The Pennsylvania Grand Jury: First, Do No Harm

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. But if any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Matthew 18:1-6

Several times each year I use a portion of a prayer by Harry Emerson Fosdick that asks God to “Remind us of Jesus’ tender compassion for children and of his burning indignation against those who do them wrong. Remind us of his deep and overflowing love, drawing all children near to him.”

According to Matthew’s account, burning indignation would be an understatement. 

I have been thinking about the stories of clergy sex abuse and the cover ups by the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania. You can read an overview here, but I will not retell any of the painful testimonies offered by victims or the damning descriptions offered by investigators.

They are just too painful and too disgusting.

If you read the stories you will soon be in tears and then you will want to beat your head against a wall. The suffering of the victims is immeasurable. 

And there is no reason to believe that Pennsylvania is unique. Then beyond the pain inflicted directly on the victims, there is the pain done to the faith of so many others.

It would be bad enough if the problem were confined to the Catholic Church, but it isn’t.

And, of course, it isn’t confined to clergy.

But the clergy cases are uniquely troubling. Like teachers and coaches and physicians, we clergy are given roles of trust and responsibility in the lives of the people we serve. But the role of a clergyperson is sacred in a way that the other professions are not.

When someone comes to my office they need to feel safe and they need to be safe. They need to know that they will be listened to and respected and cared for. They need to know that whatever they share will be held in sacred trust. And they need to be both physically and emotionally safe.

In church, the pastor’s study and the worship space should each be a place of sanctuary.

Like many other congregations we have a “safe sanctuaries” program that provides guidelines to prevent opportunities for abusive relationships. Our offices and classrooms have windows. We don’t meet alone with children or youth. Those precautions ought not to be necessary, but the Pennsylvania cases remind us that they are.

In 1739 Methodist founder John Wesley provided three simple rules for the clergy and lay persons who were part of the Methodist movement. First, do no harm. Second, do good insofar as possible to all persons. And third, attend the public ordinances of God.

They all matter.

But the first one is first for a reason.

Do no harm. 

If we cannot keep that first rule, nothing else matters.

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. 

Thoughts on The Uniting Methodists Movement (Can the Center Hold?)

"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Matthew 5:11-12

It hardly qualifies as persecution, and it would be hyperbole to say that they have been subjected to “all kinds of evil” utterances, but Ginger Gaines-Cirelli and Adam Hamilton have certainly gotten a lot criticism for their leadership in the United Methodist centrist movement. 

Hamilton has national recognition as the founding pastor of a mega-church  of more than 20,000 members and Gaines-Cirelli is the Senior Pastor the most visible church in the  Reconciling Ministries Network.

The “Uniting Methodists” say that they are “Called to be a unifying and clarifying voice in a divided conversation and a polarized culture.”

It is a worthy vision.

Heaven knows the diagnosis is accurate. We are divided and polarized as a culture and there are deep an painful divisions within United Methodism. It remains to be seen whether this new group can be a unifying and clarifying voice.

They believe that faithful Christians can different views on same sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ persons. In simplest terms they want us, as a denomination, to agree to disagree.

I confess that I cannot accept the assertion that the exclusion of LGBTQ Christians from full participation in the life of the church is faithful to the Gospel. This does not mean that I believe that everyone who holds that position is an evil person. And it does not mean that we cannot have fellowship with one another. It does not mean that we cannot “agree to disagree,” but I cannot see the two perspectives as being equally valid interpretations of Christian faith and ethics.

In this argument the two sides do not have an equal claim on the truth.

And before we go any further it should be stated that although it has often been said that “there is pain on both sides,” that pain is not equal. 

United Methodist policies and positions over the last four decades have caused great harm to our LGBTQ siblings. For traditionalists to claim that the “pain” they feel at knowing that there are pastors in our denomination who celebrate same sex weddings and conferences that ordain gay clergy is somehow equivalent to the pain of exclusion and marginalization is disingenuous at best.

The Uniting Methodists Movement makes six affirmations:

• Disciples: Despite our differences, we are committed to remain a part of, and support, The United Methodist Church and to fulfill its mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
• Evangelism: We are committed to both evangelism and social justice as essential to the expression of vital United Methodism.
• Standards: We accept and uphold the Doctrinal Standards and Theological Task of The United Methodist Church as stated in our Discipline.  
• Interpretation: We believe our differences on the questions of same-sex marriage and ordination stem from differences over biblical interpretation, not biblical authority.
• Officiation: We call for disciplinary changes so that clergy are neither compelled to officiate at same-sex weddings, nor prohibited from doing so.
• Ordination: We call for disciplinary changes so that annual conferences are neither compelled to ordain LGBTQ persons, nor prohibited from doing so.

The first three affirmations are pretty straight forward. We might argue about how we interpret our Doctrinal Standards, and some traditionalists are still pushing for a literal interpretation of the Nicene Creed as a normative theological standard, but those issues are not new and they are probably not deal breakers.

On interpretation, we can expect some serious pushback from traditionalists, who have been adamant that the issue is biblical authority.  I have addressed that issue numerous times, so I won’t go into it here.

The most controversial of the affirmations are the last two.

It will be hard for traditionalists to accept same sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy within “their” denomination, even if they are not required to participate directly. 

As the pastor of a Reconciling Congregation who is committed to the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons, I am more concerned with the issue from that perspective.

