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Issue 022 <previous< Issue 023 August 1999
>next> Issue 024 |
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Impeachment, Partisanism, and Subversion: A
Moral Postscript and Prescript
The impeachment and trial of President Clinton proceed more seemingly impossible things daily than even the Queen in Mice’s Wonderland could imagine before and after breakfast. But
perhaps the most astonishing feature of these events was the breadth and depth
of Republican partisanism (and “-ism is the sensible suffix here, since I doubt
that this phenomenon can be soundly interpreted except as a doctrinal
obsession). The Republican leadership in the House and Senate and the bulk of
the party faithful throughout the nation made the legislative removal of the
President from office the test of party loyalty and the means to party unity,
imposed by party discipline under the threat of party punishments. Conservative
advocates, in fact, promised to provide potential Republican dissenters with
Right-minded primary opponents. The Hard Right ruled, and even most of the moderates”
buckled. Rebels were few in both the House and Senate. Party loyalists, proud
of their participation in a righteous cause, now describe themselves as “‘the
party of principle.” Law and Love: Doing the Ethical Dance
Years ago my friend, Dr.
Herbert Bromberg, a Jewish rabbi, told me a fascinating story out of his
people’s history. Some medieval Jewish congregations in Eastern Europe once
practiced an unusual form of worship. At one point in the service the rabbi
would lift the Torah, the symbol of the sacred Law, from its resting place and,
holding it high above his head, would dance. His movements were traditional and
strictly prescribed. The dance was always performed in exactly the same way.
When the rabbi had finished this section of the service, he would replace the
Torah. Moving to another lower section of the synagogue, he would again begin
to dance. This time, however, the dance was different. No longer prescribed or
planned, it was a spontaneous, improvised series of movements—a dance of
freedom. Under the Mulberry Trees
He pushed back the canvas flaps that served as a door to the dugout. Dawn was beginning to break and he heard coyotes on the prairie telling each other it was time to go home. The land they had homesteaded, 160 acres near Hobbs, New Mexico was covered with brush and it was soon to be theirs. The law required them to be on the land for 6 months out of the year for 5 years. Oscar and Bertha Barber had made the 3-week trip from Colorado City, Texas to Monument, New Mexico 2 times each year. It was 1900. This land, after nearly 5 years, was almost theirs. Oscar left his wife and 6 small children in the dugout and knelt to pray near the mulberry trees they had planted on their first trip. He
was a cowboy turned preacher. He left his family for over a month at a time and
rode horseback out to the ranches of New Mexico and preached the Gospel. Just a Picture in a Magazine It was just a picture in a magazine. I keep it close because it says a great deal to me about health in an unhealthy time. Preachers especially need reminders of wholeness in these strange times. The picture is a black and white photograph of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. He sits in his robe in some sanctuary getting ready to preach or say the Mass. He is dying. He has only a few months to live. The burden of his condition seems to weigh heavily on him. His shoulders slump. His head is bowed in prayer. His hands are folded. Above him, on the wall, is a huge crucifix. The nailed-down Jesus has his arms outstretched. It is a powerful scene. I keep looking at the picture again and again. Why? I do not know. Except, like the dying Cardinal, we are all kept. And though the weight of the too-muchness makes all of us slouch from time to time, there is a power and strength that comes from outside us and that is enough to sustain. Cardinal
Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago has written of his burdens and his faith in a
memoir called The Gift of Peace. In
a sense, it is his last will and testament. Thirteen days after finishing this
book he died on November 1, 1996. Theological Moorings for Ethics
Schopenhauer, the philosopher, who understood compassion to be the
basis of ethics, declared that “to preach morality is easy; to find a
foundation for it is hard.” In our time, the ground of ethics appears to be
anthropocentric. In our post-modern world, homo mensura or “man
is the measure of all things” is the prevailing philosophy. In our
multi-cultural society, individuals tend to set their own moral standards; each
does that which is right in his own eyes. As a result, we have become the
people described by Isaiah, the prophet: A Book Review Walking in the Way “An Introduction to Christian Ethics”
Walking in the Way is a good book which deserves a wide reading. It is exceptionally well-written, replete with solid research, timely, and biblically oriented. It demonstrates this author’s ability to wade through complex and controversial waters and produce material which beautifully supports his title, “Walking in the Way.” This book merits a place on the desks of pastors and teachers and thoughtful believers everywhere. While
this volume was written as a text for the academic discipline of Christian
ethics, as one works through it, it soon becomes apparent that these pages are
immensely helpful to laity and clergy alike. Guidance is provided in the multifaceted
field of ethics from a distinctively Christian point of view. There are
manifold issues to consider, some ancient and some modern, and the current
issues are expanding at a breathtaking rate. Confirmation is especially evident
in Trull’s chapter on Biomedical Ethics. That preconceived ideas and prejudices
about these issues abound is obvious. That many church leaders
have abdicated their leadership responsibilities because they lack substantive
information is painfully apparent.
