Greed Is Not Good: The Tragic Results of a FalseTheology

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory

“No one can serve two masters; for a servant will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
Matthew 6:24

One hundred and nine years ago yesterday, March 25, 1911, just a few minutes before closing time on a Saturday, a fire started, probably in a trash bin, at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, located on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of a Manhattan factory building.  

There were 146 victims in all, 129 of them women. Most were young immigrants.

In a famous scene in the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” Gordon Gekko, convincingly portrayed by Michael Douglas, gave his impassioned testimony to the shareholders of Teldar Paper Company:

"The point is, ladies and gentleman, is that greed – for lack of a better word – is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind. And Greed – you mark my words – will not only save Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."

It is important to recognize that Gordon Gekko's affirmation of greed is precisely that: it is an affirmation of faith. It is a theological statement.

It is about what we believe.

We don’t just tolerate greed. As a society we celebrate it because we believe it is essential to the economic system that has driven so much world progress, and no small amount of misery, over the last half millennium.

But greed isn’t good. Jesus was right. We cannot worship God and money.

Initiative is good. Enterprise is good. And effort should be rewarded. But greed is not good.

At the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory all but one of the exits had been locked to prevent the workers from taking unauthorized breaks.

Doors to the stairwells were locked. There was one internal fire escape but it collapsed quickly under the weight of so many bodies.

Louis Waldman, later a New York State Assemblyman, was reading in a nearby library when he heard the fire companies responding. He ran out to join the crowd in the street and remembered the scene this way:

"Word had spread through the East Side, by some magic of terror, that the plant of the Triangle Waist Company was on fire and that several hundred workers were trapped. Horrified and helpless, the crowds — I among them — looked up at the burning building, saw girl after girl appear at the reddened windows, pause for a terrified moment, and then leap to the pavement below, to land as mangled, bloody pulp. This went on for what seemed a ghastly eternity. Occasionally a girl who had hesitated too long was licked by pursuing flames and, screaming with clothing and hair ablaze, plunged like a living torch to the street. Life nets held by the firemen were torn by the impact of the falling bodies."

In the New York Times the next day the story included this grim report: “The victims who are now lying at the Morgue waiting for some one to identify them by a tooth or the remains of a burned shoe were mostly girls from 16 to 23 years of age.” 

The Times suggested that the fire had been started by one of the machines, but an industry journal claimed that the more likely cause was smoking, which was forbidden in the factory. The industry report noted that the epidemic of factory fires was “fairly saturated with moral hazard.” 

In other words, the industry people were claiming that the deaths were attributable to the moral failings of the workers rather than the greed of the owners who blocked the exits.

The factory owners were tried for first and second degree manslaughter, but they were acquitted. The defense attorney asked a key witness, a worker who had escaped the fire, to repeat her testimony several times. After she repeated her answers almost word for word, he argued that this was evidence that she had been told what to say by the prosecutors and had memorized her testimony. 

Defense attorneys also claimed that the prosecution had not proved that the owners knew that the doors were locked at the specific time of the fire. Two years later, one of the owners was found guilty of illegally locking the doors on another factory and fined twenty dollars for the infraction.

When we look back, we are appalled. 

But it is only a few years ago that a factory fire in Bangladesh killed 112 workers. Again, because exits were blocked or inadequate.

And in Rhode Island especially, we remember the fire at the Station night club that claimed one hundred victims. Again, the cause of death was that exits were blocked, and they were not adequate. 

At the Station, they wanted to prevent patrons from entering without paying; at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, and in the Bangladesh fire they wanted to prevent workers from leaving while they were being paid. 

But in each case the issue was greed





Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

*Parts of this post were originally published on March 26, 2011.

This Is What Fascism Looks Like

The crowd chants "Send her back!" at a rally on Wednesday night

Woe to you who call evil good and good evil, 
who put darkness for light and light for darkness, 
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5:20

In his speech at the opening of the National Museum of African American History in 2016, former President George W. Bush said, "A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws, and corrects them." 