The United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus lists their primary concerns:

• By trivializing LGBTQIA+ justice, the UMM does further injury to those who have already been harmed;
• The UMM does not fully take LGBTQIA+ voices into account;
• LGBTQIA+ persons could not sign on to the UMM plan without participating in our own oppression or that of other members of our community;
• The UMM is built on the delusion that the perpetuation of injustice is as moral as seeking of justice;
• The UMM breaches our principle of connectionalism – where all persons can “participate in every level of connectional life and ministry.;”
• It is as though we have become the Laodicean church described in Revelation: “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:16). To seek a middle ground between inclusion and discrimination is to place institutional preservation before our call to follow the way of Jesus, in whom we have the freedom “to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever form they present themselves.” (UMC Baptismal vows)

The Reconciling Ministries Network issued this assessment in their press release:

“The foundational statement of the UMM is another example of fellow United Methodists advocating for changes ‘about us, without us’ and once again asserts the false notion that a unity of substance can be achieved while discriminatory policies remain in place. The proposal joins a long tradition of prioritizing a surface level kind of unity over the well-being of LGBTQ people, particularly those most vulnerable in the South, and fails to embrace an unprecedented opportunity to set our church on a new course toward justice, reconciliation, and health.”

The most faithful and just “way forward” would be for the whole United Methodist Church to embrace the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons in every aspect of our life together. 

Sadly, that is extremely unlikely.

And there is no way that those of  us in favor of an inclusive church would agree to stop celebrating same sex weddings or ordaining qualified candidates regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

That leaves two options.

We can split into two (or more?) denominations, or we can embrace a future like that envisioned by the Uniting Methodists Movement.

Whether we split or remain united, the traditionalist churches and pastors and conferences will continue to do what they are presently doing, and the inclusive churches and pastors and conferences will also continue to do what they are presently doing. 

The only short-term difference is that if we split, then the folks on the other side will not be doing what they are doing in “our” name.

We will no longer be responsible for their unfaithfulness.

At this point, Adam Hamilton’s example is useful. Over time his position changed from traditionalist to favoring inclusion. That happened because he came into increasing contact with faithful Christians who happened to be gay. That happened in spite of the cost. When he came out to his congregation in favor of inclusion something like 800 members left the church in the next week. That is no small thing, even in a mega-church.

The culture is shifting on this issue. 

People are changing. 

One of the key questions we need to ask as we consider the future of the church is how we can best facilitate that change in the church and in the wider world.

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

A Parable about Healthcare in the United States

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney holds a copy of the 2018 budget proposal.

When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 
. . . . “Stand up, take your mat and go to your home.”And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
Mark 2:1-5, 11-12

This story is a wonderful parable about some of the key issues in the current debate about healthcare in the United States.

But I need to begin with a footnote.

The healing stories in the Gospels are always problematic texts for preaching, because all of us know people who have not been healed. At least, not in the way that they would wish. 

And it is important that Christians never, never burden those who are already suffering with the notion that if they had more faith they would, in fact, be healed. The healing power of God must always remain a mystery. And the forms of God’s healing must also be a mystery. But in spite of that caution, these stories speak to us in a profound way about our need for healing and about God’s vision for our lives.

In those days, in Palestine, houses were often made with a mud and thatch roof. Sometimes they were built into the side of a hill, so that you could actually around he side of the hill and up on top of the roof. And that’s what they did. When they couldn’t get in through the door, they went around the side and up the hill onto the roof. Then they set their friend down and began digging through the thatch and the mud.

The scripture says, “He was teaching them the word,” which probably means he was teaching Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Pentateuch, the Books of Moses). 

Suddenly, things begin to fall from the roof. 

Things begin to fall. First dirt and dust sifts down. Pretty soon Jesus can’t even tell his story. Everyone is looking up at the roof, and by now large chunks of things are falling on them. People scramble and cover their heads. And then the roof opens up. 

Jesus looks up there where there are these four guys looking down, probably pretty proud of themselves. What a great opportunity! They have been able to engage in an act of vandalism and do a good deed, a mizpah, at the same time. It just doesn’t get any better than that!

Before Jesus can say anything, the four guys are lowering a fifth guy down into the house right in front of Jesus. They lean down as far as they can, and then pass him to those in the house.

Jesus is amazed at what he sees. Mark observes, “When he saw their faith . . . .” Not the faith of the paralyzed man. He is marveling at the faith of the four guys who carried him through town and ripped up the roof. 

What a risk they took! 

“When he saw their faith, he said to the man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’” 

Somehow, Jesus understands that what is paralyzing this man is an overwhelming sense of guilt. There may be fear also, but guilt apparently plays a major role. He is so scared and so guilty, that he cannot even move. Jesus understands that the only way for the man to be healed is for him to feel a sense of grace and forgiveness. 

Jesus turns to the paralyzed man and says, “Take up your mat and walk!”

The man stands up. And takes his mat. And walks out of the house. People are in shock. The crow gathered around the house saw the man carried up onto the roof, and now they see him walking out the door. They are excited and amazed, and they shout, “We never saw anything like this!” Which is the only proper response to the church in action. 

When the church is really the church, when we are really being the people God has called us to be, the only proper response is, “We’ve never seen anything like this!” It is always amazing to believers and non-believers alike. 

In terms of the current healthcare debate, the story makes at least three important points.

First, when people can’t walk, we need to carry them.

The basic theory of health insurance is that the healthy people carry the sick people. And when we are dealing with serious illnesses like cancer and heart disease, where the costs of treatment are measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars, we need a lot more than four healthy people to carry one sick one.

The proposed American Healthcare Act, says that healthy people should not have to carry sick people, at least they should not have to carry as many or carry them as far. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 23 million people would lose their health insurance under the AHCA.

