, powered by faith. It makes for a good sermon, gets people pumped and ready to go, gets money into the offering plate. So we look for someone to fight. And now that the Gay community has won a couple of bouts and people are being made to look like backwards idiots for attacking them, folks are transitioning their more public scorn to the trans community.

Theologically, the Biblical argument against the state of Transgender is even shakier than the one against homosexuality, which was always far more tenuous than people tended to think. At least the argument against homosexuality had some basis, a scripture or two that supported them. While the scriptures have several things to say about how men and women should behave, the genders are never defined. Not once, not remotely, no definition even IMPLIED.

When it comes to the state of Transgender, the scriptures are silent. So if you want a Biblical Crusade against Transgendered people, you're out of luck... all you have to campaign on are your own prejudices, which the Scriptures happen to say A LOT about, oh ye with logs in your eye.

There's another small problem, though, for those seeking targets for their Biblical Campaign against the world. The Bible is pretty clear on the point that our approach towards the world is not meant to be one of conquerors. And it isn't particularly subtle about it.

My favorite example of this is in the Gospels, when the guards come to arrest Jesus. Peter (always a great analogue for the church) pulls a sword and swings it, cutting off the ear of the slave of the High Priest. (So yeah, when Peter decided to be a revolutionary, he attacked the slave. Not, you know, the people with actual power or soldiers. He's a zealot, but he's not stupid.) Jesus gives him a "are you kidding me?" look and tells him, "look, fisherman Bob. If I needed soldiers, I would have soldiers. Legions upon Legions of Angels, remember? Heavenly Host ring a bell? What makes you think I need you swinging a sword for me?" (This is a loose paraphrase.)

If you, as a Christian, truly believe in an all-powerful God, isn't it just a little bit egotistical to believe that the only reason the All-Powerful Creator of Everything hasn't gotten His Way yet is because you haven't yelled at anyone today?

It gets better, though! A great story from the Book of Acts tells how Paul and Silas, two Christians on a world tour, got beaten and thrown into jail for driving a demon from a slave girl. While in prison, God sent an earthquake and, rather than bringing the whole building down on their heads, it opened the doors to their cells and removed their chains.

How is that for a Faith Based Superpower!? Super-precise Earthquakes!

When the Jailer heard of the Earthquake and came and saw the gates open, he prepared to take his own life. (Roman law was particularly harsh on Jailers who lost their prisoners.) He was surprised, however, to hear Paul's voice... still in the cell, with Silas. Amazed that they hadn't escaped, he came and asked them about this God they kept prattling on about... because obviously something was different about them.

To hear it from the average "crusading Christian" that you might encounter on the streets or in social media, Paul should have just taken off, shouting "The Power of Christ, Bitches! That'll show you!" and rode off into the sunset. But instead Paul showed love, and compassion. And curiously it was the love and compassion, not the super Faithquake, that earned to respect and curiosity of the jailer.

We are no good for the world when we are fighting it. Instead we are petty, petulant brats who earn all the vitriol we receive. But when Christians focus, instead, on loving those around them, caring for them and upholding dignity and decency, people start to wonder about us and think that maybe, just maybe, there may be something to all this faith stuff we drivel on about.

So don't bother attacking Trans people on Biblical grounds. You don't have a scriptural leg to stand on, and even if you did, it's not like you've bothered following all of Leviticus, anyway. But more importantly, stop looking for that scriptural fight. God doesn't need your defending, has never needed it. Instead, God has sent you to love, care for, and respect the world he created, and all the people in it.

When you do that, you can really, finally, be an effective messenger of your faith.

I'm Sorry.

This is something I have said before, in passing, but recent conversations have made it clear to me that it is something that needs to be said, louder.

I am sorry for the ways in which many of my readers have been poorly treated, or even abused, by Christianity.

Now I know I'm not the one who did it, nor one of the ones who stood by and watched while it was done. But I am a Christian, a Christian leader to boot, and so I am a part of the organization that was culpable in what happened to you.

I've spent a fair amount of time over the last couple years, while writing this blog, looking for a better approach to those people than the vox standard "Not All Christians are Like that." We're not, but that's not the point. While I could simply disavow their actions and go about my business, that doesn't change the fact that many people are being hurt by people who claim to share my faith every day, and those victims aren't so lucky. #notallchristians does them no good when Westboro baptist is shouting at their loved ones funeral, or when family drives them out in the name of a supposedly loving God.

