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Attack of the Spin

Posted on December 11, 2012 by megancastellan

A few weeks ago, I attended the Donohoe Ecumenical Forum in Phoenix. This is a gathering held every year that is meant to get at some of the more controversial issues in Christianity, that aren’t normally addressed in ecumenical circles. (Normally, we have a great time talking about Mary with the Romans, and freedom and grace with the Lutherans, and never really get into the sticky stuff, for we do so love to place nice.) So a noble goal, from the Donohoe Forum.

This year’s speaker was David Kinnamon, from the Barna Institute, whom I had heard of before! (I thus awarded myself 10 points. I won another 25 on Megan’s Scale of Relevancy when I got there and realized I was one of 3 people there under the age of 55. This will become important.)

The Barna Institute has been engaged in polling young adults (judged here as 18-35 year olds) to determine how they see modern Christianity. The results of this, and Kinnamon’s analysis, are published in his book, entitled (spoiler alert) You Lost Me.

Essentially, it boils down to this– young adults (and from hearing him speak, he largely means evangelical Protestants here) have left the church, not because they have become atheists. They are leaving because they have questions that the churches they encounter either don’t answer, or answer without any satisfying nuance.

Dinosaurs! Gender equality! Same sex marriage! Dealing with divorce! The torrent of consumerism, marketing and advertising! Growing awareness of pluralism! A realistic ethical framework for sexuality when this generation isn’t getting married at age 19!

The old pat answers don’t work any more, and churches aren’t set up to allow the room for questioning or they don’t mirror the same complexity that exists in the rest of the world. So while young adults really (by huge percentages) like the teachings of Jesus, they find the church to be majorly out of step with its founder.

Basically, according to the research, young people do not find the church to be very Christ-like.

What was fascinating, and odd, to me, however, was listening to the conversation around these surveys.
Kinnamon comes out of an evangelical culture, which became evident the more he talked. (As a side note: I am not as AngloCatholic as some people, but I never feel quite so catholic when I am listening to evangelical Protestants speak. I suddenly want to whip out a rosary and ring the Angelus. It’s a problem.)
Anyway, Kinnamon used the analogy of Babylon, where the faithful were being purified by being set in the midst of a chaotic society that was not conducive to Godly faith, but the Jews persevered, and God made them stronger, and used them to convert the Babylonians.** He pointed out that the numbers reflect a deep divide in those who had left the church, especially around social issues like science:(global warming, evolution,) gay rights, and gender equality, and pluralism. Generally, the numbers showed, across the board, that those who left found the church way too closed on evolution, gay rights, and gender equality. Kinnamon gave the example of his friend (a pastor in a mega church) talking to his pre-teen daughter, who disclosed to him that she thought she might be called to the ministry, but if that were the case, then they’d have to switch churches, because women aren’t allowed to teach in theirs. Kinnamon laughed and said, “We have to do a better job of explaining our message so it’s more palatable.”

Hmm.
There is a fundamental difference between messaging, and truth. (Advertising has, yes, muddied the waters on this, but it does not change the fact.)

You can message all you want, but if you don’t allow women to teach men, eventually the word will get out. You can spin all you want, but if you are consistently anti-science, and squash reasoned debate and questioning, eventually the wheels will come off that wagon, too. You can come up with the nicest, sweetest advertising campaign in history, but if you preach against gay marriage than eventually that will come out. (Ha.)

The problem that the church at large is currently encountering is that, for a while now, we’ve allowed ourselves to act unChristlike at times. We got entranced with being powerful and popular, the stamp of approval for what was permitted in good society. It was fun! (I understand there was sherry.) But much of it wasn’t very Jesus-y.

But now, here comes a generation who has access to unfettered information, who has done its research, and has decided that they aren’t buying anything other than the real Thing. They would like to see Jesus, please, and they don’t care what Good People do, or what is Cool. (There is literally a whole lifestyle devoted to ignoring what is Cool.) They want Christ.

So our problem (and it’s been a while since we’ve had this particular one) is to be seen as more Christlike.

