God Matters: A sermon on Moses, the Israelite people, and the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Ken| Leave a comment

Note: Between schoolwork and a part-time job, I am not able to make weekly posts. However, I will use this blog to record any sermons that I write, and I look forward to making other posts when I can. This is a written version of the sermon I delivered on Sunday, October 9th at Broad St. United Methodist Church.

This week, as I was preparing for my sermon, I came across a startling piece in the Columbus Dispatch, of all places. The opening especially caught my attention.  I will read the first few paragraphs.

“The devastation is plain to see, in nearly every city and community across America. Less apparent is the outrage.

As many black children slide deeper into poverty, dysfunction, and despair – nearly 46% of those younger than 5 are now poor – child-welfare advocates question whether the nation has gone numb to the problems.

‘How is it that ordinary people of faith are not up in arms?’ asked Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Washington-based Children’s Defense Fund.

‘Something’s come loose,’ she said. ‘We are normalizing poverty.’”

While minority communities have been disproportionately affected by the present economic crisis, poverty is on the rise all across our nation, not just among black Americans.  The same study from the Children’s Defense Fund reports that 17% of white children in Ohio are poor.  Since I graduated from high school in 2006, the school district I attended in suburban Detroit has reported a three-fold increase in the number of students who qualify for reduced-price lunches.  Overall, 1 in 5 children in the United States are poor.

Faced with these grim statistics, Edelman’s comment is unnerving.  How is it that ordinary people of faith are not up in arms?

Unfortunately, I think many of us have an answer.  Over the last three decades, the rest of the nation has not been doing so well, either. Americans are working more hours than any time in living memory, and they are doing so for less pay.  As corporations have cut back on their workforce, they have managed to do so with little impact on their productivity, simply shifting the work from eliminated positions onto their remaining employees. The average American worker is working longer than ever before, producing more than ever before, and is coming home at the end of the day with less pay.

Our increasing workload is creating stress and burnout.  When we are away from work, with whatever remaining hours of the day we have left, we find the need to decompress from the stress of our day. In the midst of a system that is putting more pressure on each one of us, who has the time or resources to look after the less fortunate? We are spending more and more time looking out for ourselves.

The church has responded to stress and burnout among its members by creating spaces for decompression and reflection. New forms of worship in the “emergent” Christian movement place emphasis on quiet spiritual centering.  Taizé worship, which is modeled after the practices of a monastic community in France, has become popular in the US and is based around prayer and meditation.  We seek to connect with God away from anything that reminds us of the hustle and bustle of the workplace.

We can easily put ourselves in the place of Moses, then, in today’s text from the lectionary (Exodus 32:1-14). Moses has just finished a long campaign to get his people out of Egypt. He has had to contend with Pharoah, the most powerful man in Egypt. He had to outrun Pharoah’s chariots. If you think that your workload is immense, imagine parting the Red Sea!

When God summons Moses to the mountain, Moses is ready for a break.  He’s tired.  He’s burned out.  He’s ready for some personal time with God.  After a stressful season, Moses must have felt like he was in heaven to have so much time with God.

Then Moses is interrupted.  He gets a call from God.  In today’s world, you can imagine the ring of a cell phone breaking the silence.  God shares with Moses what has gone on with the Israelites in his absence.  Moses’ brother, Aaron, is acting up.  Aaron has appealed to the worst of the Israelites’ desires, fashioning them an idol.  After all they have been through, the Israelites have forgotten God, and they give the credit for their deliverance to a golden calf.

If you were Moses, what would you do? Would you be eager to go and set things right with your brother? Or would you stand aside, happy to see your brother get what he is due?  Many siblings would make the latter choice.

Moses could have separated himself from his brother and his people, and if you’ll notice in the text, he even could have done so with God’s blessing.  He could have taken God up on God’s offer for a new people and watched the Israelites get what they had coming to them. But Moses does not do this.  He chooses instead to stand with his people, between them and the punishment that is due them.  In doing so, Moses does not just forgo individual glory, he also risks his own status with God to stand with his people.  He risks sharing in the punishment that is due his people.

Why does Moses do this?  The text features an interesting encounter between Moses and God in which Moses does something very unusual – he changes God’s mind.  Their dialogue provides some interesting clues to Moses’ motives and the nature of his relationship with God.

