When Did LGBTQ Inclusion Get to Be a "Nonessential?"

By Derek Penwell

I was buoyed by the recent General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Indianapolis. Some of my positive response involved the lack of bickering and complaining that often takes place around the edges; some of it also had to do with the fact that I didn’t hear much of the customary kvetching about how the denomination is falling apart, and how we-need-to-get-more-young-people-involved-or-we’re-going-to-die. 

But what I found most encouraging about the recent General Assembly was the near unanimous support for the election of Rev. Teresa Hord Owens as our newest General Minister and President. In so doing, the Disciples among all mainline denominations have taken a historic step by electing to its highest office the first African American woman. Her nomination, election, and installation brought chills to many of us. A proud moment for our denomination. 

I came home and told our congregation that we made history by electing Rev. Owens. But more importantly, we did the right thing for our time and place—and we did it boldly. Disciples of Christ—who have often displayed dispiriting institutional timidity in dealing with controversial topics until society has evolved sufficiently to assure that the controversial rough edges have been sanded down, providing us with the cover we think we need, so that we won’t lose too many more people or congregations over it—appeared to have taken a courageous stand by so enthusiastically embracing an African American woman for the denomination’s top post.

Consequently, I was disappointed to read her comments in The Christian Century, which seem to be a step back toward timidity. I’m willing to be corrected on this. In fact, I hope somehow I misread her intent, and someone with personal knowledge will make a statement reassuring LGBTQ people, who likely feel thrown under the bus. (It’s only that I have such high expectations of her and respect for her that I write at all. I want her to succeed. I can't stress that enough.)

What do I mean?

Rev. Owens brought the issue of LGBTQ inclusion to the center of the discussion about her new role as GMP when “she noted that the calls she has received have not been about her views on Black Lives Matter, but about sexuality and politics. She emphasized that her desire is to care for the vulnerable, not to align theology and politics.”

Admittedly, it’s difficult to know in that quote what relationship “sexuality and politics” have to one another. Does that quote mean something like “the politics of sexuality” or does it mean that both “sexuality” and “politics” are separate but important issues she’s had to take calls on—but that the calls about politics have not included the politics of race? I suspect it’s the former, since the sentence preceding it states: “The Disciples have had conflict over LGBTQ inclusion, though a previous General Assembly passed a resolution in favor of it.”

If that’s the case—that is, she’s talking about the politics of sexuality—I think her stance is troubling. What she seems to be saying is that LGBTQ inclusion is a matter of personal or congregational interpretation, one on which the GMP should refrain from announcing a theological opinion. This explanation seems warranted by her proximate reference to banners in her congregation that offer the traditional Disciples’ motto: “In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, in all things love.” In other words, the implication appears to be that Rev. Owens sees LGBTQ inclusion as a “nonessential” about which everyone should be encouraged to believe whatever they want—and that those beliefs should be respected by all.

Without sounding terribly ungracious, such a denominational line is all too familiar to Disciples’ LGBTQ people and their allies. We’ve heard forever how LGBTQ people—who want to be included and celebrated because of and not in spite of who they are—are a divisive force in the denomination who will drive conservative congregations away, and that LGBTQ people should forbear from judging their fellow Disciples who believe differently from them—even if those differences consign LGBTQ people to the status of conscious and inveterate sinners. This faint-hearted view from the General Church isn’t new. It seems to be a reflexive institutional response.

But what’s disappointing is that Rev. Owens is an African American in a denomination, which at one point not that long ago found itself planted at the center of a culture that saw racial inclusion as a “nonessential” about which people of good faith could disagree. There were Disciples congregations that thought racism was an issue about which the church should not attempt to “align theology and politics.” And yet, I suspect, like me, Rev. Owens is glad that enough people stood up and said that aligning theology and politics isn’t just a distraction for loudmouth trouble-makers like me, but that pursuit of justice in matters of race is at the very heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus—indeed, it’s at the heart of what it means to be a Disciple of Christ. 

And thank God it is. We should take pride in seeing our theological/ecclesiological identity wrapped up in being a pro-reconciling/anti-racist church. Not only should we be proud of it, we should invest in it, hold it up, speak prophetically about it, and hold religious and political leaders accountable because of it. We believe that our identity as a pro-reconciling/anti-racist church is an “essential” that should unify us.

But, and here’s the rub, being a pro-reconciling/anti-racist church means that our core social commitment is to justice, of which racism is an obvious contravention. Put differently, injustice is an abomination that manifests in the form of racism. But it also manifests in sexism, in xenophobia, in ableism, and in economic systems weighted in favor of the rich against the poor … and in discrimination against LGBTQ people. Being a pro-reconciling/anti-racist church means that we are aware of the intersections of injustice, and that we therefore take seriously all manifestations of injustice.

That not everyone agrees on LGBTQ inclusion is largely beside the point. If Rev. Owens believes that commitment to LGBTQ inclusion is a matter of justice, then perforce it becomes an “essential” around which we expect to see “unity,” and about which we can expect our leaders to speak publicly and prophetically. (A presidential commitment to banning transgender people from the military was announced today. That’d be a good place to start.)

If Rev. Owens doesn’t believe that commitment to LGBTQ inclusion is a matter of justice … well then, we’ve got a big problem.

The Church Ought to Be the Seat of the Resistance: A Manifesto

By Derek Penwell

In the twenty-four hours following the recent presidential election, I received three messages—none of them from church people. I’m not talking about people who don’t go the church I serve, but people unassociated with any church. 

One message came from a very recent Syrian refugee, whose family our congregation co-sponsored as they made America their new home. He wanted to know if the election meant he and his family would have to return to a refugee camp in another, more dangerous part of the world. 

Another message came from a lesbian with whom I’d gone to grad school, wanting to know if I would perform her wedding before the inauguration. She and her partner had been planning a June wedding in England, but now they didn’t feel like they had the luxury of waiting.

The third message came from a Pakistani Muslim friend who’s a doctor here in town. He said, “What do I do Derek? Today at work the other doctors were high-fiving because of the election … right in front of me. These guys are my friends. I was devastated to think that they never stopped to consider how I might feel after last night. They know my two nine year-old sons, who today I’m very frightened for. I don’t know what to do. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to us.”

I’m a Christian pastor, for God’s sake. Why call me?

I’m nobody special, so I suspect that the reason they called has something to do with the assumption that the church (writ large) will not stand for the kinds of terrorizing acts my friends were certain was to follow from this administration. That’s a pretty powerful assumption about what the church at its best represents to people afraid that the powers and principalities are now arrayed agains them.

I spoke last week as a faith leader at a Pride rally. I began my remarks by noting that in a state like Kentucky a lot of violence has been done to LGBTQ people by Christians. But, I went on, LGBTQ people have historically been the very kinds of social outcasts Jesus had a habit of hanging out with. Consequently, those people who claim to follow Jesus ought to be the first to repent and be accountable for the harm that’s been done in our name. Furthermore, I argued that moving forward, people of faith ought to be among the loudest to advocate for justice on behalf of those who’ve too long seen injustice against them baptized in the service of some misguided doctrinal purity.

If we’re doing it right, the church, it occurs to me now—even more than it did at this time last year—should be the seat of resistance. We should be the folks people think of first when it comes to standing up for those most threatened by a politics that multiplies inequity and reifies greed.

Having said that, I imagine someone will be quick to object, “That sounds awfully political. The church needs to stay out of politics.”

I want to be careful to say what I’m about to say as pastorally as I can: “Where did you ever get a stupid idea like that?” 

There is no truthful way to read the Bible—especially the Hebrew prophets and the Gospels—and come away from that reading and still say that following Jesus is somehow an apolitical endeavor. Laying out an argument about how the poor or the sick should be treated, or about how those in power should use that power to benefit the most vulnerable (instead of in some systematic attempt at self-aggrandizement) is absolutely a political argument.

What I think people generally mean they they reject the commingling of religion and politics is the belief that religion should refrain from partisan politics. It is probably more correct to say, however, that Christianity should never become the religious auxiliary for any political party, using its influence to justify partisan positions that have been arrived at prior to engaging with Jesus.

Fine, I have no quarrel with that. But I think it should be pointed out that both sides tend to argue that it is the other side that is guilty of such theological rationalization. What I think the question ought to be is whether this political position or that more nearly captures the heart of the good news announced in the unfolding reign of God. The story we tell ourselves about who God is as expressed in Jesus should always animate our politics. 

Here’s the thing: Partisan political parties are imperfect tools to help us realize that story; they are by no means, I hope it goes without saying, the best tools or the only tools. We shouldn’t be married to them any more than we are to our favorite hammer. But if the job is pounding nails, only someone who knows nothing about carpentry would say that a screwdriver is just as good as a hammer. And only a fool would say that all tools have flaws, and therefore we shouldn’t use any of them—regardless of the job in front of us—because God doesn’t like tools, and doesn’t approve of us using them, or because we don’t see Jesus using those tools in his life and ministry. (Jesus didn’t use antibiotics either, but that doesn’t mean he’s opposed to them.)

Another objection will almost certainly be summed up something like this: “Okay, but half of my church voted for Donald Trump. I’m the pastor to everybody, and if I start taking political positions—even though I have some fundamental problems with the president—I’m going to alienate half of the congregation. It’s better for everyone if I stay out of politics and focus on things like teaching, preaching, and pastoral care.”

Such a reaction prompts a couple of thoughts. First, if you don’t say something about some of the racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, homophobic, plutocratic, transphobic policies being championed, your preaching is lousy and you’re liable to alienate the other half of your congregation anyway. They’re looking to you to preach the truth. Your unwillingness to be “political” or “controversial” is seen by many of them as an abdication of your primary responsibility to interpret the world truthfully … in love, yes. But the truthfully, nevertheless.[1]

Second, teaching and preaching the truth of the Gospel is pastoral care. In Matthew 9:35–36 we have a 30,000 foot view of Jesus’ ministry: “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” 

This passage gives a rather traditional Matthean formula for the work of Jesus’ ministry: teaching, preaching, and healing. But then Matthew tells us that as Jesus was perambulating over the countryside doing his pastoral duty, he ran into crowds, for whom he had compassion. Now, compassion is literally the act of feeling another’s feelings, usually suffering of some sort—in this case the feeling of being “harassed and helpless”—and then being compelled to act to confront that suffering, and work to change it.

So, if Jesus is feeling compassion on the crowd because they are “harassed and helpless,” we have to ask ourselves what exactly this harassed helplessness refers to. Most likely, according to Warren Carter, this phrase “harassed and helpless” refers to the beleaguered masses who find themselves under the thumb of Roman state oppression, as well as their fellow Jews who are collaborating with the Romans at their expense.[2] Jewish peasants were especially vulnerable to the economic and political pressures Rome imposed on the countries it conquered and occupied. Jesus, therefore, feels compassion toward them because they’ve been on the receiving end of the violent caprice of their Roman overlords.

In response to this injustice Jesus describes the “harassed and helpless” as “like sheep without a shepherd,” which is a historical reference to the relationship between the sheep that make up the flock of God’s children, and the shepherds to whom God has entrusted the care of God’s sheep. These crappy shepherds, in short, are the priests and the religious bigwigs who’ve betrayed God’s flock, at least in part, by not protecting them—in an attempt to try not to appear threatening to the politics of Rome. Ezekiel, in another context, spells out nicely the failure of the shepherds:

Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them—to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fattens; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them (2–6).

What’s interesting is that Jesus lays responsibility for the continued abuse suffered by the flock at the feet of the shepherds, whose pastoral duties seem to extend to protecting the sheep from the abuse of political predators who endanger them. When the shepherds neglect this duty in an attempt to stay politically neutral, they betray their sacred vocation. Apparently, then, their responsibilities consist of more than just petting the sheep. Identifying dangers to the flock, it would seem, is more important than placating the sheep and convincing the wild animals that you pose them no threat.

Someone might interject here that even if the job of a pastor is to speak truthfully about the powers and principalities that imperil the harassed and helpless, to say that the church should be the “seat of the resistance” sounds merely like an oppositional strategy—one that’s focused on the negative.

I understand how it might sound that way to the average white parishioner in a mainline congregation, who doesn’t feel particularly threatened by those running the current political show. To those people resistance sounds like a radical call to arms, one that risks turning the world, as they know it, on its head. But when people react negatively to the use of the word resistance, they rarely say it’s because the stable world they take for granted is in jeopardy. They tend to say things like, “Such an extreme posture will cause division.” Or they say, “We want everyone to be treated fairly, but what you’re describing would drive people away. And aren’t we in the job of bringing people into the church?”

There are so many things I’d love to say in response to that sort of moral reticence, but that would be another article. What I most want to say, however, is that that kind of reluctance to speak against the things Jesus spoke against doesn’t take seriously the “harassed and the helpless” as subjects for whose cries of injustice we bear any responsibility. If you were to ask my refugee friend, or my lesbian friend, or my Muslim friend about whether they’d like the world that threatens them turned upside down so that they might live without fear, I know how they’d answer. If you asked them to choose between justice for them and their children or peace in a congregation afraid of division, I can tell you what choice they’d make.

