Labor Day thoughts... a devotional for today

Some people say that Labor Day is a Marxist holiday. Indeed, it was first celebrated in the U.S. by the Central Labor Union (the predecessor of the AFL-CIO) in New York in 1882, and a version of it became quite the national holiday in the former Communist Bloc nations, celebrated with Red Army military parades, etc.

To that I say, Marxism emerged and became successful bec there was a need--workers were overlooked and undermined by society and people were fed up. Was it a good system? No, but it existed for a reason: deplorable social structures. (Considering that Communism took hold in many otherwise Christian nations, perhaps the Church is partly to blame for not providing a better solution. Oh, the quandaries of the age-old "How much should the Church become involved in politics/secular society?" question.... but I don't want us to get sidetracked by that during this devotional thought.)

I don't think our primary problem in the U.S. today (thanks be to God) is the reprehensible condition of our working class; even w/this bad economy, working conditions, etc. are still significantly better than they were for most in the urban industrial sector during the late 1800s. But, in relation to Labor Day, two thoughts do stick out to me; the first, a reflection on what I believe is a major social problem that relates to this holiday; the second, a simple responsive action to that issue:

1.) We, as a nation (in the sense here of a people group), are a people who, by and large, have forgotten to stop and remember. Many Christians get upset with the over-commercialization and secularization of holidays like Christmas and Easter. I am one of them. As we know, the light and fun and innocuous elements of these holidays have increasingly begun to overshadow their deep spiritual significance more and more as our overly-P.C. society adds "religiophobic" to its social ethos. Even now, having largely been stripped down to their lowest common symbolic denominators (Santa Claus, Christmas trees, the Easter bunny, etc.), a further societal backlash ensued as people felt increasingly uneasy about these holiday's religious aspects, with public schools being barred from such ostentatious displays of religious proselytization as the brainwashing ritual of singing the ancient, culturally popular classic "Silent Night." Such carols have broadly been declared verboten from school choir performances, lest the minds of our fragile, impressionable, and pluralistic youth are corrupted by things like virgins and farm animals and babies in mangers and twinkling stars and such. Even in the private, commercial sector, business workers are increasingly instructed to offer the generic and utterly impotent festal greeting "Happy Holidays" during the month of December.

Perhaps the good side of that is one can simply choose which holiday they want to be happy about when someone says that. "Happy Holidays," declares the half-engaged department store worker as they already glance ahead to the next customer who is trying to balance her pile of clothing and ceramic mixing bowls and decorative "infused" olive oil bottles that will soon be collecting dust on her uncle's stovetop. But in your mind you can think, "Happy Holidays? I know it's Christmas, but man, that's a bit played out by now. I've been looking at Christmas trees and twinkle lights since October. Hmmmm... sparklers, yes! Happy 4th of July--that's it! I had to work that weekend, so I never got to light those sparklers I smuggled in from Tijuana last June. 'A happy Independence Day to you, too, ma'am!' you declare to the puzzled minimum wage employ, 'Damn those British!!' "

What I realized today is our... and I would be Conservatively P.C. here and say "Judeo-Christian holidays," but let's be honest, Jewish people don't celebrate Christian holidays, at least not in their religious aspects, and vice a versa; also, most Jewish holidays, since Jews are a minority in the U.S., have been able to retain their religious nature, even as they find occasional expressions in the public sphere. So, what I realized today is that it isn't just our religiously-rooted Christian holidays here in America that have lost much of their salt, so to speak--though there does seem to be an intentional attack upon them for their aforementioned religious nature, but perhaps the organized atheists and virulent secularists are really wasting their hot air and pay checks on more legal bills... Their strategies to further separate Church and State (with "State" in their practical definition effectually meaning "American culture," not just its governmental institutions) are pretty much unnecessary--not because the average American has become godless (which survey and poll and study and research paper after survey and poll and study and research paper have repeatedly shown just isn't the case), but rather because most Americans simply just don't stop and remember. Anything.

