Category: Faith

Baby Daddy in Church

On Sunday, we took Oliver to church for the very first time. Oliver, mom, dad, and grandpa (who was visiting from out of town) met at Trinity Lutheran Church, Long Island City to worship with our congregation and introduce Oliver to church for the first time. And he was a hit. People loved him, gathered around him, gawked at him, and he was the center of attention during his first day at church. And he took it like a champ. He flirted with the pretty ladies, cried when he wanted to be walked around, and he did what he wanted to do. Basically, he acted like he did at home. The place didn’t freak him out in the slightest.

We arrived at Trinity, magically, before the service started. Now, I say that our arrival was magical because, with our move into Manhattan last year, it now takes us close to an hour and a half to commute to church on Sunday morning. Yet, it seems our little guy is a good luck charm because we didn’t wait longer than a few minutes for our trains on Sunday. Oliver woke up as we walked into the Nave and became the star of the show. The old ladies gravitated to him like moths to a flame. Everyone seemed to notice how much hair he had. And, of course, my lack of hair was pointed out as well. I hope Oliver keeps his hair as long as possible – and doesn’t start losing it when he is finishing up high school like I did.

The service started and he feasted. Oliver wasn’t going to let some sharing of the peace get in the way of his third breakfast. After that, he flirted with the pretty women behind us (because he has good taste), and he ended up in my arms so I could take him up for his first children’s sermon. Now, since I didn’t grow up in the church, the “children’s sermon” is a strange beast for me. The few young children, and their parents, wander up to sit on the stairs before the altar and face the congregation. Oliver was a little fussy as we sat on the stairs; he kept trying to worm himself away. He cried a little, grunted, fussed, and did not pay attention at all to the sermon that the pastor prepared. I know he is only 3 weeks old but, come on kid, show a little respect! At the end of the little sermon, as we bowed our heads in prayer, he emptied his bowels on my lap. And he cried. Now, he was wearing his diaper and everything was caught but no one told me that you would know when your baby pooped. I thought it would be the smell that would signal his need for a new diaper but, oh no, that is second. His bowel movements are a force of nature. They are also hilarious. Trying to keep a straight face through the “amen” was one of the hardest parts of my fatherhood experience so far.

The children’s sermon, in general, is an odd beast. I understand why it is there. Children should be seen, and treated, as equal members of the congregation. They are part of the body of Christ. In the baptismal covenant and the covenant of creation, they are not less than adults or teenagers. The cross is for them too. And I get that the Children’s sermon is all about highlighting that reality. But it is just strange. It never really seems, in my limited exposure to them, to actually be viewed as an integrated part of the service. The actual moment seems to do the exact opposite of what it is trying to do. It interupts rather than includes. But that could be an experience that I’m feeling because I’m not use to it being included in services. When I returned to the church, there was no children’s sermon at Trinity because there were no children in the congregation. When I started my field education, the children’s sermon was changed into something else entirely. I don’t experience it as a congregation solidifying event. So as I sat up there, the alienness of the entire concept of the Children’s sermon was highlighted for me. There’s got to be a good way to handle the Children’s sermon – I just haven’t seen it yet.

But there is more to being a dad in worship besides just the children’s sermon. I experienced the entire spectrum of the child experience. I was the dad who walked around in the back of the church because his kid was fussy. I experienced walking out of the service and into the dank dungeons of the bathrooms to use a changing table twice during the service. I experienced coming in, and out, of the service, at different points. I was distracted the entire service because of Oliver – and that is a new experience for me. In many ways, the most challenging part of having a kid for me is being distracted by his presence. This isn’t a bad thing – I actually love having him in my life. But I’m not use to handling this kind of distraction in my life. My tradition of hyper focusing for a few hours on a service, or writing a sermon, or building a website, no longer works because there is a kid sleeping next to me who might wake up and need to be fed. He might need his diaper changed. He might need a binkie. He might just need to be held. I’m always slightly turned on, ready to reach out, and meet his need, even if I hesitate sometimes, trying to see if his crying will stop on its own. There’s a part of my brain and focus that is permanently devoted to his presence and, how I’ve previously wired myself, I can’t seem to take care of him and take care of what I’d like to do at the same time. This is different than multi-tasking I think. Or at least different from what I understand multi-tasking to be.

I’m glad I’m having these experiences, including being a church member rather than a leader, because, in less than a month, I’ll be a full-time intern and Sundays will be a work day. Oliver won’t be around all that much and I’ll have other responsibilities to take care of. I won’t have the experience of trying to worship as a parent. Instead, I’ll try to experience what it is like to lead worship as a parent with a kid in the congregation. That will open up an entire new can of worms that I’m excited to find out.

