East of Eden

Reflections on Life in God's World

[raymondrroberts]

Magic Mushroom (Pt. 1 - Human Consciousness)

Last year I received an invitation to participate in an experiment at Johns Hopkins University wherein I (as a religious leader) would take the psychedelic mushroom, psilocybin. The goal of the experiment was/is to explore how I and other religious leaders respond to the drug or, errr, trip. 

“Hopkins Scientists Seek Religious Leaders to take part in a study of psilocybin and mystical experience.”  

Some of you may be relieved to learn that I did not participate in the study. As I considered the offer, I was particularly troubled by this sentence, which I take is the premise of the study:

“For the first time in the history of religion and science, profoundly revelatory experiences can be facilitated with a high degree of reliability in research settings, enabling us to study their phenomenology and influences on attitudes and behavior.”

This just sounds wrong to me as does the study’s claim that psychedelics are “to the study of religious experience as the microscope is to biology or the telescope to astronomy.”

As I reflected on this, though, I realized that the experiment raises interesting theological questions. 

What are we to make of drug altered states of consciousness? 

What makes an experience mystical or religious? 

What are we to make of techniques, of any sort, that promise a spiritual experience?  I will attempt to answer these questions over a series of blog posts.  

I am struck by how little has been written about altered states of consciousness from a theological perspective. 

Before we consider drug-induced state of consciousness, we ought consider consciousness in general. From a theological perspective we can say that human consciousness is God’s precious gift. Vivid cognizance of the self and the world around us is a source of wonderment and awe. Crystalline clarity of thought to perceive, reason about, and respond to the world regularly provokes gratitude and delight.

Human consciousness is not static, but has plasticity. Throughout history believers have experienced mystical, ecstatic moments where they literally “stand outside of themselves” (ex-stasis) in God’s presence. Perhaps we taste something of God’s glory in creation, in Christ, or in a truth that lies beneath the surface of things. In such moments the Holy Spirit imparts a sense of the divine excellence that provokes senses of awe, love, thanksgiving, obligation, guilt, or new possibility. 

Experiences of altered God-consciousness can provide a new foundation for reasoning. For example, a person who senses wonderment while floating over a coral reef, may recognize that the world does not exist for our exploitation, but for God’s good pleasure. It has value in God’s sight, apart from any instrumental value it may have for people (to make money, or even their own enjoyment). 

Again, a person may contemplate Christ’s cry of abandonment on the cross and come to view the world’s suffering in a different light. Cries of forsakenness cease to speak of God’s indifference, but are reminders of God’s burning passion for the world. Experiences such as these can become a means by which we are transformed by “the renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:1).

Throughout scripture friends and neighbors regularly misunderstand the believer’s transformed consciousness. Indeed, they may be disturbed by the new way of living it inspires. At Pentecost detractors accused the early believers of being drunk. The Apostle Paul indicates a similar misperception of the believer’s God-consciousness when he says, “if we are out of our minds, as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right minds it is for you” (II Corinthians 5:13). Like clarity of consciousness, the renewed consciousness, characterized by faith, hope, and love, is God’s gift.

Drug-Altered Consciousness

Drugs also affect consciousness, depending on their psychopharmacological properties. They may shift our perception of space and time, intensify our sense of connection with others, or alter perceptions of pain and pleasure. Some drugs mask our consciousness, dull our judgment and diminish our capacity to react quickly. Others sharpen our acuity. 

Drugs are not inherently evil; they are part of God’s good creation. Our brains produce opioids and cannabinoids. Nicotine works in the brain and other organs because its molecules are shaped like the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. Cocaine works on the limbic system. These drugs affect our consciousness because our brains have receptors for them. This is why so many drugs have medicinal uses. Indeed, drug-altered consciousness, such as that produced by anesthesia during surgery ought to evoke gratitude.

Drugs, like every other part of God’s good but fallen creation, can be misused. Even non-addictive drug use can diminish clarity of consciousness and hinder the work of the Spirit. For example, drugs can mask emotional pain, preventing us from squarely facing uncomfortable truths. They can promise the rewards of pleasure without summoning achievement or transformation. They can distract and demotivate. Some drugs pose significant risks of addiction. This, coupled with the human propensity to self-deception, is what makes some drugs so attractive, insidious, and disorienting. 

