The Lutheran Zephyr

Augsburg Fortress Advocates

If you're on Facebook, please join Augsburg Fortress Advocates.  Here's why.

These days are tough ones for Augsburg Fortress, the publishing ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  Truth be told, denominational publishing has never been a get-rich-quick scheme - developing products for a very narrow and budget-limited market of penny-pinching German and Scandanavian Lutherans isn't the ideal business opportunity - but in a recession economy it is even harder.

In response to continued financial challenges, Augsburg Fortress is closing its retail stores and eliminating its consumer-oriented product lines (press release here).  Augsburg Fortress will continue to develop and invest in congregational resources, particularly in the areas of education and worship.  The Fortress Books line will continue serving the academic market, too. 

Please remember: Augsburg Fortress is funded soley through sales revenue.  There are no benevolence dollars underwriting Augsburg Fortress' ministry.  It is a business dedicated to serving the Lutheran church.  It can only produce and sell products that generate revenue.

This is not entirely surprising to me, an Augsburg Fortress customer since entering seminary 11 years ago and former sales representative for the company.  In an internet world, bricks and mortar are costly.  And for a small publisher, it can be difficult to promote good, theologically sound books on spirituality and faith when you're competing for shelf space with much larger, theologically flexible publishers of feel-good fluff.  This move isn't surprising. 

But it is saddening, for I fear that it may only be a harbinger of changes to come.  In the past ten years Augsburg Fortress has gone through several reorganizations, including the sale of its Ecclesiastical Arts division based in Philadelphia just a few years ago.  So how can you support Augsburg Fortress, and help it in its core business of providing resources for congregations, so that future press releases announce the company's expansion rather than its downsizing?  Here are a few ideas.

• Pray for the ELCA's ministry of publishing.  Nothing good happens without prayer.  Please pray for our church's ministry of publishing, that it might be a faithful, healthy ministry providing resources for congregations to carry out their ministry in the Lutheran tradition.
• Look first at Augsburg Fortress materials when selecting church resources.  This is my biggest gripe.  I have heard time and again - both as a sales representative and as a regular church person - of churches who purchase this or that product from another vendor to save a few pennies, or out of convenience.  Thriftiness and convenience are good things, but if there's a difference of a few pennies or of an extra day of delivery, couldn't it be worth it to send your money to the Lutheran publishing ministry rather than some other company?  After all, it is only through sales revenue that Augsburg Fortress makes money, and it is only with sales revenue that it can develop Lutheran resources for Lutheran congregations.  If you care about being Lutheran and having Lutheran resources, please, look first at Augsburg Fortress materials when selecting church resources - from certificates to communion wafers to curriculum to paraments.
• Speak in support of Augsburg Fortress in collegial, synodical, and ecumenical gatherings.  Be an advocate for your Lutheran publishing house.  Tell others how you've used Augsburg Fortress materials in your church, and encourage others to do the same.  Invite authors or educators to present Augsburg Fortress books and materials at your church.  Link to Augsburg Fortress from your church website.  If you have something bad to say, tell Augsburg Fortress directly instead of blabbering in the lobby at synod assembly.  Which leads me to my next point:
• Provide feedback to Augsburg Fortress to help them in the development of new resources.  Augsburg Fortress has some wickedly smart people on staff creating some really good resources, but they can't be in every one of the nearly 11,000 churches in the ELCA.  They can't possibly know how you do ministry at St John's by the Gas Station.  So let them know.  Tell them what has worked and what hasn't worked.  Give them your feedback.  As a former insider, I know they listen to your feedback.  They can't enact every piece of advice - such as the advice I received once that Augsburg Fortress should create a curriculum teaching Reformation hymnody to teenagers - but when they hear trends in the feedback, they act.
• Purchase directly from Augsburg Fortress rather than through a third-party vendor (such as Amazon or the local Christian bookstore), thus cutting out the "middle man" and providing more revenue to our ministry of publishing.  This is another one of my major gripes.  I had congregations purchasing quantities of The Lutheran Handbook from Amazon.com rather than from Augsburg Fortress directly, because they were able to save about $.75 per book that way.  "I'm still buying the Augsburg Fortress product," they told me.  But . . . but when Augsburg Fortress sells to Amazon, they do so at the 40% "trade discount."  For example: that book which lists for $10 at the Augsburg Fortress website may sell for $8 at Amazon.  When you purchase from Augsburg Fortress, they get every single one of your ten dollars.  When you purchase from Amazon, Augsburg Fortress only receives about six of your dollars.  Yes, you've saved two dollars, but the publishing house has lost out on four dollars of revenue . . . four dollars (multiplied by hundreds and thousands of product sales) that would otherwise go toward the creation of Lutheran education, catechetical, or worship resources.  Isn't the Lutheran ministry of publishing worth your two dollars?
• Be forgiving.  I've heard some pretty nasty things said about Augsburg Fortress over the years by disgruntled customers who perhaps didn't get an order on time or who found an error in a curriculum or who were angry that their favorite Bible study series was discontinued.  I once drove eight hours to call on a customer, only to be yelled at for something printed twenty-five years earlier in a Fortres Press book!  At times these customers may be right, and at other times I think they're blowing things out of proportion.  But either way, a spirit of forgiveness is called for.  Surely we've all screwed up at times in our own lives and ministries . . . 
• Again, pray.  The ministry of publishing is so important . . . something we Lutherans should be particularly sensitive to and appreciative of.  Pray for the writers and editors and product developers and business managers of Augsburg Fortress.  They need your prayers.

