Speaking as an Independent

What the Media and the Tea Party Get Wrong

I can speak with some authority on this topic even though many people do not like clergy giving commentary on politics. My authority comes from the fact that I have been a part of choosing the past several presidents and determining the make-up of congress. How can I make this bold claim, because I am an independent voter, you know, one of about 20% of the population that carries the swing vote in our country.

For example, I could have told Democrats why John Kerry would lose the election against George Bush when many of both parties thought the odds were on his side. I would like to point out that nobody asked me, but the bottom line would have been “show me that you can have a better plan than Mr. Bush in how to handle Iraq and Afghanistan and you have me vote.” He did not, and they did not, so I voted to stay the course even though I was not happy with the course.

Since the last election, the Tea Party folks who have a vested interest in convincing us that they are the way of the future, and the media, who should do a better job of asking “us” have tended to come to the wrong conclusions. Here is their message. In the last election, the voters have reacted to the spent thrift polices of the Democrats, panicked over the health care reform, and have converted to fiscal conservatives who now want, more than anything else, less government, less taxes and a balanced budget. This is why we will have to vote the rascals out in the next election, and prove again that many in the media simply do not get it. Further, I will predict that if Republicans in general make this their cause in the next election, President Obama is assured of a second term.

If they had asked, here is what I (and lots of independents) would have wanted them to know.

1. We are disappointed with the Democrats. They had a majority in both Houses and the Presidency and yet were unable to give clear direction for the future and to bring about the kind of creative change that the President promised. Do the words “immigration” and “Afghanistan” have meaning here?

2. The President spent one year working to reform health care. What we got was some good, and a typical governmental action that is completely incomprehensible to an ordinary citizen. Does the phrase Tax Code clarify what I mean? Hence. I wanted a course correction.

3. There is an almost a 10% unemployment rate in our country. I know many affected by this. Jobs and the economy are my primary concern. I lost confidence in believing those in power in Washington (read Democrats) were doing anything constructive about unemployment.

4. I am concerned about a growing deficit for my children and grandchildren. I believe this deficit is the price for fighting two wars without raising taxes to pay for them. I am willing to pay the price for good government and things to improve our collective life. I do not want to pay for an endless war in Afghanistan especially by funding a corrupt bunch of politicians stealing the money mean to improve the welfare of their country.

5. I do not think government is too big or too costly. I do believe that being big it wastes money and this should be under constant review. Along with this, I am offended by so called “ear marks” except when they benefit North Texas. (Hey, I did not say independents are always reasonable.)

If I am right, and I am, at least about most independents. Those who promote the idea that the Tea Party, balanced budgets at any cost, and the reversal of the Health Care Bill are our top priorities (along with stopping President Obama from serving a second term) are wrong. They have interpreted what we meant as a “course correction” for a revolution. They are listening only to the strident voices. If this leads to shutting down the government, pursuing a balanced budget to the determent of our economy and employment, and counting our votes as the wave of a Tea Party future, they will receive a shellacking in the next election. They, Republicans and Democrats both, should have asked. The media should be asking now.

Happy Holidays, Bah, Humbug!

During the recent Holiday Season, our brothers and sisters in Christ down the road from the Cathedral at First Baptist in Dallas stirred up some controversy over greetings during Christmas. You may have heard about it. Upset that more and more businesses were using the more politically correct “Happy Holidays” as opposed to the more traditional “Merry Christmas,” the pastor at First Baptist decided to take action. The Church produced on the website a list of the “Bah Humbug Businesses” that used the generic Happy Holiday greeting. They also listed businesses that used the clearer Christian Merry Christmas. They left it up to their members to decide who to patronize, godless materialists, or, well, you get the point.

This action generated the kind of heated discussion that one could predict with all sorts of people chiming in on whether it was appropriate to take such an action. The argument from First Baptist’s perspective seemed to be one of witness, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” and of evangelism, there may be some out there who don’t know that Jesus is the reason for the season.
What I found interesting was in a completely different direction.

My grandmother was a Baptist and my earliest exposure to the Christianity was in a Baptist Church thanks to her. Back in those days, as my Grandmother carefully explained to me, Baptists didn’t celebrate December 25th as a special day, neither did they go around bubbling “Merry Christmas.” A little knowledge of History goes a long way in expressing why this was so.

