Homeless people are not problems

It is frustrating to me that homeless people are looked at as problems here in the Midwest. This afternoon I taped segments with five different people in NLEC’s Thirty Day program. Two white men, Two Black Men, and one Black woman. Every single person interviewed had a positive attitude. Every person is either working a job or is willing to work. All five are not from downtown St. Louis. One man was brought by the police from St. Charles, MO. One person had been living with family for two years. One man works from 5pm to 1am and then rises at 5am to volunteer here in our building.
Everyone has a different story. A preacher was among them. He said that he’d been a minister for decades before drinking and drugs ended his marriage and left him homeless. He seemed ashamed of himself, but then I asked him how long he’d been sober. Three weeks. I reminded him that it was by God’s grace that he was sober today, and I thanked him for his sobriety today. His story is a testimony to an addict out there who says he can’t stay sober even one day.
Homeless people are not problems in downtown St. Louis. Each person has a story if someone would just take the time to get to know them. I work at NLEC as a pastor because I believe in the grace of God to restore families, and to set free people who’ve been bound by selfishness for years. I believe the Metro St. Louis area needs this ministry. We don’t charge any of our clients for the services they receive.
And yet the homeless get talked about in the area like they are social pariahs. They get talked about like they’re trash, an eyesore, crime magnets, etc. One guy told me today that he never believed he’d be one of “those people” who come to Larry Rice. And that’s how it is. As George Carlin said, the poor get used by society to scare the middle class to keep working. “Don’t worry it’ll never be you.” One guy told me, “If I only had back the money garnered by my employer and given to United Way I wouldn’t have to be here.” And so it goes.

I draw strength from the stories of people here at this church. They stay positive, and they trust God, no matter how bad things seem. I dropped off a grandmother and her two granddaughters at the Greyhound bus station yesterday. They came to St. Louis two weeks ago for a short trip that turned into a nightmare. But they made the best of it in our shelter. She asked me, “Why does fear come to me so easily?” and “It seems like things went from bad to worse and are not going to get any better.” I tried to assure her that life is not all bad all the time. But truthfully, I don’t know what I’d do in her position. How does she stay strong for the grand kids? We prayed together, and I drew strength from her faith.
Because God makes a way for all these people, I believe it is wrong when churches don’t trust God enough not to welcome people without income into their families of faith. It is wrong that St. Charles Police bring men into downtown St. Louis. It is wrong that the MO Balance of Continuum, all these years after the promise to end chronic homelessness, still think its fine to rely on the city for its rural regions.
If the gospel is really for the whole person, then what kind of believers are we to not welcome strangers without income into our faith community?

Shelter and doctrine

I just reread a tract titled, “Is Mormonism Christian?” by the Institute for Religious Research. It explains very simply and dogmatically why Christianity and Mormonism are two different faiths. If Christian teaching and right doctrine alone were enough to minister to people than all I would need to do would be to place this tract in a person’s hands and all would be right with the world.

But alas, people of different faiths come to their faiths in different ways. We relate to our faiths differently too. I have some new friends who have had a whole lot of different experiences with churches and their home church. They are of the Latter Day Saints faith. They speak of it as thought there is no difference between it and say Presbyterianism. A lot of Presbyterians would have no trouble agreeing with it either. I happen to currently be a member of a Presbyterian church, while also pastoring at NLEC.

But alas, orthodox Christian that I am, I know that Mormon doctrine is very different than Christian doctrine. So what should my approach be with my new friends? Well, I met them because they are in need. They are homeless and also very sick. Would now be a good time to use shelter and food to convert them? I think not. Because I work in direct assistance, I’m very leery of “God talk” that is meant to take the place of action. I’m also leery of any religion that does not respect personal time, space, and the independence to make choices.

So my approach to living near and sharing with my new friends is to listen to them and make space for their growth. I want my orthodox faith to demonstrate itself in little ways by the grace God gives me. I have no love, no purity of doctrine, no holiness in myself. It is all a gift. So I don’t want to get in the way of that gift. If we have opportunity to talk about our faiths, I’m all into that. For the time being we’re all very busy trying to make a living during a very difficult time.

Does that make me sound like a liberal? I don’t know, I know some very dogmatic, irreverent, and loud liberals. If by liberal it means I take responsibility for what I say and do than OK. But everything I believe about the Bible, Church History, and living out the faith is expressed daily by the way I keep my house and treat my kids, and love my neighbors. There’s a lot to live up to, and I take it a day at a time by God’s grace.

