The Lutheran Zephyr

Getting Out the God Vote (Lord have mercy upon us!)

Today's Washington Post Online reports on a Southern Baptist prayer campaign and get-out-the-vote effort designed to get more Christians to the polls and more "godly Christians" elected to office.  Read the full article here.  From the article:

The daily prayers include requests for God's guidance in voting, for the election of more "godly Christians," for God to "help churches find ways to help Christians get to the polls" and for public officials to be protected "from the attacks of Satan." . . .
 
"Our vision statement is an American society that affirms and practices Judeo-Christian values rooted in biblical authority," [The Rev. Richard Land, Director of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission] said. "America will be better off if people who are voting are seeking God's guidance."

A few brief critiques.  As my three loyal readers know, I'm an avid advocate for the separation of church and state.  The problem I see with this campaign is not that it involves Christians praying for government leaders - that's something we Lutherans do every week in our Prayers of the Church - but that it seeks to help Christians vote and to elect "godly Christians" to office.  Their whole campaign is predicated upon the wrong belief that if the government is chosen and run by Christians, our nation will be better off.  Its a move toward theocracy, and its (unintentional?) consequence is to devalue the role of non-Christians in society and in government.  In a pluralist society, in a theological anthropology that acknowledges the sinfulness of humans (even the sinfulness of "godly Christians"), and in a faith perspective that teaches Christians to honor and love our neighbor, a narrow Christian-focused prayer and voting campaign is very dangerous.

We Lutherans are inheritors of a Two Kingdoms theology that teaches that God works both in the Kingdom of the World and in the Kingdom of God.  Luther (ineloquently, to our modern ears) stated that he would rather be governed by a smart Turk than a dumb Christian.  That is, the faith of the leader is much less relevant than the leader's ability to govern with integrity and wisdom. 

Of course, the idea that Christians would promote a "Christian" government is alien to the New Testament.  Since its earliest days and for more than three hundred years, Christianity was a minority religion that suffered alienation (at best) and persecution (at worst).  It is a religion whose central defining moment is the brutal state-sponsored execution of a rejected religious leader.  Martyrdom was a common experience for the early Christians.

Yet in the midst of such pressure, the early Christians taught respect for the (non-Christian) governing authorities.  "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God" (Romans 13:1). Peter tells us in 1 Peter 2:17 to "honor the emperor."  And of course Jesus taught that we should give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's (Matthew 21:22).  These passages promote a respectful approach toward a government in which Christians neither have nor seek a privileged place.  This stands in contrast to the faith-based, power-grab kind of divisive religious politics that too many on the Right practice today.

Another critique of this prayer/voting campaign: do Jews ever speak of "Judeo-Christian" values?  I've only ever heard Christians (conservative Christians, at that) use this term, and I wonder if it represents an attempt by majority Christians to claim a broader mandate for their narrow social agenda.  By using the term "Judeo-Christian" conservative Christians imply that their social agenda is in keeping with the Jewish people today and with the Jewish tradition spanning several thousand years.  This seems terribly arrogant, if not worse.

Foul! Baseball's Unfortunate Forray Into Replay

Today Major League Baseball announced that instant replay will come to a major league stadium near you starting Thursday.  Replay will be limited to the review of disputed home run calls to determine if the ball is fair vs. foul, if the ball went over the wall or remained in play, or if a fan interfered with the ball.  Disputed plays at the bases, balls and strikes, and other types of plays - though more common and arguably more important than disputed home run calls - will not be subject to instant replay review.

The implementation of this rule is flawed by at least two factors.  First, they are introducing this new rule 132 games into a 161-game season.  I do not like the idea of playing 132 games under one set of rules, and the remaining 29 games under a different set of rules.  In a season that endures for 161 games, a loss in April counts the same as a loss in September.  Why apply a different set of rules for the final month of the season that didn't apply for the first five months?

