An Invitation to Ash/Ask Wednesday

Certain moments in our lives leave us open to new beginnings. The beginning of the academic year is one such time. The beginning of the actual new year is another. In each of these moments, we evaluate our lives and consider new habits and direction. We make space in our lives, letting go of old ways and initiating new ones.

I find these are likely times for new people to visit church. New people visit our church almost every week, but these "new start" times see a much higher number of people in whom I sense an opening to become a part of our community, an opening to deepening their faith in love of Christ and service to neighbor.

Ash Wednesday is another such moment in the life of the church. Like Christmas or Easter, where many people either return to church, or consider worship for the first time, Ash Wednesday has a powerful attraction.

There is something very real and true about Ash Wednesday. No fake religious veneer is on display. No one is required to be shiny or happy. It might be the most authentic day of the church year. Nothing fancy. Simple austerity in the face of sin and mortality.

And although this may not seem like an opportune time to reach out and invite a neighbor or friend to church, it is actually the best of times.

Some of the most meaningful moments I have ever spent in religious community have been at the invitation to participate in an Ash Wednesday liturgy with a friend at their church. Whether it was a small Episcopal parish in Pasadena, CA, or the ancient St. Elizabeth's Cathedral in Košice, Slovakia, I remember more Ash Wednesday services than any other service I attend. The spiritual commitment of Lent--to give alms to the poor, to fast, and to pray--centers the community in that which is most meaningful. The confession of sin, and the proclamation of the forgiveness of sin in Jesus' name, reminds us why it is we walk with this community week after week.

And that simple inscribing of ash on our foreheads, "from dust you have come... from dust you shall return..." as serious as that is, is also full of grace and truth. It will mark you. It will move you. And it makes you into a walking fulfillment of Paul's words, "As often as we eat this bread, and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes."

It's the kind of worship to which you could invite a friend, a neighbor, because you know when you invite them, you are inviting them to the core of what you believe and practice as a Christian. Often we fail to invite our neighbors to worship because we don't know why we would. Ash Wednesday clarifies our faith, requires us to know.

So I encourage you to do so. Don't just receive the imposition of ashes next week. Invite others to join you. Tell them what it means to you. Let them in on a little bit of the mystery of this journey we are on together. The worst thing that might happen is they would say no. In which case your "ask" would go down in ashes like those written on your forehead.

Finally, by inviting, you would be living out Psalm 51. Penitence is not private, it is public. David sings his lament before his people, and his people have sung it ever since as one of the psalms. It is what we will sing at noon or 6:45 on February 13th, also, at http://goodshepherdnwa.org or in all likelihood at any number of Christian congregations near you, dear reader. Consider yourself invited.

Guns in Church

I'd really rather not write about guns. They're not a particular interest of mine. I'm periodically amused by participation in laser tag outing, and we do have a few Nerf guns around the house.

But mostly guns just make me nervous. The real kind, that is. They're packed with explosives that make a small metal projectile travel faster than the speed of sound and destroy pretty much whatever they impact. Anyone who isn't slightly nervous around guns is deluded.


Respect for Guns

On the other hand, I have a deep respect for guns, at least of some varieties. For example, since at this point I'm still a carnivore, I have a special place in my heart for hunters. I think people who hunt, and therefore have direct experience in taking the life of the animal they will later eat, deserve our respect. If I eat meat, somebody had to take the life of that animal. Hunting takes us back to that sacred and difficult moment where the animal actually dies at our hands. The best hunters I know pray or give thanks over their animals and meals.

Similarly, this past Sunday our church had reason to call the police. The fact that those police officers were well-trained and armed was comforting to me. Since I am not prepared to use force in public settings, it is a blessing to know there are those out there who devote their lives (and that our city devotes funds) to an established police force who are armed and trained for the specific purpose of keeping the peace. They carry guns not for violent purposes but to protect themselves and others. I get this.

Pacifism and the Police

Any theologian worth their salt who has pondered just war theory and pacifism will acknowledge that although pacifism (non-violence) is a viable Christian alternative, even most pacifists believe in some form of police presence, even armed police presence. Most pacifistic traditions are against warfare, or Christian participation in war. But they acknowledge the need for local and limited forms of police action. One of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, John Howard Yoder, argued that Christians should reject service in the military but not the police. Frankly, I think life would be pretty awful without police in our communities.

The majority of Christians, however, myself included, subscribe to some form of just war theory rather than strict pacifism, and in the just war tradition, although there are strict guidelines in place for when lethal force can be used, there are obvious cases and situations in which the use of such force is not only allowed but necessary, and this from a strictly theological and Christian perspective. One of the more famous essays in this vein is Martin Luther's fascinating "That Soldiers Too Can Be Saved" (link is to a pdf, and his essay begins on page 25).