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PS.  Though I worked as a sales representative for Augsburg Fortress in the past, this message and the Augsburg Fortress Advocates Facebook group are completely my own creations, independent of the fine people at Augsburg Fortress. 

Redefining the "Religious Voter"

In building a winning coalition of religious voters, Barack Obama cut into the so-called God gap that puts frequent worshippers in the Republican column, won Catholics, made inroads with younger evangelicals, and racked up huge numbers with minorities and people with no religious affiliation.

That's the opening paragraph of an Associated Press piece by Eric Gorski posted in the Washington Post's On Faith online section, Obama results show gains in key religious voters.  It offers a basic glance at how religious voters cast their ballots on Tuesday.  I certainly hope and expect more substantive analysis of religious voters in the coming days and weeks, but perhaps this article represents a modest start to the discussion.

But there's a big problem with that opening paragraph.  Let's review the categories of "religious voters" offered by Mr. Gorski in the AP piece:

• "frequent worshippers"
• "Catholics"
• "younger evangelicals"
• "minorities"
• "people with no religious affiliation"

Excuse me?  Are Catholics, younger evangelicals, or minorities not frequent worshippers?  Are minorities to be defined more by their race than by their faith? On the flip side, are white voters to be defined more by their faith than by their race?

Of course, "frequent worshippers" is meant to describe "white, evangelical frequent worshippers" or "white, evangelical, frequent worshippers over age 40."  But by failing to be descriptive in this term, Mr. Gorski connotes that minorities, Catholics, and younger evangelicals are not frequent worshippers.

And to that end, perhaps Mr. Gorski could have led this piece not with the tired, old-paradigm categories of religious voters, but with the essence of this quote, burried in the middle of his report:

"This is a coalition that includes white Christians," [John] Green [a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life] said of Obama's faith-based bloc. "It's just white Christians aren't the senior partners in this coalition."

White Christians aren't the senior partners in the religious coalition that supported President-Elect Barack Obama.  White Christians - for now, anyway - are not the driving force in American politics.  Let's repeat that.

White Christians are not the driving force in American politics right now.

I don't doubt that white evangelicals will be back in force in two or four years, but I am glad to see the beginning of a redefinition of the "religious vote."  For Christianity is not just the domain of white, suburban and rural evangelicals concerned about gay marriage and abortion.  Rather, the Christian Church is also home to people of color, young people, and people for whom issues of poverty and social justice are a political priority.

Not only did Barack Obama win on Tuesday, but so did the many religious voters who are not comfortable being lumped together with the Christian Right.  Redefining our terms and recognizing the diverse interests and politics of people of faith . . . that's a change I can believe in.

All Alone It Was a Good Night, But . . .

Last night I had a relatively empty house: my wife is in Chicago, my daughters were with my mother at her nearby hotel (Mom/Nanny came down to visit for the weekend), and our au pair was in Virginia Beach.  So it was just me and Naaman, my 11 month old son. 

And it was great.

I was worried that with the hour change Naaman would wake up at around 4 or 4:30am, but he slept through until about 6.  And not once did he wake in the middle of the night.  And so I slept through the night, seven hours, restfully and peacefully, and showered before he even woke up.  It was as close to parental heaven as I've eperienced in a long time.

So why was Naaman so cooperative?  Why didn't he offer up his usual scream or whimper in the middle of the night, or his regular 5am wake-up call?  Of course, he may have screamed or whimpered, and I could have just slept through it.  But I don't think that's the case.  We had an empty house.  My kids all share one room, and last night there were no sisters to toss and turn and wake him.  Naaman had the room all to himself.  Our au pair is in the next room, and she keeps odd hours (perhaps to talk to friends and family in Thailand?), often awake and moving about in middle of the night.  But last night she was not there, either. 

