Counting Down

You will notice that I put my stat count up at the top of my blog. As of Saturday, May 24th, I have had 9,900 visitors. I never thought that I would be approaching 10,000. Now, the question will be “who will be the 10,000th visitor?”

Sorry, there are no prizes other than what ever satisfaction you gain from being that person.

Have a safe Memorial Day weekend. If you drive on the highway (and can afford to do so ), let the pros do the fast driving at Indianapolis.

In peace,
Dr. Tony

Two Thoughts on Science and Religion

I have had one thought bouncing around in my head for a few days now and a recent article in the New York Times (“Gauging a Collider’s Odds of Creating a Black Hole”) prompts me to post it and other thought.

First

What is the ethical or religious response to the prayer at the beginning of this essay?  What do you say to a person whose creation or invention can, if used one way, benefit mankind but, if used in an entirely different manner, destroy mankind?

And yes, this is the question that we faced in 1945 with the development of the first atomic weapons?  My father was one of those who knew that his life was spared because we dropped the two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the likelihood is that your father might have been one as well.

So how do we respond?

Second

Whether you think that our first encounter with other life forms is a derivation of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “Independence Day”, or “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, what should be our response?  How do we relate the Good News to another intelligent/extra-terrestrial life form?

Just some things to think about today.

Rock and Roll Revival Revisited

Rev. J, over at “Adventures in Revland” was looking at the U2charist liturgy. 

It is an interesting application of modern music and modern worship.  It does come with a warning, as it were.  While this group is encouraging the use of its music in such settings, they are also very particular about where and when their music is used, as well they should.  They wrote the music, they have the copyright and we need to respect that.

If you are interested, check out the comments that follow his post.

But it should give us pause to think about other music that we might use in our worship services.

I posted a piece back in November, 2006, entitled “A Rock and Roll Revival” in which I listed some personal favorites that one might use in a worship service.  I followed that up with “The Rock and Roll Revival Continued” in January, 2007

And this morning, it occurred to me that my opening prayer could by “Day by Day” (from Godspell)

Day by day
Oh Dear Lord
Three things I pray
To see thee more clearly
Love thee more dearly
Follow thee more nearly
Day by day

As always, I welcome suggestions for this “order of worship”

Questions from The Religious Landscape

I originally posted this on February 26th.  I am re-posting it to include a note from the United Methodist News Service (UMNS) - see “Pew study raises questions for Methodist leaders”.  I would think that the questions in the article are for all Methodists, not just the leaders.  The other thing that I think we need to be concerned with is a focus which builds the church but not the faith.

————————-

If you have not already do so, please read or glance through the recent Pew Forum on Religion and Life survey (“U. S. Religious Landscape”).  Let us start by noting that most of the people indicated that they had some sort of belief system (not necessarily Christian).  Just a bit of 89% of the respondents indicated that they were affiliated with some sort of religion.  In itself, that’s good.

But it is the breakdown of the numbers that is really interesting.  First, the survey data indicates that only 51.3% of the respondents indicated that they were Protestant.  Second, 28% of the respondents indicated that they had left the faith in which they were raised.

Point to consider - what does that little tidbit tell us about the nature of our church?  I have been of the thought that many traditional or mainline religions always felt that the children of the church, those who attended Sunday school, were the future.  This piece of information confirms that notion is not a good idea.

They also noted in the survey that 44% of the respondents had changed affiliations, either joining another denomination or leaving the church entirely.  16% of the respondents (and 1 in 4 of those between 18 and 29) indicated that they were no longer affiliated with any church.  This reflects the Barna study that I mentioned in “The Lost Generation” last October.

I have also pointed out that the policies of some of our churches are driving away our youth (see “We Are Eating Our Seed Corn”).

Point to consider - I think it is okay that people change church from the one they grow up in to another one.  That is the nature of growing up and finding yourself (I wasn’t interviewed but I would have been included in the group that had changed denominations).  What we have to think about is why are some many young people leaving the church altogether?

This brings me to the other point.  The survey broke down Protestant into Evangelical, Mainline, and Historically Black churches.  They do, in the first chapter of the report, give a more detailed breakdown of each of these groups.  But I struggle with how they defined evangelical and mainline traditions.  The report reads,

churches within the evangelical Protestant tradition share certain religious beliefs (such as the conviction that personal  acceptance of Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation), practices (such as an emphasis on bringing other people to the faith) and origins (including separatist movements against established religious institutions).  In contrast, churches in the mainline Protestant tradition share other doctrines (such as a less exclusionary view of salvation), practices (such as a strong emphasis on social reform) and origins (such as long-established religious institutions). Meanwhile, churches in the historically black Protestant tradition have been uniquely shaped by the experiences of slavery and segregation, which put their religious beliefs and practices in a special context.