Alcohol as Model

As we consider how drugs alter human consciousness, we recall that the Bible comes from a culture well acquainted with a powerful, mind-altering substance: alcohol. In places the Bible praises alcohol for “gladdening the heart” (Psalm 104:15), which sounds like it celebrates some degree of intoxication. In other passages wine is recommended for medicinal purposes (I Timothy 5:23). Jesus came “eating and drinking” and was accused of being a habitual drinker (Luke 7:34). He turned a staggering amount of water into wine at Cana and instituted alcohol for sacramental use in communion.  

Such positive appraisals of alcohol wash up against our experience of alcohol’s destructive potential. We know people addicted to alcohol and others who, under the influence of alcohol, have done great harm. We are not surprised that the scriptures offer warnings against drunkenness (Galatians 5:21, Ephesians 5:18, I Peter 4:23, etc.). When we consider the damage alcohol causes we sympathize with those who have organized temperance movements (which originally encouraged temperance, not prohibition).

Perhaps we best reconcile scriptural affirmations and warnings by remembering the Apostle Paul’s advice, “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything” (1 Cor. 6:12).

The “me” Paul has in mind is not, “me” in isolation, but “me” in community with God an others, for Paul elsewhere insists, “If we live, we live for the Lord” (Romans 14:8). It follows that calculations of what is beneficial for “me” must include others: My family, coworkers, drivers and pedestrians on the road, and others who may be impacted more indirectly such as those who struggle with addiction or the poor who could benefit from money spent on alcohol. Consideration of our selves and others before God does not demand an ethic of abstinence, except, for people who struggle with addiction, for times when we are in presence of people who struggle to stay sober, or for substances that are addictive and harmful. Our obligations to others suggest the contours of an ethic of temperance and prudence that should guide our use of alcohol and other drugs.

[raymondrroberts]

Lady, Morgan and Belle

I grew up with a pointer named Lady who lived in a pen in the backyard. Full of hunt, she had a good nose and a lot of heart. Whenever we went hunting she would dive into the briars and sticker bushes, beating her tail till it was a bloody stick. At the end of the day, her sides would be a bright crimson from being slapped by her tail, her tongue would hanging out and she’d wear a wide smile. The blood and the smile were somewhat incongruous, but made sense. She was doing what she loved to do.

Lady had a tendency to range, which could make her disappear for up to 10 minutes at a time. It was always infuriating to my father.  Perhaps it was her way of getting back at him for consigning her to solitary confinement in the chainlink prison in the back of the yard.  Or perhaps the loneliness of her existence is what made her about the most loving, affectionate dog I’ve ever known. Her devotion to her captors make you wonder whether the Stockholm Syndrome is  species-specific. As English Pointers go, she was homely.  She had no fancy liver spots and her head was a bit soft, without the nobility of some pointers  I’ve seen. She was just a pointer in a small, plain white wrapper. 

When there was a cold snap, by which I mean when the temperature dipped below 10 or 15  degrees, we’d bring her inside. You could tell that she was thrilled to be with us and that she was on her best, kindest behavior. It was so touching that we’d talk about keeping her inside, but, inevitably, within a day or two her unhouse-broken ways would get her sent back to the pen. I always thought it was cruel for such a magnificent, social animal to spend so much time cooped up and alone. 

Perhaps because I generally did the feeding, I made a connection with her.  As a small child I often crawled into the dog house and snuggled in the cold. I’d think about spending the nights alone and it always made me sad. Between her obvious intelligence, her desire and capacity to work with people and her loving disposition, I knew I wanted a bird dog when I grew up.

Of course, convincing my wife, Sallie, was another matter.  She was clear that we weren’t getting any dogs till the kids were potty trained and then, she’d prefer a smaller dog. A dog fit for the house.

