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Stories of Self-Denial, 2

Having confronted my earlier failure to ask Jesus what he wanted to do with my life, I completed my undergraduate degree in wildlife biology and did something I would have never thought possible – I stepped into Christian ministry.  (Check out part 1 of this story here).

My friend, Marv Anderson, convinced me to join the staff of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.  Terry and I moved to Salt Lake City, UT where I worked on the campus of the University of Utah.  Four years of campus ministry with university students convinced me that I had to pursue graduate work in theology and Biblical studies, but that pastoral, parish work was the last thing I would ever consider.

Jesus had certainly been answering my daily prayer that he teach me to love people, but he hadn’t altered my basic makeup as an introvert.  Yes, I was learning to care deeply about others, but they still exhausted me.  I couldn’t imagine becoming a pastor, dealing with the messiness and conflicts of congregational life day after exhausting day.  So, I searched for a graduate school offering advanced degrees in Christian theology without directing students into the pastorate.

I enrolled in Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

My first year at Regent blew my mind.  I absolutely loved studying theology, church history, Biblical studies and languages.  Perhaps I will share more miraculous stories from my time at Regent in future posts.  Terry and I were the beneficiaries of many, many miracles during those years.  We also made a number of life-long friends.  Those years living in Blaine, Washington were foundational in making us the people we are today.

But, alas, in my second year of study, the leadership at Regent College double-crossed me!  The powers-that-be decided to add a Masters of Divinity program to their catalogue.  An M.Div. degree is the standard gateway course of study for would be pastors.  To make matters worse, I began to sense that God was calling me to switch programs and enter the M.Div. program.  Yikes!

Following Jesus is a mysterious way to live.  For instance, how do you know when an invisible God, whom you have never seen, who does not speak in an audible voice (at least, not to me) is “telling” you to do something?  And not something in general, like “be a nice person,” but something very specific, like “change your major and enter the M.Div. program you have been running away from”?

Well, you just do.

Following the Holy Spirit is one of those things a person has to experience for themselves in order to understand it – and here I am using the word “understand” very flexibly.  Some would say I am stretching it beyond recognition.  Real Christianity is always mystical at its core.  If a person says they follow Jesus but has never experienced the ineffable compulsion to do this, go there, start that, move over here – especially when those urges direct you in ways that run contrary to your personal preferences – then I would suggest that person is only pretending to follow Jesus.

Remember, the way of Jesus is a way of self-denial.

I pushed back against God’s mystical shove towards the M.Div. program for weeks.  Yet, try as I might, I could not shake the sense that Jesus was telling me to sign up.  My early morning devotional times became lengthy wrestling matches where I worked hard at convincing God that he was making a terrible mistake.  If he had wanted me to become a church pastor, he should have made me a different person.  I simply did not have the proper personality to become a successful church minister.  Why had He made me this way if that was His design for my future?

I still remember the moment of my surrender, actually if was more like a collapse, as if it were yesterday.  I was spiritually and emotionally exhausted.  It is not easy to fight against your Creator.  At least, not if you are trying to love Him at the same time.  In the early morning darkness, sitting in my Blaine living room, I prayed this prayer:

“Ok Lord.  I think that you are making a big mistake.  You made me in such a way that I can never be anything more than a second-rate pastor.  But if that is what you want me to do, then I will try to become the best second-rate pastor I can be.”

That morning I went to the Regent registrar’s office and switched my course of studies to the M.Div. program.  I did not know where or how I could become a minister, since I had no denominational ties or support.  But when Jesus tells you to do something, it’s best to leave the future necessities to Him.  He knows how to work out the details.

I did eventually become the pastor of a church in Salt Lake City.  I was there for 9 years.  When people ask me about it, I sometimes quote a line from the opening of Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities:  it was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

The Lord and I continued to have regular wrestling matches.  Many were the prayers that repeated my fears: “I told you, Lord!  Why am I here?  I am in over my head. I feel like I am drowning. You should have made me a different kind of person.”  And then the prayers would resolve themselves in a new moment of surrender: “But I know you brought me here, Jesus.  It’s up to you to make this work.  I’ll continue to try my best, but I need all the help you can give me.”

During those 9 years of pastoral ministry, I also experienced more of the grace, mercy and the power of God than I had ever dreamed possible.  All together our church body grew in maturity as we shared in more miracles, saw more lives changed, helped more new people enter into the kingdom of God and witnessed more genuine discipleship than I had ever seen before.  I experienced genuine Christian community in very profound ways through the love and support of church members who helped carry me through some of the hardest times of my young life.

I miss those 9 years even as I never want to relive them.  All I can tell you is that, in every way at all times, our God is always good.

We rarely, if ever, know what is best for us.  Heck, we don’t even know what is mediocre.  But Jesus does, and he wants to guide us into a peculiar way of fulfillment through self-sacrificial service because sacrifice is the way of fulfillment – at least, it is for people who follow Jesus.

Jesus says, “Everyone who wants to come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.  Anyone trying to save their life will lose it.  But whoever loses their life for me and the gospel will find it.”

Stories of Self-Denial, 1

With the encouragement of some close friends, I have decided to share a few stories with you from my life.  I have been following Jesus – not always with perfect faithfulness, but those are a different set of stories; I mention that fact here to clarify that I am not making any claims to an exceptional Christian life, only a Christian life – for some 45+ years.

