The Rule of Law or the Spirit of the Law?

Now, I am not a lawyer so I am not going to pretend that I can offer a detailed legal analysis of the recent Supreme Court ruling in Boumediene v. Bush. But I wonder if we, as citizens, understand what was at stake and how it affects us?

The right to habeas corpus is a right that preceded even the Magna Carta. This right appears to have been common law by 1215, when the Magna Carta was written.

Article 39 of the Magna Carta states “No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him except upon the lawful judgment of his peers or the law of the land.” This was an adaptation of common law. Its original use was more straightforward - a writ to bring a prisoner into court to testify in a pending trial. But what began as a weapon for the king and the courts became - as the political climate changed - protection for the individual against arbitrary detention by the state.

This right simply states that a person must be brought before a court of law in order to determine the legality of the detention. Theoretically, it can be used by anyone who feels that they have been illegally detained. It does not determine guilt or innocence. If the charge is valid, the case goes to court; if the charge is invalid, then the person has to be set free. (See “A Brief History of Habeas Corpus”.)

The Supreme Court’s decision was that all individuals have the right to habeas corpus. The justices who dissented in this opinion appear to claim that non-citizens do not have this right. Their argument, and the argument of those who support their dissent, is that we are at war and war brings about new rules.

First, are we at war? There is no doubt that we are engaged in an armed conflict at several sites around the world, but are we at war? According to the Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war and, if my knowledge of history is correct, the last time that Congress acted to declare war was on December 8, 1941.

The power of the executive branch to send American troops into battle since 1964 has been based on the infamous Tonkin Gulf resolution. There has been much discussion about who voted for what in both the first and second Gulf War but there have been, to my knowledge, no definitive votes stating that this country is at war with either a country or a group of people.

If we are going to say that certain people do not have rights because we are at war with them, don’t you think that we should at least openly and truthfully declare war first?

Second, what is the logic in saying that those we are fighting do not have the same rights as we do? Are we not fighting for the principles of freedom? If we are, then should not the principles for which we fight be the basis upon which our actions are judged? If we are to say that the people whom we fight are not eligible for the same rights that we enjoy, then have we not somehow regressed to a lower and less civilized level?

The powers that be criticized Jesus when He healed on the Sabbath because he broke the law against working on that day. But, as He pointed out, the same law that prohibited one from healing on the Sabbath also allowed a farmer to seek medical help for a sick farm animal. There was a certain inconsistency in the law. In addition, didn’t the alleviation of human suffering outweigh a prohibition of working on the Sabbath?

There are clearly instances where we should not be working on the Sabbath. This came about, if I am not mistaken, because God rested on the Sabbath and it was meant that we should do so as well.

There is a rule that says you should never wrestle with a pig. You will get dirty and, besides, the pig will enjoy it. When we fight a war and we throw away the rules upon which our society is supposed to be based, are we not simply playing the game by the other side’s rules? How will we win?

If we desire to win the war against terrorism (and this is something I have said before and will continue to say), then we need to work against the causes of terrorism. The causes of terrorism can be found in poverty, sickness, lack of shelter, lack of food, and oppression. Let us work to remove those problems and the problems of terrorism will disappear. It will not happen overnight; too many people on both sides enjoy war and don’t want to see it go away. But if we do not try, then there will be no law, let alone a spirit of the law.

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Cross-posted to RedBlueChristian

Do No Harm

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!! -

Wal-Mart has announced that it is withdrawing it’s suit against the family that they sued (from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch - link).

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The phrase “do no harm” does not appear to be in the Hippocratic Oath, though it does appear in Hippocrates writings.  Hippocrates wrote that a physician, when treating a patient, must have two objects in mind with regard to a disease, to do good or to do no harm.

There are a number of things we could say about this phrase and its application to the treatment of diseases but we will save that for another time.

Rather, I want to focus on some legal issues and wonder if that phrase should somehow be part of jurisprudence as well as part of medicine.

Consider the following case that was reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today (link):

1. A woman was critically injured in a car accident eight years ago and suffered a brain injury that disabled her to the point that she was moved to a nursing home.
2. The woman and her family received approximately $420,000 (after the deduction of assorted legal fees) in a legal settlement with the trucking company whose driver was involved in the car accident.  The money was put into trust for the woman’s care.
3. Her medical bills, paid through health insurance provided by her employer, totaled approximately $470,000.
4. Quoting the Post-Dispatch article, “As is common for employer-sponsored health plans, Shank’s insurance required full repayment of medical expenses if she received money from a lawsuit.”
5. So, the woman’s employer sued the woman “out of fairness to everyone who contributes to the plan”.
6. The case was appealed and the court ruled that the money must be paid to the company.  Note that the medical bills were greater than the settlement so the woman and her family must also pay some $50,000 out of their own pocket.
7. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals let the ruling stand and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, thus affirming the original verdict.