"This museum tells the truth,” he observed, “that a country founded on the promise of liberty held millions in chains, that the price of our union was America's original sin."

President Bush was not the first one to speak of slavery and racism as America’s original sin, but the fact that he said it is a reminder that this should not be a partisan issue and his use of the phrase “original sin” reminds us that the issue is about faith as well as politics.

Confronting racism is a necessity for Christians regardless of their political affiliation.

Racism is evil and it produces bitter fruit for the recipients as well as for the perpetrators. There is nothing about it that can be called good. And woe to us when we do not call it out for what it is.

According to Gizmodo, after Mr. Trump’s speech in Greenville Wednesday night, the two most commonly searched words were Fascism and Racism.

You can be a racist without being a fascist but you cannot be a fascist without being a racist. Sadly, both were on display in Greenville.

One cannot use those words without being accused of being an alarmist. 

But the association is unavoidable.

We cannot pretend that evil is not evil, let alone that it is good.

Half a century ago, Jurgen Moltmann, perhaps the last of the great German theologians of the twentieth century,  was visiting the United States for a theological conference when the discussion turned to segregationists in the South.

“They are Nazis,” Jurgen Moltmann declared, “and when you are confronted by Nazis you must defeat them.”

Nothing else matters, he insisted, until you get rid of the Nazis.

As my theology professor told the story, Moltmann had insisted  to his fellow theologians that they had no business discussing theology until they had first done something about the Nazis.

I remember thinking that although the segregationists were certainly bad, it was hyperbole to call them Nazis. 

Perhaps it is hyperbole to speak that way of the Greenville rally. I fervently hope so. But by the time we know for certain it may be too late.

Jurgen Moltmann grew up in a secular family in Hamburg. As a teenager he was drafted into the German Army near the end of World War II. He was captured by the British and spent several years as a prisoner of war. During that time his captors presented him with descriptions and pictures of the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and he was overwhelmed with guilt for what his country had done.

While he was held prisoner an American Army Chaplain gave him a New Testament and it transformed his life. “I did not find Christ,” he would later say, “Christ found me.” After the war he completed a doctorate in theology and his reflections on Nazism and the war led him to develop “A Theology of Hope.”

Moltmann could see, as Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, and others had made clear before him that the absolute claims of Nazism were theological as well as political. And that those absolute claims made it antithetical to Christianity. 

When Moltmann insisted that there could be no theological discussion until Nazism had been addressed, he wasn’t introducing politics into theological discourse. He was recognizing that until they were dealt with, the absolute claims of Nazism made authentic theological discussion impossible.

In an interview published in Newsweek.com, Chantal Da Silva spoke with Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, one of the leading scholars of Fascism. And Stanley called the Wednesday night rally “one of the single most racist moments in modern American history.” He also said that the country is “facing an emergency.”

"The word 'emergency' is tricky to use because 'emergency' is a word that anti-democratic people use all the time to justify non-democratic measures," he said.

Stanley said that he was “shocked” when he watched the video of the Greenville rally where the crowd chanted “send her back” after Mr. Trump attacked Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a Somali refugee who came to America as a refugee who came to American when she was eight years old. 

The chants came after Mr. Trump had devoted considerable time to attacking Representative Omar along with three Democratic colleagues, Representatives Aryanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Aexandra Ocasio-Cortez. The women are all persons of color, and Representative Omar is a Muslim.

Mr. Trump initiated the controversy at 5:27 a.m. last Sunday when he unleashed this tweetstorm:

“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”

Apart from the obvious racism of telling anyone to go back where they came from, it misses the obvious fact that three of the four women were born in the United States. Rep. Omar is a naturalized citizen (like two of Mr. Trump’s three wives).

In the Newsweek interview, Stanley observed that Mr. Trump was expressing his “deep-seated commitment to fascism” as well as racism. "This whole administration has been orienting itself around attacking and vilifying ethnic minorities," he said. "It's horrifying to see."