Secondly, the use of instant replay depends on the availability of television broadcast feeds for review.  However, not every team broadcasts every game, thus leaving some games without reviewable television broadcast feeds.  A rule that is being introduced with 29 games remaining in the season will only apply to those games with television feeds.  Most games have feeds, but not all.  What kind of sport implements a rule that depends on the television broadcasting arrangements the teams have made?  Woe to you, O Kansas City!

But more, the rule itself is flawed because it introduces technology into a game that doesn't even need a clock (see my rant about sports with clocks here).  The human element in baseball is not only part of the game as it has been played for over one hundred years, but it is also emblematic of a game that has blessedly avoided arcane and overly technical rules (save for the balk rule).  Baseball players play against each other - not a clock - and the game is officiated by humans, not technology.  The human element in baseball is terribly imperfect - from home run sluggers who strike out, to umpires who miss a call - but it is part of the game nonetheless.  Imposing a strict perfection in one aspect of the game threatens to irreparably move the game into a new, overly-technical experience.

If our new, tiny ballparks make it hard for umpires to rule on home runs, then perhaps MLB should require stricter standards for outfield walls (I'm pretty sure we don't need flower gardens along those outfield walls!).  But using instant replay is not the answer.

Surprised by Hope book study begins next week

Just a quick reminder that the first-ever Lutheran Zephyr blog book study will begin next Thursday, September 4, with the preface and first chapter of N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.  (Full details and schedule are in last week's post.) 

As I mentioned in the previous post, how we conceive of heaven and the resurrection has huge implications for how we live our life - and conduct our ministry - today.  Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright has written an excellent book examining the Biblical and traditional roots of Christian belief about life after death, challenging many commonly-held beliefs in the process.

Every Thursday and Monday I'll post a brief synopsis and review of the book here, and encourage comments of anybody reading along.  If you want to play along, get a copy of the book and check in here next Thursday!

My Brother on Exurban Development, on NPR

My brother, a land developer in the Philadelphia area, was featured in a National Public Radio report on Friday morning as part of a series on "The Urban Frontier" - The Exurbs: Houses, Cornfields, and Empty Lots [UPDATE: link fixed at 2:40pm.  I had originally inserted a link to next Sunday's Gospel text.  Oops!].  He did very well, and reporter Steve Inskeep offered a fairly balanced look at the issues involved in suburban development and the unique kind of development my brother and father offer - traditional neighborhood design, or new urbanism.

Take a listen!  For years I've been wanting to write a little piece about Traditional Neighborhood Design/New Urbanism from a Christian/Lutheran perspective.  Perhaps I'll start doing that on these pages in the coming days . . .

Bye, Bye, Touchscreen Voting

More and more states are ditching the touchscreen voting machines they rushed to purchase following the disgraced 2000 presidential vote recount in Florida (news report and analysis from the tech-saavy folks at ars technica available here).  It seems that paper is more reliable than software and microchips.

I have served as an Election Officer - one of those volunteers who asks for your ID, signs you into the poll book, and then explains to you how to use the voting machine - in the past three elections here in Fairfax, Virginia.  We use the touchscreen voting systems in Virginia, and as a voter and as an election officer I haven't been impressed.  The machines are easy to use and easy to tally at the end of the night - you just ask the machine to add up the totals, and it does!  But this magical computer calculation doesn't inspire confidence.  I wrote about this a few months ago in a post Uneasy About Silicon Ballots, following one of the elections I worked:

You see, a voter makes selections for various races and ultimately casts a vote on the touchscreen of a computer.  The computer records the vote tally for each race on a small USB drive, much like the one many of us wear around our necks or on a keychain.  The problem with this system is that there is no paper trail recording each voter's ballot.  There is no way to go back and recreate a particular ballot at a particular machine for review purposes.  Furthermore, there is no way to verify that if a voter selects "A" the computer actually records "A" in its memory.  All we have, at the end of the night, is a total count of votes for each race.  We can't go back and actually look at the ballots of individual voters.

