Seldom these days does a member of the corporate media speak with such clarity, passion, and righteousness as Anna Quindlen did in a column in a recent issue of Newsweek:
Tomorrow. That's when the United States should begin to bring combat forces home from Iraq. Today would be a better option, but already it's tomorrow in Baghdad, in the Green Zone fortress Americans have built in the center of the city, out in the streets where IEDs are lying in wait for passing soldiers and every marketplace may be the endgame for a suicide bomber.
More excerpts:
America finds itself back where it began, before more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers died, before hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed or maimed. When George W. Bush was bound and determined to send troops to Baghdad, most of his European allies counseled more diplomacy, more attempts to shape Iraq from the outside, more involvement from other Arab nations. The answer to the mess the administration has made since then is to go back. It should go back to the solutions it rejected in favor of international chest thumping, chest thumping that has now cost thousands of American families their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, and has cost the people who engineered that plan nothing in terms of personal loss.
. . .
The people who brought America reports of WMDs when none existed, and the slogan "Mission Accomplished" when it was not nor likely to be, now say that American troops cannot leave. Not yet. Not soon. Not on a timetable. Judge the truth of that conclusion by the truth of their past statements. They say that talk of withdrawal shows a lack of support for the troops. There is no better way to support those who have fought valiantly in Iraq than to guarantee that not one more of them dies in the service of the political miscalculation of their leaders. Not one more soldier. Not one more grave. Not one more day. Bring them home tomorrow.
Amen. Would that the Lord would send more such prophets.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Church Leadership as a Community Project
We installed a new elder at church today. I always reacted negatively when people in my previous tradition used the term 'install' in this context, as they used the term to avoid thinking of the concept of ordination. But in this case, it was an installation: the gentleman was already an ordained elder who had served another Presbyterian church in the past. For Presbyterians, elders and deacons are considered fully ordained ministers; and once you're ordained, you're ordained for life. If you move to a new church, you bring your ordination with you.
But active service as an elder or deacon is limited to three-year terms. Warren was asked to serve out the term of an elder who had to resign due to changing job duties, but all Presbyterian churches have a yearly rotation of fresh elders and deacons who are replacing others whose three year terms have ended. The body of actively serving elders is called "Session."
It's a healthy way to keep fresh leadership in the church. Our church nominates elders and deacons who reflect the congregation--women and men; young and old (including one youth group member serving on Session most of the time). While it's not a public thing due to Presbyterian politics and respect of individuals' private lives, I assume that some of the elders are gay or lesbian. So Session is continually recharged with fresh faces and fresh perspectives.
But while the makeup of Session changes each year, ordination is for life. When not actively serving on Session, elders and deacons still serve communion, serve on the Stephen Ministry (a group of trained lay counselors), and play many other vital roles in the church. When our pastor, Peg Pfab, asked all ordained elders and deacons to come forward to lay their hands on our new member of Session, more than half of those in attendance came forward.
This is a good balance. Most of the churches I have been a part of in the past had trouble moving forward because of stagnant, self-perpetuating leadership that had been virtually unchanged for a long time. Yet a danger of elder rotation is that truly gifted leaders might not be adequately utilized. The concept of "ordained, but not actively serving on Session" frees gifted leaders to lead in other ways.
Scripture gives much latitude in these matters, but my impression of Presbyterian polity is that it is healthier than most.
But active service as an elder or deacon is limited to three-year terms. Warren was asked to serve out the term of an elder who had to resign due to changing job duties, but all Presbyterian churches have a yearly rotation of fresh elders and deacons who are replacing others whose three year terms have ended. The body of actively serving elders is called "Session."
It's a healthy way to keep fresh leadership in the church. Our church nominates elders and deacons who reflect the congregation--women and men; young and old (including one youth group member serving on Session most of the time). While it's not a public thing due to Presbyterian politics and respect of individuals' private lives, I assume that some of the elders are gay or lesbian. So Session is continually recharged with fresh faces and fresh perspectives.
But while the makeup of Session changes each year, ordination is for life. When not actively serving on Session, elders and deacons still serve communion, serve on the Stephen Ministry (a group of trained lay counselors), and play many other vital roles in the church. When our pastor, Peg Pfab, asked all ordained elders and deacons to come forward to lay their hands on our new member of Session, more than half of those in attendance came forward.
This is a good balance. Most of the churches I have been a part of in the past had trouble moving forward because of stagnant, self-perpetuating leadership that had been virtually unchanged for a long time. Yet a danger of elder rotation is that truly gifted leaders might not be adequately utilized. The concept of "ordained, but not actively serving on Session" frees gifted leaders to lead in other ways.
