New York

Just a quick note. We are in New York now, taking a few days of vacation. They have asked me to speak tomorrow (Sunday morning) at the church that we served at 5 years ago. It is a thrill for me to be invited to speak there again.

The weather is beautiful. It is very relaxing as we look out over Lake Ontario. Last night we had a get together with some folks from the church. Kathy and I snickered about what would happen if nobody showed up. Do people really remember us?

Well, about 30 people showed up and we had a great time. Lots of stories of old times here, lots of jokes, lots of good friendships renewed.

That is the best part. Lots of good friendships.

Ode to Goodwill

Go ahead and make fun of me. I will take a couple of days break before I post again about economics, wealth and poverty. Actually this subject may be more about the topic than the theoretical theological approach to capitalism.

Make fun if you want - but I love to shop at Goodwill. I went there yesterday to pick up a few things before I left for vacation this morning. As a matter of fact about 1/2 of my wardrobe has come from Goodwill over the last two years. Let me explain why I think I feel the way I do about Goodwill.

First, I committed a few years ago to not get caught up in the marketing of clothes. I will not pay $50 for a shirt or pair of pants if I am paying for market branding. I will not have to have the hottest brands, nor will my clothes have to be new. Consequently, I usually get by on less than $100 a year for clothes. (Some would say that they can tell how little I spend by the way that I look, but that is another subject...)

Second, Goodwill tries to support community initiatives that are good and useful. I can't vouch for all that they do (because I don't know where all the money goes), but by and large I think they try to do good with profits.

Third, (and I know this one will come off a little strange) but going into Goodwill is good for my pride. Everytime I go there I see families that are obviously shopping there because it is all they can afford. Not everybody of course, but you can tell that there is a clientele that needs the services of Goodwill. I watch folks when I go there - folks whose lives are different from mine - they are shopping there because they need to. And I want to see their faces. I want to share their joy when they find a shirt that fits their little precious third grader. I want to be reminded that I have so many choices, but many folks only have the choices they find at Goodwill.

Bottom line, for me the real reason that I shop at Goodwill is theological. I am committed to little ways of looking people in the face that are different than I am, but people nonetheless. I always want to remember God's powerful love for all people. Especially those folks that Wall Street acts as if they don't exist.

Healing of Desire

In the last post I talked about capitalism and the modern market and its basis in "self interest" and "scarcity" - lack which always desires more. But why I am spending so much time on an economic system of exchange of goods and services?

There is a small but growing number of young scholars that are discerning the markets "practices and rituals" as being antagonistic to Christianity. James K A Smith writes,"...the new empire is capitalism as a global, transnational phenomenon -an empire of which states are only colonies". (Smith, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy p. 248) Smith also declares that the market demands an allegiance that rivals our commitment to Christ.

How has the market co-opted our allegiance to Christ? By forming us into disciples of desire. In a remarkable book, "Liberation Theology after the End of History", Daniel Bell argues that the market has stolen our desire for God and twisted it into a desire of self-interest and material goods. Bell argues that Christianity has been understood in terms of positive desire based on Augustine's claim, "our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee". Human hearts are created to desire God. But the market has twisted this positive desire in accord with the whims of the market. Our desires are now disciplined by the market to acquire, compete, consume. The market teaches us that there can be no other way. Consequently, Bell considers Christianity to be a healing of the desire that the market has created. Only by setting our hearts toward the Triune God, and being renewed and sanctified by the Holy Spirit can our longing be set straight toward our created purpose - desiring more of God.

So do we overthrow capitalism? No, we can't do that- we are not called as the church to do that. Are we called to withdraw? No, we are not called to do that either, nor is that possible. This is where the church comes in. The ekklesia must be the place where folks are finding the healing of desire and the ability to resist the discipleship of the market. What are the practices of the church that heal desire? Again, creative thought and Spirit-led imagination are essential. SUGGESTIONS?

Wealth and Poverty, Part 2

I was planning on moving on, but some of the comments from friends made me think a little longer. Understanding our current market culture is so important that I thought I would explain some of my thoughts more fully. I don't want to sound critical of capitalism without explaining where it comes from.

I have said privately to several people that our modern market is becoming the most serious competitor with the church in terms of offering "salvation" for people. Our culture is being formed and discipled by the market every day. As blessed as we are to live in a country that benefits from market capitalism, let me explain why I get the willies when I think seriously about it.

The modern market stage was set centuries ago by philosopher Adam Smith. Smith laid the foundation for modern economic thought with some basic principles that were fine tuned through later years. But modern economics is based on at least two principles: (I know that this is oversimplification, but stick with me)

First, self interest - every person is wired so that they should be allowed to look after their own interest. This individual self-interest is what gives people the drive to make a profit and to innovate in order to thrive. This drive of self-interest should not be hindered by political or social means, but should be celebrated as the way things are and the way that wealth is best generated.