But with a system that creates a physical voting record - a paper ballot or a computer system that generates a paper trail, for example - we can go back and look at each ballot, set them out on a table, and count them by hand.  We can verify that X number of people voted for SMITH, and Y number of people voted for JACKSON, because we can sort the ballots that the voters themselves completed.  On a computer, I can't do that.  I have to trust that the computer's count is correct.  I cannot verify the numbers the computer gives me with any external count, for there is nothing physical, nothing tangible for me to count.

What I can do is verify that the number of people who checked-in at the registration books with the Election Officers matches the number of votes cast on the computers.  At our polling station, the number of people who signed-in matched the number of votes cast on the computers.  We know that the raw numbers match up - no ballot was lost - but the main problem remains: voters cannot verify that their selections are recorded correctly on the computer, since no hard copy, no physical specimen is created.  I think this is a problem.  I've had enough odd computer and ATM errors that make me doubt the perfect integrity of a computer system and a silicon microchip.

According the ars technica article:

Critics—including some of us at Ars—had long warned that electronic voting systems were not ready for prime time, citing concerns about their lack of transparency, vulnerability to tampering, and plain bugginess. Finally, states are increasingly coming to the same conclusion. Last year, Ohio produced a 1,000-page report cataloging a host of problems with the state's voting machines. Since then, a glitch blamed on conflicts with anti-virus software initially caused hundred of votes to be dropped as they were uploaded to tallying servers. A "top-to-bottom" review of California's voting systems last year found that hacker "red teams" were able to easily compromise machines made by Premier, Sequoia, Hart Intercivic, and Election Systems & Software—leading the state to decertify the machines.

So to fix the problem states are returning to paper.  But . . . complicating matters is the cost of these voting systems.  From what I understand, Virginia will be using a hybrid system this fall - some paper-based systems, and some touchscreen systems at each polling station.  Why the hybrid?  There simply is not enough time or money to get new paper-based systems in place before November.  That's just sad.  Is dependable democracy too expensive?

Finally . . . some states are considering selling their out-of-favor touchscreen systems to developing countries.  Who says you can't export democracy?  Whether through war or the sale of flawed voting systems, we can and will bring democracy to the world!

I don't think there is some grand conspiracy to rig our elections, but I do think that the systems we use are flawed and inspire apathy rather than confidence.  We owe it to ourselves and to the world to have a fair, transparent, and reliable voting process.

Blog Book Study: N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope

A little while ago I began reading N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.  In it Wright critiques popular beliefs about heaven which are largely out of step with the Biblical witness and the early traditions of the Christian church.  His critique is not only academic and Biblical, but also pastoral.  He finds the popular belief about life after death - an eternal journey of the disembodied soul into heavenly paradise - to offer much less comfort, much less hope for humanity and the world than does the traditional Christian understanding of the resurrection and the Kingdom of God. 

Wright articulates a Biblical understanding of life after death - a hoped-for resurrection of the dead at the dawning of a New Kingdom, a New Creation, when the world is "set to rights" as Wright likes to say.  When we look at the future in terms of Jesus' promise to inaugurate a New Kingdom of Life (rather than seeing death and the afterlife in purely individualistic, "spiritual," and "heavenly" terms) it is a much more hopeful future for all.

I've gotten through more than half the book, but I haven't yet finished it, which is why I am planning this blog book study (a disciplined way for me to get through the book, and to generate some conversation around its themes).  I've been very impressed with what I've read so far . . .

Also, I find these issues to be terribly important.  How we understand death, resurrection, and the afterlife has huge consequences for our profession of faith and how we conduct our lives now.  I've touched on these theme in two previous posts, National Day of Prayer, or Ascension Day? and All Saints, All Souls, and the Return of Christ.

Here's how the study will work: every Monday and Thursday, beginning Thursday, September 4, I will offer a brief synopsis of a single chapter of Surprised by Hope, and I'll share some of my own reflections, as well.  If any of you are reading along, I hope you'll share your thoughts in the comments.  If you don't own the book, buy it online or go to your local bookstore and pick it up.

