Hacking Christianity

Several understandings of Christianity and Christian traditions place the authority of the church and the family in the man's hands.  But what happens when men take too much authority and beat their spouses with those hands?

According to a Southern Baptist Convention professor, much of the blame is in the man's hands...but the blame is also put into women who do not accept their authority.

From EthicsDaily:

One reason that men abuse their wives is because women rebel against their husband's God-given authority, a Southern Baptist scholar said Sunday in a Texas church.

This merits a new category at hx.net...let's call it a classy.hack: blaming the victim.   It's probably a subcategory of a bad.hack.

Bruce Ware, professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said women desire to have their own way instead of submitting to their husbands because of sin.

"And husbands on their parts, because they're sinners, now respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged--or, more commonly, to become passive, acquiescent, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men in their homes and in churches," Ware said from the pulpit of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas.

Violence in intimate relationships is never acceptable and is never justified.  I accept that Ware is not justifying men's actions so much as seeking out the root of the problem.  However, I don't think blaming the victims (often wives and spouses) for being too uppity is the way to go.

Thoughts?  Do battered women challenge a "God-given" authority in ways that lead men to abuse them? Or is this just classy?

I want to clarify I'm not picking on the SBC, but I am picking on public statements and theological points presented that I do not think are reflective of a helpful and empowering Christian ethic.

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My only criticism?  It's the ESV version which is not as inclusive language as the NRSV.  But it's freer than the NRSV to copy and paste, I'm sure!

Thanks yipeng!

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There's a book called "Overheard in New York" which details overheard everyday conversations.  Most of it is salty language, but there's some gems in it. From the website:

20-something tall black bellhop: I challenge you, right now, to a salsa dance-off.
70-year-old short Latino bellhop: Go get a radio.

Father to little daughter: You are the most beautiful girl in this photo... and I'm not biased. (daughter smiles)
Father: Do you know what "biased" means?
Daughter (rolling her eyes): Yes, it means that you like both boys and girls.

Little tourist boy: Mommy! Look, that lady is a Nazi!
Frazzled tourist mom: What? Oh... Honey, that nice lady is hailing a cab, not Hitler.

The voyeuristic pleasure we get from these conversations is not only their hilarity, but the fact that they were situational, meant to flitter away like bubbles in the park.  The participants never expected anyone to write them down and immortalize them on the Internets.

This started me thinking on the overheard Gospel.   Often at coffeeshops (where I used to write my seminary papers), my ears would perk up whenever I heard a theological conversation.  I listened to marital counseling, anti-mormon tirades, and agnostic ponderings.  Occasionally I joined in. I wouldn't have written down the conversations, and the discussants never intended to either.

Until the internet came.  C. Scott Andreas expounds:

Unlike conversations over coffee that pass into the air, dialogue in the blogosphere can be searched and referenced by others in the future.

"A Networked E-cclesia" in Wikiklesia: Volume One

The ripple effect of our words and our proclamation of the Gospel is much wider than before.  What is said locally on the streets of New York becomes a global-selling book.  What we say on one blog can be referenced by another blog on the other side of the globe.  Indeed, before a person is told of the Good News of Christ...chances are that she has overheard the Gospel already! 

The lesson here?  We must act in Christlike ways at all times.  In all our actions, we are to speak the truth in appropriate ways.  When I was struggling with this blog with a pastor colleague, my colleague said to me "Whenever I post, I make certain that I would be comfortable saying this publicly to anyone."  And it is good advice: because ANYONE can READ THE BLOG!

While we laugh when a risque photo causes a supermodel to lose her crown, or when John McCain hates bloggers, or over the conversations of New Yorkers...we must remember that the Overheard Gospel is just as immortalized on the internets.  Google indexes everything.  Even your blog posts.  I read my old ones from 6 years ago and am aghast at how I worded things...I was really mean!

• There's the quote "You may be the only Bible the person you meet today ever reads."  
• I think there's an internet-age addendum: "You may be the only Bible the person you don't meet today ever reads."  