Is Liberal Christianity Actually The Future?

A friend of mine noticed that my blog is all baby, all the time now. She’s right. In fact, all I really want to do is talk about Oliver. I mean, this guy is fantastic. He’s already made it to almost three weeks, he is gaining weight, and he’s actually alert and looking around! I feel like bragging all the time and becoming that dad who can only talk about his kids. Watch out world, I’m gonna be ridiculous.

But, alas, I can’t be only a daddy-blogger. Mommy bloggers have that area of the internet sewed up and the title says Seminarianzilla not Dadzilla (though Oliver might be allowed to call me that in the future). And you’d might be surprised to learn that the world of religion and faith doesn’t stop just because I have an awesome newborn. Last week, Ross Routhat posted a response to Diana Butler Bass. Is he just copying me or is he doing what I do and just see what his facebook friends post on their newsfeeds? Either way, lets take a look at this latest article in the battle over “Liberal” Christianity.

I’ve been sitting on this blog post for over a week now. I wrote several drafts of this post offering my analysis of the back-and-forth between Douthat and Butler but nothing that I wrote seemed worth sharing. In many ways, my analysis always ended up focusing on definitions because that’s what I see Butler and Douthat indirectly arguing about in their articles. Both are arguing about a vibrancy that they see in Christianity and that they believe will be picked up and propagated by my generation. Any question about “survival” instantly points its giant finger at “the young people” who are growing up and, sadly, I am in the vanguard of that group. Both argue a set perspective on how Christianity can “survive” by being relevant (or anti-relevant) to future generations and both assume that where they witness vibrancy (and I’m assuming that they find this vibrancy life giving in their own lives) is where the church will survive. And…yes…I see their point. However, their argument about what will survive is like reading science or historical fiction; although the setting is not in the present, the substance of the story is grounded in the here and now. So any argument about Christianity’s survival is really about today and both folks are arguing that a form of Christianity framed in a certain set of definitions will be that which survives. And what are those definitions? That’s what I find interesting and I think they both would have stronger arguments if they laid that out on the line. Sure, they only have short opinion pieces so there’s only so much to do but without those definitions, what I see is a lot of talking around the issues rather than engaging with them at their core. And if they both decided to engage those definitions, they might have realized that “liberal” Christianity is a terrible phrase and completely improperly used in the present day. Rather than continue that, state definitions and assumptions in the beginning and I hope that salvation and Christ will show up there. Sadly, I didn’t see much of that in these articles.

That’s what gets me about all of this. There’s a talking around definitions rather than nailing down specifically what those definitions are. And if we’re going to argue about Christianity and make Christ not necessary to that argument, well, I’m just not really following that. That doesn’t mean I don’t think their argument needs to be made – it probably does and their arguments can be paralleled throughout Christian history – but there’s nothing compelling about that argument for my life right now. Instead of arguing as if the definitions are known and set it stone, I’d like to argue over the definitions themselves. I’d like to struggle with the propositions proposed by the Church over the years. I’d like to take the frameworks that spoke to prior generations and engage them with the present day and my life. And I’d like to engage in that way because I think those definitions are not just intellectual assets but, rather, are all encompassing, directional, practical, and define how it is I will live my life. And I wish both Douthat and Butler would play and live there because then I would find myself willing to dwell with them there.

Thought of the day

While reading the newest update from my seminary about their operating plans, I find myself dwelling on the following thought: when a religious organization follows the business culture around them and begins to lay off staff and combine previous positions, giving current employees more work for no increase pay and creating economic hardships for others, all for the good of the institution, should the religious organization actually use the language of business and claim that this is all for “efficiency” purposes? Even in the current economic environment where cutting positions is normal and even if the institution needs to save money, is it truly a pastoral response to use the fake language of the business world? Or can we just be blunt with our use of language? And if not, why not? There’s a difference between being pastoral and appearing phony and I think the church runs into problems when it thinks that using the language of sugar somehow makes everything better.

The Death and Resurrection Business

It is kind of annoying how some posts seem to linger in my mind all weak, and I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but I feel the need to continue to flesh out my take on Ross Douthat’s op-ed piece. Sure, the blogosphere has already moved on from his writing but I can’t let go of it just yet – especially since there were so many responses to that piece that I feel need a response.