Issues of congregational conflict and division aren’t small matters, it’s true. They require thoughtful time and attention. But the question for the church and for its pastors is, “Why are we more afraid of upsetting some parishioners than in offering a truthful word about the injustices that produce people who are harassed and helpless?”

How can we who call ourselves by Jesus’ name look at the imperiled sheep and say that our job as shepherds only permits us to speak in soothing tones that mollify those who are too easily put off by talk of politics?

The church should be the one place where those who face a potentially hostile world feel safe, where the harassed and helpless have confidence that our moral commitments prompt us to resist any politics that terrorizes the powerless. 

The world should have confidence that—whenever families are put at risk, whenever young black men find themselves disproportionately and systematically penalized because they’re black, whenever dead refugee children on distant shores evoke grief, but refugee children in our own country evoke fear, whenever LGBTQ people are bullied and discriminated against, whenever poor people are belittled for needing help to eat or to take their children to the doctor, whenever women have to remain vigilant against the humiliations launched by insecure men, whenever creation is threatened by our rapacious plunder of it—the church will stand together with the embattled.

The church should always, without qualification, without mumbling about “congregational division,” without convenient theological fudging be a voice for the voiceless in the face of the threat of oppressive laws and executive orders.

“But it could cost us everything.”

True. But we follow Jesus, and look what having compassion on the harassed and the helpless cost him. Why do we think we’ll get by with anything less?

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1. If you think Donald Trump is God’s guy in the White House, then this piece is obviously not written for you.  ↩

2. Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading, (New York: Orbis Books, 2005), 230.  ↩

Why Paying Taxes Is a Religious/Moral Issue: Remarks for the Tax Day March

By Derek Penwell

In this country, it always seems to come back to choice. But choosing is the prerogative of the wealthy and the powerful. In my neighborhood if I want food, for instance, I can choose to shop at one of several grocery stores. If I feel like something different, I can eat at one of the many restaurants nearby. Or I can eat fast food.

But … if I lived on a different side of town, I often wouldn’t get to choose between bad food and good food; generally speaking, I could choose between bad food and no food—which is to say, I wouldn’t get much of a choice at all.

It’s all about choice, isn’t it?

• The wealthy and the powerful choose where to go on vacation; the poor and the powerless often just “choose” to stay home.
• The wealthy and the powerful choose which health plan, which doctor, which hospital they want to patronize; the only choice the poor and the powerless usually have to make is whether to go to the clinic or to the emergency room.
• The wealthy and the powerful choose politicians who look and talk like them; the poor and the powerless get to “choose” politicians who look and talk like … the wealthy and the powerful.
• The wealthy and the powerful choose upon whom to lavish their charity; the poor and the powerless get to “choose” if they’ll take it or do without. Not much choice.

Americans like the idea of charity because it allows us to maintain the illusion that the haves and the have-nots are a result of virtue or vice, and are therefore a product of choices. I am where I am because I made good choices. And if you’e in a bad situation, it’s because you made bad choices.

Charity, a mechanism for voluntarily deciding who gets a portion of what we have, is an especially apt exercise of choice, since it reinforces the modern American belief that only the stuff we choose has any value. To choose to give to charity is to take advantage of the power and resources at your disposal to give to those whom you think are worthy of your attention.

The problem, though, is when we disagree over who’s worthy.

Saying to an unemployed single mother on Food Stamps, “You have choices; you should just get a job and buy food for your kids with your own money,” may very well be like saying, “The Lottery’s an option you seem not to have explored very seriously. You should just win the lottery if you want your kids to eat.” The response to which is, “Great plan, Einstein. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“But if charity only underwrites current power arrangements, what’s the answer?”

I like the Jewish vision of giving. Hebrew doesn’t have a word that equates to the English word “charity” (with its assumption that giving is done from a position of power, that is, relying on the choice of the giver to be generous). The word used for helping the poor and the powerless in Hebrew is one we translate in English justice or righteousness. On this account, giving is an act of justice, not charity.

What I find especially interesting, though, is that in Judaism this act of justice is an obligation. You have to. In contrast to modern American assumptions about charity being done as a favor to those who don’t have, Judaism views giving as something owed by those who “have” to those who “have not.” 

Viewed as an obligation to act justly toward those who don’t have the means to make the choices modern Americans value, giving takes on a completely different tone: Giving is something the “haves” are a responsible to do in virtue of their having.

In America, we’ve formalized this idea of giving as an act of justice through our system of taxation. Religious people have a moral obligation to pay taxes—not just so we can have bigger bombs and better bridges, but because those who “have” in almost all religious traditions have a duty to defend and support those who “have not.” Arguing that support for the poor should come from a choice to give to charitable organizations doesn’t, as Sean Spicer might say, pass the religious smell test.

Unfortunately, charitable organizations can’t do enough to feed all the people who need food. Non-profits can’t provide healthcare to all the people who need healing. Religious charities can’t teach Calculus and Physics to all the people who need to know those things, or tend to all the elderly and disabled who can’t afford to take care of themselves.

We need programs funded by tax dollars to do all that. So, as a matter of religious devotion, we have an obligation to participate in a system that helps care for those who need our help. Which is why, as a country that prides itself so loudly and so often on its religious devotion, we need a president who is an example and not an exception of what it means to pay taxes.

My deepest fear is that the argument to take money from those programs that support the folks who need it most, under the guise of an emphasis on personal responsibility and a need to make everything a matter of personal choice, is just a cover for selfishness (at best) or something even more despicable (at worst).

In this country it always comes back to choice—except when it comes to the president being honest with the American people about his taxes. Then . . . there’s no choice at all.

Remarks for an Interfaith Response to the President's Policies

By Derek Penwell

The first question someone might raise upon hearing of an Interfaith response to the president’s policies might reasonably be, “Why are faith leaders involving themselves in partisan politics by holding a press conference?”

The answer to that question, most simply put, is that the kinds of policies and the legislative agenda coming out of Washington D.C. . . . all the way down to our state capital are a matter of profound concern to us gathered here. To put a finer point on it, the issues—ranging from the proposed budget, to the Executive Order, to the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act are not merely partisan political issues to us—they’re moral issues, issues that strike at the heart of our most precious moral and religious commitments.

From my own tradition, I can say with certainty that Jesus never said: “Go ye therefore into all the world . . . and make life as miserable as possible for poor people who need financial and healthcare assistance. And while you’re out there spreading misery, don’t forget to ensure that refugees, Muslims, undocumented immigrants, African Americans, women, and LGBTQ people have as grim an existence as you can possibly make it.”

That doesn’t sound anything like Jesus . . . or the Prophet Muhammad, or Moses, or the Buddha—or any of the faith traditions we hold dear. But you might be forgiven for thinking that those are exactly the marching orders handed down from certain political leaders . . . both in Washington and Frankfort. If it were possible to craft a social and political agenda that would fail more stunningly to represent the best expressions of all of our faith traditions, I’m sure I don’t know what it would be.

How we treat those seeking refuge or work or a start on a new life, how we care for the environment, how we empower women to have control over their own bodies and careers, how we refuse to enable systems that continue to oppress and deny human dignity to African Americans and LGBTQ people, how we ensure affordable healthcare to all people, how we protect the rights and the safety of our Muslim and Jewish neighbors . . . these things and not our commitment to dogmatic purity, we believe, are the true test of our faith.

We are called, as the deepest expression of who we are as people of faith, to give voice to the voiceless.

We will not be silenced!

20 Questions You Should Ask to See If Your Minister Is Any Good

By Derek Penwell

If you ask most churchgoers whether their minister does a good job or not, they will fall all over themselves to give you an opinion. Good or bad, they make judgments about the service their pastor renders (or, if you ask the right folks, fails to render).

What you won’t get, if you ask most parishioners about ministerial job performance, is hesitation. Saint or scoundrel, brilliant leader or incompetent dolt. What you won’t get is, “Hmmm, I don’t know.”

Whence comes all this certainty about ministerial competence? How did everyone get to be so confident about their ability to evaluate pastoral performance?

In what follows, I would like to help begin a conversation about what good ministry looks like, and then to provide a series of questions that I believe will help people to identify it in their own context.

Let me see if I can come at this in a roundabout way. In the philosophical discipline of aesthetics there is an important distinction between aesthetic judgment and matters of personal taste. That is to say, there is an aesthetic distinction between saying, “Virginia Woolf is a superior writer to Danielle Steele,” and “Coke is better than Pepsi.” The former is supportable as an argument by reference to a series of aesthetic and literary criteria about what makes good literature (which are always being argued about themselves), while the latter is understood to be an assertion of personal preference.

Declaring that there are standards by which to judge something as seemingly nebulous as art strikes many Americans as elitist. This is where we get the “Who’s to say?” argument: “Who’s to say anime isn’t an art form?” or “Who’s to say Steven Seagal isn’t as good an actor as Marlon Brando?” But those are arguments that can be had, as I say, by referring to generally acknowledged (though not always uncontroversial) standards about art.

Disagreements about Coke versus Pepsi, on the other hand, aren’t arguments at all, but rather assertions of personal preference, which, if carried on long enough, inevitably devolve to “Is not!” “Is too!”

Consequently, if you need to evaluate something, standards must be in place. You can argue about the standards, but if critical judgments are to be made that rise above purely subjective predilections and fancies, you have to agree in advance what those standards are.

And in order to know what the standards ought to be, you need to have a clear understanding of the purpose of a thing. A Seiko watch is perfectly serviceable if what you want it for is keeping time. It’s going to be a severe disappointment as a shovel, though.

I say all this because, while there is no dearth of opinion about ministers and their vocational aptitude, I fear there is a frightening lack of understanding about what makes a good minister good and a bad minister bad. So, I want to propose some criteria for evaluating ministers.

Now, someone will likely object that we shouldn’t be judging ministers at all, since judgment is exactly what turns people off about the church. I would point out two things: 1) I’m not talking about judging ministers as human beings; I’m talking about evaluating their job performance, and 2) people are already engaged in judging ministers; I’m just proposing some standards that allow for an argument, instead of the easier, but extraordinarily unilluminating practice of evaluating ministers, based on nothing more substantial than whether or not they say “Hi!” in the narthex in a satisfying enough way.1

I would like to begin by suggesting that the purpose of ministry in the church is to equip followers of Jesus for the reign of God.  Therefore, the focus of ministry ought rightly to be on those areas that prepare people to be more mature followers of Jesus.  That is to say, not all ministerial activities are created equal—which, of course, is as true for ministers as for ministry programming in the church.

And so, I’ve identified those areas that, I would argue (yes, as in, “argue”), help give us the fullest picture of what good ministry looks like as it seeks to accomplish its purposes. What follows is a series of questions that, I hope, will help to clarify how ministry might more effectively be evaluated.

The Minister as Example

If ministry involves helping to lead others to a more mature expression of faith, the most crucial area of ministerial expertise and performance ought to be that of model.  In other words, ministers ought to be evaluated first and foremost by whether they actually seek to live like Jesus said to live.

1. Does the minister model the attributes of discipleship that the church wishes to inculcate in its members?
2. Is the minister’s life one the church feels good about holding up as an example of faithfulness, integrity, and humility for parishioners to emulate?
3. Can the church say of the minister, “I hope my child grows up to be like her or him?”

The Minister as Theologian

So, living like a grownup follower of Jesus ought to be the broadest context in which ministerial evaluation takes place.

If I’m right about the purpose of ministry being the equipping of followers of Jesus for the reign of God, then taking that as the touchstone for performance evaluation, the next most important area of consideration should be the minister’s ability to reflect theologically on the implications of the practices of faith, and then to be able to articulate those insights for the congregation.  If what the church is about is helping to produce followers of Jesus, ministers need to have an intimate knowledge of what is involved in living out the faith, and then to be able to communicate that knowledge with confidence.  Preaching and teaching, therefore, are arguably the two most important aspects of the senior minister’s job performance up to be evaluated.2

1. Do the sermons challenge people to deeper demonstrations of discipleship by helping them to understand the implications of worship practices, outreach, education, etc.?
2. Does the minister have an adequate understanding of the Biblical text and an ability to interpret it in ways that helps people to live out their faith in a modern context?
3. Is God the focus of worship?
4. Does the minister offer challenges to follow Jesus that call into question the status quo and current power arrangements?
5. Is lay leadership in worship encouraged?
6. Does the minister study and pray?

The Minister as Leader

Understanding that the church is a complex system, leadership by the minister should not be confused with bureaucratic administration.  That is not to say that ministers have no responsibility for helping the church to be good financial stewards by timely payment of its bills, accurate record keeping, and in full compliance with the law, or that ministers should not be burdened with the supervision of staff, or that ministers need not worry about typographical errors on the web site.  Clearly, part of the minister’s task as a leader in the church is to foster an atmosphere that understands and observes good practices with respect to its organizational commitments.  However, the reason that administrative decisions are made in the church is not necessarily because they work, or because that’s “the way we do it in business,” but decisions are made because they are judged to be faithful and because they contribute to the process of equipping followers of Jesus for the reign of God.  Consequently, ministerial leadership requires a theological, and not just a business or managerial, understanding of the larger picture.