Now, which is more important in this case and in other similar cases, that the law be upheld or the spirit of the law?  Should the principle of doing no harm also be the dictum for lawyers as well as doctors?  The money was awarded to the family for the woman’s care and was to be kept in trust (and thus could not be spent on other things).  Yet the company insists that their needs come before their former employer in order to be fair for all the employees.  I am sure that if you asked the employees that they would say that the money should go to the woman for her care.

Over the past eight years, we have heard the term “values” thrown about quite easily.  This is a case where we need to consider what values truly mean.  Jesus was rebuked by the Pharisees and scribes because He broke the law when He healed the sick on the Sabbath.  But He rightly pointed out that the person was more important than the law.  Is that not the case now?

There are some who say we have lost our moral direction.  I would think that when we put the needs of the company and its interests above the needs of the individual, we have lost our moral direction.

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This is being cross-posted to RedBlueChristian.com

Technology and the Church

The other day I pointed out that businesses, along with many colleges, were discouraging the use of Powerpoint presentations. I updated it with a link to a site where someone had converted Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address into a Powerpoint presentation.  I then concluded by asking “What does this tell us or say to us about the use of technology in our worship services today and tomorrow?”  (See “Here’s Something Interesting”).

I received an e-mail the other day that asked what would happen if we gave treated our Bibles like we do our cell phones?  There are a number of people who have posted that particular piece so I won’t add to the list.  But it prompted me to think about text messaging and its impact on our culture.  A search provided a link to a contest back in 2001 to rewrite the Lord’s Prayer as a text message (go here).

In response to my posting “Rock and Roll Revival Revisited”, Sarah Dylan Breuer noted that the music played during a worship has to resonate with the congregation.  The same is true for technology; if the moment calls for a Powerpoint presentation, then use it.  But if the moment doesn’t call for, don’t try to fit the two together.

So where does technology fit in a church?  Is the means by which the message is given or is the message driven by the method?  Do we continue to do the same thing every Sunday and hope that people get the message?  Or do we try to do some things differently in hopes that people find church hip and totally cool?  Or will we get so caught up in the process of the presentation that we forget what the message is?

Addendum - John Meunier asks “Is It the Business Model not the Theology?”.  What drives how we build our church?

Here’s Something Interesting

(I have updated this post from last week and added a link at the end of the post; enjoy!)

At the beginning of this post, let me know that there have been times where I have used my laptop in the pulpit. 

I am one of those who prefers to have his thoughts and words down on paper but when my printer isn’t working, I will carefully put my laptop on the pulpit, see the document for full screen and go with the flow.

In all the churches that I have been, only once I have I seen a Power Point presentation or something similar used.  I have never used a Power Point presentation as part of my sermon and I have no intention of doing so.  There may be times when I want to show some pictures but for the most part technology helps me prepare the message but not deliver it.

Now, having said that, I do and will use technological applications in my chemistry classroom as part of the instructional process.  There are some things that technology helps facilitate.

There is a trend it seems for students to bring laptops into the classroom.  This is, a good thing, because of what you can then do.  But very few of my students in the recent past have brought their own laptops into the classroom.  This is a reflection of economics more than anything else.

But some students at other schools do so on a regular basis.  For the most part and if you can do it, it is an easier way to take notes.  And considering the handwriting of some of my students, I wouldn’t mind giving them an electronic form of a test and have them type in their answers.

There are problems with using laptops, of course.  If you let students put their answers down in an electronic form, then you have to find some way to prevent them from getting the answers off the Internet or through some form of wireless communication. 

Now we read that some schools have taken to banning the use of laptops in the classroom.  Apparently students are not taking notes but rather engaging in other activities, such as updating their personal pages, chatting with others (hopefully not in the same classroom), or just playing games.

Businesses are now finding it necessary to do the same thing.  There is an interesting article on the InsideHigherEd.com website describe this new trend (link).

As is noted in the article, there is a possible link between an obsessive reliance on technology and a moral failing in society.  If nothing else, the reliance on technology reduces the need for the human mind to think and, in turn, reduces the need for face-to-face interaction with other human beings.

A number of people are discussing the utility and usage of powerpoint presentations in the chemistry classroom.  As part of that discussion (the archives are located here), someone pointed out that there was powerpoint presentation of the Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.  It is here.

What does this tell us or say to us about the use of technology in our worship services today and tomorrow?

What Is The Real Problem?