"Fascist ideology is based upon the vilification of 'outsiders,' you know. It's an ideology that has, at its very center, panic and fear about outsiders. All fascist movements are toxically anti-immigration.”

"Fascist ideology says there's the nation and the members of the nation and they are ethnically defined and they face this mortal threat from leftism, communism, socialism and foreigners and so you would think the president has a choice: he could run saying well you know the economy's strength or he could run with one of the most toxic ideologies the world has ever seen... and that's what he's doing.”

In the Newsweek interview, Stanley insisted that today's journalists cannot equivocate in calling out Mr. Trump’s speech for what it is: racism.

"Journalists have two competing pressures: one is to represent the different sides in political debates and, two, is to tell the truth. These run into conflict with each other when you have a very extreme situation like the one we now face where, with one political side, there is no reasonable way to represent it."

Stanley argues that Mr. Trump “is utterly clear about his white nationalism and his racism.”

“You just have to call it what it is and not suggest that it's being misunderstood," he said.



Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

*The Jurgen Moltmann story was first included in a post originally published on August 16, 2017 in response to the Nazi demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia.

It Was Only a Flag

"If the world hates you, 
be aware that it hated me 
before it hated you."
John 15:18

When I arrived at the church this morning I discovered that someone had ripped down our Rainbow flag. Only a tattered fragment remained attached to the frame. The flag had survived less than a week. 

It was only a flag, of course. 

It’s not a big deal. No one was injured and there was no related property damage. 

But now that it is gone it feels like we have lost more than a flag.

How can anyone hate anyone that much?

We became a Reconciling Congregation five years ago. We did not do it sooner because it seemed unnecessary. We told ourselves that everyone already knew who we were and what we stood for, and we did not need to formally declare ourselves open to everyone regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation.

When we had the meeting to formally vote to become a Reconciling Congregation, several people wondered out loud whether it was really necessary. But only one person spoke against the proposal. She was new to our congregation. She said that she felt she had been sent by the Holy Spirit to tell us that homosexuality was a sin. She not only believed that it was an abomination, she believed literally in the biblical punishment of death, although she conceded that was not possible in the United States.

Those who had doubted the need to take a stand were immediately convinced. As one person wryly observed, “I think maybe she really was sent by the Holy Spirit . . . though not in the way that she believed.”

We announced the decision in our monthly newsletter, we put a statement on our website, and we include a statement in every Sunday’s worship bulletin.

But we did not put out a rainbow flag.

Because. 

Again. 

It seemed unnecessary.

But in the wake of the recent vote at the Special Session of General Conference in St. Louis at the end of February, we felt like we had to do something.

For those of us who are LGBTQIA and for those of us who love and respect our LGBTQIA siblings, the news was heartbreaking. 

The Special Session rejected a compromise that would have allowed each congregation to choose their own path, and by a narrow majority (53% to 47%) delegates passed the Traditionalist Plan which rejects marriage equality and makes mandatory penalties for clergy who officiate at same sex weddings. It strengthens the rules against ordaining or appointing LGBTQIA clergy. It also requires clergy and bishops to sign a loyalty oath stating that they will uphold those provisions of the Book of Discipline.

The new plan doubles down on what was already a bad policy. It is hateful and unchristian and we felt like we had to do something to make it clear that we were not them; that our local United Methodist Church was not in alignment with the vote in St. Louis.

Pastor Carol Reale found a large rectangular piece of fabric that had previously been used in a Sunday School program as part of Joseph’s “coat of many colors” and put it up out front. 

Then last week we got a real rainbow flag and Carol attached it to a frame by the church sign next to the road.

Last night at youth group, one of the kids, who is transgender, told her how much it meant to him to come to the church and see that sign. “It makes me so happy,” he said. “We have to keep it up forever!”

Yes. Apparently we do have to keep it up forever.

The flags are not expensive. We will buy more.

The hatred is a bigger problem.



Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Bigotry in the Name of God Is Blasphemy

Senators Tim Scott, Kamalah Harris and Cory Booker, sponsors of the Anti-Lynching Bill

Whoever says, “I am in the light,” while hating a brother or sister, is still in the darkness. Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates a brother or sister is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.
I John 2:9-11

For Christians, this is Epiphany, the season of light. We celebrate the light of the world, which we see in Jesus. And we remind ourselves that we believe in light rather than darkness.

Regardless of our religious affiliation or lack of it, light is a powerful image which speaks to the heart of our spiritual journey. We are always seeking more light; always doing our best to choose light over darkness; reminding ourselves that we can trust the light.

It is a struggle, because we are tempted by the darkness. Often the world seems to love darkness more than light. And there are some who will try to make us believe that darkness is light, and light is darkness.

Sometimes the campaign against the light is led by people who call themselves Christian.

In an online article for NBC News, Brooke Sopelsa reports that the Liberty Counsel, a self-proclaimed evangelical nonprofit that opposes gay rights, is opposing a bill that would explicitly make lynching a federal crime.

Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver explained that the group opposes the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act because it specifically includes protections for LGBTQ people.

"The old saying is once that camel gets the nose in the tent, you can't stop them from coming the rest of the way in," Staver told the conservative Christian news outlet OneNewsNow. “This is a way to slip it in under a so-called anti-lynching bill, and to then to sort of circle the wagon and then go for the juggler [sic] at some time in the future."

The anti-lynching bill was introduced in June by by the Senate’s three black members, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C. It addresses lynchings motivated by a victim’s “actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.”

In a statement after the bill passed the senate unanimously, Senator Booker remarked:

“For over a century, members of Congress have attempted to pass some version of a bill that would recognize lynching for what it is: a bias-motivated act of terror. And for more than a century, and more than 200 attempts, this body has failed. We have righted that wrong and taken corrective action that recognizes this stain on our country’s history.”

One might think that an anti-lynching bill was at least a century too late to make any difference, but the opposition proves it is still needed.

Mat Staver and the Liberty Counsel hope they can stop it before it passes the house where they are lobbying Lawmakers to remove protections for “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” before taking a vote.

They want to make it clear: they oppose lynching. They simply object to including the specific protections for LGBTQ persons.

The Liberty Counsel is not promoting liberty or Christianity. They are darkness rather than light.

In the words of John’s letter, “whoever hates a brother or sister is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go, because the darkness has brought on blindness.”

Epiphany is a good time to remind ourselves that Christians are always called to walk in the light, and choose light over darkness. Bigotry is always wrong.

But Christians have a special responsibility to reject bigotry in the name of God.

Bigotry in the name of God is blasphemy.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Traditionalism: Hardened Hearts and Dull Ears

Millennial Panel at Uniting Methodists Conference- photo by IRD

"For the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”
Matthew 15:6-9

Jesus is hard on traditionalists. It is a point that seems lost on today’s traditionalists, who wear that label proudly. And yes, they do wear it "proudly" in spite of the fact that Jesus is also critical of religious pride.

And few things are more traditional in response to those who are different, and marginalized for their differences, than a hard heart.

As Jesus says:

This people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.”
Matthew 13:15

The hardened heart of traditionalism was on full display in an article posted in the Juicy Ecumenism blog of The Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD).

In a post titled, “Uniting MethodistsPanelists: the Bible Is Wrong,” Dan Moran reports on a conference sponsored by the “Uniting Methodists” caucus and focusing on the “One Church Plan” endorsed by the Council of Bishops as a “Way Forward” for the United Methodist Church.

The article is almost entirely devoted to commentary on a panel discussion led by the Rev. Mike Baughman who is the lead pastor for Union, a new church start in Dallas, Texas. The participants were four young milennials who are leaders of the worship planning tea at Union. Moran voices disappointment that all of the panelists “were fully LBBTQ-affirming,” and then concludes that, “The unorthodox beliefs shared by these ‘Uniting Methodists’ panelists appear to speak clearly to the heart and future aspirations of this caucus and its preferred plan.”

