Islam and Freedom of Religion

This post is in response to the growing hysteria over Islam in our country. I will not win any friends here on any side of the political spectrum. Some good and well-intentioned people believe that we should live and let live as far as Islam is concerned. All faith systems are equally good, they say. I believe Islam is misguided in its understanding of God. I believe that God is fully revealed in the person, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus. Theirs is a faith of works-righteousness; earning your way into the favor of God. Mine is a faith of grace; recognizing that our only hope is the intervention of a loving God. Some people of Islamic faith, driven by acute and extreme hatred, have used the tenants of their faith to excuse an uncommon level of violence and terrorism. I recognize this and take it seriously as a real and immediate threat. (Uncommon violence and terror has been perpetrated throughout history under the cloak of Christianity as well, but that's a subject for a different post.) So, I am not going to be among those who take a more laissez-faire, liberal attitude toward Islam.

Nor am I jumping on the Muslim-bashing bandwagon. For many good, well-intentioned people, Islam is the new communism, as far as having somewhere to land our collective fear and hate. All people of Islamic faith are being demonized as the enemy. Language used, caricatures presented, negative imagery fostered all have the distinctly familiar scent of things like anti-Semitic propaganda in Europe in the 1930's or the witch-hunting days of McCarthyism in this country in the 1950's. As a follower of Jesus I have abdicated any right to a blanket labelling and dismiss whole groups of people. I am under command to love my enemies and to pray for those who persecute. So I won't win friends among those in a frenzy to gather pitchforks and torches and to go after the "monster" which is Islam.

Having said all that, I want to leave religion and politics for a bit. I want to ask a question from a civics standpoint. One of the values of our nation is freedom of religion. I have embraced this since my childhood as a citizen of the United States. How does this apply to concerns around Islam? This is not rhetorical; I'm not setting up to make a point of some kind. I really want to know how this applies in this setting today.

Sometimes I have more questions than I have answers. I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

When All Hope Is Gone

Increasingly I find myself interested in people who found ways to tap into hope when the circumstances around them offered no hope. Yesterday I spent over an hour visiting with a man who earlier this year was released from prison after 27 years behind bars. In many ways his story is a story of hope shattered, by his own doing and by the doing of those around him. He was a successful high school athlete and student, and a respected teacher. In spite of this, he gravitated into drug use and eventually into drug dealing. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He received no hope of freedom from the consequences he created, freedom from dirty deeds done to him, or freedom from a lifetime of despair. Despair was a constant parasite on his existence. Yet he tapped into a source of focus and hope that kept him going and hoping for deliverance, when every avenue of hope was closed off. By a legal anomaly he walked away from prison a free man earlier this year at the age of 62, with almost half his life taken away by his own mistakes and the mistakes of others. And yet he is not bitter. Quite the contrary, he is a man of uncommon faith and uncommon trust in God and the future.

Many people I know who have never and will never spend time in prison long for the freedom of heart, the forgiving and forgiven spirit, and the exuberance of living he has. I want people in our worshipping fellowship to hear his story.

To often we tie hope to circumstances. If things are good, then we have hope. If things are not good, we yield to anger, bitterness, blame, and despair. Maybe hope is really hope only when we cling to it regardless of the circumstances.

How would you feel if your best friends abandoned you? What if one of them set you up for a fall? When given a chance, no one stepped up on your behalf. The world around you was willing to let you die and not think anything of it. That was Jesus' experience, as the spikes drove into his body to pin him to a cross. Nothing in the circumstances around him spoke of hope - quite the opposite! He came within a hair's breadth of despair. ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?") Yet, in spite of it all, he chose hope. ("Into your hands I commend my spirit.")

Those are the people who catch my attention - relentless "hopers" when all hope is gone. I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Complicity and Participation in the Mystery of Evil

In previous posts I've commented on the tendency to demonize those with whom we do not agree. Many of us must confess to this from time to time. Here are some intriguing words written on the subject:

"We have to train ourselves to recognize how we're giving an 'affective charge' to an offense, how we are getting energy from mulling over someone else's mistakes. We can build a case with no effort at all. We wrap and embellish and by the time our twenty minutes of 'prayer' are over, we have a complete case. The verdict is in: the other person is guilty. And wrong besides. And because the other is wrong, we are right. 'Scapegoating' is when we displace the issue and project it over there instead of owning it here, too. Only the contemplative mind can recognize its own complicity and participation in this great mystery of evil. The contemplative mind holds the tension and refuses to ease itself by projecting evil elsewhere." (Richard Rohr)

As one who recognizes that I am the recipient of unfathomable forgiveness from the Great Forgiver (Jesus), I find this both convicting and challenging. Just some food for thought. I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Out of the Loop

The world around us has no shortage of ways to make us fell left out - any age, any circumstance. It can sting us in not making the cut for the team, not being in the loop at work, not being invited to the party, not being included in automatic conversation before a worship service or whatever. I have to confess that I've had a number of occasions in 57 years when I was either made to feel that way, or I made others feel that way.

