What to do, what to do…..

 

     I keep telling myself I should leave government, politics, society, etc. alone because I end up getting frustrated.  But this has been on my mind and I just can’t seem to leave it alone, so here goes….

     More and more often these days, it seems to be an interesting (to say the least) time to be alive.  Looking around, there are diverging, and yet simultaneously converging stories and issues:  from the ‘Occupy Wall Street/local town’ phenomenon to bank and lending/borrowing issues, budget discussions (and the attendant hyper-rhetoric, we are coming up on election season again – or did it never go away?), to the continuing War on Terror, there are many different forces and elements working what appear on the surface to be different issues.  Many of them deal with different aspects of money and economics.  We here in the United States are currently dealing with very difficult times with no immediate indication of their end.  Generally speaking, we want to find out what went wrong and ‘fix’ it.  However, there is no agreement on the problem, and many different groups have solutions that are polar opposites of each other.  As I see it, in order for us as a country to identify the problem, we need to discuss and agree on the answer to this question:  what do we want the government to do?  How we answer this question will ultimately determine what the problem is, and what to do to fix it.

     There are those who feel the current system does not do enough for its citizens.  Generally speaking, they believe the focus and primary concerns of the state need to be adjusted in order to do more for those less fortunate and those fortunate enough to take care of themselves need to assist.  There are also those who feel the current system has been ‘hijacked’ from its original purpose and are doing too much.  They believe the focus and primary concerns of the state need to be brought back to when our country was founded.  They currently oppose each other on many fronts, and there may be some very disconcerting and distressing times ahead for everyone before this is all over.

    The economic issues we face as a nation, and the question I posed above, are not unique either in American or World history.  Nations have struggled with ‘debt’ and financing what it deems necessary since the concept of money, trade, and buying were conceived.  Most notably, ancient Rome and Greece struggled over many years (in fact it stretched over centuries) to define and determine what governments were supposed to do, what their powers were, and who should have that power.  Both societies moved from oligarchies or monarchies to representative forms of government (a republic or democracy).  At times, this struggle became strident (either in revolts or in the case of the Romans ‘secessions’) and could be classified in today’s language as ‘class warfare’.

     While there are easily recognizable differences between the issues of the ancient Romans and Greeks (hey, aren’t they having issues again?) and today’s America, there are some disturbing similarities.  Like the Late Roman Republic, who wins political office depends more on money than talent for governance.  Those who make the decisions about our country are driven more by those who paid to get them into office rather than who they are supposed to represent.  Like both ancient cultures, power seems to reside with a small contingent of the population, like an oligarchy.  Eventually, the governmental systems in ancient Greece and Rome changed because the systems in practice no longer worked or were outdated.  The direction they went (more or less freedom, using our modern definitions) depended on what system (democracy/republic or monarchy/oligarchy) was in place, if there was an invasion/war going on, and the specific subject of concern.  Are we looking at that sort of fundamental change coming for our country in the near future?  I honestly don’t know. 

     I have my own conflicting thoughts and feelings on the matter, and I’m not going to get into them.  We as a country need to address what we expect of our government to do.  I am concerned that we as a nation do not have a good track record regarding discussions (the American Civil War and the more recent ‘discussions’ regarding abortion as examples).  The ‘discussion’ turns into a conflict and the final ‘answer’ is forced on everyone.  I’d like it to be different , just once.  I’m not going to hold my breath on that one, though.

Too bad it wasn’t ‘Sinners in the hands of a merciful God’

 

    During one of my travels though the internet, I came across an article discussing the difference in understanding of salvation between Protestants and Orthodox Christians.  While I was reading the article, I was struck by a thought:  Is there something more to the word and the idea of atonement than we in modern society understand?  I decided to do a little more digging into the word atonement and how it tied into salvation.

     The first thing I decided to do was to look in the dictionary.  I did this to verify the definition.  According to Webster’s Dictionary, atonement is defined as:  1) Agreement; concord; reconciliation, after enmity or controversy.  2) Expiation; satisfaction or reparation made by giving an equivalent for an injury, or by doing or suffering that which is received in satisfaction for an offense or injury; with for.  Reading through both possible definitions, the common theme that came to me is of two people or groups now at peace after formerly being at odds. 