First off, I really just want to expand a bit on what Father Anonymous wrote (and not just because of the shoutout he gave me). You could just head over and read what he wrote and get everything worth knowing. Part of the problem with the social/political/whatever Christianity that is promoted in some of the responses(such as from one Episcopalian here and this Huffington Post article) is that all the articles, while trying to appear forceful, argumentative, and powerful, they all seem to lack a punch. When Diana Butler writes that the current blend of “liberal” Christianity is “a form of faith that cares for one’s neighbor, the common good, and fosters equality, but is, at the same time, a transformative personal faith that is warm, experiential, generous, and thoughtful,” I find myself struggling. Care for one’s neighbor, equality, common good – all fine things. But that whole “personal faith that is warm, experiential, generous, and thoughtful” – what does that even mean? However is the power of the Christ even expressed and lived out in a personal faith that appears to be limited to a touchy-feely identity? I find this narrowing of Christian identity to be so unrepresentative of the expansive nature of the Christian message.

To say that “this new expression of Christianity maintains the historic liberal passion for serving others but embraces Jesus’ injunction that a vibrant love for God is the basis for a meaningful life,” while powerful, fails to acknowledge a very vibrant and core element of Christian faith. As Father Annoymous wrote, Christianity, in its self-understanding, is about the salvation of souls from eternal damnation. I’m not sure why that key seems to be missing in many of the responses to Douthat’s article. Love of God, while commendable, isn’t enough. Social justice while commendable and biblical, is not the key element.

Rather, Christianity, at its core, is about death and resurrection. It is about a cross and a Jesus who is slaughtered, abandoned by his friends, and resurrected from the dead. Christianity is a personal faith but it cannot be left there. I think that is partially why Rachel Held Evans can feel trapped between two forms of Christian faith. Within her framework, she sees the progressive Christianity as heavily tied to a Liberal Christian theological framework (like the whole virgin birth is a myth thing, etc) and she struggles to find a place where her faith fits with a progressive agenda within the mainstream Protestant churches. I think her struggle is common and is a similar barrier that Ross Douthat thought he was approaching (and battling with) when he wrote his op-ed. For me, in both their arguments, I see a struggle with what happens to Christianity when it loses its core self-understanding. When death, resurrection, and salvation is removed from the equation, or at least left alone as an statement that is not implicitly stated, the socially liberal/progressive/whatever side of Christianity loses its teeth. We might talk a good game and might even believe ourselves when we make categorical statements like “I’m socially progressive because I’m conservative theologically,” but we turn Christianity into a hyper-focused faith of ethics, values, morality, and practices. Christianity is reduced to a series of practices that fall dangerously close to becoming a theology of glory. The Cross, in this kind of framework, loses its shock, horror, fear, mystery, and we lose our wonder, thankfulness, and trust in God’s love and grace. Salvation is left as a church word without meaning or substance and any sort of radical inclusiveness or welcome ends up reducing Christianity to a cultural expression of a specific time, place, people, and economic class. Christianity, in many ways, begins to feel less authentic because it loses its identity. Christianity is, and always should be, in the death and resurrection business. Because the amazing thing is that when Christianity lives, dwells, and breathes there – we are not left with merely doom, gloom, and fear. We are not reduced to being angry street preachers, protesting in front of Comic Con in San Diego, being mocked (brilliantly) by Deadpool. Because the reality is that death and resurrection are different sides of the same coin. It is not a place of easy answers or where sin (remember that word?) is erased or forgotten. It is a place where God lives, acts, dwells, and where we are covered by the breath of God through the Holy Spirit. It is terrifying, mystifying, incredible, and beautiful. We shouldn’t run away from that place or pretend that it doesn’t exist – which seems to be a mistake that all sides of the political Christian spectrum seem to do.

Proverbs 12, meet Mr. Oliver

On Thursday night, while Oliver was being born, I flipped open my ELW: Pastor Care Occasional Services, Readings, and Prayers, looking for anything that spoke to me. I dung threw the various chapters, flipped open a few psalms, and I was ready to post an angry blog post about how I didn’t see any prayers dealing with the birth of the baby. So, yes, while the miracle of life was happening, I was composing a blog post in my head for this website. Multi-tasking at its finest.

Alas, that angry blog post will never appear because I finally found those prayers this morning (that page in the table of contents just never materialized for some reason). So on Thursday night, I took part of my wife’s grandmother’s tradition and opened up Proverbs 12 (since it was the twelfth day of the month) for a little look-see. Here’s what I found.

Proverbs 12:4 “A good wife is the crown of her husband, but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones.” Funny, but not sure if this is the best thing to share with the wife in the middle of labor (but I did it anyways).

Proverbs 12:8 “One is commended for good sense, but a perverse mind is despised.” I hope this verse never discovers that things that I have laughed at on the internet (my love of animated gifs will never die).