Baptist historically believed, as did most Calvinist, that the tradition of celebrating Christmas on December 25th was a Catholic late innovation that is not justifiable on the basis of Scripture. It should go without saying that nowhere in the Bible is December 25th mentioned as the date of Jesus’ birth. In the reforms generated out of Geneva in the 17th Century, Protestants tried to reform the Church basing all teaching and corporate life “solo scriptura” on the scriptures alone as the authority.

The Calvinist folks in the Church of England were called “Puritans” because they wished to purify the Church from such papal and medieval trappings. Puritans attempted to change the Church from within, but when Anglicans decided to retain certain traditions which seemed godly if not directly provable by scripture, many puritans became disenchanted. In the 1640s, they lead a revolt, indeed a civil war, that led to the execution of the English King. He was replaced by Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector of England. The puritan revolt was also a strongly democratic revolt, but Oliver soon imposed a dictatorial rule over England. It can be argued that England as an Empire with its world dominating navy began under his rule. Under his rule, the Puritan clergy and perspective was given free reign. And one of their first acts was to eliminate and forbid the practice of Christmas. No government officer or official could go around with Merry Christmas on his lips unless he be boiled in his own pudding and have a holly sprig stuck in his heart. Christmas did survive, but mainly among the peasants and poorest of the nation. The civil celebration of Christmas, indeed the very use of the term “Christmas” was eliminated from public life.

They did have a point. The word Christmas, after all, comes from the two words “Christ’s Mass.” Well, with Cromwell’s death, and the brooding negativity and joylessness of Puritans having dominated all life, the English Parliament restored both King and English Church along with all of its elaborate celebrations including Christmas.

Puritans and their descendants including Southern Baptists, however, never relented of their position that Christmas was both papal and even pagan in its origins. Hence, here is the origin of my Grandmother’s position, and the position of most Baptists till about 30 years ago.
Then a historically counter-intuitive thing started to happen. Many younger Baptist clergy noticed that Christmas was still around and, even in its highly commercialized existence, it created an evangelistic opportunity. Consequently, they began holding Christmas Eve services, having living Christmas trees singing carols, and some even instituted pageants retelling the Luke account of the Birth of Jesus, yes with manger, donkeys and all. After all, as the argument went, people might be wrongheaded about Christmas, sentimental to a fault, and Christmas might be commercial to a sinful degree, but people do think about Christmas, celebrate it, so why not squeeze juice out of this lemon and make some evangelistic lemonade? Personally, I think their spiritual mothers and fathers would be stunned by this action which is, after all, a betrayal of all they once fought for. But, hey, I am not a Calvinist and it is not mine to say.

This recent development, however, brings us back to our friends down the street. My question is not whether taking on political correctness was the thing to do. My question is how far they have compromised their own tradition. Now, ironically, First Baptist has become the defenders of saying “Merry Christmas,” by which we commend one another to the celebration of Christ’s Mass on December 25th.

Of course, some of you will want to say that as an Episcopalian I am only mad because Baptists are trying to steal our franchise, and you might be right. However, I still think it worthwhile to point out the ironic contradiction in their actions. There is also something more.

I am happy having folks say Happy Holidays to one another and don’t feel it my duty as a Christian pastor to correct them when they do. There are two reasons for this. First, there are other Holy Days for other religions during this time of year, and I am not comfortable with any group of Christians believing we have the right to force our particular celebration upon non-Christians. Second, there is enough soberness, humbug and mean-spiritedness in our world today. If there is a time of the year when even atheist can join in “Happy Holidays,” and we can join with them in providing toys for needed Children and clothes to keep them warm, then I think the world a bit brighter place for it. After all, isn’t the bottom line of all this that “the light has shined in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it?” I think this attitude more in the gracious spirit of the person whose birth we Christians remember at this season of the year.

Feliz Navidad,
Dean Kevin

What Would Mary Do?

Most of you have probably seen the clever wrist band made famous by innumerable youth groups that has WWJD on them. This stands for “What Would Jesus Do?” The point, as used by youth leaders all over the country, is to get teenagers to think what Jesus would do if faced with their circumstances and situations.

While I think this is clever, I have never really warmed to the slogan. It is not that I cannot think of what Jesus would do in many situations. My problem is that I can. For example, I attend a funeral, WWJD? He would raise the dead. Or, I visit a sick person, WWJD? He would heal them. Or, I am faced with evil, WWJD? He would drive it out. Nor is my problem that I do not believe that some Christians are called upon to do such things. I do. I just do not think his behavior is normative for us as believers. (My wife does tell me that I often confuse my job description with that of the Messiah, but that is a dysfunctional issue, not one of faith.) No, my issue is that Jesus did many things that I cannot do. I think the better wrist band would be WWMD, What Would Mary Do? On this eve of the Annunciation, let me say why.