Who has time to contemplate the challenging profundity of the Creator of the Universe lying vulnerable as a human baby in a smelly animal shelter when there are more sales to attack and "this year's hot toys" to fight strangers over at the mall? Who has time to cook a holiday feast for family and friends when traffic is so bad? Why would I go to the Veteran's cemetery to stop and remember and be utterly grateful for the young men and women who died so I can safely watch football on tv when there are so many football games on tv that I can watch? Don't worry, Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens, and Madalyn Murray O'Hair, traditional Christian holidays have become poor vehicles for converting people. We are much too busy buying crap to think about the subliminal messages seasonally being pumped into our brains by the Musak at the Westfield Shopping Plaza, infused with that oppressive medieval delusion called "religion."

Sorry, however, it's not due to our collective enlightenment of the naturalistic doctrines you so desperately cling to, it's simply because we just have too much stuff to do, too many "important" things to think about, and too many hamburgers to grill. Uncle Sam and Patrick the Leprechaun are feeling the crunch, too.

2.) OK, so now what? Yeah, we are busy and ungrateful people who have lost any real sense of annual rhythm, especially a rhythm of memory. What to do about it? I can't change corporate America or effectively tell the raging secularists to pull their victimization sticks out of their bums and stuff their mouths with them instead so the rest of us can just enjoy life and celebrate our stupid little holidays without too much f I put lights on my house will I offend my Buddhist neighbor?" self-analysis. (The answer, btw, is "no." Lights are pretty and Buddhists generally don't get uptight about such things.)

Well... today is Labor Day. Perhaps in your own little, possibly self-gratifying, white guilt-reducing manner you can put your subversive skills to work in a small way. (As Americans, we like big trucks but small actions, let's be honest...) But this is the kind of small change, that added to a bunch of other, similar, small changes, will begin to change the way you think, bec it will begin to change the way you see your world. And once you begin to see your world differently, you will understand it differently. And when you understand it differently, you will respond to it differently, and will end up making some different choices, and relating to other people differently. Enough people begin to do this, and you have your own grassroots social revolutionary movement! Now, aren't WE cool! We might even get American Apparel t-shirts made for our cause, and then the hipsters will love us. Sorry, I was dreaming out loud.

OK, ready? Here's the 1st revolutionary step you can take, one that will even make the card-carrying grad school Marxists proud--stop and remember. Yep. That's it: stop and remember. "Remember what?" you ask. Well, it's Labor Day. Stop and remember--think about and be thankful for all of the people, around the world, who made today possible. All of the people who labor, who serve you, directly and indirectly. People like:

your postal worker

your cell phone carrier workers

the farmers and day laborers who grew and raised and picked and slaughtered the food you are eating

the truckers and mariners who transported your food to Ralphs and your light bulbs to Wal Mart

your auto repairman

your teachers, past and present

your pastors and church staff

your garbage man (I mean... sanitary engineer)

the people who designed, marketed, assembled, shipped, inspected, repaired and sold the computer that you are using right now

the people who made the table and the chair you are at

the police and firemen who keep you safe

government workers and politicians

waitstaff and buss people where you eat

salespeople in the stores where you shop, business owners

the actors and producers and directors and gaffers and editors and costume workers of the tv shows and movies you watch and enjoy

the athletes and coaches and peanut salesmen for your favorite sports teams

doctors, nurses, researchers, pharmacists, chiropractors, etc who keep you healthy

etc., etc., etc.

The list can go on and on. But realize how dependent you are on the labor of others. Be thankful for them. Say a prayer for them, regardless of how removed and anonymous they may feel; God knows who they are, and he cherishes a heart full of gratitude.

Be thankful for your own job, if you have have. Be thankful for the jobs you have had in the past if you don't, and pray for a new one, so you, too, may serve others in that way.

Use this Labor Day as one step in walking towards a lifestyle where you, counter-culturally, take sabbath and stop and remember, realize your interconnectedness, and are grateful. Do this enough, and your world will be different, because you will see it differently, and will respond to it differently, and in so doing, you will bring the good news of shabbat to it, a ceasing of our labors so that we can enjoy the fruits of them, and give thanks for the fruits that other laborers and our good Creator have graciously given to us.

The peace and rest of Christ to you this Labor Day. Amen.