Voting and self examination at Lent

My friend Jon Trott recently asked his Republican friends on Facebook whether or not they would consider voting for President Obama a sinful act. I have so many thoughts about this that it sent me back to the Scriptures and provoked a long conversation with my wife this morning at breakfast.

One of the commenters on his post went like this:

“If you believe in your heart that doing something is wrong, and do it anyway, that is most definitely a sin”

and then when pressed to answer the question, went with this:

“Yes Jon, if I were to vote for Barack, that would be a sin (for me, but not necessarily for everyone).”

Now this being the season of Lent, I think it’s appropriate to look into this deeply. Here are the Bible verses in question quoted by the commenter:

²² Do you have faith?  Have it to yourself before God. Happyis he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.²³ But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.  (Rom. 14:22-23, NKJV)

And along these same lines is a verse that I believe is the inverse of the social/ethical question of sin and conscience.

“Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” (James 4:17, NKJV)

So back to the question of voting, because this comes up every election season. Is voting itself a spiritual practice? If so can it ever be sinful? If not can it ever be good? Here are my thoughts on the issue:

In these passages both Paul and James are dealing with the issue of Christians engaging socially in a sinful world and maintaining their true identity. For Paul the issue was relational and social regarding the matter of food sacrificed to idols. Can a Christian in good conscience eat what was first offered to an idol? For James the issue was that rich Christians presumed they could just make plans and money here and there and live comfortably irrespective of the effect it had on others. James warns them that such an attitude brings them into judgment.

Here are many random thoughts on applying these two passages to voting for a  presidential candidate in November. First, all of our actions as Christians are spiritual in nature and must be lived out that way. But our dealings with the State must be weighed carefully. Aligning ourselves with a political party and voting for a Presidential candidate is the smallest thing we can do for our country, not the greatest. The greatest thing we can do for our country is be faithful as Christians, which means prayer and supplication, take Communion together, and worship Christ as Lord instead of the President.

We live in a society that has never been truly Christian but regularly pretends to be. Evangelicals have never really been in control but pretend to be every four years, and the media eagerly parades our participation as power brokers. Its all a big joke that does not honor Christ as Lord.

But I think the Apostles Paul and James can serve to warn and encourage us to self examination this Lent in our speech about voting. Are my actions as a citizen done for Jesus Christ? The question is not whether President Obama is sinful for being prochoice or for sanctioning drone strikes in Afghanistan, or whether Rick Santorum will make us a Christian nation like Ronald Reagan did (which is fallacious and absurd talk). Paul asks us whether what we are doing can be aligned with our love for our fellow Christians in the church. Will participating in a corrupt State system be too much for my weaker brothers and sisters? And James says “the good you know to do” is to not presume that my vote will enable a particular party to do God’s bidding. It surely will not. God does far more through the State without their knowing than because they’ve acted in His name. The good we are to do is to say “if the Lord wills we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15),  so in my actions as a citizen of heaven I am seeking God’s kingdom and holding this worlds goods temporarily.

My actions as a Christian regularly make my actions as an American all but irrelevant. I’m not saying they’re completely unimportant, but they certainly don’t warrant all the chatter assigned to them. Listening to James means learning to be quick to listen, slow to speech, and slow to anger.This is a wisdom missing from this electoral season. So here’s to irrelevance! Here’s to quiet and patient service!

Here are some useful questions for self examination this Lent:

Questions for Self-Examination
1. Have I been faithful to participate in the worship
of God’s people?
2. Have I been fervent in prayer? Was there warmth?
access?
3. Have I prayed at my stated times? with my family?
4. Have I practiced God’s presence, at least every
hour?
5. Have I, before every deliberate action or conversation,
considered how it might be turned to God’s
glory?
6. Have I sought to center conversations on the other
person’s interests and needs and ultimately toward
God, or did I turn them toward my own interests?
7. Have I given thanks to God after every pleasant
occurrence or time?
8. Have I thought or spoken unkindly of anyone?
9. Have I been careful to avoid proud thoughts or
comparing myself to others? Have I done things
just for appearance? Have I mused on my own
fame or acclaim?
10. Have I been sensitive, warm, and cheerful toward
everyone?
11. Have I been impure in my thoughts or glances?
12. Have I confessed sins toward God and others
swiftly?
13. Have I over- or under-eaten, -slept, -worked?
14. Have I twisted the truth to look good?
15. Have I been leading in my home, or only reacting
to situations?
In his set of questions for self-examination, the late
Jack Miller (pastor in Philadelphia and founder of
World Harvest Mission) gets right to the point: *
1. Is God working in your life?
2. Have you been repenting of your sin lately?
3. Are you building your life on Christ’s free justification
or are you insecure and guilt-ridden?
4. Have you done anything simply because you love
Jesus?
5. Have you stopped anything simply because you
love Jesus?