Here's the schedule:

• Thurs, Sept 4: Preface, Chapter 1 - All Dressed Up and No Place to Go?
• Mon, Sept 8: Chapter 2 - Puzzled About Paradise?
• Thursday, Sept 11: Chapter 3 - Early Christian Hope in Its Historical Setting
• Monday, Sept 15: Chapter 4 - The Strange Story of Easter
• Thursday, Sept 18: Chapter 5 - Cosmic Future: Progress or Despair?
• Monday, Sept 22: Chapter 6 - What the Whole World's Waiting For
• Thursday, Sept 25: Chapter 7 - Jesus, Heaven, and New Creation
• Monday, Sept 29: Chapter 8 - When He Appears
• Thursday, Oct 2:  Chapter 9 - Jesus, the Coming Judge
• Monday, Oct 6: Chapter 10 - The Redemption of our Bodies
• Thursday, Oct 9: Chapter 11 - Purgatory, Paradise, Hell
• Monday, Oct 13: Chapter 12 - Rethinking Salvation: Heaven, Earth, and the Kingdom of God
• Thursday, Oct 16: Chapter 13 - Building for the Kingdom
• Monday, Oct 20: Chapter 14 - Reshaping the Church for Mission (1): Biblical Roots
• Thursday, Oct 23: Chapter 15 - Reshaping the Church for Mission (2): Living the Future

Purpose Driven Politics

First we had the Compassion Forum (about which I blogged and complained here).  And now we have Rick Warren's Civil Forum on the Presidency, a conversation with the candidates at his Saddleback Church Saturday night. 

I'm bothered by these religious/political forums, because I fear that they lend credence to the idea that we need to have a religious, a faithful, a Christian president in the United States, as if faith were a prerequisite for the presidency (try finding that in the Constitution!).  Furthermore, Christians are hardly unified on how they feel about a variety of religious - let alone political - issues.  But by their nature these forums present a rather narrow understanding of the Christian faith, and they paint Christianity's political concerns with a misleadingly broad - and blunt - brush. 

Rick Warren promises to ask the candidates about their relationship to Jesus Christ.  From an ABC News report on the upcoming Saddleback event:

[Warren] said the key for many evangelicals is the candidates' "relationship to Jesus Christ ... I'm going to give them a chance to explain themselves."

Huh?  The key for these voters is the candidates' "relationship to Jesus Christ"?  What about their fealty to the US Constitution?  What about their concern for the kinds of things Jesus is concerned about: the poor, the outsider, the widow, the hungry?  Anyone can give lipservice to a "relationship to Jesus Christ" for millions of voters watching on television . . . it's kinda hard (and pretty darn inappropriate) to question the candidates' claim to faith.  But we can and should question and evaluate the candidates' commitment to issues.

And that's what these presidential debates and forums should be about - issues.  Issues of the economy, the environment, international affairs, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, taxation, education . . . that is, let's have discussions about policy, not piety; about governance, not God.

We Lutherans are inheritors of a Two Kingdoms tradition that recognizes the God-blessed function of  government, a function that does not need crosses or Christian banners to be considered blessed.  A government that governs well - maintains order, restrains evil, provides for the common good - is blessed and holy regardless of the faith of the people holding office.  What we need are people in government who can govern well, not necessarily those who can give the correct answers on a religious litmus test. 

So as Christians, let us ask our candidates questions about good governance, let us ask questions about who would be the best steward of the mechanism of government.  These are questions that people of many faiths - or of no faith - can and should ask when deciding on a political candidate. 

And let us not be complicit in using Jesus as a campaign prop.

Some of my recent posts on Church/State issues:
Matthew 25 Network's Obamessiah Complex
Faith, Politics, and Obama
Why I Don't Like the National Day of Prayer
Clinton's Troubling Politics of Choosing Church
Christian Prayers in Government Chambers: Music to the Devil's Ears
Too Much Religion in this Race
Civil Governance & the Church

Or for all of my Church/State posts, click on my new Church/State category link.

UPDATE: Saturday's Washington Post includes an AP article on the forum: McCain and Obama Face Questions About Their Faith.  The article simply presents the challenges each candidate faces in the forum, but doesn't raise any questions about the forum itself.  That's too bad. 

