Why I Love Church

I came home from worship on Sunday morning, and the first thing I said to my wife was: “I love church!” It is true. I love church. I look forward to worship all week long, every week. A lot of my clergy colleagues do not love church any longer.

I don’t blame them. Churches can do serious harm to people … especially clergy. Clergy burnout is at an all-time high. It has gotten worse during the pandemic. Many pastors cite divisive politics and conspiracy theories as precipitating factors leading to their exit from the pulpit. Partisan politics is functioning as a rival religion within many congregations.

Church can be toxic to both clergy and laypeople. No one knows that better than I. About a dozen years ago a denominational executive told me that he thought I was suffering from PTSD caused by clergy abuse! Not abuse by clergy, but abuse of clergy … by churches. He was not a professional therapist, so his diagnosis was not official. But as a longtime “pastor to pastors” he had seen enough abused clergy to know the signs.

Psychological suffering caused by churches is epidemic. It is known as toxic religion. That is why so many people have rejected “organized religion” and the “institutional church.” Toxic Christianity is usually the phenomenon of authoritarian structures – sectarian cults, fundamentalist, evangelical, and Roman Catholic churches. The Southern Baptist Convention is in the midst of an abuse scandal now, just like the Roman Catholic Church has been in recent decades. But clergy abuse can happen in any type of congregation.

Somehow I survived, I healed, and I still love church. I persevered... or rather perseverance happened. It was not my doing; it was grace. I never stopped loving church, even when a particular congregation and denomination was not healthy for me. By the grace of God I now love church more than ever. Why do I love church so much?

I love the music. Congregational singing touches my soul. I love good preaching. On the other hand, there is nothing that will propel me to the exit faster than hypocritical or judgmental preaching. For me preaching needs to be honest, biblical and prophetic. The preacher does not have to be a master orator, but his/her words need to come from a place of authenticity and be transparent to the biblical text and the Spirit.

I love church fellowship. Some people are able to thrive with private spirituality alone. These are the “spiritual but not religious” folks. Not me. There is something that happens in me during communal worship that does not happen in private prayer or meditation.

I love church because it is holy space. It is a time and place set aside for nothing but God. A Sabbath. There are very few such times and places in our culture these days. The world encroaches on sacred time and space, and fills them with noise, technology and entertainment.

In worship the universe opens to the Sacred. The veil of the temporal and physical world drops away and reveals the Kingdom of God, which is always present just beneath the surface. The heart opens into eternity. I cease to be, and God is.

This is not due to any particular liturgical design. It is not a psychological gimmick crafted by skillful worship planning. In fact, if I sense that the worship leaders are manipulating the congregations’ emotions, it will send me out the door faster than a bad sermon. Sacred Space is something that is equally present at all times and places. Yet for some reason it is revealed to me – in me – most readily on Sunday morning in church.

Heaven comes to the earth. The heavens open, and the Spirit descends … or perhaps the Spirit ascends from the depths of the soul. Ultimately the spiritual geography of inner and outer is the same. The Spirit takes control. No special effects. I am not a Pentecostal or holy-roller. Just Holy Presence.

I am no longer present, but the Spirit is present in and through me. Like John the Revelator, a door opens to heaven and a voice says, “Come up here,” and I do. I spend an hour – and an eternity - in the Presence of the Divine.

Most of all I love worship because I love God … with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. The personal God. The God beyond the Personal God. God in Christ. God in others. The Alpha and Omega. The Beginning and the End. The Ground of Being. Being Itself. 

Words cannot describe the Divine I know in worship. This is the Eternal God. The God I knew before birth. The God I know now and forever. The God of perfect love. That is why I love church.

It’s Okay

I haven’t watched “America’s Got Talent” in years. But the pastor mentioned the television show in his sermon last Sunday. He spoke of an extraordinary woman who sang on the show the night before.  She is Jane Marczewski from Zanesville, Ohio, who sang her original song “It’s OK.” So I went online to see why she had impressed him so much. If you have not seen her performance I invite you to do so here.