It is interesting that Methodism was classified as mainline but we were once an evangelical church.  I wonder what happened?

Finally, the report does not indicate the nature of the churches.  Since the survey was on who we are more than what we do, I would not expect such a discussion.  But when there is a shift from one denomination to another, why did the people shift?  What type of church were they involved in before the shift and what type of church are they involved in after the shift? When the people left the church altogether, why did they leave?

Those are the questions that we need to concern ourselves with.  Too many churches are bottom-lined driven, and I included churches who are growing as well as those who are losing members.  They are all concerned with bringing people into the church.  How are they doing this?

In a national news report on this survey, people at one of the growing churches were interviewed.  A glance into the congregation showed “theater-type” seats.  Photos taken during a worship service showed a video screen with the words for the song on it with a “rock and roll” style band playing the music on what one would presume is the altar.  Now, I have no problem with modern music and it is probably cheaper to put the music on a video screen rather than buy hymnals or print pages for the worshippers to read from.  But these same pictures did not show a cross.  The center of our worship, or at least I thought the center of our worship, is the cross.  We are in Lent right now (and I think that is one reason why the survey was released); we are working towards Easter and the meaning of the empty tomb and the Cross.  Why is not part of the worship service?  What message can be given?

And finally,78% of the respondents said that they were Christian.  But yet we still have poverty and homelessness in this country.  Racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination seem to be on the rise.  Our response to problems is often made out of fear.  We may say that we are a Christian country (that’s what the survey says!) but are we?

The survey was informative but like so many things, in answering one question, other questions are asked.  And those new questions are the ones we need to find the answers to.

Shame, Shame

Sometime in the late 60’s there was a band from England called “The Magic Lanterns” and one of their songs was called “Shame, Shame”.  What I remember of the song was “Shame, shame.  We had a good thing going.”  Now, this isn’t one of those pieces about misheard or misunderstood lyrics.  Rather this is about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and what it has recently done.

I have written about using rock and roll music (or perhaps music from the 60’s) as part of the worship (see “A Rock and Roll Revival” and “The Rock and Roll Revival Continued”) and I grew up during that transition from big bands and jazz through folk to rock and roll.  So perhaps I should be a devotee of the genre.  But after the news of this week, I doubt that I will ever visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland.

You see, the Museum has become like the rest of society.  Last year, when the voting for induction into the 2007 Class was completed, the Dave Clark Five was selected. 

This is not about the Dave Clark Five and its impact on rock and roll or society.  They were a good group and they deserved induction last year.But they were not inducted because there was a desire amongst the “powers that be” to have a hip-hop group inducted.

To correct this, the DC5 will be inducted this year.  But, it will be two weeks late.

You see, the lead singer and keyboardist for the group, Mike Smith, died this week.  While he died knowing that the group was going into the Hall of Fame, he also knew, I think, that it should have been done last year.  He died of complications from pneumonia that was a result of his being paralyzed from the rib cage down.  Had the group been inducted last year, he would have been able to come and enjoy the moment.  But someone wanted the voting outcome to be a little different.

That’s the shame of it all.  Rock and roll was the voice of the youth of our age and it was, at times, a voice crying out for change against the status quo and the rich and privileged. But it seems that other factors weighed into the selection of the voters and now it seems as if this museum has sold out to the establishment, trying to do what it thinks is right rather than what the voters think is right.

We live in a time when many are becoming cynical about society.  The last two Presidential elections and the present campaign have done a lot to increase that cynicism.  The promises that once were the sixties had slowly faded into the mists and the greed and self-centeredness that marked the 80’s seems to be coming back.  The economy is on the verge of shambles and the gap between rich and poor keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Bob Dylan wrote that the times are changing but not now.  The development of rock and roll in the sixties paralleled the changes in society.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised then when the Rock and Roll Museum sells out.  That seems to be the hallmark of society today.

So I remember a song by a group that is best classified as a “one-hit wonder” and dedicate it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“Shame, Shame” by The Magic Lanterns

That Will Never Work

As a follow-up to my post last week “60 Excuses for a Closed Mind”, I give you the following statements.  Each of these statements is a prediction of the future in an area by people in that area.  Let us just say that the future turned out a little differently.  Like my “Collection of Sayings” and the “Excuses”, I have gathered these “predictions” over time.  When it was possible, the person who said it and the year it was said are listed.

While we will most definitely get a laugh out of some of these “predictions”, let us also keep in mind that, as we face the future, what we will encounter may not be what we think we will encounter.