The recent comments about race in America which span the spectrum of politics prompts me to ask the following question, “Do we truly understand the impact of racism, sexism, ageism, and every other form of discrimination that is, regrettably, a part of our society?”

As I pointed out in “My First Post”, every time we say that someone that is the first to do something, we are pointing out the limitations of society.

Sometimes being the first is a good thing, such as crossing the Atlantic in an airplane.  To me, it does not matter whether we are referring to Charles Lindbergh or Amelia Earhart; the ability to do that was a combination of technology and personal skill.  But when we refer to Amelia Earhart and her accomplishments, we are reminded again that society still told women that flying was something that they just didn’t do and for a long, long time society prevented women from doing many of things that men could do.

Our discussion of racism in America is made often in terms of black and white, though it could also be made in terms of other colors.  And we could just as easily substitute ethnicity or gender in the discussion. In the long run, any discussion about discrimination is a discussion that boils down to one group wanting to we limit what one person can do and when we do that, we limit what all people can do.

I have on a number of occasions pointed out the subtle effects of separate but equal schools.  The decisions by the Montgomery, Alabama, school board and the Shelby County (Tennessee) Board of Education were designed in part to limit what black students could do.  But the rules that were put into place affected what white students could do as well.

For as long as there have been societies, there have people who would separate its members.  The society of Jesus’ time was as divided a society as ours is today.  But Jesus transcended the barriers of society as he brought all those who sought him together in one place.  There was a period of time, often forgotten and most likely unknown, when there where communities in which everyone was equal.  No one suffered and only those who would not share or would not work for the good of the community were left out.  These were not the utopian communities of the 19th century nor the hippie communes of the 20th century; rather they were the beginnings of the new church, formed in the days following Easter and Pentecost.

But somewhere along the line, these communities disappeared.  Perhaps it was because Christianity became the “state religion” of Rome or because the church was able to survive the downfall of the Roman Empire.  Whatever the reason, what the church was disappeared and we are still seeking it today.  We have turned the words of the Bible and the actions of authorities into walls that separate people by race, creed, gender, disability, or economic status.

I don’t know if we could ever go back to the communal identification that was once the church.  Too many people have left the church and don’t hear the words of the Gospel message for that to happen.

But I do know this; if we do not start acting to remove that which is slowly but surely eating away at the roots of society, society will die and so will mankind.  It will take more than words to the problems of society; it will take actions.  We do not need new laws because we have enough laws as it is.  Laws alone are nothing more than words on paper if there is no way to enforce the laws.

We need to be looking at what will happen tomorrow and not be focused on what happened yesterday.  As long as we are focused on yesterday, we cannot be looking forward.  And if we are not looking forward, we can never see a way to a better and brighter tomorrow.

Despite all our rhetoric, there are still barriers.  And as long as there are barriers, the opportunity for all to succeed will be limited.

We need to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to succeed.  This is not done through laws but action. 

Education in this country is a prime example.  From this country’s beginnings, education was seen as a necessary part of democracy.  But somewhere along the line, schools became a barometer of the community.  If the community was successful, so were the schools; if the community was not successful, so were the schools.  Some schools have the tools for success; most don’t.  We turn a blind eye to the physical state of the school and only look at what the students have done.  Society demands accountability in its schools but society will not allow itself to be held accountable for the state of its schools.

Education today is dominated by the “No Child Left Behind” law.  But this law, despite its lofty goals and the desire for excellence that it expressed, was poorly funded.  As a result, no single child is left behind today; they all are.  You cannot mandate excellence solely with a testing program; you must have programs and systems in place that will focus on excellence and will focus on success for all, not just a few.

We must be willing to understand that decades and centuries of discrimination will not be replaced overnight.  We must be willing to understand that each person has a stake in the future and if they want to have any type of future they must be willing to be a part of the future, joining with others to make the future possible.  It is not a future where the average is the goal, for while it brings some people other, it will bring other people down.  It has to be a future where all are lifted up.

The real problem is not race or gender or economic status; the real problem is that we are not willing to work so that all have the opportunity.

This has been cross-posted to RedBlueChristian.com

Thanksgiving, 2006

In his seminal piece, “Alice’s Restaurant”, Arlo Guthrie sings of eating a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat. Of course, the whole point of the song was not the dinner that Alice cooked but the troubles that Arlo got into when he and his friends volunteered to clear up the mess that such a wonderful meal created.

Eleven years ago, I had such a Thanksgiving dinner. It wasn’t at a plush restaurant nor was it cooked at my family’s house. It wasn’t one of the times that I have cooked a turkey myself but rather was a simple meal that only cost me $5.00 or so. It was given by a church in the small Kansas town where I lived and it was the church’s contribution to the town. I had been unemployed for some time and the future, such as it was, seemed rather bleak. But this simple meal, offered to all who came to the church offered hope at a time when I really needed it.

