Howard Thurman

“The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men often calls them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication, they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires. “

Howard Thurman, an African American who played a critical role in laying the theological foundation for the civil right movement, published those words in 1959 in his book, Footprints of a Dream: The Story of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples.

What might the Spirit of God be doing in the hearts of women and men today? What spirit of our age would God have us challenge? What hope can be kindled?

Still, the value of spiritual disciplines cannot be denied. Prayer, meditation, Bible reading and fasting do something in the spirit that do not seem attainable without them. Now, Paula Huston has introduced me to a new discipline–eating for health.

Paula has written a post on the subject at the Patheos web site that makes the point succinctly.

As Paula has explored this new discipline she offers the following synopsis:

“And what an exciting adventure this has been! As soon as I began to deal with my relationship to food as a substantive moral and spiritual question rather than, as is so sadly common in our media driven culture, simply an appearance issue—am I thin enough? do I still look young enough?—it became clear what needed to happen. I needed to start practicing on a daily basis healthy habits of eating. I needed to think of my body and my energy and my ability to focus and think as beautiful gifts of God, not to be squandered. I needed to eat well out of tremendous gratitude for life.”

She says so much in that paragraph that is true and meaningful. And it brings me to a prayer:

Dear God, help me this day to eat in a more healthy manner in order that I may serve you better. Especially, Lord, help me as I go to this meeting today where there will be stacks and more food than I need. I need your Spirit to remind me as I go. Amen.

(Photograph by Dennis Eamon Young)

We still talk a lot about freedom, but we seem to mostly talk about having individual freedom to do what we want to do, especially in the business world. Roosevelt had a vision of greater freedom, a freedom that comes from a “good society” that is concerned about the freedom of all, not just oneself.

To read of these four freedoms, one is moved to ponder whether we still seek them for our nation and for the world. And did we use all of the military action of the past decade to bring these freedoms to others?

President Roosevelt, as reproduced from the W.W. Norton web site:

“In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

“The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

“The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

“The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

“The fourth is freedom from fear — which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor– anywhere in the world.

“That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

“To that new order we oppose the greater conception — the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

“Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change — in a perpetual peaceful revolution — a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions — without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

“This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

“To that high concept there can be no end save victory.”

From Congressional Record, 1941, Vol. 87, Pt. I.

I wonder how many meals she has fixed for me and the various parts of our family through the years. Innumerable.

A year ago, she could not have fixed such a meal because her health was bad. She changed doctors and is now much more healthy. Still, I find myself wondering how many more such meals my mother will be able to cook. My wife, Trese, is a wonderful cook, but there is something about your mother’s cooking that anchors you to your past, that reminds you of when you were young and she was the center of your world.

Meal time as a child are indeed memorable. My earliest such memories are of sitting on Sears catalogs and phone books in order to be tall enough. I sat by Mom. Eventually I moved to the other side of the table opposite Mom and with my back to the wall. About then is when my sister and my dad began to argue a lot during dinner, often about the racial tensions; this was the 1960s. At some point I moved to the end of the table, opposite Dad.

So very, very many meals–all prepared by my mother. My sister and I would help wash dishes, but mother was a constant. What a gift she gave us! She is a woman who loves her children deeply, and it’s as if a bit of her love has been wrapped up into each of those countless meals. I pray we have injested into our lives as much of the love as we did of the food.

As we were leaving her house today, she slipped me a ten dollar bill. I protested. She responded, “You can only give while you live.” Beautiful. I am blessed.

Joe Trull, editor at the time, wrote a lead article titled “Should Ethics Come First?” This full article is available at the CET web site, but I want to highlight a few portions.

Theologian James McClendon Jr., in his Systematic Theology: Ethics, asked the question that became Trull’s title.  ”Unlike most theologians, McClendon argues for the chronological priority of ethics,’ noting theologians are forever leaving ethics until last, and at times leaving ethics out altogether,” Trull writes.

“McClendon is right—ethics came first in Christian history. The first disciples of Jesus did not proclaim a new philosophy or another national religion. Rather they lived as a new community—’resident aliens’ (Phil.3:20) whose lives were counterculture to the world. The church of the first century was identified not by its theological teachings or its mystical revelations—in the beginning Christianity was a new way of life.