In the dialogue, Moses first appeals to God’s sense of compassion. “Why does your wrath burn hot against your people?” he asks.  Moses knows that God could only have delivered the Israelites out of love for them.  Moses also acts from his own compassion.  Moses knows that in having left behind all they knew in the land of Egypt, his people are in a vulnerable position.  They are rightfully wondering if they have lost Moses, too.  Because of their losses, they regard what little possessions they have left – their gold earrings – to be worthy of admiration.

Next, Moses brings up the issue of God’s reputation.  Since Moses has given himself to God, God’s reputation will reflect on Moses.  They are in it together.  If God destroyed the Israelites, what would make God different than the Gods of Egypt? Destroying the Israelites would be a victory for Pharoah.  It would give the Egyptians permission to worship their own Gods, who it turns out are not different from the God of the Israelites.  It could embolden them to return, hunt down, and enslave the remaining members of God’s faithful people with no fear of retribution from God.

Lastly, Moses turns to the issue of his ancestors. Moses understands that he has not simply “earned” God’s favor.  He has inherited the covenant passed down to him through Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.  Moses has taken on the identity of his people, and he understands himself to be part of a trajectory that is timeless.

These three pleas reveal that Moses has not simply devoted himself to God because God is the Almighty.  Moses grew up in Pharaoh’s palace, and had he remained, he could have had the favor of powerful people for the rest of his life.  When Moses leaves his life of luxury to live as a shepherd in the desert, he chooses to dedicate his life to something more than power.  He chooses to live a life organized around the principles of simplicity, goodness, and compassion.

Moses is not interested in winning anyone’s favor.  When he responds to God’s call at the burning bush, he responds because God promises him a future full of hope and new life.  Moses enters into a partnership with God in which they hold each other accountable. He does not simply receive instruction from God. God has made a promise to Moses, and Moses has made a promise to God.  Letting God destroy the Israelites would be a destruction of the covenant they made together.

It is easy to think of idol worship as a thing of the past.  People no longer make offerings to golden calves, right?

In 2008, just one month after the financial collapse on Wall Street, a disturbing picture circulated the internet.  A group of self-identified Christians gathered before the bronze Wall Street bull to pray for the restoration of the financial sector.  While this situation is not quite analogous to the situation of Aaron and the Israelites, it speaks volumes about the priorities of the culture in which we live.  Afraid of seeing a decline in their own level of wealth to which they had grown accustomed, these Christians turned to the only power they knew – Wall Street finance – to save them.

During the last three years and beyond, many people have lost their jobs, seen cutbacks in wages, and are putting in more hours on the job.  In the midst of the destruction caused in the wake of our floundering economy, it is tempting to withdraw from the world.  It is tempting to retreat to the mountaintop where we can be alone with God, away from the sin and chaos around us.

But like the Israelites, people are looking for those of us in the faith community to lead them out of this mess.  They are wondering where we have gone.  And if we continue our absence, we do so at the peril of the faith that we have come to believe in.

Just like the Israelites, people around us are doubting the relevance of the church.  This is especially pronounced among young people, many of whom have been hit hardest by the economic depression.  Studies show that the fastest growing religion among young people is “none,” that is, no religious affiliation (see this post for more).  During young people’s lifetimes, religion has been defined through a series of high-profile religious conflicts, and many young people cannot see any promise that religion holds for them.

Many of these young people are now gathering in lower Manhattan as part of a group called Occupy Wall Street.  The Occupy Wall Street folks have been criticized for not knowing who they are and what they are about, but this is shortsighted.  There is a powerful feeling of solidarity bonding these people together.  They have articulated why they are doing what they are doing.  Having graduated from college, they have found themselves unemployed, underemployed, underpaid, and saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.  They are protesting a system in which they claim 99% of the population must live with the decisions made by 1%.  They feel that they have done everything right and that a promise has been broken to them – the promise of the American Dream.

Marian Wright Edelman’s comment comes back to me, and I cannot help but notice the absence of the church in these demonstrations.  What if the Occupy Wall Street folks know who they are, and it is the rest of us who have forgotten?  We follow the God who worked with Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. We follow the God who marched with the Civil Rights activists who overturned the Jim Crow laws of the South.  The United States may not be delivering on its promise of the American Dream, but we know another kind of promise.  God has promised to get us to the Promised Land, and if the church will stand with the peoples of this world, God does not break God’s promises.