“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” — Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859

“Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.” — Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

“The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon.” — Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, 1873

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” — Western Union internal memo, 1876

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” — Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” — Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

“No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris . . . [because] no known motor can run at the requisite speed for four days without stopping — Orville Wright (1871 - 194

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” — Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre

“The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” — David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s (David Sarnoff later became chair of the Radio Corporation of America, otherwise known as RCA).

“Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.” — 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard’s revolutionary rocket work (The Times later retracted their statement)

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” — H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” — Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929

“I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” — Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in “Gone With The Wind”

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” — Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” — The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” — Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

“But what … is it good for?” — Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. in 1977

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” — Bill Gates, 1981

“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.’” — Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer

“You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can’t be done. It’s just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training.” — Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the “unsolvable” problem by inventing Nautilus

“If I had thought about it, I wouldn’t have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can’t do this.” — Spencer Silver on work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M “Post-It” Notepads

“A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.” — Response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.” — A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

What Shall You Say?

This is not my regular post for this week but the events of the week demand that I put something down.

——————————————————————————————————–

There was another shooting on a college campus this week.  A young man, for reasons unknown, went into a large classroom and began shooting.  I am glad to know that we are shocked and outraged by this senseless act of violence but, as I wrote after the Virginia Tech shootings last spring (“It Happened Again”),

“why it is so much different when thirty-three people die in a college town in this country as opposed to any number of deaths in Iraq or Darfur or anywhere else. Is it because violence in other countries, the death of young people elsewhere in the world, has no meaning to us? Is violence so much a part of our lives that we can ignore it unless it comes in big numbers?”

Of course, there were only six killed this time,so perhaps we should be grateful.  But there were five other shootings on campuses across this nation last week, including one at a high school in my home town of Memphis.  Perhaps we are shocked when the killings happen on a college campus and not when they happen on a high school campus because we have written off what happens at high schools in this country.

Or we are shocked when it happens in communities where we do not believe violence exists (see “What Do We Say?”).

One good note can be written; we still speak of college campuses as idyllic and peaceful.  There is still somewhere in this nation where we think peace is alive and well.

But now we seek someone to blame.  We will blame the shooter because that is the easiest thing to do.  But we do not know what caused him to do this.  He was an exemplary scholar in high school and as a college undergraduate.  He does not seem to have been a product of the ghetto or a seemingly broken home.  So the reason must lie elsewhere.

We could blame the NRA for their single-minded attitude against reasonable gun control laws.  But the guns the shooter used were legally purchased.

We could blame the medical community.  It appears that this young man was on medication and apparently stopped taking it.  So we could blame the medical community for prescribing medications that complicated a life, not saved it.

We could continue seeking someone or some group on whom we could post the blame.  Surely one of the myriad groups that are part of this society is the reason why this young man did what he did.  But what would we gain by doing that?  It is highly unlikely that this young man, despite his wisdom and intelligence, would have probably known of many of the groups that we could have blamed.

And when we have found the one group upon whom we can fix the blame this time, we then have to figure out how to connect that group to the other shootings that occurred this week.

And then we need to come up with a solution.  We can say that the solution lies in letting those who own guns carry them into the classroom.  That will serve as the necessary deterrent.  But others have echoed what I wrote last April (“It Happened Again - Part 2″) when someone made the same suggestion,

Are we to assume that this unknown self-proclaimed defender has the ability to use his or her weapon in the proper manner? Are we to assume that a response with a handgun to some shooting will not become a “fire fight” which endangers more innocent bystanders? Let’s not even go there; that is a path that can lead no where.

Violence as the response to violence will never work.  It will only lead to more violence.

It is time that we look at ourselves and remember what Cassius told his friend Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves. . . ” (Julius Caesar (I, ii,  140 - 141)).  Perhaps it is what we have allowed society to become that is the reason why violence is so dominant in our lives and why we seek violence as the answer to our problems.

We have a disagreement as a country with another country so we go to war.  We dislike what those who oppose our political favorites say and do, so we respond with attack ads.  We fill this ads with vitriol and venom; we come as close to slander as is legally possible; we question the motives of our opponents and threaten their character and their loyalty.

We have changed the games of our youth into businesses where winning is the only thing and how you achieve victory is not to be questioned.  We fought in the 1960’s to bring equality into society but now we have forgotten, if we ever learned, what equality means.  Sexism and racism are still a part of this society and instead of moving away from these plagues on society, it seems we are moving closer.

There are some who are going to rejoice at my words, for these words only prove that these are, in fact, the “End Times.”  But those who proclaim such finality to society only sit back and watch; they do not work to stop what is happening in this world.  I cannot accept the concept that God would send His Son to die on the Cross to save us from our sins and then renege on the promise of hope that comes from that Ultimate Sacrifice.