Mary is the prime example in scripture of God’s faithful servant. When the Angel announced to her that she would be in instrument of God’s grace, overwhelming as it might have been, her faithful response was, “be it to me the servant of the Lord” or as the Beatles would translate it, “let it be.” Sure, the message to Mary was startling. It may have been hard for her to fully comprehend. Yes, and maybe she was a young girl, but she was also smart enough and realistic enough to immediately understand the difficult of the call. “How can this be,” she asked because, “I am still a virgin.” She knew her circumstances. She clearly understood her situation that she was to be a pregnant, unmarried woman in a small village where everyone could talk and certainly everyone could count. She understood this would be humiliating.

And what was she to say to Joseph? “Joseph, it is ok, an angel told me in a dream that I would get pregnant by the Holy Spirit before we were married?” In the scriptural account, all that she could do was leave this up to God.

Devotional writers have often portrayed Mary as the idealized image of passive femininity who acted out perfect submission, but this is not the Mary of the biblical narrative. She was human. She was not perfect, and as the Magnificat reveals, she was not passive. But mostly, she was faithful. Mary believed what the Angel told her and she trusted by faith that God would work out all the details. We could very aptly paraphrase Paul’s words about Abraham applied to Mary, “She believed God and God reckoned it to her as righteousness.“

What then would WWMD mean to us? It would mean that faced with difficult decisions or moral choices, we need only ask what would Mary, who believed God and trusted God, do in this situation. This is something that I can imagine in all sorts of situations. It seems to me that the whole life of a disciple essentially is to believe God’s promises by faith and live as though God will work out all the details.
WWMD?

This might not be as catchy or as clever, but it does make a lot more sense to me as I struggle as a believer and disciple in the many circumstances and situations that I must face in this world. As we remember the feast day of the Annunciation, we could do a lot worse than remember to ask ourselves WWMD?

Learning from Wesley

On a cold January evening in 1975, I knelt in the darkened living room of the Rectory of Emmanuel Church in Stamford, Connecticut and made a total surrender of my life to Jesus Christ. This surrender came in response to an overwhelming sense of God’s presence as I spoke out the desperation and despair that I felt. The details of what happened are not important here because I am writing on the feast day of John and Charles Wesley to share what I learned from John Wesley after my conversion.

The problem was that I was already an ordained priest. It was some time later that I would learn that I shared with Wesley a post theological education conversion to Christ. I say “conversion to Christ” because that is what it was for me. I had felt called to the ministry, and, before seminary at least, I had believed in the Trinity and the creeds of the Church. What happened to me that night was that I experienced a personal sense of forgiveness and total acceptance by a living and real Christ. Jesus Christ became alive for me in a new way.

The most immediate result of this was expressed by what I did that night. I took the sermon that I had written that week and burned it in the fire place. I was determined to speak now of the love of Christ I knew personally, and not the ideas about God that I had learned in seminary. Let me be clear on this. I am not proud of the fact that I am a post theological education Christian. For example, people are surprised to know that one of my faculty advisors was Henry Nouwen. Yes, I was blessed by a number of outstanding teachers, not the least of which was Jaraslov Pelikan while at Yale. I do believe that some of them had a deep relationship with Christ. But none of these teachers ever spoke of a personal relationship with Christ as something to be desired, and most down played any sense of conversion. Conversion, if it existed at all, was a gradual process of growth. Consequently, I look back a bit jaded at my seminary experience.

For several years, I struggled to integrate my experience with both my theological education and my experience with Episcopal Church practices. Then on my tenth anniversary of ordination, I took a month’s sabbatical. I spent the month at a seminary following guidance from the Dean. What the Dean asked me in our first session changed my theological identity. As I shared trying to put these pieces together, he asked me, “While you were in seminary, did you read the source material of Anglicanism?” What he meant was whether I had actually read Cranmer and the other English Bishops of the reformation. Of course, I hadn’t. I had read commentaries and histories about them, but not the actual works. For the next month, I felt that I had found my roots. I discovered my evangelical and conversionist legacy which is thoroughly Anglican. Then he introduced me to the “Three Ws of Anglicanism; Wesley, Whitfield and Wilberforce. Wesley spoke to me.

