On Churches not Going back to Business as Usual after the Covid-19 Pandemic

As the pandemic seems to be easing in the US (or at least responses to it), and everyone wants to get back to normal ASAP, I think churches are particularly vulnerable to the danger of returning to business as usual. I have long loved this quote from Annie Dillard and find it powerfully relevant right now, not just with regards to the pandemic but also with how the malignant polarization of US society has infected the churches.

Annie Dillard: “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. ” Teaching a Stone to Talk

My thinking about the Church in the US, which is what brought to mind the Annie Dillard quote, is that the pandemic has given us a chance to pause and look at how we have made church life too comfortable, and now we have an opportunity to open ourselves to God's power in our shared life as communities of faith. As I reflect on my own journey with Jesus and his Church, I feel I have been drawn out to where I can never return.

The pandemic is only one of several factors and forces at work in our time that I believe call for a deep spiritual awakening. This didn't start in 2020, but last year saw what seems to be an unprecedented convergence of political, racial, violence, environmental, and other issues. It reminds me of the time in which Eberhard Arnold and others recognized at the early emergence of the Nazi movement in Germany that business as usual Christianity was not adequate for the challenge. Out of that was born the Bruderhof in Anabaptist tradition. In that same time frame in both Lutheran and Reformed settings the same realization that business as usual Christianity wasn't up to the challenge, and from their efforts, the Confessing Church and its monumental Theological Declaration of Barman emerged. I am not suggesting too many direct parallels between the Nazi era and our time, but I am convinced that business as usual Christianity is not adequate for our challenges, and the interruption of the pandemic gives us an opportunity to tap into the dramatically transforming power of God and escape business as usual Christianity. For quite a long time I have been suggesting the Church in the US would benefit from a heart searching encounter with the Barman Declaration.

 

 

The Threat to Consistent Character from the Banality of Evil

Yesterday (Sunday, May 16, 2021) Troy Loether (pastor of Kettlebrook Church in West Bend, WI) was the guest speaker for Meadowbrook Church in Wauwatosa, WI where Candy and I worshipped.

His message was on Daniel 3, the familiar story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s statue. The theme of the message was consistent character with the pressures of living in exile. The text and the message emphasized that the Jews were being pressured into idolatry. However, it is also clear that the call for “peoples, nations, and languages” (vv. 4,7) that this was a political attempt to bring all who had been conquered by Babylon into a unified empire.

The message identified three ways the consistent character of the Jews was been attacked.

            Authority and Intimidation – the emperor was commanding obedience

            Conformity – everyone else was going along

            Penalty – the fiery furnace

The message suggested ways we may feel similar pressures to compromise our character in our daily experiences. Though nothing was said about the recent developments with Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, I am sure I was not the only one thinking of parallels to their situations.

Then, this morning I read the reflection from Richard Rohr of the Center for Action and Contemplation on the “banality of evil” which shed incisive light on my incredulous wrestling with so much these days. The Modern Disguise of Evil — Center for Action and Contemplation (cac.org)

 

 

 

Matt Gaetz: Another Saga of Sex, Money, and Power

I can’t say I have followed the Matt Gaetz story. I seldom see it on PBS, BBC, or AP unless it intersects with something with broader ramifications, such as medical marijuana. But tantalizing details keep showing up in a variety of “popular” news media outlets, both left and right, as some sort of unfolding soap opera entertaining with salacious teases.

I will not comment on his political activities and opinions or the believability of his denials of anything illegal in paying for sex with a number of women, allegedly including a 17 year old taken across state lines. From my perspective all the attention focused here avoids what to me is obvious from his own words. This man has no moral compass. He has acknowledged a history that would otherwise have been labeled as promiscuous, and he has dismissed any problem with that by saying that he’s not a monk and wasn’t married.

Even though I am a retired Christian pastor, my concern about the lack of a moral compass is not about sexual prudishness or adhering to the sort of biblical ethics I taught all my career. No, I am concerned for what seems a crass disregard for the dignity and full human value of women and the wonder of sexuality in healthy human relationships. I do not intend to single out Mr. Gaetz nor to rant about “the media.” Rather, I am dismayed that such behavior and attitudes seem to not only be accepted but even expected among men in many walks of life who are climbing the ambitious ladder of power, or even think they have arrived at the pinnacle of power in their realm.