Throughout history, God has had helpers.  God had our ancestors Abraham, Isaac, Israel, and Moses.  God had Rosa Parks and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  God came alive in human form through the person of Jesus Christ, whose ministry we claim to carry forward today.  God needs us, the church, to do God’s work.  God is waiting for us to stand with our people, and when we do, God will be on our side.

The church is still relevant because God is still relevant. God still matters. That’s the message we have to share, and that’s the message that people are looking for.  God does not break God’s promises.  God has promised to get us to the promised land, and with our intervention, God will deliver.

As Dr. King famously said in his last speech in Memphis, “I’ve been to the mountaintop.” As people of faith, we have been to the mountaintop.  The world is desperate to know what we have seen. Like Moses, let us stand with our people for the glory of God and the future of humankind. Amen.

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Wounded Witness

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Ken| 3 Comments

As part of my internship duties at Broad Street United Methodist Church, I am occasionally asked to preach.  Our church follows the lectionary, a rotating set of themes and passages from scripture that follows the Christian calendar.  This takes a little freedom away from the preacher, but it is a spiritual practice that allows Christian disciples to follow the Christian story chronologically in their lives.  So, through no choice of my own, I was thrilled this Sunday to preach on one of my favorite texts, from John 20:19 – 31, which deals with the story of Thomas and his experience of the resurrected Christ.

You probably know Thomas more familiarly as “doubting Thomas”, the man who refused to believe in the resurrected Christ until he was offered physical proof of the crucifixion.  The traditional version of the story offered by the church suggests that since Jesus ascended into heaven, none of us will get to see physical proof of Christ’s resurrection, and therefore Thomas’ doubt is the opposite of Christian faith.  Tragically, this view diminishes the continuing power of the resurrection through the church and scapegoats one of the most faithful disciples of Jesus.  Today, I hope to provide a new perspective on Thomas, as I feel his doubt is an essential part of Christian faith.

While doubt may not be the opposite of faith, unquestioning faith is the opposite of doubt.  The world is filled with many different accounts of reality, and we would be walking contradictions if we were to believe them all.  Current events are presented differently by different media outlets.  Political parties offer different explanations of the world’s crises.  Some of these accounts are accurate, some are partially accurate, while others have been manipulated to meet the demands of wealth and power.  Without doubt, we would be unable to distinguish good reporting from bad reporting and responsible politics from pandering politics.  Doubt allows us to recognize the flaws of the world around us so we may come to a deeper, more accurate perception of the world.

Doubt is also part of learning and growing in faith.  Without doubt, our faith becomes static, unmoving, and fixed.  We confine the infinite power and mystery of God inside the bounds of human understanding.  Without doubt we claim total knowledge of God, and we risk making an idol of our faith!  Doubt leads us away from limited understanding to deeper, more accurate faith.

I believe the church commits a big sin when it portrays Thomas’ doubt as the opposite of faith.  It denies Thomas’ incredible faith as one of the twelve disciples.  Thomas’ doubt stems not from an absence of faith; rather, his doubt stems directly from the total faith he invested in Jesus for three years.  Thomas gave up everything – family, friends, possessions, privacy – to follow Jesus, and he experienced life more fully than he ever could have imagined.  If you were in Thomas’ shoes, what would it have felt like to see Jesus die on the cross?  You can imagine feelings of anger, hurt, hopelessness, abandonment, and confusion.

Thomas and the others endured great suffering with the death of Jesus.  It seemed to them the death not just of their friend and teacher but also the way of life they had committed themselves to.  Jesus was powerless in the face of Roman law and order, and the crucifixion made his teachings seem shallow  and naïve.  In the face of violence, Jesus’ teachings must have seemed a nice dream that did not pass the “real world” test.  The disciples likely felt shamed and embarrassed at the simplistic, idealistic faith they had given themselves to.  When Thomas asks to see Jesus’ wounds, he is asking to see proof that Jesus is not an illusion from the past but a real force that has survived execution at the hands of the world’s most powerful empire.

Thomas is not around the first time Jesus appears to the disciples.  The text does not say where he was.  I imagine he was dealing with his grief in private.  But a week later, he rejoins his old friends, who perhaps provided him with one last sense of the life he had lost.  And in the company of the re-assembled disciples, Jesus appears again.

Jesus does not rebuke Thomas for having doubted.  Instead, he reveals himself, wounds and all.  Jesus’ wounds are Thomas’ wounds.  In revealing his wounds, Jesus affirms the reality of the pain and suffering Thomas experienced in the wake of the crucifixion.  Jesus does not ask Thomas to return to an untested faith, a faith that seemed juvenile in the face of real-world violence.  Jesus’ presence reveals a new faith that is very real, as real as pain and suffering is real.  His wounds reveal a new faith that bears the marks of the world and lives on.