Proverbs 12:10 “The righteous know the needs of their animals, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” Chula and Twinkie enjoy quoting this about 2 hours before their scheduled dinnertime, hoping it will trick me into feeing them early.

Proverbs 12:14 “From the fruit of the mouth one is filled with good things, and manual labor has its reward.” I’m not sure if programming on the internet and blogging counts as manual labor but I hope so.

Proverbs 12:15 “Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to advice.” I hope Oliver considers this when he is in high school.

Proverbs 12:24 “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the lazy will be put to forced labor.” This…this could be read dangerously I think. The poor are just lazy? Those who enslave are diligent? Are corporations diligent people? Etc. Etc.

Proverbs 12:25 “Anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up.” I experienced this all the time over the last five days.

Proverbs 12:28 “In the path of righteousness there is life, in walking its path there is no death.” I like this. I hope it suits you, kid.

“Liberal” Christianity: Can it be saved?

In tomorrow’s New York Times (well, at least its online component), Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved will grace the op-ed pages. In it, Ross Douthat (a convert to Catholicism if wikipedia is to be believed) accuses the current brand mainstream Protestant Churches of advocating for progressive causes while ignoring their own dramatic drop in church membership. Ross describes the current Episcopal church as “flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.” This paintbrush covers the Lutherans as well. In it, obviously, are thoughts that each of these things in the list is “wrong.” Indifference in dogma is bad as well as sexual liberation (feminine, queer, etc). And, if this list is to be believed, all of these things are a cornerstone of mainstream Protestant Churches and all are, to some degree, lead to the others. Liberal Christianity, in Ross’s eyes, has been hijacked and its roots lost. For Ross, the true cornerstone of Liberal Christianity is that these branches of faith believe that “faith should spur social reform as well as personal conversion.” Ross doesn’t want this type of voice to disappear. For the mainstream churches who are “liberal,” Ross believes that their voice can only continue to play an important role in the nation if they switch where their identity of faith comes from. Ross calls for these churches to ground themselves in an apologetic defense of “historical,” “dogmatic” Christianity, which Ross believes is where the Social Gospel and Civil Rights movement drew its fuel and power.

I think it would be shocking to see any columnist who converted to Catholicism who would not make this same argument. The words “dogmatic” and “historical” are always loaded words and for a catholic op-ed writer, I read his argument to explictly point to a call for a return to Rome. Ross never says this but his use of the phrase, implying that dogmatic and historical Christianity contains the “true” and complete New Testament message, easily points to a Roman centric point of view. And, if you think about it, it should for him. Why belong to a tradition and not support it when you can? Of course Ross doesn’t admit to this bias and point of view. He fails to say that “historical Christianity” is a completely loaded term. In fact, it is just as loaded as the phrase “Liberal Christianity” as well.

I’ve argued before in this blog (and elsewhere) that the political term liberal does not fit when it comes to Christianity. Ross makes the mistake of using liberal correctly (in describing the theology of Bishop Spong) but misuses the term when he applies it to progressive causes. A liberal Christianity does not mean, as it is implied in Ross’s op-ed, that it is a Christianity that fails to take theology (whether historical or current) seriously. Liberal and progressive Christians spend quite a bit of time, energy, ink, and pixels highlighting and arguing their points of view. Many of the liberal Christian thinkers that are currently practicing today (and that I personally know) have always been heavily engaged with theology and thinking about their faith. They have dug into the New Testament, into their traditions, and discovered a form of Christianity that invigorates and gives them life. A serious reflection on Christianity is not limited to only a defense of the thoughts that have been generated in the past. Rather, a life-giving Christianity can very much be a serious, honest, and solid grasp of the present day. A liberal Christian’s theology is not automatically less serious than a more dogmatic one and any article that tries to make such an argument (or give off that impression) is going to fail to engage its opponent truthfully.

And I think that lack of engagement with liberal Christianity is what dooms Ross’s article even if I do agree with directions in his thinking. I think he misses when he characterizes the Episcopalian church, and its leadership, as being too flexible. He fails to point out that liturgy, not theology, is the cohesive core of the Episcopal church and that this focuses allows it to have a bishop like Spong and theologically dogmatic bishops that would make Ross look theologically liberal. What Ross is really failing to do is to contextualize himself – his own Roman Catholicism and admitt that his vision of what’s “historical” is the lens through which he judges the mainstream Protestant Churches. To say that the liberal theology that led to the development of the Social Gospel is the same kind of theology that led to the Civil Rights movement (which neo-orthodoxy helped fuel, in my opinion) is also a failure to contextualize the term “liberal” as well. Ross makes the mistake of removing the history from that phrase. He is left with an empty shell of a term that is then shoved with a political and contemporary identity that it cannot effectively contain.