 

Will you give into the longing or live in Christ’s love?

Dear Friends,

In every one of us, no matter who we are, there is a longing, an insatiable desire to claim more for ourselves. We want more acceptance, more money, more influence, more friends, or more esteem. It seems against our nature to settle for any less than everything at once. And yet, no matter what we receive, the longing does not decrease. Often times, our longings seem virtuous and spiritual, like when we desire to share ourselves with people around us. We want to love and be loved in return. It’s very important that when we invite friends to dinner that everyone have plenty to eat with more to spare. “Are you still hungry? Take some more!” We may even long to help the less fortunate, simply out of a desire that all stay right in our own neighborhoods. We can’t bear the thought that we are warm and they are cold. And so setting things right becomes an extension of ourselves. I fix my roof, I mow my lawn, take out the trash, and I write a check to a local nonprofit to ensure that the homeless stay downtown and not in my backyard (NIMBY). Or I may show up in my car as the great white well-off savior ready to clean up every addict, house and support every miscreant and employ and educate anyone willing. But all will still not be right, and the longing will remain.

You may notice that within all of this longing I have not even mentioned God. That is because, God or not, the desire for more and better is ever present. The divine will need not be consulted in order to dream bigger. And the question becomes, where will this longing lead? I’d like to look at two words used in the Greek New Testament, one for longing or desire and the other for love. Epithumia, is the word for desire that could be for evil things, or for good things. But most often it is used to describe the kind of desire that is overpowering and against the will of God. Jesus warned against the longing in this world that chokes out the Word of God in those who have faith in his parable of the sower and the soils.

“ And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.” (Mark 4:19, KJV) But then he told us what we should desire in Matt. 5:6, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.” That righteousness is justification before God, to be right in God’s sight. And Jesus can tell us what we should and shouldn’t desire, because he came not as a great moralist but as the world’s Savior. In laying down His life for us on the cross he did just what was needed for our justification. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves right, any more than we can finally satisfy the longing in us for more, better, faster.

There is another word in the New Testament, Agape, that translates into a very  confusing word in the English language. . . . love. In English when we say love it can mean any number of different things in poetry, literature, psychology, sociology, or religion. But in the New Testament it has a very unique meaning. It is usually a reference to God’s relationship with Jesus, and the gift we are given when we obey God and live with each other. Even when the New Testament is read, take for instance 1 Corinthians 13, (known as the love chapter), the common reaction is to apply it only to persons we most easily share space with. It is assumed Paul must mean between husband and wife, or between good friends. But Jesus made it clear in the gospels that the love of God is meant to be practiced even toward our enemies! (Matt. 5:43-48)

This enemy-love has been deemed impractical, apolitical, and even suicidal by many people. They think that Jesus has set up an ideal that’s impossible to practice and so these gospel sayings are often ignored by Christians. But this Agape love has the power to turn this world upside down. It is the only power capable of overcoming evil with good. This love is what God wants for us and is the missing treasure that all of our desire-longing-lust cannot seem to find. So many adults consider themselves survivalists. They feel they must make the most of a bad situation with nothing but the very little they have. They’ve been through the school of hard knocks and graduated with honors in the art of self defense. Whatever they get they win by keeping themselves free of messy entanglements with other people, and so long as most contact can be controlled or avoided, life won’t quite be so bad. This would all be fine if they didn’t need more. And so, together we all scrape and struggle along to get more, better, faster.

It was about two years ago now that my fifteen year old son decided he was going to be like his hero Bear Grylls from the show Man vs. Wild and go live in the woods for a while alone to see if he could survive on his own. I don’t remember exactly when it started, but at school his scout leader had been showing the boys these programs about this former British SAS trooper who leaves himself stranded in uninhabitable places like jungles, deserts, and arctic areas. He demonstrates how to survive with nothing but a nice knife. Chris Aaron became so taken with survival that all he wanted for Christmas one year was survival books and a flint and steel kit with char-cloth so he could light fires. The local army navy surplus became his favorite haunt and he’d use any excuse for me to walk him over there.