If I am serious about being someone who loves others in the name of Christ, and especially if I am serious about being a leader of others who do so, then to simply disavow such actions is an act of laziness, and if I am being honest, privilege.

I have dedicated a lot of my ministry to fighting such behavior, both in education for those who call me pastor and by being a voice standing against those who, I believe, distort my faith in the image of their prejudices.

I believe that those people are wrong, that they abuse the Scriptures and the Church when they use them to harm others. I will do what I can to fight them, and to show them better ways. But no matter how hard I try, or how many people I reach, the problem remains.

Maybe one day they will see the error of their ways, and in an attempt to make amends, share their own apologies. God grant it be so.

But in the meantime, for the part that I play in the organization that has failed, hurt, abused, and murdered so many, I am deeply, deeply sorry. You did not deserve the way you were treated. You are a beautiful person who deserves love and respect, and the group that I am partially responsible for failed to do so.

Part of that is on me, regardless of my actions, and for that part, you have my apologies. I understand if what you suffered means you never want to be one of us, I am not seeking conversions or returns to the church for this post, like always, such is not my intention.

You deserved better, and we failed you.

I am sorry.

Super Hero Pastor, DC edition

A few weeks back I did a write up talking about how I would be as a Pastor to various Superheroes, based on the excellent Priest from the Daredevil series. (BTW, I really liked season 2, though it wasn't as good as season 1, with the very limited use of the Priest definitely part of the reason for that.)

I asked folks to request other heroes I could do, and the main request I got was what it would be like to be a Pastor for various DC heroes, so here we go!

Batman: Man, this would be complicated. It's never easy to be the Pastor for a highly established, wealthy family, because there is always the pressure to kowtow to them in order to keep those tithes coming in. The pressure of being Pastor to Bruce Wayne would be enormous, suspecting that there was more to him than the freewheeling Playboy he always presented himself as. Suppose then I, somehow, learn that he is really Batman... what then?

Similar to Matt Murdoch, I think I become a conscience of sorts, aware of what he was doing and open to talking whenever he felt the need. There are a few religiously based villains in his Rogues Gallery, and so it seems pretty obvious that I would get caught up in some of their shenanigans, or possibly just captured and driven mad by Ras al'Ghul.

Even so, I'm pretty sure that if I died or was permanently disabled, the Thomas and Martha Wayne foundations would see to it my family was taken care of, so I'd have that going for me.

Superman: I can easily see Clark Kent as a regular attendant at church, rather busy with his work at the paper but taking part whenever he can and being super helpful on Church cleanup days. Great for heavy lifting! Then, maybe someday I preach a sermon about people being loved by God for who they are and Clark comes to my office and says; "Who is that, exactly?" And tells me that he is Superman.

At first I'm intimidated. I mean, of COURSE I am. Hello, flying Jesus metaphor! Except, I've never really seen him that way, and added to the fact that I undoubtedly know and adore Clark Kent... we start talking about who is he actually is, what makes him happy, what he does and why he does it. We deal with the tragedy of Krypton and his sense of the world weighing on his shoulders. In the end, I think he would be the most normal of all of the folks I talk about here... because while he is Superman, he is really trying just to be a good guy. A lot like Cap, actually.

Wonder Woman: Having trouble picturing Diana attending church, but eh, let's say Ms. Prince primarily does it to keep up appearances. I try to get to know her and start to develop a friendship once she is properly convinced I'm not going to just tell her to join the cleaning rota and do as she's told... but then what?

We're talking about a Character who, like Thor, has walked with beings humanity has called Gods. And so she talks to me. About what? Maybe we just wrestle with philosophy or she just wants me to see the real her. She knows who she is, is confident in it. Would I be confident in me after that conversation? I honestly have no idea.

I'd read the shit out of that comic, though. Or write it, maybe.

Anyone big I should bring up that I haven't yet?

Batman V Superman... better than expected.

So I just went to see a movie that I had reliably heard as the latest travesty visited upon the Superhero movie genre by several critics I normally respect. I went to see it expecting to roast it afterwards, and discovered, to my surprise, that I quite enjoyed the film.