Today, my church is serving Thanksgiving dinner for some three hundred people in the community, people who would otherwise not have a meal to eat today. In a community where hope is not often found, such a meal offers a chance to see that there is hope. It is truly a day to give thanks.

I trust that on this day of turkey, parades, and football, when our attention is often diverted by year-end financial statements that often require our participation and we seemingly are stuck in traffic as we travel to our families and friends, we will think about those who cannot do what we take for granted. Perhaps this will be the year you will help someone enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner that can’t be beat and they will find hope so that next year they are able to help someone else.

A Cancer in the Church

These are not my thoughts for this Sunday but thoughts about a problem I think we have to face.
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On March 21, 1973, John Dean told Richard Nixon that there was a cancer growing in the presidency and it threatened to kill the presidency. Dean’s efforts were to save both the Presidency and Richard Nixon, to whom he was still loyal to at the time. Later, when it became apparent that President Nixon had been involved in the Watergate affair from the very beginning, Dean became his chief accuser.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a comment to a pastor’s blog in which I stated I believed that there was a cancer present in that pastor’s congregation. I did so because of on my own experiences.

I also wrote that I felt it was up to the congregation to remove that cancer. The only I didn’t write was how does a congregation remove a cancer from its midst that is threatening to kill the congregation?

Over the course of my lay ministry, I have been involved in a number of situations that threatened the health and life of the church. I do not claim to have the answer but certain things are apparent. In every instance that I am aware of, the issue that allows the cancer to grow is power. Who has the power and who should have the power are the reasons that a cancer grows in any organization, be it the Presidency of the United States or a small Methodist Congregation in the United States.

The church where I first started as a lay speaker was originally dominated by two individuals, both with considerable political power in the congregation, who sat at the front door of the sanctuary. It was their unstated purpose to intimidate all those who enter. It was a way of telling the members who was in control of the church. For visitors, their stares and gruff mannerisms insured that the visitor would not come back. It was all about power and it was their intention to make sure that the new pastor understood who had the power in the church.

This approach didn’t work for me because, quite frankly, I ignored them. I was looking for a church and what I found in the pastor, the place, and the people matched what my family needed at the time.

I do not recall when I started it but I soon began to greet people at the front door of the church. This one step effectively negated what these two men were doing just inside. And over time, as the failures of their leadership became evident, the people of the church began to ignore them and move on to more important things, such as the revitalizing of the church. This, revitalization was quite successful and the church is now more alive than it ever was.

When I made the move that brought me to where I now live, I was asked to take over a church that was struggling. There were a number of theological questions being raised in the church and several individuals in the church were convinced that their answers to the questions were the correct and only true answers. This obviously resulted in a spiritual divide in the church and one that threatened to destroy the church.

I came into the church with an open mind, not favoring one side or the other. I tried to understand what had brought the church to this particular point in time. My early sermons in that church were attempts to formalize and visualize the problems of the church but I sensed an incompleteness in what I was writing and saying; I also sensed that I was not making the impact that needed to be done.

Some of the individuals were very forceful in their insistence that they alone held the right answer. And they wanted the services to reflect their thoughts. But when it became evident that it was not the Gospel but their own power that drove them, they were quickly cast aside. Again, it was the failure of their own leadership that proved their undoing.

There was also a change in the political leadership of the church as well. Those who held the “right” answers were still given the opportunity to voice their thoughts but not at the expense of other people’s thoughts.

As in the previous example, the people of the congregation began to see the futility of the plans of those that were most vocal. In the end, this vocal minority chose to leave the church on their own accord. Interestingly enough, they never gave up their positions of authority but quit attending. I was told that when I left, the leader of this splinter group attended a PPRC meeting for the first time in two years in order to meet the new pastor and apparently try to start her “campaign for spiritual awakening” all over again. Unfortunately, the new pastor was only new to the church, not the area, and was well aware of this individual and her plans. It is said that she sat meekly during the meeting, realizing that nothing she said was going to make a difference.

That assignment took almost three years and I left because I felt that I had achieved what I was asked to do. After a rough start and to remove the theological division that had begun, I focused on the Gospel and used John Wesley as my guide. There were changes in the political structure of the church that gave freedom to all without fear of the repercussions that had so dominated the church before my arrival.

This church has recovered from the trauma of the divisions that threatened to kill it and is now a part of a viable and larger church community.

I wish that I could say the same was true for my last assignment. When I left that assignment, I was planning on taking a year off before “volunteering” again. However, after six weeks, I felt God’s call to get back to work. My e-mail to my district superintendent came into his in-box just after he had received an e-mail from a newly appointed pastor quitting after six weeks.