The larger picture that concerns the minister, on this reading, requires the skills and abilities to assess congregational systems and to help those systems move forward through, sometimes, difficult transitions.  Good leadership in the church calls for people willing to make difficult decisions regarding faithful practices, and then to stand by them.  And a good leader needs to help the church make those decisions with the knowledge that not everyone will agree.  Also, the minister must understand that she or he will sometimes be wrong—at which point, the good leader needs to be able to acknowledge poor decisions and to seek to make them right, understanding that failure is not only to be expected, but is to be valued as a learning tool.  The minister, then, ought to be evaluated on her or his ability to lead the system through change.  This will be crucial in the coming years.

1. Is the minister capable of helping the congregation envision a new future by honestly assessing its context, its gifts, its present emotional systems, and its organizational structures?
2. Does the minister continually help the congregation and its leadership refocus attention on the compelling demands of the Gospel rather than the busy work of maintaining the institution?
3. Does the minister help the congregation make difficult decisions?
4. Does the minister seek to enhance the free flow of information through good communication?
5. Does the minister foster systems of honest, open, and loving communication among the staff and the congregation?

Consequently, if a good understanding of organizational systems is necessary for ministerial leadership, also crucial to the minister’s skill set is the ability to identify, recruit, and develop new leadership in the church.  Given the fact that churches are dynamic systems with constant changes in membership composition, as well as the fact that ministry emphases are continually changing, developing new leadership in the church is consistent with the goal of equipping followers of Jesus for the reign of God.  Leadership development is the natural byproduct of preparing people for the hard work of following Jesus.

1. Is the minister capable of identifying people with the potential for good leadership?
2. Does the minister have success in recruiting new leaders and working with them to provide an understanding of the expectations involved in leadership?
3. Does the minister’s leadership style encourage or inhibit people from taking the initiative in developing and sustaining ministry opportunities?

The Minister as Pastor

In the process of equipping followers of Jesus for the reign of God, the minister is necessarily called upon to embody the love present in the gospel to people—within the congregation and without.  Perhaps, just as importantly, the minister is responsible for helping to teach the congregation how it is called upon to embody that love.  Good leadership requires that the pastor not only be capable of offering pastoral care on behalf of the congregation, but that the pastor take the necessary steps to multiply the scope and breadth of the pastoral ministry by training people to do the ministry of the church.

1. Does the minister care for the critical pastoral needs of the congregation?
2. Does the minister seek to give people in the congregation the necessary resources to carry out the bulk of the pastoral ministry of the church?
3. Does the minister help persons to develop a spiritual life that relates to their faith?

Ministers need to be evaluated.  However, they need to be evaluated within a particular context.  Therefore, there must be some nuanced understanding of the purpose and end of the task of parish ministry in order properly to evaluate whether it’s doing what it’s supposed to do.  Whether the minister is nice, whether the minister is ultimately likable takes a back seat to the question of whether or not the minister does the job a minister ought to do.

What do you think?

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1. DISCLAIMER: This is a reflection on preaching ministry—since that’s what I do.  A contribution from from those whose ministries include areas of responsibility like education, shepherding, chaplaincy, worship, and so on, would be extremely valuable. ↩
2. And please understand, I don’t mean preaching and teaching as entertainment. Being funny and clever is a bonus, not the focus. ↩

In the Room Where It Happens: Public Moments of Worship

By Rev. Mindi

It’s probably been twenty years since I last joined in a public singing of Handel’s Messiah. I was part of a community choir, and we invited the audience to join us on the Hallelujah Chorus. In this particular instance, our choir stepped down from the risers and interspersed ourselves among the people, singing our harmonies among those singing the melody, helping our neighbors find their places in the sheet music so they could sing along. It was a moving moment of joining voices, professional and amateur, to sing this magnificent opus. And it was a public act of worship, of joining our voices to sing these notes and text that portrayed such a moment of praise.

I know that many churches still offer public singings of Messiah around the holidays, but the opportunity to find such moments outside of the church are rare. A few years ago, when flash mobs were the rage, I remember watching the video over and over again of the people singing the Hallelujah Chorus in the middle of a mall, from where they were sitting and standing.

I call these moments of worship because the focus is not on the individual. In these moments, the focus has turned outward. It has turned into a moment of joining together with other voices to make something greater than ourselves.

I have felt these moments of public worship in other spaces. During the 2000’s, attending U2 concerts often felt like acts of worship. I remember during the Vertigo tour, singing Yahweh at the end of the concert, where one by one the instruments stopped until all that was left was our voices on the chorus and the sound of Larry’s hands on the bongo’s. At other times, singing 40 at the end of the concerts was our public moment of joining together. In both cases, those words led us to singing a song of praise to God.

However, it was on the 360 tour, in singing Walk On, that I began crying, when Burmese refugees came forth wearing masks depicting the face of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese political prisoner who was finally released soon after that tour after fifteen years of house arrest under the military regime. It was a moment of solidarity, a moment of understanding the plight of the Burmese people. Of course, we paid $45 plus Ticketmaster fees to join in that moment, so I understand the skepticism of others, and I have heard the criticism of using Aung San Suu Kyi to sell concert tickets. But I also know that U2 have worked hard to share the message of the Burmese people during Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest, and made their struggle known to the world.

I wasn’t expecting to find this moment of public worship at Emerald City ComiCon this year in Seattle. Of course, being a fan of Hamilton and singing those songs at the top of my lungs in my car sometimes feels like a moment of worship. I am sure for those who have attended the musical there is an understanding of a greater story being told. But at ComiCon, there was a Hamilton Sing Along, and In the Room Where It Happens, it happened.

Sure, we started off with, “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by Providence…” and you know the rest. We sang songs with colorful language that we would never sing in church.

But we also sang Wait For It: 

Death doesn’t discriminate

Between the sinners and the saints

It takes and it takes and it takes

And we keep living anyway

We rise and we fall and we break

And we make our mistakes

And if there’s a reason I’m still alive

When everyone who loves me has died

I’m willing to wait for it

I’m willing to wait for it…

 In that moment of singing those familiar lyrics, there was a sense of knowing our own mortality, that we all have one shot at this life, and that the best we can do is to come together and try to find enjoyment when we can.

When I looked around the room, there was a moment that surprised me. There were children in the room who knew every singing word without having to look at the power point. There were people dressed up as Spider Man and others as zombies who sang the harmony on Satisfied. It was ComiCon, after all. But it felt like worship. It felt like church.

We didn’t get to sing It’s Quiet Uptown, with the lyrics, “There’s a grace too powerful to name,” but I felt that message in all of our joyous singing, in the raised fists during The World Turned Upside Down, in our insistence that we were not throwing away our shot. And when we sang Rise Up, one by one, people began to rise up together. We began to join not only our voices but our bodies in this movement. I felt a connection to the turmoil that is happening right now in the United States people, one by one, stood up and sang.

To me, it transported me back to that moment twenty years ago, singing the Hallelujah Chorus. We were naming a powerful moment, singing our praise as a people, and while we want a revolution, in that moment, we had a revelation. Hallelujah. Rise Up.

A Short Primer on Congregational Hostage Negotiations

By Derek Penwell

Things had been rocky for a while. Anxiety had reached new levels. Long time members were getting twitchy. Then Tom announced that he wanted to see the executive committee in my office. (Yeah, it was just as officious as it sounds.)

“We’ve got problems,” Tom began. “We need to make some changes around here, and that starts with the minister.” (This wasn’t going well from my perspective.) “And I’m not giving another dime until those changes get made. I’ll leave it to you all to decide how that gets done.” And he turned around and walked out of my office.

That sounds like a deadly conversation to have just after worship on a February Sunday morning. And it was. Our mouths were all agape. The sheer audacity of Tom’s summons and eventual announcement was awe inspiringly brash. The executive committee sat there stunned, looking at each other slack-jawed. The whole thing struck me as almost cinematic in its dramatic sweep. The only thing missing was Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

Now, it could have been awkward, but funny. Had it been anyone beside Tom we might all have looked at each other and rolled our eyes: “Do you believe this guy? Sorry to disappoint you—what with your self-inflated opinion of your own worth—but just who the hell do you think you are?”

But we knew who he was. Tom was the guy who subsidized the congregational budget by close to 30%. Tom was the guy who one year offered to do matching pledges for the congregation so that they could retire some debt. He was the guy who “wanted to step back from leadership,” but who—when things got bad—could be counted on to show up and “redirect” the congregation toward a “more sustainable path.” Most major decisions required conversations centering on the issue of what Tom would think. He was, in the words of Reggie Jackson, the “straw that stirred the drink.”

In what I took to be a brilliant show of courage, the chairperson of the congregation finally broke the silence by saying, “*#@& him.” This bit of folk wisdom brought us all back to the current dilemma: How do we deal with this problem?

The chairperson continued, “Look. This is hostage taking. We all know it.”

“Yep,” our treasurer chimed in. “If we cave on this, we’ll regret it in the long run. But what are we going to do? That’s a lot of money.”

The vice chairperson said, “It’s an awful lot of money. But he’s holding the budget (and us) hostage. And I’ve watched enough movies to know that if you pay the ransom, you’re only encouraging more hostage taking.”

“I guess we’re just going to have to learn how to make this work without Tom’s money,” said the chairperson.

So, we started going through the budget to see what we could cut, and how we could do some of the things that needed to be done by volunteer labor. But even though the executive committee couldn’t have been more supportive, I felt sick to my stomach. The whole thing, as you might imagine, felt extraordinarily personal to me.

But apart from the personal pain and the anxiety surrounding the knowledge that my livelihood was dangling by a very tenuous thread, was the fact that Tom, and the people who ultimately sided with him, refused to leave the church. They made a decision to stay—but no longer to contribute in a positive way to the life and ministry of the church.

That Tom and his supporters decided to hang around without helping out didn’t really surprise me too much. (I had developed a fairly low opinion of these folks by this time—as, of course, they had of me.) What really chapped my backside, however, were the other people who said they were supportive of what the executive committee was trying to do, but who insisted that Tom and the dissidents ought to continue to be given a seat at the table in discussions about how the church should move forward.

To this constituency of sympathetic longtime members, it only felt right to include Tom and the others because they had invested so much in the life of the congregation over the years. Tom and his allies had been such a big part of the decisions that had always been made, dating back to the church’s founding thirty years prior. How could the people who’d founded the church be cut out—even though they had decided to cease all contributions … save their criticism.

Allowing Tom and his supporters to continue to participate in leadership (if only from the sidelines with a bullhorn) felt to me like making the kidnappers a part of the FBI strategy sessions … about how to deal with the kidnappers. Why would anyone ever do that?

Now, after all these years, and having had time to reflect, I see how I contributed to the situation that led up to the fated meeting with Tom in my office. I fear that I let things get personal long before that post-worship tête-à-tête with the executive committee. So, I don’t want to leave the impression that I think I was blameless heading into that Sunday. If I had the whole thing to do over, there are a number of things I would have probably done differently.

What I’m concerned to talk about here, though, is the all too common phenomenon in the church of hostage taking—that is, “If you don’t give me what I want, I’m going to blow something up.”

Do you know what I’m talking about? That person who’s pretty sure that if she makes the stakes high enough, everyone else will blink, and she’ll get her way.

Sometimes, the utilitarian calculation made by the church leadership seems straightforward:

• If he does quit being a youth sponsor, is it something we can cover relatively easily?
• If she does stop bringing her prize-winning congealed salad to the potlucks, can we manage to continue to feed the folks who show up?
• Will his leaving the church cause more uproar than we’re prepared to deal with at this point?

Each of these situations presents a range of relative difficulty, from “Who cares?” to “Boy, that’s going to be a pain in the neck.”

But there are some hostage negotiation situations, the nature of which is potentially existential: If he does what he says he’ll do, we might have to fold our tent.

An important issue, and one that I rarely see discussed is: How do we deal with hostage takers—especially the ones who ratchet up the tension to DEFCON 1?

Of course, the easy answer would be to say, “Well, you just don’t negotiate with terrorists.” And, when you look at it on paper, it makes sense. Give ‘em an inch, and they’ll … take over the board.

On the other hand, standing firm can exact such high costs that the life and ministry of the congregation is thereby threatened.

What to do?

Here’s the part where, perhaps, you’re expecting some wisdom, some sage advice that will help save you from a possible disaster.

Here’s what I’ve got: If your church is going to collapse if the hostage takers carry out their threats, you’re already in the wrong place. Go. No, really, go.

Do you really want to work with people who are willing to kill something, just to get what they want?

At this point, someone will probably say, “That’s easy for you to say. This is my __ (job, family’s congregation for generations, community, vocational identity). I can’t just leave.”