Until we know pain and suffering, it is easy to follow Jesus.  It is in our nature to love.  Several times Jesus told his followers that unless they became like little children, they could not know the kingdom of God.  What did Jesus mean?  Jesus was not asking his followers to turn back the wheels of time.  He was not asking them to reverse the biological process of aging.  He was not asking folks to give up the responsibilities that come with age.  Instead, Jesus was referring to the ease with which children love God and love neighbor.  It is our nature to love God and to love neighbor as self.  That is easy for us to believe, and it is easy for others to believe.

But there are a lot of forces in the world working against Jesus, and this is where we have questions of faith.  Many of these forces seem far more powerful than our Christ.  The same kind of power that killed Jesus exists in the world today – empire, religious authority, greed, fear, etc.  The people who worship these powers know that they have a physical advantage on their side, and they often get their way.  In the face of this kind of power, the power that appeared to defeat Jesus, it is natural to doubt the resurrection of Jesus.  What could faith look like that rises beyond this kind of power?  Has anyone seen this kind of faith?

I have.  I see it in the faces of the homeless at our church, who bear visible signs of the toughness and roughness of the streets but enter with smiles on their faces.  I see it in the faces of victims of domestic abuse who move beyond destructive relationships with dignity and pride.  I see it in the faith of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Christians, who in spite of rejection in the church believe in its transformation.  I see it in the faces of our teachers who, in the midst of rapidly diminishing support for public education, retain love for their students and for their profession.  I see it in the faces of the people of the Middle East, who are standing up to longtime dictators at the risk of losing their lives.  These people bear the scars of forces that are much more powerful than they, but it is through the faith of these people that Christ is alive, resurrected, and creating a better world.

On September 11, 2001, the people of the United States of America were wounded.  Nearly 3000 people lost their lives.  The nation’s values of freedom and democracy seemed threatened by a small, elusive operation that proved impossible to find after ten years and two wars.  Now that the US has found bin Laden, it is tempting to say that our actions have been successful in protecting our values.  For much of the rest of the world, however, our actions have created more questions about our value system, not fewer.  Has justice truly been served to the 9/11 families, who will never get their loved ones back?  Has justice been served to the soldiers who have lost their lives and to their grieving families?  Has justice been served to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, who have suffered untold (thousands? hundreds of thousands? a million?) numbers of civilian casualties?  Has justice been served to the poor in our own nation, whose vital social services are being cut due to the debt we have accumulated to finance our wars?

Until we face the threat of violence, it is easy to believe in the ways of Jesus.  Let us not look down upon those who doubt.  Their questions, and our questions, stem from the deepest, most wounded parts of ourselves.  Let us understand each other’s wounds as our own, and may our questions call out the false Gods in each other and reveal the true power of the resurrected Christ.  Through our faithful works, God does work, and on God’s time, God’s power exceeds all the worldly powers.

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The Easter story: A skeptic’s struggle

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Ken| 3 Comments

I am back!  It has been a very busy few weeks, with Holy Week and Easter services to prepare for, and I have found it difficult to update this blog.  That is the challenging thing about writing – it comes from a space of critical thinking and creativity, which requires the mind to be free of distraction and worry.

In addition, I have been wondering how to broach the topic of Easter with the readers of this blog.  During my days as a religious skeptic (if I may not still be classified as such), the Easter story seemed to me one of the most unacceptable claims of Christianity.  God raised a man from the dead?  If God exists, and if God is capable of raising people back from the dead, why hasn’t God brought more people back from the dead in the last 2,000 years?  I can think of some good candidates.  I bet you can, too.

The traditional view of Jesus’ resurrection is based on the accounts of people who lived nearly 2000 years ago, and their testimonies were passed down verbally for several generations before being committed down to paper.  The traditional version of the story still holds tremendous truth and power for people rooted deeply in religious tradition, but for those who understand the world primarily through a modern scientific and historical lens, this version of the story alone is unbelievable.

Some Christians seek to adapt the Easter story to the modern perspective by speaking of Jesus’ resurrection as a “spiritual,” or non-physical, event.  Unwittingly, this perspective suggests that the tradition of the church has little bearing on the present and that religion is nothing but fantasy.  Our modern, secular world is desperate for faith that is real and tangible.  No wonder this version of the resurrection story has failed to captivate or inspire.