So by the spring following that Christmas he was convinced he was ready to go it alone in the woods. I’m sure he would stay up late at night thinking about how he was going to do it. He’d been reading his army survival manuals about how to set up a shelter made of only materials collected in the immediate area. He had his knife, he had is backpack, he had his flint and steel and charcloth. But as the days grew nearer to our vacation he began to doubt himself. We’d have these conversations where he’d openly worry about being alone without mom and dad in the woods. What if he got hurt or something? Would his knowledge of first aid be enough? He made a new friend who was visiting from Germany, and this new friend had an interest in survival too. They encouraged each other in it, and the boys decided they’d survive alone together.

The first night we arrived on our vacation in rural Illinois the boys decided to demonstrate their fire starting ability. Now bear in mind, Chris Aaron had lots of practice using the kit. It was all we could do to keep him from practicing in his room on the seventh floor in Chicago. Starting a fire was basic, even beneath his abilities, so he didn’t have to give it much thought. But that night when we all sat there together, for some reason, the flint and steel just couldn’t get the fire going. He was growing increasingly frustrated. His fingers were red from gripping the magnesium bar so tight. But he wouldn’t let me do it for him. He was so angry at himself that here, in front of his sisters and his best friend, he couldn’t get that fire started! What was wrong? He had all the book learning! He’d seen Bear Grylls do it in one simple stroke in the jungles of Vietnam where everything was soaked with rain. His anger and frustration at himself finally turned to tears and he stomped off for the night. There was no more talking about it. He’d have to overcome this frustration if he was going to continue on with his plans with his friend. But for now the we all had to let him be.

He had a longing to perform what seemed easy on the television and in books. His longing was to demonstrate an ability not everyone had. He had a passion that would give him something to talk about with his friends, something different. But now all of that seemed to be falling apart. The next night he actually got that fire started, and what seemed impossible went back to being common place. He and his friend built their own shelter and didn’t use a tent, and they stayed out there for twelve hours, nowhere near anyone else who could help them. In time he finally came to see enough Man vs. Wild episodes that he didn’t have to watch them everyday anymore. And gradually the survival books weren’t referred to anymore everyday.

We moved down here to St. Louis last year and Chris Aaron’s big request was that he be able to transfer his Boy Scout membership to a troop down here. We did that and he took to the regular meetings and camp outs easily. A few months ago he was actually inducted into the Order of the Arrow, a local honor society for scouts. He is now considered leadership in the local troop, teaching newer scouts to start fires, set up their tents, and learn skills from the book. His love for scouting has proven much more than a passing interest. He’s fully invested, and can be counted on to be on time in uniform, willing to do whatever is needed. The beautiful thing to me in all this is that my son has followed a longing, and it has grown into a love for something that is bigger than he is. If he had given up on himself that evening when he couldn’t start the fire, and had just thrown away his interest in survival, he would have never continued Boy Scouts and certainly would have never excelled in it. For my part, I could not force him to keep trying. Demonstrating the right way to hold the striker and the magnesium didn’t work. He had to come to it on his own.

There is a big difference between longing for something, and becoming the kind of person capable of self confidence, patience, and faithfulness in Christ. It takes time, it takes commitment, but most of all it takes a willingness to admit I need help. Jesus does not expect me to take on my enemies alone. I am only capable of loving my enemy in the context of a loving Church that is obedient to God. One of the most amazing love passages in the gospels is where Jesus looked at a young rich man and loved him. (Mark 10:17-31) Why is this so amazing to me? Well, let’s look at the story.

A man suddenly falls on his knees before Jesus, calling him a good teacher, asking him what he can do to inherit eternal life. And Jesus asks the man why he called him good, because only God is good. He directs him to the law, saying “You know the commandments,” do them. The man replies that he always has done them, since childhood. This is where Jesus look at the man and the text says he loved him. Jesus said, “OK one more thing. Go sell everything and give it to the poor so that your treasure is in heaven.” Then we are told that the man’s face was fallen. He came to Jesus on his knees, willing to do anything. But he went away empty. Why? Because, as the story goes, the man had great wealth.

