Traveling in Place

How Much Violence Will We Tolerate?

Professional football has been difficult to watch this fall.  While NFL referees tangle with team owners over the size of their pensions, substitute officials are doing their best to prevent chaos on the field.  Unfortunately, chaos is resulting from their inconsistent, often erroneous calls.  The sub refs aren’t accomplished NCAA officials being given a shot at the pros.  (Those guys already have work to do.)  These poor fellows have been plucked out of high schools and community leagues across the country.  They are in way over their heads. 

Monday night, I watched the Seattle Seahawks avoid losing to (notice I didn’t say “defeat”) the Green Bay Packers on a Hail Mary pass into the end zone with no time left on the clock.  The one Seahawk in the area of the ball, Golden Tate, clearly shoved a defender out of the way, but didn’t jump up fast enough to make the catch.  Packer M.D. Jennings intercepted the ball, but when they hit the ground, Tate tried to wrestle the ball away.  Since both men had their hands on the ball, the officials called it a touchdown, citing the rule that a simultaneous catch goes to the offense. So Tate got away with blatant interference while a clear interception was ruled a touchdown. This error capped a series of other bad calls that reversed the game’s momentum and led to points being scored by both teams.  The contest was decided by the officials.

Even worse than the poor officiating, however, is how the players are taking advantage of the situation.  It’s being called the “substitute teacher syndrome.”  Knowing how much they can get away with, some linemen are playing more violently than the rules allow.  Once in awhile, they get caught, but only after they’ve escaped notice for a dozen infractions they’ve already committed.  This state of escalating violence on the field comes one season after the New Orleans Saints were sanctioned by the NFL for running a bounty program that rewarded players for sidelining opposing players with physical injuries.  It also comes amid a rising tide of lawsuits against the league filed by former players and their widows for long-term brain-related injuries. 

A Moment of Self-Awareness

I recently paid a visit to my barber, whom I’ll call Art.  He’s been cutting my hair off and on for over 20 years.  There was a stretch of a few years when he relocated to a more upscale establishment – more of a beauty salon than a barbershop.  Art returned after he got tired of being the only guy on a staff of 17 stylists.

Art is an interesting guy.  He knows I’m a pastor, which gives us a personal connection, because he’s actually an ordained minister in an obscure Pentecostal denomination based in Southern California.  As a young adult in the ‘70’s, he thought the spontaneous nature of Pentecostal worship was more authentic than the normal fare in traditional Christian churches.  But after a few years of leading a Pentecostal congregation, he left the ministry because, in his words, “I realized we were all having the same spontaneous experience at the same time.”  Still, Art knows his Bible and has read the scriptures closely enough to know there is no simple way to interpret them.  He has also read the Tao Te Ching and a fair number of Buddhist writings.  He is always gentle and soft-spoken.  His unassuming manner provides no clue to the depth of his knowledge and wisdom.

Other barbers, when they have discovered I am a pastor, have gone on diatribes against abortion and gay marriage and how God has been expelled from the public schools, as if that’s what all pastors want to talk about.  But when Art cuts my hair, he doesn’t make any assumptions about what I believe.  He never asks me what I think about any particular issue.  He doesn’t even quiz me about my life as a pastor.  I think he already has a pretty good idea about it since he was once a pastor himself.  He just reflects on ordinary things in a thoughtful way.  And sometimes, he tells me what he’s been turning over in his own mind.  My role is to listen and occasionally reflect back to him what he’s saying.

The Power of Words

Last week, the lectionary texts pointed us toward the power of words.  They can be used to glorify God, confess our faith, and bless others.  They can also be used to curse others, create dissension and hurt, and do tremendous damage.  As I reflected on those texts, I concluded that we take a great risk when we use the power of words, but it is a risk worth taking.  Words possess a power for which there is no substitute. 

Too many Christians these days have forgotten the power of words.  We have fooled ourselves into believing that as long as we demonstrate our faith with actions, we don’t ever have to say what it is.  That’s a bit like the husband who says, “I don’t have to tell my wife I love her – she already knows it,” or the parent who says, “I don’t have to tell my children I love them, because they know how much I do for them.”  The message of the gospel cannot be adequately communicated without words.  In Romans 10:14-15, the Apostle Paul asks rhetorically, “How are they to call on one in whom they have not believed?  And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?  And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?”

On the other hand, the power of speech can become destructive when misused.  James berates his early Christian congregation for tearing each other apart, declaring the tongue to be “a restless evil full of deadly poison.  With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.  From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing” (James 3:8-10).  So we have to be very careful how we use the power of speech.

God Save Us from Extremists

This has been a really bad week for religion.

The Arab world has erupted in protest – some peaceful, some violent, all of it impassioned – in response to an anti-Muslim video funded and promoted by a shadowy network of Christian extremists whose explicit aim was to bait Muslim extremists into violence. 