God sent His Son to save us, not condemn us.  We have been asked to continue the work that began two thousand years ago in the hills of Galilee.  If for no other reason, we need to answer God’s call today and speak out against the violence, speak out against the racism and sexism that exists, speak out against the repression that occurs.  We need to begin doing what Jesus said was His mission, to feed the hungry, heal the sick, clothe the naked, find houses for the homeless, and bring hope to the oppressed.  It will not happen overnight but if we began now, we can change the nature and direction of society.  We can bring an end to the violence and destruction that we see; we can make the prophecy of Isaiah and Micah true,

“For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Is. 2:3-4 & Micah 4:2-3)

God has chosen this moment to call us.  What shall you say?

 

60 Excuses for a Closed Mind

Just something to think about

1. We tried that before.
2. Our place is different.
3. It costs too much.
4. That’s beyond our control.
5. That’s not my job.
6. We’re all too busy to do that.
7. It’s too radical of a change for this group.
8. We don’t have the time.
9. There is not enough help.
10. That will make the other equipment obsolete.
11. Let’s make a market research test of it first.
12. Our plant is too small for it.
13. Not practical for operating people.
14. The people will never buy it.
15. The supervisors will scream.
16. We’ve never done it before.
17. It’s against company policy.
18. It runs up our overhead.
19. We don’t have the authority.
20. That’s too ivory tower.
21. Let’s get back to reality.
22. That’s not our problem.
23. Why change, it’s still okay.
24. I don’t like the idea.
25. You’re right, but. . .
26. You’re two years ahead of time.
27. We’re not ready for that idea.
28. We don’t have the money, the room, the equipment, the personnel, etc.
29. It isn’t in the budget.
30. It’s a good thought but highly impractical.
31. You cannot teach an old dog new tricks.
32. Let’s hold it in abeyance.
33. Let’s give it more thought.
34. Management would never do something like that.
35. Let’s put it in writing.
36. We’ll be the laughing stock of the public.
37. Not that crazy idea again!
38. We’d lose in the long run.
39. Where did you dig that one up?
40. We did all right without it.
41. That’s what to expect for staff.
42. It’s never been tried.
43. Let’s shelve that idea for the moment.
44. Let’s form a committee.
45. Has anyone else ever done it?
46. Division won’t like it.
47. I don’t see the connection.
48. It won’t work in our plant.
49. What are you really saying?
50. Maybe that will work in your department, but not in mine.
51. The Employee Involvement Committee will never do it.
52. Don’t you think we should look into it before we act?
53. What do they do at our competitor’s plant?
54. Let’s sleep on it.
55. It can’t be done.
56. It’s too much trouble to change.
57. It won’t pay for itself.
58. I know a fellow who it tried it.
59. It’s impossible.
60. We’ve always done it this way.
61. And the all time favorite — WE’RE NO WORSE THAN OUR COMPETITORS!

A Collection of Sayings

The following are a collection of sayings and quotes that I have gathered over the years.  Some are attributed; others I have just picked up and haven’t figured out who said or when it was said.

SAYINGS OF INTEREST

The Vaccination Theory of Education - English is not History and History is not Science and Science is not Art and Art is not Music, and Art and Music are minor subjects and English, History, and Science major subjects, and a subject is something you “take” and, when you have taken it, you have “had” it, and if you have “had” it, you are immune and need not take it again.

“Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.”

“A child with a hammer thinks everything looks like a nail.”

“We find our individual freedom by choosing not a destination but a direction.” (Marilyn Ferguson)

“You see things; and say ‘why?’ But I dream of things that never were and say ‘why not?’” (George Bernard Shaw)

“If you found a path with no obstacle, it probably does not lead anywhere.”

“It is necessary to say that poetic spirits are of two kinds; first, those who invent fables, and second, those who are disposed toward believing them.” (Galileo [as translated by Sheldon Glashow])

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” (David Thoreau)

“In every age there comes a time when leadership suddenly comes forth to meet the needs of the hour. And so there is no man who does not find his time, and there is no hour that does not have its leader.” (The Talmud)

Jawaharlal Nehru, who with Mahatma Gandhi successfully freed India from British colonial rule, once said, “A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the sound of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” (Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Col. Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816)

“If I am not for myself, who is for me?

But if I am only for myself, what am I?

And if not now, when?

Rabbi Hillel, Sayings of the Fathers, 1: 14

“It’s a revolution damn it! We’re going to have to offend somebody!” - John Adams, while discussing the massive changes being hacked into the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

“The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views, which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.” Dr. Who

There is a fine line between being on the leading edge and being in the lunatic fringe.

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. (Albert Einstein)

“Sanity is the playground of the unimaginative mind”.