“In a Graeco-Roman society of vicious immorality, where wealth was worshiped, life was cheap, and purity and chastity were vanishing, came a new moral influence. The extraordinary ethical life of Christians was a moral witness that astounded and attracted the first-century world. That is why the earliest disciples of Jesus were called ‘people of the Way’ (Acts 9:2) even before they were called Christians.” (p. 2)

I do not necessarily agree with the beginning of these paragraphs. It seems to me a new understanding of God’s revelation to humanity and a new relationship between the two came first, but I’m slow to disagree with Dr. Trull because he was my seminary ethics professor and his understanding of things has converted me on other matters. That said, there is no doubt that very, very early in its history, the church quickly became known to the broader world by how believers lived their lives.

That, of course, is no longer the case. Studies continually reveal that Christians in America live their lives about like non-believers. Either non-Christians are doing just as well in living like Jesus or both groups are not. The answer is the latter, because Jesus has words that challenge many popular notions of our society.

Christians of the not-to-distant past had a tremendous impact on the English-speaking world. Two hundred years ago, Christians led the effort to end the British slave trade and eventually slavery itself. William Wilberforce, whose primary motivations arose from his Christian faith, led the anti-slavery effort on the political front.

One hundred years later, at the end of the 19th century, Christians in England and America ”cried out for reform in light of the social problems growing out of the Industrial Revolution,” Trull says.

“The mushrooming inner cities were congested with the poor working class. Economic injustices became the breeding grounds for crime and moral corruption.

“The Social Gospel Movement focused on the ethics of the kingdom of God and sought to apply Jesus’ teachings to bring social harmony and eliminate gross injustices. To their credit, these SGM leaders brought about the abolition of child labor and influenced legislation that improved working conditions and the lot of the urban poor.

“However, due to the liberal theology of the SGM (optimism about human nature and the possibility of establishing the kingdom of God on earth), more individualistic Christian groups rejected both the theology and the ethics of ‘cultural Protestantism.’”

That theological problem caused many evangelical Christians to turn their backs on social ethics in order to focus on evangelism and missions. It should not have been an either/or decision; it should have been ethics, evangelism, and missions.

In Southern Baptist circles that began to change in the middle of the 20th century, but I stress “began.” That beginning is, in many ways, attributed to one man–the late T.B. Maston, a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Maston produced a cadre of Baptist leaders with a high view of Scripture and a commitment to the importance of ethics or living a life consistent with the life and teachings of Christ.

Still, progress has been slow and there is much farther to go. Writing in 2004, Trull noted the following:

“In a day when ethical issues are numerous and complex, what is our response? Churches seem to avoid ethical questions. So concerned with ‘Growth’ and ‘User Friendly Congregations,’ many modern church leaders opt for neutrality—take no stand on anything that is controversial, just confess belief in patriotism, the American way, and bottom-line success.

“I agonize with church and denominational leaders who are trying to keep their ship afloat. Yet, isn’t the kingdom of God bigger than being Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or even the inoffensive No-Name Church that is obsessed with neutrality? My how we need prophets today like Micah, Amos, and Isaiah.

“And now the punch-line—my own grand obsession! If ethics came first in Christian history, if the first-century world was turned ‘upside-down’ by the moral witness of Jesus’ disciples, if the need for Christian ethics is widespread in our morally confused culture, then why in heaven’s name are we minimizing Christian ethics in the classroom and in pulpits? Why are we retreating? Why are we so reluctant to be honest with the teachings of Jesus?

“Have we been corrupted by our culture? Are we so intent on church success that we have sacrificed the ‘hard sayings of Jesus’ in order to be numero uno?”

It seems in 2011, those are still legitimate questions. There is reason for hope. The emerging Christian generation understand at a deep level that ethics is a key part of Christian theology. We now have an opportunity. If we can wed that intuitive understanding with biblical and societal knowledge then the future is looking brighter for the Christian faith and, therefore, for the world.

Work cited:
Trull, Joe E.. “Should Ethics Come First?” ChristianEthicsToday. The Christian Ethics Today Foundation. Fall 2004 (Issue 51 Page 2)
<http://christianethicstoday.com/cetart/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.main&ArtID=1297>

Today, at lunch, I discovered some special words from Thomas R. Kelly. They came from a lecture he gave at the Germantown Friends’ Meeting in Germany in January 1938.