So in all things, allow peaceful language and powerful encouragement to fall from your fingers onto the screen.  A random google search may bring someone to them in a time of need, and what you say may forever impact them.  What possibility in such few words!

Thoughts?  How has the much longer lasting ripples of the internet affected the way you do ministry or talk about God/politics/hamsters?

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This is excellent! Kids version of her 1,2,3,4 song!

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Is Methodism Protestant?

This seems like a ridiculous question for a United Methodist clergyperson to ask the Internets, but someone asked and my answer was insufficient for them.  I ask now because I've always considered Methodism to not really be from the Protestant branch but closer to the Anglican Church, which does not consider itself to be Protestant.

Consider:

• John Wesley lived and died an Anglican clergyperson.
• John Wesley started a revival within the Anglican church which then became the Methodist Episcopal Church.  The "Episcopal" moniker acknowledged its heritage with the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Anglican Church. 
• The First General Conference defined the Methodist Church to be "an Episcopal Church."
• Our Liturgy is closely patterned after the Book of Common Prayer.
• Why is this important?  The Anglican Church doesn't consider itself to be Protestant! From Wikipedia:

The question often arises as to whether the Anglican Communion should be identified as a Protestant or Catholic church, or perhaps as a distinct branch of Christianity altogether. The official position of the Anglican Communion is that, like the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions, it is a full and distinct branch of the "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church," created by Christ.

• Finally, David Hempton writes in his book Methodism: Empire of the Spirit that:

Although it had deep roots in the Pietist traditions that came out of the European Reformation, Methodism, it should not be forgotten, arose directly out of Anglicanism and expanded into those parts of the world where Anglicans and English speakers migrated.

page 204

Opposing considerations

• Theologically, John Wesley was influenced heavily by Arminianism, which identifies itself from the Protestant Reformation
• Through our mergers (especially with the Evangelical United Brethren and Methodist Protestant Church) we have much tradition in the Protestant Church in today's church.
• While there is great diversity in United Methodist worship, the Protestant worship style and format is predominant in the South and the Midwest.

Your turn:

Forgive me if this is stupid, but it's a question of identifying between Protestant practices and Anglican DNA.

• If the Anglican Communion considers itself a separate branch of Christianity from Protestantism, does Methodism do the same?  
• Or does Protestant polity and practice outweigh its Anglican DNA?

Addendum:

• Protestantism defined as "any non-Catholic church" is probably not helpful.  Why? From Wikipedia:

While the faiths and churches born directly or indirectly of the Protestant Reformation constitute Protestantism, in common usage, the term is often used in contradistinction to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.^[3] This usage is imprecise, however, as there are non-Roman Catholic and non-Eastern Orthodox traditions that predate the Reformation (notably Oriental Orthodoxy). The Anglican tradition, although historically influenced by the Protestant Reformation in what is called the English Reformation, differs from many Reformation principles and understands itself to be a middle path—a via media—between Roman Catholic and Protestant doctrines. Other groups, such as the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, reject traditional Protestantism as another deviation from true Christianity, while perceiving themselves to be restorationists.

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The two ladies at the end make the video.

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This is a short, simple hack anyone can do.

Like Windsor Hills Baptist Church (I used to know people there!) in Oklahoma City, to get people to come to their youth rally (last year, by the way, they had a shooting competition).

I don't need to explain it.  Just don't do it.

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This summer I'm doing a sermon series on the Apostle's Creed, drawing from Justo L. Gonzalez's book The Apostles' Creed for Today, in an attempt to help the Creed make sense to our contemporary views.  Some parts will be reconciled, some parts may have to be left out.  But hopefully you'll never read the Apostle's Creed the same way again!
 

In both the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's Prayer, they begin with similar words:

• I believe in God the Father,
• Our Father, who art in heaven.

In both these prayers, they both right out of the gate affirm God as father.

For some of us, this is a comforting image, God as a nurturing parent, who is strong and willing to save God's children. But for others, a patriarchal God whose gender represents violence and authoritarianism...this is a troubling image indeed.