Jesus looks at his disciples and says that it is very hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And his disciples get the message. They got it and we today very often miss it. His disciples were not rich, but they asked the question, “Who then can be saved?” And Jesus words are the ones on which we pin our hope. “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

Jesus loved the young man so dearly even though he could not get past his longing for more, better, faster. And today we must realize that we are all like this rich man, desiring eternal life but not at the cost of losing everything we’ve achieved, earned, fought for, and accumulated, certainly not at the cost of getting more. Some of us lose everything and are convinced that its only a matter of time until we get it back again. But Jesus is saying, “Your treasure is in heaven.” But don’t forget that Jesus loves us even with our misplaced desires. He’s calling out now, “Forsake all the longing and receive my love.”

There is a price in longing for things that are not God’s will. If we want it bad enough, the love that is in us that is meant for God becomes a love for this world’s order instead.  “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.  For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.” 1 John 2:15-16 (NIV) In the gospels Jesus says similarly, No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise and be against the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (deceitful riches, money, possessions, orwhatever is trusted in).” Matt. 6:24 (Amp)

There is a spiritual reality behind the American Dream. The four freedoms outlined in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address: Freedom of Speech and Expression, Freedom to worship God in our own way, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear, reflect a modern liberalism that is an end in itself. There is no need for an all powerful God within these human rights. We may have freedom to worship, but no need to worship anyone but ourselves and the freedom itself.

Now that statement might make me a lot of enemies, but I would submit that the longings inherent in this expression of the American Dream have no real limits, because we humans have no way of curbing our appetites. We can live with a guilty conscience, knowing a lot about ourselves, but refusing to change. And this is the predicament we’re in today.

We are rich with rights like no other nation in the world. Everyone is entitled to everything, and yet our prisons are full to capacity, the gap between rich and poor has never been greater, and there is no end in sight for the War on Terror. Nothing can save us now, but the Agape love of God in Jesus Christ. But in order to receive it we have to give up looking elsewhere. The economy of God is all that we need. It is an economy of abundance for all who would work within it. This economy has the whole person in mind because we love God with our whole person. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Matt. 22:36-40 (NIV)

This kind of love is not possible when we’re only partly present. There was a time in my life when I was so overcome with self pity, shame, and fear that I could not be present physically. I went to my factory job and put in up to fourteen hour days and I came home and slept and got up and did it again every day. I didn’t talk to anybody, I just wanted to be left alone. And alone was what I got. The money didn’t make me happy. All I wanted was to watch TV and movies and be left alone. And my life was a living hell. For six months I was walking in a daze. I drove a forklift in a daze, I soldered galvanized gutters and scuppers. I cut myself and bled and laughed about it. And then one day, when confronted with my true self by my coworkers, I admitted that I had a problem and I started on the road to recovery. I dare say there are many people today who live that way. Numb in their senses, no context for right or wrong, living in their heads but calling it freedom to be what they want.

I don’t ever want that kind of life again. I’m learning that the kind of life worth living takes a lot of work and a lot of help. I’m becoming the kind of person willing to receive help. I’m not a terribly patient person, but I’ve had a lot of patience shown to me and I want to become that kind of person.

If you want to be what God wants for you, pray this prayer with me now, based on 1 Corinthians 13.

“Father, I receive the fullness of your Love in me today, for without your love I am nothing! Regardless of all I do or all I give, without your love I am nothing!

I receive from you, a supernatural love that is patient and kind – a love that is not envious, jealous or boastful – a love that is not arrogant, conceited or displays itself haughtily or rude.

I receive your love in me that does not insist on its own rights or way, for it is not self-seeking, it is not touchy, irritable or resentful, it takes no account of the evil done to it. I receive your love that does not rejoice at wrongdoing and injustice, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.

I receive your love that bears up under anything and everything that comes – it is ever ready to believe the best of every person – its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and it endures all things!

Father, I receive your Love in me that never fails!”

—Nita Weldon

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Chris Rice

NLEC

on a theology of hell

I’ve been following the buzz about Rob Bell’s book Love Wins and whether or not he’s a universalist. Upon reading Mark Galli’s article on it all in CT I’d like to offer a few thoughts on the nature of salvation and eternal punishment.

My job puts me in the proximity of the mentally ill, the chronically homeless, drug and alcohol addicts, and many who are severely depressed. This means I am faced every day with a lot of promises that don’t go very far. Knowledge of the next right thing to do is not the same as acting on it again and again. When some talk of “unbelievers” being “wicked” and deserving punishment I think to myself, “So this means that believers never waiver in their faith, are never disobedient, and somehow are lucky enough not to be among the 4.5 billion heading for eternal punishment.” I have a friend who so associates traditional orthodoxy with the abuse he knew growing up in church that it can’t possibly be true. But he’s honest and always admits that he can’t penetrate the mystery and so will continue to pursue his Higher Power’s will even without certainty. God has been honoring his effort and he manages to stay sober one day at a time.