The D. S. asked if I would take the challenge and I said that I would. This was an entirely different situation. It was not a theological challenge and it went beyond simple church politics. It was more about who “owned” the church. It wasn’t just a matter of current ownership; it was an argument that went back several generations. It wasn’t one family’s argument of ownership but rather two families, each claiming they had to right to decide what the church should and should not do.

I continued to focus on the Gospel for the preparation of my sermons. There were those who understood what I was saying in the sermon each Sunday as it pertained to the church but there were others who did not (or at least never gave any indication that they understood).

In the end, the changes in the political leadership that might have begun the turn-around could not be made. More and more families were leaving because of the in-house gossiping and back-biting. I saw a solution but it required some very radical moves on my part; I chose to leave. Though some felt that this move was coming and inevitable, it still came as quite a shock when I announced that I was leaving the church.

I brought in a Conference Crisis Intervention Team in an effort to resolve the issues that existed between the various factions but it was too late. But as I feared, blood literally ran on the floor during one of the meetings of the congregation with the team and another family quit. The church is still open but it now only meets on a part-time basis and is served by a minister from another church in the district on a part-time basis. The cancer that was in the congregation has spread and nothing will stop; this church will die.

Right now, I get the impression that there are several other churches that have the signs of this type of cancer. The problem with being a lay speaker is that you are not always privy to the information as to why a church does not have a full-time or regular pastor. But some of what I hear or found out on my own tells me that there are cancer cells present.

One pastor whose attempts to resolve the problem within their congregation, now has to deal with medical problems brought about by the stress of the conflict. I think that one pastor in my area has left the ministry because of their inability to handle or resolve similar problems within their congregation. In fact, the frustrations with my last assignment were threatening to disrupt my own life. One can only speculate as to what might have happened if I had elected to continue. I saw a need to walk away and I worked out a plan that I thought would save the congregation. I just wished it had worked out better.

So what are we to do when one person’s actions threaten the life of the church? It should be noted that in the three situations that I have described, the problem existed before I became involved. Each situation had gone on too long and unless things were done quickly, extreme measures were going to be required. And such measures are often beyond the capability of the pastor.

But what if the problem is just beginning? It should not be up to the pastor but the congregation who steps up and seeks an earlier resolution. In Matthew 18: 15 – 17 the following (I am using Clarence Jordan’s Cotton patch version) we read:

If your brother does you wrong, go talk it out privately between the two of you. If he sees your point, you’ve won your brother. But if he won’t see your side of it, take one or two others, since every fact, in order to stand, must have two or three witnesses. If he will pay them no mind, bring it up before the church. If he won’t pay attention to them, chalk him up as a hopeless case.

In some versions of this passage, the church is told to cast out this person.

In all of Jesus’ parables, Jesus challenged the listeners to hear the Gospel of God’s love in different ways, through different experiences, and with different languages. But this passage from Matthew goes beyond anything we might comprehend; it goes beyond the tokenism of inclusiveness to a radical inclusivity where we take others seriously, listen to each other and dare trust that he or she belongs in God’s love as much as we do. (1)

If you stop and think about it, the words that Matthew put into this passage cannot be the words of Christ. As you read this passage, you have to be struck with the paradox posed.

There is no problem with the first two parts of the conversation. If you have a problem with a member of the church, meet with them in private. If there are still problems, then bring along some witnesses and try to work out the problem.

It is the third part that is the paradox. If all attempts at reconciliation fail, then the offending party is to be ignored, expelled, or cast out from the church. I have a hard time with this solution. First, it cuts out the person or persons who probably need the Gospel the most. And it does nothing to soften their heart. As long as their hearts are hardened, they will never hear the true Word and that is a shame. Finally, this rather harsh treatment goes against everything Jesus had said, was saying, and would continue say?

Did Christ not seek all those who had been excluded from church? Did not Christ seek those who were expelled from society? So how could He say throw out those with whom you disagree? Some feel that this passage from Matthew comes from the later church and not from Christ. How could Jesus have been speaking for the church when there was, at that time, no church? Would He really have said treat someone as a Gentile or a tax collector when His own actions ran counter to those words? Remember that on a number of occasions He healed Gentiles and even had dinner with Zaccaheus, a tax collector. Even Matthew (or Levi in some translations), one of the twelve was a tax collector. So there are problems with this passage. It is possible that these verses are the reflection and thoughts of the early church.

These words still have a meaning for this day and time, for this is a passage of patience and gentleness. When you feel that you have been wronged by someone, you should make the first approach. When you point out that fault that has produced the rift between the two of you, it is to be done in love and friendship. One should use such a visit as this for the purpose of regaining a lost brother or sister, not for humiliation or condemnation.