Second, scarcity - there are never enough goods and services yet humans have a desire for more. So the principle of scarcity declares that markets should celebrate this fact; as a matter of fact "the market feeds on an infinite desire that should never be satisfied; it needs lack".(Long, The Goodness of God, p. 258)

So put these two principles together and you get something like - let's celebrate individual selfishness and let create an environment where no one is every satisfied with what they have. Now, that is putting it bluntly and simplistically, but I think it is basically true of our market system. Hence, advertising is nothing else but trying to create the illusion of lack in our lives. We can't live without this product - we are unfulfilled unless we wear these kinds of clothes etc. The marketing game is based on the two principles above and designed to create a perpetual sense of lack - that we always need to desire more. There can never be the point of enough in capitalism , the system always needs us (consumers) to need more. Here is the catch - if we stopped shopping capitalism collapses. (Hence this makes President Bush's comments after 9/11 more telling when he said, "We just need to continue shopping and going about our lives")

So - bottom line - capitalism as a system trains us to celebrate self-interest (is this a Christian virtue?) and bombards us with messages that we should never be satisfied with the things that we have.

This is getting too long, but I wanted to sketch out some of my thoughts on the basic underpinnings of market capitalism. I think I will wait before I post my next thoughts - should we as a church endorse this program? How would we opt out even if we wanted to? If we can't opt out, then what can we do? I will be talking more to this in the future. I would invite comments to this post in order to stimulate thought.

Expanding the Gospel - Wealth and Poverty

It was announced in April that Lee Raymond, chair of ExxonMobil, was retiring with a 400 million dollar retirement package. That's right - 400 million - more than the average American worker would make in 175 lifetimes!

I was particularly intrigued by columnist William Buckley's comments - he called it a "lack of decorum". Since capitalism does not limit the size of bonus or wage, Buckley argues that there is not much we can do.

And what should the church call a "400 million dollar retirement package"? I know this is stretch, I don't even know if Mr Raymond belongs to any faith group. But if he is a member of a church, I hope the church would consider the correct word - "sin".

Is it possible in our culture, more attuned to the market than ever before, for the church to have an honest opinion about wealth? Are we too compromised on the issue to speak the word of the prophets that condemned wealth and power that marginalized common folks?

Jesus had a fairly consistent attitude toward wealth - while he called the wealthy to repentance and acceptance - he maintained a consistent level of disdain for wealth. Luke records in chapter 18 a story of the rich young ruler who wanted to know what else he had to do to inherit eternal life. He had done everything he thought was necessary and stood in front of Jesus fairly proud of himself - he hadn't stolen someone else's wife, he hadn't killed anyone, he hadn't stolen from anyone - or so he thought...

Jesus told him that he must sell what he had and give it to the poor. Wait, this isn't part of the Law! Why would Jesus say such a thing? In today's church we would have made the rich young ruler the chairman of the board in charge of finance and called him blessed of God...

The culture in Jesus day believed in economics as a zero sum game - meaning that there is a delicate balance in availability of resources. If someone became wealthy that meant that they did so by keeping others poor. In a advanced agrarian society about the only way one could become extremely wealthy would be taking advantage of others, such as foreclosing on their land, taking taxes, treating them as slaves and taking part of their crops as payment. Studies have shown that in Jesus day there was very small percentage of wealthy and a large poverty class from which the rich extracted their living. In other words, what Jesus seems to be suggesting in his conversation with the rich young ruler - is that he understood that you don't become extremely wealthy without stealing from others!!! Hence the rich young ruler was not keeping the Law as well as he thought.

I can hear some responding - but capitalism is a different system. Now we can create wealth without harming others. Capitalism raises all economic boats and has created an unprecedented middle class. That is true - capitalism has worked better than most systems at pulling some people out of poverty. But not all people! I fear that because capitalism is the last economic system standing, and because it does create wealth and distribute it better than other systems that the church is in danger of excepting the modern mantra - "salvation is in the market". We don't believe Jesus anymore when he says that wealth is dangerous to our spiritual life.

Can we, the church, pull ourselves awake long enough to creatively resist thinking that the market is the (invisible, Adam Smith) hand of God? Can we raise any protest? Can we shape a people that honestly believes that our hope is in the Lord and not Wall Street? Again, imagination and discernment is desperately needed...

Parent - Child Moment

It is a little unnerving having your sixteen year old daughter commenting on your blog. Just doesn't seem right. "Baby, your daddy just signed up for his very own blog" - just doesn't seem right.