We got Morgan because it rained one Sunday. It was one of those warm days you get in February in Virginia, when a teasing thaw that makes you think spring is right around the corner. A moist warm front moved in, releasing a drenching rain that soaked our morning newspaper. We separated the sections and spread them out to dry and as we ate our cereal before heading off to church, Sallie reviewed the one dry section, The Classifieds.

Out of the blue, she ask me what a Llewelyn Setter was.  I had no clue.  With her encouragement I called the person who had advertised a dog and learned that they are a field version of an English Setter.  

My only experience with an English Setters was an encounter with a dog named “Duke” that my father briefly considered buying. He weighed over 100 pounds, and since his head was tall enough to eat off the counter, my mother said, “No.”

More surprising than her query was Sallie’s suggestion that we should check him out. I was excited. Maybe I was going to get a bird dog after all.  

After church, and then after a birthday party my daughter attended at a roller skating rink, we drove out to Goochland County, Virginia.  It was dark by the time we arrived.  We met the owner in his driveway. He told us how he had bought the dogs off another breeder who intended to keep the male as a stud, but found himself in financial difficulty and so sold them as a pair. The current owner also wanted to get into breeding and so only wanted the sister. He kept saying these are special dogs.  

I just thought, “Of course you’re saying that.  You’re trying to sell me one.”

Morgan (that’s him a couple of months before he died) did not impress me when I first met him. He was 6 months old and had lived in a pen his whole life. He was pretty much out of control when we showed up, leaping around. He was so excited to see people. He wasn’t much better after the owner put him on a leash. Morgan did not understand and  scurried around with his tail between his legs, uncertain what was expected.  I decided in my mind that this wasn’t going to work out.  He was too old to house train and so squirrelly on the leash.

And then Sallie gave me a shock when she said, “He seems so sweet.  Let’s get him.”  

I only agreed because I thought this might be my only chance to have a bird dog.

He was filthy. He rode in the trunk of the car on the drive home, where he threw up a couple of times.  His first stop was the bathtub, which he did not like at all. He did not know what to do in the house or with people. It was not an auspicious start. I knew I had my work cut out for me.

House training was not easy, but I was working on my doctorate at Union Seminary at the time and was home a lot during the day. Morgan used to curl up at my feet. I’d take breaks to play with him and worked him on the bird wing.  He immediately got it and would set on the wing for 10 to 15 minutes at a time, quivering with excitement.  His form wasn’t beautiful.  His tail was straight back.  But he was solid. I once left him on point, answered the phone inside. He held the whole time. 

We’d go over to a large empty lot near the seminary and I’d work with him off leash. Either he had already been trained or he picked up hand signals immediately. From the beginning, he was almost an extension of my arm.  He went where I wanted him to go, very aware of everything I was doing, no matter how far he ran.

At home he became my shadow.

When I took a call to a church in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, we could not immediately move into the manse, so we stayed at a church member’s home.  That meant that we couldn’t bring the dog.  Happily, I learned that it was actually cheaper to get him trained than it was to board him at the local vet. So off to school he went.  

The trainer in Western Maryland was impressed with Morgan from the start.  Two weeks in, we drove out to see him. He heard the car drive up and went crazy; he was so excited to see his people.  In the field, he was all business. He was in constant motion and totally focused on finding birds. And when he caught a nose full of quail, he went into immediate lockdown. He froze, whatever position he happened to be in. And he would hold point no matter what.  Two weeks later, the trainer called and said, “Ray, I told you that it would be at least three or four months, maybe six months till he was ready.  And it’s not like I don’t need your money, but this dog is ready to go.”

Morgan was always ready to go. He was serious.  He was disciplined. Stay meant stay. Period. I could put a piece of food on his nose and he’d hold for as long as I wanted him to. It probably helped that he didn’t like dog treats. But he also didn’t like fetch or other dog games. Only bird wing.  In some ways, you might say, there was no play in him.  Though, don’t get the wrong idea: two weeks before he died, friends were commenting that he still had a lot of energy and puppy in him for a 15 year-old dog. 

In the parlance, he was “a one-man dog.”  If I was home, he was always at my feet.  If someone else ordered him to go outside or come, he’d check with me first. He’d hold if I didn’t say, “Okay.”  But as soon as I gave the nod, he was off and completely obedient.