Moran centers his analysis of the discussion on a comment by Lauren Manza, “who identifies as lesbian.” She was, in Moran’s words, “unabashed in criticizing the Bible itself.”

He writes that when she was speaking about same sex marriage and commenting on “the verses that traditionalists use to argue against it,” Moran reports that she said:

“I believe if I sat down with Paul today, Paul would say ‘I’m not down for that,’ but I think the Bible’s wrong.”

The emphasis is Moran’s.

That’s the issue. She thinks the Bible is wrong.

Clearly, for the traditionalists, that was was a “gotcha” moment.

And to make matters worse, Rev. Baughman did not correct her.

“Instead of providing a counterpoint to her attack on Biblical authority, Baughman continued Manza’s train of thought.” He recalled that there were times when a member of the worship planning team would ask, “Can we just say the Bible’s wrong?”

“One of the things that’s been interesting,” said Baughman, “is I think there is this sense among a lot of millennials that just because the Bible says something, that doesn’t mean it has any authority whatsoever.”

He is talking about the saying, not the Bible. The saying does not have authority just because it is in the Bible. Which is not the same as saying that the whole Bible has no authority.

Not surprisingly, the assertion that the Bible doesn’t have “any authority whatsoever” caught the attention of the traditionalists.

At last, the progressive agenda has been exposed!

One typical comment asks, “If the Bible is wrong, why do we even have it anymore? Just throw it out with the rest of our morals and “do our thing”. And then he adds, “Satan is alive and well in the Methodist Church – I know he is in ours.”

Moran summarizes it this way:

“Baughman and the panel ultimately presented an approach of disregarding the fundamental concept of the Bible as the ultimate source of religious truth and authority. They commended this approach to their audience on the grounds that some young Americans at this particular moment in cultural history find it acceptable. . . . If there was any doubt that the agenda of the ‘One Church Plan’ and its most enthusiastic supporters is liberalizing the UMC, this panel made it clear.”

The Uniting Methodists have a very different vision for the future of the UMC than the traditionalists do. And the biggest difference is that the Uniting Methodists want to preserve a place for the traditionalists, while the traditionalists have no place for the progressives. In the traditionalist plan, the progressives, like their LGBTQ siblings, are welcome to stay only if they cease to be progressive or gay.

Which leads me to three observations, a question, and a final comment:

First, the panelists were not talking about the Bible as a whole. They were talking about a few verses. And those verses are far from the center of the biblical message.

Second, the authority of Scripture is not verse by verse. The authority of the Bible is found in its great overarching themes of grace and justice and building the Kingdom of God on earth. Individual verses or passages can never be decisive.

Third, we all know that the Bible is “wrong” at many points. Even the most devoted hard line traditionalists don’t believe in executing people for having same sex relations. And that’s just the handiest example. One of the most important tasks of biblical interpretation is separating those things which are time-bound and reflect the limits of ancient culture from those truths which are eternal.

Fourth, a question: When did United Methodists become biblical inerrantists? Or biblical literalists, for that matter? There is nothing even remotely Wesleyan or Methodist about biblical inerrantism.

And finally, just for the record, I’m confident that if Lauren Manza could sit down with the Apostle Paul today, he would agree with her.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

And the Greatest of These Is Love

Captain Daniel Hall and Captain Vinny Franchino

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. 
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 13:1-8,13

On February 24, 2004 I spoke at a press conference of clergy supporting equal marriage. I remember the date because it was Elaine's birthday and in my remarks I referenced our marriage of (at that time) thirty-five years. 

"As a Christian," I said, "my support for same sex marriage is rooted and grounded in the theology of marriage itself. Marriage is a covenant between two people; a promise made before God and the community to love one another forever. We make this commitment in spite of the fact that we know that forever is not ours to give; it belongs to God. And the fulfillment of the commitment is never just a human effort; it is always a gift of grace."