I don’t have as many years ahead of me as I have trailing behind me.  Lately, I have felt the Holy Spirit’s prompting, I suspect (I am not certain; that’s why I asked my friends’ advice), to share these experiences for the encouragement of others.  The memory of God’s good work should not die with the individual.  And God has been very good to me over the years.  These stories are told here in order to praise God by letting you know how good He has been to me.  (Check out my post about the Biblical meaning of “praise.”)

I firmly believe that self-denial is at the heart of obedient Christian discipleship.  Jesus could not speak any more clearly.  He says:

“If anyone wants to follow me, they must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)

Self-denial is the heart of the good news.  Self-denial defined every day of Jesus’ life on earth.  The crucifixion was Jesus’ ultimate act of self-denial.  Now he says to us, “Follow me.  Be like me. Live like me.  Be willing to die like me.  Say ‘No’ to your own selfish interests and submit entirely to the Father in heaven like me.”

It is impossible to be a disciple of Jesus Christ without learning to recognize those forks in the road where God tells us to abandon our own plans and walk in a different direction.  I am blessed in that the Holy Spirit has allowed me to recognize a few of those forks over the years.

Denying yourself is not easy.  In fact, it can be painful.

It’s not something we can do expecting immediate “blessings.”  Sometimes the rewards for obedience don’t appear for years.  Maybe they won’t appear until eternity.  At other times, the benefits become obvious in the moment.  In any case, we don’t follow Jesus because he is a cosmic gumball machine dispensing instant, observable blessings for our every action.

Sometimes self-denial entails immediate suffering.  But we do it anyway, gladly, willingly and repeatedly simply because we need to be with Jesus.  We love him, and we know that life does not make sense for us anywhere else but at his side.  As Kierkegaard wisely observed:

“If you will believe, then you will…accept Christianity on any terms…then you will say: Whether it is a help or a torment, I want only one thing, I want to belong to Christ, I want to be a Christian.”

For as long as I could remember, I had always wanted to be a wildlife biologist.  Trekking through the wildness, studying wild animals, learning their hidden secrets and behaviors that no one else had yet to witness, this was my lifelong dream as a child.

I chose my university accordingly.  The University of Montana was the only place for me.  Between its department of Wildlife Biology and the presence of Dr. John Craighead, my childhood hero and an American pioneer in modern ecology and wildlife studies, moving into the university dormitory made me as happy as a 17-year-old pig in slop.

I had qualified for the on-campus work study program so I hightailed it over to the office of the Montana Cooperative Wildlife Research Unity, founded by Dr. Craighead, and I asked for a job.  Over the next several years my dreams started to come true.  I became an assistant to several doctoral students, helping them in their field research.  I was living my dream and the signs all seemed to say, ‘Full steam ahead.’

But I also hooked up with another group in my freshman year:  Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.  I attended their Large Group meetings.  I joined a Small Group Bible study, and I became friends with the local IV staff-worker, Marv Anderson.  (Marv and his wife Doreen are dear friends to this day.  I consider him to be one of my spiritual fathers.  Every believer needs someone like Marv in their life.)

Believe it or not, I had been born and raised in the church, but I had always thought very independently about my life.  At the university I began to rub shoulders with young people who talked openly about God’s will for their lives.

What?!  You mean following Jesus meant that I couldn’t just chase after any career I wanted?  I was supposed to pray, listen for answers, ask others for advice and do the things God wanted me to do????  Yikes!  Admittedly, I may have been sleeping during those particular lessons at church, but this was a brand-new attitude for my teenage, embryonic Christian faith.

But, with lots of helpful encouragement and advice from Marv and others, that’s exactly what I began to do.  And I started to realize new things about myself.

First, the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to see that, in large part, my career choice was driven by a major problem in my character.  I have always been an introvert.  Not that there is anything wrong with being an introvert.  I am quite happy with myself in that regard.  But this young man had gone much further into himself and become a good old-fashioned misanthrope.

I did not like people very much.  I was angry and antisocial – yeah, why in the world had I sought out Inter-Varsity?  It must have been the Holy Spirit again.  And I came so see that my desire to live alone in the wildness had as much to do with my dislike for the rest of the human race as it did with my love for animal life.  Yet, I was increasingly impressed by the fact that Jesus loved people.  And if I wanted to follow him, then he wanted me to love people too.

That realization caused me to seriously question whether I could continue calling myself a Christian.  I knew in my guts that no one could say they believed in Jesus while hating other people.  Yet, the last thing I was interested in was learning to love others.  Heck, I didn’t even like myself most of the time!

After a period of great internal wrestling, I concluded that I couldn’t walk away from Jesus.  I knew that I was lost without Him.  It was up to me to change, whether I liked it or not.  So, I added two new requests to my time of daily prayer.

First, I asked Jesus to teach me how to love people as he loved them, to give me his heart for others.

Second, I confessed that my plans for wildlife biology were my own.  I had never before asked the Lord what he wanted to do with my life.  So, I started asking, ‘Jesus, what are your plans for my life?  What did you make me to do?  If you want me to be a biologist, great.  But if you want to take me somewhere else, I will give up biology and do whatever you want.’

If you have checked out the biography on my blog, you will know that I have never worked as a biologist.  After graduation I followed a path into Christian ministry.  Something I never imagined I would do.  I said ‘No’ to my life-long plan – in the middle of seeing it all come true! –  because it had always been my plan.

It turned out that Jesus had a better idea for an introverted misanthrope who had also been given some unexplored gifts in communication and public speaking.

I have never regretted my decision to walk away from biology.  God’s plans for me have meant considerable hardship, at times.  The journey hasn’t always been easy.  There are more stories yet to be told.  But I have never been sorry for the choices I made, because I believe there was no other way for me to keep following after my precious Savior, Jesus Christ.