In the field, he was a joy to work with.  The best part about hunting was working him and watching him do his thing.  He was a constant blur.  It was hard to get him to stop for water, even on very hot days.  He wanted to get back to the very thing he was born to do. And he did not range at all. If he did disappear you knew he’d be right back to check on whether you were keeping up. His attitude was always an eager, “Let’s go!”

Finally, the end came. The day after friends commented on his energy, something happened. It was hard to know what, but we could tell the end was near.  Something was off.  He didn’t run. He didn’t have energy.  He wouldn’t eat.  He was completely cognizant and his eager obedience lasted, even when it was clear that he was having trouble walking.  His last meal was a steak I had cooked for myself, but he drooled and I fed him every piece of it. A couple of days later I cooked another steak for him. I told myself that this might be what he needs to get stronger and get through this. But he wouldn’t take any.  He just curled up on top of my foot. 

Over those two weeks he slowed down and slept a lot.  The day came and it was obvious that he was in pain and all quality of life had gone. We decided that we had to take him to the vet and put him down. We scheduled it on a Saturday between a wedding and a reception. When we came home from the wedding to take him to the vet, he had left a trail of diarrhea all over the house and a broken rib protruded.  It helped confirmed our dreadful decision. It really was time. I carried him to the car and into the vet and held him in my arms and said, “Goodbye.”  

Loosing him was losing a family member.  Or perhaps a hand.  He was nearly part of me, between his always being underfoot or following my every direction in the field.  

My wife could not bear to go through church that Sunday. Right before the service, she went home to grieve and look at pictures of Setters on the internet. 

Over the next weeks, we talked about getting another dog someday. A friend stopped by the church with his setter, Tucker, and the grief came back. 

And then one day, my wife suggested that while we visited our daughter over parents’ weekend at Washington and Lee University, that we stop by a breeder whose philosophy she liked. She had a bitch that had just given birth to a litter of puppies. We were not to get a dog until after my son’s wedding.  Our goal was to take the temperature of the breeder.  

That is how we met Belle.  (She’s the puppy with the two black ears and the black over the eyes, which is called a full hood.)  We immediately fell in love with her.  She was precious like all puppies are.  She had the “full hood” like Morgan, which we liked.  She was from the last litter of the breeder’s smallest and calmest bitch.  This was the last female puppy left in the litter, if we wanted her.

We went back and forth.  My daughter was all in and named her “Belle.”  I wanted to make the jump.  Other girls in my daughter’s sorority weighed in favor. One mom said, “The smart thing is to say, “No.”

Sallie reminded us that she had the whole family coming to our house for Thanksgiving and the last thing she needed was a puppy to add to the confusion  But at some point along the way, she gave in and figured out that she had a day when she could drive all the way down from our home outside of New York City to pick up the puppy. And she did. 

That next summer, as the time drew near for my son’s wedding, we took Belle over to the trainer in Western Maryland, for a couple of weeks of preliminary training. Two weeks into the training, I called him up.

His first words were, “Ray, you know Morgan was a once in a lifetime dog.”  

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

He pressed on, “What I’m trying to say is that you need to appreciate what you had to appreciate what you’ve got.  I’ve seen very few dogs that love birds the way Morgan did.” 

I asked, “Are you saying she doesn’t like birds?”

He said, “She loves birds fine.  She’s just a normal dog.  She just doesn’t love them the way Morgan did.  She doesn’t have his drive, though, I think I have to say, she does run much prettier.”

Sadly, for a variety of reasons, mostly a lack of time, I never got Belle fully trained. However she has worked her way into my heart just as deeply. 

Belle’s life has been quite different. For a while she was an office dog at Buttermore and Foltz law offices.  She’d go with Sallie to work, camp out under someone’s desk and respectfully greet clients. While she’s not as trained on birds, she has become quite skilled at following hand signals and voice commands.  In fact, using just these commands, I have directed her to herd sheep on my brother’s farm.  I sent her to bring strays back to the herd and move them at a non-rushed pace through a gate. My brother was impressed by her responsiveness. If anything, she was under better control than Morgan would have been in that situation. He’d have been too focused on checking for birds to be much good. 