Today, many do not recite that section of the creed like we skip the parts in Methodist hymns that we don't like...like acting like we are coughing when reciting blood language or military hymns. The image of God as male is too broken, too hurtful: the male God has legitimized man as the head of families and has neglected the talents of women in the parish.

Is this first line of the Apostle's Creed reconcilable?  We must see why it was written that way to find out.

We think of Fathers as loving and close to us. My lay leader a few weeks ago preached about fathers who are dedicated to their families. The example was Joseph, who even though his young bride was pregnant with a child not his own, he stayed with her. We think of Fathers, at least stereotypically, as loving and close to us.

This would be a foreign concept to the writers of the Creed.

In the Roman Empire, the father was the paterfamilias, the master and distant figure to his children. Children and slaves alike were not "close" to their paterfamilias. It was more like a kingdom where the father rules all, all children bow to him, he could kill his own children or offer them the reins of the family. The paterfamilias ruled all.  In fact, fathers did not touch their children, give them hugs, but would only touch them to render punishment, or to pass on the family on their deathbed to their successor.

So the image of father was not loving, but of power and authority.  When they spoke of God as Father, the image is not one of love and closeness, but of power and authority.  God the Father is the paterfamilias more powerful than all other paterfamiliases. "He" is the pater-paterfamilias, the father above all other fathers, with more earthly authority than the highest of other families.

In feminist theology, we subvert the image of God as Father. To show aspects of God as mother.  But we see here that the image of God as father was already subversive and counter-cultural.  By the naming of God as Father, early Christians affirmed the power of God and limited the power and authority of earthly fathers.

Matt 23:9, and call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father -- the one in heaven.

By using the Creed in this way, the people were saying good news to those who suffer under paterfamiliases.  Paterfamiliases no longer held total power over you, you unloved son, you daughter soon to be sold as property, you slave, you spouse. There is a stronger father to whom you are a child. And this father has authority over all the earth!

This was subversive and dangerous! If a Christian said this in the Roman Empire, they would be effectively saying "I now belong to another household" which may lead to earthly wrath!  Jesus says as much in the Gospel of Matthew. He says he has come to set son against father, daughter against mother. If a son becomes Christian in a pagan household, there would be wrath, punishment, even death at the hands of the family's very father!

We can now see this Creedal section in a new light.  Perhaps the Creed isn't endorsing God to be male, but is saying this: you can be part of a new family that isn't part of a bloodline. You who suffer under a paterfamilias can become part of God's family.  In short, by declaring God to be Father, the Creed was subverting Fatherhood as it was then understood...claimed a higher father than the bloodline of the paterfamilias.  Creedal compilers used the term "God the Father" to empower and embolden the underprivileged to draw closer to God, even if it meant they were cast out of their earthly families.

So, what are we to do with this image?  Certainly Feminist theology can accept an originally subversive father God, right?  Well...no. 

• God's power is depicted as analogous to the power-over structure that paterfamiliases enjoy.  This type of hierarchical power does not sit well with feminist and especially process viewpoints of God.
• In worship.hacks, we are sensitive to language and images of God.  Even if the Father language for God was meant to subvert and to challenge, it is still gendered language for God without a proper balance.  No matter the intent and the history, the effect is always to present God as male.  Which is problematic.

These concerns, even against the possible intent of the writers of the Creed, render it a difficult line to manage in the context of Worship.

What's the worship.hack?  Perhaps the hack here is to do what the Creed compilers did: affirm an image of God that fills the hole in your life.   "God the Father" was placed in juxtaposition to the powerful paterfamiliases.  Perhaps then we can replace "God the Father" with "God the Mother" who tenderly cares for you even when your own mother has failed you.  Or "God the Creator" who makes all things for the good...even you.  Or "God the Coach" who affirms your contributions even from the bench.

If you feel comfortable, while in the worship service, say a different role in place of "Father" if that's what empowers you.  That's what the Creedal writers did, and it's OK for you to do so as well. People may yell at you and say by changing the words of the Creed you aren't really reciting it.  Just tell them you are "hacking Christianity" and they will understand.  Maybe. :-)

The hack here is to re-claim the original intent behind the Creed and translate it for today, not to throw it out completely. That's what we're gonna be doing in this sporadic summer series, and I hope you enjoy the next several ones too.