Not long after that a woman in her eighties, one of the saints of the congregation, asked me to visit with her. She wanted to talk with me about her grandson who had recently told her that he was gay and that he was in a serious relationship.

The grandson and his partner had been fighter pilots in the Navy. They were graduates of Annapolis. But in the era of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” they had resigned their commissions and taken civilian jobs in the Pentagon. Even so, they were worried that if their relationship were known it could jeopardize their security clearances.

The young man’s parents, a wonderful couple, had been invited to share in the discussion and it was clear that they were fully supportive of their son. Their only concern was that we all understood the need for complete confidentiality.

Mildred was comforted by the thought that there were responsible and thoughtful Christians who supported same sex relationships. And she was glad that I was supporting equal marriage, but she could not completely let go of the reservations that she had lived with for so many decades.

The memory of Mildred’s grandson came to mind when I read the story of two Apache helicopter pilots who became the first active-duty same sex couple to be married in the chapel at the West Point military academy. Captain Daniel Hall and Captain Vinny Franchino met at West Point in 2009 when Hall was a senior and Franchino was a first year.

“We couldn’t tell the truth for fear of what would happen to us,” Franchino told a reporter. “So we put it in our minds that we were never going to say we were gay, we were never going to get made fun of, and we were certainly never going to get kicked out of the Army.”

When congress repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in 2011, the couple felt safe enough to go out on their first date, which took place in 2012.

Franchino said that although he’s been through a lot with his new husband, nothing was worse than when he had to hide his identity.

“We’ve experienced everything from people feeling awkward around us to being called faggots while holding hands and walking down the street, stuff like that,” Franchino said. “But despite what we’ve been through, nothing was worse than having served during the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ years.”

Mildred passed away before the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and I don’t know what became of her grandson and his partner. I would like to think they were married in the chapel at Annapolis and have been living happily ever after.

But this is a story that still casts a dark shadow.

One wonders how it is possible for the United States Army to be more loving than our beloved United Methodist Church. How can the army be ahead of the church when it comes to accepting and affirming our gay and lesbian siblings?

And as happy as I am to see a photo of the army captains embracing under the traditional arch of crossed swords after leaving the chapel, reading some of the comments on the story reminded me how deeply the Christian faith has been wounded by the hatefulness of some of those who call themselves by that name.

Consider this:

“An act of hate against God, mocking marriage. I have to wonder what these two boys are expecting to accomplish, committing such a sin. Homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God, after all, if they choose to be enslaved to that spiritual disorder.”

Or this:

“Despite the efforts of a liberal of a liberal society to normalize this behavior, it is not and never will be. This country is bombarded daily with stories of the ‘first gays to _________’(fill in the blank). Call me what you want, but I will never accept, condone, support, or recognize this behavior as anything but immoral and against the laws of God and nature.”

There is no excuse for such hatefulness. And disguising it as Christian faith just makes it worse. The comments are crudely written, but more polite language would not make the sentiments less offensive. Those who dress up such views with cleaner rhetoric do no less damage.

This is toxic. It is unloving and it is unlovable. 

It is a slander to our faith.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Christmas: A Lesson to Be Lived

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Luke 2:15-20

Like Mary, we should treasure the words of the story and ponder their meaning.

Unfortunately, if we do that, our peaceful holiday cheer will soon be displaced by a deep discomfort at the huge disconnect between the biblical message and our commercialized celebration of the holiday. Even before Jesus was born, in the proclamation brought by the angels to Zechariah and to Mary, Luke tells us that the baby will bring a challenging message about transforming our lives and the world around us.

On Christmas Eve, our Christmas Pageant closed with a wonderful poem by Howard Thurman,  an African American preacher and theologian, who was Dean of the Chapel at Boston University from 1953 to 1964. The poem is about what it means to take the Christmas message seriously. It is titled, “The Work of Christmas.”

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
           To find the lost,
           To heal the broken,
           To feed the hungry
           To release the prisoners,
           To rebuild the nations,
           To bring peace among people,
           To make music in the heart

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.