Time to Walk the Talk, Christian Folks

The American Spectator, an excellent paleo-conservative publication, posted this revealing article on their website today: Plus Eight is Enough. The brief article (which I recommend reading) highlights recent tabloid stories of Christian politicians and reality-show celebs, and broader statistics which show that Evangelical and other conservative Christians in the U.S. aren't doing too good of a job "walking the talk" when it comes to our divorce, unwed pregnancy, and abortion rates (especially in the so-called "red states" where Christians often predominate). These rates are usually equal to, and in some cases are higher than, those of non-Christians in the region. This is both ironic and tragic, since these are of course very hot-button issues which we so often seem to talk the loudest about in the public sphere and in frequently lobbied-for governmental legislation.

As a response to Mr. Allott's article, I wrote the following thoughts:

Thank you, Mr. Allott, for this thoughtful and balanced corrective for the church of Jesus Christ in America. It is a sad, but accurate, summary of how too many of us who call ourselves Christian have separated our ideals from our actual, lived-out values. Social scientists have documented how groups often become more vocal and "enthusiastic" about their unique positions and practices when they are experiencing a downfall, to reactively strengthen what makes them unique. Unfortunately, too many American Christians have done so with the issues of abortion, sexual behavior, and the defense of traditional marriage. I understand and identify with the frustrations felt with the eroding of these values on a larger social scale (and in so many Christians’ practice as these sobering statistics reveal), but in the midst of shifting social currents, we must be careful to not lose our heads and switch to some type of ideological reactionary state where we battle loudly over "protecting" the family through legislation while we ignore our own; complain about schools giving out condoms while our sons and daughters, whom we've lost meaningful relationships with and respect from due to our overly “busy” lives, are having unprotected sex; tell people to keep their babies when we do little to help out the ones that do once the children are born--we place almost all of the responsibility on the mother, with little required of deadbeat dads, there are sagging job opportunities, and social mindsets in many areas have the #1 goal for young people as: get a no-brain job, get pregnant, and have kids--no vision, no joy, no creativity, no entrepreneurship, no bettering your community or even taking care of your physical health (look at the absurd obesity rates in the U.S.), and we frequently over-spiritualize relational and even mental issues that concurrently need to be dealt with on a "natural" level (via counseling, support, recovery groups, etc.), often to the detriment of our families, marriages, and other relationships.

Aaron wrote a telling comment (on the article, on the website): “The fact is that for Conservative Christians, living the good life is all that matters. We are not on a crusade, we are not trying to take over the world, don't try and fix us too.” From my understanding of Scripture, that is part of the problem. Our focus as Christians isn’t to be on “living the good life,” in some type of “us four and no more” way. God’s heart is poured outward unto us; as disciples, ours is to mimic His--poured out unto Him, but also to our “neighbor.” When Christians prioritize their own benefit and become insular, they abandon the Great Commission, which is to spread the “good news” of Christ and His Kingdom to all the nations, teaching them to follow Him as well. No, we are not trying to take over the world (although there are Christians who incorrectly adopt that mindset, too), but we are to tangibly influence it for the Kingdom, here and abroad, with authentic, generous, life-giving lives. According to Jesus’ great paradox of “he who loses his life for My sake will find it,” that is where “the good life” is found, and my personal experience verifies that. Small-minded, fearful, appearance-oriented, and insular “Christianity” has got to go; people need a vision that extends beyond themselves, one that they actually begin to live out in the power of the transforming Holy Spirit.

Too many factions of the church in America have become too afraid to get "messy" so that the real issues (and yes, accountability) become taboo and aren't dealt with—well, until someone crosses the line and gets sent to the religious firing squad. Churches with truly healthy congregations are usually places where people feel loved enough AND where the people are "real" enough to be honest about their own "stuff" that actual healing/discipleship can take place. Otherwise, we too quickly become self-righteous ideologues who raise the standard higher than we ourselves ever intend to reach, and feel some sort of almost ethnic privilege because of our "correct" doctrine, and not our correct, stumbling-towards-Christ actions. The lived-out Gospel is what transforms people, communities, and nations for God's kingdom. But until the Church (Protestant, Catholic, etc.) gets real and gains discernment into the social situations and cultures that they live in, we will often stop short our analysis of these important issues at the "church level," ignorant of our own blind spots and familial/cultural issues that contribute to these problems. God doesn't live in a box, let's stop trying to put Him in one, and de-segregate Him from the rest of our lives, working together with our brothers and sisters in Christ across denominational, ethnic, and class lines toward real solutions.