Even if this private visit fails, the individual should not be branded as anything publicly. Two or three others, chosen for their Christian grace, are to be told so that their urgings can be added. It is only if they fail that the whole congregation should be told but not so that they can thrust this individual from their company and compassion. Only the individual’s own actions can drive them from the church.

This passage from Matthew offers us a glimpse into the problems of the early church. Even then, there were careless and wayward members; sometimes there were even open scandals. The epistles confirm this picture of the early church. When we re-read Matthew 18: 18, we see that it has been fulfilled. The church sometimes determines what interpretations should be forbidden (bound) and which should be sanctioned (loosed). The church, both the early one and today’s varieties and versions, have not been as gentle in discipline as the Gospel reading proposed. The church many times has acted with cruel vigor. The curse and penalty discussed in 1 Corinthians 5:5 (“hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature (Or that his body; or that the flesh) may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord”) is not gentle and it has been carried far beyond Paul’s time.

Matthew has combined in this writing a call for Christian patience and a great yearning for unity in the church. (2) There was truly a fear that there would be those whose work would destroy the building of the church and perhaps there was a need for such scripture. But fear should never drive what we do or we should we use fear to disenfranchise people. (3)

Treatment should not be vengeful but it has to be done. And the districts and the conferences need to be more helpful. It shouldn’t be that hard to identify the churches that show the symptoms and it shouldn’t be that hard to help the pastors of those congregations. The District Superintendent who gave me that first assignment told me what to expect and supported me in what I did; he also told me what to expect in my second assignment but I don’t think he understood the complexity and depth of the problem.

I wasn’t aware of the resources that were available within the conference (I suppose that being a lay speaker had a lot to do with that; I was not always privy to the same informational resources that ministers got). If I had known about the Congregational Crisis Intervention Team sooner, I might have been able to achieve a different outcome.

It is a shame that this would happen in any church. We tend to think of churches as being places of Christian good, not places where workplace politics and gossip rule. But too often, instead of taking the church out into the secular world, people bring the secular world with them into the church and expect the church to react in the same way that the outside world does. There are others who have written on this same issue but I think the message is always the same; if we hold to the Gospel and preach the love that is found in Christ, we can solve the problems that threaten to tear apart our churches.

I would hope and pray that there are no cancers in your church. But we know that at the first signs of trouble in our body, we are to seek help. The same is true when there is trouble in the congregation. There may have been fear in the minds of the early Christian church, especially with all that was going outside the walls of the church. They knew that the solidarity of the church required action before things worked against them. In this world where the church today is the one hope that many people have, it still is true what Matthew wrote and it is still what we must do in order to keep the cancer from killing the church.

(1) Adapted from “A Careful Read” by Deanna Langle, The Christian Century, August 23, 2005

(2) Adapted from The Interpreter’s Bible – a commentary in twelve volumes, Volume 7 – Abingdon Press, 1951)

(3) I am used part of the message (“Lexington, North Carolina”)that I gave at Vails Gate United Methodist Church (Vails Gate, NY) on 4 September 2005 in this message.

Isn’t this the 21st century?

Today’s New York Times (9 July 2005)has an article about evolution and the Catholic Church (”Leading Cardinal Redefines Church’s View on Evolution”). It prompts me to post the following sermon, entitled “To Be Continued”, that I gave on 22 May 2005 at Tompkins Corners United Methodist Church. I fear that we are returning to the days when Galileo would be tried by an ecclesiastical court for believing something that the church did not support.
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Considering the political events of the past month, the choice of the Old Testament, made several years ago, is ironic. The Kansas State Board of Education, following the lead of the Ohio State Board, is considering the adoption of the theory of evolution by “intelligent design” as an alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution.

This is not a new proposal but a restatement of proposals made in the 1980’s. Back then, the fight was for the inclusion of creationism as an alternative to the theory of evolution. This fight was defeated because it was clear that it was the inclusion of religion in a scientific topic. Its backers then developed the idea of “intelligent design” but the meaning is still the same.

This congruence of Bible, politics, and science reminded me of the Apollo 8 mission to the moon during Christmas, 1968, and its television broadcast on Christmas Eve. Then Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders, the crew of Apollo 8, read from the first chapter of Genesis (our Old Testament reading for today) as the on-board TV camera looked down on the barren, lifeless soil of the moon. (see for a description of that night and a link to a movie of that broadcast.)

As best as I can recall, for this was perhaps the most turbulent time in my own life, I thought it was the perfect adaptation of God’s word and God’s creation. Were it possible to have done so, I would have used a copy of the video of that reading this morning.