Wesley was a high church Anglican who’s “heart was strangely warmed” in the Aldersgate experience, and who had deep commitments to the marginalized and poor of his world. In reading Wesley, I found an Anglican who expressed both what I believed and what I had experienced. I am not a Wesleyan if you mean by this a Methodist. I consider most Methodists that I have known to be very nice and well-intentioned people none of whom have either the conviction or passion of Wesley. I remain a person who believes in both conversion and sanctification. Here are some of the other things that I learned from Wesley:

All the head knowledge in the world cannot substitute for “knowing Christ Jesus in the power of his resurrection.”

Religious experience apart from creedal belief usually ends in shipwreck somewhere.

True conversion leads to passionate love for the poor and to concrete steps to alleviate their poverty.

Social justice and evangelism are both mandates of scripture, to hold one without the other is to diminish Christ’s work.

Holiness of life is the goal of all disciples – we don’t want to be people who do good things - we want to become people who are Christ-like.

Simplicity of life is a Christian virtue.

Christian leaders who hold power often work to suppress Christian experience even those who once claimed a conversion experience.

Being called a fanatic is often a compliment.

Nominal Christian life is the greatest enemy to true discipleship.

Innovation for the sake of mission and evangelism is Apostolic and needed in every age.

Extreme Calvinism quenches human freedom and is joyless.

People have free will and it is obvious that we have to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in ministry and growth.

In Christ, women are equal to men and can be effective agents of ministry.

Bishops are important, but prelacy is a sin against Christ and his Church.

And when it comes to preaching, “set yourself on fire in the pulpit and the whole world will come to see you burn.”

The Pope and TEC

Many of you have by now read or heard accounts of the offer last week from Pope Benedict to receive members of the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church into the Roman Catholic Church. The reports were a bit confusing and misleading. Here are some Q & A’s on this.

What was offered?

The Pope offered to receive members of the Anglican Church (and the Episcopal Church) into the Roman Church. Clergy could remain married and churches could use the Episcopal or Anglican Prayer Book services.

Was this new?

Yes and No: Anglican clergy have been allowed to join the Roman Church. For example, there is a former Episcopalian serving one of our nearby Roman Parishes. Such clergy are “re-ordained” and allowed to be married. There are also at least seven “Anglican Rite” Roman Churches in the U.S. These parishes have been given approval to use extensive parts of the Prayer Book in Liturgy and many elements of Anglo-catholic worship. However, there were two additions in this announcement. First, it was made public by the Pope in a high profile news release. These issues have been handled more quietly in the past to respect on-going ecumenical talks. It is clear that no one, including the Archbishop of Canterbury knew this was to be announced.

Second, the offer was to parishes and even dioceses and not just individuals. However, the clergy will still need to be ordained in the Roman Church and no married clergy would be allowed to serve as a Bishop. So, of the U.S. dioceses that have left TEC like Ft. Worth, only one of the Bishops would even qualify for consideration.

Will this affect many Episcopalians?

Probably not. It might affect some of the already spin off groups of churches. For example, the Anglican Church in North America has churches that are very Anglo-catholic and apposed to women’s ordination and at the same time has evangelical parishes. This could draw off churches from that group, but still, we are probably talking about less than 100 clergy. This could have some effect in the English Church where there is some current tension and division over the question of women bishops, however, this is very hard to determine. Only time can tell.

Will lay people be involved?

They might if they are in congregations that have left the Episcopal Church, however, lay people have always been free to move membership to Rome if they wished. Consequently, we are not talking about very many people.

If this affects few people, why did it make such news?

There are three reasons for this. First, the Pope, by making the announcement, stepped over previous protocols on how such matters are handled. Second, the on-going conflict in the Episcopal Church, The Canadian Church and even the Church of England made this seem newsworthy. Lastly, most reporters had little understanding of the current church issues and thought this was new, innovative and an open raid on the Anglican Church by the Roman Church. They were misinformed.

Does this affect either the Cathedral or the Diocese of Dallas?

No, not at all. We continue to carry out our mission and ministry as we believe God is leading us.

Connected?

I have over 300 “friends” on Facebook. There are over 200 families at the Cathedral, and I have over 300 “contacts” in Outlook on my computer. So, why at times, do I feel so lonely?

It may have to do primarily with my being an only child. I have over the years wondered if being an only child leaves one feeling like we are special and unique with its consequential down side of feeling alone. It could be.