I thought I was going to the University of Montana to work with John Craighead.  Actually, I went there to meet Marv Anderson…and, of course, my wife Terry.  I had never heard of Marv before, but his model of faithful discipleship changed my life forever.

Learning “to deny myself” ended up saving me from deep personality flaws that were steering me into a life of isolation and loneliness.  Had I stubbornly held on to the person I was at the time, I would have eventually been lost.

Believe me.  Jesus always knows best.  Even when his direction is hard.

Call Congress in Support of the Yemen War Powers Bill

The organization Just Foreign Policy has been advocating for the Yemeni War Powers bill to be passed by Congress in order to stop the genocide now occurring in that country.

Yemen has become the scene of the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

Leaked! Despite War Crimes in Yemen US Trains Saudi Pilots

See my previous posts here, here, here, here .  We have soldiers and intelligence assets on the ground.  The US also the largest arms supplier to Saudi Arabia, the principle antagonist in Yemen’s civil war.

American money, arms, and soldiers, directed by our president and an acquiescent, do-nothing

congress, have helped Saudi Arabia to turn Yemen into a slaughter house where innocent men, women and children are butchered every day.

Please read the latest call for action from Just Foreign Policy reproduced below and make those three phone calls.  Thank you.

“The House goes out on recess this week. If a Yemen war powers bill is going to be introduced in the House before recess, that decision will be made today. If no bill is introduced, we’ll have no Congressional vehicle in August to respond to the threatened Saudi-UAE escalation of the war. The UN has warned that ten million more Yemenis will be pushed to the brink of starvation if the U.S.-Saudi war in Yemen does not end this year. 

“The actions today of three Representatives will be key:

Ro Khanna: (202) 225-2631

Adam Smith: (202) 225-8901

Ted Lieu: (202) 225-3976

“Please call their offices now, in that order. When you reach a staffer or leave a message, you can say something like: 

“’I urge you to move forward with the introduction of a Yemen war powers bill in the House before recess. This will deter Saudi-UAE from escalating and pressure them to agree to the UN peace deal. If Saudi-UAE escalate, the bill will give grassroots activists a vehicle for response.’

“When you’ve made your call[s], please report so here. 

“The UN and aid groups have warned that if the U.S.-Saudi war in Yemen is not ended this year, another ten million Yemenis will be pushed to the edge of starvation. The UN envoy has said he is close to a deal that would stop the Saudi-UAE assault on Hodeida and return the parties to peace talks. Thus, if the UN envoy is successful in his efforts, it could spare millions of Yemenis from being pushed to the edge of starvation. The crucial thing needed to end the war is more U.S. pressure on Saudi-UAE.

“That is why the question of what Members of Congress do now is so urgent. What Members of Congress do now to increase pressure on the Trump Administration and Saudi-UAE to end the war is the only variable apparent on the scene that appears to have any chance of sparing millions of lives in Yemen. 

“In particular, the introduction of a House war powers bill before the recess would give us a vehicle around which to organize public opinion to pressure Congress. Without such a vehicle and without such organizing, past experience indicates that the worsening of the U.S.-Saudi imposed humanitarian crisis in Yemen is a tree that falls in the forest without making an effective sound in the U.S. The worst developments are occasionally reported in mainstream U.S. press. But the attention is not sustained. The last time the issue received sustained attention in the U.S. was in March, when Senators Sanders, Lee, and Murphy introduced a war powers bill in the Senate and pushed for a vote. That is the kind of attention that we need in the U.S. on Yemen now. 

“Urge Khanna, Smith, and Lieu to act:

Ro Khanna: (202) 225-2631

Adam Smith: (202) 225-8901

Ted Lieu: (202) 225-3976″

Please make the calls.

Meet Lola the Prairie Falcon

One of the reasons my blog productivity has waned a bit this summer is because of my hobby (or alternative lifestyle!) of falconry.  I have been busy raising and training a new falcon.  Terry has bugged me for some time to make Lola a subject of this blog, so here you go.

Allow me to introduce you to Lola, my female prairie falcon.

With the help of a friend, I took Lola from her eyrie – a small cave in the side of a cliff – on May 31st when she was approximately 17 days old.  She was huddled together with 1 sister, 2 brothers, and 1 egg that failed to hatch.  This is the average size for a prairie falcon eyrie.

For anyone worried about this practice, let me say that I probably saved Lola’s life.  Biologists estimate that the mortality rate among 1st year raptors is about 75%.  In other words, there is a 75% chance Lola would have died before next spring had I not taken her.  Nature is beautiful, but it is also harsh, can be cruel (at least, in our eyes) and is always unforgiving.

Prairie falcons are very common in the western United States.  Unlike the peregrine falcon, which was saved from extinction by conservation

My last falcon was a peregrine named Bo. Here he is grabbing a quail for breakfast.

efforts facilitated through the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, prairie falcon populations have never been so low as to be threatened, much less endangered.

(I am biting my tongue not to excoriate president Trump’s gutting of the EPA and the current plan to effectively terminate the ESA!  All God’s people ought to be screaming bloody murder over these catastrophes.  Maybe I will do that in a future post.)

Here are a few things to know about Lola:

  1. She is an “imprint,” meaning that she thinks I am her dad (or mom?). Both
    Lola at 17 days having her first meal at her new home.

    prairie and peregrine falcons will imprint up to the age of 21 days.  There are both pros and cons to training an imprinted falcon.  I have never done it before, and I am experimenting.  So, I decided to give it a try for a variety of reasons.  Maybe I will talk more about imprinting on another day.