“To you in this room who are seekers, to you, young and old who have toiled all night and caught nothing, but who want to launch out into the deeps and let down your nets for a draught, I want to speak as simply, as tenderly, as clearly as I can. For God can be found. There is a last rock for your souls, a resting place of absolute peace and joy and power and radiance and security. There is a Divine Center into which your life can slip, a new and absolute orientation in God, a Center where you live with Him and out of which you see all of life, through new and radiant vision, tinged with new sorrows and pangs, new joys unspeakable and full of glory.” (pp. 18-19, A Testament to Devotion, 1941)

Kelly was a Quaker and a philosophy professor. His life showed that a person can allow his or her thoughts to dig deep, only there to find that the One who made the pursuit possible is the One to be worshipped.

Former Texas Congressman Ron Paul came in third, followed for former Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrinch and Texas Governor Rick Perry. Afterward, Perry headed back to Texas, his campaign apparently over.

It will now be interesting to see what happens with Santorum. He is the more conservative family-values candidate against Romney, the establishment Eastern money candidate. I see no way either one can beat President Obama unless the latter really does something stupid. Santorum is too far right to win a general election, and Romney cannot motivate the conservative base of the Republican Party.

I do think Romney will get the nomination because of his money, but we shall see.

That’s my prediction now. We’ll see what happens.

Brooks’ Nov. 14, 2011, column came out in the aftermath of the child sex scandal at Penn Stae University, but I just now read it.  Brooks wrote:

“First came the atrocity, then came the vanity. The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been accused of doing at Penn State. The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno’s shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary’s shoes, they would have behaved better. They would have taken action and stopped any sexual assaults.”

It’s probably not the most effective way to hunt, but I hate to spend the money for gear that would increase our odds. So, we wait. At least it’s nice to be with my son, even if don’t kill ant hogs.

Of course, we can’t talk much since the windows are down, so we’ve pulled extra coats over our heads and retreated to our iTouch and iPhone. Technology cannot be escaped.

Near the end of the book, Brueggemann is discussing hope as revealed in the apocalyptic book of the Old Testament, Daniel. Apocalyptic is described by Brueggemann as “the extreme conviction that God will make all things new.” (p. 364) This idea is all over the Hebrew Bible, but it takes a different form in Daniel, which I will not get into.

Brueggemann says one of the spinoffs from biblical apocalyptic (New Testament included) is in U.S. religion, which has a “great attraction”  to such modes of thought and speech. Now let me turn Brueggemann loose. (All quotes, pages 364-365.)

“That way of hope, however, has been cast into modernist modes of dispensationalism that for the most part contradicts the theological force of hope in God.”

A brief stop here. Yes, dispensationalism is a modern invention, and Brueggemann seems right — there is a real sense in which dispensationalism becomes a god in and of itself, thus distracting from the true God who is to be worshiped and trusted.

“Much of that current thought, prominently in the Left Behind Series, has an odd and disastrous alliance with right-wing politics that characteristically supports and celebrates U.S. military adventurism. This odd and widely embraced juxtaposition of apocalyptic imagery and superpower self-aggrandizement demonstrates in an unmistakable way how such daring imagery is easily pressed into the service of idolatry. The outcome of such an alliance is that the rhetoric of hope is matched to a politics of despair that intends at all cost to preserve the status quo of privilege, entitlement, and self-propelled security.”

In essence, Brueggemann here has offered an indictment of American Christianity. He seems to be saying that we Americans have taken the apocalyptic notions derived from Scripture and married them to a distinctly American religion that is more about us than about God. This alliance is formed to preserve three things that are not of Jesus, it would seem — privilege, entitlement, and self-propelled security. Jesus clearly stood for the under-privileged, spoke of responsibility not entitlement, and offered security through God not ourselves.

And lest my left-wing friends take too much joy in the above, let me say that they have their own odd and disastrous alliances.

I’ll let Brueggemann continue:

“Such a utilization of apocalyptic hope is a disastrous idolatry because the God to which apocalyptic hope attests stands precisely against such craven hungers of present arrangements of power and security. Hope stands as a contradiction of all such idolatries. Indeed the very superpower status of the United States, so valued in many forms of contemporary apocalyptic rhetoric, more likely stands, in the tradition of Daniel, as one of the empires that will fall rather than as an icon of the new rule of God. In the contemporary U.S. religious scene, such an idolatrous alliance of future hope and current power employs the rhetoric of hope precisely in the practice of hopelessness, bespeaking not eager trust but immense fear.”

It seems to me that since World War II, the United States has developed an out-sized trust in its own power — economic and military. During the war itself, I do not think that was so much the case, especially among the regular folk. This growing trust in worldly power is a back story to our declining trust in Yahweh, the God of the Bible.

I need not say more; there is enough here to ponder.