     What  I find interesting is, the first definition of atonement is one of reconciliation.  Being a former Protestant, I can remember the concept of substitutionary atonement, and the first definition doesn’t seem to ‘fit’ with that concept.  I decided to find out about the history of the satisfaction understanding (or theological interpretation) of atonement, to ensure my memory on the topic was accurate.  In short, Archbishop Anselm , the Archbishop of Canterbury  living in the 11th Century first wrote out the idea of ‘forensic justification’ in his work Cur Deus Homo.  Anselm described  mankind’s sin is an infinite offense to God, and only Christ was able to satisfy the infinite offense and God’s infinite wrath (by extension) through Christ’s crucifixion.  To me, this now describes salvation as something scientific.  Moreover, looking at salvation as a legal matter, it moves the essence of our individual salvation outside of ourselves.  If we are the children of God, is He going to treat us and our sins in a legal fashion?  (Maybe I shouldn’t ask that question given how many families seem to think it’s OK to sue each other.) 

     Orthodox Christianity, by contrast, views the essence of our individual salvation as inside  each of us.  Our souls and our fallen natures are healed and we are reconciled to God through Christ through His incarnation, death, and resurrection.   Going back to the idea of our being the children of God, both God’s act through Christ (involving His incarnation, death, and resurrection) and our act of repentance (along with other elements of the Orthodox faith) allows us to be reconciled to God.  This is more in line with the concept of family (at least to me).

      Moving on from the dictionary, I decided to start looking through the Bible to see where atonement was used.  The word appears 70 times.  69 of those are in the Old Testament.  I decided to look at a Jewish version/definition of Atonement.  In The Encyclopedia of Judaism, there is the following on page 86 regarding atonement:

Judaism views the sinner as one spiritually alienated from God, from his fellow-man, or from his ideal self.  Atonement, in the religious sense, means a reversal of the alienation caused by sin whereby the offending party is restored to spiritual “at-one-ment” and ultimately forgiven.  Atonement, in Jewish teaching, can only be achieved after a process of repentance which involves a recognition and admission of the sin, feelings of remorse, restitution to the offended party, and a resolve not to repeat the offense.

And later in the same entry: 

In the case of unwitting offenses against the ritual law, the Bible prescribes a sin-offering.  This is not viewed as some payment of restitution to an offended God, but rather as a sacrament intended to restore the ideal relationship between man and God, a relationship that had been impaired by man’s sin.  Confession, as an expression of repentance, always accompanied such sacrifices and offerings.  when the prophets of Israel directed harsh criticism against sacrifice, their real target was not the sacrificial system as such but insincere atonement and the perfunctory way in which the offering was made.  No sacrifices could atone for deliberate transgressions, and the concept of a vicarious sacrifice was largely alien to Judaism.    

Looking at this, the idea of someone suffering in place of another is not in the theological framework of Israel,  from which the Christian Church grew.  I did remember Leviticus Chapter 16 and the Day of Atonement, where sacrifices were made to atone for the sins of the people of Israel.  When you look at the Jewish system of atonement, the goal was for the soul of the sinner to be relieved of the burden of his sin.  This requires action from the individual committing the sin.  You can’t ask someone else to do this for you.  There also needs to be repentance in order for the relationship (whether with God or with another person) to be restored.  How many times have we seen either someone ‘apologizing’ without truly being sorry for what they did, or having a ‘spokesman’ try to apologize for them?  When we see these things happen, do we believe the person is sorry and wants to reconcile the relationship?  My answer’s no.  Why should it be any different when we are trying to reconcile with God?

     The one New Testament reference is Romans 5:11 “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”   I decided to play ‘word substitution’, where I would substitute either ‘reconciliation’ or ‘satisfaction’ for ‘atonement’.  I’m going to type them out so you can see the results:  1) “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the satisfaction.”  2)  “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation.” 