  2. One of the benefits of imprinting is that Lola is as tame as a puppy dog. She likes to hang out with me in the living room, which makes her lots of fun…for now.  We will see how things work out in the coming months once she begins serious training and hunting.
  3. No, imprinting does not necessarily mean that she can never be released or
    Teaching Lola how to interpret the news.

    be able to mate and raise young in the wild. We don’t thoroughly understand the imprinting process, yet.  There are documented instances of imprinted raptors mating with their wild counterpart and nesting in the wild successfully.

  4. I wanted a female because the primary game species in my area throughout the winter is pheasants. Female raptors are about 1/3 larger than males.  I want to be able to hunt rooster pheasants when they flush, and a male prairie falcon would be too small to kill male pheasants consistently.
  5. When Lola was small I took her with me
    My two favorite little girls playing on the porch.

    everywhere, except when my shopping required leaving her in the car alone for long periods. She enjoyed sitting on the table with me in her wicker basket at my local coffee shop, meeting the customers coming and going.  It’s called socialization.  When raising an imprint, I had to ensure that Lola had food available 24/7, never experience unsatisfied hunger, did experience a broad spectrum of activity, and was always with me.

    They grow up so fast.
  6. Soon after Lola could fly, we began a procedure called “hack.” There are a variety of ways to approach hacking, but it basically means that the hawk or falcon is allowed to fly around on its own during the day.  So, every day Lola and I drive out to a beautiful, isolated valley – no people, roads, buildings, power lines or telephone poles – that virtually screams “Montana!”  Out here I can be reasonably certain that she will remain safe as she explores.I set her on the roof of my Jeep and let her do her thing.  Right now her
    Lola’s favorite inside perch on the banister.

    “thing” includes chasing larks, harassing the neighborhood marsh hawk, learning to use the wind, gaining self-confidence, muscle tone, stamina, strength and just lookin’ incredibly cool in the way that only big falcons can do.  Don’t worry.  Lola regularly returns to land on the Jeep roof as if to say, “Ain’t I the ritz, dad? Did you see that?!”

    Just to make sure I stay focused, she often buzzes my head for fun.  After 2 hours or so, at some point when she is standing on the roof, I offer her the lure (a leather thingy that I can

    Lola at hack, queen of her domain.

    swing in the air) with her daily meal attached.  She flies or jumps over, grabs the lure, begins to eat, and I get her ready to go back home.

  7. Well, that’s what Lola and I are up to now. I will let you know how we progress in the months ahead.

Reading Religion Reviews My Book, “I Pledge Allegiance” #readingreligion # americanacademyofreligion

Eerdmans Publishers recently notified me of the first (to my knowledge) online review of my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.  You can find the review here at the Reading Religion website (an outlet of the American Academy of Religion).

Jacob Alan Cook, an Adjunct Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Friends University, is very kind in offering a positive review of my latest book.  He is both a thoughtful reader and reviewer, qualities not as common as you might think.

In the spirit of continuing the conversation – a conversation I believe is the most important contribution the Christian church can make to America’s public life at this moment in our history – I want to offer a few responses to Professor Cook’s observations.

Towards the end of his review, Cook suggests that “the root of the problem [i.e. the church’s abandonment of Jesus’ kingdom ethics] lies deeper than Crump’s analysis.”  He points to Bonhoeffer’s suggestion that the basis of every ethical problem is the human tendency to think that we already know what God wants of us, thereby conforming God’s will to our personal preferences.

I agree with Cook’s assessment of our ethical dilemma.  But I also think that I make this point several times myself, although I may not have been as thorough or as explicit as I should have been.  I will keep this in mind for the future.

Professor Cook also dabbles in a bit of theological archaeology as he muses on the possible connections between my evangelical upbringing and my book’s emphasis on the place of evangelism within the ethics of God’s kingdom.

I think he is right to highlight this connection, but not for the reason he implies.

Yes, evangelicalism has traditionally distinguished itself by emphasizing the importance of personal evangelism in the Christian life.  But I would argue that the tenor of I Pledge Allegiance is due to an entirely different evangelical characteristic — namely, taking the Bible seriously.

I hope that my book’s analysis of the Synoptic Gospels makes it clear that sharing the good news of the gospel is an essential ingredient of Jesus’ kingdom ethic.  My goal in I Pledge Allegiance is to describe a Biblical theology, not an evangelical theology…in fact, just typing out those final, two words has stretched my attention span to the breaking point.  Yikes!

If there are any similarities between my arguments in I Pledge Allegiance and the work of Carl F. H. Henry (a godfather of American evangelicalism), as Professor Cook suggests, then it is because we both have read the same Bible and drawn similar conclusions.

So, thank you again, Professor Cook.

And if you subscribe to this blog but have not yet read I Pledge Allegiance yourself, I hope that this helpful review at Reading Religion will motivate you to do so.  What are you waiting for?

The Catastrophe in Yemen Continues to Worsen Because of US #yemen

The folks at Just Foreign Policy are sending a petition to Congress and attempting to rally popular support in order to end American support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.

Yemeni children are dying of malnutrition and cholera.

Please take the time to read the excerpt posted below from their appeal.  Check out the embedded sources.  Reread my past blog posts about the tragedy unfolding in Yemen (here, here and here).

And remember…this is not a natural catastrophe.  It is an entirely man-made disaster.  

Recalling the Old Testament story of Nathan the prophet confronting King David:  The prophet today points his finger in the face of America and Saudi Arabia saying, “You are the nation.”  WE are the culprits condemning innocent Yemeni people to starvation and disease.