So it was quiet a place last night, and Naaman slept from 7pm Daylight Savings Time to 6am Daylight Standard Time - 12 hours.  He's usually more of a 10 or 11 hour nightime sleeper.  This was beautiful.  Perhaps we should get rid of mommy, the sisters and au pair more often . . .

Of course not.  That would be rediculous.  As hard as it can be to live with family - their noise, their routines and habits, and their varrying needs - we need them.  Naaman needs his sisters and his mother.  Naaman's face lights up when he sees Ann (our au pair) in the mornings.  We are part of a family, and though an ocassional solitary night might be an unexpected boon, it leaves a gaping hole in our daily routine and a yearning for everyone to come back together.

I think of this, in part, as an analogy to church.  Sometimes it can be so tempting to go it alone, to ditch long-standing relationships, to seek to "start from scratch" and reject the "we've always done it this way" rigidness that happens when people get together and develop patterns of life together.  Sometimes - sometimes - I wonder if this is why some pastors start up their own, new churches, or walk away from their denomination and the often-complicated relationships and challenges of being in a denomination.  Can it be "easier" in one sense to just build a new church rather than work with an older, established church?  When people get together, when they live together - in a home or in a church, in daily life or in the worship and ministry life of a congregation - there are inevitable inconveniences and challenges. 

Getting away from those strictures might be nice at times, but it cannot be a long-term strategy.  We need each other - the patterns and (at times rigid) routines, the comfort and the inconveniences - that comes with being a Christian community.  Yes, we need each other, even if at times it wakes us up at odd hours of the night . . .

What is the role of government?

One of the more under-discussed issues in American politics is that of the role of government in addressing our favorite issues.  We might agree that education is good or that suburban sprawl is bad or that astroturf is evil, but how do we understand the role of government in regulating or addressing issues of education, sprawl, or astroturf?  This is a fundamental issue, one with which I wrestle considerably, but which I don't think gets enough air-time in our sound-bite political process.  Just becaue the power exists in government to do something, does it mean that government should necessarily do it?

Related to this point, I also wrestle with what Christians should seek from government.  If the Bible and the Christian tradition speak to people of faith, can we rightfully expect or demand of our (secular) government (of a religiously diverse nation) that it enact certain laws or policies "because the Bible says so"?  For exampe, the Bible expresses a deep concern for the plight of the poor, and calls people of faith to care for the needy.  Should Christians, then, implicate the government in responding to that faith-based call to serve neighbor?  Surely there are non-religious public policy reasons to serve the poor, and perhaps Christians should employ those arguments when calling on the government to act for the poor.  Again, just because the power exists in government to do something, does it mean that government should necessarily do it, and does it mean that Christians should seek to use the power of government to enact their priorities? 

I surely believe government has an important role to play in society - duh.  And I think that Christians should be engaged with government.  But I think we need to clearly articulate what we understand the role of government to be.  And I'm not there yet . . .

Perhaps I need a political science class to help me sort this out.

George Will Misrepresents Luther in Attack on Episcopalians

I generally enjoy reading George Will's intelligent commentaries.  However, in Sunday's Washington Post Mr. Will offers a poorly reasoned attack on The Episcopal Church, and he employs a gross misrepresentation of Martin Luther in the process.

First, the gross misrepresentation of Martin Luther.  Mr. Will begins his piece, entitled A Faith's Dwindling Following, with these words:

The Rev. Robert Duncan, 60, is not a Lutheran, but he is a Luther, of sorts. The former Episcopal bishop of Pittsburgh has, in effect, said the words with which Martin Luther shattered Christendom and asserted the primacy of individual judgment and conscience that defines the modern temperament: " Ich kann nicht anders" -- I cannot do otherwise.

I have no idea if Rev. Duncan is indeed a modern-day Martin Luther, as Mr. Will suggests - I know almost nothing of Bishop Duncan.  However, I do know that Luther never "asserted the primacy of individual judgment and conscience that defines the modern temperament."  Luther asserted the primacy of the Word of God - not individual judgment and conscience:

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.
I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me, Amen.

- Martin Luther, From "Luther at the Diet of Worms"
in Luther's Works (Fortress Press), Vol. 32, pg 112

For Luther it was not his individuality but the Word of God which called him to take his stand.  Luther viewed the power structure of the Roman Church as corrupt and failing to live up to its God-given mandate, but he never called for that power vacuum to be filled with raging individuality.  Rather, he and his fellow Reformers affirmed the conscience-binding authority of the early ecumenical councils, the creeds, Scripture, and - most importantly - the Living Word of God that those creeds, councils and Scripture proclaim.  Rather than asserting "the primacy of individual judgment" as Mr. Will claims, Luther asserted the primacy of the Word of God in one of the most beloved slogans of the Reformation - Word Alone.  Quibble what you will with the impact of Luther's claims and the ways in which his successors used (or abused!) his legacy, Luther was no modern individualist.