And no amount of spin, or better advertising, or messaging, or fancier churches will fix this. We can’t lead with any of that.

If we want to be seen as more JesusLike, then we actually have to act more JesusLike. We actually need to do it. We actually need to care and advocate for the sick and the poor. We actually need to take the Sermon on the Mount seriously. We actually need to act like every person and creature on earth is worth God’s saving and redeeming love in equal measure.

We can do this. We have the resources, the inner guidance, the attentiveness to the Spirit. Every so often, and without a lot of run-up, the greater Episcopal Church takes great, jerking steps in this direction, and it tends to throw the unaware pew-sitter into a panic.

But this problem won’t be solved by the larger church structures. It will be tackled only by the smaller groups– parishes, small groups, ministries, start-ups.

How can you, in your local context, become more Christlike?

**I am still on the fence about this analogy. Comparing our situation to being in the Babylonian captivity feels like introducing an element of serious oppression where none currently exists. The Jews didn’t slowly get absorbed into Babylonian society; they were invaded, conquered and pillaged. Jerusalem was sacked. A Lamentations acrostic was written, for God’s sake! None of that has happened to us. We are fine. (See also: Christmas, Fictitious War on)
I like better the analogy of Acts, and reclaiming the idea of being in the mission field again. And here’s my Anglo-Catholic showing, I have an ingrown aversion to adopting this evangelical dualism with regards to culture vs. Christendom. The incarnation abolished this dualism. God won, let’s move on, shall we?

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Knit Theology

Posted on December 3, 2012 by megancastellan

Because my current ministry lacks a building, the local Episcopal church has generously allowed me to use a desk in a corner of their office bullpen.  I keep their deacon/office administrator company while I tend to my various college-ministry-office tasks, and she holds down the fort. It’s a good arrangement.  knitting

Last week, a young boy, “Zach”,* stopped by on his weekly rounds to pick up our recycling.  He is around 10 years old, and comes by every week to pick up our glass for us, for pocket money.  He doesn’t go to church, but our deacon has been working on him long and hard about this matter for over a year now.
This week, he stopped in the office with his mom, because he came to the conclusion that his father would greatly appreciate a hand-knitted washcloth for Christmas, and he was just the person to provide him with one.  Accordingly, he stopped in to procure knitting instructions from our deacon, “Beth”.
Beth whipped out the needles and yarn, and got right to it.  I scooted over on my chair to observe, since I am great at knitting, but bad at teaching it.  Within 15 minutes, Zach had a serviceable beginning to a washcloth, and was fixated on the second row, like it held the secret to Mideast peace.  “Now, Zach,” said Beth, “you really should come to our youth group here next week.  I think you’d like it.”
Zach was undissuaded from the knitting. “Why would I want to do that?” he replied calmly. “I’m not a Christian”  He announced this in a matter-of-fact, descriptive tone, like he had told us that he did not care for broccoli, or that magenta clashed with orange.  Facts were facts, ma’am.  Neither good, nor bad.
I found this fascinating. “Huh. So, what do you think makes a person a Christian, Zach?”
With this, he dropped the knitting, swiveled in his chair, and stared at me, jaw dropped. “Well, I don’t know.  Lots of things! But I’m not one.”
 After some more gentle pressing, he started to list things he did not believe in: God was not stuck in the sky on a throne.  God was not an old white man with a beard.  God did not control us all like puppets.
He was surprised when Beth and I agreed with him on these points, but not slowed down.  Once he got going, he was on a roll–a 30 minute roll.  Why, if Jesus died on a cross, did we now all wear crosses around our necks as the sign of Jesus?  Why, if God gave us free will, did God insist that we worship him, and “not just let us sit on a beach in Miami all the time?” (That made me laugh out loud.)
To the last, I admitted that it remained a deep mystery, but for me, personally, I worshipped God because I actually like God.  Chances are, if I didn’t love God so much, I would ignore God a lot more.  But, moreover, I show God my affection by trying to live the way Jesus lived, and by trying to love the people around me as much as God did.  Zach pondered this concept for a while, knitting industriously.
 “Well,” he finally said, “I’ll probably come to the youth group thing.  So long as I can ask more questions.”
We assured him that would be fine.  In fact, I told him that would be awesome, since his questions were among the best I had heard.  I meant it.
I don’t know what would happen, if we all took to the streets, sat on corners, and offered to teach whatever it was that we knew best to passers-by: be it knitting, cooking, basketball, singing, or hopscotch.  I don’t know what would happened if we went, offered what we had, and then listened to what people had to say about God.
But I have a feeling it would be amazing.
*I’ve changed the names, to allow for the possibility that other people don’t enjoy being featured on the internet as much as I do.

