This is a bumper sticker I saw as I was leaving the Church we’ve been attending over the past 4 weeks. Since we have a Carry-in picnic kind of deal happening tonight, maybe I can find out who that is. I thought as I sat today, that I don’t know how much longer I can NOT turn to the Church for a “sure-fire” source of theological and moral dissent from the madness of war and justifying war. I read Brian McLaren’s article in Sojounrners this month about how to speak to your Church during elections.

McLaren relates this (after using any or all of the first 3 options over the years, 1. Ignore the election completely 2. Remind people to vote as their Christian civic duty, and leave it at that
3. Preach on the moral issues related to the election about which my congregation is already in agreement.)

This year, compelled by what’s going on in our country and world, I hope to try a fourth option:

4. Preach and educate on the moral issues related to the election about which my congregation is not already in agreement.

I absolutely do not envy the task of pastors who feel that they are a bit more convinced than their parishioners that the options for peace and the stance of Jesus against violence as a solution is getting far less “play time” than is healthy.

I know of the fine balance between teaching and clubbing (as in overzealous, low on patience immediate condemnation; while this certainly has its merits, as in, it is apparent that Churches need to hear somethign like “wake up American Christians , while several of your deepest beliefs about the role of democracy in the life of a Christian are under siege”, I honestly don’t know what “would work”. I can safely say that the answer lies somewhere in my bloggish rants and concerns thus expresed, and a more patient but determined set of goals to “preach it”. Not near as far, however, as the scenario McLaren sets forth as the “wait till society itself changes”

(McLaren descibes it:Another option: Avoid the subject of racism for 30 or 40 years, until other larger forces have already brought a change in the thinking of my people. Then I could preach about it with gusto)

For one thing, I’m not sure this kind of issue will ever “finally dawn on us” like that of blatant institutional racism. War and the tendency toward complicity and overt, tacit, or silent approval, and on the other end, silent disapproval, will always be with us. This is a much larger myth that is hidden from us (or from society at large) by powerful media forces, and the buffer of national borders which shield us from the impact of the actions being carried out. The fact that this time, we were witness to somethign on our soil, makes the impact even greater, but I’m also concerned that the “responses” fall into the same “shielded” category, on which we depend upon a media that is usualy suspect in its willingness or ability to tell all we really need to know.

The Churches have a double whammy placed on them. The Religious Right has more or less succeeded in aligning the Church with the empire (and that too, is an age old problem). Among people who attend Church regularly, I think it’s something like 70% that vote Republican. That percentage is lower among mainline denominations (other than the Southern Baptists, who skew the numbers up to that 70% by virtue of their sheer size and ultra-conservative bent over the past 25 years). The denominational heirarchies , an even larger percentage are less “pro-American” and voicing more concern over the direction the US has taken since 9/11.

The reason why is rather simple. The mainline denominations study theology, ethics, and the Biblical message. The Southern Baptists, who still had seminiaries teaching a well-rounded curriculum in 1978-81, and the other large denominations, had among its leadership a wide exposure to many approaches to what “heeding the Biblical message” really means for us today. The Southern Baptists have completely abandoned that approach and capitulated to a highly dogmatic and narrow interpretation of the Bible, and have required its employees and seminiaries to tow the line; and applied litmus tests to “weed out” the infidels. Most of those have joind the ranks of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, who remain in the Baptist Wold Alliance, from which the Southern Baptist withdrew this past year as criticism from other Baptists in the world upset their nationalistic theology sensibilities. They accused the BWA of being “too-Anti-American” (it was actually first on their list of grievances).

I read people like Tony Campolo, Ron Sider, Walter Wink, Robert McAfee Brown, Gordon Cosby and Elizabeth O’Connor (who spoke out of their experiences with the Church of the Saviour in Washington DC, and have been active for years in Peace Emphasizing Church Missions), Jim Wallis and Sojourners, John Alexander of The Other Side, Martin Luther King, Jr. , and many many others. Their message has been rather plainspoken about what they see as the very CLEAR call to the people of God to peacemakers, and this moves WAY beyond simply leaving that up to the militaristic solutions of Empire.

Walter Wink has written several books in a Series that describe “The Powers” (the one I have “Engaging the Powers” is a fascinating Biblical exploration of the “Principalities and Powers” of Scripture), and I have pulled it off the bookshelf to sit in the “to be re-examined” pile of books. I also have “Violence Unveiled” by Gil Bailie , which I bought at the Potter’s House Bookstore when I visited Washington DC in 1996 , and attended the ecumencial service of The Church of the Saviour, and then had lunch a few days later at The Potter’s House and sat and talked with a half dozen people including Gordon Cosby. Violence Unveiled is another “must revisit”.

I also will be checking out the bookshelves at Borders a little later here , looking for some Stanley Hauweras books (Stanley Hauerwas is Gilbert T. Rowe professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School and the author of many books including The Peaceable Kingdom, After Christendom, and most recently With the Grain of the Universe……bio line from Sojourners mag

It’s about time to do that now, so I’ll be back later.