She is a thirty year old singer-songwriter who goes by the stage name Nightbirde. She has had cancer three times in her brief life, and it has recently returned to reside in her lungs, spine and liver. She has only a 2% chance of survival. But she says, “2% is not zero percent. 2% is something.” On top of all this, her husband left her.

She is an articulate person of deep honest faith. In her March 9 blog post entitled “God Is on the Bathroom Floor” she sounds like a modern day Job. She writes of her prayer life:

I am God’s downstairs neighbor, banging on the ceiling with a broomstick. I show up at His door every day. Sometimes with songs, sometimes with curses. Sometimes apologies, gifts, questions, demands. Sometimes I use my key under the mat to let myself in. Other times, I sulk outside until He opens the door to me Himself.

I have called Him a cheat and a liar, and I meant it. I have told Him I wanted to die, and I meant it. Tears have become the only prayer I know. Prayers roll over my nostrils and drip down my forearms. They fall to the ground as I reach for Him. These are the prayers I repeat night and day; sunrise, sunset. Call me bitter if you want to—that’s fair.

Count me among the angry, the cynical, the offended, the hardened. But count me also among the friends of God. For I have seen Him in rare form. I have felt His exhale, laid in His shadow, squinted to read the message He wrote for me in the grout: “I’m sad too.”

Wow! Out of this ordeal has come a song that says “it’s okay.” She said to the audience, “It’s important that everyone knows I’m so much more than the bad things that happen to me.”  She added, “You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.” Her song’s refrain says: “It’s ok if you’re lost. We’re all a little lost, and it’s alright. It's ok, it's ok, it's ok, it's ok.”

That is what we discover when we are honest with life. We cannot understand the injustices and inequities of life, especially suffering, evil and death. But it’s okay. There is no way to understand the ultimate mystery we call God. Religion – including my own Christian religion – is nothing more than a clumsy attempt to articulate the Inexpressible.

Many religious people insist they know the answers. They have it all figured out. It is in their books and organized into doctrines and creeds. They come knocking on your door with pamphlets that outline the path to heaven. Nightbirde tried that. She is a graduate of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. Then life happened, and God showed up.

It is not clear to me if she still considers herself a Christian. At the very least her faith is deeply informed by Scripture.  But hers is not the faith that goes by the name of Christianity these days, the religion that expresses itself more in power politics than the power of love. This is a faith discovered on the bathroom floor. As she says, “If you can’t see God, look lower.” 

She knows a wholeness (holiness) that comes from a place of brokenness. It is only by traveling through the “not-ok” that one glimpses the Whole (Holy) and sees that it is all okay. That is the true meaning of the Cross and the Resurrection.

Rethinking Gun Control

I became a pacifist in 1968 as a result of reading the Sermon on the Mount. Naively I thought Jesus meant what he said. I took Jesus at his word and did not understand why all Christians were not pacifists. My ethical stance was sincere enough to convince a draft board to issue me Conscientious Objector status in 1971. 

My youthful idealism moderated over the years as I came face to face with the horror of gun violence, especially the mass murder of three children in our church in Massachusetts. I knew immediately that if I had been present at the crime I would have done anything to stop the murder, including killing the shooter or die trying. While preparing the funeral for those children, I realized I was not the pacifist I thought I was.

Consequently I reread 20^th century Christian theologians’ response to Fascism. I pondered anew Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian Realism. I came to understood why Dietrich Bonhoeffer decided to become part of a plot to assassinate Hitler. I embraced Just War theory. Yet I have always refused to explain away Jesus’ nonviolent ethic of the Sermon on the Mount with clever hermeneutics. I live in the tension between the words of Jesus and trying to stop evil.

In a similar fashion I have long advocated gun control. Not the banishment of all firearms but careful regulation of them. I learned to handle a firearm when I was ten years old, and I was a riflery instructor during my teen years at a summer camp in New Hampshire.  I know how to use a gun. It was only a few years ago that I was deer-hunting in Pennsylvania.