In a Sunday editorial, The New York Times describes it this way:

“Consider the fate of Medicaid, a program that provides health insurance to more than 74 million people, among them 60 percent of nursing home residents and millions of people with disabilities. Trumpcare would slash Medicaid spending by $834 billion over 10 years, according to the C.B.O. The president’s budget would take a further $610 billion from the program under the pretext of reforming it. Taken together, this amounts to an estimated 45 percent reduction by 2026 compared with current law, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says.”

Second, some people cannot be healed unless we carry them.

Jesus’ first response is not to the paralyzed man but to the guys who are carrying them. It is their faith that moves him to bless the paralytic.

If they had not carried him, he would not be healed.

The Times observes that the proposed AHCA, “would make it impossible for millions of people with pre-existing conditions like heart disease or diabetes to buy health insurance. That’s because the law would let states waive many of the requirements in the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 law known as Obamacare. It would also greatly increase the cost of insurance policies for older and poorer people, no matter where they live. By way of illustration, a 64-year-old earning $26,500 a year and living in a state not seeking waivers would have to pay $16,100 a year for coverage, nearly 10 times as much as she would under Obamacare.”

We can debate the exact numbers, but we know that without health insurance thousands of  people will die sooner and a much larger group will have their quality of life reduced dramatically.

And this will be done in order to reduce the burden on those who are healthiest and wealthiest. The healthy and the wealthy will not have to carry as many poor people.

The third point is counter intuitive.

In the parable of the paralyzed man the happiest and healthiest people are the four guys carrying their friend. Human beings are happiest when they are helping others.

To be fair, the four guys are probably happy about more than helping a friend. They get to parade him through the village against his will, and they get to rip up a roof and terrorize the people inside the house, and be praised for it. It doesn’t get any better than that.

The theory behind the AHCA and the budget being proposed to congress is that the happiness of the wealthy and the healthy can best be achieved by doing less for others and keeping more for ourselves. As the Times editorializes:

“Apart from inflicting hardship, what would Trumpcare and the president’s budget achieve? Mainly a windfall for wealthy families. The administration has not provided enough information to make good estimates, so it’s hard to say how much the rich would gain from the budget, although it would be a lot. We know more about Trumpcare. The Tax Policy Center estimates that almost all of the tax cuts in that legislation would flow to the rich: The top 1 percent would take home an average of $37,200 a year, while people with middle-class incomes would get a measly $300.”

Maybe Jesus is wrong. Maybe what really makes us happiest is having more money and doing less for others.

But I don’t believe that’s who we really want to be as individuals or as a country.

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

LGBTQ Civil Rights (A Lenten Lesson in Law and Grace)

Law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

Romans 5:20

Through the mysterious algorithms of Facebook I was reminded of a blog post I wrote six years ago after testifying in favor of Marriage Equality at a State House hearing.

It had been in many ways the perfect Lenten experience.

I was at the State House for almost six hours before it was my turn to testify.

I spoke briefly (but passionately, I hope) about how I believed that God is always calling us forward as Abraham and Sarah were called to leave home and journey toward "the land that I will show you." We are working toward the Kingdom of God and we are impatient with the present because we look for a future that will be more just. And I believe that Marriage Equality is part of a more just future.

While I waited and watched, I had a lot of time to reflect and meditate. (A good Lenten discipline.)

As a Christian it hurts to hear the Bible (and Jesus!) misused to promote an unholy trinity of tradition, fear and ignorance. One woman lamented the fact that until her testimony, no one had mentioned “the sin of sodomy.” She assured us that a same sex couple cannot really teach children about sin because their lives are immersed in sin. She told us that “it grieves our Lord and Savior, and his Blessed Mother in heaven.”

The Bible has over 30,000 verses, and there are, in fact, six brief passages that condemn homosexuality. None of them are in the Gospels. Oddly, they only condemn male homosexuality. Each of the passages is problematic in one way or another. And not one of them is addressed toward a faithful, committed, monogamous same sex relationship. But listening to some of these folks one would think that everything from Genesis to Revelation was written just to condemn homosexuality.

At times I felt like I had fallen into the Bible Study from hell. No wonder that to many people outside the church it looks like Christianity is fundamentally about self-righteousness and condemnation. This was a weaponized Gospel. Devoid of grace. Abounding in judgment. It was painful.

In a post last month I spoke of ours as "a time when so many Christians seem to hate immigrants (and LGBTQ people, and people of color, and poor people) so much more than they love Jesus." That statement drew immediate and fervent response from several traditionalists. Just because they believed something was sinful, they argued, that did not make them haters.

As an intellectual argument, it sounds plausible. But in practice it does not work. Expressing the belief that homosexuality, or "the practice of homosexuality," is sinful is experienced as hateful.

And that night at the State House there were many Christians who seemed to hate gay people a lot more than they loved Jesus.

“But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”

There were wonderful grace-filled stories told by parents about their gay children and by children about their gay parents. 

Partners told of their struggles to build a life together. 

A neuro-scientist talked clinically about studies of sexuality and the brain, and then introduced his brother, who is a pediatrician and cannot marry his partner.

Altogether it presented a very vivid illustration of Paul’s argument about law and grace in Romans. The more the traditionalists invoked the Law (Natural and Religious), the more “the trespass multiplied” by them against their sisters and brothers.

The Law was used as a club; in the apparent belief that if they could pound home their point with sufficient force, then they could make same sex relationships go away.

They are against Same Sex Marriage because they are against homosexuality, and they are against homosexuality, at least in part, because they do not believe that the Bible is a living Word. For them it is a dead letter. As Paul argued in his second letter to Corinth, “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” The dead letter of the Law can be used to wound, but it cannot heal and it cannot bring life.