    The west (Roman Catholics and Protestants) treats salvation as a legal matter (where we as sinful human beings are before a vengeful God to be judged) and the east  treats salvation as a matter of the soul (where humanity, originally a perfect reflection of the image of God, is now an imperfect reflection due to sin). This polemic continues to feed  the misunderstandings between the two sides and hinders the possibility for reconciliation.

My 9/11 Story

 

     With the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, I thought I would take a minute and reflect on my memories of that day.  It’s not so much that my story is unique, but it serves as another perspective.

     I was in the Army stationed in Washington.  At that time, my unit was out in the field, participating in an exercise.  We had been out there for three days.  I was working on the night shift.  I remember it was approximately 7:30 am (so that would make it 10:30 am eastern time), and we had just finished the change-over brief with the day shift.  I was beginning to walk out of the command tent and mentally planning the next half hour:  get some breakfast (my evening meal) and go to my tent to sleep for the next six hours or so before beginning the cycle over again (wake up, get dressed, shave, make sure there was nothing serious going on before I grabbed some dinner (my breakfast) and go back to the command tent for the (final) night of the exercise and then stay awake to break everything down and go home.  Things didn’t go that way.

     A Major I knew was walking into the command tent as I was going out.  He was carrying a transistor radio and had a very serious look on his face.  I asked him what was wrong, and he said ‘they’ve attacked the World Trade Center’.  I did a 180 and followed him back into the command tent where our commander was giving directions for the days missions and activities.  The Major put the radio on a table and we all stood and listened for about 2-3 seconds before the commander said, ‘get my driver’.  I walked quickly out of the command tent and found the driver and told him to get ready to bring the commander out of the field.  Once I made sure the driver was set, I tried to eat, and go to sleep.  It was very difficult to sleep, as I didn’t have any real idea at the time of what was going on, but I knew it was something we as a country and a people had never experienced before.

     After finally getting some sleep, I got up and went through my routine (as I described it above).  But I immediately noticed there wasn’t the ‘hustle and bustle’ that had characterized the exercise up to this point.  The exercise had been halted while I was asleep.  I asked and found out about the halting of the exercise,  we were to wait until our planned time to come out of the field.  As I went to dinner, we were all discussing what had happened.  As the details were just unfolding as I went to bed, I didn’t know about the falling of the twin towers, or the attack on the Pentagon, and details were still very sketchy about a possible fourth plane.  I took it all in with a growing pit in my stomach as the enormity of it hit me.  The entire last night out in the field, all of us on night shift listened to the radio as they replayed the events of the day.  More details were coming out and of course we listened.  We listened in shock, almost numb.  For Americans, a terrorist attack on our own soil was such a foreign concept I had difficulty coming to grips with it.

     The next day we packed up and got out of the field.  The route for us to get back in was difficult as roads we had gone out on were closed due to heightened security.  Once we were back, and had done everything possible to close up and clean things up/out, we were allowed to go home.  There was only one way in and out of post.  The other gates were closed (again due to heightened security).  It took a very long time for me to get home, and once I did it was a bittersweet reunion with my family.  We were able to exchange our stories about how we heard, and discuss our fears in those first few hours. 

     The days and weeks following were a continued series of changes:  new realities, new fears, new work.  Looking back, it was as if everyone was asleep and had been jarred awake by what happened.  Many significant events afterward seemed to have its roots in that day.  It is one of those events where you can ask someone ‘where were you when you heard?’  Or, ‘where were you when it happened?’  It’s a sort of common bond with our fellow citizens.  The best way I can think of to describe it is, ‘the day we lost our innocence’.  Others may have used the same phrase, I don’t know, but it fits for me.

Do we understand this word?

 

     The word I am referring to is worship.  It is a word that is thrown about quite a bit these days, and sometimes I feel like Inigo Montoya from the movie The Princess Bride and want to say ‘you keep using that word.  I do not think it means what you think it means.’

     I went to Merriam Webster Online to find what I will use for the rest of this post as the authoritative definition:  1.  To honor or reverence as a divine being or supernatural power.  2.  to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion.  Worship can also be used as a noun.  The idea being expressed is one of honor and respect.