Unnecessarily Reactionary

So, in this discussion I hear two sides making unnecessarily reactionary and over-heated arguments. On the pro-gun side, people tend to say things like, "If people would have been packing in that Sikh community in Wisconsin, or at a school where there was a shooting, then the violence wouldn't have happened, or would have been diminished." There tends to be a rhetoric that more guns would necessarily translate into greater safety. [there is an additional argument in here that lots of people need these guns to rise up against potential tyranny, and that we are already under tyranical rule; I don't buy this argument so won't address it here]. This side seems to have too glowing and facile a view of guns. They think more guns will simply solve the problem, like a golden parachute.

Closer scrutiny starts to identify all the problems with this view. Consider a gunfight in church, for example. To disarm an armed assailant in a church with arms would clearly include the possibility of collateral damage. Most police or military personnel who use guns well would be unlikely to fire guns in a crowd like a church. I imagine a variety of other scenarios by which a trained peace-keeper would disarm someone who came into church firing a gun. Perhaps they would throw a large hymnal. Perhaps they would tackle them. I don't know for sure, but I highly doubt they would go at the person with sidearm blazing.

But take the case of just your ordinary citizen who has come into church with a concealed carry. Imagine four of them rustling around under their sports coats for their guns to defend the worshipping community from an armed assailant. Start imagining this for real, and you see all the problems that attend it. Or the person who thinks concealed carry includes carrying one in their purse. Then they forget their purse down in the Sunday school wing. Imagine the possibilities that happen next.

So those are the problems with the pro-gun lobby.

But the liberal reactionary mode is equally problematic. This group tends to get all Jesus-y around guns, "Jesus was a peace-maker. How horrible that people think they could or should bring a gun into church, the very place where we worship the guy who said turn the other cheek." This groups tends to think guns are evil in and of themselves. Keep those horrible things out of church.

But I'm not sure this position is right or Christian, either. It leaves a large group of people mostly defenseless. That's fine on most Sundays, but what about the day someone really does walk into church with evil intentions? What do we do then? Augustine in his City of God notes that a remarkable new development as Christianity became dominant in the Roman empire was church-buildings as sanctuaries. People could flee to them for physical safety. But the safety of those in churches was protected by the military forces outside of the churches who chose not to go in and physically remove those who had sought sanctuary there.

However, when crazed assailants (or even, as we have seen in some places like Rwanda, organized genocidal militias) no longer observe this convention, what other recourse do churches have to safety in their sanctuaries than some kinds of armed police presence?

So Who Should Be Armed?

Which leaves me as a pastor wondering who should be armed, and how, and where, for the majority of our people to be safe when they gather at our church for worship. Like public schools, we need to give this some thought. Many other places do. Malls hire security guards. Many schools include a police presence on their campus. I assume that larger churches may actually hire a security guard or other kinds of police presence, at least for their largest gatherings like Sunday mornings.

Mid-sized congregations like ours are also going to need to sit down and make plans. Now that our own legislature is on the verge of opening the door for concealed carry in churches, we will need to think through what we want to say about this to our people. Some things that occur to me that would be wise at this stage include the following:

1) Should churches hire some kind of security person to work the parking lot or building on Sunday mornings?

2) Should churches offer training for their ushers and greeters on security for the building and worshipping community, perhaps even simple training in non-violent resistance or other kinds of conversation and activity that can reduce the likelihood of violence in the church?

3) If a member of your church is a former Navy Seal, or works for the police, or has other training that makes them an excellent resource for safety and protection, might they even be encouraged to carry their firearm in church?

4) What kinds of public statements do the church need to be making about this? Given the Christian commitment to healing and the well-being of all, it is incumbent on all of us to do some clear thinking on this topic. Biased reactionary bloviation simply won't cut it. For one example of how the ELCA has engaged this topic, see its social message on community violence.

Christian Churches in Post-Communist Slovakia: A Review

"Missionaries don't uproot themselves and get transplanted somewhere else. Instead, they are like banyan trees, and extend their root system and additional trunks to make homes in more than one place." This, or something like it, was the best lesson I learned from an experienced missionary one summer back in the mid-90s.

My wife and I served for three years as missionaries with the ELCA in Košice, Slovakia. We put down roots there. A dozen years later, I still speak with students and former colleagues from Slovakia on a weekly basis.

Recently Ondrej Kolarovsky, our good friend and the pastor who presided at our wedding, who continues to serve as pastor of the Lutheran church in Košice Terasa (http://www.terasa.sk/?cat=27) recommended a new book to me. Published by the Center for Religion and Society of Roanoke College, Christian Churches in Post-Communist Slovakia: Current Challenges and Opportunities (the table of contents, foreword, introduction, and author biographies are all included in the pdf to which I've linked the title) is, as far as I can tell, the first volume of its kind in English.

I've spent enough time living in post-Communist Eastern Europe to remain curious about the religious landscape of the region. There are considerable regional differences. Religiosity is quite different in Poland than it is in the Czech Republic, or in the former East Germany. So a book focused on the dynamics within one nation-state is smart.

