Musings of an Anxious Patriot

This weekend is the annual celebration of the day the American colonists' Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence—July 4, 1776.

We’ll fly our flag proudly at home. Actually, we’ll fly three flags: one will fly on a staff over our curbside mailbox, and two smaller ones will be on display in the flower beds. We’ll grill hot dogs and possibly watch the movie version of the Broadway show, “1776.” We missed the show last year, but it’s become something of a 4^th of July tradition at our house since we first watched it with part of our extended family when we were vacationing in Fairbanks, Alaska eight years ago.

I am a veteran. I’m no hero. I was in the Marine Band at Quantico, Virginia until August, 1967, when I left for Vietnam. Before the Tet Operation in early 1968 I was primarily a trombone player in the 3^rd Marine Division Band in Phu Bai (about 14 miles south of the ancient citadel of Hue). When the Tet Operation erupted, the division moved to Quang Tri (just south of the DMZ), where we put our instruments away and served in various combat operations until I rotated out and came home. We rarely engaged the enemy.

I stand for the National Anthem. I place my right hand over my heart and frequently get misty; although, I bear no disrespect or ill will toward those who exercise their first amendment rights to kneel in protest of injustices that scarcely can be denied.

Occasionally I go online and watch a video of some Marine band on parade, and I get teary-eyed and experience a thrill when they hit those opening notes of the Marine Hymn.

I vote in every election, and frequently contact the legislators who represent my area. And I have served in public office.

So, I consider myself a patriot, and will celebrate the birth of our nation on Saturday.

But on Sunday, I will be in church to worship God and to give thanks for God’s grace. And in God’s sanctuary my patriotism will not express itself in celebration, but in repentance and prayers for forgiveness and healing. As the hymn says, “America! America! God mend thine every flaw.” And flaws abound. Nothing positive or constructive ever has emerged in the history of humanity from any mixture of patriotism and religion.

On Sunday I will pray that God will forgive the divisive, intolerant hatred that has infected the country I am proud to have served, and I will pray that God will heal our land. And no matter how passionately it is denied, hatred—some directed at specific people and some just ambiguous and generalized—is the root sin of our nation. It manifests itself most destructively in what has been called religious nationalism.

So, I’ll fly the flag on Saturday, and celebrate the nation that was “…conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”[1] I’ll celebrate the great vision that propelled our forebears: the vision articulated on our Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

But on Sunday I’ll pray for forgiveness for what America instead has become and for the people destroyed in process of becoming what we are. And I will pray for reconciliation among the diverse peoples still at enmity within our borders, so that the vision in which America was conceived actually might be realized someday.

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14 NRSV)

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] From Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Come, Holy Spirit!

This may not be the best time for me to write. My heart is heavy—grieving. I’m not angry; although, anger surrounds us and increasingly becomes the norm among some parts of our American population. I’m sure I’ll be angry at some point. Anger is a normal part of grief.

I find myself on the verge—and sometimes into the abyss—of tears more and more frequently. I recall that dreadful news clip of the fiery crash of the Hindenburg, and the sobbing voice of the reporter, “Oh! The humanity! The humanity!”

How calloused have we become when we so rarely are moved to tears at the sight of human suffering? What hideous kind of demon possesses one human to kneel on the neck of another human—a human who is face-down on the ground, handcuffed, with two other humans kneeling on his back—a human who is crying, “I can’t breathe! Please!”? And what kind of inhuman creature looks on, apparently more concerned about the camera that is recording it all than about the human who is gasping for his dying breath?

“Kneeling on a man’s neck is an extreme and dangerous step, well out of bounds for ordinary police procedures. The kneeling officer appears to have a long track record of complaints.”[1] I’ve seen three videos, each from a different perspective. In none of them did it appear that Floyd was resisting or uncooperative.