Programming: The art of debugging a blank sheet of paper (Nick Donaldson, University of Manitoba)

“Foolish is the man who competes for competition’s sake . . . Wise is the man who knows what battles are worth fighting.” - Ancient Chinese proverb.

“There’s this desert prison…. with an old prisoner, resigned to his life, and a young one just arrived. The young one talks constantly of escape, and after a few months, he makes a break. He’s gone a week and then he’s brought back by the guards. He’s half dead, crazy with hunger and thirst. He describes how awful it was to the old prisoner. The endless stretches of sand, no oasis, no sign of life anywhere.

The old prisoner listens for a while, then says, `Yep, I know. I tried to escape myself, twenty years ago.’

The young prisoner says, `You did? Why didn’t you tell me, all these months I was planning my escape? Why didn’t you let me know it was impossible?’

And the old prisoner shrugs, and says, `So who publishes negative results?’” (Jeffery Hudson, in “Scientist as Subject: The Psychological Imperative.”)

“It is fortunate that war is so ugly for we could become very fond of it” — attributed to Robert E. Lee following the Battle of Gettysburg.

“War is not healthy for children and other living things.” — Lorraine Schneider, 1969 — www.warisnothealthy.org

Nobody is stupid enough to prefer war to peace. Because in times of peace children bury their parents, whereas, on the contrary, in times of war parents bury their children — Herodotus.

“Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.” — Samuel Johnson

Isn’t It Time For A Change?

I started this piece because I was thinking about what I was going to write for my Sunday blog. But as I started writing, it took on a life of its own. I do know this; Sunday’s blog will be entitled “By What Name Shall You Be Called?” and it will be about hearing and then answering the call that God has made to you, even if you are not aware of it.

Introduction

Things are happening in two areas of society that bother me. The first is what is happened to Christianity and the modern church. The other is education and our schools. This rather long post is a discussion of what I think are the problems with both of these areas and what we, the people, must do to fix them.

It seems to me that the theme of the current political campaign is change. But change will not occur in this country at this time because people are afraid of change. Change requires going into areas that are often unknown and that is something many are unwilling to do. Change requires understanding and understanding requires takes both time and effort. This country and this society would rather spend their time doing other things.

Christmas has become a time of frenzied buying of material goods, not a time to pause and wonder at the single star in the sky or the Babe lying in a manger. Memorial Day has become the start of leisure and fun, not a day to pause and remember who has died and what the horror of war really was and is. Labor Day has become the sad ending to a short summer and the beginning of another school year. Every national holiday becomes a celebration of the dollar and the need to buy more material goods. We hold George Washington as the “Father of this Country” and we proclaim Abraham Lincoln as one of the greatest presidents ever; yet, we have combined their birthdays into a single holiday and placed it on a Monday so that we can have a three-day weekend and buy things with our credit cards.

I doubt that too many people can remember why we once celebrated the first Monday in September. But then again, we no longer care about workers’ rights; we no longer care about environmental or workplace safety. Management is all that matters and we can always find workers somewhere willing to work for a little less so that the profit margin can be maintained or increased.

It seems to me that one of the political issues that will dominate the presidential election (once we finally decide on the candidates) will be illegal immigration. Everybody is against illegal immigration but the solutions to the problem do not solve the problem.

Why do people immigrate to this country? From the first day that someone from another country stepped foot on the shores of this continent, people came to this continent for the opportunity that this place offers. Most illegal immigrants can get better jobs here than they can in their home countries. And why do we punish people for doing the jobs that we will not do? Why do we not punish the people who hire the illegal immigrants? It seems to me that the solution requires more than simply arresting illegal immigrants and deporting them back to their home country. Building a wall along the United States – Mexican border will not stop the problem. But then again, the actual solution requires a change in thinking and we are not accustomed to such complicated efforts.

We no longer hear about the problems of homelessness, the lack of health care, or the continued inequalities caused by differences in race, economic status, gender, sexuality, or lifestyle. To do so would be reminded that we are not the great nation we proclaim to be; to do so would remind us of the things that we have failed to do and continue to fail to do.

The buzz word for this year’s political campaign seems to be change. We desire change but we haven’t got the faintest clue what it means. That’s because we have changed the things that once were the implements of change.

The church was once the conscience of mankind; now it is the protector of the status quo. Once the church provided hope; now it takes it away. Once education was the way to improvement; now it is simply a way to acclimate children and young people to an almost “1984” mindset of acceptance and mediocrity.

Marketing the Gospel message

It seems to me that too many churches today engage more in marketing the church than they do in telling the Gospel story. Churches no longer look like churches or feel like churches. In fact, many churches have changed their name; now they are worship centers or some sort of variant on that. The word “church” scares people. So we make church a comfortable place.