We need to remind ourselves that we are called to be “ministers of a new covenant, not of letter, but of spirit: for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (II Corinthians 3:6)

Making Vulnerable Kids More Vulnerable

People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs."
Luke 18:15-16

Recently the Trump administration rescinded the guidelines given by the Department of Justice and the Department of Education requiring that public schools allow transgender students to use the bathrooms and facilities corresponding to their gender identity.

This means that the students most vulnerable to bullying and harassment are given less protection.

Those already most vulnerable are made even more vulnerable.

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, called it “a mean-spirited attack on hundreds of thousands of students who simply want to be their true selves and be treated with dignity while attending school,".

For decades, maybe centuries, transgender adults have been using the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity. Most transgender folks dress and look like the gender with which they identify. And the rest of us don’t think very much about it.

The situation for transgender kids is more difficult. Before they understood their gender identity as different from their biology at birth, classmates may have known them as a different gender. The trans male may have been known previously as female, or vice versa. This makes them uniquely vulnerable to bullying and harassment.

The goal of the original guidelines, put forth last year, was to give kids protection at this very vulnerable time in their lives.

In rescinding those protections, the Trump administration presented the actions of the Justice and Education departments as simply affirming the rights of the states to develop their own guidelines.

"As President Trump has clearly stated, he believes policy regarding transgender bathrooms should be decided at the state level," the White House said in a statement. "The joint decision made today by the Department of Justice and the Department of Education returning power to the states paves the way for an open and inclusive process to take place at the local level with input from parents, students, teachers and administrators."

Although the directive was presented as the shared product of Justice and Education, the
initiative came from Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Publicly, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was in agreement, but she was a reluctant participant.

She told Sessions about her reservations, but she was called in to the White House for a meeting with Sessions and Mr. Trump and was told to get on board.

"It was the President's decision," a source told CNN. "When the President tells you to do something you don't want to do, that is a hard spot to be in."

CNN reported that “DeVos reminded Trump that both of them had publicly promised to protect all students, and she felt that withdrawing the guidance ran counter to those promises. She was concerned that some people may interpret the action as removing protections.”

DeVos asked for clarification in the directive affirming that the rights of students would continue to be protected and assuring them that the Office of Civil Rights of the Education Department would investigate any complaints.

After the directive was released, Devos reaffirmed the Education Department’s responsibility "to protect every student in America and ensure that they have the freedom to learn and thrive in a safe and trusted environment.”

"This is not merely a federal mandate, but a moral obligation no individual, school, district or state can abdicate," she said in a statement. "At my direction, the department's Office for Civil Rights remains committed to investigating all claims of discrimination, bullying and harassment against those who are most vulnerable in our schools."

According to the Trump administration the guidelines protecting transgender students were withdrawn because the president believes that “policy regarding transgender bathrooms should be decided at the state level.”

In other words, the administration is claiming neutrality, which is another way of saying that they side with the bullies. 

As Bishop Tutu observed, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

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

Please Be Prepared to Stand Up When the Time Comes

The Leadership of Rising Hope United Methodist Church

When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:33-34

It is a small thing. Not much at all in the grand scheme of world events. And at first glance it may look more like darkness than light. But I believe that when the church stands up for the gospel, it matters.

This morning I received a letter from a United Methodist layperson in Virginia. His sister is a member of our church and he attends with her when he is visiting.

He enclosed a letter from the Alexandria District Superintendent, Rev. Jeff Mickle, addressed to the clergy of that district.

Rev. Mickle wrote to inform the pastors of what he called “a special cause for prayer and advocacy” in relation to the appropriately named Rising Hope United Methodist Church:

“On Wednesday morning of last week, February 8, as a group of homeless men left the Rising Hope hypothermia shelter at 6:45 a.m., a contingent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were stationed just across the street from the church to stop these men. The agents gathered the men (all Hispanic) and forced them to stand against a wall for two and a half hours while they were questioned. Many of the men had green cards, and no criminal warrants that would justify this kind of treatment. Eventually, about six men were arrested and taken away in vans.”

He went on to explain that he had participated in a prayer vigil and press conference held at the ICE Field Office in Fairfax County. Jim Wallis, of the Sojourners community, was one of the speakers, along with the Rev. Keary Kincannon, Lead Pastor of Rising Hope UMC, where the raid took place.

Rev. Mickle assured his colleagues that “Keary represented the call of Christ and the witness of the United Methodist Church very well.” And he reported an obvious but crucial point made by Jim Wallis, that "If the choice is between honoring a president’s campaign promise, or honoring the commands of Jesus, the Church has no choice but to follow Jesus, even if it leads us to stand up against the actions of the government.”

The District Superintendent went on to express his hope that “many of you can participate in solidarity with our brother Keary and in support of the ministry of Rising Hope UMC.”

“As you know,” he writes, “Jesus tells us that ‘inasmuch as you do it to the least of these, you do it to me,’ which specifies feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and welcoming the stranger.” When government agents stake out churches which are fulfilling the commands of Christ, it is important for other Christians to bear witness.

“Please keep the matter in your prayers in the days ahead,” he writes.

And then he adds:

“Please be prepared to stand up when the time comes.”

I guess if you are keeping score, the ICE agents won this one.

But for me it is still a sign of hope.

In a time when so many Christians seem to hate immigrants (and LGBTQ people, and people of color, and poor people) so much more than they love Jesus, I am thankful for Rising Hope UMC and the people who will stand up for the strangers who sojourn with us in our land.

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

Christian Faith and Transgender Kids

Kai Shappley at age 5 with her mom

Jesus said to his disciples, “Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”
Luke 17:1-2

At age 3 Joseph Shappley began telling her mom that she was a girl.