Just to get it out of the way at the get go, the movie is very clearly not perfect. It is in the odd place of seeming both too long and rushed... lots of scenes are spliced together with no obvious context, leaving you minutes into a scene wondering "what the hell is going on" before it all gets explained right before the next jump... the movie really needed a primary narrative driving it, and it didn't have one, struggling for most of the run to really be about any cohesive idea beyond "sometimes superheroes frown at things." This made the plot, and especially the evil plan of villain Lex Luthor, very difficult to follow, and some jumps the story made didn't make nearly as much sense without the connective tissue it really needed.

Honestly, the Doomsday storyline needed a movie of its own, giving the opposing ideals of Batman and Superman centerstage would have been enough. But it's not the first movie to get weighed under it's own ambition, and that's not the worst way to fail. Better to strike out swinging for the fences, and all that.

There is also one particularly egregious moment in the movie where material that would have been stingers for three different movies in the MCU gets shoved into a single, VERY flow disturbing scene of Wonder Woman looking at videos on her laptop. Seriously. It was an awkwardly handled, genuine storytelling mistake.

And, of course, I feel that the "don't kill people if you can avoid it" credo for Batman and Superman are hugely important.

But there is a lot the film got right, too. Though the storytelling was often disjointed, each individual scene was beautifully shot, finding beauty in framing and color even in the dark, gritty tones where Batman lived. Few match Zack Snyder in lining up shots that feel like they are ripped from a 90's era comic book and he did that very well here, showing angles and flybys that set the scene of a superhero movie with remarkable grace.

The casting was often effective, as well, and nowhere as obviously as Jeremy Irons as Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred. He was just a good fit for the role and shined in his sadly limited screen time. Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of a deeply unbalanced but unequivocally intelligent and tortured Lex Luthor has gotten some hate, but I think the problems are mostly in the character he was made to portray... he played what he was given brilliantly.

It also made me, without reservation, look forward to the Wonder Woman movie. I've talked about the Princess here before, so no need to expound too much, but it is worth pointing out that her teasing in the early going, and final payoff for the big showdown, made me excited. Not only was she clearly able to match Bruce Wayne for intelligence and banter in the early going, her arrival in the big fight showed that she is a match even for a Kryptonian, reflecting a character who would be a legitimate match for a Superman on the battlefield, both supremely confident AND powerful in very limited screentime. So huge kudos on that.

That leads us to the big one. The tone.

Batman V Superman, Dawn of Justice, is not the Avengers, nor any other MCU product. The humor of the MCU was almost entirely absent, as was any sign of joy or levity. There were no scenes where Superman just enjoyed flying around, or where Batman had a moment to bask in just how awesome his gadgets were. Everyone was serious business, all the time, save Luthor, whose attempts at humor only seemed to highlight his madness and one joke about two-thirds of the way through. I can't remember what the joke was or even who told it, but the relief it provided was so great I laughed aloud in the theater.

So I didn't like it as much as any MCU feature I can remember. But as I was driving back from the theater, I considered a very real possibility: that liking Marvel better was more a matter of taste than quality.

Where Marvel has chosen to revel in the fun and color of the Silver Age of Comics, DC seems to have settled itself in the darker, edgier world of the Dark Knight Rises and The Death of Superman. And there are people who prefer that. I am not among them, but that didn't make the movie unenjoyable to me, just not as good. And that really is okay.

My love of the DC Animated Universe made me want to love this with the same joy I had for, say, The Justice League or Young Justice. But well casted, well shot, more cerebral, significantly darker fare has it's place, too. After all, DC has tried matching color and tone with the Green Lantern movie, and that was a trainwreck. With talent like Nolan and Snyder working, maybe this is just what they do better.

Batman V Superman may not be your thing. But I had fun with it, a pleasant surprise after all I had heard. It is a deeply flawed, but beautifully shot story that is attempting to do it's own thing, if in a rather awkward way at times, and can be enjoyed and even appreciated when taken on it's own terms.

It will never be one of my favorites. But as a fan of comic movies who really wanted DC to raise their game (because the MCU release schedule doesn't have me spoiled enough, apparently) I came away enjoying it... even after critics I respect panned it. And I see why they did... the problems just weren't the dealbreakers for me they seemed to be for them.

There is another fascinating aspect of it all, though. The role of atheism in the movie, and the way it manifested in the characters of Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor, drove the bulk of the plot, was FASCINATING.

More on that in another, more spoilery post.