I am more afraid for those certain theologians who know how it all works and go about preaching God’s wrath and exclusion, than I am for those who can’t figure out God’s ways but want only to know His love. I want the same kind of relationship with Jesus my friend Earnie has. He’s mentally ill, living on a fixed income, and asking for bread to feed the birds. He’s in church three times a week and prays every day “if there are any sins I can’t think of charge it to my brain and not to my heart.” I can be moving through the lobby at fifty miles an hour and he’ll yell out, “Slow down Rev. Chris!” If knowledge were the ticket to heaven I wouldn’t want to be there. Faith involves using our head, but thank God, it’s more than that. Faith is about togetherness.

I think that anyone ready to cite numbers and percentages when it comes to eternity has already stepped into the judgment seat themselves and has become disobedient for the sake of their theology. It is because I believe in hell and I fear the judgment of God that I refuse to speculate about the extent of His mercy. Universalism and Annihilationism are both examples of posturing. It’s just not enough to obey God ourselves we have to do God’s judging job for him.

It is because I have known so many believers who could not seem to be faithful because of mental illness and addiction, and because of my own personal history of disobedience that I am so averse to speculating over the lost. The hope of the gospel is in God’s relentless grace, not just for believing individuals, but for a believing Church. As every church knows, public proclamation is so much easier than personal piety.  Saving faith, lives that glorify God, churches that do the gospel in all its fullness, these are all the fruit of God’s Spirit at work.

When we think we know humans and communication so well that we know just how to market the gospel to reach everyone the world over and get the job done, we have lost humility and touch with reality. Belief involves honesty, not just acknowledgment. To think that anyone with the moniker Christian among the world’s billions in population is somehow exempt from hell is to assume too much. People go to church for a lot of reasons. We are all a mixture of motives. There is no easy way of quantifying the earth’s faithful.

It’s best to focus on simply living it out rather than stopping to count who will burn. Rest assured God’s will is being done on earth as it is in heaven. I just want to be an ambassador of God’s reconciliation in the world.

Somehow God’s love and reconciliation is big enough for judgmental counters. Those who cast the sideward glance. And yes, God knows, that includes me. Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on us.

Pentecostals and Charismatics meet Palestinians

Praying, wondering, and keeping watch for Haiti

I have so many mixed feelings for the nation of Haiti right now. Did you know that this earthquake has been the fifth in Haiti’s history since 1751? This people have faced unfathomable tumult physically, socially, and politically. I’m reading Jean Bertrand Aristide’s autobiography, written with Christophe Wargny. It follows his path to the Presidency and the hope for Haiti’s future following the dictatorships under the Duvaliers. First published in English in 1993 by Orbis, Mary Knoll books, churches in the US really had a lot of hope and expectation for Aristide. I remember the glowing attention he received from Sojourners magazine at the time. But then a few things happened that shifted international attention from Haiti. The fall of Apartheid and a new government in South Africa and the genocide in Rwanda. Here’s a brief history from Wikipedia of the tumultuous period covering Aristide’s election, ousting and reinstatement:

In December 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a populist Roman Catholic (Salesian) priest, won 67% of the vote in elections that international observers deemed largely free and fair.

Aristide’s radical populist policies and the violence of his bands of supporters alarmed many of the country’s elite, and, in September 1991, he was overthrown in a violent coup that brought General Raoul Cédras to power. There was violent resistance to the coup, in which hundreds were killed, and Aristide was forced into exile. An estimated 3,000-5,000 Haitians were killed during the period of military rule. The coup created a large-scale exodus of refugees to the United States. The United States Coast Guard interdicted (in many cases, rescued) a total of 41,342 Haitians during 1991 and 1992. Most were denied entry to the United States and repatriated back to Haiti. Aristide has accused the United States of backing the 1991 coup.^[25][26]

The military regime governed Haiti until 1993. Various initiatives to end the political crisis through the peaceful restoration of the constitutionally elected government failed. In July 1994, as repression mounted in Haiti and a civilian human rights monitoring mission was expelled from the country, the United Nations Security Council adopted United Nations Security Council Resolution 940, which authorized member states to use all necessary means to facilitate the departure of Haiti’s military leadership and to restore Haiti’s constitutionally elected government to power.