“From my earliest memories of my child, my child’s been very feminine,” says Kim Shappley. “It’s just always been that way. I don’t know how else to put it. I’m a strong, spirit-filled, Bible-believing, born-again Christian. I’m a Republican.”

‘This was just not going to happen,” she told herself. “At home I had three other boys. I had a very masculine home. Nothing feminine in the home, and Kai started telling us at age 3, ‘I’m a girl.’”

I read about Kim Shappley and her daughter Kai in an article by Nyssa Kruse in the Texas Observer. Biologically, Kai was born a male and she was named Joseph.

Joseph knew at age three that she was a girl. But Kim believed that if she prayed enough and fasted enough, she could change Kai back into Joseph.

Then Kai began having behavior problems at school. Kim recalls, “If another little girl brought a toy for show and tell on Friday, my child would do everything in their power to steal that toy and lie about stealing it. And it just continued to escalate.”

Kim learned of a little boy in Oregon, a four year old, who was beaten to death by his mom because he had acted gay. She said it was something that “kind of struck me hard.” So she began reaching out to her pediatrician and to psychiatrists, “and they all pretty consistently said the same thing: ‘This is a real thing.’”

Then one night when Kai said her prayers at bedtime she started crying and she asked God to “let Joseph go home and live with Jesus.”

As Kim describes that time:

“Joseph is Kai’s male birth name. Kai was actually just begging the Lord to just let her die. Who wants to hear their toddler pray that? And then it starts clicking: 41 percent suicide rate. A 41 percent suicide rate. Why? The suicide rate is high because they don’t have the family support. They don’t have the community support and their self-esteem and their self-worth.”

Kim’s faith shifted and she told herself, “I am a Bible-believing Christian. I love the Lord. But God makes no mistakes, and my child is fearfully and wonderfully made, just as the Scripture tells us.” 

She says she used to listen to other mothers of transgender children say that they just wanted their child to be happy, and in her self-righteousness she would think, “It’s not about your kid being happy. You need to train your child in the ways of the Lord and be a better mom.”

Kai begged her mom to buy her panties, and Kim says it took her three or four trips to Wal-Mart before she could finally go through with it. She put the panties in Kai’s drawer and when Kai discovered the princess panties she fell on the floor hugging her new panties and sobbing to her mom, “Thank you, Mommy, thank you.”

Kim explains, “the thing is, what I saw in my child, when Kai got those panties, was this joy and this peace I had never seen in this child, and I realize it’s not about ‘I’m going to give you these to make you happy,’ it’s about my child had never truly been happy before.”

“We’ve lost a lot of very important people out of our lives and there are some thoroughly burned bridges. My sister has disowned me. I watch cousins and aunts post horrible things about transgender people, trying to rally the troops against the militant gay agenda, that Satan was using these little kids. I will say we’ve lost the majority of our family. I feel like sometimes we’re on a little island, but through this transition, my kid, within a few short weeks, we weren’t having lying anymore. We weren’t having bed-wetting any- more. We have had no nightmares in the past year. No stealing at all. That all was just erased within a few weeks of this. I have a happy, healthy, outgoing, loving, beautiful, sweet little girl who loves Jesus and loves her brothers.”

Finally, Kim Shappley has some thoughts on what lawmakers and public officials could do to help transgender children:

“They could stop fueling the hate. They are making a dangerous and hostile environment for my child, for me, for our family with their hate. The bathroom deal — how did that become an issue? Transgender human beings have been using the gender-appropriate bathroom forever. Forever. And it didn’t become an issue until it was made an issue. The argument about “We can’t let this happen because it will let perverts into the bathroom” — well, hey, make a law that says perverts can’t go into the bathroom. Oh, wait, we already have that law.

“If we were to send my daughter into the men’s bathroom like lawmakers want, there we have a risk. Either she’s gonna get beaten up by people who’ve had their hatred fueled because there’s this beautiful woman in the bathroom with them, where lawmakers want her to go, or she’s gonna get raped because she’s a beautiful little woman. Let her go into the women’s bathroom. The only danger my daughter is gonna do in the women’s restroom that might be a little offensive is try to tell a woman how to fix her hair or makeup better.”

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

Hiroshima, Seventy-One Years Ago Today

Hiroshima after the Atomic Blast

“Blessed are the peacemakers, 
for they will be called children of God.”
Matthew 5:9

“War is essentially the denial of everything Christ stood for.”
Harry Emerson Fosdick

One of our summer traditions is going to the Patten Library book sale. The books sale is part of “Bath Heritage Days,” a festive occasion of craft fares, displays and sales. A few years ago I found a wonderful little book of sermons by Harry Emerson Fosdick called, “A Great Time to Be Alive.” 

Fosdick looks better and better to me as the years go by. When I was in seminary, I thought he was a theological and intellectual lightweight. In my estimation, opposing Fundamentalism was obvious. And didn’t he spend his whole career at Riverside Church, bought and paid for by Rockefeller money? But now, when I re-read “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” I am struck by its relevance for our time. Fosdick’s liberal theology, which seemed so pale and lifeless when I was in seminary, now looks both profound and prophetic. Truthfully, I held those negative opinions based almost entirely on what other people had said or written. My opinion changed as I began to read Fosdick for myself. 

Still, I was put off by the title of the book. I assumed that “A Great Time to Be Alive” would be a sugary recitation of happy insights from the 1950’s. Optimism pretending to be faith. A mid-twentieth century version of Joel Osteen. I bought it because I have a small collection of Fosdick books, but I did not expect much.