     How does one worship? In Christian worship, there are songs and prayers at a minimum no matter which denomination you are.  Sermons (or homilies) are also a part of most Christian worship services.  These vary in length from 10-15 minutes to over an hour or longer.  Once you move beyond these common blocks, the services start to diverge.  Some are considered liturgical where others are not, but all churches have a pattern to their services.  Different churches vary how often communion (or Eucharist) is served.  Even the elements of communion can differ (wine, grape juice, crackers, leavened or unleavened bread).  Although songs are common, they can vary between churches as well (song types, whether or not instruments are used, type of instruments).

     Now, keeping in mind that worship has to do with honoring or reverencing the divine, our actions should reflect that honor and reverence.  We should dress like we are entering the presence of one deserving our best (not necessarily requiring we wear one particular article of clothing or another).  We should also be humble, as the person we are worshipping is greater than us. 

     The actual act of worship or the worship service should involve our entire person and include our senses (hearing, sight, etc.) Our minds must also be engaged so that our worship is not a ‘rote’ set of actions.  You can be in a wonderful worship service, but if your mind is not engaged, it is not true worship, as John states in John 4:24: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”.  True worship involves both our spirit (soul/mind) and our body, as illustrated in Mark 7:6 “He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”

     Having our whole person involved ensures our worship is not simply an intellectual exercise.  Worshipping God at its root is an action.  Thought is required, but it is in our actions every day and hour we show what we honor and revere.  James 2:14-26 gives a wonderful explanation of how our faith is not something just intellectual or verbal, but requires physical action on our part as well.

      What is the ‘right’ way to worship?  God is a God of order, and not chaos.  God gave direction to Israel in how to worship through Moses in the Old Testament.  The Orthodox Church was born out of that Jewish tradition and incorporated traditions regarding Christ without losing sight of its heritage.  Looking at all these things I believe I am in the Church with that correct form of worship.  You are certainly free to disagree with me.

     There is one other issue I would like to touch on.  Looking again at the definition of worship, I think people in modern western society have difficulty accepting the idea that there is someone or something that is greater or higher than ourselves, despite their acknowledgement of such.  We are taught by our schools that each individual is important, and no one is more important than another.  Most countries do not have a class of nobility, or any official designated class system for that matter (I would argue all societies have a class system, it’s just not officially acknowledged).  The ‘supremacy of the individual’ has made the concept of the Christian community or gathering as a part of a larger body more and more difficult.  It is this that causes many to (unconsciously) ‘put God in a box’ where God can only do what they say He can, because otherwise we need to give up something:  our overdeveloped sense of self, otherwise known as pride.

Careful on the Interpretation

 

     I’ve seen a number of comments recently on the earthquake in Virginia (between DC and Richmond, but most news sites say it was in DC), and of course almost as quickly as the ‘did you feel that’ comments went through, it was immediately followed by the ‘God was making a statement to our leaders in DC’ comments.  Fortunately, no one appears to be seriously injured, but there are some buildings that will need attention.  My title is aimed more at the ‘God’s making a statement’. 

     I’ve explained my view in the previous post who want to use God and what political party Christians should vote for and the dangers in doing that.  Now I guess the cute thing to do is say God’s trying to get people’s attention through natural disasters.  To me that’s even more dangerous than trying to say how God would vote in American politics.  At the very least, it’s easy to poke fun at that sentiment.  Of course, that fits in with the ‘vengeful God’ concept a lot of people have.  I’m not going to get into a long-winded discussion about that, I’ll save that for when I’m more introspective.  I will end this with a short humorous story I read in a Reader’s Digest many years ago.

‘A lawyer was making his opening statement in a civil trial.  At one point during his statement, a small earthquake shook the courthouse.  Being quick witted, the lawyer turned to the judge and said “at least someone agrees with me, your honor’.  The judge smiled, and replied, ‘earthquakes come from below, don’t they?”’

Does God vote?