I am not saying that it shouldn’t be comfortable; believe me, I have sat in many a hard pew and would much rather be sitting in something easier. But there is no sense of holiness when your seats are theater-type seats.

There is no sense of holiness when you cannot tell who the minister is. The minister is apt to be dressed casually, perhaps in blue jeans and the shirt tail hanging out. This is to show the people that they are “cool” or “hip”. But the message is often empty and vague. It is not necessary to be “cool” if you preach the truth. It is not necessary to be “hip” if you speak from your heart and not with your eye on the bottom line.

By the same token, there are many pastors whose clothing budget surely exceeds the monthly salary of many members of the church. Of course, if you preach the prosperity gospel, then you had better dress for success. But that also means that the money that the people are giving in hopes of getting financial rewards is going into the pocket of the minister asking for the money.

And the presentation of the message or the music is adapted to the ways of the secular world. We put the words to the music we are to sing on screens that everyone can see. Since they watch television and videos at home, why not make the Gospel presentation a video presentation? We have changed the nature of church so that it is like everything else. We have changed the nature of what we are saying and doing so that it will fit onto a single slide in an audio-visual presentation.

We live in a sound-bite society; we know put the Gospel into sound-bites or reduce it to bumper-sticker slogans. There is no challenge in the message because challenge requires changing things.

The Prosperity Gospel and Gospel-Lite Message

It seems to me that most of the modern churches today present one of two forms of the gospel message. They either present what is called the prosperity gospel (or “name it and claim it”) or they present what is called gospel-lite. Neither has any relationship to the true Gospel and neither has any relationship to the historical nature of the church. The prosperity gospel says that you can have riches beyond belief if you plant a seed with the minister. In other words, give the minister your money and it will grow. It will grow, all right, but not your garden. The only ones getting rich under the prosperity gospel are the ones who preach it.

If there is any truth to the prosperity gospel, then why are we not hearing their stories?

There are also others who take the substance out of the gospel message and preach a do-good and feel-good message. People like hearing this message because it does not call for them to do anything; there is no need for them to give up anything or take the message out into the world because it is not needed. You will find no guilt in the gospel-lite message of so many pastors because their message is to make you feel good about yourself, not have you worry about the nature of the world.

The True Gospel message was a message of sacrifice and hard work; it was a message of equality and perseverance. There is nothing in many modern churches that even comes close to the true words of Jesus and the apostles.

We have changed the nature of the message and we have changed the nature of the church.

Megachurches

Let’s face it; we like the idea of big. So it stands to reason that we should have BIG churches. It could be that I am uncomfortable with the concept or idea of megachurches because it is possible the membership of every church I have been a member of or served could probably fit into the auditorium of anyone of many megachurches in this country.

Megachurches seem more like office buildings or large amphitheaters than churches. Instead of pews, you get theater-type seats. Instead of an altar, you get a stage. And don’t even look for a Cross or some sign of the presence of God. It might be there but it is off to the side and hidden by the great screens that televise the minister so the people in the far back rows can see him.

If megachurches are to be the 21^st century version of 14^th and 15^th century cathedrals, they fail. The great cathedrals of Europe and America were built by the people for the Glory of God. Perhaps many of those cathedrals shouldn’t have been built but the people built them for God, not for the church or church authorities. It seems to me that many of the megachurches that are being built today are being built to satisfy the egos of the pastors and the congregations, not for the Glory of God.

When you look at the structure and organization of these many megachurches, you find that they have subdivided the congregation into various groups based on common interests. Since a megachurch is actually a collection of many small churches, why not put the time and energy into small churches? Why not put the time and effort into helping put the presence of God where it is needed, not where it can be built. A baseball field was built in a cornfield in Iowa because the people will come. But the people of the inner city or the rural parts of this country can’t necessarily make it to the megachurch in the nearby suburb.

People like megachurches because it is easy to go to one. With so many people present, you can easily get lost in the crowd. With the focus of the service no longer on the True Gospel, you don’t have to worry. You can now go to church (even if it isn’t called that) when you want and feel good when you come out. The problems of the world have disappeared for a few hours and you have had a great time with your friends.

Praise Music

I am very leery when I hear the term praise music. Modern day praise music was developed because people said they were tired of traditional organ music and wanted to hear guitars and drums and the sounds that they hear every day.

Music has always been in worship for the purpose of praising God. I have no problem with bringing new music or new ways to play the music. The lute, the harp, the flute, and the cymbal were all instruments played in the early church. I am sure that when the harpsichord, the piano, and the organ were invented, traditionalists complained about the quality of music. And the players who brought the new instruments into the sanctuary probably rejoiced at the change they were bringing into the worship.

