“I was taught that the world had a lot of problems; that I could struggle and change them; that intellectual and material gifts brought the privilege and responsibility of sharing with others less fortunate; and that service is the rent each of us pays for living — the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time or after you have reached your personal goals.”
“What’s wrong with our children? Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating. Adults telling children to not be violent while marketing and glorifying violence… I believe that adult hypocrisy is the biggest problem children face in America.”
― Marian Wright Edelman
The first quote was in my Google+ feed today thanks to a dear friend who works with children. I forwarded it on to the leaders of our Mission Team here at First Presbyterian and to all our ministry and program staff. For me, it comes closest to defining a missional life as anything I have seen.
The second quote is prophetic in its assessment and ever-timeliness. I hope to God for a day when it’s outdated because we, American adults, will have made it so by our ethical and moral commitments, our spiritual and political priorities, and by shining lights on places where our systems have absorbed injustice instead of upending it.
Friends, this is a re-post from the Beerituality blog. Beerituality is a monthly gathering at the Allentown Brew Works in Downtown Allentown that aims to bring people together from across traditions “at the crossroads of the sacred and secular.”
Peter Schweyer, Bill White, Tammy Lerner, and Alan Tjeltveit @ Beerituality (November 17, 2011)
Last night’s discussion featured Peter Schweyer, a PSU grad, Allentown City Councilperson and the Chief of Staff for PA Rep. Jennifer Mann with experience in abuse legislation; Bill White, noted columnist for the Allentown Morning Call, a long-time advocate for abuse survivors and abuse prevention; Tammy Lerner, State Director and Vice President of Abolish Child Sex Abuse; and Alan Tjeltveit, Professor of Psychology at Muhlenberg College.
This was an extremely important night of engaging, educational, and candid reflection and dialogue about the wider context of sexual abuse in the midst of the Penn State scandal.
the need to keep talking about this issue, and to encourage people to tell their stories in safe environments. Speaking out about abuse can help dispel the culture of shame we’ve built up around it, so that victims can be empowered to come forward and legal and civil recourse can be taken.
In Pennsylvania, coaches are not mandatory reporters. In some states, they are. Legislation to make coaches mandatory reporters was introduced in Harrisburg this week.
In Pennsylvania, university police departments like those at Penn State or Lehigh University are the accredited law enforcement agencies on campus. Unlike other police departments, these don’t report to any elected official or body, but to Boards of Trustees. There are inherent conflicts of interest there on many levels.
The need for changes to statute of limitations laws for these kinds of crimes. Currently, if the criminal and civil statutes of limitations have expired before charges are brought, even admitted offenders cannot be named as such in newspapers or with respect to Megan’s Law. This is an area where better legislation can, indeed, help with prevention.
Thanks again to our excellent panelists for the interdisciplinary perspectives and conversation on this hard issue. We were blessed to be able to assemble this panel. In the larger context of advocacy and support, this conversation must continue.
Harnessing both my theological and literary training, I present the curious parallel between BOMB Magazine’s “tips for writers” and Romans chapter 7.
Please do not send genre fiction. Please read the magazine before you even think of submitting work. Sample copies are available for purchase.
Setting aside the fact that samples aren’t usually something one pays for, BOMB has, by the sly legalism of these suggestions, already made me an offender. Had I not thought of submitting to BOMB, I never would have read the commandment to read BOMB before thinking of submitting. Sisters and brothers, this is a quandary.
I’m inevitably reminded of St. Paul’s lament in the seventh chapter of his epistle to the Roman church:
7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”[b]8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
Then, one of my favorite Pauline images:
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
It’s quite the predicament we’re in. Even if the language of slavery and sin doesn’t resonate with you, I’m reminded at a very basic level how quickly our good intentions can turn to crap, or how, from one moment to the next, our tempers flare and we lose the plot with peers, co-workers, and loved ones. We do things we don’t mean to do. Say things we don’t mean to say. Hurt people we don’t mean to hurt. Having to balance the tradition of the law and the freedom he felt in Christ, Paul does some exhausting footwork getting us to the point that shame for our shortcomings is only such because the law has named them. The law has, in a sense, enshrined our every failing.