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Yorktown, 2012: or On Women Bishops

Posted on November 20, 2012 by megancastellan
Yorktown, 2012: or On Women Bishops

Because I am a political junkie, and can’t leave well enough alone, I listened to the audio feed of the debate in the Church of England’s General Synod today as they debated (again) whether to introduce the appointment of female bishops at this time. I did this in July when they met as well.

And each time they go through it the same way– well meaning, good hearted, faithful Christians stand up and say, “We can’t do this yet, it will split the church, it will drive out people who can’t, in good conscience, accept the ministry of women.” Some stand and argue that women aren’t called to Christian leadership. Many others stand and argue for equality, that Jesus calls us all, that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, etc, but, in my lifetime, in the Church of England, as of today, women cannot be appointed to the episcopate. The measure failed again today in the lay order by 4 votes.

Now, in my church, in my lifetime, women have always been priests, and women have always been bishops, thanks be to God. This hasn’t always been accepted everywhere in the church, but in the annals of The Episcopal Church, this has been what we told ourselves we were doing, since 1979. In every parish I attended growing up, there was a female priest somewhere, and so, I was blessed to always believe that this avenue was open to me. Why in the world wouldn’t it be?

So, naively, I think, some part of me was surprised when the measure failed today. Are we really so far apart as Anglicans that we’re still talking about this? Should binders full of women be distributed to the Church of England to facilitate the episcopal search process? Can’t we just assume that everyone believes in gender equality, and call it good, because we should have gotten at least that far in, say, 1982? Didn’t you people elect Margaret Thatcher?!?!?****

But perhaps I am approaching this debate the wrong way. Maybe we all have. I’ve been assuming that the humanist principle of equality is the way to argue this. Clearly, it hasn’t gotten us the result of gender equality in the church. So behold: let us try a new thing.

Please– Please show me the place in the gospel where Jesus and the disciples are staying with Mary and Martha, and Jesus sends Mary away, because he only wants men to learn from him, and this woman is being really inappropriate with all the sitting and listening and disciple-like behavior. Guide me towards the spot where Jesus firmly declines the money from the women who supported him and his ministry, because that’s man’s work! Kindly point to the verse where Jesus, from the cross, tells the women waiting and suffering with him, to hit the road, because, after all, he never had any female disciples and he was worried about their emotional nature. Point to the place in each of the four gospels where Mary Magdalene is told by the angel that Christ is risen, and to go tell the disciples, but hey, you better take a man with you, because they may not receive your testimony, and we can’t make them uncomfortable.

Most of all, kindly point me to the caveat or asterisk in my baptism that dares place a limit on what wonderful, mysterious, exciting dream God has for me.

Up until you can do any of that, then you do not get to tell me that gender is any sort of disqualifier.

****I now have my NT professor voice in my head reminding me that Margaret Thatcher’s election was about as much progress for feminism as was Sarah Palin’s VP nomination. So let’s take that last one with a grain of salt.