Saturday Ramble: Super Hero Pastor

So it is, as of two minutes ago, Holy Saturday. I'm right at the tail end of Holy Week, with just an Easter service between me and the end of one of the most exhausting seasons of church life. I wanted to get in a blog post but just couldn't bring myself to think theologically about anything else right now, so instead, I am going to focus on what it would be like to be the pastor to Super Heroes.

Because those questions need ANSWERING, darn it.

I am currently not watching the second season of Daredevil because I will be seeing my family after Easter and they wanted us all to start it together for... reasons, I suppose. I adored Daredevil, as I have stated previously on this very blog, but one of things I really loved about it was the Priest that Murdoch confided in.

So here's the thing about pastors in media. If we aren't evil, then we're either magic or incompetent. Do we know the sacred words from some ancient text to drive out the menacing evil? Or do we just hang around as walking anachronisms, not understanding (and not really expected to understand) anything about the world around us? Those often seem to be our options.

The Priest in Daredevil (Father Lantom) is none of those things. He doesn't have magical solutions for Murdoch, neither does he just sit there unaware of who Murdoch is. Instead, he cares, he listens, he advises as he is able and tells the truth. He basically is everything I would want to be as a Pastor if I discovered I had a Superhero in my congregation.

But that, of course, got me thinking of what I would do for various Superheroes in my congregation, and what I thought my own personal consequences would be as a minor player in a comic story. So here we go:

Captain America: No secret identity at play here, I would have Steve Rogers come into my church with me knowing completely who he is and wondering how to help. I think I would be partially overwhelmed by him... how do you help someone like him who is lost in time? To help out, I think I would largely just be an ear to hear his stories and encourage him to take part in different social events, primarily to help him make friends and colleagues. When he was ready, we would talk about grief.

Cap himself is rarely a direct target of nefarious schemes, so I doubt I would get personally drawn into his stories, unless I made enough of a stink when SHIELD declared him a Fugitive in Winter Soldier.

Iron Man: I am having trouble seriously imagining Tony Stark attending church, but maybe Jarvis/Vision would point him my way after reading this blog, or he loses a bet with Steve. In any case, I would resist the urge to preach primarily on tithing and talk to Tony about guilt, when it helps, and when it needs to be let go.

I doubt I would survive my time as a Iron Man spin-off. Talking with him about evading guilt, my church would inevitably be attacked by a Power Armored Super Villain looking to take Tony down, and I would get killed protecting him while hijinks ensued around him getting into his armor. Luckily for my family, it's a fair bet Stark puts my child through college after that, so I'll call it a win.

Thor: Man, how complex would that be? I'd probably have some long conversations with him about what he was aware of going on in Palestine for huge chunks of history, but if he came to me for counseling, I suspect it would be in the form of wanting help with his relationship with Jane Foster, and what love means between two people with lives so complexly varied. I'd get to tell him to use his words, and to remember that no time is promised, and so to enjoy the time he has.

A Prince of Asgard in a Midgardian house of worship, and NOT a House of Worship for an Asgardian? THAT would come up, and I would probably end up captured and tortured by some offended Asgardian official influenced by Loki until Thor showed up explain/save me. But hey, probably a trip through the Bifrost, right? That would be cool. Maybe I'd chat with Heimdal afterwards if I survived. (If we were REALLY lucky, it would involve someone in full Asgardian Armor asking me Where My God Was Now, waiting for his challenge to be accepted.)

Nightcrawler/Any of the X-men: Likely approached initially for my equality stances, my church would welcome Mutants and I would have fascinating conversations with Nightcrawler as he further explored his faith through Biblical imagery, while constantly reminding him that the Image of God is not a visual thing, but a spiritual one.

I probably go down by a bullet from a mutant hater in this scenario (or maybe Wade Wilson because why not) but maybe I would eventually be revealed to be a low-level mutant myself, with my struggle not being welcoming the mutants who come to my church, but welcoming the humans, until Kurt finally convinces me to "come out."

Spiderman: I can imagine a teen-aged Peter Parker in my Youth Group or confirmation class, realize what he is doing and working with him as he struggles with concepts of responsibility, all the way up to the point where I die for being a trusted figure who isn't Aunt May. If this seems short, it's because it wouldn't take all that long.

Got any other heroes you want me to run the evaluation on? Toss me a question or comment, and I'll do another one of these after I've watched the second season of Daredevil!

An Open Letter to the Christian Parents of my Atheists

Hi there, I'm Pastor Dan.