Let’s take those objections in order:

1. It’s not easy for me to say. After nine months of trying to make it work with Tom and his supporters, I couldn’t do it any longer. I resigned … without having another job lined up. I almost lost my house. My marriage took a beating. I never wanted to work in a church again (and my wife said she’d divorce me if I did). So, no, it’s not easy for me to say. But I’ll say it anyway: Go. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever done, but it was also one of the smartest.
2. Look, I certainly understand why someone with strong attachments to a congregation—personal or professional—would be hesitant to walk away. But let’s look at the options: You can stay and refuse to yield to the demands, watching the hostage takers commit their violence, and everything falls apart … then you leave (This was the path I tried.); or you can stay and cave in to the ultimatum, in which case you become a collaborator, by helping to sustain a toxic situation. Remember: Community is not a good per se. There are bad communities.
3. Ok, when I say, “go,” I’m not necessarily advocating that you drop the mic and walk off the stage in some dramatic show of courage. You could do that, I suppose, but it may not be the best thing. Especially if it’s a job you’re walking away from, you probably ought to begin looking around. But you should look around.

Look, I hope your congregation never faces the mac daddy of all hostage negotiations. Ministers have nightmares about this kind of stuff. Literal, wake-up-in-a-cold-sweat nightmares.

I wish I had some secret move that could reliably resolve situations like these. Alas, I don’t.

Most of what I have to offer is on a meta-level: Ministers and congregations need to decide what they’re worth, what they’re willing to endure to keep things the way they are. Because there are some battles that just aren’t worth fighting. Not winning sometimes is inevitable.

However, there are some hills worth dying on, because to capitulate is to lose who you are and what you value most.

But you follow Jesus, so that shouldn’t be news to you.

The Story of Open Gathering

By Rev. Mindi

Over four years ago, my husband JC had a dream of starting a new worshipping community, a new church gathering, built on including persons with disabilities in the leadership, worship, education, and mission of the gathering. The idea was not to have a separate worship service for disabled persons as some churches do, or a separate ministry, but that this was the vision of Open Gathering: just like some churches wave a rainbow flag out front, we were going to wave a flag with a puzzle piece. We came up with the motto “Open Gathering: You Fit!”

Over the past four years, we have gathered with us abled and disabled, married and single, families with children and grandparents, folks from all walks of life. We began worshipping together twice a month in rented space, using a moveable picture schedule instead of a bulletin, using “Godly Play” and “Worship and Wonder” as our way of engaging scripture together, sitting on chairs and couches and throw pillows and walkers and wheelchairs. We broke bread together at the communion table, which was also our dinner table as we continued our worship. And, as the last spot on our moveable picture schedule indicated, we cleaned up and prepared to go home.

We also started a Mom’s Group that was for all moms and honorary moms, to offer support and encouragement, and also a place for fellowship and gathering. We had game nights and pottery painting nights, and we cheered our friends on in Special Olympics. We gathered each summer for Family Camp for our families with young children, a place where we could all go on our own schedule, where Outdoors for All helped some of our kids get into a kayak for the first time (and no one fell into the water!) We had picnic gatherings during the summer, visited pumpkin patches in the fall, and offered respite for parents of children with disabilities in the spring. We collected socks for our friend’s ministry to neighbors on the street, and volunteered in various other ministries over the past four years.

And sadly, this fall we buried one of our own: our friend Marilyn, who had MS, who through friends at Open Gathering began to advocate for herself with her doctor and received a power chair instead of relying on the somewhat unreliable ride service and her walker. With her power chair, she was able to use the public transportation system and gained more independence (meeting me to watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens at her favorite movie theater). Through Open Gathering, Marilyn gained confidence and joined the disability board of her city to advocate for change. She managed to get one of the city managers to walk the route she took every morning, so she could show him how she was unable to reach the crosswalk button, or how the sidewalks in certain areas flooded, making it impossible for someone using a wheelchair to pass. Marilyn was inspired by Open Gathering, and in turn, we are inspired by her, and we were shocked and saddened at her passing earlier this fall, the first time our community experienced such grief together.

In two weeks, Open Gathering will celebrate its fourth anniversary, and it will hold its final worship gathering. Once again, we are grieving, now in losing this worshiping community. Financially, we were unable to cover our expenses. Four years is not enough time to become self-sustaining, nor is it enough time to develop the internal leadership needed. When our funding was reduced unexpectedly after two years, we were not sure how we would continue on. Bellevue Christian Church, which gave the funds for the grant that initially funded Open Gathering, is fulfilling its charter at the end of March. Bellevue Christian gave more than funds: it covered us under the umbrella of their charter and insurance. But as they come to their end, so must Open Gathering come to its end.

The seeds planted by Open Gathering will continue. Our Mom’s Group is continuing to meet and support one another. The folks that gathered with us are hoping to pull together to continue a Bible Study. But its pastors must move on.

However, what Open Gathering has given birth to is the seed that our ministry was not a separate ministry for folks with disabilities. We were a gathered community of people, and we raise the flag with the puzzle piece and declare You Fit! And it is high time all of our churches, just as much as we embrace the rainbow flag for inclusion of queer folk, embrace the racing wheelchair or the puzzle piece or whatever symbol you use to show that disabled folks are welcome and included—not only in worship, but in leadership, in decision-making, in education, fellowship, and mission.

So as we turn away from winter (hopefully soon) into spring, as Open Gathering prepares for its final worship gathering, we scatter these seeds, hoping they take root in fertile soil, and hoping our friends in ministry will move towards a more inclusive, welcoming community where everybody fits.

Why You Need to Get Back to Work

By Derek Penwell

I often have difficulty getting out of bed to write. In a house with six people, I don’t often have much time to write without interruption. So, morning time works best for writing. But getting out of bed to do it offers challenges that make succeeding at it often seem impossible.

I lie there, reading the newspaper on my phone, thinking, “Five more minutes, then I’ll get up and write.” But then I worry, “What will I write? Maybe I should just read the paper a little longer, check Facebook one more time, and I might stumble across something that will get the creative juices flowing.” But that extra time rarely ever produces anything that primes the pump. It's all just a game I play.

This morning, I faced the same situation. Couldn’t quite pull myself out of bed to sit my sorry butt in front of the keyboard. So, I asked myself, “Why do you do this? Despite good intentions, and promises to the contrary notwithstanding, why do you so regularly refuse to do the one thing you’ve said you want most to do?”

And that’s it, isn’t it? At the heart of it, isn’t that the question we—who have any ambition to do something creative, something interesting—all have to answer? What’s keeping you from doing the thing that makes your heart sing?

I suspect it has something to do with fear—probably lodged deep down in the Amygdala, the Lizard brain.

Am I afraid of failure? I guess that’s a possibility. It may be that I harbor a fear that I’m not as good as I hoped or thought, that it will soon become obvious to me and to everyone else what a fraud I am. Lord knows, I wonder about that sometimes—doing it all with rhetorical smoke and mirrors, not really any substance there. Yes, I contend with that, to be sure.

Am I afraid of success? Also possible. Do I think that if I do this well enough for people to notice that that would be a bad development? That too is possible. If I get to the point that a sufficient number of people are looking at what I do, then I will carry around with me the realization that I now have more people I may potentially disappoint. See the whole “smoke and mirrors” thing above.

Both of those fears rattle about in my brain—voices constantly warning me of impending doom, warning me that people will see beneath the façade, warning me that I’ll die alone and unloved … a disappointment on an epic scale. (“He seemed like such a nice boy. It’s just awful.”)

I’m not going to lie; I contend with those voices all the time, and not just about my life as a writer either.

But deep down, the fear I wrestle with most centers on the work itself. Or put more plainly, the fear I wrestle with most is how difficult the work will be once I start. Which fear, if you want to know the truth, baffles me a bit. Because, generally speaking, I like work, especially the work associated with writing. I do. Writing, for me, is like solving word/thought puzzles—looking for different combinations, trying to put disparate concepts and linguistic possibilities together to form something new and interesting and beautiful.

This fear is also a fear of failure, not in the big sense—the how-can-I-ever-look-people-in-the-eye-when-I-go-back-to-my-high-school-reunion kind of fear. It’s more of a small bore, particular, what-if-all-I-have-to-show-for-all-my-time-in-front-of-a-blank-screen-is-a-blank-screen kind of fear. None of those small failures in isolation is going to define your life, but string enough of those together …

Consequently, I often find myself balking when it comes time to do what I know I need to do. And the only way I know past that particular fear is through it—right down the middle, straight in. No sneaking up on it. No outflanking it. No waiting until the fear gets distracted (Hint: It doesn’t). I have to get right up in fear’s grill, as the kid’s say.

So, when I run across congregations that appear to be stuck, not doing what they say they’ve been put on earth to do, I have real sympathy. Living in fear knocks the wind out of you. It makes forward motion feel like running a hundred meter dash in skis and chain mail.

And, while I’m pretty sure the fear most congregations face has more to do with the fear of failure than the fear of success, I tend to believe more and more that much of that fear begins on a smaller scale with a fear of the work at hand—or perhaps just as likely, a fear that no one quite knows what the work should be.

• Shouldn’t we have more conversations before we start that outreach to the undocumented workers and their children?
• Is it wise to remodel the narthex—what with the way things are right now?
• Wouldn’t another worship service just divide our congregation into different groups?
• Aren’t we running the risk of damage to the property if we let the Community Ministry use one of our classrooms for a clothing closet?
• If we did start welcoming “all” people, what if folks in the community start thinking of us as “the gay church?”

These questions (while not necessarily bad questions) arise from fear—most likely a small scale fear that the work is difficult, will lead us in the wrong direction, or the work is probably wrong for the kind of people we are.

Of course, you might fail. Some bad things might happen if you move forward. But worse things might happen if you stay put.

Don’t get me wrong, you have to consider the consequences of doing something new. The problem is, you should also just as vigorously consider the consequences of not doing something new.

Perhaps the thing you should be wrestling with, more than fear of failure or fear of success, is the fear of not doing anything meaningful.

For Christians, faithfulness, not fear, should be the biggest concern. After all, we follow a guy who, at least according to the tradition, looked fear in the face and then walked right into the very heart of hell. And none of the work you’re scared of doing will ever amount to that.

So, quit playing games and get back to work.

Dog Whistle Politics or the Institutionalization of Racist Passive Aggression

By Derek Penwell

I’ve lived in the South for almost 30 years now. It took a lot of getting used to. Having grown up in the Michigan, I wasn’t used to a lot of things. Like the language differences.

I remember as a student youth minister in eastern Tennessee, a woman came up to me after church and said, “Would you care to go downstairs and ask Johnny to come up here?”

I said, “No, I wouldn’t care to at all.”

She turned around and walked out, obviously upset. So, I turned to someone standing next to me, and asked what had just happened.

“Well, you just told her you didn’t want to do what she asked you to do. I’d be mad too.”

“What?!? I just told her that I wouldn’t care to do it at all!”

“Exactly! Like I said, I’d be mad too.”

My wife had to help me decode that one.

I was also introduced to a new form of communication—passive aggression[1]. Growing up in the midwest, I learned that you say what you mean, and you trust that people are also saying what they mean. If somebody says, “No, that’s fine. I’m fine. Really. It’s no problem at all,” I was taught that you’re supposed to believe people are giving you an accurate representation of their emotional disposition.

But I quickly learned (maybe “learned” is to strong, since I still stumble over this one) that some people don’t expect you to respond to what they say, but to what they mean.

I got into trouble a lot over this one. In ministry at a church I used to serve, people regularly told me that they were fine; they didn’t need me to come visit. They knew I was busy, and that their lumbago was just a nuisance, and that I could spend my time doing more constructive things.

Turns out, I didn’t run that through the Passive-Aggressive decoder ring some people were issued at birth, and I took them at their word—only to find out soon after that I had irreparably damaged a relationship by not coming to visit. Did I not understand just how serious lumbago is? Did I not love people at all? Why did I even get into ministry in the first place?

“I guess that will just have to be fine with me.”

“I was only joking.”

“I was only trying to be helpful when I told you that your ministry might be better received if you knew how to do your job.”

I still don’t deal well with passive aggressive people, but I know now what it’s amazing subtlety is meant to achieve: Attack with plausible deniability.

If you get mad at some passive aggressive comment, the commenter has perfectly positioned her/himself to be able to respond by saying, “I didn’t mean anything by it. Don’t be so sensitive.” In other words, people get to be jerks, but if you call them on it, they can protest that they weren’t saying what you thought you said, and that really you’re just too easily offended.

It’s the coward’s way of being an @$$#*(%.

I suspect that by now everyone has heard about the riff between the President-elect and Civil Rights icon, Rep. John Lewis. But a brief recap might be helpful:

John Lewis—who famously suffered a fractured skull at the hands of police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, during the March from Selm to Montgomery, Alabama—has publicly refused to attend the inauguration of the incoming president, saying, “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president.”

The President-elect, seemingly constitutionally incapable of letting anything go, chose to let fly with the following stream of Tweets:

Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to…… — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2017

—mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2017

Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the U.S. I can use all the help I can get! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2017

Now, the fact that today is the celebration of the ultimate Civil Rights icon, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., inevitably raises questions about how we treat those who have suffered and sacrificed in the pursuit of justice for people of color. It seems telling that the very sort of non-violent response to one’s enemies that characterized the fight for civil rights is brought into stark contrast by this exchange. But that’s not what I want to focus on.

