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How We Already Slipped Down the Slope.

4 Jun

Where the Church went wrong in the battle for marriage…

… because let’s face it, it is a battle. It is not a debate, conversation, or a decision. It’s a battle. Because at some point, someone declared the differences of values in our society to be a “Culture War,” and wars are won by winning battles, not by passionate persuasion, or non-judgmental loving, or understanding dialogue. The travesty of it all is that the Church, with her mission to influence and change every society in which she finds herself into a Kingdom culture, was sucked into these so-called “Culture Wars.” All the sudden the mission was the same, but the methods had changed. Because the American Church got caught in the gravitational pull of the State and it’s politics, she became known for changing society not by winning people with love, but by fighting them with legislation. Long have people argued over separation of Church and State, insisting that the Church would pervert the State to Theocratic Dictatorship, but have we ever stopped to think that the funding fathers intended this great divide to protect the Church, rather than the State?

So we come around to the “battle” of same-sex marriage. With Barrack Obama becoming the first pro-same-sex-marriage president, this issue has pushed its way to the front page of our papers once again. The arguments are all the same: The left says this is a civil rights issue similare to the civil rights movement of the 60s, while the right says it’s a matter of defending a healthy structure of the family unit. When I first started thinking about this issue, I was in high school, and I didn’t really understand it. I had always understood marriage to be a religious sacrement because, after all, it was an institute of religion long before a legal status. In my view of it, real marriage is a union involving God. The legal status is just a good idea, practically, but it doesn’t make you any more or less married. Take the example of CS Lewis’ life: He legally married his friend, Joy Greshem to help her gain British citizenship, but the two never lived together or functioned as a family after that. It wasn’t until Lewis and Greshem later fell in love that they officially wed through the Church and became man and wife.

When I began asking people about this, I was quickly answered with the argument that the State gives certain rights to married couples. Tax breaks, visitation rights, power of attorney, etc. So, as a believer in the word of God, I assume this: Throughout our nation’s growth, the government saw that people living together in a monogamous, covenantal relationship as the Bible teaches was in fact good for society. So, it gave incentives to entice more people to do so. (I’m no expert on political history, this is just a logical assumption of why the government would offer incentives to married couples) The irony is, in the midst of the fray of the same-sex marriage battle, nobody questions these incentives. Is it because we just want our money? No one has stopped to question this… Our little tax breaks have so intertwined the State with a Church sacrement that it has brought this fight into existence in the first place. What’s more, it seems likely that these “incentives” have enticed us into marriage for their own sake, not for the sake of Christ. When a couple weds, if they do so for the tax breaks and our hollywood-created concept of “love,” the marriage is a sham regardless of gender. So it begs the question… When we began viewing marriage as anything less than a life-long covenant that must never be broken except in very extreme cases, we’ve already slid down that slippery slope.

I’m referring of course to the argument that, if same-sex is allowed in marriage, then it is a trip down a moral slippery slope. My opinion is, we’re already here because our atrocious divorce rates have brought us here. If we want to win our culture on this issue, we must do two things:

  1. Repent for our hypocrisy. Admit that we have already devalued the sanctity of marriage long ago and change our ways. Stop the epidemic spread of divorce within the Church. Honor those who have been married for years, and support those who haven’t.
  2. Lay our weapons down. The rest of our culture is not listening to us because we do not want them to. If you present your argument on a bumpersticker, or a TV show, or hide behind a screen name, it’s clear you don’t want a thoughtful response from your opponent. You want them to respond in anger so that you can further demonize them. You are not trying to win their hearts and their respect. You are trying to beat them into submission.

This is not a post intended to side with a political force. American politics are not my kingdom. The throne of God is. And the throne of God will have only limited dominion in America as long as the American Church attempts to influence the world according to the world’s terms. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” Said Jesus. “For they shall be called sons of God.”

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Reading: It’s a Justice Issue.

16 Apr

The movement to see a greater degree of works of mercy in modern times has really been building momentum in the past few years, but it is still in some ways a fledgeling movement. Every day, more organizations are being formed and pushed to the forefront of the great justice dialogue. Organizations that seek to put an end to things like human trafficking, abortion, and hunger. However little attention has been given to literacy as a huge justice issue. Many Americans seem to liken it to things like economy and healthcare. Services in the political arena where we banter over who-does-what right. But we are tragically short-changing ourselves and our desire to see justice roll down like a mighty flood in our land when we do so. Here are the facts:

  1. The Achievement Gap. Back in the days of segregation, educators noted what they called an achievement gap between white and black reading scores.. Some racist researchers heralded this as a sign of the superiority of the white race, but we now know that, if you throw any people-group into their own crumby schools with lower standards on literally everything, that group isn’t going to learn how to read. The problem, however, is that this achievement gap still exists today. But, since the civil rights movement, it hasn’t been between whites and blacks but rather, rich and poor. So if we’re going to call the plight of the poor a justice issue, we have to then call literacy a justice issue. It stands to simple reason that children growing up in poverty without learning to read well enough to decode say, a job application, are going to stay in poverty.
  2. The Problem. Meet the NAEP. It’s considered the gold-standard of tests and can discern reading skills with a tried and true amount of accuracy. Every state in the country is required to submit NAEP scores to the federal government, but they are also allowed to invent their own test by which they will be held accountable according to the standards of No Child Left Behind, as well as the soon-to-be-in-effect Race to the Top program. Texas, for example, often makes its own standardized tests. There was the TEAMS test, the TAAS test, the TAKS test, and this year, Texas students began taking the STAAR test. The reason for this has always been to raise scores. One test is mastered, and the next is made more challenging. But here’s the problem: One look at a graph depicting reading achievement by the NAEP will show that, although State-made tests (which measure students according to percentile rankings on a bell curve) report growth in reading, the NAEP (which measures students according to their actual proficiency of reading skills) shows that reading has remained stagnant.
  3. The Very Simple Solution. The very simple solution is to help teachers. Teachers are in great need of many things: Basic classroom supplies, training, and most of all lots and lots of books. But there is simply no money. One fact about the tests I described above that is not well known is that they are exorbitantly expensive. There is a small group of companies which create these tests and they have essentially created  monopolies in their various regions, Pearson being the one that dominates much of the South. For the STAAR and other assessments, it is reported that the state of Texas has a contract with Pearson to, between the years of 2010 to 2015, to pay them $468,392,617.00 of its already dwindling education budget. This is the cost of testing-focused government programs such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Schools are loosing valuable supplies, laying off teachers, and even closing due to financial lack. In my district alone, there are 8 public schools closing in order to balance the budget. Where is the money going? Tests. So the simple solution is this: Stop killing our children with tests. Yes, the federal government needs the scores, but it will get NAEP scores regardless, which are more accurate in the first place. So, let the NAEP do its job and end the STAAR.

For the sake of the poor in our country, we need to move past vain political debate. Republicans and Democrats have equally failed our schools and this is largely because the politicians they produce are well versed in economics, foreign affairs, military, and general politics, but rarely well versed in the educational system. If you look up a list of American presidents and what they did before politics, you will find more soldiers than schoolteachers, and this is very telling of what we value as Americans. I suspect it would be equally as grim in a list of US Secretaries of Education. It certainly is in the case of Arne Duncan, who has never been in a classroom of 10-year-olds for more than 10 minutes…

But I will get off my soap-box now. I am a teacher, so it’s obvious that I might have some bias in the matter. But I got into teaching because I saw education as the door through which a child can escape a life time of poverty and hunger. I began this post by commenting on the justice movement happening in America these days and I’ll end it by pointing out that, in the next few years, as we free trafficking victims and feed the hungry, we’re going to begin seeing that the hungry will still be hungry. Trafficking victims will still be poor and at high risk of being taken once more. This is because we will see that, without the basic skills of literacy, the oppressed and marginalized of our society will only stay in a state of poverty until the day they die. What will we do for them? Will we become the passing pharisee walking by the proverbial dying man on the street, or will we become the good samaritan, who stops and lift another out of their own blood and filth?

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Video

Kony 2012, Part 2

5 Apr

On Maundy Thursday, the Son of God got down on all fours and scrubbed caked mud and fecal matter off of the repulsive, smelly feet of simple humans. Peter protested… And our protest to being cleaned still goes on today.

Not many things I read in the news tend to get under my skin so much, but I must confess, I’ve been upset and appalled at the relentless amount of criticism and personal attack leveled against the Invisible Children organization. You’ll remember I’m sure, the meteoric rise of popularity achieved by the group’s first video around a month ago. Their strategy was to make the relatively unknown Joseph Kony wildly infamous for his horrendous crimes against humanity which puts him in ranks with Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden as one of the worst killers of all time. This way, the appropriate actions may be taken to end his ravaging of central Africa. But the emotional element of this film was blood in the water for the internet sharks.

Over the past month the organization and particularly one of its founders Jason Russell, have been subject to sensationalist and unsubstantiated criticism. The accusations have ranged anywhere from ill-informed do-gooders to racist con-artists. Admittedly, the video focused on the emotional factors of the Kony problem, but honestly, why shouldn’t it? Innocent children are being kidnapped, forced to kill their parents, raped, and brainwashed into becoming child soldiers. Doesn’t it seem twisted not to be sickened by this?