I am a supporter of the second amendment. But I do not think that the second amendment was intended to allow mass murderers access to semi-automatic weapons so they could kill children more efficiently. I also believe that followers of Christ are called to a higher standard than the US Constitution – namely the New Testament teachings of Jesus.

I relate this personal history to explain why after more than fifty years I am reconsidering my position on gun control. The reason is the dramatic rise of anti-democracy forces that are gaining power in our country. They are threatening these United States of America and our freedoms.

The January 6 attack on Congress was a tipping point for me. I suddenly realized that the forces of tyranny could overthrow our democracy. We had a president who tried to overturn a legal election. He continues to speak against the legitimacy of our elections and courts. His followers are undermining voting rights in several states. At a QAnon convention over Memorial Day weekend they talked about a military coup to reinstate the former president.

It doesn’t help that I am presently watching the Hulu television series based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale, which takes place in New England. It feels eerily prophetic. The fictional conservative Christian nation of Gilead was formed through orchestrated attacks on Congress, the White House and the Courts. In the light of the recent attack on the capitol, with participants calling for the execution of the Vice President and Speaker of the House, the Republic of Gilead does not seem so fictional.  

For that reason I am reconsidering my stance on gun control. The Religious Right is well armed. They are strong advocates for the second amendment, interpreted to mean unfettered access to firearms. As much as I disagree with their politics, I am starting to agree that the rest of us need access to all types of firearms to protect ourselves from them!

If Christian Nationalism gains power, it is only a matter of time until they deny their enemies access to firearms in the name of “law and order” and national security. Those who seek to preserve freedom will need to be just as well armed. That does not mean I am buying an assault weapon anytime soon. I would not know how to use one anyway. But I am sure there are a lot of people who believe in our democratic form of government who do know how to use them.

Our nation is at a crossroads. Anti-democratic authoritarians could take over my country, just like they are taking over my party. If that happens, ordinary Americans will need to defend themselves against them. More importantly we will need to defend those who cannot defend themselves. True Christianity is more about defending others than self-defense. It is loving one’s neighbor as oneself, including neighbors who have been declared “sinners” by the culture warriors. Jesus, after all, embraced sinners.

I pray that the current situation does not degenerate into armed conflict. We need to do everything we can do to prevent that from happening. But it is certainly possible. It was not that long ago that regional differences in our country erupted into Civil War. It could happen again, especially if voting rights are denied and elections are overturned or rigged. That seems to be the present political strategy of the anti-democracy movement.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Advocates for freedom and human rights for all people need to be prepared. If history has taught us anything, it is that we cannot be naïve about people’s willingness to lie and cheat and commit atrocities in the name of God and country. The debate about gun legislation is no longer just about stopping crime or mass shootings. It is about preventing our country from falling into the hands of domestic terrorists. May God help us.

Memorial Day 2021

Memorial Day is a day aside to remember the sacrifice of men and women who have laid down their lives in battle protecting our country. We celebrate Memorial Day this year at the end of a deadly pandemic. This year I remember not only soldiers who died in war, but those who died on the frontline fighting what our former president called the “invisible enemy” of COVID 19.

At least six hundred thousand Americans have died in this war in the last year and a half. That is nearly as many as died in combat in all American wars combined (666k). More than 3,600 U.S. health care workers have perished on the frontlines in the war against COVID. That is more than died at Pearl Harbor or September 11. Let us remember them.

There are those who downplay their sacrifice, who undermine and thwart the efforts of healthcare providers. Some people ridicule the advice of the CDC and NIAID, calling the coronavirus epidemic a hoax, refusing to wear a mask or receive a vaccination for political reasons – not medical ones. Our country asked us to sacrifice a little comfort and convenience in this war, but many refused. They chose ideology above protecting Americans.

America is still at war. Like WWII after D-Day but before VE Day and VJ Day, the tide of the war has turned, but the war on COVID is not over. People are still dying. People are still fighting on the frontlines, while others party like it’s 2019. The war is not over till it’s over. Eight thousand people still die of COVID in the world every day. Healthcare workers are still risking their lives to care for these people.