The guilt and responsibility is ours, America.  And we have the power to end it whenever we choose.  Here is the excerpt:

“The long-feared U.S.-backed Saudi-UAE assault on Hodeida, where four-fifths of Yemen’s food imports enter, has begun. ABC News reports: “Assault on Yemen’s largest port threatens to increase mass starvation.” Aid experts warned that an assault on the city could immediately threaten the lives of 250,000 people and put millions more at risk of starving to death. The U.S.-backed Saudi-UAE war against Yemen’s indigenous Houthi rebels has already created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, leaving 60% of the population – 17.8 million Yemenis – food insecure, and 8.4 million a step away from famine.
 
“ABC noted that the U.S. is providing “vital guidance and supplies” for the Saudi-UAE attack on Hodeida. The Wall Street Journal was more explicit: “The U.S. military is providing its Gulf allies with intelligence to fine-tune their list of airstrike targets in Yemen’s most important port, one sign of the Trump administration’s deepening role in a looming assault that the United Nations says could trigger a massive humanitarian crisis.”
 
“33 Representatives tried to stop the attack by threatening the Trump Administration with a vote invoking the War Powers Resolution to force an end to U.S. participation in the war. They were: Mark Pocan, Justin Amash, Ro Khanna, Thomas Massie, Barbara Lee, Walter Jones, Ted Lieu, James McGovern, Tulsi Gabbard, Yvette Clarke, Pramila Jayapal, Peter DeFazio, Debbie Dingell, Earl Blumenauer, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Gwen Moore, Adriano Espaillat, Judy Chu, Bobby Rush, Keith Ellison, Jan Schakowsky, Raúl Grijalva, Jamie Raskin, Donald Beyer, Karen Bass, Frank Pallone, Beto O’Rourke, Alan Lowenthal, Betty McCollum, Zoe Lofgren, Jared Huffman, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and Hank Johnson.
 
“The Members wrote: “We urge you to use all available means to avert a catastrophic military assault on Yemen’s major port city of Hodeida by the Saudi-led coalition…We remind you that three years into the conflict, active U.S. participation in Saudi-led hostilities against Yemen’s Houthis has never been authorized by Congress, in violation of the Constitution…In light of a possibly disastrous offensive on Hodeida, we remind you that under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress alone has the power to declare and authorize war, and the War Powers Resolution allows any individual member of Congress to force a debate and floor vote to remove U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities.”
 
“Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the Trump Administration have ignored these warnings. They don’t believe that Members of Congress have the courage to follow through on their threat.

“Help us prove Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the Trump Administration wrong. Press Members of Congress to invoke war powers to force a vote to end unconstitutional U.S. participation in the catastrophic Saudi-UAE assault on Hodeida by signing our petition.”

A Look at Romans 13:1-7, Must Christians ‘Obey’ the Government? Part 1 #christianityandpolitics

Vice-President Mike Pence’s speech at the Southern Baptist Convention, thankfully, sparked a debate over whether he should be welcomed or disinvited.  Pence’s defenders predictably quote Romans 13:1 as their argument for welcoming a political speech at the convention.

In Romans 13 the apostle Paul says:  “let everyone submit to the governing authorities.”  So, that means Pence needs to be given the time normally allotted for group prayer in order to deliver a partisan, political speech?

In light of this current debate, I thought I’d post a few serialized excerpts from my book, I Pledge Allegiance, that looks carefully at what Paul actually says in Romans 13:1-7.  The complete excerpt is from pages 56-62.  Here goes:

“Paul had specific concerns in mind as he wrote his letter to the Roman church and describing a comprehensive political theology of church-state relations was not one of them. Recalling the church’s precarious standing with the local government in a time of tax revolt is far more illuminating of Paul’s argument in this chapter. The early church lived within an authoritarian state. There was no expectation that the average person could exert any meaningful influence in bringing about broad-based, systemic social or political change. Neither Paul nor his readers had any conception of participatory democracy. Modern strategies for popular political and social transformation through civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance were inconceivable at the time. Naturally, this does not mean that Paul was devoid of political opinions or that he might not write something of universal political significance for the church, regardless of its particular location in time and space, but it does mean that properly understanding Romans 13:1–7 requires that we keep the actual historical situation foremost in our mind.

Observing God’s Order

“Several details in Romans 13 need elaboration for Paul’s ethical instruction to become clear for the modern reader. The chapter’s opening sentences twice affirm that government authority is put in place by God (v. 1). God has established a hierarchy of civil authority to regulate the otherwise strong tendency toward unruliness in human society. Anyone who rebels against this ordering of authority, therefore, is rebelling against God’s design (v. 2). Two details of Paul’s vocabulary clarify his point.

“First, Paul describes civil authority as part of the way God “orders” the world. This idea of God’s ordering, organizing, appointing or arranging is central to the passage, with several derivatives of the verbal root “to order” appearing five times in three verses (vv. 1 [twice], 2 [twice], 5 [once]). It is clearly Paul’s key concept. God “establishes/orders/institutes governing authorities” (v. 1) not by bringing any particular leader to power—though he may at times also do that—but by providentially creating structures of governing authority that exercise responsibilities delegated by God. When Paul says that “there is no authority except that which God has established” (v. 1), he is not claiming that divine providence places all rulers in their specific positions of power. He is saying that the various stations of authority that make up civil government are put in place by God’s providential ordering of human society.