Pistis, Ethnos, & Mestizaje: A Case Study

In my Congregation as Learning Community class the other week, we had an exercise in which we were asked to self-identify our ethnic culture and then consider the practices and values our cultures generally hold and how some of those either affirm or go against the Gospel. As a “culturally self-aware” American studies grad, that task wasn’t too difficult for me, but only because I spent almost 3 years asking such questions. I then wondered how some of the high schoolers I work with at church would respond to similar questions.

So, tonight before our youth group started, I was able to talk with 6 young men and 3 young ladies, asking them how they would define their ethnicity/culture/race, and how some aspects of their culture (secular & Christian) either support or go against living the Christian lifestyle. (My second question was very difficult to convey in non-jargony terms! I had to rephrase it several times, and even then, I don’t think everyone got it.)

Only one student was white alone; she called herself “Irish” and shared how she goes “all out” on St. Patrick’s Day, but is more generically “white” the rest of the year—her “Irishness” didn’t define her that much. Another student was “German/Italian/Irish/Salvadorian” and says he has a particular fondness for Korean girls. He goes to Burroughs High School in Burbank, where he said he was in the minority as a “white person” (differentiating himself from Armenians), and contrasted that to Burbank High, where his step-brother goes, which he said was predominately white. He said it felt weird to him when he visited it once for that very reason. Don was “white” and a “little Mexican”; Justin was “Mexican and white” and as a skater kid, said he “feels like crap” when other Mexicans (mainly cholos) call him “white,” but says he himself often “forgets” that he’s Mexican because he sees his crowd and friends as white. Author Robert W. Pazmiño, in his book Latin American Journey, describes this tension: “…new-breed or new-generation Hispanics are looked down on both by Latin Americans for their cultural impurity and by whites for their ethnic ties.” (107)

That tension of living in two cultural worlds was echoed by two biracial (Black and white) females, one who felt segregated against by Black students, and the other (who looks stereotypically white) who said she sometimes feels like she “has to chose sides.” Trey is very light skinned, but said he was “99.9999% Black.” When the students were asked how important their ethnicity was in forming their self-identity, almost all of them said it wasn’t, that they primarily saw themselves as just “people, like everyone else,” though these questions reveal that ethnic-based tensions do arise from time-to-time. Ethnic identification was least important to the predominately white students, who usually had the most difficulty answering my questions, but that wasn’t surprising, since “majority culture” people in almost any society often lack the same type of ethnic self-awareness that minorities do. (Please see my "comment" below)

When I asked the students to try to compare their culture with the Gospel, 80% of the students had a real hard time figuring that out. Kyle, who sees himself as “Mexican and European” pointed out that most Latinos are Catholic, and therefore “religious,” and kind of “reserved,” and that family was very important to them. Sam, who said he is “Black, obviously” (he has very dark skin) gave the strongest voice in support of having a more conscious cultural identity, saying that as a Black man he felt it was important to “step up” by example, instead of “being lazy,” to help “eliminate stereotypes.” He said he sometimes receives criticism from other Blacks who say he is “whitewashed.” In relation to the church, he felt the “Black church” is strong in its Pentecostal-type worship, and that they have that as a gift to offer to the “white church.” He said a cultural problem is that many Blacks “will go and praise the Lord at church and then go and smoke pot with their hommies that same afternoon”; that people often compartmentalize their faith.

A great thing about our youth group is its ethnic diversity and how the students, by-and-large, build friendships across racial and ethnic lines, finding more commonality in their humanity and faith than their culture of origin. Nevertheless, these conversations show there is still work to be done among them in building understanding about these issues, which seem to lie beneath the surface, to help better understand the cultural strengths, weaknesses, and biases we bring to our faith journeys. From a cultural analysis perspective, these students in many ways reflect new types of mestizaje, “mixed” people--the product of multiple cultures, creators of new ethnic identities--and even more so when you add a religion that is life-transforming to the mix.