But, I will go out on a limb here (since I know now that my daughter is reading my blog) to go on record to say that she is one terrific daughter. Just a couple of years and she will be moving out for college (if she gets her way about it) and one season of our life and interaction will move into another. I pray that she always knows how proud I am of her.

Expanding the Gospel - Shalom

Anyone that knows me well may know that the last couple of years I have come to understand the gospel to be a gospel of peace. I have moved away from the understanding of my childhood (and much of my adult life as well) that the gospel is primarily about people getting saved so that they will be ready for heaven when they die. Instead, I now see that the gospel (good news) is also about flesh and blood issues - it is about wealth, and power, and the poor, and the hungry. The biblical vision that animates the gospel is that of "shalom". The gospel of peace is more than the absence of violence - it is the shalom of God - the wholeness and well-being of every person.

Hence pacifism (a biblically oriented understanding of peace) "is a positive concept, reflecting a vision for how life can and should be." (This quote is from Ted Grimsrud in "A Pacifist Critique of the Modern Worldview".) Pacifism seeks for wholeness in every realm - economic, social, political. With this understanding of "shalom" being at the heart of what Jesus was all about - it frees the church to enact the gospel in all its forms - economic, social, political. This requires imagination... it requires discernment...it requires courage.

Postmodernism and Church

I just finished reading "Who's Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church", by James K A Smith. This little book (only 146 pages) has so many tastey insights that it is hard to know which to highlight. The first part of the book is dedicated to giving the post-modern philosophers Derrida (there is nothing outside the text), Lyotard (incredulity toward metanarratives) and Foucault (power is knowledge) a fair hearing. Smith shows how each philosopher adds something positive that can help the church discover its rightful mission - hence Smith suspicions that post-moderism can help the church break out of the modern iron cage (rationalism, scientism, etc).

But the most fascinating part of the book is his attempt at the end to engage the emergent church and its attempt to reform the church. There is a real danger of letting the "postmodern culture" set the stage for the gospel; in other words, just trying to update the church in postmodern form instead of modern form. "Our understanding of what it means to be the church," Smith writes, "must be shaped by the priority of revelation and the Christian tradition, not what (even) a postmodern culture needs or is looking for" (p. 126). Instead, the church needs a recovery of new ways of thinking, living, practicing the faith, basically by going behind modernism and finding the rich resources of the pre-modern church.

Hence postmodernism provides a catalyst for the church to push back past Kant (rationalism)and past Descartes (a thinking mind) and back to a full engagement with the heart. Christians, Smith says, must become "proper materialists" - that is fully engaged with "flesh and blood" liturgy that engages the hearing, sight, sound, touch, smells, etc. New forms of liturgy and arts becomes important for a flesh and blood community to sustain its worship.

Too many insights to struggle with all at once. I simply pray that God gives us the insight, wisdom, and courage to see that the church has another window of opportunity to discover herself and bring good news to a world that desperately needs it.

Friends for the journey

One of the reasons that I enjoy the Ekklesia Project is because they understand how important friendships are to the Christian journey. Their statement reads "The EP is a network of Christians from across the Christian tradition who rejoice in a peculiar kind of friendship rooted in our common love of God and the Church. ..Our shared friendship is one of God's good gifts".

I deeply understand, more than ever before, how important "peculiar" friendships are to sustaining life in the kingdom. I have several peculiar friendships in my life right now - some with people much younger than I, some with people much different than I, some with people distances away.

One of those peculiar friendships is leaving this week to move to Madison, WI to work and help with a new church plant. She will be joining a couple of other "peculiar friends" that moved there last year. It is always sad to see people go, even when you know that the kingdom of God will be enhanced by it. Thankfully, I still have a few "peculiar friends" in the Quad-Cities that share a common love of God and church.

To all my "peculiar friends" I want to say - thanks for journeying with me. I count you as God's good gifts.

Ain't Studying War No More, Cont

Many thanks to my googlehound friend that forwarded to me today one of the most fascinating articles that I have read in a while. The article, "War and Peace and the Wesleyan Church" tells of the peace witness of the Wesleyan Methodist Church at its inception in the mid-1800's. The organizers of the Wesleyan Methodist Church appointed a Committee on Peace in 1844 to present a report entitled "The Duty of Christians on the Subject of Peace". Their report stated..."We believe the Gospel of Christ to be every way opposed to the practice of war, in all its forms..."

The author of this historical paper suggests that the peace witness of the Wesleyan Methodist Church remained strong until the Civil War which led to a change in the "Discipline" (1864) that lacked the strong witness against war.

I also learned that the Assemblies of God church, the large evangelical, Pentecostal church of my upbringing had a peace statement as well until the World Wars called it into question.

Incredible!! Maybe it is time that we investigate why we gave up so easily on peace.