“Understanding Paul’s use of “ordering” vocabulary helps to answer long- standing questions about Christian obedience to tyrannical rulers. The problematic logic, based on Romans 13, usually goes like this: If every governing authority is put in place by God, so that disobeying the authority is the equivalent of disobeying God, then even a man like Adolf Hitler must have been put in place by God, and disobeying even Hitler becomes the equivalent of disobeying God. This was, in fact, the logic used by many German Christians who swore allegiance to Hitler, the “divinely appointed” Führer.

“Though some additional arguments will be advanced below for addressing the question of obeying Hitler, Paul’s emphasis on ordering rather than personnel makes it clear that God establishes positions of authority, positions that are occupied at different times by different leaders of greater or lesser ability, wisdom, and moral fiber. Paul does not make God responsible for ordaining every leader who ever fills an office. Christians are obligated to respect the role of government per se in their lives, but that is a far cry from being obligated to obey, much less enthusiastically endorse, every wretched leader braying for national allegiance to his every foolish decision.

Subordination vs. Obedience

“A second—equally important—matter of vocabulary arises once we notice that Paul does not command believers always “to obey” the governing authorities (Rom.13:1). Translations that render Romans 13:1 along the lines of “obey the government” (Living Bible, Contemporary English Version, Good News Translation, Worldwide English) seriously misrepresent Paul’s words. Instead of commanding obedience, Paul tells the church “to be subject/to submit” to the way God has “ordered” governing authority. If Paul had intended for the church always to obey the government, he could have used the common word hupokouō (obey) to make his point. But he doesn’t do that; instead, Paul stays with the “order” word group and directs believers to be “subordinate (vv. 1, 5) to the authorities that “have been ordered” by God. In effect, he is reiterating the need for believers to cooperate with God’s design in ordering human society.

“Following the logic of verse 3 is crucial for understanding the full significance of Paul’s refusal to tell the church that they must always obey the government. Notice that Paul’s description of civil authority is utterly idealistic, in so far as he assumes that the church can always count on the government to faithfully enforce God’s expectations. “Rulers are not a terror to those who do what is right but to those who do wrong. If you don’t want to be afraid of the one in authority, do what is right and the authority will praise you” (my translation). Had Paul intended to deliver a lesson on Christian obedience, he missed a perfect opportunity to do so. Notice that he does not say, “Shed your fear of authority by doing what you are told; be obedient.” Instead, Paul counsels the church to free itself from any fear of authority by always “doing what is right.”

“At least two assumptions are at work in this statement. First, Paul’s argument assumes that government authorities will never be corrupt. Their judgments will always faithfully reflect God’s judgments concerning what is good and bad, right and wrong, just and unjust. But we all know better. The claim that “rulers are not a terror to those who do what is right but to those who do wrong” is not always true, and Paul knew it. The civil rights demonstrators who walked across the bridge in Selma, Alabama, with Dr. Martin Luther King in 1965 were excoriated by the state’s governor, condemned by the local sheriff, and beaten with clubs by the local police. It is no secret to us or to Paul that rulers can easily reward those who do wrong and become a terror to those who do what is right, but Paul is describing the ideal, the way things are supposed to be, for the sake of his argument.

“Paul’s second assumption is that when government functions as it should, citizens never need to be afraid about doing what is right because “the right” is always what governing authorities will want from their citizens. Those who do what is right can be confident in their Christian obedience because they are simultaneously being submissive to authority, as God requires. In an ideal world, a believer’s act of submission will be synonymous with obedience because the perfect, incorruptible government will never ask its citizens to disobey God.

“Unpacking these assumptions at the root of Paul’s idealization of earthly authority also exposes the prick hidden in his argument. Paul knows that the Roman government does not measure up to this ideal. He cannot possibly in- struct the Roman church always to obey a government that made public sacrifice

Roman Christians were thrown to the lions for refusing to obey the law

to the Roman pantheon a civic responsibility; but he can tell them always to do what is right. When Christians act on what they know is right and those actions coincide with the government’s expectations, Paul’s argument predicts the happy outcome—“do what is right and the authorities will praise you.” But when doing what is right puts the believer on a collision course with government expectations, Paul’s instructions take on even greater significance: “Still do what is right.”

“God’s own perfect government awaits the coming age, when Christ is seated on his earthly throne. As long as Jesus’s disciples live in this world, however, they must anticipate times when the governing authorities will not praise them for doing what they believe is right in the sight of God. So Paul diplomatically commends the Roman government as much as he is able to in his description of the ideal, but he also assiduously avoids giving the church advice that could eventually lead it to compromise with the ungodly designs of a government that is out of step with God’s vision of truth and justice.

“Christians are not commanded always to obey their government or its laws. The church is told to be submissive and always do what is right. Obedience is one way of showing submission to authority, but submission and obedience are not synonymous. In some circumstances the submission God requires will work itself out as disobedience to governing authority. When a government expects believers to do things that the latter believe are wrong, things that will compromise their relationship with Christ, things that will violate their kingdom citizenship, then godly adherence to what is right demands conscientious disobedience against the government. At that point, faithful disciples remain submissive to misguided governmental authority, not by compromising their Christian conscience, but by freely submitting themselves to whatever punishment the authorities threaten to impose for disobedience. Living out the values of the kingdom of God always comes first for the followers of Jesus.”

Venezuela is on the American Empire’s Chopping Block

Yesterday’s post addressed the wholesale propaganda war being waged against consumers of US news.  The purpose of this particular campaign is several fold:

First, the ultimate political goal is to force Venezuela back into the international fold of global capitalism (sometimes called neoliberalism), thereby reopening its doors to American corporate interests (especially our oil companies);

Second, to persuade the American people that economic sanctions and even military action against Venezuela is entirely justified, should we decide to act in those ways. (Note – the US has already imposed severe economic sanctions against Venezuela which are helping to cripple the nation’s economy and its supply of consumer goods).