I was surprised to find a prophetic and  remarkably hopeful collection of sermons written and preached during the Second World War. Fosdick’s hope takes account of the stark reality of war, but also looks ahead to the possibilities beyond the war. 

The book was published in the summer of 1944, shortly after the Normandy invasion, when the outcome of the war was not yet certain. Fosdick had the courage, in that perilous time, to declare that war is always at odds with Christian teaching. It may be necessary, but it is never good. “Whether one thinks of what our enemies have done to us—of Warsaw, Lidice, Rotterdam, Coventry—or what we have done to them—‘We literally drop liquid fire on these cities,’ says one expert in air warfare, ‘and literally roast the populations to death.’”

He assumed that we would win the war. Hitler would be defeated and Imperial Japan would be vanquished, but the real challenge, he believed, would be to win the peace, to create a world which is worthy of the human lives lost in war. 

“Many Americans,” he wrote, “would love to save the world if only they could save it without changing their isolationism, without changing their ideas of absolute national sovereignty, without changing their racial prejudices and their economic ideas to fit the new interdependent world.” 

Sadly, those words are still relevant. We still want to save the world without giving up anything.

In many ways, we did “win the peace.” The Marshall Plan was an incredible effort to rebuild the nations we had defeated, and it led to decades of post-war prosperity. Although we still have a long way to go, we have made great strides in race relations. And the United Nations, for all its shortcomings, is still at the center of maintaining peace in the world. In other ways, we are still struggling to recognize the ties that bind us together and embrace the interdependence of God’s world.

In 2009 the Boston Globe described the bombing this way:

"Targeted for military reasons and for its terrain (flat for easier assessment of the aftermath), Hiroshima was home to approximately 250,000 people at the time of the bombing. The U.S. B-29 Superfortress bomber "Enola Gay" took off from Tinian Island very early on the morning of August 6th, carrying a single 4,000 kg (8,900 lb) uranium bomb codenamed "Little Boy". At 8:15 am, Little Boy was dropped from 9,400 m (31,000 ft) above the city, freefalling for 57 seconds while a complicated series of fuse triggers looked for a target height of 600 m (2,000 ft) above the ground. At the moment of detonation, a small explosive initiated a super-critical mass in 64 kg (141 lbs) of uranium. Of that 64 kg, only .7 kg (1.5 lbs) underwent fission, and of that mass, only 600 milligrams was converted into energy - an explosive energy that seared everything within a few miles, flattened the city below with a massive shockwave, set off a raging firestorm and bathed every living thing in deadly radiation. Nearly 70,000 people are believed to have been killed immediately, with possibly another 70,000 survivors dying of injuries and radiation exposure by 1950."

It is sobering to remember that the United States remains the first and only country ever to have used an atomic bomb. The Daily Mail published a stark pictorial of the immediate aftermath of the attack showing horrifically injured survivors wandering through the desolation, picking their way among the corpses just hours after the bomb was dropped. It is particularly chilling to realize that every person pictured would have died of radiation exposure in the weeks and months following the attack.

(Portions of this blog post were first published in 2009)

Bishop Karen Oliveto and Dixie Brewster

The Rev. Dr. Karen P. Oliveto was elected to the episcopacy on the 17th ballot by the Western Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church (UMC). Her wife, Robin Ridenour, stands with her.

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Luke 15:1-2

Last night the Western Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church elected the Rev. Dr. Karen Oliveto to the episcopacy. And they made history by electing the first openly gay bishop in the United Methodist Church.

Dr. Oliveto is currently the Senior Pastor of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, one of the largest United Methodist congregations in the country. 

Before her appointment to Glide, she served as the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and the Director of Contextual Education at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. She also served as pastor at Bethany UMC in San Francisco and at Bloomville UMC in Bloomville, New York. She also served as the Campus Minister at the Ecumenical House Campus Ministry at San Francisco State.

She did her undergraduate work at Drew University, where she also earned a Master of Philosophy and a Ph.D. She earned her Master of Divinity degree at the Pacific School of Religion. And she has been a leader in a number of agencies addressing the needs and hopes of people at the margins of society. She is known as an excellent preacher and a caring pastor.

She is, by every reasonable measure exactly the sort of person we should be electing to lead the church.

Except, of course, for the part about being openly gay. And in a partnered relationship.

Before the Western Jurisdiction delegates had finished celebrating, the delegates in the South Central Jurisdiction voted to ask the Judicial Council (the Methodist equivalent of the Supreme Court) for a declaratory ruling on the legality (in church terms) of the election.

The request, approved by 56% of the delegates, was made by Dixie Brewster (that really is her name), a lay woman from Kansas.

This is her motion for a "Declaratory Decision":

MOTION FOR A DECLARATORY DECISION

"Bishop, I move that the South Central Jurisdictional Conference request a declaratory decision from the Judicial Council on the following matter:

 "Is the nomination, election, consecration, and/or assignment as a bishop of The United Methodist Church of a person who claims to be a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” or is a spouse in a same-sex marriage lawful under The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church.

Specifically,

"What is the application, meaning and effect of ¶ 304.3, ¶ 310.2d, ¶ 341.6, and ¶ 2702.1 (a), (b), and (d) in regard to the nomination, election, consecration and/or assignment as bishop of a person who claims to be a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” or is a spouse in a same-sex marriage or civil union? 

Further —

• "Does a public record that a nominee for the episcopacy is a spouse in a same-sex marriage disqualify that person from nomination, election, consecration and/or assignment as a bishop in The United Methodist Church?

• "If a jurisdictional conference nominates, elects, consecrates, and/or assigns a person who, by virtue of being legally married or in a civil union under civil law to a same-sex partner, would be subject to a chargeable offense, is the action of the jurisdictional conference null and void?