UPDATE #2: An earlier article by Reuters published on Thursday by the Post, Obama, McCain Aim for Faith Vote at Forum is equally lacking in any critique of the forum.

Also, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has a press release critical of the forum.  An excerpt: 

“Campaign 2008 is starting to feel like a Sunday school Bible drill,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “We’re electing a president, not a national pastor. I don’t see what good it will do for the American people to again hear the candidates spout pious platitudes about their favorite Bible verses or how devout they are.

“Candidates should appeal to the voters based on their qualifications for office and their stands on the issues, not their religious beliefs,” Lynn said. “This event continues the campaign spiral into religious matters. Americans want to hear the candidates’ views on important issues such as constitutional rights, public education, the Iraq War and the economy.”

. . .

“Why should one of these important events be orchestrated entirely by only one pastor who comes out of one narrow segment of our diverse country?” Lynn asked.

Seeing Reality in Cara Sucia

Our final two days in El Salvador took us to Cara Sucia and surrounding communities, on the western border with Guatemala.  It reminded me of Lobato in terms of the level of poverty - which had houses made of clay brick or cinder block, roofs of corrugated steel - though Cara Sucia seemed a bit worse off.  Whereas in Lobato they were relatively close to the urban center of Santa Ana, in Cara Sucia there was no larger urban center to provide jobs or education or social services.  Cara Sucia is a small hub in the middle of an agricultural area.  No university to provide education, no quality medical facility to provide healthcare, no factories to provide jobs.  Just an agricultural zone with many communities built in flood planes, a recipe for humanitarian disaster if a significant hurricane were to hit.

The church in Cara Sucia - Iglesia Luterana Bendición de Dios - was planted after Hurricane Mitch devastated the area in 1998.  Built on high ground at the edge of Cara Sucia's main strip, the construction materials were donated by the Lutheran World Federation with local workers providing the labor (by the way, there is no shortage of labor in El Salvador - North Americans workgroups coming south to paint walls or build houses is not necessarily what this country needs).  The church also serves as a disaster shelter and has a radio station, though which it broadcasts a variety of religious and cultural programming, and emergency information during natural disasters.  In that way this was one of the most organized ministries we saw while in El Salvador.

On the other hand, this church serves an agricultural zone with communities spread out over a 15km radius.  Families have few dollars to spend on bus fare - which can be quite expensive for a family of six or eight, which is common in this area - thus Pastor Jorge has a great challenge reaching out to the various communities and gathering some portion of his membership for worship each Sunday morning.

We visited two communities - one slightly north of Cara Sucia, another to the south.  The presentations in these communities were direct and to the point.  "Thank you for coming to see reality," one man said, as he then described the lack of jobs, the lack of healthcare, the poor state of nutrition, and the extremely high rates of illiteracy (few in this community have advanced beyond a few years of an elementary school education).  He and others spoke clearly about the capitalist system in which the few jobs - usually temporary agricultural or manual labor jobs - are controlled by a wealthy elite who wield their economic power to force laborers to work long hours or on Sundays.  They spoke about families separated by migration to the United States - usually illegal immigration.  In the first community we visited, a large number of the families had loved ones in the United States, sending back funds which have largely sustained that community.

The leftist loyalties of the pastor and lay leaders was clear.  The pastor's son read the New Testament lesson in Sunday worship, wearing a Che Guevarra t-shirt emblazoned with the words, "Country or Death."  The word "capitalist" was thrown around with disgust, and some level of hope was expressed for upcoming elections in which the left-wing FMLN has a good chance of winning the presidency.  But even with all of their material poverty, Pastor Jorge expressed less a need for a partnership that would bring material support than a partnership that would bring spiritual support.  "We know how to survive in these conditions.  We don't need help.  We need prayer.  We need to know we have brothers and sisters of faith.  We need a spiritual brotherhood." 