Third, propaganda – which is the standard diet dished out to every American who depends on the major corporate news outlets – serves as the information artillery barrage used to soften up the American battlefield of public opinion long before our government unleashes the military on “the enemy.”

Making the general public believe that, once again, the US has been “forced” into using our military as “the last resort” in “fighting for democracy, freedom and human rights” in another part of the world, keeps the public subdued, pliable and supportive of The Empire’s latest acts of international barbarism.

In addition to yesterday’s information, here are several more video reports from journalists working in Venezuela that help to fill out this picture.

First, reports from Abby Martin’s The Empire Files: She walks the streets of Venezuela, goes shopping in the stores, reads the newspapers, attends demonstrations, interviews people on both sides of the confrontations, including average people and their political leaders.

I think Martin is one of the most important journalists working today.  Granted, her personal interviews can be needlessly profane, but from all I have seen, her journalism is excellent.  Check out:

Why Socialism Keeps Winning in Venezuela (24 minutes)

Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly: Dictatorship or Democracy? (26 minutes)

Abby Martin Fact-Checks “No Free Press in Venezuela” Claim (3:39 minutes)

Inside Venezuela’s Markets: Propaganda vs. Reality (22 minutes)

Abby Martin Meets the Venezuelan Opposition (26 minutes)

For another thorough analysis of the Venezuela issues, here is Michael Prysner’s excellent response to John Oliver’s recent segment on Venezuela during his HBO comedy show. Granted, it is 45 minutes long, but you don’t have to watch it all at once.  Prysner takes the time to debunk, point by point, all of Oliver’s thoughtless repetitions of the mainstream media’s statements on Venezuela.  You can easily follow up on Prysner’s work online.

You can also find similar analysis from others by searching sites like the Real News Network, teleSUR English, RT News, and RT America.

Here are some of my thoughts on becoming a well-informed, thoughtful news consumer.

In order to find this type of journalism – that is, REAL journalism, something that the corporate media abandoned many years ago because their top executives decided that it did not make enough money – we must turn to independent, genuinely investigative journalism.  Most of these folks nowadays work for online publications and video outlets (check out youtube).

I give greater attention to journalists who report from the ground inside the relevant country, especially those who speak the language (for instance, Abby Martin’s reports from Venezuela; she is fluent in Spanish) and interview their subjects on their own or at least use a translator by their side.

The kinds of journalists I am talking about are people like Max Blumenthal, Dan Cohen, Glenn Greenwald, Abby Martin, Michael Prysner, Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill, Iona Craig, Eva Bartlett and others too numerous to list.  You can find them if you begin to look.

Another good source for alternative perspectives appears in outlets backed by foreign governments.  I watch and read them as much as I do US news.

Places like RT (Russia Television), Al Jazeera (coming from Qatar) and teleSUR (financed by the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Uruguay and Bolivia).  Yes, these broadcasts will certainly have their own biases, but all US media are biased, as well. They certainly are no more biased, and in many, many instances they are much less biased, than any of our American news corporations.

Furthermore, foreign news stations typically offer a different perspective on the world’s problems.  It is good and necessary to break out of the American bubble.  We need to stop looking at ourselves in the mirror and learn how other people from around the world view us.

For instance, did you know that when the people of the world are asked which nation poses the greatest threat to world peace, the United States (not Iran, Russia, China or North Korea) tops the list (here and here)?

Finally, no one can say that they are well-informed until they look at all sides of an issue.

If I don’t know what the other side is saying or thinking – not from my perspective but from their perspective – if I haven’t engaged the evidence used in their arguments; if I don’t understand how they are refuting my arguments, then I simply don’t know what I am talking about.

We need to listen to alternative voices, perspectives and analyses.  Things that not nearly enough Americans do.  And, I am afraid, that American Christians tend to be among the worst at gathering a diversity of perspectives from which to learn.  (OK, I have to say this:  Please, TURN OFF THE CHRISTIAN RADIO AND TV NEWS BROADCASTS.  MOST OF IT IS PURE PROPAGANDA AND LIES.  SUCH BLINDNESS ONLY SERVES TO KEEP THE CHURCH IGNORANT, OFFENSIVE AND PLIABLE TO AMERICAN CORPORATE & IMPERIAL INTERESTS).

Our Creator gave us minds for thinking not strings for pulling.

Hands Off Venezuela, America! You’re a Big, Fat, Bully Nation!

I have been meaning to write about Venezuela and the distorted coverage of its internal affairs that we have been receiving in this country for some time now.  Well, I better do it now, before the US sends our troops to help complete the overthrow of another democratically elected, South American government, and the US press extolls the virtues of yet another one of our “humanitarian interventions.”  (That was sarcasm, in case you missed it).

Crowds of voters during the 2012 elections

Western news coverage of Venezuelan politics, whether by print, radio or television, not only in the US but in Britain and Western Europe, offers a perfect example of how corporate media dishes out pure propaganda to its consumers.

This includes everyone.  I have yet to find a single exception to this rule in the case of Venezuela, whether it’s Fox, ABC, NCB, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, you name it.  They are all the same.

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro

Everyone is touting the same line: Nicolas Maduro is a dictator.  He has killed Venezuelan democracy.  The people are oppressed. There is no freedom of speech or of the press. The entire nation is starving due to government mismanagement. And on and on…

Sound familiar?