In mid-September 1994, with U.S. troops prepared to enter Haiti by force for Operation Uphold Democracy, President Bill Clinton dispatched a negotiating team led by former President Jimmy Carter to persuade the authorities to step aside and allow for the return of constitutional rule. With intervening troops already airborne, Cédras and other top leaders agreed to step down. In October, Aristide was able to return. Elections were held in June 1995. Aristide’s coalition, the Lavalas (Waterfall) Political Organization, had a sweeping victory. When Aristide’s term ended in February 1996, René Préval, a prominent Aristide political ally, was elected President with 88% of the vote: this was Haiti’s first ever transition between two democratically elected presidents.

And I only wish things had gotten better since that time. Aristide was going to use his faith in God and in the people of Haiti to bring about a new hope, a land at peace with itself. But this is not what took place. Christophe Wargny, coauthor of Aristide’s autobiography did an interview that can still be found here online that describes what happened after the 2000 elections with Aristide’s new party the Fanmi Lavalas.

We need a clear discussion of the involvement of US church’s in Haiti’s political history. If churches got behind Aristide and are now giving in the relief efforts what are we to do now? There are clear ramifications here regarding Christians in power. Is Liberation Theology only good as a critique of power? When our heroes get the power and to some degree succumb or compromise what then should be said of it’s ideals? These are hard questions that will take some real digging. In the meantime, we must not stop praying and reaching out—but wisely. Where will Haiti be in the months to come? How will its government fair when the spotlight goes away?

Two things are clear: Aristide wants a stake in Haiti’s future, and Haiti wants American help in the future. What will that look like?

Does military nation building work?

Yesterday the US Army held a press conference  regarding its new field manual, The Stability Operations Field Manual, which essentially amplifies the new philosophy of military occupation as successful nation building. It’s not simply the Army’s job to forcefully enter a country and beat the bad guys, it is its job to create a new country in the shell of the old and see that it becomes a democracy. Well, James L. Payne, a political scientist and research fellow at the Independent Institute, says it’s not that simple. 

“Pundits and presidents talk about nation building as if it were a settle technology, like building bridges or removing gall bladders. Huge amounts of government and foundation money have been poured into the topic of democracy building, and academics and bureaucrats have produced reams of verbose commentary. But still there is no concrete, usable body of knowledge.”

In his article for the American Conservative, “Deconstructing Nation Building,” he identifies 51 attempts at nation building by Britain and the USA and assesses whether they succeeded or failed. His research shines a light on what’s really involved every time nations send in a military to make peace follow corruption. Does coercion make stability? Not so fast. Payne points out that a military has to actually leave the country for democracy to be deemed successful. So how does the military build the nation and leave at the same time? Not very easily. The US is eager to prove its work in Iraq a success, but at the same time can’t quite say it’s so successful that troops can leave. Is this nation building or military occupation?

(cross posted at Life Under Military Occupation)

As I was looking around on this topic, I learned that South African theologian Charles Villa-Vincencio (author of Between Christ and Caesar: Classic and Contemporary Texts on Church and State) did a landmark study on theology and nation building in his 1992 book, A Theology of Reconstruction: Nation Building and Human Rights. Citizenship has deeply theological implications, and to think that any country can alter the lives of millions of other individuals with a military and then somehow not effect that country catastrophically on a spiritual level is myopic. Christians in America have got to look seriously at how our nation’s global military actions are effecting the work of the Church universally. 

Too Holy to read? On Bibles as twenty-first century literature

What sort of book is the Bible? How should it be presented and read? I’ve long wondered about the dissemination of the Bible in popular culture. Does only good come from reading the Bible? Should it be read and interpreted alone? Some people speak about the Bible as though it were an instructional book that is self explanatory. Others venture that interpretation is all but impossible and better left to experts. And yet Bibles continue to roll off the presses every day. Some people stock them in their homes like amulets, talismans, and additions to the furniture. Others mark them up and toss them when the bindings break. Promoting biblical literacy is the job of groups like the American Bible Society. As the times change they work to keep the Bible in the public eye. As information changes, as the culture’s use of image and text change, Bible production alters to meet the demand. Enter The Book, a new glossy magazine format for the Bible by a Swedish group known as Illuminated World.