I know: there is a report that George Floyd had preconditions “including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease”; and the preliminary autopsy showed, “no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.” The report said death likely was caused by the "combined effect of Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions, and any potential intoxicants in his system.”[2]

Does such an analysis diminish the inhumanity of three humans sworn “to serve and protect?” As a medical layman I have to ask, “Would such unnecessary use of force exacerbate the preexisting factors, thereby possibly—even probably—contributing to Floyd’s death?”

But, I linger too long on one specific instance, when my grief is over the increasing commonness of justifying inhuman behavior on the basis of ideological absolutism. The controversy over where to stand in relation to George Floyd’s death appears to line up consistently with every other controversy in America: conservatives line up against liberals.

There seems little possibility that there ever will be an issue in which both liberals and conservatives agree. And there seems little possibility ever again that those disagreements will be pursued with respect and integrity. I see very little indication that anyone on either side wants to resolve any of the issues that divide them. Most just want to win the fight.

And so, I grieve. And the tears come more frequently.

We are watching something cancerous grow faster and faster each cay. It is, in my estimation, the satanic spawn of absolutized individualism run amok. Don’t misunderstand. I serve a master whose sacrificial love for individuals is unsurpassed in human history. But, Ayn Rand notwithstanding, the master I serve also called his followers to love one another sacrificially, to serve one another in humility, even to the point of washing one another’s feet, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. And he defined one’s neighbor in his Parable of the Good Samaritan—a parable, incidentally, about reaching across lines of ethnicity to serve anyone who is in need.

The individual is important, and the individual’s importance is embellished in service to other individuals. Our individual importance reaches its highest potential when we “lose ourselves”. All four gospels report Jesus saying, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39 NRSV). I like the way the Message Paraphrase puts it: “If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.”

I write as a Christian Pastor to Christians; however, Christians are as divided and as hostile as the rest of the culture (which is a primary reason the church has been in decline for a half-century), and I struggle to find hope that peace and reconciliation can come from Christianity so divided. Therefore, my appeal is to all who are of a similar mindset, regardless of your spiritual base. I believe respect, integrity and compassion have no ideological or credal boundaries, and that people of all spiritualities can unite in the effort to be agents of healing and reconciliation.

Today is Pentecost. Christians celebrate it as the birthday of the church and recite the biblical story of the Holy Spirit of God descending upon a broken, frightened little band of Jesus’ disciples. The Spirit filled them, and they turned the world upside down. I suspect that our nation will not be healed by human effort apart from that same Spirit.

So, come Holy Spirit. Come as wind and breathe into us a passion for the humility of Jesus, who washed his disciples’ feet.

Come Holy Spirit. Come as fire and burn away all the divisive arrogance that solidifies our human understandings of your purpose.

Come Holy Spirit. Come as a dove and bring us peace.

That’s the way it looks through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/george-floyd-death-minneapolis-riots-justice-requires-order/. I point out that the “National Review” is a conservative source. The inherent danger of such restraint was reported in several additional sources.

[2] https://www.insider.com/george-floyd-non-responsive-before-officer-took-knee-off-neck-2020-5

Indivisible

I don’t recall how it began, but yesterday I was thinking about that phrase in our Pledge of Allegiance: “…under God…” Apparently there are some people who oppose it, if social media posts can be trusted. Frankly, I don’t remember any comments to that effect. What I do remember is a lot of social media posts defending it in ways that make it seem there is a concerted, organized attack on it.

Anyway, it occurred to me that the implication is strong, if not intended, that being “one nation under God” is what makes us “indivisible.” The two concepts at least are related; therefore, what can be concluded from the obvious: that the United States a is not, in fact, one nation indivisible—under God or otherwise? We are a divided nation, a “nation coming apart at the seams, a nation in which each tribe has its own narrative and the narratives are generally resentment narratives."[1]

I expect the knee-jerk response is, “I and my tribe are under God. If everyone would just be like us, we’d be indivisible!” It may describe “undivided;” however, it does not describe “united”, as in States of America. It describes uniformity. There’s a difference. Uniformity is related much more closely to satisfaction and complacency than to growth and progress.