From time to time I am struck by the difference between my dogs. Morgan was all business, serious and disciplined. Belle loves to play. Morgan hated treats.  Belle lives for them. Morgan was a one-man dog, while Belle lavishes affection and attention on close friends. Morgan had such energy that when I once took him on a six mile bike ride and he ran ahead of me hunting the whole way. He ran at least 12 miles, perhaps more, as he checked every possible hiding place for birds. Belle, on the other hand, will run for a quarter mile and then walk by your side the rest of the way. She lies down in the yard while I work in the garden. Morgan would be irresistibly drawn to checking out the perimeters of other homes on the street for birds.

And yet, beneath the differences is the same innate intelligence, this game attitude of: “I’m with you, wherever you go, I’m up for anything,” the same silky soft ears, and this love and loyalty that gives every setter owner a moment of recognition when they introduce the breed at the Westminster Kennel Show.

“Whether it be a farm or an apartment, a setter is always home so long as he can be with the people he loves.” 

[raymondrroberts]

Belle is nearing the end… I don’t know that she was smarter than some people, but I do know she was kinder.

[raymondrroberts]

A Memorial Day Sermon

Today is Memorial Day.  On Memorial Day we remember those died in this nation’s service.  We remember soldiers whose minds turned dark on the edge of a field, in the muck of a trench, or on the beachhead sand.  We remember sailors who died in a blast amidships and aircrew men who died from a shell bursting in air.  (Thanks to poet Richard Wilbur for imagery.)  Today we do not avert our eyes.  We remember.

WHEN WE REMEMBER THEIR SACRIFICE, WE PUT AWAY THE ILLUSION THAT WE ARE SELF-MADE.  We give up the foolish misapprehension that if we are successful it is only because we have pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps, that we have done this all by ourselves.

Perhaps more than any weekend, except Good Friday, we remember that we depend on other people. Our freedom, our success, our happiness, our lives rests on the sacrifices of others. We have, in large part, because they gave. We live because their lives were cut short and their possibilities never realized.  Many of them did not live to marry, or to see a child born or graduate, or to grow old and be able to complain about what a pain it is to grow old.

On Memorial Day we focus on those who made the ultimate sacrifice, but they are hardly the only ones we depend on.  We depend on family, and those like family, who make sacrifices out of love. We depend on people whose work requires them to stay up all night and who live with circadian rhythms that are perpetually out of synch, those who do menial, often difficult, dirty jobs, sometimes for not much pay, and first responders who put their lives in harm’s way to protect us.  When we remember how much we depend on others, the proper response is gratitude. 

 Gratitude is the basic Christian posture toward life, because we know that life is a gift. Thanksgiving is a spiritual practice.  It involves counting our blessings and naming our dependence on others and through these others on God, and giving thanks. Gratitude is especially fitting on this day.

ON MEMORIAL DAY WE ALSO PUT AWAY THE NOTION THAT WE LIVE ONLY FOR OURSELVES, the idea that we owe no one anything, that our responsibly ends with our skin. It is sad to say, but as American society has lost a Protestant Ethic, this notion has become more widespread. There has been an exaltation of selfishness.  Some will tell you that selfishness motivates all human behavior.  Some are even willing to go to far as to claim that selfishness is a virtue.

  Before the First Iraq War General Scwartzkopf put it more properly when he talked with the troops.  He said the reason soldiers serve is for love.  Love of country, love of justice, love of one’s community, love of one’s comrades.

 This fits with a basic Christian insight about human nature –that we are motivated by love and usually not just love of self, which creates a very small world, but love of family, colleagues, work and country. 

It is true: our loves are disordered by sin.  Sometimes we love the wrong thing:  We can love fame, or revenge, or riches. Or we love the right thing wrongly: we can have an exalted sense of self (as when we are selfish) or one’s community or nation, so we are unable to love others rightly.  In American history a healthy patriotism has sometimes deteriorated into an ugly nationalism.  And love for one’s comrades has sometimes turned into something horrifying and evil.  We Christians should be the most sensitive to this for we know that no nation can be equated with the kingdom of God. We should sense this before others do.  