Let is remember our fallen soldiers who died on the battlefield fighting a military enemy. Let us remember those who have died in hospitals fighting a viral enemy. Let us remember our healthcare warriors this Memorial Day. Let us honor their sacrifice. Let us remember that this war is still being waged in hospitals around the world. They are also heroes this Memorial Day. Let us honor and remember them.

Please Resuscitate

Recently I spent the night in the hospital for observation. While preaching a sermon last Sunday I had the classic symptoms of a heart attack. I got through the worship service but immediately drove to the emergency room. I jokingly explained that I had an allergic reaction to church! Two of my kids later suggested the Almighty was giving me a nudge to stop preaching! The hospital checked me out, including a COVID test, EKG, blood work, and a stress test.

My heart is confirmed to be fine. The episode appears to be a recurrence of labyrinthitis (inflammation of the inner ear), complete with cold sweats and vertigo. When this happened several years ago it permanently damaged the vestibular nerve in one of my ears. I was unable to walk unassisted for weeks. It gave me sympathy for people using walkers and canes. Because some symptoms persist I have an appointment with my primary care physician next week to assess the situation.

This blog post is not meant as a plea for sympathy. It is about something the hospitalist asked me in the ER. He asked if I wanted to be resuscitated. I quickly replied, “Yes, please!” The question was disturbing. Was he really considering letting me die? Would he ask that question of a 40 year-old man? Is this what ageism looks like? I have no other life-threatening disease. In his eyes am I an expendable old codger not worth reviving?

When I was being discharged the next morning, someone from the hospital came to my room and asked me all sorts of questions, obviously meant for the elderly. Do I live alone? Can I take care of myself? Are there stairs in my home? Can I navigate them? Do I get enough to eat? (Too much!) Do I feel like anyone is trying to take advantage of me? Do I feel safe? I can’t remember all the questions (Oh, oh!) but I know some had to do with elder abuse.

I am glad the questions are asked. They are necessary. But it made me feel old. It was then that I realized that I was being perceived as an elderly person. As somebody’s parent or grandparent. In retrospect most of the people who cared for me in the hospital were younger than my children, including my doctors. A youngster came into my room, and I thought he had wandered away from his mom. It turns out he is a medical student.

So, do I want to be resuscitated? Yes, please. I am only 70 years old, and I plan to be around for a while longer. I am quite healthy for my age. There may come a time when I will say “No” to that question. If I have a painful fatal disease, for example. I am an advocate for death with dignity, the right of people with a terminal illness to die on their own terms.  When the time comes, I have no desire to linger. Pull the plug. It is all spelled out in my advance directive.

Until then, please see me the same as you. Not old or young or middle-aged. Just a person … and more than a person. The Self within does not age. The brain and body may grow old but the Spirit is ageless. These bodies and brains are not who we are. They are just the momentary expressions of the Eternal that inhabits all of us.

Look into my eyes and you will see yourself. Look into your soul and you will see God. We are Spirit enfleshed in aging bodies. When the body returns to dust, then the Spirit returns to God. That is what the aged author of Ecclesiastes wrote. 

When you see yourself in me, then you can see God in all people – old or young, male or female, gay or straight, conservative or liberal, black or white. Then you can love your neighbor as yourself. We are one. We are ageless. 

So unless my physician advises otherwise or something happens between now and the end of the month, I plan to preach the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. We will see if God gives me another nudge. If you happen to be present and see this body sprawled at the base of the pulpit, consider this an invitation to use that CPR training you received. Please resuscitate.

Quitting Politics

I am finished with politics. I’ve had enough. I hung on through 2020 election, but the anger, intolerance and partisanship did not end with the inauguration of a new president. In fact it has gotten crazier than ever. Many Americans have become detached from reality as they embrace conspiracy theories and find any excuse to attack political opponents and mindlessly submit to confirmation bias. Fake news has evolved into alternative reality. It seems impossible to discuss topics rationally with anyone that does not already agree with you.