When I began to embrace Christianity in college, it was the life and teachings of Jesus that won my affections, not Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The Easter story remained an obstacle to my embracing Christianity fully.  This year, something changed.  For the first Easter ever, Jesus’ resurrection has become real for me.  It has become real not spiritually but in a physical way.  In my own body, in my own flesh, the resurrection story speaks to me as if I were there.  On the one hand, the change has been subtle.  I have had no conversion moment, nor have I rejected modern scientific and historical analysis.  Yet now, without reservation, I can join in that ancient greeting and say, “Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!”  To know and to feel that is nothing subtle.

There are many ways of understanding the resurrection, and our understandings will inevitably change throughout time.  I believe that the resurrection is something to be experienced, not to understand, but if you want to understand the Easter story, ask the tough questions!  Jesus himself said that it is in asking that we receive, and that it is in searching that we find.  Though the church is often afraid of such questions, it is only in the ensuing dialogue that the church has any room for opportunity and growth.

Further resources:

Thanks to Marcus Borg for this lively discussion about the false choice of a “physical” vs. “spiritual” understanding of the resurrection. http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Resurrection-of-Jesus-Marcus-Borg-04-18-2011.html.

Also of note, just in time for Holy Week, Lady Gaga released another religiously themed song!  In “Judas,” she sings as a Mary Magdalene who is in love with Judas, the man who betrayed Jesus.  Not exactly Biblically accurate, but an interesting and catchy tune.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAWpkZSCMXU

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Crisis: Failure or Opportunity?

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Ken| 1 Comment

Last week, I wrote about the anxieties and stresses that college students face at the end of the academic year.  Some make it through this time unscathed, while others find themselves in crisis.  For those in the latter category, a question often emerges:  What is wrong with me?

Outside the university campus, more people are asking themselves this question every day.  Crisis is all around us.  The economy is in crisis.  The government is in crisis.  Society is in crisis, and the ramifications of our collective crises are falling onto the shoulders of more and more previously unaffected individuals.

Powerful voices around us tell us that crisis is our failure.  It is our failure to work hard.  It is our failure to set the right priorities.  It is our failure to keep up with the times.  But to believe those voices is to accept their standards as our own.  To believe those voices is to allow another party to set our priorities and determine our values for us.  Consciously or not, when we find ourselves in crisis, we may be resisting a life that is not our own.

As the current economic crisis has revealed, those in positions of authority over us do not always have our interests at heart.  We would like to think that others are looking out for our well-being, but ultimately, we are only the ones who can determine what well-being is for us.  When we find ourselves spiritually unwell, crisis is not failure but an opportunity to locate a deeper sense of well-being to place at the center of our lives.

We all must share a world with people who do not share our value system.  We must make our way in a world where others control the resources and hold the achievements of some over others.  But having located the source of our well-being outside this world, we enter in as a free and powerful people.  We hold power over this aspect of life, rather than it holding power over us.

The next time you struggle in a world that seeks to make its values your own, think not of failure but of opportunity.  Think of yourself not as rejected, but as chosen!  You have the opportunity to be a pioneer in a new world order that places human dignity and worth at the center of human society.

You are special, unique, and possess immeasurable value to this world.  Let us together bring about the new world order for our own benefit, for the benefit of those around us, and for the world.

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Spring Breaking

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Ken| Leave a comment

Believe it or not, spring is here!  While it still feels like winter in Ohio and other states of the North, the season of spring officially arrived one week ago with the equinox on March 20th.

With the conclusion of spring break, college students everywhere head into one of the most hectic times of the year.  Spring exams are approaching.  Papers, proposals, and theses must be submitted for evaluation.  Fraternities, sororities, clubs, and other extracurricular organizations are organizing for their final events of the year.  Spring symbolizes new life, but the pressures of school during this time can bring many students to the breaking point of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion.

This spring marks the first time in sixteen years that I enter this time of year not as a student.  While I am enjoying a new perspective on the season, I remember the anxiety I have felt as a student in past years, and I continue to watch friends and family deal with similar anxieties.  I find myself asking, what was it all worth?  Was that energy put to good use?  Have I reaped the rewards that graduation has promised?  As I move toward graduate school, what will it mean to put myself before the same pressures next year?