What I find especially telling, beyond the overt hostility to the Civl Rights legend, is the way that the next president referred to Rep. Lewis’s constituents—as citizens of a post-apocalyptic hellscape—“which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested).”

To those with ears to hear, this is what is commonly known as “dog whistle” politics—the thinking being that what is said is said at a frequency easily identifiable by those predisposed to hearing it. It’s a time tested way for groups to signal insiders, without alerting the rest of the public to what’s really being said.

In this case, reference to urban centers as “falling apart” and as “crime infested” is a way of signaling those who are already convinced that we’re now talking about black people.

Why?

Because everybody “knows” that black people live in ghettos, and that, left to their own devices, are incapable of rising above their impoverished lives, having to resort to the only thing left to them—addiction, destitution, and crime. And the great thing about dog whistle politics is that it leaves room for those who use it to deny that that’s what they’re doing.

“I’m not racist. I don’t have anything against black people. But, I mean, let’s be honest, have you ever seen how those people live?”

Dog whistle politics is immediately recognizable to the already converted as a form of code—wherein which bigots get to retain their bigotry, without ever having to own up to it. It gives people the freedom to condescend to people of color, while still looking thoughtful and concerned. It is the political equivalent of passive aggression.

“I’m sorry your feelings were hurt. I can’t imagine why you would ever think I’d say something bigoted. Why do you insist on always being so touchy?”

And therein lies the genius of the racist dog whistle/passive aggressive attack: If the people who’ve been wronged call attention to the offense, they’re immediately put on the defensive, forced to explain why they’re so thin-skinned and why they think so little of the offender that they would impute such nefarious motives.

The whole tactic seems bulletproof. The offender can always duck down behind the hedge of intention: “I didn’t mean anything by it.” Because really, how can you know another person’s heart?

“I didn’t mean it that way,” is too often the refuge of moral cowards.

Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t.

But it’s easy to root out if you know what you’re looking for. The test for determining whether or not someone intended to use dog whistle/passive aggressive tactics:

If you truly didn’t mean it that way, then you apologize for having been insensitive—and try to find out how you can correct your misunderstanding (i.e., you take responsibility for your words). If you did mean it that way, but don’t want to take responsibility for being an @$$#*(%, you harp on everyone else for being too sensitive (i.e., you place responsibility for misunderstanding your words on somebody else).

In the public kerfuffle between PEOTUS and a hero of the Civil Rights movement, John Lewis, I’ll let you decide which is which.

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1. I have to be quick to add that passive aggression isn’t unknown in the part of the world I grew up in, but it is (in my experience) somewhat less prevalent there than in the South. Don’t email me.  ↩

12 Questions to Ask Yourself to Help You Email Like Jesus

By Derek Penwell

My Amazing Penchant for Letting People Down

I let people down. That should come as no surprise to people who know me. Perhaps more importantly, however, it should come as no surprise to people who know much about people.

We let each other down … a lot:

• I said I’d get it done, but I didn’t.

• You sent me an email 10 minutes ago, and I haven’t responded.

• I told you I’d have the project done by Friday, but I’m not going to get it finished until Monday.

• I do love you. But I also like catfish noodling with the boys on Saturdays.

We human beings, it seems, have a driving need to trust others, and to have them trust us. Social organization depends on it. People can’t live together for very long in community if they can’t trust each other.

All of which has me thinking about our commitments to one another—in particular, my commitments to those who count on me, and my amazing penchant for letting them down.

The predicament of human productivity: It seems that the more I do, the more people count on me to do even more.

Beyond the tautology, and the temptation to hear that as merely whining, I think there’s something important in this recognition of our plight not only about our need to be trustworthy, but also about the kind of expectations people have of us—and just as importantly, about the kinds of expectations we will allow ourselves to be held responsible for.

And any time religious people start talking about social expectations, it is certain that their faith commitments cannot be far behind. So, I want to think for a moment about the religious implications of email.

The Scourge of Electronic Mail

Email, with all the convenience it affords us, also continually drops new layers of complexity and responsibility into our laps. Sure it’s convenient. But that convenience masks a new set of social relationships whereby I have seemingly endless additional opportunities to let other people down.

It’s a scourge. At least it feels that way sometimes.

I joke sometimes that I answer email for a living. I’m only half-joking, though. Because of the difficulty associated with communicating clearly in writing, I often find myself laboring over a single email for more than an hour, trying to get the wording just right. Conveying something in writing, though it seems simple, isn’t nearly as straightforward as we sometimes assume.

I know a guy who, all else being equal, is a good guy—smart, compassionate, thoughtful. But when he gets on the electronic mail machine he wreaks havoc. He’s tone-deaf to the way his words can be read. And since you can’t look him in the eye to see whether or not he’s kidding, it often feels as though you’re being attacked—but in a way that’s indirect enough that you can never be entirely certain. Passive-aggression thrives in email.

As a consequence, and because I don’t want to be that guy, I often wind up spending extraordinary amounts of time trying to word things in ways least likely to be misunderstood.

Ok, here’s where I stop whinging and get to the point: Because of my compulsions about email, any note that finds its way into my inbox from another human being and not a robot, has the potential to take up a significant part of my day.

Something as innocuous as a question about whether or not to bring a dessert to the Super Bowl party, can cause me to expend enormous amounts of time and energy—time and energy I hadn’t planned on spending, and for which the payoff is fairly low, but the threat of possible disruption to the social fabric can still be fairly high.

WWJE: What would Jesus email?

Here’s the thing: without proper boundaries, without explicitly thinking through who has the right to expect access to my time and attention, my feelings of responsibility remain vague, ubiquitous, and insatiable. In other words, I feel a responsibility to whoever is clever enough to have obtained my email address, a responsibility not to let anyone down, whether or not they ought rightly to be able to expect that of me.

Because of the way the world is connected now, the level of access other people have to our lives has reached a precarious level. The problem is, though, most people have never stopped to consider what the boundaries of those expectations ought to be. Because we feel such a responsibility not to let people down, we often don’t place limits on just who gets to yank our chains.

Those people who follow Jesus, who are called to “be for others,” often have a difficult time knowing how to draw good boundaries.

Jesus was extremely clear about who he was and what he needed to do. Consequently, he had an amazing capacity not to hold himself responsible for fulfilling all the expectations of others.

Sometimes it’s essential to let other people down. Jesus sure did.

When it comes to letting other people down, here are some questions you ought to ask yourself:

1. Who gets unfettered access to my attention?

2. How many times a day should I check my email?

3. Must I respond to every non-spam email?

4. How much time do I have to respond before people get to think of me as a jerk (I mean, more than normal)?

5. Which people or situations have the right to expect an immediate response?

6. Will a few lines do or do I have to write email responses that look like a prospectus for a dissertation?

Oh, and here’s the part where we take responsibility for contributing to the problem.

1. Should I waste someone else’s time having to respond to my email with an email containing information I could get myself?

2. Should I demand everyone’s attention by sending a mass-email hinting at my aggravation that someone’s obviously not paying attention to the signs I’ve been leaving on the refrigerator telling people not to eat my yogurt? (See? Passive-aggression and email are often found holding hands.)

3. To what extent do I have a responsibility to give the sender the benefit of the doubt when it comes to reading the clumsy, tone-deaf wording of others?

4. Is my sarcasm in danger of being misunderstood? (Answer: Probably. If you find yourself having to say, “It was a joke; I was only kidding” too often, you need to dial it back a bit.)

5. Could what I want to communicate be reduced to fit on the subject line?

6. Before I hit “reply all,” should I fill up everyone else’s inbox with information meant only for one person?

Pro tip: Turn off email notifications on your computer and your phone. You don’t need to know every time Southwest has a “Getaway” fare to Providence.

To maintain sanity in this wired world, we need to think some of these things through. The way we communicate with one another demands our attention. Moreover, the expectations we have of each other—as well as of ourselves—if they’re not to become completely ridiculous, require some thoughtful reflection, some boundary-setting.

We ought to take a cue from Jesus, who was all about the need to let some people down—a need that comes from knowing who you are and what you really ought to be concerned with.

2017: What The (White Protestant) Church Must Do

By Rev. Mindi

I read this post shared by an Episcopalian friend this week, and along with some online conversations on “what is the future of the church?” with declining attendance and resources, I’m wondering what has happened to our ecumenical movement? What has happened to our movement for unity?

As an American Baptist pastor married to a Disciples of Christ pastor, I can tell you that not much really separates us. We all do baptism pretty much the same way. We do communion the same way, albeit Baptists tend to only do communion once a month. We aren’t opposed to doing it every Sunday, we just make it out to be more work than it really is. We have some common roots in history. We have faced some of the same struggles on inclusion and diversity in recent years, and as both denominations have taken steps to truly live into God’s ways of love and justice and the teachings of Jesus, some of our more conservative kindred have gone out the door, or have simply stopped talking with us.

And it’s not only American Baptists and Disciples, but Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Congregationalists (and other UCC-ers), and the list goes on. While we vary in our ways of baptism and communion and vary in our liturgical rigidness, when we start talking about issues of justice, Black Lives Matter, inclusion of transgender and lesbian, gay, bisexual and other queer folks, and welcoming refugees and immigrants, we have so much in common. I regularly have conversations in ecumenical gatherings of clergy (especially fellow clergy in a similar age range to me, but not always) about the same issues facing our churches. The same issues facing our communities. The same longing to follow Jesus and being held up by resources.

So why oh why oh WHY ARE WE NOT WORKING TOGETHER? Why are we still separated on Sunday mornings? Why is (as the author of the blog post I shared stated) Sunday morning still the most segregated hour, decades after Martin Luther King Jr. called us out on it?

I know I am not the first to say it, but as a response to white privilege and white supremacy, perhaps those of us in the traditional white protestant churches, as we face closing down and shrinking numbers, need to go join a Black church. Perhaps we need to listen to someone else preach on Sunday morning and tell us how to be involved in the community. We can do this within our own denomination to start with.

Secondly, we can join with our kindred down the street. While many of us have “full communion” with other denominations or allow for those of other ordination standards (or none at all!) to preside at the table and at baptism, we do not move beyond those relationships (as again, the author of the blog post I shared stated).

As we enter 2017, the future of the church doesn’t lie in us keeping to ourselves on Sunday morning. If we do that, we will continue to shrink, decline, and close. Those of us who are white Christians need to especially consider giving up our power and ownership of space to join with our Christian kindred of color to truly follow the ways of Jesus (who wasn’t white, as we keep pointing out but fail somehow to truly comprehend). We might find that the church isn’t declining, but thriving, if we give up our own vision of what the church is supposed to look like, and join in God’s vision:

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God, and to the Lamb!”

~Revelation 7:9-10

Fake It Till You Make It: Reflections on Congregational Awkwardness

By Derek Penwell

I’m an introvert by temperament. According to the well-worn (at least among seminary types) personality inventory, that means I find energy in being alone. Interacting with other people, on the other hand, sucks energy from me.

Being an introvert, on this account of personality types, does not necessarily equate to shyness. Shyness has to do with feelings of awkwardness around other people, while introversion has to do with one’s temperamental preference for the inner-world.

But I’m shy, too. My default response to new situations and new people is awkwardness.

Being introverted and shy, as you might imagine, is a difficult combination when it comes to my line of work. Ministry requires me to be around people more than I would normally choose, if the choice depended upon my natural inclinations. In fact, in seminary the Pastoral Care professor who reviewed my Meyers-Briggs type said, “Derek, less than one percent of ministers have your personality type. So, if you want to go through with this, you have to be aware that ministry is always going to be difficult for you.” Because, you know, people.

In the past I used to harbor a secret pride that I was bucking the odds. I liked the idea that somehow my willingness to stare down my own disposition was a kind of heroic vocational quest. Now, I tend to see it more like I see eye color or mouth-breathing—there’s no praise or blame attached to it; it’s just something you deal with or you don’t.

To survive as a minister, I’ve had to figure out how to be outgoing, how to appear extroverted. Over the years I’ve been able to muddle through passably well enough that people often act surprised when they find out about my shyness.

But the truth of it is, I’ve been faking it. I’ve done it long enough that sometimes it even feels natural. When it comes right down to it, I don’t really have a choice. Well, I guess I could choose not to be a minister, but short of that, I’ve got no choice but to figure out how to interact with people.

So I fake it.

That sounds bad. I don’t mean I fake ministering to people, or that I fake liking people. My big secret: I fake not being shy. I have to.

And you know what? Most of the time I can make that work—and not just so that I can have a modicum of job security. I fake being confident because leadership requires that you at least look like you know what you’re doing. And, it turns out, sometimes I do … look like I know what I’m doing.

Fake it till you make it. It’s a slogan sometimes associated with the recovery movement. If you’re an addict, part of the pathology that besets your life is chaos. You feel like you have no control. Essential to recovery is wresting control from the clutches of addiction. How do you do that?