Seeing what we've seen, those are hard words to hear.  Yet it is true.  The material support that one North American congregation can lend to a Salvadoran congregation is not insignificant, but it cannot change the fundamentals of the oppressive economic and political system in which Salvadorans find themselves.  We might be able to send money for construction materials, or provide funding for some education programs, and these things are good.  But in the long run, the best thing we can provide is moral and spiritual support through prayer and spiritual partnership, through trips in which we literally and spiritually walk with our sisters and brothers.  As with the march through San Salvador a few days earlier, such a spiritual partnership lends strength and support to a church that through its own ministry of Word, Sacrament and Service is seeking to change Salvadoran society for the good of all.

For more of my posts about El Salvador, click here.  For some photos, click here and then view them as a slideshow.

El Salvador Photos

Just a brief post to offer a link to 200 of the photos I took while in El Salvador.  Each photo has a brief caption.  In the coming days I will write more, particularly about our experience in the rural areas surrounding Cara Sucia during our last two days in El Salvador.  On Sunday night I couldn't blog because someone else was using the hotel's one computer . . and today, well, it was laundry, running children around, and getting new tires for the car.  I'm back home, after all!

To read past blogposts about El Salvador, click here.

Enjoy the pictures.  View them from this page, or click on the album to view larger photos and see the captions.

Small Country, Big Church

Today´s travels in El Salvador took us to the UCA (Universidad Centroamericana) and to San Lorenzo, a small community near the coast.  In both places we witnessed the struggles of the Salvadoran people and the global church´s solidarity with El Salvador.

At the UCA we visited the Oscar Romero Center for Theological Studies (if I have the name slightly wrong, please excuse me.  I´m on a terribly slow computer and I can´t look up the proper name right now!).  This center tells the story - with powerful pictures and a well-done little museum - of the 6 Jesuit priests who were murdered - martyred - in November 1989 for their outspoken teaching and advocacy on behalf of the poor and against the civil war.  From the copy of Jorgen Multman´s The Crudified God soaked in the blood of one of the martyred priests, to the portrait of Archbishop Oscar Romero that had been shot by the deathsquads (as if to say that they would kill him again if they could), to the priests personal affects, it was a moving experience.

But to reference the title of this post, I was very pleased to see several posters from the 1980s and other materials demonstrating solidarity from the international community.  A citation from the Washington, DC City Council declared an "Archbishop Oscar Romero" day.  A poster from Taiwan decried the violence of the war.  The sign-in book contained several languages . . . The Jesuit Martyrs and Oscar Romero are revered not only by Salvadorans, but by Christians around the world.

And then we traveled a little more than an hour to San Lorenzo, a small community near the coast that was created after the devestating 2001 earthquakes.  From what I understood - by speaking with Salvadorans and Spanish-speaking Germans - this community was founded largely thanks to the support of the international Lutheran community, particularly from Europe.  About 27 families live in San Lorenzo, where a Lutheran congregation (which also operates a small primary school) is the major community organization.

In addition to the presence of a German missionary pastor, the international community´s presence is made known in several ways.  Organizations and individuals central to the development of San Lorenzo are recognized with street names (including Lutheran World Federation Street), and two simple plazas honor Bavaria and Norway, whose churches made significant contributions to the community.  As you walk through San Lorenzo, you can´t help but feel a larger community - a broader church - at work in the place.

El Salvador is a small country, but there is a big, a global church walking alongside it in solidary, in partnership, in mission.  There was something beautiful about sharing prayer and conversation with a German Lutheran pastor as we both spoke in less-than-perfect and poorly-accented Spanish.  But it was the Salvadoran people - better put, it was the presence of Christ in the suffering of the Salvadoran people - that brought us together, that helped us to better realize the mission of the church - to proclaim the Gospel in Word, Sacrament, and Service, particularly alongside the poor and suffering of the world.

Thank God for the Lutheran Church of El Salvador, and thank God for the partner churches who walk in solidary with it!

- - - - -

If I write again before returning home on Monday, August 11, it will be on Sunday evening.  On Saturday we head off to Cara Sucia to visit another church and spend the night in family homes.  It promises to be a wonderful experience.