As I reflect further upon these questions, I invite you to share your own experiences.  Whether through school, work, or both, do you experience performance-related anxiety and stress?  Are there seasons where your workload seems immense?  How do you prepare yourself to work through such situations?

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Update – out of town!

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Ken| 1 Comment

Dear readers,

I am currently in New York City until this Sunday, visiting Union Theological seminary and enjoying time with friends.  I have little time to update this blog until I return.  Thanks for checking in, and I’ll have some new posts ready by next week!

-Ken

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Gaga for God!

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Ken| 6 Comments

“It doesn’t matter if you love him, or capital H-I-M.  Just put your paws up, ’cause you were born this way, baby” – Lady Gaga

She’s on her way to becoming one of the biggest pop stars of all time.  Her music is played on radio stations and in clubs across the globe.  She’s one of the most recognizable icons of secular culture.  And in her new #1 hit, “Born This Way,” Lady Gaga sings about… God???

Did you notice?  Perhaps not.  If you did, you may not have taken this aspect of her song seriously.  What could someone we remember for wearing a meat dress have to say about God?  Critics have interpreted the song to be about self-acceptance, and they say it goes no further than the territory covered by Cher, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, or Katy Perry.  But to say the song is simply about self-acceptance is to ignore its repeated religious references and allusions.  Religion is a serious, controversial topic, and no artist would place such references casually.  What is Lady Gaga doing?

Gaga is conscious of the artist’s ability to direct people’s attention where she wants it to go.  Out of respect for the fans who launched her career, Gaga often brings their concerns into the national spotlight.  Many of Gaga’s fans are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people, and they struggle to accept themselves in face bullying, discrimination, and hate from mainstream society.  They struggle particularly against the predominant religious message they hear, which says that their sexual feelings or gender identity is an abomination before God.

While there are many religious communities that affirm queer sexuality, groups on the far right, including the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family, have defined a narrative for all religion through skillful use of the media.  They thrive on controversy, utilizing conflict to gain attention to promote their message.

Rather than fight this branding of religious faith, the mainstream gay-rights movement has walked around religion, appealing to growing scientific consensus in its favor.  Unknowingly, they reinforce the message that religious faith condemns queer sexuality.  The religious right does not abandon science.  Many of their leaders are, in fact, medical professionals, including Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, a psychologist.  But for whatever reason, the LGBT community largely leaves religion alone.  The religious authority of the conservative movement continues unchallenged, and they retain their power over the religious message.

“Born This Way” marks an important shift in public discourse.  Gaga, icon of the gay rights movement, has come out!  She believes in God, and she believes God has made lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people the way they are.  She exposes the conflict between faith and sexuality as false.  She promotes a new religious narrative, taking away the power of the previous narrative to condemn and exclude.  For those who know that exclusion firsthand, Gaga’s message is more than a nice message about acceptance – it’s liberating.

Each time “Born This Way” is played, it challenges an oppressive narrative that has dominated for decades.  It will take time establish the new religious narrative, but Gaga has started what progressive religious communities have been unable to do – command public attention and get the message out.  Let’s help her out!  Let’s establish the new narrative, here and now.  Join me in her refrain:

“I’m beautiful in my way
‘Cause God makes no mistakes
I’m on the right track baby
I was born this way!”

Links:

If you haven’t heard “Born This Way,” check out the song’s debut at the Grammys here:

\”Born This Way\” at the Grammys

If you’re curious about Gaga’s religious views, she offers a glimpse in this 2010 interview with Larry King:

Lady Gaga on Larry King Live

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The Power of Art

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Ken| 4 Comments

“Music can get at a part of us that is hard to open up to.” -Will Schuester, Glee (“Comeback,” 2/15/11)

Since the beginning of human history, artists have played a vital role in nurturing the human spirit.  Whether in the concert hall, the dance hall, the gallery, or the sanctuary, art holds power far beyond words to reach people at their deepest level.  Art comes in many forms.  Music gives us permission to feel emotions buried deeply beneath the surface.  Visual art allows us to see the world through another’s eyes.  Works of art can feel sacred, touching our most vulnerable and intimate spots, or they can feel hostile, challenging our basic perceptions and understanding.

Art is inherently relational.  It arises in the interaction between artist, environment, and audience.  As the world shapes and forms the artist, the artist shapes and forms her work, and her work creates a response in others.  The artist is most creative when she acts without fear of judgment.  The artist who seeks to please or meet expectations loses her expressive capabilities.