You start working the steps, doing the things that people in recovery do—before you ever understand them, before you ever feel confident about your ability to pull if off. It’s easier, in other words, to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.

You’ve got to fake it till you make it.

But this sort of insecurity is not a phenomenon known only to individuals; it can also happen corporately.1 Congregations in decline, for instance, may not describe themselves as shy, but they almost always share the same awkwardness around new people. You know what I’m talking about, right?

“Welcome to First Christian Church of Misery, Oklahoma! We’re sure glad you could be with us. We haven’t had a visitor since that lady slipped out of the nursing home and came to church in a flannel nightgown that matched the curtains in the JOY class. She sat on the front row, and kept falling asleep. Boy howdy, that was something. Anyway, welcome to church! Do you want to join?”

The problem, though, is that awkwardness begets more awkwardness. People begin to see you in the way that you see yourself … unless you figure out how to fake it.

Churches in decline are going to have to learn how to project confidence, even though the matter of their awkwardness leaves them feeling inadequate and unlovable.

A few helpful hints:

• Relax. Take a deep breath. Remember: This is God’s church, not yours.
• Take an inventory of things you love about your congregation. Focus first on strengthening those things, instead of overhauling all the crappy stuff. Addressing structural problems is always best done from a position of relative strength.
• Try to act glad to see new people. If you find visitors to be an inconvenience to your otherwise cozy ecclesiastical arrangement, do us all a favor and put a sign out front indicating your lack of interest in living much longer.
• Be warm to new people, but don’t try to be best friends or to get them to sing in the choir promptly following introductions. Quit appearing so needy.
• Quit talking about how small you are. If I meet people and they immediately begin talking about what big noses they have, or their cousin Eddie who has a pet chicken, or the fact that they just had hemorrhoid surgery, I start looking for the nearest exit. People who’ve gotten up the courage to come to your church don’t want you to list all the reasons why they shouldn’t like you before they’ve finished their first cup of coffee.

Look, I know it’s not easy. But, if you fake it long enough, you may just wake up one day and find everything’s changed … even you.

1. I’ve written about, what I take to be, the fact that declining congregations are like addicts: Crack Addiction and Church Transformation. ↩

What is needed right now

By Rev. Mindi

What is needed right now is radical love:

Love that blesses instead of divides.

Love that welcomes and embraces instead of casts out.

Love that sees the refugees as Mary and Joseph.

Love that sees Christ in the face of the children among the ruins of Aleppo.

What is needed right now is radical love:

Love that celebrates and rejoices in finding a partner in this life.

Love that is not selfish or boastful or arrogant or rude,

But truly rejoices in the truth: that Love Wins.

That Love is Love.

What is needed right now is radical love:

Love that cries out when our neighbor is in need

Because they are our own. Because we and they are us.

Love that sees the face of God in each person.

Love that encompasses so fully that we step away from the center.

What is needed right now is radical love:

Compassion, empathy, justice for all.

Love that fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty.

Love that lifts up the lowly and brings down the powerful from their thrones.

Love that scatters the proud.

What is needed right now is radical love:

For the high trees will be cut down and the low trees raised high.

For the powerful will tumble and the poor will rise up.

For the refugees and immigrants will be the next generation.

For love is radical, and love will break through.

Top Five Reasons Why "The Parishioner Is Always Right" Is Wrong

By Derek Penwell

Monday morning. My secretary buzzed me and told me that Janice was on line one. Janice had called to express her displeasure at some new liturgical innovation I had instituted in worship on Sunday. The passing of the peace leading up to communion, apparently, disrupted her eucharistic solitude.

The Tuesday prior to Janice’s call, September 11, 2001, had been a fairly momentous day. Heading into worship that Sunday, we decided as a staff to do something liturgically that would suggest a different path than the violent one we were certain was about to consume us as a nation. So, we decided to pass the peace on the way to the table of grace. Janice, who opposed the kind of noisy intrusion on her quiet time of meditation presented by the passing of the peace, was not amused.

Janice told me that she expected me “not to do that again.” I told her that I appreciated her concerns and the time and effort it had taken her to bring them to me, but that we were going to continue to pass the peace, at least until we were on the other side of the violence I was sure was in our near future.

She said, “I’m really opposed to this.”

“I can hear that, Janice.”

“No. I mean I’m really, really opposed to this.”

Annoyed at this point, I said, “Yes, I understand, Janice. But simply adding more ‘reallys’ doesn’t make your argument more compelling.”

Janice said, “If you continue to do this, then you’ll understand what I’m doing when I get up and walk out. And if I walk out, I’m never coming back.”

I told her that I would be sorry to see her go, but that I certainly understood why she might feel the need to do so.

True to her word, the following Sunday as we passed the peace leading up to communion, Janice put her hymnal into the rack on the back of the pew, excused her way through the throng, walked up the center aisle and out the front door. She never came back.

Upon hearing of my insensitivity, the largest donor in the church came to my office and asked me to reconsider my position on the passing of the peace. Didn’t I see that Janice really felt strongly?

Yes, I saw that.

Sensing that I was finally seeing logic, my rich parishioner said, “Good. So you’ll stop the passing of the peace?”

“No. First of all, I think it’s an appropriate theological and liturgical gesture, especially in light of what’s happened at the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Second, and only a little less importantly, if I caved every time someone really disagreed with a decision I’d made, I’d be begging for more ecclesiastical blackmail.”

“But she feels, really REALLY strongly.” (Again with the extra “reallys.”)

“I understand, but again, no.”

Nonplussed, she said, “How did you ever get to be a minister without realizing that your job depends on keeping church members happy?”

That episode came to mind as I read an article by Alexander Kjerulf, Top 5 Reasons Why ‘The Customer Is Always Right’ Is Wrong. In the article Kjerulf argues that the now famous saying from 1909 by Harry Gordon Selfridge, “The customer is always right,” is bad for everybody.

And while I don’t want too easily to equate “customers” and “church members” (i.e., the church is not a business, selling a commodity to be consumed by customers), there’s enough similarity that I thought I might mess around with his “top 5 reasons,” and see how they worked as bit of wisdom for congregations.

Top Five Reasons Why “The Parishioner Is Always Right” Is Wrong

1. It makes clergy and staff unhappy

After taking a job as senior minister at a new church, the associate minister came to my office and said, “I have to confess. I told Terry that her two boys had finally crossed a behavioral line and wouldn’t be allowed to attend youth functions until the showed they could act properly.” Terry had been a constant source of aggravation to clergy and staff both, a woman always on the hunt for something by which to be vexed. Apparently, my predecessor had established a pattern of placating Terry, consistently caving in to her demands in an effort to keep her happy.

“Hmm,” I said. “She’s going to be really ticked about that, isn’t she?”

My colleague looked at me, desperation in her eyes, and said, “Are you going to make me apologize to her? I just don’ think I can do it again.”

Do you want to suck the soul of clergy and staff and ensure that they learn to hate their jobs? Then just insist that their primary responsibility is to keep constant complainers happy.

2. It only succeeds in creating more self-absorbed parishioners

If the congregation demands that clergy and staff keep parishioners happy above all else, it sets a bad precedent, leading parishioners to expect that ministry revolves first and foremost around meeting their needs. That is to say, instead of helping to produce people capable of great service and sacrifice after the example of Jesus, communicating that “our main job is to keep you happy” suggests that ministry is nothing more than a personal ecclesiastical valet service. Selfishness is easy; the church’s job doesn’t consist in mass producing it.

3. “One bad apple …”

The bad attitude and behavior of some parishioners threatens the whole body. Now, before you get yourself worked up into a lather, I realize that the church is a hospital for sick and broken people. Part of what we do is to offer a community dedicated to the idea that we are inclusive and welcoming to all people—and that that means often we have to put up with bad attitudes and poor behavior. I’m not arguing otherwise. However, the function of discipleship isn’t merely to affirm everybody where they are; it is also to help them mature into grownup Christians.

Anyone who’s worked any length of time in the church can tell you that there are some people who are broken … and determined to stay that way. These folks thrive in the unhealthy environment they help to create.

“So, are you saying we should just kick all the difficult people out?”

Nope. (Although, sometimes helping people find a community that better suits their spiritual needs is part of what good ministry seeks to do.) I’m not saying surgically remove all the dysfunction. I’m saying that the congregation hurts itself when it insists that clergy and staff make catering to the disaffected their primary vocational responsibility. Christianity is about creating and sustaining communities to heal the wounded and give voice to the voiceless, not to harbor the intransigent and amplify the voice of the chronically aggrieved.

4. It results in worse pastoral care

If you create a culture in which clergy and staff feel that their value lies in the ability to pacify perpetually affronted parishioners, you lower morale proportionally. The more the congregation expects clergy and staff to focus on cutting the steak of disgruntled parishioners, the less time they have to concentrate on others who need pastoral attention. And when clergy and staff do have time to attend to the needs of the less vocal, they often find themselves without a great deal of motivation. At some point, caregivers start asking themselves whether it’s worth it to care for a group of people who appear to care so little for them.

5. Sometimes the parishioner is just plain wrong.

If you enter every pastoral situation with the assumption that the parishioner is always right—because, you know, they feel really REALLY strongly—not only do you risk alienating the clergy and staff you’ve called to care for those people, you also risk heading in the opposite direction of faithfulness. Feeling “really REALLY strongly” isn’t necessarily a helpful criterion for discerning the suitability of a thing. If your chief measure of faithfulness is the volume of the petitioner, you’re bound to find yourself headed in the wrong direction more often than you desire.

Care for the wounded and broken. By all means. But when people demonstrate a stubborn commitment to their woundedness and brokenness, giving your clergy and staff permission and support to expend their energies elsewhere makes everybody’s life better.

Looking Outward: Declining Congregations Need to Start Asking a Different Set of Questions

By Derek Penwell

I have often thought, and sometimes said, that when I’m writing regularly, everything seems worth writing about. But when I’m writing only when I get the “urge,” nothing seems worth writing about.

When I’ve reoriented my schedule around writing, I find it odd how often things present themselves to me as inspiration for a post or an article, almost like tiny little gifts from the muse. Something one of my kids says. An odd choice of words by a newscaster. An infuriating bit of logic by a politician. Some craziness on Facebook or Twitter. Virtually anything can get the gears spinning.

On the other hand, when I’m not remaining diligent about managing my writing life, it seems that events have to hit me square between the eyes before I notice them as as things upon which it is worth remarking. Of course, this kind of “stuck” is its own disincentive to writing; it’s an appeal to the distractions to “please come take my attention, since I can’t seem to get it to focus on what I’m supposed to be doing.” I’m convinced that what we call “writer’s block” is simply getting out of the habit of writing regularly, which means that the ideas dry up, which means that you can’t write (because you have no ideas), which means that ideas have almost no chance at penetrating the thickening shell of non-writing, which means … It’s its own kind of literary vortex, from which escape seems almost impossible.

Why is that? I think it has something to do with awareness. Have you ever watched Jeopardy, and the librarian from Altoona says, “I’ll take literary terms for $1,000, Alex?”

Then Alex says, “The answer is “synecdoche.”

And our librarian friend pipes in with “What is a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa?”

Ding! Ding! Ding!

And you say to yourself, “You know, I’ve never heard that term before in my life.”

But next morning, as you’re poring over the New York Times book review, you see synecdoche in two different articles.

And when you come home from work, you’re fifteen year-old is sprawled out on the couch with five books, two empty cans of Dr. Pepper, and a pile of shredded candy wrappers. You say, “What you doing?”

The mumbled reply comes back, “English.”

“What are you studying in English?”

The fifteen year-old looks up casually and says, “Synecdoche,” like what else would he be studying?

And your spouse says, “Yeah, I hated synecdoche. I always got it confused with metonymy.”

The fifteen year-old nods sagely and says, “Oh man, I know what you mean. I hate that!”

And you look at your family like they’re pod people, alien replacements for the (mostly) normal folks whose stuff you’re always tripping over on the way to your Captain of the Universe Chair in the family room.

That ever happen to you?

I know. It’s kind of freaky. Not just the pod people thing—the sudden multiple appearances in your life of a word you’d never heard of before.

The thing is, “synecdoche” didn’t just spring up from nowhere to wreak havoc on your self-confidence; it’s always been there. You just didn’t notice it. Your attention gets refocused, and all of a sudden you start seeing things you never saw before, hearing things you are certain have never crossed your path before.

That sort of awareness adjustment happens to churches too.

Declining congregations have a tendency to be inward-focused.1 I don’t know of any research to support such a claim, but based on observation, I don’t think that’s a controversial assertion. Congregations are made up of people who, when things seems to be falling apart, naturally focus their attention on themselves.

“Why is this happening, and how can we stop it?”

The temptation when the downward pressure mounts is to start asking questions about how to fix the situation, generally coming up with all the wrong answers:

• Maybe we just need a younger minister.
• If we could only get some young families in.
• We need a praise band.
• We haven’t had a new evangelism program for years. Maybe that’s the answer.
• The Baptists have a basketball league.
• I noticed the narthex needs a paint job.
• We ought to be careful not to spend money on somebody else that we might need for ourselves.
• The youth need more trips to Six Flags. That’s guaranteed to get folks back.