What Ross fails to realize (and its embarrassing since he’s only a few years older than me) is the demographic reality of the churches that he is talking about. These churches are fueled by the baby boomers, a generation where independence and a running away from institutions was their defining characteristic. The churches that thrived (conservative Arminian theology centers) replaced institutions with their own while the mainstream Protestants lost members because their developing sense of identity threw around the word inclusive while failing to give their communities a reality that there is a cost to be a Christian. The churches lost members because they failed to tell people that there is a personal cost to living and being an active member of this church. These churches, as they grew older, thought that the word “inclusive” allowed people, ministers, and congregants to be passive in aspects of their faith because they saw faith as being private, personal, and isolated from the outside world. We failed to keep members because we failed to take seriously what it means to be evangelists and we left that to the inheritors of the circuit riders, the preaching farmers, and the other arminianism churches that exist now. “What Would Jesus Do” was a Social Gospel generated saying that now lives in non-mainstream Protestant churches. Ross’s lack of historical knowledge paints the mainstream Protestant churches as the holders of the Social Gospel tradition. They’re not. They are the holders of a tradition of changing demographics that embraced a privatization of faith in an institution that is, at its nature is public, communal, and relies on the existence of others. What Ross doesn’t realize is that his call for a dogmatic historical faith is really should be a call for authenticity (an authenticity that Rome, in my opinion, fails at as well). And any true call for authenticity is also going to be a call for individuals, communities, and churches to be places where there is a cost for belonging to them. That is why the Prosperity Gospel churches grew. That is why the non-denominational churches grew. But even they will collapse when their authentic expressions are reduced to personality cults and cultural hopes. The mainstream protestants churches will thrive once they put their feet down and draw lines in the sand. They need to admit where they stand. They might not grow large but they will thrive because the reality is that the millenials, those young folks who are willing to commit themselves to instutitions, they are looking for those places to call home. I have no idea if the Episcopal Church or the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will ever get to that point but I do know that there are quite a few of us coming up the ranks that are gonna give it a try.

We wait three days because that’s how long Jesus wants us to wait.

I know, I know, this is old, but K and I are working our way through “How I Met Your Mother” on Netflix and, well, I loved this.

However, as much as I believe in the “wait three days” rule (though I don’t think I ever followed it), I grew up on the following version:

So, I’m torn. Now that I’m in seminary, do I wait three days, like Jesus, or six days? This…this is the kind of information that should be taught in seminary – something practical, hands on, something that we can use. This is probably why I shouldn’t design seminary curriculums.

Wait, There are Martin Luther Pickup Lines?

Ah the New York Post, is there nothing you won’t print? Seems that a jilted lover filed a complaint about his ex-girlfriend who became a priest shortly after they broke up. Nothing from the report sounds all that shocking. It sounds as if two 30 somethings had a relationship, did relationship type things, said stupid relationship type things, and one got so hurt, they complained to a newspaper and a bishop about it. Who hasn’t been there?

Now, it is 100% the rule that a minister shouldn’t date someone in the pew (“Don’t Do the Pew” is a very apt and very normal way for seminarians to describe their classes in shorthand) and even though it doesn’t seem like she was his pastor (and, I’m sorry world, but if you’re gonna date someone in ministry, they’re gonna pray sometimes), it might have been best if she dated someone not in her church. But, either way, it happened, it ended, and it’ll be interesting to see if the presiding bishop does anything about it. But what really struck me was this quote:

She also jokingly cited a “theological justification” for their unholy hookups, loosely quoting Martin Luther: “God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Sin boldly! Be a sinner and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger.”

THERE ARE MARTIN LUTHER PICKUP LINES? WHY DIDN’T I KNOW THIS?

Actually, this quote is probably the Martin Luther quote I hear the most during my time in seminary (you can even buy it on a pint glass). The quote is usually used to justify all sorts of behavior and to make us feel better about ourselves. And, well, I’m not even sure what the context of the quote comes from. But what is great about that quote is that it highlights the one thing we really want to hear (sin boldly) while ignoring the main point of Luther’s quote (let your trust in Christ be stronger). It’s a fun quote! And I love that the Post (and the jilted lover) used it as a way to denigrate the priest. Sin Boldly you say? SIN BOLDLY? HOW DARE THEY? It’s great. It’s as if “people of the cloth” aren’t human or something.

Though naked Skype? Man – lets hope he didn’t save those files like he saved everything else. Oi. That stuff is why the internet is dangerous.