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Jesus would have used a Mac

Posted on November 19, 2012 by megancastellan

Here is a thing I have noticed:

When I run into a problem with my computer, (download a file that won’t open, an application stops working, etc) I do the following: Google the problem, see if someone else has a similar problem, see if there’s a easy/free fix, and try things until something works.  Sometimes this leads to me taking apart the DVD player to follow a YouTube instructional video on fixing the thing, but most of the time, it leads to me feeling all manner of triumphant over a box of circuits and wires.  “You shall not master me, technology!”  I shout inwardly. (Occasionally outwardly. I take great pride in my victories.)
Here is what my parents do when they notice a problem:
They call me.  (They also read this blog.  Hi Mom, Dad!  Love ya’ll!)
They call me, concerned that the beeping, or the flashing, or the current unable-to-open file situation they are encountering will DESTROY EVERYTHING THEY HOLD DEAR. Every new message from the computer system signals an emergency, or approaching apocalypse.  Technology cannot be trusted.  When I went home for Christmas last year, I discovered that my parents hadn’t run a Windows system update or a antivirus update on their computer in over 5 years.  “I don’t trust those pop-up messages,” said my mother.  “They worry me and I don’t know what they mean, so I just ignore them so nothing goes wrong.” As a result, of course, their computer was now barely functioning.  (I point out here that around the holidays, sites like Gawker and The Awl run articles about how to surreptitiously update your parents’ browser, etc, without throwing them into a panic, or overloading them with information.  This is not a situation unique to my house.)
I raise this issue, not because one reaction is better than another, but because it points towards something else I’ve noticed–as used as we’ve gotten to calling the advances in technology “tools”, that we can put down and pick up, they are, just as much, an entire culture.  And as a culture, this new world of technology has affected everything: our expectations, our world views, how we interact with each other, and each part, really, of how we live.  I hasten to add that this has happened before–Walter Ong wrote a fabulous (and short!) book called Orality and Literacy examining how the advent of written language profoundly changed the way humans think and process the world around us.  As people had access to more and more information, and as the access to that information became more permanent than someone’s memory, the way they thought, and the way they saw the world, changed.
Again, the changes, as Ong points out, were neither all good nor bad.  They just were.  As more information became accessible, thought patterns shifted from the concrete to the abstract.  The repetition that was necessary to aid in memory gave way to complex language construction.  It’s the difference between the Gospel of Mark’s limited vocabulary and the sweeping of the Gospel of John. One’s oral, one’s not.  Both are beautiful and profound, but they were written for different audiences to do different things.
I have witnessed a lot of fear recently about the rise of technology, and the effect it is having on our Church.  On the one hand, I’ve observed anxiety about whether emerging technologies will be ‘good for us or bad for us’.  On the other hand, I’ve heard the concern that as the upcoming generations bring new technologies into the church, people will be excluded, and the Church will become a more exclusive place.
Look, the ship has sailed, mes amis.  Emerging technology is already here.  And this culture, like every culture before it, is both good and bad.  American culture has always been both good and bad.  First century Palestinian culture was both good and bad.  It is our job as faithful, committed Jesus-following people to sort out the good from the bad.  What parts of this culture serve God’s purposes?  What parts of this culture are life-giving to us and our fellow creatures?  What parts seek to destroy the creation of God?  These are questions we have to ask again and again, in this and every generation.  We can go back and forth as we wish about the answers.  But it is criminally unfaithful to give up on the questions because we are afraid to do the work.
God does not give us a vote as to which culture we are immersed in.  But God, by virtue of the Incarnation, shows up in all cultures, all contexts, in one way or another.  Even this one, with its many gadgets.  Our job, as faithful people, is to figure out the culture enough to find the divine fingerprints in it.

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Yada Yada Yada Bible!

Posted on October 30, 2012 by megancastellan

In slightly random news, after nearly 4 years of my begging/pestering/pleading/asking nicely, the college students have consented to forming a Canterbury Bible Discussion Group.  This has led to many tangents, interesting theories, and my having to re-learn Greek verb tenses.

It also led to this sermon.

 

October 28, 2012

Ordinary Time, Proper 25

Mark 10: 42-56

 

There was a Seinfeld episode that revolved around the idea of conversational ellipses.  Not in those words of course.  The idea was something Iike Jerry told a story, and to skip the boring part, he’d say, “Yadayada yada.” And continue on.  Just to make it shorter.  But problems arose when the rest of the gang adopted the habit.  George and Elaine didn’t understand the boundaries of the yadayada’ing, and they employed it over some really important details–I took the car out yesterday and yada yada yada, the repairs will cost $5,000.