What’s the common theme in the usual answers to the problem of decline?

They’re all focused on “us,” on “our congregation,” saving “our community” from extinction.

Someone might argue that “evangelism” isn’t inward focused; it’s about reaching out, right? And I might be inclined to agree if the purpose of evangelizing had something to do with anything other than just re-stocking the membership pond. Unfortunately, and all protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, the primary motivation for evangelism in declining congregations has little to do with the people being evangelized and everything to do with the shrinking size of the faith community doing the evangelizing.

Healthy congregations always seem to find something outside themselves on which to focus their attention. They start out by asking a whole different set of questions from “What’s in it for us?”

• How can we do more for the neighborhood in which we live?
• Who from outside our congregation could use the extra space we have in our building?
• Is there a way to help other people’s children?
• What kinds of harmful issues plague those people outside our walls, and how can we be a part of the solution?
• Who has needs we are uniquely able to meet?
• Can we partner with other congregations, social service agencies, non-profits, our city to do something meaningful on a big scale?

I’m not saying don’t paint the narthex or re-stripe the parking lot. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be good stewards of the resources God has given us. I’m saying don’t always make “our stuff” the most important thing, offering up the leftovers to others only after taking care of our own interests.

Here’s the interesting question: How do we find these new things to do for others? We’ve been looking after our stuff for so long that we don’t have a whole lot of contacts in our community.

Answer: Start looking. I mean actively looking for opportunities to help, to give yourself away. Ask around. Keep your ears open and your eyes peeled for a chance to do something meaningful for someone else.

And here’s the thing: Once you start getting in the habit of looking for ways to help, they start to materialize out of nowhere. When you’re actively seeking ways to be compassionate, just, peaceable, you start to notice new ways you can be a part of things that you never even knew existed. New organizations. New partnerships. New programs. New relationships. New opportunities.

When you turn outwards, the congregational radar gets recalibrated. What looked before like an empty field or, perhaps worse, a field of noise, becomes a field of possibilities. You notice patterns and relationships that were previously hidden to you. The world doesn’t change; you do.

In Christianity we call that kind of movement from death to life good news.

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1. One might be able to say the same thing of declining denominations—although at that level, you’re supposed to have people who know better. Perhaps the pressure to engage in obsessive introspection is too great to overcome even for the best among us. ↩

Reflections on Snyder’s “20 Lessons”

By Bentley Stewart

On November 15, Timothy Snyder, a Yale Historian, posted to his Facebook page “twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.”

I’m going to highlight just four of the pieces of advice and what they mean to me: numbers 3, 4, 6, and 8. I’d love to hear which pieces of advice have resonance for you and how you interpret their meaning for your own life and practice.  

3. Recall professional ethics

This one might be my favorite, because this roots us in our callings. Our professional codes hold us accountable to our roles in participating in advancing the human project. We are not obligated to do all of the work. We are not free from doing any work. 

While I’m no historian, I will make the bold assertion that it is the codes of ethics of the professional guilds that helped Europe transition from the feudalism of the Medieval Ages into the emergence of a (for lack of a better term) “middle-class” during the Renaissance. 

One of the most famous codes comes from antiquity. While the Hippocratic Oath does NOT include the maxim “do no harm,” it has many of the markers of modern codes. It does include instruction for caring for those who cannot pay for services. It has a moral division of labor; they were physicians not surgeons. It also forbids taking sexual advantage of the power imbalance inherent in serving vulnerable populations. 

I am a clergy person, which is a sacred trust between the communities I serve, and by whom I am held accountable, and our shared mission to serve the world. For me to remain in good standing within my ordaining body, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), I must adhere to our code of ethics. Additionally, I'm endorsed as a hospital chaplain, meaning there's heightened awareness of and concern for serving vulnerable populations. In addition to the professional codes of ethics for chaplains, I took on additional commitments as an educator of spiritual care providers.

All of these commitments demand that I listen deeply to the suffering of others and amplify the voices of the oppressed and the vulnerable. My profession demands that I speak to powers that are being abused in ways that diminishes the dignity and sacred worth of any of us.

4. When listening to politician, distinguish certain words.

“…the first violence is committed against language itself....“ 

A friend recently visited the Holocaust Museum in DC. He posted this sign to Facebook. He asked for help with translation. Here’s the translation offered:

“The headings of the columns across the top, ‘Political prisoners, career criminals, emigrants, Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals, a-socials.’

“The title of the sign reads: ‘Identifying Markers for Those in Protective Custody.’ The Nazi word ‘Schutzhaft’ demonstrates that under fascism, the first violence is committed against language itself. The Nazis claimed they were placing inmates into the camps to ‘protect’ them from the German people who were angry for the very existence of Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, etc. Compare the term ‘Alt-right.’"

For a contemporary example, I turn to the euphemistic “new-speak” of the eviction order of Standing Rock by the Army Corps.:

“In his letter to Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II, Colonel John Henderson of the Army Corps stated, “This decision is necessary to protect the general public from the violent confrontations between protestors and law enforcement officials that have occurred in this area.” Let’s be clear about what this means. Our people have been attacked again and again by people I can attest from experience do not look at Natives as human beings. While our people have converged in peace, police from around the Midwest have also converged, to play their role in this moment of colonial and anti-colonial struggle. Morton County police and the police who have travelled from afar to join them have done everything short of killing our Water Protectors, and the only solution to this aggression that officials can produce is to further repress us.

The Army Corps letter also states that officials are worried about “death, illness, or serious injury to inhabitants of encampments due to the harsh North Dakota winter conditions.” Such pretense would be laughable if this situation weren’t so tragic and enraging. The government has proven at every turn — including its approval of this pipeline route — that it has no concern for our well-being or survival. Any claim to the contrary is a spineless PR maneuver, though some will surely latch onto it, so as not to see this shameful moment in US history as President Obama’s swan song.” 

https://transformativespaces.org/2016/11/26/the-day-weve-been-dreading-plans-to-evict-nodapl-water-protectors-made-public/

6. Be kind to our language.

Micah 6:8 describes the duties of being human as “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.” 

We are called to be kind. We are not called to be nice. My colleague, Ruth Schulenberg, recently informed me that the etymology of nice is the French for “naïve.” 

Now more than ever, we need the principles of non-violent communication. Assume good intentions until there is good reason to know that is no longer true. Use “I” statements. Avoid starting with “you” statements that often feel accusative and can trigger defensiveness. Rather, distinguish between intent and impact. For example, make observations first before stating your feelings. “I heard you say ‘x.’ Is that a correct summary?” Once you have clarified the speech, “When I hear you say ‘x,’ I feel ‘y.’” 

…. now, PAUSE and breathe. Wait for them to engage. Perhaps they will take ownership of this impact. Perhaps, when confronted with this impact on me, they will revise their initial statement. Important note, when someone confronts me with the impact of my language on them, I need to remember that impact is always more important than intent. If they are not interested in my intent, I have no right to force my explanation of my intent on them. I need to apologize for the impact and commit to doing better next time.  This process is laboriously slow and the advantage of that is it gives us time to breathe, which helps us activate our prefrontal cortex rather than our amygdala’s fight or flight response. 

Another helpful tool is the first mantra of Improv: “yes, and.” Whenever possible, “build” on the offering of your conversation partner, rather than “block” the emerging dialogue.

“Yes, I agree with you about this aspect of ‘x,’ and I’m wondering what you think about this aspect of ‘y.’ Do you think that adds any nuance to the discussion about ‘x?’” 

Another version of this comes from Systems Centered Therapy. “I join you about ‘x’ and I have a difference with you in regards to ‘y.’”

For me, the problem with being “nice” is that I might sacrifice my voice in order to accommodate someone else’s understandings which violate principles I hold dear. 

Theologically, I draw from Martin Buber’s concept “I-Thou.” We long for communication where we are both seen and heard and in return we see and hear the other person. We long for the meeting of two subjects, each honoring the dignity and sacred worth of the other. 

Violent communication is characterized by an “I-it” dynamic. Our conversation partner is dehumanized and becomes a label: a racist, a communist, and on and on. 

“Nice” communication is the sacrifice of my own human dignity and is characterized by an “it-Thou” dynamic. Making you feel comfortable and liking me is more important than risking real relationship by voicing my truth.

The “I-Thou” encounter is messy and fluid; and at its best, can be life-giving and transformative. 

8. Believe in truth.

The author speaks of “facts.” I’m going to differ from Professor Snyder (see point above) and refocus on “truth.” Following Quaker educator and activist, Parker Palmer, I distinguish facts from truth. Again, etymology is useful here. Facts comes from the French “to make.” We make facts based on observations of reality. We are a multi-cultural, pluralistic society. One culture, rooted in the Enlightenment Project, places a premium on objectivity over subjectivity. Many wonderful things have emerged from the Enlightenment project, such as modern medicine which strives for evidenced-based strategies for health and wellness.

In this age of “fake news,” we are learning that the strategy of propagandists is to fabricate facts. Remember, we make facts. Therefore, they are suspect to the biases of the person claiming objectivity. At their best, facts always fall short of objectivity. At their worst and most manipulative, they are fabrications. And yet, always remember to assume good intentions. And, check out assumptions and suspicions.  

“Hey that sounds strange to me. Can you cite the sources from where you learned that?”

Truth is related to the Anglo-Saxon word “troth,” from which we get the word “betrothal.” Truth is about commitments. Truth is about shared reality. Truth is discovered through the inter-subjectivity of “I-Thou” encounters (see above). 

Here are my guiding principles around truth (not an exhaustive list):

• I am called to honor and respect the dignity and sacred worth of every human.
• I am called to awaken in your humanity a respect for the humanity of others.
• No one is beyond redemption.
• Reconciliation requires both truth-telling and repentance. 
• Evil is real and pernicious.
• In every moment, we are given opportunities to collude with, accommodate, or resist evil. 
• Our fundamental calling is the goodness of collaborating as care-takers of the living interdependent web of creation.

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Rev. J. Bentley Stewart is the Director of Student Life for Disciples Seminary Foundation in Northern California. He is an ordained minister with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and has standing in the Northern California/Nevada Region, for whom he serves as one of the anti-racism trainers. He is endorsed as a hospital chaplain by Disciples Home Mission. In his decade of hospital ministry, he specialized in pediatrics, palliative care, clinical ethics, interprofessional communication, and cultural bridging. He holds a B.A. degree from Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL, and a M.Div. degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary. Currently, he is organizing the core team to begin a new Disciples worshiping community in Marin County, gathering-desire, where he resides with his wife, their two sons, and their beloved 95 lb. lapdog, Norman.

Why Does Jesus Have to Be Such a Lousy Role Model?

By Derek Penwell

WWJD? If you read the Gospels, apparently not much that would please the Family Research Council.

Given the pressing social concerns about the “war on Christmas” and the first amendment travesty visited upon America's evangelical wedding cake industry, Jesus’ regard for the poor and oppressed seems laughably myopic.

I mean, if you believe that you’ve been put on this earth to skulk about pointing out everyone else’s sins, Jesus doesn’t set a very good example. Oh sure, he cracks on the self-righteous and the hypocrites, but usually because he feels a moral responsibility to shine a light on the self-satisfied, those who seem way too pleased that they’re “not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like [the] tax-collector” (Luke 18:11).

Interesting that Jesus not only doesn’t feel the need to scour the countryside in search of people to condemn—for fear that surely someone’s ruining the fabric of “traditional society”—but, ironically, he seems to find those who are most publicly religious (that is, the folks who do scour the countryside in search of people to condemn) the folks most in need of a good verbal smack down.[1]

So, if you believe your Christian mission centers on identifying sinners to steer clear of, Jesus is a really crappy role model. If you think that the demands of Christian purity require you to shine a bright light on the those people the church ought to be busy hanging scarlet letters on, then Jesus is bound to be a disappointment to you.

At this point, someone will surely object, “But we’re just calling attention to sinful behavior. We don’t hate the sinners, just the sin. What we’re doing is actually the loving thing to do. We love them; but we have a responsibility to make sure that they change.”

But let’s just be honest—when some group utters “love the sinner/hate the sin,” everybody knows they’re only talking about LGBTQ people. (Frankly, I don’t think being LGBTQ is a sin, and I don’t like the phrase. But if you’re going to wield it against someone you don’t approve of, at least try to be consistent.)

Franklin Graham wouldn’t advocate keeping rich people, for example, from full participation in the life and ministry of the church—in anticipation that they’ll, you know, renounce that which prevents their tricked-out camels from fitting through the eye of the needle.

I’m pretty sure Tony Perkins isn’t launching any campaigns meant to publicize the socially corrosive sin of anger evinced by road-ragers who terrorize rush hour traffic, proudly displaying their “Jesus” fish and their “God is my co-pilot” bumper stickers.

Jerry Falwell Jr. isn't leading the charge against hypocrisy, calling out the white-washed sepulcher lobby who claim to follow Jesus, but who still embrace violence, selfishness, and deceit in their political leaders.