But on Memorial Day the claim that selfishness is a virtue is revealed as a grossly inadequate and misleading truth - if one can go so far as to call it a truth.  On this day we remember people who knew better, who lived better than this.  They served a cause greater than self.  They had a larger vision.  They responded to our nation’s call with love and loyalty and laid down their lives.

  MEMORIAL DAY REMINDS US OF OUR OBLIGATIONS TO OTHERS.  We have a debt.  We have a duty to honor the sacrifice of those who died.  We have a duty to the men and women of different races and religions, who gave their lives, to make certain that their sons and daughters enjoy all the privileges of citizenship and equality of opportunity in a free society.  We have a sacred duty to make certain that they did not die in vain.  We have a responsibility to build a more just society, a more perfect union. We should never allow national sins to rob their graves of a reason to die.

  We also have a duty to our community and our nation not to take the gifts we’ve been given for granted.  The temptation is often great, but we should be free riders on the sacrifices of others. We should not forget how much they have given us.  Rather, we should honor the sacrifice of those who gave their lives by taking inspiration from them.  They teach us that we are, all of us, rich poor, people of different religions, races, and regions of the country:  we are all in this thing called “Nation” together.  In the theology of our Presbyterian forebears, our lives are bound together in a covenant.  Or as Martin Luther King put it, are lives are woven together in a single garment of destiny.

When the demands of communal life come knocking, whether it is serving on jury duty (which I have never heard anyone speak of with any affection), or paying taxes, or serving the defense of our country, or voting, or obeying laws, or treating fellow citizens with respect, we should remember those who gave more than most of us ever will.  We should respond, the way they did.  Willingly.

Many popular political philosophies cannot appreciate what Memorial Day is about.  They name partial truths while ignoring deeper realities. But we, as Christians, can understand. God gives us a larger picture of participation in God’s world of many nations and peoples.  God gives us abundant life through Jesus Christ, who shows us a life worth living.

WE REMEMBER HOW JESUS TOLD HIS DISCIPLES, EVEN AS HE TELLS US, LOVE ONE ANOTHER.  And then he observed, “Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friends.” He walked the talk and laid down his life for us, for you and me, and for the world, offering forgiveness to his enemies and ours.

His sacrifice reminds us of the gifts that make our lives possible and fills us with gratitude. He reminds us that our lives are connected to others in ways that give rise to have duties and obligations to love one another.  And his example inspires us to love, and to serve, and to lay down our lives.

IT IS SAD TO SAY, but I do not think I appreciated what Memorial Day was about until I saw the movie, Saving Private Ryan. The movie is about a group of soldiers who are sent behind enemy lines to rescue a paratrooper whose brothers were killed during the D-Day Invasion. At the end of the movie Tom Hanks character, a dying Captain John H. Miller, says to Private James Ryan, “Earn this.” He pulls him close and he says it again, “Earn this.” 

The movie cuts to Miller’s tombstone, where a now elderly James Ryan says to his wife, “Tell me that I’ve lived a good life.”  She asks, “What are you talking about?”  He says it again, “Tell me I’ve lived a good life.” (You can find the clip here.)

The life God gives you in Christ and through the sacrifices of others is a sacred trust.  When I think about it, I realize that I CAN’T EARN IT.  I don’t deserve it. 

Yet, amazingly, the gift is still given.  I pray I have the strength to pass the gift along to others.Amen.

[raymondrroberts]

As Memorial Day approaches, let us consider the meaning of sacrifice.

[raymondrroberts]

The Limits of Enlighten Selfishness

I have before me a really intersting article by Peter Singer, THE DROWNING CHILD AND THE EXPANDING CIRCLE, you can find it here. 

Singer want us to cultivate an ethic of global responsibility and views the abstraction of the global community (the expanded circle) compared with the concrete proximity of our locally lived lives as the most significant obstacle to developing this ethic. 