And I really am a Pastor, ordained by the Presbyterian Church, USA after getting my Masters of Divinity and more than 15 years of intense scriptural study, alongside a lifetime of growing up the son of a highly talented minister.

You're probably reading this because it got forwarded to you by someone you care a lot about, and someone you worry about because, you know, they're your child. And they've made some decisions about their lives that you aren't too sure about, especially when it comes to their faith life.

It may even surprise you to see them sending a link to a Pastor's Blog, after some conversations you've had with them. They read this, and knew about me, probably because at some time in the past they had a question about faith and religion and I was available to talk, and they liked what I said enough to keep reading, and keep asking more questions.

And now they've read this, and sent it to you.

I get a great deal of messages from atheists all over the world who are having difficulty with their faithful families, and I understand the difficulty. You love them, you want the best for them, and you believe that "the best for them" includes a rich faith life. You want them to know Jesus the way you do, and you worry about the consequences if they don't.

This has likely led to tension. Arguments, hurtful comments, from you to them and vice versa, because you're human, you're passionate, and you're scared. That can lead to words being said that are hard to unsay and impossible to unhear. Maybe it has led to awkward silences at family get-togethers, or even a lack of get-togethers.

And so, again, it might be surprising that they are reading a Pastor's Blog.

I have a large number of atheist readers and correspondents, and I believe the reason they have chosen to entrust me with their questions and concerns about faith is because I let them come to me. I have promised never to directly evangelize, instead to listen, to advise, and to pray as requested, never more.

The first thing I want to assure you is that I exist, and by virtue of you seeing this open letter, you now know that there is a person of faith out there who your loved one, your child, knows that they can talk to if they need a person of faith to talk to. They know how to reach me and I'm nearly always on call. I promise I will never judge them, or take advantage of them by calling for money or attempting to "steal" them for my church. That's just not what I am about.

The second thing I want to urge you to do is to trust God when it comes to your loved one. You believe in a loving, powerful God who cares for the ones he loves, which regardless of your personal theology I assume at least includes you, and so will care for those you care about as a result.

Finally, the last thing I want to urge you to do is to give your loved one room in matters of faith. The fact that they care at all about what I say means they are at least asking questions and listening, so don't feel the need to press them. Paul felt the need to exhort his listeners twice (In epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians) on the subject of warning parents not to exasperate or embitter their children.

You don't need to be their pastor, and your time as their disciplinarian has passed. But you can be their parent, modeling the love for them that God showed you by welcoming them home, not with a checklist of stuff they need to achieve or say, but with a hug and a smile, like the Father welcoming the Prodigal son home.

All that is achieved by harassing and nagging them about the faith is driving them further from it and from you, and that helps no one.  Instead, focus on loving and caring for them, being there for them when they need you and only discussing faith with them when they asked. You might be surprised just how effective that can be. You do your part, I'll do mine, and between us we will count on God to handle everything.

For now, they don't believe. Maybe that will change in our lifetime, maybe not. But the one thing that never changes is our call to love them for who they are. And partly thanks to you, who they are is pretty darn great.

In Christ,
Pastor Dan McCurdy

Breaking My Rules: Don't Vote for Trump

Long ago I was taught by my Father and other teachers to avoid directly espousing or opposing political Candidates from my platform as a pastor. Issues were fine, if done carefully... of course my faith has inspired me to think about issues in certain ways and it is literally my job to share that with my congregations and others who care what I have to say about things as a Pastor.

But I have always avoided using that platform to back or reject Candidates for office, because unlike ideals and issues, Candidates are people, beautiful and complicated each in their own way, and as proxies for how we would like to see issues handled, I think we often do them a disservice. Besides, no candidate is ever the "clear" Christian choice, as in, if you are a real Christian you will vote this way or that way.

But in Donald Trump I have been faced with a Candidate for whom I will break my rule. I say this as a Pastor, with all the weight that lends me... do NOT vote for Donald Trump.

Is Trump a Christian? I don't know. He certainly claims to be, Presbyterian, to be precise, though our national office has no record of him ever joining. That's fine, plenty of people claim to belong to Churches that they haven't formally joined. I don't know who he is personally, I can't tell you his heart, any more than I could for the Candidates I might potentially vote for.

What I can tell you is that image he maintains and the things he says from the campaign trail, the "values" he promotes and atmosphere he cultivates is absolutely, 100% NOT in accordance with the commands of Christ.