Paul loses me when he says next that it’s not him sinning in these moments, but sin in him. I mean, I get it, I guess: if sin is the manifestation of the all the marks we miss, and we wouldn’t think of it as sin without knowing the marks the law sets, and if knowing what the standards are entices us to miss them, then, yes, okay, who can really blame us? Except for when we choose to miss the mark, when we fail, on purpose, to help the poor, speak justice to the powerful, or extend care to those who need it. I think what Paul’s groping for is some explanation of why our good intentions don’t keep us from both kinds of failings: the harsh treatment of a friend in a moment of stress or the convenient overlooking of a neighbor’s plight. Why do we do the things we do? Why aren’t we perfect? Why does Paul suffer from this thorn? Why intrusive thoughts, anxieties, distractions?
I don’t know. What I can say is that theologies of guilt, of fear, of shame, can lead to dangerous places. I’m back on track with Paul when he talks about God’s power being made perfect in our weakness. When he points us to the cross and encourages us to see the world through the lens of a broken, beaten God. A God who mourns when we mourn, who’s mourning even now, with you, with me.
I don’t know if the law makes us sinners, but it can make us feel like shit. It made a dead man out of Jesus…it made a mourner out of God. And that makes God our ally, help, and hope.
Ed Koch has a very interesting piece up on RealClearPolitics. I’m not going to get into the Israel-Palestine debate in this post, but I did want to point out Koch’s religious eclecticism on matters of the hereafter. I’m not in the business of opining on the eternal fate of people, but I do sympathize with the religious and legislative impulse behind Koch’s placement of FDR in the not-quite-sweet by and by. Certainly, it feels icky when civic leaders speculate about these kinds of things. On the other hand, like the Sinead O’Connor piece I posted yesterday, Koch’s essay captures a public figure in raw struggles around faith, life, death, justice, and forgiveness. You need to know, before reading the excerpt below, that Koch has just described newly-found evidence of FDR’s less than progressive attitude toward the fate of Jewish professionals living in a newly liberated North Africa following World War II. I’ll also mention that I remember learning about FDR’s rather crass sentiments toward the Jewish members of his own administration in high school. Yes, I went to high school in the 90’s, but I doubt this was a case of revisionism. On to Koch:
I appreciate FDR’s contributions to the survival of our country. At the same time, I have never forgiven him for his refusal to grant haven to the 937 Jewish passengers on the SS St. Louis, who after fleeing Nazi Germany had been turned away from Cuba and hovered off the coast of Florida. The passengers were returned to Europe, and many were ultimately murdered in the Nazi concentration camps before World War II ended. I have said that I believe he is not in heaven, but in purgatory, being punished for his abandonment of the Jews. The concept of purgatory is Catholic. I am a secular Jew, but I am a believer in God and the hereafter, and I like this Catholic concept. The Casablanca document reinforces my conviction that President Roosevelt was, at heart, not particularly sympathetic to the plight of the Jews.
I’m not sharing this piece to stir up a big debate about FDR’s eternal reward. But I am very interested in and sympathetic to the way Koch rather nonchalantly identifies himself religiously in the excerpt above. “The concept of purgatory is Catholic. I am a secular Jew, but I am a believer in God and the hereafter, and I like this Catholic concept.” Period. I don’t relish the thought of anyone being stuck in purgatory, but I love Koch’s honesty about spiritual beliefs he has chosen, some informed, indelibly, by his inherited Jewishness, others by the pluralistic settings of successive communities and constituencies.
Here and there, I’ve described myself as an eclectic or even provisional Christian. Even though I am a protestant, traditions from across the wider Christian experience appeal to me in various ways, as does a whole lot of secular philosophy. This sort of up-front religious navigation strikes me as honest and compelling in ways that weren’t readily accessible to the pilgrims of other eras.
Sinéad O’Connor has a moving piece up at The Huffington Post. Please read it.
UPDATE: I just said this below in the comments but it really does bear saying here: I should say that I’m one of these typically low-church protestant types, but that I find much to love in the contemplative traditions of the Catholic Church and other Christian communities. I hope my posting of this piece doesn’t come across as anti-Catholic by any stretch. I was just very moved by it, and impressed with its cogency. A far cry, indeed, from what was done on SNL all those years ago.
“I was taught that the world had a lot of problems; that I could struggle and change them; that intellectual and material gifts brought the privilege and responsibility of sharing with others less fortunate; and that service is the rent each of us pays for living — the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time or after you have reached your personal goals.”
Chris Cocca 