Near the end of his column Mr. Will makes yet another sweeping and ignorant claim about protestantism.  I can't figure out if he is clueless about Lutheranism (and Protestantism, in general) or if he simply harbors a significant disdain for the Reformation churches:

Because Protestantism has no structure of authority comparable to the Vatican and because it does not merely tolerate but enjoins individual judgments by "the priesthood of all believers" concerning beliefs and obligations, all Protestants are potential Luthers.

Is he suggesting that if we lowly Protestants only had an authority structure "comparable to the Vatican," then we would be a lovely, united, of-one-mind community of faith?  But let me ask him one question: how's that working out for Rome?  No disrespect is intended, but a hierarchy guarantees nothing when it comes to a shared belief or common practice of faith.  Just look at the number of Roman Catholics in this country who practice birth control or who vote for pro-choice politicians.  The breadth of practice and belief among Roman Catholics in other lands is no less wide.  Please.

Moreover, since when was the so-called "priesthood of all believers" a rallying cry for "individual judgments ... concerning beliefs and obligations"?  I am a life-long Lutheran, and yet I have never heard a pastor or seminary professor tell me that the priesthood of all believers is a theological free-for-all, choose-you-own-adventure approach to ministry and faith.  Never.

Rather, the "priesthood of all believers" - a phrase with an admittedly tortured and complicated history (the phrase is a product of Lutheran pietism, about 150 years after Luther), but one which I would expect an intelligent writer such as Mr. Will to understand - can refer to a number of things, most appropriately:

1. the call of Christians to be Good News-proclaiming priests to one another, much like Luther's famed exhortation that we are called to be "little Christs to one another"; or
2. the call of Christians to collectively - as a body, as the Body of Christ - exercise priestly authority; that we are all members of the priestly estate as the Body of Christ, not as renegade free-lancing peddlers of individual spirituality.  That is, it refers to the priesthood of all believers, not the priesthood of each believer.

Mr. Will fails to understand that Lutherans (and Protestants, in general) understand themselves to be captive to the authoritative Living Word of God, as did Luther himself.  For Lutherans, we read and interpret that Word of God in dialog with the great catholic traditions of the church handed down to us by our ancestors in the faith.  That hardly represents an authority vacuum, as Mr. Will claims.

And I imagine that this is true for many progressive Episcopalians, too, the target of Mr. Will's barbs: that they find themselves bound to the Word of God and the rich tradition of the Prayer Book.  Their conclusions on social matters might differ with those of conservative orthodoxy or of Rome, but it is not owing to a failure of authority or an indulgence in free-wheeling individuality.  Rather, because these progressive Episcopalians are captive to the Word of God and the Good News it proclaims they - along with many other Christians - seek justice and fullness of life for all people according to the Good News.

Too bad that Mr. Will fails to appreciate that this, indeed, is good news for global Christianity and, indeed, the whole creation that Christ has come to redeem.

Huh? A European American Lutheran Association?

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is forming within its structure a European American Lutheran Association (EALA) to work alongside various other culturally-specific Lutheran associations (Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, etc.).  Their first gathering is to take place later this month.

Two years ago this association was first announced.  In the initial press release dated November 16, 2006, the case for an association for European American Lutherans was made:

Background information on the proposal for the new association said, after more than two decades of discussion, a recent restructuring of the ELCA churchwide organization produced the possibility "for this church to renew its commitment to being a truly multicultural church by having the acknowledged and active participation of all its members as equal partners at the multicultural table.  Prior to this opportunity, those in this church's European American community have not had the structure to journey together with the five ethnic associations."

Two years ago I strongly critiqued the need for an association of white Lutherans.  Two years later, I still struggle to see the wisdom behind this decision.  I like that in its foundational documentation (see the Preable: document is a PDF) the EALA recognizes White Privilege and the historical access to power that European Americans have enjoyed at the expense of other ethnic groups.  But . . . does placing a group for white Lutherans along side groups for Latino, Asian, Black and other Lutherans dilute the presence of ethnic minorities at the "multicultural table" of an overwhelmingly white denomination? 