• "Is it lawful for one or more of the bishops of a jurisdiction to consecrate a person as bishop when the bishop-elect is known by public record to be a spouse in a same-sex marriage or civil union?

• "When a bishop, district superintendent, district committee on ordained ministry, Board of Ordained Ministry, or clergy session becomes aware or is made aware that a clergy person is a spouse in a same sex marriage or civil union of public record, does such information in effect and in fact amount to a self-avowal of the practice of homosexuality as set forth in ¶ 304.3, related footnotes and related Judicial Council Decisions?"

I included the full resolution because it illustrates both the arcane nature of the Discipline and the lengths some will go to in order to prevent the full inclusion of LGBTQ persons in the life of the church.

In the twenty-first century, is this really what the church should be doing? Is this how we bring Good News to a hurting world? In the history books, this little chapter in the life of Methodism will look like the Salem witch trials.

But there is a larger point, which is illustrated in the scripture text (above) from Luke’s Gospel.

In an unintended way, Karen Oliveto and Dixie Brewster provide the perfect illustration for what the United Methodist Church ought to be. We ought to have a place for each of them. They both belong.

Of course, in order for that to work, Dixie Brewster would have to stop trying to exclude Karen Oliveto. But we ought to be a place where diverse opinions can peacefully coexist. And at our best we have been that place.

We sometimes ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?”

We know from the Gospel records, that he would be advocating for those at the margins, for those who are excluded.

But I believe he would also be taking Dixie Brewster out to lunch.

A Good Week for Those on the Margins

Attorney General Loretta Lynch

“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets”
Matthew 7:12

The “others” about him Jesus was most concerned, were always those on the margins. It is hard to think about a more marginalized group in American society than the transgender community.

This was a good week for those on the margins.

On Monday the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the state of North Carolina, asserting that the state’s recent enactment of HB2, a law compelling transgender persons to us the bathroom corresponding to the gender on their birth certificates, and generally prohibiting cities from enacting laws protecting LGBTQ people, violated their civil rights. 

Echoing themes from the Hebrew prophets and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Attorney General Loretta Lynch described the law as “state sponsored discrimination.” Though she did not explicitly compare it to Jim Crow laws, she made the connection clear. 

“You have been told,” Lynch declared, “that this law protects vulnerable populations from harm. That is just not the case.” And she explained: “What this law does is inflict further indignity for a population that has already suffered far more than its fair share. This law provides no benefit to society, and all it does is harm innocent Americans.”

Speaking to the transgender community across the country, she promised, "We stand with you. And we will do everything we can to protect you going forward. Please know that history is on your side." 

Today, the Department of Education made good on that promise by issuing a letter to every school district in the country informing them that discrimination against transgender students is a violation of federal civil rights laws.

Education Secretary John B. King issued a statement saying that “No student should ever have to go through the experience of feeling unwelcome at school or on a college campus.’

Sounding more like a pastor than a school administrator, King spoke of what he wanted the educational community to look like: “We must ensure that our young people know that whoever they are and wherever they come from, they have the opportunity to get a great education in an environment free from discrimination, harassment and violence.”

In an article in The Atlantic, Matt Ford describes the letter as providing “the most detailed federal guidance yet for educators on transgender students and their rights, the departments interpret anti-discrimination laws to apply when a parent or guardian tells school administrators about their child’s gender identity.”

The letter specifically tells school districts that they cannot discriminate against students who choose a bathroom or locker room based on their gender identity rather than the gender on their birth certificate. There are also guidelines on athletics, graduation ceremonies, yearbooks, and other programs.

Ford observes that the letter does not carry legal force, but it puts administrators and teachers that “discrimination against transgender students could bring sanctions, including the painful loss of federal funding.”

For those who care about justice and treating others as we would like to be treated, it was a good week.

Justice Antonin Scalia and Occasions for Stumbling

Justice Antonin Scalia 1936-2016

“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling block comes!”
Matthew 18:6-7

When I was preparing to apply for college the high school guidance counselor met with me and my parents to talk about the process. 

Given our very modest family financial resources, I had focused first on state schools and I had considered beginning at a community college and then transferring to a four year school. But then my English teacher, Barbara Ford, took an interest in my situation and gave me some life changing advice. “Trench,” she said in her typically authoritative manner, “you need to apply to a school that can give you a scholarship. Have you ever heard of Wesleyan University?”

My guidance counselor knew that Mrs. Ford had been meddling in his business and he wanted to make sure I understood that the Wesleyan idea was not really a good one. Even if I could get a scholarship, most of the other students would have very different lifestyles than mine. They would be skiing in Switzerland and driving fancy cars. And on top of that, a large percentage would have gone to prep schools and they would be way ahead of me academically. 

The bottom line was that he was sure I would be more comfortable with people in my own socio-economic demographic. 

The cautions of my high school guidance counselor came back to me when I read Justice Antonin Scalia’s remarks this past December in relation to affirmative action at the University of Texas in Austin. 

“There are those,” Scalia observed, “who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas [Austin] where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less advanced school, a less -- a slower track school where they do well.” He contended that blacks might to better at “lesser schools where they do not feel that they're being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them.”

Technically, Justice Scalia was not necessarily telling us what he thought, he was only noting what “others” had said and citing studies claiming to prove that point. Underneath the veneer of a soft spoken attempt to sound reasonable, what he was saying something less than a repackaging of the “separate but equal” argument of segregation. Justice Scalia was advocating separate and not equal, and contending that this was better than equality.

And this was not his first venture into a tortured defense of historic bias.