Scripture gives much latitude in these matters, but my impression of Presbyterian polity is that it is healthier than most.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Quotable
From the excellent book by Jack Rogers, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality (Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), page 103:
"Perhaps the greatest irony in the marriage debate is that self-described born-again Christians, a segment of the population that is often vocal about supporting bans on same-sex marriage, seem to exhibit greater problems with their own marriages. Evangelical pollster George Barna found that during the 1990s born-again Christians had higher divorce rates than non-Christians. . . . The states of Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas, which voted overwhelmingly for constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage in 2004, had three of the highest divorce rates in the United States. In contrast, the state with the lowest divorce rate is Massachusetts, a state whose Supreme Court has ruled in favor of gay marriage. There is clearly a disconnect between problems facing heterosexual marriages in the United States and the conservatives' proposed solution of banning same-sex marriage."
On page 101, Rogers quotes from an article by Lewis Smedes, "Exploring the Morality of Homosexuality," in Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience of the Churches, edited by Walter Wink (Fortress Press, 1999):
"What danger to straight people is posed by homosexuals? Some say they are a threat to the family, but none tell us how. Some fear that they might abuse our children, but no facts have been adduced to show that they are any more likely to do so than heterosexual people are. Do homosexuals threaten to invade our homes, steal our property, rape our daughters? What we know is that homosexual men are murdered by heterosexual people just for being gay; what we also know is that there is no record of a heterosexual being murdered for not being gay. Why then, I wonder, in a world of violence, starving children, cruel tyrannies, and natural disasters, why are Christian people so steamed up about the harmless and often beneficent presence of gays and lesbians among us?"
This is the best popular-level book I have seen on this topic. As the former moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), he uses quite a bit of ink describing the history of Presbyterian thought on three parallel civil rights issues--racism and slavery, the rights of women, and homosexuality. This material was interesting to me as a relatively new Presbyterian. Any Christian, however, will benefit from Chapters 5 and 6, which contain an excellent exposition on the biblical and sociological case for equality for gays and lesbians in the life of the church. Chapter 4, "Interpreting the Bible in Times of Controversy," while using Presbyterian examples, is an excellent resource for any church struggling with this issue.
The eight or so verses in scripture that allegedly mention homosexuality are almost always interpreted outside their literary and social context. Even if all eight of these verses were interpreted as condemnations of all homosexual behavior (which itself requires very strained exegesis), no one can credibly argue that the subject is a priority in scripture as it is for many of today's Christian conservatives. Rogers is an evangelical who takes the Bible seriously (something that many evangelicals, sadly, don't do). He was against equality for gays and lesbians in the church for many years, until he was forced to actually study the issue because of church roles he was playing. When he did a serious study of scripture, he realized that it is wrong and unbiblical to marginalize any faithful Christian.
"Perhaps the greatest irony in the marriage debate is that self-described born-again Christians, a segment of the population that is often vocal about supporting bans on same-sex marriage, seem to exhibit greater problems with their own marriages. Evangelical pollster George Barna found that during the 1990s born-again Christians had higher divorce rates than non-Christians. . . . The states of Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas, which voted overwhelmingly for constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage in 2004, had three of the highest divorce rates in the United States. In contrast, the state with the lowest divorce rate is Massachusetts, a state whose Supreme Court has ruled in favor of gay marriage. There is clearly a disconnect between problems facing heterosexual marriages in the United States and the conservatives' proposed solution of banning same-sex marriage."
On page 101, Rogers quotes from an article by Lewis Smedes, "Exploring the Morality of Homosexuality," in Homosexuality and Christian Faith: Questions of Conscience of the Churches, edited by Walter Wink (Fortress Press, 1999):
"What danger to straight people is posed by homosexuals? Some say they are a threat to the family, but none tell us how. Some fear that they might abuse our children, but no facts have been adduced to show that they are any more likely to do so than heterosexual people are. Do homosexuals threaten to invade our homes, steal our property, rape our daughters? What we know is that homosexual men are murdered by heterosexual people just for being gay; what we also know is that there is no record of a heterosexual being murdered for not being gay. Why then, I wonder, in a world of violence, starving children, cruel tyrannies, and natural disasters, why are Christian people so steamed up about the harmless and often beneficent presence of gays and lesbians among us?"
This is the best popular-level book I have seen on this topic. As the former moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), he uses quite a bit of ink describing the history of Presbyterian thought on three parallel civil rights issues--racism and slavery, the rights of women, and homosexuality. This material was interesting to me as a relatively new Presbyterian. Any Christian, however, will benefit from Chapters 5 and 6, which contain an excellent exposition on the biblical and sociological case for equality for gays and lesbians in the life of the church. Chapter 4, "Interpreting the Bible in Times of Controversy," while using Presbyterian examples, is an excellent resource for any church struggling with this issue.
The eight or so verses in scripture that allegedly mention homosexuality are almost always interpreted outside their literary and social context. Even if all eight of these verses were interpreted as condemnations of all homosexual behavior (which itself requires very strained exegesis), no one can credibly argue that the subject is a priority in scripture as it is for many of today's Christian conservatives. Rogers is an evangelical who takes the Bible seriously (something that many evangelicals, sadly, don't do). He was against equality for gays and lesbians in the church for many years, until he was forced to actually study the issue because of church roles he was playing. When he did a serious study of scripture, he realized that it is wrong and unbiblical to marginalize any faithful Christian.
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