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Dividing Up America Our country is being rapidly broken into several parts, so rapidly that much of today’s political debate is about matters that ceased to be important a decade or more ago. Our “leaders” are inviting us to return the balances between the Federal government and the states, and between the states and the counties and cities, to their status before the New Deal radically changed their supposed early and unpolluted relationships. In
the meantime, the real changes going on are quite different and much more
substantial. In the economy, we are not being returned to the design that
prevailed before the Great Depression and the introduction of social welfare.
We are rapidly being returned to the plantation society with its drastic
separation between the “haves” and the “have nots” that characterized a major
section of the republic before the Civil War, and that still characterizes most
of Latin America. The Slow, Slow Art of Urgency for Women in Ministry
We have met in Atlanta because we believe that Jesus saves and that preaching the gospel is urgent business! (Of course, while we are here we must also go to our Alumni dinners!) We met in Atlanta because we believe that everybody has a right to know Christ and we all have the responsibility to tell the world that Jesus saves. (And then there’s the matter of seeing old friends, who are always a little older and a little less friendly from year to year). A part of what it means to be a Baptist is that we tell others about the same grand liberation we found when we found Christ. In America the message goes on and on, as regular as cable television. If there’s anyone in America who doesn’t know how to be saved, it is because they just prefer ESPN over Benny Hinn. But
we’re “the world” people. We want the message that Jesus saves to permeate the
Planet.
Compulsory Celibacy The Vatican, which has the last absolute monarch in the Western world and a ruling court elite known as the Curia, is now facing widespread resistance. A Catholic referendum movement began in Europe: “More than 2.3 million Austrian and German Catholics have signed referenda” and “similar initiatives have been undertaken in Italy, France, Belgium and Australia” according to a full page ad in the May 31, 1996 National Catholic Reporter. In the United States a group of ten unofficial groups calling themselves the “National Task Force of We Are the Church Coalition” is also seeking major church reforms. These include “equal rights for women,” and “a church which affirms the goodness of sexuality” and “the primacy of conscience in deciding issues of sexual morality” such as birth control. A
key aspect of this reform movement is a rejection of compulsory celibacy and the
welcoming of married priests back into church service. New Millennium Families
A friend of mine defines a family as “a group whose ??? mem..V1. hers are irrationally crazy about each other.” Call me irrational, but I’m crazy about families. To negative folks, the new millennium looms as a big dark cloud, portending evil. To those with a positive outlook, however, it lights a dark night and promises intrigue, challenge, and opportunity unlimited. This
new age won’t be an easy time to raise a family; but then, I’m not sure there
ever was an easy time. Adam and Eve had trouble with their boys. Earlier
generations—especially those before 1910—suffered the agonies of having many
babies’ lives snuffed out by epidemics. My parents didn’t think it was easy
raising me in the textile town of Gastonia, N.C. My wife and I struggled raising
children in parsonages, in the glass houses of pastorates and public
professions. Each generation faces challenges and struggles to learn together
to overcome them. Watching the World Go By Idealists in a Hurry My favorite definition of revolutionaries fits the Moral Majority-Christian Coalition-Religious Right perfectly: “idealists in a hurry.” The idealists’ hurry leads them to use the methods of the world they condemn. The Religious Right’s efforts have failed for this reason—and one more. They have never understood and accepted the realities of the world they seek to transform. A
new book, Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?, by a pair of
disillusioned, repentant, nostalgic idealist-revolutionaries, Ed Dobson and the
more widely known Cal Thomas, tells their story. Religious Liberty: A Heritage at Stake
Freedom loving Americans take justifiable pride in celebrating the religious liberties assured by the First Amendment. Such freedoms should not be taken for granted. They were a long time in being fashioned but are under constant assault from opponents motivated by opportunism and/or ideology. A brief history of religious liberty is a reminder of the tortured story of this treasured heritage. On October 15, 1573 in Antwerp, Belgium, the Inquisition was in full swing. A woman named Maeyken Wens was arrested and tortured. Her tongue was then screwed to her upper palate so she could not witness to her faith while she was hauled in a cart to the place where the sentence was carried out. She was burned at the stake. What
was her crime? What violation of law had she committed for which she was now
suffering the ultimate punishment? She preached the Gospel as she understood it from her
personal readings of the New Testament.
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