Perhaps this reflects a new model for multicultural ministries.  Perhaps in the past the multicultural ministry table was more of a place for ethnic minorities to gather for mutual support, and to organize and advocate for greater churchwide attention to issues related to ministry among minority cultural groups (almost, sadly, as a lobbying function within their own church).

If a table for cultural minorities within an overwhelmingly white church is no longer the model, perhaps this new model in which all cultures - minority and majority together - gather around an intentionally multicultural table seeks to reduce any sense of opposition or struggle and instead unite the groups in a common - rather than adversarial - discussion.  Perhaps.

I'm just not sold on it, and nothing I've read in press releases or on the ELCA website convinces me that this is a good idea.  I fear a few possibilities:

• that the EALA will become a gathering place for sincerely culturally aware white people.  Generally speaking, these people are already getting together for anti-racism trainings, are already serving in cross- and multi-cultural ministries, and are already active in raising the awareness among white folk of their power and priveledge.  The EALA might better organize them, but otherwise it won't do much more than simply gather like minded people who already know each other.
• that the EALA will become a gathering place for white folk who think they're culturally aware, but who will make fools of themselves at the "multicultural table."  Think of dumb American tourists in France or Mexico.  Enough said.
• that the EALA will become a place for the celebration of lederhosen and/or lutefisk in the mistaken notion that European American culture is under attack by a multiplicity of minority cultural initiatives (ie, a backlash against bilingual hymns in our hymnal, for example).
• that with a new association for "European Americans" the ELCA - and its white majority - will actually become less concerned than it already is with issues of culture, race and oppression, now that European American Lutherans have a seat at the multicultural table.  White Lutherans might actually begin (or simply continue) to believe (wrongly) that our church is culturally neutral, that cultural issues only come up at the multicultural table. 
• that some newspaper will run a headline: Overwhelmingly White Lutherans Establish Organization for White Lutherans.

Well, those are my fears.  I don't get the point of the EALA.  I would love some more history, back room conversation transcripts, churchwide assembly resolutions, and other background information about the initiative that led to the creation of the EALA.  It all just seems a bit odd, and perhaps culturally reactionary. 

But I also trust that the folks at our churchwide headquarters are smarter than me - I know a few people out there, and indeed the ones I know are quite intelligent and gifted leaders - and that they know what they are doing.  I just hope that they'll let the rest of us know . . .

"Barack Obama is a strong, Christian family man"

So said Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, at a rally in the southern part of this state (scroll down to the bottom of this Washington Post blog posting).

"Barack Obama is a strong, Christian family man."

My question: How is Obama's faith relevant to his candidacy for the presidency?

My next question: Isn't this identity politics at its worst?

The answer to the second question helps us understand the first.  This is all about identity politics.  Barack Obama - an intellectual, Harvard-educated black man - has a difficult time relating to Joe Six Pack, who is white, and has probably never been to Cambridge, MA.  Part of the political game is about identifying with voters.  Obama needs to relate.

Bowing to political expediency, then, Obama needs to be explicit about his faith, because for many voters faith might be the only part of his persona that appeals to them.  And for many voters personal appeal is just as or more important than policy proposals.  Sad.  But Christian faith makes a personal connection to many voters.  Personal connection yields votes in November.  Votes in November yields power on Innaugeration Day.  Christian faith - in part, anyway - leads to political power.  What would Jesus say about that?

[I'm not arguing that Obama's faith is a political creation.  By all accounts, Barack Obama is a deeply committed man of faith.  But politics has called for him - and his surrogates - to be explicit about his faith on the campaign trail and but faith to work for political ends.]

But this creates another problem.  His "Christian family man" approach to campaigning in Ohio's appalachian region (see also his "Committed Chrisitan" flyer from the Kentucky primary) reinforces - rather than challenges - the notion that
A) we live in a Christian nation (a nation of Christians is not a "Christian nation");
B) we need Christian politicians to lead this Christian nation. 
This faith-based identity politics is a direct affront to our Constitution, creating a de-facto unConstitutional faith-based requirement for the presidency.

And it is a direct affront to Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians in our country.  The more our candidates perpetuate - rather than challenge, rather than change (to use Obama's word) - the faith-based mypoia of national identity, the harder we make it for religious minorities - or for Christians who do not want to play the faith-based game of identity politics - to claim their rightful place in the American democracy.

Oh, and don't get me started about the ways in which Christian faith gets distorted by politics.  In fact, I fear more for the church than the state when the two get intertwined, but I don't think that either is served the injection of religion into politics.  I've said that before, in many different ways, in my posts on Church & State issues.

Complaining About Laypeople

My wife has a rule in her seminary classroom - no complaining about laypeople.  A money jar sits in the front of the room, where offending students place their fine for griping about the people they're supposed to love and lead.