 

I’m going to go on a little bit of a rant right now, because a couple of things are really setting me off.  There are multiple groups, sites, etc., that want to directly inject religion into American politics.  These groups are stating that their particular political philosophy is the one God ‘supports’ (who knew God was a special interest group?)  I am not trying to single out any one group on this (although this phenomenon does seem to exist more on one side than the other), it’s just that for me this whole thing is starting to cross over into the silly.

I have a difficult time with those who want to bring politics and religion together.  I am NOT being critical of those whose faith is a major factor in their political philosophy and decision making processes.  If their faith is a major factor in their life, I would expect it to be this way.  If one were to go digging through history, we would find multiple instances where politics and religion were made mutually exclusive.  On the individual level, this is difficult at best, and more probably impossible.  But for as diverse a country as this one, it is a necessity.  People were worried when John F. Kennedy was running for President, because he was a Roman Catholic.  (The Pope would be influencing American policy was one expressed concern) and this wasn’t the first time the situation presented itself (Alfred E. Smith in the election of 1920 was another time the Roman Catholic religion was an issue in American politics). 

One aspect of this that’s really grating on me right now are people who say Christians should support only one party.  To me, it’s insane to say that being a good baptist, catholic, etc. means you should only support party x.  In my view, not only is this insane (despite those who can give extensive theses to the contrary) it borders, if not completely goes over the line into judging other people.  I’ve already made my thoughts known about that issue, so I won’t rehash.  Suffice to say, it’s not something we should be doing (I know, I know, I’m doing what I say we shouldn’t, but I’m not judging these people’s salvation, just their sanity).

I believe a person’s faith is ultimately an individual matter.  How we express our faith and how we interact with others is something each individual has to work out on their own.  How one votes, or believes the government’s priorities should be, is really not a reflection of that person’s faith.   Everyone has their struggles, or issues where what their heart and head believe differ greatly, and create major internal conflict.  Or, it may be a case where they have accepted something that, on the surface, appears to be in conflict with the faith, but if you talk and listen to the person’s reasons, it is in complete agreement with that faith.  It would be a far better use of our time to focus on our own faith and issues instead of trying to get everyone else to think like us.  Or have we all decided to try and be like the Borg ‘resistance is futile’.  Well, I’ll resist as long as I can.

Politics? Nah, I prefer theater

     I’ve been making a concerted effort in the last few months to leave everything political alone.  Why?  The simple and short answer is that I have become so frustrated and cynical at the whole process.  It’s gotten to the point where I can hear about a particular issue or fight in our nation’s capital and pretty much predict what the end result will be without trying very hard.  I’ve honestly given up on anyone in either of the American political parties doing the ‘right thing’.  If it really fit, I think I’d call myself a political agnostic (I think that is in the same category as Calvin and Hobbes ‘math atheist’).

     Take the most recent debt ceiling drama.  I knew when the issue was first brought forward into the ‘public consciousness’ they would drag the process out until the ‘last minute’ all the while going through the motions of trying to come to an agreement and putting down the attempts of the other side (it’s at that point when both sides put up the ‘unreasonable’ and ‘ideologically pure’ suggestions, knowing they’d get shot down by the other side).  Then, when everyone watching is getting their blood pressure and nerves up, they come out with a ‘compromise’.  Of course, it falls short of what everyone wants.  Those who we turn to for leadership tell us ‘it’s the best compromise we could come up with in the limited time we had’ and that’s supposed to make everyone relax and move on to the next ‘crisis’.  Again, using the most recent event, the next act is apparently testing how screwing up our own economy will affect the rest of the world, along with an extended version of the blame game (anyone want to actually lead instead of just wanting the power that we give to leaders?) 

     As an aside, does anyone think the ‘final result’ is something all involved put together behind the scenes while the ‘drama’ unfolded?  Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.  In my view, politics (at least on the national level) has become almost as scripted as the best Shakespearian drama.  Apparently some people took the ‘all the world’s a stage’ line to its’ logical extreme.  It’s either that or they are trying a variation of the quote ‘you will never lose money underestimating the taste of the people’, theirs says ‘you won’t lose your elected position by underestimating the intelligence of the people’.