There is great music that can be played on guitars, electric basses, electric keyboards and drums. But, like the music of old, it requires work to achieve the desired goal. Many praise music teams sing great music, music that moves the heart and inspires the soul but it isn’t the music that the congregation sings and this is the problem with praise music.

The praise music that congregations sing is tepid at best. It does nothing to praise God or inspire worship. It merely replaces old music that you don’t like with new music that you don’t like. It has no feeling; it inspires nothing in my soul. With my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, I would say that most praise music today doesn’t even have a good beat and it is lousy to dance to.

I know that people have complained about the traditional music of the church. Often times, the congregation cannot sing the music because they are not familiar with the tune or the words. Congregations get locked into the songs they know and they complain when they are forced to learn something new. But what is wrong with learning new music? Can we not express our joy in worship with new words, instead of mindlessly repeating old words? Let all of us bring all of our talents into the worship of God and let see what happens then.

The only problem is that when you remove any meaning from the worship service after you have removed the meaning of the Gospel, there is nothing left. This has allowed many, whom I have taken to call quasi-religious, to change the meaning to fit their view of the world.

A New World Vision

I grew up in the South and I heard and saw quasi-religious figures try to use the Gospel to justify segregation, exclusion, and hatred (both organized and un-spoken). But I also saw many in the church who believed in the Gospel message and fought to bring equality to this country. Now, it seems that we have forgotten that the fight for equality is a constant one; those who opposed the efforts of the church to bring equality to this country now seem to dominate. Now it seems that the church is the agent for exclusion and hatred.

It also appears to me that many quasi-religious figures are trying to change history to fit their view of the world. They are also trying to eliminate or alter science so that no questions can be asked about the world around us.

It always amazes me how those who proclaim to know the truth are quite willing to blame others for the problems. They are the ones who complain that their children don’t learn values in school today. They are the ones who say that our schools began to fail when prayer was taken out of the classroom.

But the days of prayer in the classroom were days when the classroom was homogeneous and differences between Christian denominations were minimal. In the South (where I grew up), the classrooms were segregated. Now, the classroom is heterogeneous and there are likely to be representatives from every major religion. A single prayer that accommodates every religion is a meaningless prayer. And prayer must be more than a few moments of silence. Prayer is an interaction between the individual and God; it cannot be done in a few moments of silence at the beginning of the school day.

Who is God?

Is my God better than your God or is your God better than my God? Whether one chooses to use Yahweh, Allah, or God as His name, it is the same God. So Yahweh cannot be better than Allah and Allah cannot be better than God and God cannot be better than Yahweh; because they are three names for God. All that is accomplished when people use the arguments of a superior God is that it shows their lack of understanding about God. Right now, we do not need people who do not know God telling others what to say, do, or believe.

Ignorance, Understanding, and Control

Ignorance is not a lack of education; it is a lack of understanding. There are many who are educated but ignorant. I have known a great number of people whose reading and writing skills were extremely limited yet their understanding of God exceeded that of many educated people.

Understanding requires questioning and questioning requires thinking. If one is not capable of thinking, then one is incapable of truly understanding. If you take away the ability to understand something, then you can exert control. Authoritarianism, be it sectarian or secular, is always marked by the effort to control what the people can think or say.

As long as the people were ignorant, the church could control their lives. It seems to me today that many quasi-religious figures miss the good old days of that control. For a long time the church didn’t want the people to be able read and write. But as people began to read and write, the more they began to understand. The more they could understand, the more they would seek improvement.

In fact, it appears to me that the church didn’t even want the Bible to be available to the people. If you wanted to print the Bible, it had to be in Latin so that only a select few (and not necessarily the local priests) could read it.

But one of the hallmarks of the early Methodist movement was education. John and Charles Wesley started Sunday schools because the people needed to read and write so that they could understand the Gospel message for themselves. The first universities of this country were founded to insure that ministers had the fundamental skills necessary for understanding. It will come as a shock to many on both sides of the political and religious spectrum that Harvard and Yale began as religious supported institutions, institutions that would supply the preachers for this young country.

Those who worked to build this country understood the need for education as a defense against tyranny. Now education is merely a period of time when a lot of facts are presented for memorization and regurgitation on a test, only to be quickly forgotten.

Education was and should be more than simply learning facts. The problem is that education no longer has the stature that it once had.

People complain about the quality of education but won’t fight to improve the quality of education. It seems to me that the predominant attitude about pre-college education today is that “what worked for me will work for my children”. The problem with education today is two-fold. First, the money for salaries and support does not go to the instructional staff but rather to administrators. That is wrong. If you want quality instruction, then you must pay for quality instruction. The salary gap between CEO’s and workers is not limited to the industrial sector; there is and has been a similar gap between school administrators and classroom teachers.