The marketing folder they sent me definitely caught my eye. I started a discussion with an artist friend of mine over the use of images and text, whether the images really served the text. She thought it did, I disagreed. So I ordered a review copy of the New Testament. It’s clear that the format is meant to be edgy and controversial. Some of the images are jarring, especially the more violent ones. There’s a celebrity section that doesn’t quite make sense to me. There are photos of Jim Jones and the Jamestown massacre with a warning about not misusing the Bible. The impression I’m left with overall is that the Bible as competitive literature, in the glossy throw away world of supermarket tabloids, just doesn’t make sense. The Bible is the book of the People of God. Its words demand faith of its readers in order to be received. This leads to a much bigger problem. The Bible is a book of action, wherein the People of God communicate with him and live out their reaction to His presence. The Book functions as an equalizer, attempting to make the Bible relevant as literature, but without the People of God involved the material has no real reference point. At every point the literature of the Bible is controversial, especially when it is read, but reading the Bible is only the beginning.

Demythologizing the Presidency

It’s amazing the way Catholicism has these scholars who are almost bookends to each other. For instance, you have William Cavanaugh and then on the opposite side you have Michael Novak. Whereas Cavanaugh invites us to think theologically about politics, Novak seems to say, “Be realistic. This contemporary emperor cult is just the way of things. Wishing it weren’t so will do nothing. Be an American and quit your crying. Vote your conscience and take the bad with the good.” I was thinking about the symbolic power of the Presidency just the other day, and in doing a google search of “demythologize” and “President” google books popped up this page from a 1974 book by Michael Novak. I felt as though Novak was grabbing me by the scruff of the neck three decades later to say, “Stop this demythology nonsense. You have no hope. This office is all powerful. There’s nothing you can do.”

“The character of the president in office sets the terms in which intellectual debate about the state of the nation is established. It is not necessary to accept the symbols generated by a president’s words and actions; to tear them to shreds bit by bit is sufficient evidence of engagement. Thus, talk about “doing away with the cult of personality” or “demythologizing the presidency” must be taken as gestures toward an unrealistic rationalism. The president dominates not only the news, but also the language of policy, the shape and pace of legislation, and the spirit of appointments to the federal courts. His idiosyncrasies, ambitions, and failures dominate more conversation than those of any other citizen—as truly if he is unpopular as if he is popular.

Let us be as skeptical as may be, we are living in a symbolic world over with the president as unparalleled power. To cease believing in his power will not make it go away. To say we must not vest our hopes or fears in him runs counter to the plain fact that he has nuclear power at his fingertips, more police power than any sovereign in history, more power to dominate the organs of public opinion than any other human, more power in defining who are the nation’s enemies, more power over the military and the making (if not the declaring) of war than any citizen or group of citizens.

Thus, the president is rather more like a shaman than we might wish. Our lives do depend on him. A person with power over life and death is raised above a merely pragmatic level. He is surrounded, as it were, with a nimbus of magic.

He necessarily lives on a level that must seem to him “above” that of other humans. The fact that he is human gives a sort of reassurance about which we endlessly read—that he eats breakfast food, prefers mysteries, listens to Bach or Lawrence Welk. But our survival is linked to his deeds. Our lives participate in his. His nerves, his wisdom, his panic, his steadiness make us vulnerable. Even if we have contempt for him, he has power over the shape and direction of our lives. If he decides that the great moral conflict of our time is permissiveness or the need for individual selfishness, not only must those who disagree fight against the ordinary tides of evil, they must also fight against the respectability the president gives their opponents. If he symbolizes an America we despise, he divides our own hearts against themselves. . . .

Thus, the president enters into the innermost symbols by which we identify ourselves. We do not think about him all the time; on many days we give him not a thought. It is the property of basic symbolic forms to influence us even when we are not conscious of them. When the president acts as president, he acts in our name. He is us. If he goes by a way we do not approve, he uses us against ourselves. This alone is a remarkable power.”

(Michael Novak, Choosing Presidents: Symbols of Political Leadership, Second Edition, 1974.)

This just makes me all the angrier and all the more resolute to demythologize this office of Presidency. I look to the frustrated nations of Haiti and Palestine for comfort. Their people are in pain nationalistically. They yearn to be countries with honor and yet the years have taught them that they will continue to be ignored and that their national leaders will continue to disappoint. Even so these nations have people of faith who pray and are the Body of Christ. This Body lends its voice, its prayers, its time and money in spite of government support. The Christians in these nations illustrate for me a faith that is ambivalent of the symbolic power of their leaders. They pray for their leaders and do not worship them. They set their expectations low and they pray and work. And this is what we should all do.