For a legible version see http://lati-negros.tumblr.com/post/31490408699/56-us-military-interventions-in-latin-america

Anyone who knows anything about the long, bloody history of American intervention in South American, however, will already be suspicious of such uniform, lock-step reporting.  Especially when few if any of this “reports” are coming from (a) journalists who speak Spanish (b) doing investigative journalism (c) on the ground in Venezuela (d) by speaking to a broad spectrum of actual Venezuelans still living in Venezuela.  (For information on US-sponsored coups in South America see this, this, this, this and this).

From what I can discover, the reality in Venezuela today is exactly the opposite of what our news media is telling us.  They have democratic elections. In fact, Jimmy Carter’s election monitoring organization observed Venezuela’s national elections in 2012 and concluded that “The election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”  (For further discussion, see this article on “Why the US Demonizes Venezuela’s Elections” by Mark Weisbrot, another guy I pay attention to.  Another great source of information is Venezuelanalysis.com, where you can find “Facts About Venezuela’s Presidential Elections and the Voting Process”).

WW 2 propaganda poster

I mention all of this, not only to highlight another clear example of the way our government and corporate controlled media try to propagandize us all, but also because propaganda often paves the way for military intervention and war.

Remember that President Trump has already threatened using “the military option” on Venezuela if Maduro won reelection (also here).

So, why does the US government hate the Maduro government in Venezuela?

First, Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world and is a significant source for US imports.

Second, the Venezuelan people have chosen to elect a socialist government, which is a convenient way for the US to resurrect the Cold War bogie man of creeping communism sucking at American’s underbelly.  There are several problems however:

  • If America is the great defender of democracy around the world, what business is it of ours to interfere in country’s that democratically choose a socialist government?
  • Venezuela has not threatened to invade any neighboring countries. The US is the only nation threatening to invade another in order to overthrow its (democratically elected) government.

Third, beginning with Hugo Chavez and continuing with Maduro (but not as aggressively) the Venezuelan government has worked at nationalizing its industries, including its oil production.  This has been good news for the general population, but not such welcome news for the CEOs of the major oil companies operating in Venezuela.

Whenever more money flows into the pockets of the local people, ensuring that less money will flow out of the country and into the pockets of foreign oil conglomerates, the corporate executives always call Washington, D.C. and demand some of that ole’ time “regime change.”

Mohammed Mosaddegh, Prime Minister of Iran

Don’t forget that in 1953 the CIA and the British overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mosaddegh in Iran (and had him executed) after he decided to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, depriving British Petroleum of its windfall profits at Iranian expense.  There IS a clear precedent for all this.

So, in preparation, the government propaganda machine has been rolling for some time now, preparing us for the possibility of another illegal military/CIA intervention overseas.  If/when it happens it will be described as another chapter in the noble saga of America’s sacrificial “defense of freedom around the world.”  (Wave flags and play patriotic music, with predictably mind-numbing effects, here).

US orchestrated coup in Chile, 1973

In fact, it will be one more bloody intervention in another nation’s affairs where innocent human beings will be murdered by the thousands simply because US business interests are lusting after more and more money.

This government overthrow will then be followed by the imposition of a conservative, right-wing government, perhaps even a military dictatorship, as has happened so many times before.  The multinational corporations with return. The resource extraction will be denationalized and reprivatized so that the majority of the benefits will go back overseas to Western companies, and the local people are once again deprived of what is rightfully theirs.

THIS IS WHY CHRISTIANS, and by this, I mean the entire Christian church in this country, NEED TO CARE ABOUT THE NEWS AND POLITICS!

Because we want to obey Jesus’ teaching that “we do to others as we would want them to do to us.”

Because we want to “love our neighbors as ourselves.”

The US military kills people all around the world in our name, using weapons created with our tax dollars, pursuing policies supposedly for our benefit, sacrificing the lives of our children and the children of many others, all in the name of “American values.”

I am firmly convinced that nobody who genuinely knows and loves Jesus Christ; no one who understands Jesus’ values and the manner of living he taught and modeled for his disciples, can possibly be at peace with our country’s interventionist policies around the world.

We must object, speak up, write letters, call our representatives and insist that we stop meddling in Venezuelan internal affairs.

No US military or CIA in Venezuela!

(This post originally included a section on finding reliable news sources for this type of information and discussion.  I have decided to make that a separate post to follow shortly.)

Anthony Bourdain’s Support for Palestine #BourdainRIP #Palestinians

Today we learned that Anthony Bourdain committed suicide last night.  Hearing this news will shock some people.  He seemed to have everything, but his tragic death reminds us that we never know another person’s true state of mind.

I always enjoyed Mr. Bourdain’s programs.  He struck me as a wonderful human being. I thought we could have been good friends.

Anthony Bourdain was also a vocal advocate for the Palestinian people. In 2014 the Muslim Public Affairs Council awarded Anthony their “Voices of Courage and Conscience in Media Award” for one of his programs dedicated to Palestinian refugees. During his acceptance speech he said:

“I was enormously grateful for the response from Palestinians in particular for doing what seemed to me an ordinary thing, something we do all the time: show regular people doing everyday things, cooking and enjoying meals, playing with their children, talking about their lives, their hopes and dreams.

“It is a measure I guess of how twisted and shallow our depiction of a people is that these images come as a shock to so many. The world has visited many terrible things on the Palestinian people, none more shameful than robbing them of their basic humanity.

“People are not statistics. That is all we attempted to show. A small, pathetically small step towards understanding.”

May you rest in peace, Mr. Bourdain.  I wish I had known you.