The Next U.S. President and the Abortion Debate

A Facebook group forum discussion for members of the Christian denomination I belong to asks this question: "Can Christians, in good conscience, support Barack Obama for President? Yes or No? Please explain.” To this, I wrote in response:

"Personally, I am throwing my vote in for McCain, but yes, I believe a Christian can vote for Obama. I know people at my Foursquare church (a fairly diverse one) who will be voting for Obama. They highlight his strengths (and I do think he has some) just like I highlight McCain's (and he does have some weaknesses). I agree that abortion is a horrible evil, and I grieve that it is so "acceptable" in our nation right now. In fact, one thing that really turns me off about Obama is his (at least historical) support for partial-birth abortion, a barbaric practice that isn't even legal in "Liberal" and "Post-Christian" Europe. I wonder what kind of man could support such an act. That being said, NO President will make abortion illegal, in fact a co-worker of mine went to R. Reagan's church and said that he said privately that he could openly be pro-life bec in the end he couldn't do anything about it, so it was basically lip service, so sometimes I think it's said just to get Christian votes. A change in abortion legislature will have to be decided by the courts--BUT the next Pres will be appointing more Supreme Court positions, so that makes a difference there. However, having abortion legal doesn't cause abortions--the question is what are we as a society doing to discourage them and help pregnant mothers in bad situations, legal or not? And the better question is how are WE living as Christians and as the Church? Are WE living missional, just and holy lives in the midst of a corrupt generation? Whether the current administration supports the mission of Christ's kingdom or not? Sure, I want our nation to reflect Biblical values and we have a great framework for that, and we could do more in that arena and I will do my little part to work towards that--but I won't depend on the gov to do the job for me. Obama or McCain or whoever--I am serving the Lord, and may His kingdom come, His will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Amen!"

Cowboy Church Article

In regards to the article "Where Prayers Come With a Twang"

I wrote:

I read a reprint of this article in the Los Angeles Times, and was glad that cowboy churches were getting the exposure.(I don't attend a cowboy church myself, but I am familiar with them, having attended a few before.)

Initially I was frustrated, though, with the repetitive use of both Christian and "cowboy" cliches in the article, at the best, naive towards both cultures, at the worst almost disrespectful. I re-read the article here online, and then realized that the Times had edited it some for length, unfortunately weakening the article and leaving some rather broad statements unexplained.(Which, of course, you have no control over!) I asked my father, a well-known religious news journalist, if it was common for papers to do that, and he said yes, but was surprised that they did so considering that it was placed in the front section!

As for the original article by Torriero printed here, I realize that a journalist wants to be interesting and clever and readable, but I did roll my eyes at the statement "Hamson strikes the fear of God in his parishioners..." That is a strong statement, which is not the impression that I get from the description of Hamson in the article--that he's some fire-and-brimstone type of preacher. This, and other Christian cliches inappropriately used in the article (perhaps unintentionally) paint pastors and lay evangelical Christians as hokey, insincere, stupid, and/or subversive (all too common images in the press), and tend to spin what is a serious commitment for these people as a novelty. As a Christian I guess I just get tired of hearing these types of phrases coming from professional news agencies, who are usually careful and successful at treating other religious groups with respect--this protocol should include refraining from worn-out puns.

I work for the Autry National Center's Museum of the American West (so you know where I'm coming from with all of this) and I also get tired of so many ancient Western cliches. I can understand a few, but it seems like they fill this article, reinforcing the Hollywood version of the West over the real one. One point I don't understand is the section about religion in the "Wild West" (not exactly a technical term, but we get the point!). What was said is true, but then Torriero (or the article's editor) then jumps to the claim that contemporary cowboy churches embrace more of "entertainment's" version of the (mythic) West than "cowboy lore." What I don't understand here is not in inclusion of the historic change in the religious landscape of the West, but the lack of acknowledgement that cowboying is a job that, though at its greatest prominence in the 1880s, is still being done--it is a LIVING tradition, and Hollywood and Nashville don't own the trademark. Sure, the "cowboy" image extends far beyond wage-laborers on cattle ranches (and the broadening of that image into popular culture goes back to the 1880s! So, really, was it EVER possible to completely separate the two...), and it serves today as a broad icon for the Westerner, but my point is many of the people in this article ARE Westerners and/or are horsemen, farmers, etc. They ARE cowboys in the broad sense of the word, so how is this LIVING tradition defined or qualified by its earliest years or by Hollywood? In other words, why are modern-day cowboys (ranchers, horse people, rodeo performers, etc.) treated as second-rate, drugstore versions of the "real" thing? The cowboy isn't dead and what these people do IS cowboy culture--today. I'm just saying...

Thanks, again, for your article!