Since the advent of recorded music, art has been made accessible to larger audiences than ever before.  An expanded market has also led to more competition among artists.  Artists are rewarded with commercial success when they can hold the attention of the media or when they can find a niche market of dedicated fans.  The artist whose popularity spans across the masses is rare. (NPR has done an interesting series on this)

In my next post, I will examine the newest song by one of my favorite artists, Lady Gaga!  Gaga is a rare performer who knows how to operate within a celebrity-obsessed, commercially-driven culture without being beholden to it.  Just like any pop star, she knows how to keep the attention of the news media, but unlike others, it does not determine her success.  She owes her success instead to old-fashioned work ethic and the niche-like support of dedicated fans.

Gaga is a free woman and a true artist who continues to break new ground.  What artists do you admire and respect?  Whose work has inspired you across the decades?

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American Grace

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Ken| 7 Comments

Every ten years, the United States Constitution mandates a count of every resident of the United States.  This count, known as the U.S. Census, collects information essential to the functioning of American democracy, determining legislative districts and the allocation of government funds.  For urban planners and sociologists, it provides an important historical record to study changes in the way people live over time.

This week, data from the 2010 U.S. Census was released for the state Ohio. Having recently graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in urban studies, I was disappointed to see a 10.4% decline in the city of Cincinnati’s population.  I was not terribly surprised, however, as it continues a powerful trend that has been going on for decades. Since 1950, federal housing and transportation policy has funded suburban sprawl at the expense of the urban core.  Cincinnati’s population loss parallels population loss in the cities of Cleveland, Dayton, Akron, and Toledo.  Columbus, a municipality that incorporates growing suburban areas into its boundaries, would have posted a similar decline in population if its suburban neighborhoods were excluded.  City leaders may talk about making their cities more liveable and attractive for business, but they don’t stand a chance in the face of large-scale policy that is working against them.

Just as cities gain and lose population, religious movements gain and lose followers.  Fifty years ago, denominationally-based Christian churches dominated the American religious scene, whether they be Roman Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or other.  Today, these denominations are all in decline.  Leaders of struggling churches may change music styles, program offerings, and marketing techniques, but they don’t stand a chance in the face of larger-scale forces working against them.

Authors Robert Putnam and David Campbell track valuable data in their 2010 book, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.  They describe an American religious scene that has shifted in two directions.  On the one side, Christian conservatives are moving away from mainline churches to evangelical, nondenominational churches.  On the other side, people who are not conservative Christian evangelicals are leaving religion altogether.  I frequently hear debate about why my own denomination, the United Methodist Church, is in decline.  On the one side, I hear that the church is not enough like the growing evangelical, nondenominational churches.  On the other side, I hear that over-emphasis on conservative, evangelical growth is the reason for the church’s decline.  In a polarized culture, both sides are right.

This blog is still new, but I’d like to conduct a census of my readers.  How do you identify yourself religiously (or non-religiously)?  In a changing religious landscape, has your religious identity changed?  Share as you will in the comment section below!

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Inextricably Bound

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Ken| 3 Comments

“…they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.” – The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream,” speaking about white Americans supporting the Civil Rights movement.

After a long search for a title for this blog, I found my inspiration in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. King’s life and values lie at the heart of the message of this blog.  Though he was a preacher firmly grounded in the American black church, his message of justice, equality, and the inherent worth of all humankind speaks to people of all races and religions across the world.  Though his primary calling was to Christian ministry, he led a movement that transformed the most secular institutions of the United States – the government and the workplace – for the benefit of religious and non-religious alike.

In this quote from his most famous speech, “I Have A Dream,” Dr. King reminds his followers that they cannot be successful alone.  Their struggle for dignity and freedom is inextricably bound with the struggle of others, including white Americans, for dignity and freedom.  His people need all the friends and allies they can get.

This is an interesting paradox. We often confuse our quest for freedom with a quest for self-sufficiency.  To be free of the forces that control us, we think we need to supply all of our own needs.  But we cannot become free by ourselves.  We face powerful forces, and alone, we stand no chance.

Becoming truly free requires making friends – friends who will recognize the freedom we ask for and stand with us in our struggle.  Strength lies in numbers.  We are most powerful not as self-sufficient individuals but as interdependent people who value companionship and care.  We are inextricably bound.

Think for a moment about all of the people in your life. What relationships give you strength and courage? Where do you experience companionship and care? If you feel so moved, share with us below!

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