Again, this isn't a matter of issues, because TRUMP DOESN'T HAVE ANY. He doesn't have a platform, he has a dizzying array of off-handed comments, spur of the moment conjecture and angry, insulting rhetoric. His campaign persona is GamerGate, 4Chan, and the youtube comments boards combined, his atmosphere built on fear and hate.

He claims that his wealth makes him incorruptible. He claims to love groups of people with one breath while calling them mostly drug dealers and rapists with the other, all the while using them as cheap labor. He feeds fear of Muslims, claims he wants them blocked or deported from the country. He is backed by hate groups like the KKK and isn't in any hurry to denounce them, he demands (and receives!) a vow from his followers, makes claims about his penis size as proof of his suitability to lead and the one enduring promise of his campaign is the wall he plans to build on Mexico's dime. He encourages violence at his rallies and mocks those who question him. He brags of his ability to command a military and derides the people who actually served.

I have disagreed with many candidates in my time, but this is the first I can remember who has been so whole-heartedly opposed to anything that could ever have even remotely been considered a Christian value, except for those who preach a gospel of hate.

And the worst part of all of this? It's an act. A carefully cultivated persona built not based on who he is, or deep-seeded beliefs, but an intentional media manipulation. This isn't like the Klan member or Mob Boss who gets up and speaks madness based on personal belief. At least that person believes what they say, has a warped worldview to blame. Instead, this is an entity custom-designed to feed on the very worst of American Culture and use it to create a monster. It's deeply, darkly horrifying. And based on the returns from the GOP Primaries... it's WORKING.

I can't tell you much about Donald Trump as a person. But the Donald Trump Political Persona is a force created to fan the flames of racism, fear, hatred, greed, misogyny and bigotry. He has embraced them openly and willingly, and presents them as "American Values."

He cannot be permitted to become President of the United States. But the GOP is in disarray, and finds themselves increasingly unable to stop him. At first I thought his candidacy was a joke... now, it's horrifying. The only power left that CAN stop him is the American People. But that's the thing... we're also the reason he has all this momentum to begin with.

So as a Pastor, as a Christian, as a US citizen, as a human being who would like to be considered a decent one, I beg you. Do NOT vote for Donald Trump.

Reader Question: All Faith Created Equal?

I used to belong to a very controlling church. When I left I wanted nothing to do with religion anymore. But I see you write about the same things that made me want to leave. What is the difference between your faith and the faith I had when I had it? - Andre

-----------------------------

Thanks for writing in, Andre.

So this is a bit of a tough question to answer because, without having details, I don't want to assume too much. But I have noticed some consistencies among folks who leave controlling churches ready to say goodbye to religion behind forever, and I imagine they have something to do with it.

Frankly put, while we worked from the same Bible and used the same names, I don't think we were actually believing in the same God. Now before people get the "No True Scotsman" memes to throw at me, let me explain what I mean.

"Controlling Churches" are usually named such because they seek to control the lives of their members even beyond the walls of the church, forbidding certain types of media, keeping an approved list for reading, and generally insinuating (if not outright declaring) that failure to adhere to these strict models will be reason for a member to be thrown out of the faith community.

Meanwhile, within the churches walls, similar levels of control are maintained. The Bible is read in a highly controlled manner, only approved parts of it, and probing questions are generally discouraged. The pastor or pastors hold the "approved" interpretations of the texts and dole them out as needed, but more often simply "sum up" the Message of God to their congregants, and any questioning of that Message is discouraged, if not outright anathematized.

Finally, God in these churches is declared to be kind, loving, and wholesome, but the actions and warnings do not match the message. People live in fear of judgement, seeing every tragedy and natural disaster as God's will punishing those who deserve it, and generally looking to point out how OTHER people deserve that punishment more than us in hopes that the next punishment will hit them, instead of us.

When faith of this kind falls, it falls hard. We start to wonder why our faith in a supposedly all powerful God is vulnerable to things like movies, tv shows, or the internet, and why a supposedly merciful God would disown us rather than draw us back in. We start to read the Bible and see the interpretations of our teachers as sorely lacking, ignoring large swatches of Scripture in favor for an overly simplistic (and often terribly judgmental) worldview, and then we see a God proclaimed to be one thing, feared to be another, and then just finally say; "Screw it," and walk away from the whole thing.