Then there were a few minor and inconsequential protests about the inclusion of religion with science (more to the point, the protests were about individuals reading the Bible while working for the Federal Government). Today, the controversy today is not about adapting but rather including religion in science.

The problem for Christian fundamentalists (and I would have to agree with them on this point) is that the theory of evolution is taught as fact rather than a theory. They also argue that it is in direct contradiction with the first chapter of Genesis. Their fear, from the time that Darwin first proposed his theory in the late 19th century to today, is that God is being taken out of the student’s lives.

The argument that God is being taken out of student’s lives by the inclusion of such topics as evolution begs the question of what is happening in the student’s lives when they are at home. To have public schools responsible for the moral or religious development of students is an abdication of a parent’s responsibility. School and education have always been about learning (or at least it was supposed to be that way) and it is possible that students will learn new ideas that contradict what they learn at home. But the answer is not to require that schools teach only those ideas that don’t contradict what is taught at home. Under the disguise of science, this is exactly what Christian fundamentalist are trying to do.

Their basic argument is that evolution is too complex to be adequately explained by Darwin’s theory. And since it is so complex, there must be some sort of intelligent design which guides the development of life on this planet. The proposal before the Kansas State Board of Education is a requirement that biology teachers teach an alternative theory of evolution based on what its proponents call “intelligent design.”

The teaching of something such as “intelligent design” or the formation of any theory that requires the existence of an outside influence violates every precept of scientific inquiry, especially the part that says you must base your ideas on what has happened on what you observe.

Darwin’s theory, like all theories, is not a fact. Rather, it is the best explanation of the observed facts. It is not complete and it certainly doesn’t cover all the various nuances of evolution. Yes, it is a complicated, complex, and possibly incomplete theory. But to fill in the blanks with a conclusion that there is a greater force outside our realm of knowledge is to deny that we have the ability to think and act as individuals in this world.

I know that there has been and will always be a great deal of controversy about the role of science in religion and religion in science. Since mankind became aware of its place in the universe, there have been attempts to determine who brought us here and how we got here. Religion answers those questions from the tenet of faith; science answers those questions from the tenet of empirical evidence. The two are mutually exclusive; any attempt to mix them or use the one to complete the other brings no answer at all.

At this point let me say that I believe that God did create the heavens and the earth. I also believe that the physical record of how the world was created and life evolved is very similar to the way it is described in Genesis. But I don’t think that it was done in seven days. The physical evidence says that it took much, much longer.

Now, in an attempt to rationalize the difference between Genesis and the physical record, some will say that we have no idea of what God’s day is. That is simply an attempt to explain God in terms of our own existence. There are those who say that the earth and solar system are much younger than the physical evidence suggests and that God has manipulated the physical evidence so that we will think otherwise.

These individuals tell us that the means for measuring the age of the physical evidence is faulty and filled with errors. This is an interesting explanation because even scientists agree that the measurements for the age of fossils and the earth are not precise. But precision does not mean errors were made; it means that there is some uncertainty in the measurement. Improving the measurement will improve the precision and lessen the uncertainty.

And I would ask why would God manipulate the evidence? If the physical reason is evidence of God’s hand in creation and it is lie, then how are we to believe that God loves us enough to send His son?

I think that God meant for us to find the evidence and use it to learn more about who God is and what He has done. We were, as it is written in Genesis, created in His image. We are thinking creatures, capable of rational thought. So should we not be using that capability in our lives? I think that the physical evidence about how this world was created and life evolved is one way to better understand who we are and what God’s plan is. After all, even His son told us to look at the physical evidence.

When John the Baptist was in prison and knowing that he was about to die, he sent his disciples to Jesus to ask Jesus if he indeed was the Messiah or should they wait. Jesus sent the disciples back to John with the command to look around and see what was happening. The blind were receiving new visions, the sick were being healed, the lame were walking, and the deaf were again hearing. The signs were there that the Messiah had come; all one had to do was look. But not everyone, as the historical record shows, was looking or willing to understand.

Genesis is about whom we are and our relationship with God. It answers questions about who we are but it also asks us to ask more questions. It is not about becoming God, which some fear modern science does. But Christian fundamentalists would rather we not ask questions; they would prefer that people blindly accept their definition of who God is and what has happened, even when the physical evidence tells us otherwise.

It has long been said that when Galileo left the court after being sentenced to house arrest for violating church teachings, he muttered that his conviction did not change the fact that the sun was the center of our solar system. Despite the evidence provided by the Apollo missions to the moon and our many other space activities, it still took the Roman Catholic church over three hundred years to admit that perhaps they were a little hasty in their judgment of Galileo and Copernicus.