Hijinks inevitably ensued.  And the phrase yadayada was deployed into the American lexicon.

 

Mark, the gospel writer, however, has no such stock phrase.  And so, there’s this weird thing that happens in the first sentence of today’s gospel reading.  “They went to Jericho. Period.  Then, upon leaving Jericho, …”

Gap!  Big gap.  No hint or clue about whatever the heck happened in Jericho, or why they’re hanging out there in the first place.  Which is odd for Mark, since his is such a spare gospel.  No word out of place, nothing extra.  Just this weird hole in the text.

 

Biblical scholars call this a lacuna–a hole in the manuscript.  Reams and reams of scholarly work have been done on what’s missing at this part.  Something an ancient monk objected too?  Something that got left out by mistake? We don’t know.  Whatever it was, it’s gone.  And all we have is the hole that’s left.  Yadayada yada.

 

There are actually a lot of places in the biblical text where there are these gaps, but they are less noticeable.  The book of Job has quite a few places where we have no idea what the Hebrew means.  Not because there’s a gap, but because whoever the author was, decided to break all the rules of Scrabble, and invent new words.  Words that appear nowhere else in any ancient Hebrew text, but bam! There they are.  Because of context, because of linguistic structure, we can take a swinging guess at what they mean, but know for sure?

 

Nope.

 

When I studied Hebrew in college, there was a student in my class who was all excited to finally read the Bible in the original language.  He was convinced that now he would really know the singular truth, the REAL TRUTH of the Bible. He was really not happy, then, when our first assignment was Exodus 3– God reveals himself in the burning bush, and the professor blithely broke the news to us that God’s announcement to Moses ‘I am who I am’ can’t be translated.  Because the Hebrew doesn’t have firm verb tenses. Or punctuation.  Or vowels.

 

He was furious.  He thought it was a trick.  And he dropped the class.

 

For some, the idea that we are sent ‘yadayada’ ing through the Bible might be destabilizing.  This is the book upon which we base our faith!  We lean on this thing!  If there are holes in it, or we don’t know what the words mean for sure, then what is left to rely on?  How will we know what to believe?

 

It’s worth remembering that as helpful as the Bible is, we don’t worship the Bible.  Or rather, we shouldn’t worship the Bible– we worship God, and God, while very powerful and capable of anything, isn’t the Bible. If you find yourself confusing the two, you’re doing it wrong.

 

God inspired the Bible, but what God inspired was people.  A bunch of people who were as enmeshed in their cultures and their biases and their histories and their issues as we are.  And those people took their Spirit-driven inspiration and wrote stuff, and then other people, also inspired, edited it, so still other people could read it.

So what we are left with is a record, not of God’s little instruction book on how to live in 2012, but a record of generations upon generations of faithful people struggling with how to live faithfully in varying circumstances.  Sometimes they got it right.  Sometimes they got it wrong.  But they tried, and each time, they left an example for the generations to come, to either emulate, or avoid emulating.

 

And sometimes, they left a blank.  Sometimes, they left a gap.  A made up word, or a textual hole.  Sometimes we don’t know what anyone was doing.

Those places, those gaps are reminders to us that we have a role to play.  We need to fill in the gaps ourselves.  That we can’t rely on any 2000 year old book to answer all our questions about a constantly living, constantly complicated God for us, that we need to keep struggling to live faithfully right now.  The Bible is sacred, not because it holds all the answers to every question ever asked, and not because it’s verbally inerrant.  It’s sacred because it’s here that we can let our story, and our struggle to be faithful intersect with the stories of those who have gone before.

 

So I have no idea what happened in Jericho 2,000 years ago.  And chances are, I’m not likely to find out. But what I do know is what happens in our communities, and in our lives.  What happens in your life, and moves you onward, on the road, to someplace new?  What causes you to ask Jesus for something?  What makes you jump up, and change your life?

 

Those things, that’s what’s important.  Because that’s where God still speaks to us. Even through the gaps. And that’s what we hold on to.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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