The truth of it is, we’re extremely parochial about the “Biblical” sins by which we’re determined to be aggrieved.

My suspicion is that “love the sinner/hate the sin” language operates practically as a convenient mechanism by which one can appear morally superior to those whose sins most offend one’s particular sensibilities—all for the purposes of public consumption.

But the specificity with which we apply “love the sinner/hate the sin” bothers me. I guess my question would be: Have you actually talked to someone who’s been “loved” to death by all this concern for the particular sin of being LGBTQ? Young people are killing themselves from this kind of “love.”

Yeah, Jesus is a lousy example if what you care about are the sins that vex much of popular Christianity. In fact, not only didn’t Jesus make it his mission to fish about for people to be offended by, he sought out the people that most of the rest of polite society saw as offensive, and then proceeded to go to the bar with them.[2]

So, Jesus is exactly the wrong guy to appeal to as the inspiration for a 21st century version of the personal morality police.

And it’s kind of sad, really. For a large segment of Christianity, Jesus’ lack of moralistic rigor cannot but appear embarrassing.

On the other hand, if you want to pattern your life after a person who befriended the folks who always seem to get picked last in the game of life, Jesus works perfectly as a role model.

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1. See, for example, Matthew 23—a chapter dedicated to calling out religious pretension.  ↩
2. See Matthew 11:19.  ↩

I’m Trying to Be More Intolerant (and You Should Too)

By Derek Penwell

I think progressives need to embrace intolerance. I do. Seriously. Hear me out.

Whenever I write a smart-alecky blog post taking aim at some social injustice or injudicious theological dim-wittedness, an enterprising polemicist will invariably use the comment section to highlight my obvious hypocrisy, denouncing my intolerance of … wait for it … intolerance; because, it is assumed, logical consistency requires me (if I am to be truly tolerant) to countenance everyone and everything—even the hidebound tools who believe their narrow-mindedness is divinely sanctioned and its consequences constitutionally protected.

“See,” they will say, believing themselves to have mastered the disputatious jiu-jitsu appropriate to subduing fancy-pants liberals, “you’re just as bad as the people you call bigots. Why, you’re bigoted against bigotry!”

You may have heard this particular line of argument before. It’s a great way to turn an argument in favor of prejudice against anyone who might object to that prejudice:

• I hate Ford Pintos.
• It is my right to hate Ford Pintos—guaranteed by God who also hates Ford Pintos and the Constitution.
• If you don’t approve of my hatred of Ford Pintos, not only are you on the wrong side of God and the Constitution, you are just as guilty of discrimination as you say I am.
• Therefore, since you are also a bigot, you have no right to criticize my bigotry.

Recognize that? You could insert “disapprove of” in place of “hate,” and “same gender marriage” or “Syrian refugees” (or in earlier times “women’s suffrage” or “African Americans at integrated lunch counters”) in place of “Ford Pintos.” The construction of the argument remains strikingly consistent: You should have to tolerate my intolerance.

But here’s the difficulty with that little bit of logical sleight of hand: If I refuse to tolerate your bigotry, I haven’t abrogated your rights. You’re still free to be just as obnoxious a bigot as you want. The problem is that you not only want to retain the right to be a bigot, you also want to avoid the consequences of your bigotry.

See, you choose to engage in bigotry—which is an imposition of your own beliefs on another person or group of people without their permission. And, being the true First Amendment guy I am, you have every right to your prejudices. Embrace them. Flaunt them. Put them on bumperstickers and affix them to your vehicle. Write aggrieved Facebook posts about how only you understand the nature of true prejudice.

What you do not have the right to do, however, is to insulate yourself from the consequences that result from your attempts to impose those prejudices on those whom you disapprove of.

And frankly, what I don’t quite understand is why—if you’re a Christian and you believe your bigotry is a matter of such sincere religious and moral conviction—you wouldn’t be happy (see, for instance, Matthew 5:10–12 or 1 Peter 3:14) to suffer the consequences that come with standing up for what you believe in. If you happen to be a Christian and are truly being persecuted for righteousness’ sake, shouldn’t you gladly endure it “so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame?” Why do you need cultural or legal permission to live the way you believe God wants you to live?

So no, your whining about religious persecution because you have to bake a cake for a gay wedding doesn’t make you the Martin Luther King, Jr. of a new conservative religious civil rights movement.

Why?

Because Dr. King willingly endured punishment, violence, and ridicule to raise awareness of the injustice visited upon a group of people who only wanted the same rights for themselves everyone else enjoyed.

The bigot, on the other hand, wants the freedom to deny others the same rights everyone else enjoys—and to be praised for it … or at least not to have to suffer the consequences of that bigotry.

Progressives need to be more intolerant … of intolerance. In light of that, I want to suggest a few things it’s okay to be intolerant of:

• It’s ok to be intolerant of those who would damage the climate by denying that we have no responsibility for it.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of rape—or to put a finer point on it, of a culture that places blame for rape on anyone but the rapist.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of systems that favor the rich at the expense of the poor.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of the fear that would keep refugees fleeing violence from finding a home among us.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of any politics that views immigrants not as assets to our culture and economy, but as nuisances and leeches.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of law enforcement and a legal system that disproportionately penalizes people of color.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of legislation that makes it easier for the public to have access to violent weapons, the primary purpose of which is to kill and maim.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of torture.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of killing other people’s children by remote control, just because those children demonstrated a deplorable lack of judgment in being born in a country we don’t like.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of cutting social welfare in favor of retaining corporate welfare.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of any move to marginalize our Muslim sisters and brothers who are just trying to live their lives.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of any law that protects those who bully LGBTQ kids under the guise of “safeguarding religious freedom.”
• It’s ok to be intolerant of governments that view healthcare as a privilege to be extended only to those who can afford it.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of laws that seek to limit access to employment, housing, or public accommodations based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender expression.
• It’s ok to be intolerant of dogwhistle politics that seek to ensure a safe environment for bigotry, while passive-aggressively retaining a façade of respectability.

And the great thing about it is, it’s ok to be intolerant of all these things because of, and not in spite of, your faith.

Look, if you want to be a bigot, that’s your choice. But be willing to live with the consequences. And don’t expect the rest of us to sit idly by; because we’re fine with being intolerant of intolerance.

Not Created for Shame

By Bentley Stewart

“We were not meant to live in shame...” Richard Spencer, white nationalist who popularized the term ‘alt-right.’

I agree.

Let me state that again. I AGREE. We are NOT meant to live in shame.

Notice that I limited Spencer’s quote. There is a very limited amount upon which I can find agreement with him. Even in this limited quote, he and I understand “we” differently.

When he says “we were not meant to live in shame,” he means that white people are not meant to live in shame. His “WE” is white.

I speak as a person of faith. God did not intend for humanity to live in shame. In Genesis 3, God beckons the first human family out of hiding in shame. We are not meant for shame. Humanity, which includes white people, is not meant for shame. Shame robs us of the abundant life that God desires for us and Jesus proclaimed. 

I agree with another thing that Spencer said in this edited clip. Here’s the other comment of Spencer’s with which I (mostly) agree:

“America was until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity,” Spencer said. “It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.” 

Here’s how I would state it: “America was designed for white people.”   

When I use the term “white supremacy,” this is what I mean. “America was designed for white people.” (Some use the term differently and I have much to learn from those nuances.) 

“White supremacy” is the version of racism that is endemic to the United States. In other places, there are other versions of racism. It is also important to note that white supremacy exists beyond our shores.

Before I explain what I mean that “America was designed for white people,” let me define racism.

One problem is that the term “racism” has become a shaming pejorative. Remember, I profess faith in a God who desires that we leave shame behind. Calling someone a racist does not have a good track record for liberating people from racism. When I am shamed, I have two default responses. Accept the shame and wallow in it or reject the shame by breaking relationship with the messenger. Wallowing in shame is not only miserable for me. Wallowing in shame serves no one. 

My working definition of “racism” is informed by the Reconciliation Ministry of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), my ordaining body. 

Racism = Race Prejudice + Misuse of Institutional Power

We, all of humanity, have prejudices and biases. Don’t believe me? Take a test on implicit biases and prove me wrong. We all have prejudices. It is part of the survival strategy of mammals. In any given moment, we are experiencing too much stimuli to make conscious decisions about all of it. We have prejudices. We pre-judge, in part, to filter our experiences. Without these prejudices, we would be overwhelmed by the number of decisions we would be forced to make in any given moment. Part of what it means to be human is that we have the freedom and responsibility to question our prejudices so that we are not limited by preconceived notions. 

Having prejudices based on appearance is not racism. It is part of what it means to be human. 

Instead of unpacking the phrase “misuse of institutional power,” I will return to Spencer’s quote:  

“America was until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity,” Spencer said. “It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.” 

European settlers claimed the land that Indigenous Peoples had lived on for generations. Their relationship with the land was forged through generations of loving and learning from the land as they struggled to survive and thrive. The First Nations people were claimed by the land as much, if not more, than they claimed the land. 

This week used to be my favorite holiday. For me, there is no greater spiritual discipline than the corporate practice of gratitude. And, it is becoming harder and harder for me to reconcile my appreciation for this holiday and the genocide it sanitizes. 

Please do not stop reading there. Remember, I do not believe that we were created for shame.

A quick distinction between shame and guilt:

Guilt says I did something bad.

Shame says I am bad.

Guilt is about behavior and shame is about the person.

In order to face the legacies of the displacement and genocide of this land’s indigenous people and the enslavement of people from Africa, we need to confront our historic guilt over this behavior. However, we must not wallow in shame. We were not meant for shame. Shame serves no one. In fact, the insidious pathology of shame allows us to avoid our guilt. If I am a bad person, then all I am capable of is bad. I am incapable of anything good. I am not accountable for my behavior. From the place of shame, I bypass my guilt, which means I forfeit my agency to engage in any new behavior. 

When we use the sickness of shame to bypass our guilt, we then seek ways to self-medicate the shame with all sorts of numbing agents to desensitize ourselves from the pain of one another. If I collude with the lie that there is nothing I can do about how racism oppresses people, then I will strive to maintain willful blindness about racism. 

Perhaps, you are thinking. Hey, I didn’t do any of that. I didn’t own slaves. Why should I feel guilty? I strive to treat everyone with dignity and respect.

Again, I speak as a person of faith. 

"The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and the fourth generation.” ~ Numbers 14:18

God loves us. God did not create us for shame. And, God loves justice. God loves us so much that God cares about our behavior. God wants us to love as we have been loved. 

The verse above has been used by some to talk about “generational curses” and by others as way to talk about “systemic sin.” Whatever your preferred nomenclature, our country’s original sin is racism. The soil of our land, from sea to shining sea, is soaked in the blood of racism. We still eat the poisonous fruit from this blood-soaked soil.

For this reason, I try to avoid referring to people as “racist.” Again, it is a shaming pejorative. Shame serves no one and God never meant us for shame.

Rather, I say that we live in a country struggling with the insidious systemic evil of racism. We all suffer from how racism misshapes our God-given identities as beings of dignity and sacred worth. God wants to liberate us, ALL of us, white people too, from racism. We are meant for so much more. We are meant for the abundant life of becoming the beloved community.

As a citizen of this nation, I am confronted daily, multiple times a day, with the choice to resist racism or to collude with the powers and principalities. Other citizens, such as Spencer and other white nationalists, have decided to publicly profess their allegiance to this evil. 

The temptation is to think that just because I am not professing white supremacy that I am somehow free from racism. In my analysis, we are all confronted with choices daily that present opportunities to collude with or resist racism. I mess up all the time. I refuse to let my missteps to be the end of my journey towards liberation from racism. 

If you have read this far, I want to thank you. I want to leave you with a word of hope. Before that, I offer an invitation and a practice: begin to examine your known world for the vestiges of racism. Freed from shame, examine the ways in which you resist the powers of racism and the places where you collude with those powers and principalities.  Every morning, ask yourself how will I resist racism today? How will I be an agent of liberation from racism?

From Romans 8: I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

The soil of our land is soaked in the blood of racism. Our land was subjected to the evil of racism. Creation itself is rooting for us, the children of God, to be revealed. Our liberation will be discovered in celebrating our interconnectedness and seeking justice for all.

May we seek to be better caretakers of the interconnected web of creation and by the grace of God, when we stumble on our way to becoming the beloved community, may we fall forward towards love and justice. 

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Rev. J. Bentley Stewart is the Director of Student Life for Disciples Seminary Foundation in Northern California. He is an ordained minister with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and has standing in the Northern California/Nevada Region, for whom he serves as one of the anti-racism trainers. He is endorsed as a hospital chaplain by Disciples Home Mission. In his decade of hospital ministry, he specialized in pediatrics, palliative care, clinical ethics, interprofessional communication, and cultural bridging. He holds a B.A. degree from Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL, and a M.Div. degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary. Currently, he is organizing the core team to begin a new Disciples worshiping community in Marin County, gathering-desire, where he resides with his wife, their two sons, and their beloved 95 lb. lapdog, Norman.