There is no reason for someone in this situation to assume that the problem is with the church. Many have never had another perspective given on the Divine. Those who are unwilling to abandon spirituality entirely often find faith elsewhere, and many more simply become the most ardent of anti-theists, disregarding any spiritual experience they may have had in those abusive confines just another aspect of brain-washing and control.

So what is different about my faith? Simple... I didn't believe in that God.

My church and family taught me to engage with culture, to watch, listen, and enjoy, to see God wherever I went rather than fear anything that wasn't us. I learned to relish different perspectives on faith, to see them not as challenges to a TRUTH, but rather as new approaches to familiar concepts. There weren't really outsiders in that worldview... even the most broken sinner in the world would have something of merit worth learning.

Inside the church, the Bible was a toy, an amazingly complex document that had provided different answers to different people over thousands of years. With my Parents as coaches, I approached Biblical Interpretation as others approached batting practice in Little League, knowing that I would make mistakes but that those mistakes were as much, if not more, a part of being a faithful person than the "right answers." I learned to respect that I could be wrong about anything, and also to dare to believe that I could be right. So when people presented me with the complexities and contradictions of Scripture I wasn't shocked or appalled... I knew them well, and was ready to talk.

And finally, I was raised to believe in a loving and caring God who actually loved and cared for people. Who hurt as they hurt, who felt their loss, who walked the fine line between making the world a better place and honoring the decisions people made about their own lives. I didn't cower in fear of what God might do next... rather, I looked forward to finding out, and struck out on my own, knowing that mistakes made would be seen, again, as learning experiences.

And when an aspect of that faith no longer made sense, when I grew intellectually, emotionally, as a human being, when a part of my religion was no longer a part of me, there was no need to cast it all aside. It wasn't the collapse of my faith... simply yet another corrected mistake in a long history of them.

I know we use the sames word for Christ and for God, and so why it could be so infuriating for someone of the former religious experience to talk to someone of mine. I do not persist in my faith, while yours failed, because I am a better person. It's also not due to superior brainwashing or weaker intelligence.

We didn't have the same faith... we didn't believe in the same God. The one I suspect you left was absolutely worth leaving.

Mine is constantly calling me to the next adventure... and is, at least so I believe, worth telling others about.

Don't Write off the Pastor Right Away

So since I started taking questions from Nerdfighters more than a year ago (wow) I have had numerous folks send me a request for help with a loved one who became one of "those Christians." We all know the type... the uber-fundamentalist who feels the need to moralize on everything, only does stuff if they have "proper Christian value," can't speak five sentences without commenting on the salvific status of everyone in the room, etc.

You know the type. I know the type.

Often, the Nerdfighters asking these questions does not attend the same church their loved one does, or does not attend any church at all. They often have a lot of anger for that church, especially the minister, and can't imagine how to reach out to their loved one who is gobbling up everything that guy is saying every Sunday Morning.

This is usually when I get a compliment along the lines of, "I wish they had a pastor more like YOU..." and I thank them for the compliment and then help them start processing on how to talk to their loved one. But here is a secret... I've had church members in my church like that, too. I've been frustrated with those members. So having me as a pastor was not proof against a church having some of "those Christians."





But that made me think. It is natural, when a loved one makes such a drastic turn, to assume that the local church, or at least its pastor, are the ones responsible for the turn. But this is far from always the case. We live in an age where information about literally anything can always be attained from some source or another. Christian Radio is a good example. (I've actually had it out with people running nearby Christian radio stations on a couple of occasions.)

So when you are worried about your loved one, if you're not sure of the place where they attend church... give it a shot. And if you think your loved one needs help, it might be worth dropping the pastor a line to see if they would be a useful ally on this. Now sometimes, they won't be. Sometimes they ARE the source of the insanity.

But sometimes they won't be. And on those occasions, it is possible that they will actually stand up and help you see to it that your loved one maybe hears enough voices encouraging them to get the help they need.

I know that we pastors have screwed up often enough that a bunch of people don't think we're worth the effort, and as it will be your effort, that is entirely up to you. But if you're at your wits end, it may be worth at least reaching out to them. Give them the opportunity to be awesome. If it works, you'll have a good ally to reach out to your loved one.