If we truly desire to be indivisible as a nation, why aren’t we engaging in efforts toward reconciliation and unity, instead of raging at each other over the slightest differences of opinion.

Some things are clear: first, we’ll never agree about what “under God” means. One source identifies 35 Protestant Denominations in the USA, most of them sub-divided into numerous branches and schisms. The founders of the denomination I serve envisioned a Christian coop through which could be realized their proposition “That the Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one…”[2] Today their “Restoration Movement” to unite all Christendom is splintered into three distinct (and often antagonistic) denominations.

Christian history is a chronicle of uninterrupted human division. Furthermore, in this land of religious freedom, the number of Protestant Denominations doesn’t begin to account for the variety of ways in which deity is perceived and worshiped. 

So, how do all those denominations and schisms emerge? Some charismatic person becomes convinced that he or she has a unique and unerring insight into God’s will and intention and convinces a group of followers to break away with him or her. The power behind most schisms is the magnetic persuasiveness of the founder who has a splinter of truth, rather than the presence and leading of the Spirit of God in whom alone dwells absolute truth. [The Protestant Reformation, perceived by Protestants (sic) as a valid response to corrupt leadership in the Mother Church, notwithstanding. In most cases I expect every schism represents itself as “restoring true faith;” but that’s another blog.]

We can’t agree on who God is or how we are to relate to God; nor can we agree on what it means to be God’s people. Therefore, we render the term, “under God,” essentially meaningless.

A second clear reality is that our current strategy of insulting and vilifying and demonizing everyone who disagrees with us cannot possibly be considered a faithful embodiment of the presence of God under whom we claim to be “indivisible”. Such interpersonal animosity has not produced—nor will it ever produce—indivisibility; nor has it created—or will it ever create—a climate in which an indivisible nation can thrive or even emerge.

Finally, the familiar tactic of demanding conformity to our own ideology has been equally unproductive in affecting any kind of indivisibility. I’ve said before: my favorite definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and expecting a different result.

The greatest irony of all is that out of the vast variety of Christian doctrinal communities, the consensus message perceived by a “spiritually yearning, institutionally pissed off public”[3] is that we really don’t believe what we claim to believe. We are perceived as hypocrites. 

We wave the “Grace” flag, as if we really believe it: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9 NRSV). Most of us who grew up in the church can sing “Amazing Grace” from memory. 

But an overwhelming number of professing Christians don’t believe it, if their witness by word and deed is accurate. What too many professing Christians’ lives testify—and the consensus stereotype by which that spiritually disillusioned public judges us all—is that we are saved by affirming correct doctrine—being “right”--and excluding everyone who doesn't affirm our correct doctrine.

I’m just not willing to bet my eternal destiny on the correctness of doctrine, knowing full well that my perception is limited by the clay of which I am made. Instead, I’ll place my trust in the One who alone is my doctrine, and I’ll confess in the words of St. Paul:

For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (I Corinthians 13:9-13 NRSV)

And therein lies what I believe is the only credible doorway through which we may finally live out our pledge to become an “indivisible” nation: “The greatest of these is love.” 

We’ll never agree. On much of anything. But, in love, we can seek to understand each other and to embrace our differences, not necessarily as error, but as partial truth. And in that effort to transcend our antagonistic obsession with uniformity, I suspect we’ll discover a more nearly complete indivisibility.

That’s the way I see it through the Flawed Glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim

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[1] David Brooks, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-case-for-reparations/ar-BBUvAS7?ocid=spartandhp&fbclid=IwAR3MQXOlmusWGxquJ3ZCXXYo1_LmLkeHISpNNVrkfC1OmNJdTShsVbRSwpM

[2] Thomas Campbell, Declaration and Address. https://stevekinnard.wordpress.com/2017/01/09/church-history-14-thomas-campbells-declaration-and-address/

[3] My crude adaptation of a phrase coined by Thomas G. Bandy in Christian Chaos, et. al.