We still don’t know exactly what’s going on.  I wonder if we ever will.  It seems clear that the death of the American ambassador in Libya and three of his staffers was the work, not of protestors, but of an armed terrorist group seeking to exploit the protest.  Today, Libya looks like an island of calm in that part of the world.  Angry protestors have been replaced by Libyan citizens grieving the loss of their friend, Ambassador Stevens, and waving placards condemning the attack.  At least some of those responsible for the killings have already been arrested by the Libyan government, which condemned the violence swiftly and in the strongest terms.

Egypt appears to be a completely different situation.  Initially, the protests there were peaceful.  Then they turned ugly, but were still being carried out by only a few hundred people in a city of ten million.  Then, the crowd became bigger and less stable.  The Muslim Brotherhood, the ruling party in Egypt that has been cultivating a moderate image in order to maintain a constructive relationship with the U.S., is trying to steer the people toward mosques and away from the U.S. Embassy.  They encourage protests against the anti-Muslim film, but not against the U.S. government.  Yet, their efforts don’t seem to be making much difference.

And in the last couple of days, anti-American protests have spread to Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia and Jerusalem.

Is all this vitriol really about a tasteless, poorly produced amateur film?

Our Dangerous World

This post was first written early Wednesday morning, when some facts about the attack in Libya were unknown.  Please read the update at the end.

Until today, our nation’s long, often grueling presidential election campaign season has been focused on domestic affairs – unemployment, job creation, the national debt, immigration, and hot-button social issues.  It turns out that this self-examination might have been a luxury.  This morning (Wednesday), we have been rudely re-awakened to the dangers of the world we live in.

Last night, four Americans, including J. Christopher Stevens, American ambassador to Libya, were killed when the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was overrun by anti-American rioters.  Similar protests erupted in Egypt but, thankfully, did not result in any deaths.  What are these mobs protesting?  A poorly produced, stupidly conceived video on YouTube that mocks the prophet Mohammed as a confused, greedy, womanizing, bloodthirsty thug.  The video was uploaded by Sam Bacile, an Israeli-American real estate developer in California who says he raised $5 million from Jewish donors to make the film.  The film was in turn promoted by Pastor Terry Jones, who sparked riots around the world two years ago when he announced plans for a “Burn the Koran” Day.  He recently declared September 11 to be “International Judge Mohammed Day.”

Discouraged but Not Dropping Out

The political conventions are over and the general election for President is less than two months away.  A raft of polling indicates that about 94% of those likely to vote have already made up their minds.  The other 6% of likely voters are still up for grabs, but if they are not persuaded to support either major candidate, they may stay home.  If they do, the outcome will turn on which party is more successful in turning out its base.  When partisans decide close elections, the party on the losing end refuses to accept the results.  Gridlock sets in, and nothing gets done.

As much as I enjoy following the political process, I find myself increasingly disgusted by it.  It isn’t simply that campaigns are negative.  (Negative attacks have been a staple of American politics since the election to replace George Washington in 1796.)  Today, negativity is intensified by the polarization and paralyzation of the legislative process.  The good of the country takes a back seat to the success of the parties.  The “more perfect union” sought by our founders is obscured by a refusal to compromise on any issue.   Nobody really wins.  Everybody loses. 

Under these circumstances, it is reasonable to ask whether a vote in the presidential election really matters.  As someone said to me recently, “It won’t make any difference who wins the election, because nothing is going to change.  Congress is still polarized, so nothing will get done regardless of who is president.” 

The End of Summer Vacation

Summer is over.  Not the season dictated by the tilt in the earth’s axis, but the season of heightened mobility and increased recreation that we call “vacation.”  Our summer schedule has everything to do with the academic calendar.  Since the kids are out of school, their families have more freedom to plan trips away.  Even though most adults don’t have children at home, we all more or less adhere to this schedule. 

Granted, summer carries added meaning here in the Snow Belt, where July and August aren’t just time off from school; they are time off from winter.  The warmer weather and longer days allow us to spend lots of time outside, so we take advantage of it, knowing that these days are at a premium. 

But let’s consider for a moment how summer has evolved into a two-month national vacation.  Originally, the academic calendar was dictated by the agricultural year.  Summer was harvest time, when labor was intense.  Every member of the community, including children, pitched in.  So summer was hardly a vacation.  It was the season of the most intense work – too important even to make time for school.  Nobody talked about “getting away.”  Summer was the time to get more deeply into the land you cultivated.  Vacation is in fact entirely the creation of the industrial era.  When labor became mechanized, it also became more monotonous.  The working class spent time in factories repeating the same motions over and over every day.  Their bosses spent time in offices pushing paper and going to meetings.  Once in a while, both workers and managers needed time away.  Hence, the vacation.