So. Baptists Encouraging Creation Care

An "independent coalition of Southern Baptists who are passionate about caring for God's creation" have penned "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change," available for viewing at Southern Baptist Environment & Climate Initiative website at: http://baptistcreationcare.org/

This declaration initiates a HUGE potential for increasing awareness and hopefully action by a large population of Evangelical Christians. Although an independently-produced statement and not a convention-wide one, this is a major step for members of the nation's largest Protestant body, one that has become increasingly doctrinaire on issues of Biblical interpretation, doctrine, ethics, etc. over the past decade (it's amazing to me how many times this Statement references their commitment to pro-life and traditional marriage issues, like that has anything to do w/the topic at hand), but one must understand that its target audience includes many who dwell in the "global warming is a myth" camp and the "wow, I don't know about us entering this hippy/feminist/'Liberal' group of tree-hugging environmentalists" camp.

What the Statement does well is lay down a theological basis for caring, as Christians, about how we act and legislate and produce/consume in relation to the natural world around us. Its two main points are: one of God's revelations of Himself to mankind is through the created, "natural" order, so for us to mar His creation is to mar His witness as well as to deface what is essentially His property, not ours; the other is that the potential negative effects of global warming would hurt the poor the most. Therefore, subversively, this document also reinforces the Christian commandment to care for the poor and oppressed, another important Biblical injunctive, sometimes unfortunately downplayed by Conservatives due to the rhetoric of the political Left.

As I mentioned earlier, the Declaration spends what would seem to be an inordinate amount of time defending the group's commitment to other, extremely peripheral, issues like Biblical inerrancy and the right to life, and it spends several paragraphs in carefully-worded affirmations on the limitations of science, the fact that "anthropogenic" global warming isn't proven and that there is a significant minority of scientists who disagree w/the theory, etc. But again, given the audience, this is hardly unnecessary. I love what the statement does do, where it comes up weak is that it ends at theory and intention and the recognition that there is an issue. Granted, this is a huge beginning for many in the SBC, but it falls short of giving any guidance for WHAT we should do to begin to address these issues. It's like sharing the Gospel with a person, they convert and accept Christ, and when they ask "How now shall we (I) live?", you fall silent. There is no framework, no guidelines, no points for further action in the Declaration.

The most the website offers in this area is a list of "Resources": several books on creation care and a few links to groups like Christian environmental organizations and some "safe" secular ones like EnergyStar. These are vaguely helpful, but a few, simple, non-political action steps that everyday individuals and families could take to begin to live a "greener" lifestyle would have been wonderful and even more pro-active help from a group that deeply cares about this issue and sees the God-connection with it all.

Another thing that confounded me is its focus on the global warming debate. Why, if global warming is so controversial, does the Declaration spend so much time focusing on it? Let's suggest for a moment that global warming doesn't exist, would a Christian's responsibility for thoughtful environmental stewardship cease? Why does it take such "huge" issues like this to get us to start doing what we should have been doing all along? Think of the parallels in our personal lives. So often, God needs to hit us up on the side of our head to get us to pay attention to an important area that we have been neglecting for so long, be it a relationship, our finances, our health, our spiritual growth, etc. It's sad that it has had to come to this--potential ecological disaster--before we get serious about everyday issues like pollution, rapid deforestation, energy sources and usage, refuse disposal, unsustainable agricultural practices, unchecked consumerism, etc. Shouldn't these have been "Christian" issues all along? Loving your neighbor as yourself is a pretty huge aspect of serving Christ Himself, and when we look at these issues and how many of our lifestyle, government and business practices have gone awry due to flesh-issues like selfishness/greed, the love of money, and the rejection of wisdom and long-term thinking, the spiritual connections to these issues become apparent.

Natural causes aside, and even potential global warming-related issues aside, the immediate, contemporary problems of smog, acid rain, species extinction, etc. are reasons enough to get us to think both theologically and practically about these issues, and to actually care enough about them to be willing to alter our lifestyles enough to reflect Biblical, neighbor-loving principles.

Kudos to this group of Southern Baptists for taking an important initial stand on this critical area of life, and may more SBC folks join them, as well as those from across the broader Christian community! The group rightly points out that our historic neglect and even dismissal of these issues has caused us to seem uncaring to non-Christians, so kudos to us rightfully improving the church's P.R., and more importantly, that of Christ.