When it happens to me I have one of two choices. On the one hand, I can stew in my pain of being left out. I can feel sorry for myself and/or feel bad about myself. I can sink into negativity or plan elaborate schemes to strike back. I can even compensate by making sure that someone else experiences that same marginalizing that I feel. Or I can make darn sure that I do everything to the best of my ability so that nobody else within my horizon of life experiences the same thing. The former is easy; latter is challenging.

I don't think the one called Jesus attracted so many diverse people because of sound theology, good morals, or admirable behavior. I think the biggest draw was his steadfast refusal to leave anyone out. Just my opinion...I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

How Goes It With Your Heart?

How goes it with your heart?

I don't mean the organ that pumps blood through your body. And I don't mean the sentimental, emotional center of you.

I mean the core of who you are. Everything that makes you tick. The sum of what you love and what you fear. The essence of the you God designed. The center of what you believe, what you value, what brings you joy, what stirs your passion...that's your heart.

How goes it with your heart? Are you taking care of your heart?

"Well, sure, I guess...I go to church, I work out, I eat bran, I watch "Oprah," I listen to Kenny Chesney, I..."

No. Are you stopping the madness, pulling away, resting your frazzled mind, stepping away from the demands, and refueling your heart?

In my faith world we worship someone called Jesus. We believe he healed the sick, calmed the storms, raised the dead, and sent evil spirits running for cover. However, on a regular basis he pulled away from it all, and spent time with his God. He spent time taking care of his heart.

A heart filled to overflowing is better equipped to help care for other hearts.

So how goes it with your heart? I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Good and Bad Church Signs

I'm not usually a fan of messages on church signs. Too often I find them sappy, trying to be uber-cute, and preoccupied with making all of us be well behaved little boys and girls. For example, if I see "CH_ _ CH - What's missing? U R!" one more time I'll just puke. However, every now and again someone puts words on a church sign that have impact, that are thought-provoking, that challenge us, and that make us uncomfortable. For example, I once saw a church sign message that said, "There are only two things you need to know. 1) There is a God. 2) You're not Him!" Now that's a church sign!

Anyway, I just saw one of those impact church signs not more than an hour ago. "Don't tell God how big your storm is. Tell the storm how big your God is." That's a great church sign, I think. There are a lot of ways to unpack this. Is God just our go-to when life gets stormy? In that case, God isn't much more than a 911 system; helpful, but not an entity whose power we so day by day or moment by moment. Or do we see God first before we even see the storm, in such a way that the storm is defined subservience to God before it even does its damage. If you believe in a God, how big and potent is your God? My God drags the dead carcasses of executed, unemployed carpenters and turns them into saviors. I'm just saying...

That's church sign doing its job. I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Ninety-Two Year Old Fisherman

I saw something on Friday which I suppose is painfully simple and even stereotypical, yet no less impacting. I spent the day float-fishing on an Ozark stream. Along with our boats, a couple of older gentleman worked the stream in an old square-backed aluminum canoe. It was a pretty good day for those of us who were fishing. At one point on the float I watched the older of the two men pull about four or five goggle-eye out of a small hole alongside a bluff. Our group and their group ended our day on the river at about the same time, and pulled off the water at the same point. We all got a chance to visit a little bit then. Turns out the goggle-eye catcher is 92 years old. He had decided to take his 85 year old nephew out for a day fishing on the river!

And here I am sometimes feeling sorry for myself for showing signs of aging at 57. Granted, growing older can be no picnic. The challenges of the second half of life are real. Yet here's a guy who gets up on a July Friday morning and decides to take his 85 year old nephew fishing on the river with him. Sometimes the state of life comes at us beyond our control. Sometimes, though, we really do have some choices over how we will approach it.

And, who knows, we may find ourselves fishing with an octogenarian nephew some day. River floating and fishing at 92 - that's my dream, anyway! I'll see you around the next bend in the river.