I like that rule.  Not that the work and relationships of being a parish pastor don't warrant a complaint from time to time, but too often we clergy-types fall into an us-vs-them mentality, exasperated that the accountant on church council or the vocal worship critic doesn't share our sophisticated and nuanced faith perspective (a faith perspective shaped over four years of formal seminary training and perhaps many years of parish or related church leadership experience).   If the laity are uninformed (a broad claim that I am not willing to make), we clergy-types are to blame.  Where will Christians learn about faith and become familiar with the Bible and Christian tradition if not in our churches?  Surely there is a responsibility for all Christians to engage in independent learning and reflection on their faith.  But the church, it seems to me, is the primary location for Christian formation and learning.  If it isn't happening, pastors are largely to blame. 

So that's the rule: don't complain about laypeople.  Look at the log in your own eye first, Reverend Bucko.

Now let's jump to politics.  As I highlighted the other day, the Washington Post Virginia Politics blog highlighted a distinction between how the McCain and Obama campaigns approach distributing lawn signs.  For McCain, the signs were readily available at a rally last week.  For Obama, the signs are given out in exchange for volunteer work, and are largely unavailable to people walking into the local campaign office.

In response to some weeping and gnashing of teeth that appeard on DailyKos (which I don't read) about the dearth of Obama signs in Virginia, the folks at FiveThirtyEight.com wrote a sarcastic and somewhat belittling piece about this lawn sign conundrum: BREAKING: Obama Campaign Organizers Trying to Win Election Instead of Get You Yard Signs.  The article explains why lawn signs are a very low priority for local campaign officials who are trying to get voters registered, garner commitment from voters, organize get-out-the-vote drives, etc. etc..  Signs don't vote.  Signs are pretty irrelevant.  And those who are complaining about the lack of signs . . . don't have a freaking clue what they're talking about.

They might be right.  But they're breaking my wife's rule - don't complain about laypeople.  We political laypeople who want to be supportive might not appreciate the sophisticated workings of a national campaign.  We might not really know what it takes to elect a president.  But whose fault is that?  Instead of blaming us for being igorant slobs, why not take a few minutes to explain to us interested laypeople that signs are relatively irrelevant and show us what is most important?  Explain to us your priorities, and invite us to participate in those priorities.  And then send us online to buy a sign for $20 (a mark-up that more than covers the cost of the sign) and remind us that the local campaign office is not a sign distribution center.  (Or organize a sign sale - much like a Girl Scouts Cookie sale.  How hard can that be?).  It's all about managing expectations, and perhaps the Obama campaign - in Virginia, anyway - hasn't done a good job at managing the expectations of its supporters.

[Anyway, isn't this a problem of their own making?  If they didn't put signs everywhere, we wouldn't want them on our lawns, would we?]

When I worked for Augsburg Fortress Publishers - the publishing ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - I often ran into pastors and lay leaders who didn't fully understand what we did, why we made certain decisions, and why (for example) their favorite curriculum was no longer in print.  I could have just complained about the ignorant fools who didn't understand the complexity of our work.  But it was my job, in part, to explain to them the broader vision and work of our non-profit publishing house, the constraints under which we worked, and to invite them into the mission perspective of our work.  Often those few words helped to remove misunderstandings and establish a better working relationship between us and that congregation.  They may still have prefered to use the discontinued curriculum, but at least now they understood why we no longer published it.  And that little bit of understanding would go a long way toward improving our relationship of mutual support and shared Christian ministry.

So please, Obama campaign people, don't complain about us simple, uninformed, annoying laypeople.  Do a better job at explaining to us your priorities and constraints, and invite us to participate in your priorities.  And if that doesn't work, sell us a sign for a hefty mark-up and say, "Thank you for your support."

- - - - -

PS.  Yesterday I received a call from a journalist at the Washington Post who saw my blogpost about the lack of Obama materials (the Post reads my little Lutheran blog?).  They might be running a piece about the lack of signs and the concerns that some supporters have about the issue.  I expressed my concerns, with the caveat of "what do I know about these things?  I'm just a volunteer who makes lunch for the office once/week and who gives a small amount of money to the campaign."  I also expressed my concerns about Obamamania, and questioned the lack of available Obama-Biden materials (about which I blogged here).  The weak promotion of the whole ticket seems to contribute to (or derive from) the celebrity mania that surrounds Obama.  But as someone who is leary of Obamamania, I would like materials that emphasize the ticket and/or the party.  Even though Obama is atop the ticket, it's not all about him . . .