In 2003, when the Supreme Court struck down a law that made consensual sex between consenting adults of the same sex illegal, Scalia wrote a typically scathing dissent.

“Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.” 

He went on to say that, “Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children’s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a life style that they believe to be immoral and destructive.”

In an earlier decision, his disdain for the LGBTQ community was even more pointed. “Of course,” he began with measured reasonableness, “it is our moral heritage that one should not hate any human being or class of human beings.” And then he made his argument with remarkable venom, “But I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible --murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals -- and could exhibit even 'animus' toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of 'animus' at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct.”

Stephen Carter, a professor at Yale University Law School, reported that shortly after news of Justice Scalia’s death broke, his Twitter feed “began to fill with hate.” And he made it clear that he meant exactly what he said, “Not disagreement or disrespect -- actual hate. He was an ignorant waste of flesh, wrote one young fool. His death was the best news in decades, cheered another. Then there was the woman who just had to tell the world that she felt safer now than she had at the death of Osama bin Laden. And several people expressed the hope -- the hope! -- that Clarence Thomas would die next.”

Carter argues that even those who disagreed with Justice Scalia should be able to respect him as a person and appreciate his many good qualities.

Scalia was a brilliant legal scholar and a gifted writer. Those who knew him say that he was witty and kind. He was a devout Roman Catholic. He had a deep friendship with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, although they were diametrically opposed in their approach to the law. I am impressed by his ability to cultivate friendships with those with whom he disagreed.

But his wonderful qualities do not change the fact that he often used his wit and skill in ways that were deeply hurtful to minority groups. If he had not been so gifted, he would have done less damage to the aspirations of those on the margins of our society.

Justice Scalia was a proponent of Constitutional “originalism.” He believed that his task was to determine the original intent of those who wrote the law and then follow it. A jurist should be like a baseball umpire calling balls and strikes. The umpire does not change the strike zone or add his own interpretation of what is or isn’t a strike, he just calls them as he sees them. 

The problem is that such an approach always favors the status quo. And the status quo always favors those who have power against those who are powerless.

When we consider the original intent of the framers of the constitution, it is useful to remember that they were white male landowners. Many were slave owners. They were relatively rich. And they saw the world from that perspective.

In that context, I find myself more comfortable with Jeffrey Toobin’s critical remembrance of Justice Scalia than with the many gushing eulogies that seem to remember only his positive characteristics. He was brilliant. But he used his brilliance to maintain oppression, rather than to alleviate it.

I want to think of him more positively, but I can’t.

He gave others a “cause for stumbling.” He gave intellectual cover for racism and bigotry, even if he did not feel those things in his own heart.

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Syrian children wait to receive aid from humanitarian agencies in refugee camp.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, 
for they will be called children of God.”
Matthew 5:9

It is not much.

But the United States and Russia have announced an agreement to deliver humanitarian aid to besieged Syrian cities suffering starvation after years of civil war. And the delivery of aid would be followed by a temporary halt to the carnage.

Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry repeatedly cautioned that the agreement only exists on paper. “What we have here are words on paper, what we need to see in the next few days are actions on the ground," said Kerry.

The BBC reports five major components of the plan:

• To try to immediately step up aid deliveries to besieged and hard-to-reach areas in Syria.
• For a US/Russia-led task force to work to achieve a "cessation of hostilities" across Syria beginning in one week's time.
• "Cessation of hostilities" will exclude action against so-called Islamic State group, jihadist group al-Nusra Front and other UN-designated terrorist groups.
• To work towards an eventual ceasefire and implementation of a UN-backed plan for political transition in Syria.

The agreement does not include ISIS. U.S. allies will continue to bomb ISIS forces. And the cessation of hostilities will not take place for a week, if it takes place at all. As Secretary of State John Kerry observed, “The real test is whether all parties honor those commitments.”

The United Nations has announced its determination to use the temporary (and incomplete) truce to deliver as much aid as possible to besieged cities and towns. And the hope is that this brief respite will be an opportunity for further negotiation aimed at a settlement. Speaking for one segment of the rebel coalition, told reporters, "If we see action and implementation on the ground, we will be soon in Geneva," referring to the Swiss city where the United Nations hopes to broker peace talks between the rebels and the Syrian government.

The cost so far has been staggering. In the almost five years of civil war over 250,000 people have been killed and another 13.5 million refugees have been displaced.

And even in a region known for complicated alliances and allegiances, the Syrian civil war is a special case. Bashar al-Assad is a brutal dictator who has used chemical weapons on his own people, but he is also part of the Alawite minority and the protector of the Alawite people against the Sunni majority. The rebels who oppose him include many fighting for democracy, but the opposition also includes ISIS and those who sympathize with their goals. Assad has the support of Iran and Russia, both claiming to be fighting ISIS, but their major efforts seem directed toward propping up Assad.

The good guys are hard to find, but the suffering is everywhere.

Peacemaking is always difficult. It is especially difficult in the Middle East, where hostilities and antagonisms have been nurtured over centuries. And even by the standards of conflict in the Middle East, the Syrian civil war is in a class by itself.

And the difficulty of peacemaking is compounded because violence always seems so uncomplicated. As one presidential candidate declared with regard to ISIS in Syria, “We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion. I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out!”

Jesus called peacemakers the children of God. He also made it clear that those who waged peace would routinely be slandered and ridiculed. 

When peacemaking fails, we call it naïve. When violence fails, as it has in Syria and throughout the Middle East, we call for more deadly force.

If peacemaking fails, it is evidence that we need more violence.

If violence fails, it is evidence that we need more violence.

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”
Luke 19:41-42