When Progressives Aren't

So I have had something bugging me for the past week or so that I wanted to bring up here. Given the current political climate, it will be possible to read this as a condemnation of a certain political campaign, that being Bernie Sanders, and I want to say up front that such is not my intention. This is not meant to be an indictment of Sanders or his supporters, merely pointing out what I see as a problem, not among them, but among "progressives" in general.

As progressives, we pride ourselves (we darn near define ourselves) on being forward thinkers, pushing towards a better status quo for everyone. We look at the backwards thinking of conservatives with barely constrained rage tinged with disgust... they are the old thinkers, the backwards dinosaurs holding us back in a world we would like to see relegated to an embarrassing page of history.

We have set particular earmarks of this on various -isms that we see held up by those rich folk and their poor yokel adherents (you may already see where I am going with this...) such as sexism, racism, classism, ableism, etc. We also add some -phobias, like transphobia and homophobia, just to keep things interesting, and we wave our hands and point every time we see evidence of those tendencies.

At least, we do so every time we see it among conservatives.

But we progressives have a dirty secret. We also, we personally, continue to have issues when it comes to gender, class, race, and sexuality.

This isn't to say that we ONLY pick a Bernie Sanders because he has a penis, or that we look at a Hillary Clinton and think, "Nope, Vagina, she can't lead." But as progressives we ALSO know that prejudice is rarely so simple and straightforward as that.

So run this drill. Imagine that a female candidate is running for office and supporters of her CONSERVATIVE opponent were putting out memes that wrote her off as weak, or shrill, or too emotional, or not palatable enough. We'd raise cain, right? If we then found out that those same supporters had done the same thing in a previous election it would be confirmation. We would point at the support base and say, loudly, "YOU HAVE A PROBLEM THAT MUST BE DEALT WITH."

But when the opponent is another progressive, as with Sanders now and Obama before him, we write it off. It can't REALLY a problem. Because they, and their supporters, are progressives. And WE are progressives. And progressives would NEVER be sexist, or racist, right?

The reason this bothers me so much is because it follows a pattern I have seen before in the church. When a scandalous thing happens in a lot of churches, the wagons quickly circle and the members go on the defensive. Not wanting to believe that such a thing could happen in a forum so sacred to them. Do you want to know HOW the abusive priests in the Catholic Church were protected so long? It wasn't just popes and bishops. It was large groups of the membership refusing to see the problem for what it was, not necessarily because they liked the perpetrators, but because they couldn't even begin to imagine that such a thing could happen in THEIR church. So they would assume that the problem was with the victims, not the institution, and a horrible abuse of power became internalized and even institutionalized to a major religious organization.

I am seeing all those same patterns emerge now. Not from the leadership, mind you. In what might have been the strongest move of his campaign YET, Bernie Sanders outright rejected anyone who approached his opponent in a sexist means and said he wanted no part of it. It was brave, brilliant, and a move worthy of a presidential candidate who claims to want to take us to a better place.

And a lot of his base proceeded to ignore him. In the days that followed I saw articles saying that Clinton made a similar claim last time, and so it was just a despicable political ploy. They claimed that the Berniebros were just a false narrative. They raised articles where certain supporters of Clinton were seen to be racist, to show that if ANYONE had -ism problems, it was Clinton.

You know, I don't doubt, not even for a second, that some Clinton supporters had strong racist undertones in their objection to Barack Obama, because there were a lot of white people who supported her and, yeah, we still have BIG issues with race, as well.

And amid all the rejections, returned accusations, and diversions I saw in the progressive moment precisely what I have seen a million times before, all the way down to the point where one female Sanders supporter, in a moment of frustration, posted the thought, "But not ALL Sanders supporters are like that?"

And so we've added #notallmen to the pile, as well, rejecting what should be an obvious truth to a progressive; there is a difference in privilege when it comes to an older man running against a woman, regardless of the identities of the man or the woman.

We've got a problem, Progressives. And the problem is that we have become so attuned to see these problems in others that we have begun to refuse to see it in ourselves, and repeatedly fall into near identical behaviors that we have called out in others, all because we refuse to confront the reality that people who fall under the progressive umbrella still struggle with many of our hot-button issues.

And in the end, if we are unable to name and address those issues in ourselves, while being so eager to point them out in others, then we are precisely the hypocrites the conservatives make us out to be. We have a problem. It doesn't mean you should vote one way or another. But if there is to be any integrity to the direction we push our world in, it absolutely must affect the way we campaign, the way we debate, and the way we live.