Another answer to this question comes from a recent article in Leadership Magazine. The author refers to “The Loneliness of the Senior Pastor.” The point of the article is that a Senior Pastor, read Dean of the Cathedral, lives with a strange paradox. We have hundreds of relationships with our members, can even enter one of their homes by just knocking on the door, yet most of our members tend to see us in a utilitarian manner. We are like their doctor, their lawyer, their shop clerk. If you think about it, you would notice that most of these folks are not friends no matter how often you see them. Indeed, we often need to hold folks like our doctor at a bit of a distance. The less we know of his or her humanity, the better off we feel. The same could be said of one’s pastor.

I think, however, a better explanation came from a presentation on media communication during our Diocesan Body Building Day. The speaker made this observation about loneliness in today’s world. “We make the mistake of thinking that because we have all these instant contacts through email, Facebook, and Twitter that we are in actually in relationship to these people.” To this he added, “Being connected does not mean that you are relating with these people.” What a profound insight.

This explains my recent withdrawal from participation in the House of Deputies listserv. I found myself becoming more and more frustrated with the level of communication. What I could not articulate was that I was sharing a lot, but connecting almost none at all.

I’ve known for some time that email is a poor form for many kinds of communications. Since you can not nuance someone’s intonation or voice, there is a tendency to take all email as literal communication. So, “John is an idiot” without a wink and smile attached communicates that you think that John (who has a PhD from Harvard) is actually an idiot. And don’t even move in the direction of irony. I tried an ironic statement on the House of Deputies listserv and brought down the wrath of many an accepting, inclusive, and well-meaning deputy, liberal in their interpretation of Scripture and fundamentalists in their reading of email!

So, could it be that at times I feel lonely because I am confusing all this connectedness with actually relating to someone? This doesn’t mean that being an only child or a Dean isn’t part of the formula, just that they are not the only issues in this.

So what do I plan on doing? I am taking friendship more seriously and doing it in person. How about you? Are you confusing “connectedness” with “being in relationship?”

Travels with Garmina

Last Christmas my wife Sharon gave me a wonderful gift.  It was a Garmin GPS system to use in my car.  All I had to do was type in an address and the Garmin would direct me to the quickest route.  Of course, my wife was never expecting that I would use the Garmin when she was in the car because it has been our long tradition that she navigates. 

I knew we were in for some tension when Sharon headed to the American Automobile Association for maps and books for our planned trip to North Carolina.  “We can use the Garmin,” I suggested.  This generated a terse, “Why?  I’ll be in the car.” 

To make matters worse, the Garmin gives directions with a feminine voice, “turn right in 2 miles and continue 15 miles to destination.”  The day of our trip, I placed the Garmin on my wife’s dash board.  To her suspicious looks, I reassured, “You will be surprised how helpful it is.”  By Texarkana, I had to mute the voice because Sharon found it annoying. 

A break though of sorts occurred just outside Memphis as we searched in vain for an agreeable restaurant.  “Let me show you this,” I said as I went to points of interest and found a very acceptable place to eat.  Later Sharon allowed, “I can see where that might be helpful.”  And indeed it proved helpful finding gas, lodging and other things the next day.  By the end of the second day, Sharon volunteered, “Well, I can see why you like Garima so much.”  From that time onward, Garmina became a kind of consultant as my wife would consider suggested routes and either agree or direct me to “a short cut that Garmina doesn’t seem to understand.” 

On our last night driving home, Sharon had planned on us stopping in Shreveport because it would be late getting home.  Garmina indicated that our arrival time would be 7:04 pm and we agreed to drive on home and sleep in our own bed.  Of course, Garima’s arrival time did not take in consideration a rest break at the Texas Information Center, a gas stop, numerous red lights in the Dallas area, and so by 8:30 my wife was obviously annoyed with how Garmina had “misled us.” 

Last week, I forgot and left Garmina in my car. Although generally out of sight on the floorboard, someone broke my window and stole the GPS.  I was late for an appointment when I found it missing and Sharon was kind enough to do the report to the police and see to the window repair. 

That night, as I was sitting eating dinner in a somber mood, Sharon said in a kind voice, “I am sorry that you lost Garmina.”  “Thanks, I responded,” but I couldn’t help but notice that she seemed to have a slight smile as she said it.  “Maybe we can replace it someday,” she offered.  Then she added, “If we do, we can call it Garminette.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled again, but in my heart I understood.