Subsequently, the story of Russell being taken into police custody for public indecency and lewd behavior became the focus of our attention. The same critics who called the Kony 2012 video “inaccurate” wrongly reported to the world than Russell was arrested for public intoxication. In actuality, he was never arrested but rather hospitalized and diagnosed by a psychiatrist with short-term psychosis brought on by extreme stress, dehydration, and sleeplessness. But this information didn’t spread nearly as effectively as the misinformation that a drunken crook was showing his true colors. The internet had destroyed a man and then laughed as it told it’s own story about him.

Of course, I do not condone Russell’s actions. He committed sin by allowing himself to reach a point of madness. But it seems to me that the more costly sin was committed by the anonymous masses. The ones that accused someone who just wanted to save the lives of African children, of racism and theft! I shudder to think what their sin may have done to the effort to save those children, because the Invisible Children’s newest video, which was released today, has been viewed nearly 300 times less than the original video. Nevertheless, The new video is a masterpiece. It beautifully rises above the pitiable politics we have mounted in its way. It responds to its critics simply by showing the truth. I implore you to please watch this new video and pass it around on twitter and facebook. Let’s restore what was taken from a movement that is so close to bringing justice to a ransacked part of the world.

On Maundy Thursday, Jesus cleaned Peter’s feet without regard to the dirty reality of the human condition. At first Peter protested but Christ, with sincere eyes I imagine, told him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share in me.” The desperate disciple replied, “Then wash not just my feet, but my head and my hands too!”

Let us humbly ask Jesus to once again wash away the stench of our depravity. Let us not protest when He does so. And when we see someone else washing feet in the name of Christ, let us join them, instead of attacking them. We are in this together, no matter our differenced. And He is for us.

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Starting Over.

29 Mar

Let’s destroy things. And by things I mean, ways of thinking. Let’s take a wrecking ball and smash away all our old paradigms and see what’s left. Then we can move on unhindered by the past.

We’ll be like Descartes, doubting everything that can be doubted until we arrive at the conclusion that St. Paul was right. We really do live by faith and not by sight. Not just Christians but all of us. We can’t know anything, except the good old cogito ergo sum. From there we’ll rebuild a framework for belief. We’ll wrestle through all the old doctrines, the catechisms. We’ll find that faith is a thing built on a quiet whisper that is beheld, not a loud procession that is shouted. We’ll take Kierkegaard’s leap of faith. At last, we’ll look at the scriptures for what they really are.

Forget all the old platitudes. We’re discerning the spirits and putting every adage to the test. We’ll put an end to the put on your nice shoes and polished smile Church life. We’ll stop dismissing broken peoples’ brokeness with the empty promise: “I’ll pray for you.” We’ll stop wrapping the Gospel of Christ up into a neat little package with a pretty bow on top.

What will our Gospel look like then? Will we still struggle to decide which is greater between evangelism or acts of mercy? Will we take a half-step towards the truth by saying they’re two sides of the same coin? Or will we finally resemble Christ in our realization that they are indeed the same. Because when Jesus walked on this Earth, He didn’t waste time arguing over what’s better. He healed the sick, fed the poor, and proclaimed the good news. When He left this Earth, He didn’t say “Go feed the poor.” He didn’t say “Go evangelize the lost.” He said “Go make disciples,” and I truly believe He saw no distinction between justice and evangelism.

The truth is, I believe this breaking down of old paradigms has been happening for some time. About 5 or 6 years ago, all I ever heard about was the postmodern turn. People in the Church were arguing and questioning all the old doctrines of belief and the polls have more or less come in: They still stand. Now, we are finally at the crucial period when we are wrestling with God over the issue of justice. Our generation has found its own faith and in so doing, found its feet and what will we stand on with those feet? A radical picture of young disciples who proclaim the resurrection of Christ and fellowship with His Holy Spirit, or a picture of the humble servants who behave like their rabbi by sacrificing for the poorest of the poor and fighting injustice wherever they encounter it? But almost as if by the first rays of light in a new day, we’re beginning to understand the answer. Justice is the Gospel, and so is evangelism. So is community for that matter. And worship. Personal devotion. They are all integral parts of knowing God in a deeper way.

So what will it look like in the coming years? Will we finally see a Church that is just as involved in works of mercy as it is in building community, or putting on a good worship service? We’ve been limping along for years because we’ve been missing this piece of the Gospel and, finally we are becoming a humbled Church, lifting herself out of the dirt and oh, think of all the precious people we will be lifting up with us.

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