The problem for today’s church is that it must live in a secular world. And in a secular world, the church must work extra hard to keep secular ideas from creeping into the church. (Having said that, it is interesting to note how many fundamentalist churches use the secular concepts of mass marketing to further their own missions.) But instead of seeing the rise of secular faith as an enemy that we must fight, we should see this as an opportunity to learn to read the Bible with a new understanding.

The word “truth” in Hebrew means dependable and reliable rather than that which can be rationally placed in a system. God is true because He does what He says He will do. But we attempt to place God in our organization of reality by labeling Him as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. This puts God outside the realm of truth. If truth is that which is dependable and reliable, then perhaps we should look at God in terms of what He has done.

When we do this, then we can see the world in a different light. We can see the secularization of the world as the fruit of biblical faith. When we do this, we are able to see that a secular attitude is one that frees us to see something of the true dimensions of the biblical revelation of God as the living God known through the events of history.

But this process, while a liberating one, is also one with great danger. It allows us to see God at work calling us to respond to the new possibilities for movement toward the goal of an open community of mature persons – a goal revealed through Christ. But it is also possible that we can respond in a wrong way and allow ourselves to become prisoners to a limiting ideology. If we allow ourselves to be imprisoned in such a manner, then we cannot be open to seeing what God is doing in the events of our time and being ready to respond to His call to join Him in the struggle to move towards the free and open society that He intended for us.

We are reminded that we don’t live in a mechanistic world ruled by necessity or in a random world ruled by chance. We live in a world ruled by the God of Exodus and Easter. He will do things in us that neither we or our friends or neighbors would have supposed possible.

We should value an understanding of faith that, while solidly based in the Bible, does not see the scripture as God’s final word on every subject but as a foundation from which to process new information. We should have an understanding of faith that focuses on matters of justice for all. Our faith should recognize the complexities of existence and be comfortable with not having all the answers. Nor should we feel it necessary to defend God against all comers. These things make it possible for us to have a personal experience of faith to trust God and to follow Jesus.

To follow Jesus is to make a choice. It is a choice that many individuals are not willing to make. There are also those who would rather force you to make the choice instead of allowing you to make it yourself. This is the problem with the teaching of evolution. It should be allowing you to see the wonder of God’s world and God’s work but, because some fear that you will not make the right decision about God, they would rather force you to accept their notion of what God did. This is certainly not what Jesus ask of those who came to Him.

We should listen to what Paul was saying to the Corinthians. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians dealt with the problems of that early church. In the conclusion to the first letter, Paul offers a solution.

The Holy Spirit, who dwells in each of us, can empower us to live righteously. Furthermore, the Spirit can reconcile the differences between each of us. Instead of fighting each other, we should encourage and love one another. There is a need for God’s grace, not selfishness; there is a need for God’s love in this world, not anger; and there is a need for communion between members of God’s world, not conflict. Rather than using the Holy Spirit to divide us, the Holy Spirit empowers us to come together and find answers to the questions that we face. We are not the first to face the problem of seemingly unanswerable questions.

The disciples went to the mountaintop with Jesus but there were some who still doubted. Matthew does not tell us who the doubter or doubters were. We are not even told what it was that they doubted. Perhaps it was that they weren’t sure it was actually Jesus. Perhaps they were sure that He had even died, though they had watched it happened. Maybe they had simply been through enough and did not want to be fooled or hurt again.

When Thomas had expressed his doubt about the resurrection, Jesus provided it. But this time, He did not. He simply told them, in the words of the Great Commission, to go and make disciples, go and baptize, go and teach. Jesus did not answer the questions but rather commanded the disciples to go out into the world and tell the world of the Good News proclaimed in the Gospel.

The Star Wars saga came to a conclusion this week, though it ends in the middle. We now know how things began and we know how things will end; it is the order that has us confused. In Kansas, there is an attempt to close the world and end the story of life. There are still questions about life that we need to ask but this proposal will not allow us to ask them. This is not the way the story of Genesis should end.

Genesis is a story about beginning, the beginning of the world and our own beginnings. It is not a story that ends with the Resurrection of Christ neither at Easter nor with His return to Heaven. Rather, it ends like so many action/adventure movies, with “. . . to be continued.”

Pentecost can be seen as the preparation for the Great Commission that we are given today. God calls us today to continue the story, to bring the Good News to the people of the world. Let us hear God calling us today and continue the story.

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If you would like to use my thoughts, please contact me first (Dr. Tony). There are some footnotes that go with this document that didn’t make into this copy. I would not want you to get into trouble because you printed something without my permission or if you missed proper credit for a citation.