Second, how many classrooms are equipped to meet the needs of the society that the students will encounter when they leave formal education? Nobody seems to care that the majority of classrooms in this country are under-equipped, if they are equipped at all to teach and prepare for the future. Education has always been about preparation but it gets harder when you don’t have the tools.

We have sought to correct the problems of education with testing. But all we have done is prepare our children for things that they will not encounter in later life.

There is also no sense of balance in our education. Our Founding Fathers understood that education covered both the rational world and the moral world. Thinking involved questioning and we do not do enough of that in our educational system today.

We no longer teach critical thinking or ask students to make evaluative decisions because our educational systems fear the backlash that such processes would bring. This is especially true when it comes to values education.

Values Education

It is very difficult to teach values in the school because those who demand that values be taught only want their values taught. I have come to the conclusion that those who call so loudly for such teaching are insecure in their own beliefs.

Values education cannot be taught from the viewpoint of a single values system. To teach values is to teach children and young adults to think and analyze. It will produce questions and the one thing that those who want only a single value system taught do not want is questions about their value system. Any value system that does not allow questioning is based more authoritarianism and blind following than it is a true understanding and will fail when scrutinized.

I have come to the conclusion that those who wish to impose their value system on others do so out of fear of what might happen if their system were analyzed. Out of fear, we seek to control the unknown but in fear we cannot proceed into the unknown and find out what is there. If our value system is strong, it will endure any questions.

Liberals and Conservatives

Obviously, I am not crazy about conservatives and those who would seek to hold on to the status quo. By the same token, I don’t like people who think that Christianity is what I have described. I don’t like it when people write off Christianity because of what they see on television, hear on radio, and read about in the broadsheets and tabloids of this country. Most of that information is not what Christianity is about but people don’t know or understand that. They are too smug to admit their ignorance and unwilling to find out what the truth really is. I don’t like those on either side of the religious and political spectrum who are not willing to speak to the other side with an open mind.

The Next Step

We are fast approaching a time when the cost of our ignorance, both secular and sectarian, is going to exceed the resources that we have available.

It would be nice if the people of this world would stop for a moment and look at what they are doing to the world and the other inhabitants.

Global warming, though a theory, seems to be the correct explanation for what is transpiring in Greenland, the Artic, and on the Antarctica continent. Divisions between people grow each day; our own national political campaigns have become consistent episodes of mud-slinging, back-biting, and name-calling. Our political campaigns have turned into nothing more than overblown kindergarten disagreements but with far more disastrous consequences.

And we, as a collective society, have allowed this to happen, more out of ignorance than anything else. Keep in mind that most of the children of the world have never had the experience of seeing a person walk on the moon. That means that any political campaigns that they have lived through have been the ones of the 1970’s, the 1980’s, the 1990’s, and now the 2000’s. The only political campaigns that they have listened to or studied have been negative in nature. The winner has often been the one to whom the mud stuck the least.

Computers are not necessarily a part of the instructional process. In most schools, computer education is a period during the school day and/or week. Computers become another thing that must be learned, not a tool to be used.

It is quite easy to get lots and lots of information with computers today. But we have lost the skill of analyzing this information. The rapidity in which we send salacious or vitriolic e-mail messages to our friends without questioning the content of the message has always amazed me. If it comes from a friend and it is shocking, then it must have some truth in it.

All our children know about computers and technology is that you can play games and send quick messages. Their grammar and language skills are limited because instant messages require acronyms and abbreviations. Computers are only useful for playing games and we are beginning to see the effects of the lack of socialization.

Our children and young adults have no concept of what war is, other than reports on television. They see no dead, they see no grieving. War has become nothing more than another video game, bloodless and painless, without suffering.

If we are to change this world; if we are to provide hope and meaning for the days to come, then we must change. We must change our view of God from a multi-fragmented mythical being to the source of our existence. We were created in His image; isn’t it time that we start reflecting that image instead of trying to hide it?

And we must start demanding that education do what education is supposed to do. Through education, we are supposed to learn how to think and imagine, to move beyond the boundaries of our present existence. It will cause many to challenge commonly held viewpoints and it will cause many viewpoints to disappear because people will quickly find out how weak they are.

Society is going to go in one of two directions, either into a new era of discovery and promise or into an era of destruction and desolation. I fear that it will go into the era of destruction and desolation because we are unwilling to change our ways. But if we are willing to change, then we can begin to see a new era of discovery and promise.

So isn’t it about time we change?