UPDATED: See Rick Klau's comment on my previous post responding to some of these thoughts (sentiments I expressed in a a comment over there which grew into this present post).

Surprise By Hope: Neither Progressive Nor Damned

This is the fifth post in a series examining N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.  Today we're looking at Chapter 5: Cosmic Future: Progress or Despair?

This is the briefest chapter since Chapter 1, and appropriately so.  Chapter 5 serves as an introduction to Part II: God's Future Plan.  After spending more than 70 pages looking back at the basics of early Jewish and Christian belief, the cultural context, and the historical basis of Christian belief and practice, we now move "back to the future" to look at how those early Christians understood their future and the future of the world.

These days, we tend to look to the future through one of two sets of lenses.  First, there is the progressive set of lenses.  When we put these glasses on, we see the world and human society gradually getting more sophisticated, more "developed" (technologically and economically), more, well, progressive.  I've heard this in my own life - whether in terms of social justice or personal rights, many will suggest that we are progressing.

What Wright points out, however, is that the "progressive" lenses fail to see (or make sense of) the clear and present examples of our failure to progress.  Sin and evil continue to wreak havoc on the world, from disease to war to global warming to poverty to genocide and various -isms which degrade and dehumanize people made in God's own image.  If we believe the myth of progress, what do we make of those clear examples of our failure to progress - particularly our global moral failures?  A progressive view of the world and human history cannot adequately account for sin and evil.

The other set of lenses through which we often view the world is that which sees the world as rapidly approaching damnation.  This view suggests that the world is "going to hell in a hand basket" and our best bet is simply to grin, bear it, and sure as heck hope that something better awaits us on the other side.  This world view devalues the created world, viewing it as corrupt and fallen.  And though the notion that Creation is fallen has firm footing in Christian thought, this worldview has a weak understanding of redemption.  Rather than hoping for and expecting a redemption of the whole world, this damnation worldview sees the world as temporary and sees eternity - a spiritual, other-worldly realm - as the destination for faithful souls.  Valuing the spiritual nature over the created nature, then, leads to a disregard for creation and an unholy, self-centered spirituality.  Wright begins to outline how this body/soul dichotomy is rooted much more in Plato than in anything found in the Bible.

Wright details the problems in these two worldviews, setting us up for Chapter 6: What the Whole World's Waiting For, where we read these lines on the chapter's first page:

The early Christians did not believe in progress . . . But neither did they believe that the world was getting worse and worse and that their task was to escape it altogether . . . They believed that God was going to do for the whole cosmos what he had done for Jesus at Easter (page 93).

The Lutheran Zephyr responds:

I was grateful for a short chapter . . . :-) 

Seriously, I found this chapter helpful, if for no other reason than it identifies the short-comings of the two dominant views of the world.  I can't accept either that we're progressing or that the world is inherently evil.  I see the brokenness of our society and world today, and cannot claim that we've progressed along some sort of moral scale over the past several centuries or millenia.  Our ability and propensity to commit sin is as great as at any time in human history - only now, we have more powerful tools than ever.  And yet, within this world I see a God-given value in people, creatures, societies, cultures . . . I see in this world a place God chose to call home, a people God selected as his own, a human condition God gladly took on for himself.  How can I just throw that under the bus and hope for some other worldly spiritual utopia?  Was/is all this for naught?

But nor do I believe that the answer is somewhere in the middle.  It seems that there must be another answer, another way.  This chapter whets the appetite in anticipation of what that other answer, what that other way is . . .

Please join us early next week as we look at Chapter 6: What the Whole World's Waiting For.  Until then, have a great weekend.

Surprised by Hope: The Resurrection Changes the Whole Story

This is the fourth post in a series examining N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.  Today we're looking at Chapter 4: The Strange Story of Easter.

The first time I read Chapter 4, The Strange Story of Easter, I didn't underline much or make many margin notes.  And as I re-read the chapter this evening - granted, an evening marked by sick-child-induced fatigue - I can still say that I am not greatly moved by much of it.  What gives?

Much of the chapter argues in some detail for the historical reliability of Jesus' resurrection.  If you haven't ever given much thought to this topic, this chapter is a must-read.  [Having read Luke Timothy Johnson's The Real Jesus: This Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels I didn't need any more convincing - perhaps explaining some of my boredom with this chapter.]  In the previous chapter Wright argued that the accounts of Jesus' resurrection are so unique when compared to contemporary belief systems, that something had to have happened.  In this chapter he fleshes out that supposition.