Americans have been led to believe that when it comes to governing our country we must choose between competing ideologies: liberal or conservative, blue or red, Democrat or Republican.  Even when we declare ourselves to be “independent” or “undeclared,” people assume we harbor unconfessed political bias that must be ferreted out. It is assumed that everyone and everything is political. Politics rule America.

I am opting out this binary mindset. I quit. I officially declare myself to be apolitical. That does not mean that I will not vote. I will vote my conscience. As always I will vote the person and not the party. I will continue to voice my convictions about ethical and social issues facing American society. I will take a stand on national policies. But from now on I will have nothing to do with political ideology. I will make decisions and cast my votes based on spiritual principles.

I will use two criteria. One is the adage that was popular in Christian circles in the last century: “What would Jesus do?” I will answer that question by examining his words and actions in the gospels. When discussing the sale and use of handguns and assault weapons, I would ask, “What would Jesus carry? What would Jesus sell?” When it comes to treatment of persons whom establishment religion considers “sinners” I would ask, “How did Jesus treat them?”

The second criterion is that I will treat others as if they were Jesus. Jesus taught, “As you have done to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you have done it to me.” If it were the Holy Family fleeing a murderous dictator at the US southern border, would I turn them away? If it were Jesus on death row, would I execute him? If it were Jesus needing healthcare, would I be the Good Samaritan and foot the bill, or would I turn aside? If I were a baker would I refuse to bake Jesus a cake?

People will surely insist that this is too simplistic. It is not practical. People will argue that Jesus’ teachings cannot not be used as a blueprint for social or national policy. I reply, “Why not? Because the politicians say so? Whom should we listen to? Jesus or politicians? Should not Christians act like Christians? Why should political party affiliation be allowed to trump our spiritual identity?

I reject the idea that obeying Jesus is impractical or idealistic. I will no longer be defined by the opinions of political pundits, liberal or conservative. I will be defined by my commitment to Jesus Christ.  People would ask, “What if everyone did what you are suggesting? What would become of our country?” I respond: How wonderful it would be! The whole nation living in unconditional love! What an impact that would have on our country and the world?

Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other.”  I cannot serve both Christ and Caesar. Those who executed Jesus declared, “We have no king but Caesar!” I declare that I have no King but Jesus. 

Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.” I am Christ’s – body, soul, and spirit. No part of me belongs to Caesar. I am not beholden to any political party or ideology. For that reason I will make every decision based solely on the guidance of the Living Lord Jesus Christ. Goodbye, politics!

The Meaning of Easter

This weekend Christians will gather in person or virtually to celebrate Easter. I will be worshipping at an outdoor sunrise service on a Florida beach, singing “Alleluia” as the sun rises above the eastern horizon. Easter will be interpreted differently depending on the pulpit, the preacher, and the congregation. Many will address the nature of Jesus’ resurrection.

Some Christians take the Easter story literally, and others interpret it spiritually. Conservative churches insist on a physical resurrection of Jesus from the grave, quoting the risen Christ of the Gospel of Luke. "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."

Progressive Christians may present a more spiritual interpretation of the event, quoting the description of the resurrection given by the apostle Paul. “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit…. Now I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”

Christians argue over which interpretation of the resurrection is the earliest and most authentic. There was room for both interpretations in first century Christianity, and that remains true today. What is important is what Easter means. For me it means two things.

First, it means that death is not the end. What we really are does not die. Christian philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” I would go further. We are not human beings; we are Being expressed as humans.  

Second, awareness of our true nature can be known in this physical lifetime. That is the reason that the resurrection stories include the physical element. Eternal life is not an afterlife experience; it is a present life experience. We do not have to physically die to know eternal life; we know it now. Jesus taught, “The kingdom of God is within you.” Paul wrote; “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”

Easter is the most important holiday on the Christian calendar. It is certainly important to me. Even more important is knowing the reality of Living Christ every day. As the hymn says, “You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart!”