Thoughts?  Comments are welcome and first-time visitors are welcome too!

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Image via WikipediaThere's something balanced about Chess-Boxing.  Yin and Yang.  Smarts and Brute Force.  Delicate finger movements and hard punches.  Nerds and Testosterone.

Check out how it works:

The matches work like this: competitors alternate between three-minute rounds of boxing and four-minute rounds of speed chess with one-minute breaks in between to get the gloves off and hunker down at the chess table. The winner is determined by knockout, checkmate, or referee decision.

Hilarious.  I've never heard of it until recently, but the more I read about it, the more convinced I am this is the best biathlon I've ever seen. 

Any chess-boxing fans on here?  Can this become part of the World's Strongest Man tourney, which my friend Mike introduced me to in a bar in Boston?

Only time will tell.

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There's a controversy airing right now: a student went up to receive communion during Mass, and instead of ingesting the elements, he took home the blessed element.

Now he's getting death threats.  And the Catholic League is up in arms.  But what might have ignited this firestorm was not a student's malicious intent, but an act of inhospitality.  Read on for more.

In the media fracas, some Catholic officials are lapsing into hyperbole:

“We don’t know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was,” said Susan Fani a spokesperson with the local Catholic diocese.  “However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.”

We just expect the University to take this seriously,” she added “To send a message to not just Mr. Cook but the whole community that this kind of really complete sacrilege will not be tolerated.”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue offered the following remarks today:

“For a student to disrupt Mass by taking the Body of Christ hostage—regardless of the alleged nature of his grievance—is beyond hate speech. That is why the UCF administration needs to act swiftly and decisively in seeing that justice is done. All options should be on the table, including expulsion.”

To remove the Eucharist from the community is not a Hate Crime.

• Hate Crimes are acts of aggression against a person who is representative of a group of people.  
• Hate Crimes are intended to cause terror and fear amongst ALL members of a specific group of people

What the student did was a violation of the sacred trust of communion, and a mortal sin according to Catholic doctrine.  Yes.

But a hate crime, intentionally wounding a group of people? No.

In fact, when you read the student's remarks, what caused him to remove the Eucharist in the first place?

Cook claims he planned to consume it, but first wanted to show it to a fellow student senator he brought to Mass who was curious about the Catholic faith.

I'm not up on Catholic doctrine, but while that may be a poor time to evangelize, the student seemed to have a non-malicious reason.  It doesn't excuse him, let's be clear, but puts it into perspective.  And what happened next?

"When I received the Eucharist, my intention was to bring it back to my seat to show him," Cook said. "I took about three steps from the woman distributing the Eucharist and someone grabbed the inside of my elbow and blocked the path in front of me. At that point I put it in my mouth so they'd leave me alone and I went back to my seat and I removed it from my mouth.

"A church leader was watching, confronted Cook and tried to recover the sacred bread. Cook said she crossed the line and that's why he brought it home with him.

"She came up behind me, grabbed my wrist with her right hand, with her left hand grabbed my fingers and was trying to pry them open to get the Eucharist out of my hand," Cook said, adding she wouldn't immediately take her hands off him despite several requests.

A single act of inhospitality to a student who was being disrespectful.  That's what started this whole thing. And since then the student has been a bit belligerent and outspoken against the Church, and while his behavior is not great, the response is far more harsh.

I know this is he-said, she-said at this point, but the fact of the matter is that taking the Eucharist home is not a hate crime.  Burning a Cross in someone's lawn?  Carving "lesbian" into a girl's forearm?  Those are hate crimes.  This.  No.

Thoughts?

• Is this a controversy?  
• Is this an act of radical inhospitality?  
• Is this one student's agenda taken to an extreme? 

I don't know, but I do know one thing: this is not a hate crime.  Don't water down the experience of all those who have been victims of hate crimes.  Because this is not a hate crime.

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