He starts out the chapter by naming four aspects of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' resurrection that point to the story's early dating and thus, to its historicity.  Contra arguments that the Gospels were written - created? - 50+ years after Jesus, Wright suggests that though they were first written down in the 80s or 90s, the Gospels' resurrection accounts "go back to very, very early oral tradition, which was formed and set firmly in the memory of different storytellers before there was any time for biblical reflection" (page 54).  The four characteristics of the Gospels that he highlights as witnessing to their early origins are somewhat complex, and I'll leave you to evaluate them on your own (see pages 53-58). 

Having established the historicity of the resurrection accounts, he then goes on to detail how Jesus' empty tomb and his post-resurrection appearances are "the only possible explanation for the stories and beliefs that few up so quickly among Jesus' followers" (page 63).  That is, as Wright has said elsewhere, something must have happened for this early Christian community to forge such a unique set of beliefs and practices within the broader setting of Judaism. 

In assessing the historical reliability of the resurrection, he first shows that the early Christians had words to describe various spiritual and supernatural encounters.  Their consistent use of the word resurrection, however, coupled with the radical shift in belief and practice of the early Christians, suggests that something really unexpected (ie, resurrection) happened.  He briefly examines and responds to various skeptical questions about the resurrection (pages 58-63), not in an attempt to prove the resurrection but to show the inadequacy of the supposed "historical" or "scientific" arguments against resurrection.  Again, his points are complex and don't lend themselves to a quick summary here, so I'll leave you to evaluate his arguments.

In his questioning of the academic arguments against resurrection lies the most valuable part of this chapter - his redefinition the terms of discussion.  He calls out our culture's rational skepticism as a worldview inherently skewed against the notion that the dead could be raised. 

"What is at stake is the clash between a worldview that allows for a God of creation and justice and worldviews that don't. . . . What the Easter stories do - and what, I argue, the whole existence of the church does, from the very first days onward - is to pose a huge question" (page 69).

That is, if we accept his argument for the historical reliability of the resurrection accounts found in the Gospels, we are left with the question of how to make sense of it all, with the task of developing a worldview that "transcends but includes what we call history and what we call science" (page 71).  That worldview is faith.

Faith of this sort is not blind belief, which rejects all history and science.  Nor is it simply - which would be much safer! - a belief that inhabits a totally different sphere, discontinuous from either, in a separate watertight compartment.  Rather, this kind of faith, which like all modes of knowledge is defined by the nature of its object, is faith in the creator God, the God who promised to put all things to rights at the last, the God who (as the sharp point where those two come together) raised Jesus from the dead within history, leaving evidence that demands an explanation from the scientist as well as from anybody else" (pages 71-72).

This radically real, radically historical, radically in-this-world, in-your-face God gives us a radical new hope and bestows on us - through faith - a radical new worldview, quite different than that of the dominant culture.  Again, by believing - if we do - that Jesus raised from the dead - we believe that death no longer has any power, and we threaten an entire social and political system derived, in some way, on the power of death.

"Hope is what you get when you suddenly realize that a different worldview is possible, a worldview in which the rich, the powerful, and the unscrupulous do not after all have the last word.  The same worldview shift that is demanded by the resurrection of Jesus is the shift that will enable us to transform the world" (page 75).

That final claim merits further scrutiny - especially in light of the power of human sin - but the message is clear - in Christ we have more than a guru.  We have the power of God in this world, a God who changes reality and inaugurates a new creation.

The Lutheran Zephyr responds:
This is some good stuff, for sure.  Having previously been convinced of the historicity - the reality - of the resurrection, I found much of this chapter to be tedious, personally.  But for those haven't thought seriously about the resurrection - as I hadn't, until I read Johnson's book just over a year ago -  Wright's arguments in this chapter make a compelling case for a very real, very flesh and blood, very radical resurrection.  And if that happened . . . well, that changes everything (this is where it gets exciting).  It sets in motion an era of New Creation, the dawning of a New Kingdom, a new way of life for people of faith.

I have often questioned the relationship of Church and State on this blog, arguing for greater separation.  The concern is that the church has become too well established in the power structures of our society and government to act as a faithful counterpoint to it. 

So too with our culture's power structures of thought.  Have we so fully accepted the prevailing intellectual structures and assumptions that we no longer are able to believe the in the essential and founding truths of our faith?  Perhaps we need to separate ourselves from a full and unquestioning embrace of that Englightenment skepticism and return anew to the life-giving witness of the Gospels which tell us - reliably - that God is making a New Creation.  Right now.

A New Creation?  Right now?  That'll shake things up . . .

- - - - -
Read the chapter for more details, as my late-night summary is surely lacking.  And return here later this week for a look at chapter 5, Cosmic Future: Progress or Despair?