However, the book does more than just focus parochially on Slovakia. The authors, most of whom are scholars from academic centers in Slovakia such as Žilina, Prešov, Martin, and Bratislava, write here in their second (or third) language, in the hopes that they can share their insights into a history that few people know, but more should. They do so because they are learning lessons from studies in post-modern, post-Christian studies that inform their analysis of the churches in post-communist Slovakia, and they believe their contribution can help inform scholarship by those analyzing religious life in other countries (especially the U.S. context).

The first chapter by Michal Valčo is a compelling presentation of the history of Christian faith in the region, extending about as far back into the history of Christian faith in Slovakia as we have record. It's a great introduction. For those unfamiliar with the work of Cyril and Methodius, for example, Valčo provides a helpful introduction. My only concern in this essay is that later opinions in the essay are often unfounded based on the data provided in the essay itself. I would characterize some of these opinions as being conservative reactionar-iness rather than solid analysis. This is the one and only bias of the book that weakens it at places throughout the essays.

Chapter two is helpful progressive statistical analysis of census data over the last thirty years. The author charts the ebb and flow of majority and minority Christian traditions in Slovakia. Roman Catholicism is by far the dominant tradition (with over 60% adherence), followed by Lutheran (6%), Greek Catholic (4%), and Reformed (2%). Those with no religious affiliation make up approximately 14% of the population. This means the country as a whole is relatively homogenous in terms of religious affiliation. The chapter ends with some analysis of the inter-relationship of secularization, Christianity, and the previous communist era on contemporary faith patterns.

The third and fourth chapters are largely "critical" essays charting what the authors describe as the dehumanization and desocialization of post-modern culture; the content of the chapter is keyed to more global analytics of post-modernism, like the work of Matthew Fforde, Emilie Durkheim, and others. Although these chapters do not forward the readers specific understanding of post-modernism in Slovakia in considerable ways, they do help set the stage for the conversation currently taking place between social critical scholarship in Slovakia, and similar scholarship happening in Europe and North America.

Chapter five will be of particular interest to Lutherans, as it examines the liturgical renewal movement in light of the developments in liturgical theology and hymnals and worship in Slovakia, with an eye to current conversations around worship and inculturation. Anyone who has followed the various controversies in North American Lutheranism around the production of new hymnals and reform of liturgies will be both amused and relieved to see similar discussions taking place in Slovak Lutheranism. My own personal experience of this while living in Slovakia hopefully adds an additional dimension. Although liturgical reform in Lutheran churches was steady and on-going, the real cutting edge developments were happening in the growing evangelical and Pentecostal churches there. I would love to see more analysis in this book of those traditions.

Chapter six is devoted to the need for a competent public theology in Slovakia. Statistical work reported earlier in the book had given indication that the majority of Slovaks do not see how the ministry of the church pertains to public goods and conversation per se. Here the book comes into conversation with some of the streams of Lutheranism dominant at Roanoke College. Valčo engages Robert Benne, a notable Lutheran public theologian, and offers a seventy page tour de force including case studies, historical survey, and deep theological analysis, of the challenges and opportunities for public theology in Slovakia past and present.

This concludes part one of the review. In the next post, I will engage Valčo's public theology essay in more detail, and survey the fascinating chapters in the book (7 and 8) on the history, suppression, and redevelopment of the Greek Catholic church in Slovakia. The volume concludes with a fascinating chapter on Jewish-Christian dialogue in Slovakia, and a series of chapters on mass media and religion.

Works of Mercy

Works of Mercy

I find these two lists (which have developed in the tradition of Catholic and evangelical thought over the last two millenia) to be very helpful in reviewing what all of us are called to do and be as faithful Christians in the world.

Corporal works of mercy

Corporal Works of Mercy are those that tend to bodily needs. The Parable of the Judgement (Matthew 25:31-46) enumerates such acts -- though not this precise list -- as the reason for the salvation of the saved, and the omission of them as the reason for damnation. The last work of mercy, burying the dead, comes from the Book of Tobit.

Feed the hungry

Give drink to the thirsty

Clothe the naked

Shelter the Homeless

Visit the sick

Visit the imprisoned

Bury the dead

Spiritual works of mercy

Not everyone is considered capable or obligated to perform the first three spiritual works of mercy if they do not have proper tact, knowledge or training to do so. The last four are considered to be the obligation of all people without condition.

Instruct the ignorant;

Counsel the doubtful;

Admonish sinners;

Bear wrongs patiently;

Forgive offences willingly;

Comfort the afflicted;

Pray for the living and the dead.

Although there is ongoing discussion between Lutherans, Catholics, and other Christians as to whether such works of mercy are part of saving faith, or if they are the fruit  of faith, nevertheless almost all Christian communities would agree these are expected of all Christians. Just as a healthy apple tree produces apples, a person attached to Christ will produce Christ-like works of mercy. Lutherans are likely to emphasize works of mercy not as a part of saving faith, but result of saving faith. We do not do them to be forgiven, but because we have been forgiven.