I think Singer runs into trouble when he tries to ground an ethic of global responsibility in an account of enlightened self interest.  

This is not where he starts.  In fact, to my mind, he starts in a more promising place:  a thought experiment that reveals that his students’ sense that they are obliged to save a child from drowning in a shallow pond.  (BTW - obligation contains the word "ligament" which refers to the covenantal ties that bind us to others).  He challenges the adequacy of the language of obligation by observing that the world is so big that we often don't feel and cannot make sense of these ties.  Singer is right about the problem.  But I think he is wrong to conclude that these difficulties mean that this avenue of moral inquiry is a dead end.  

The fact that we have difficulty sensing or understanding how to respond to global needs does not make them evaporate. Indeed, the world faces a global crisis that threatens all human life.  He goes on to say,

In these circumstances the need for a global ethic is inescapable. Is it nevertheless a vain hope? Here are some reasons why it may not be.  We live in a time when many people experience their lives as empty and lacking in fulfilment. The decline of religion and the collapse of communism have left but the ideology of the free market whose only message is: consume, and work hard so you can earn money to consume more.

This statement begs a number of questions:  First, who are the "many” who “experience their lives as empty and lacking in fulfillment"? Are the Pakistanis, desperately demanding that those who benefited from burning carbon help them address its climatic consequences, experiencing their lives as “empty”?  I point this out to note that he's talking to a privileged audience.

Second, is "the ideology of the free market" really is all that is left?  Leave aside that this statement makes more sense in the secular west than in the global south.  It is not clear to me that free market values are as broadly shared as he seems to think, a point that I will come back to later.  

It is odd that Singer claims this is the only language left, for he knows it is deeply problematic. Moreover, Singer doesn’t claim that we must settle for the ideology of the free market. He goes out of his way to argues that self-interest is self-defeating. It can’t deliver what it promises and heightens the global crisis.  Instead, he encourages us to adopt an enlightened self interest. While I think this is an improvement, it is not clear to me what he means by “enlightened” or how this solves the problems he identified with language of obligation in a global context.   Singer doesn't define the modifier “enlightened,” but imagines that if we were “enlightened” our sense of self-interest would expand to include the flourishing of others and of the planet.  By claiming, rightly, that our welfare is “bound up” with the flourishing of others, Singer returns to the covenantal ideas at the beginning of the article that he found lacking. In truth I don’t think we can escape the temptation to attend to the local at the expense of the distant, or focus on the now at the expense of the future.  I just think this is the human predicament.  We evolved in small social groups. We live in a big world.

I note that when his students talked about what they “owed” the drowning child, they did not frame it in terms of enlightened self-interest.  Indeed, one reason many would call saving the child moral is because saving the child involves sacrifice (small in his thought experiment).  (I leave aside the possibility that agents should have an interest in becoming a virtuous person.)  Maybe the student ruined their shoes or a suit.  Maybe saving the child and missing class negatively impacted their grades, diminishing future earning power and its associated happiness. Language of self-interest, even enlightened self-interest, doesn’t seem to capture what going on or explain why it might be important. Indeed, it is not exactly clear why it should still be called self-interest.   By contrast, covenantal language of obligation has much more power.

Anthropology and Classical Economics 

I confess that I resist Singer’s attempt to redeem the ideology of the free market. Classical economics' portrait of human nature as individualistic and essentially selfish may help predict aggregate economic behavior, but, as Singer notes, it is a terrible moral guide.

I prefer a more social portrait of human nature.  The language of obligation, growing as it does out of covenantal thinking points to the social nature of human beings.  We feel the pull of these ties, even if we cannot always explain them.  While we frequently chafe when they constrict us, they can also be lifelines that make our lives possible. We feel obliged.

Equally problematic is that the anthropology of classical economics does not adequately describe how human beings actually behave, which is why I earlier doubted that it is widely shared. Do parents really pursue their enlightened self interest when they sacrifice for their children?  Does a parent think, "I am doing this for me because this child matters to me?" Doesn't parental love find its fulfillment in losing one's self and taking delight in the flourishing of another?  Isn’t the goal of parenting to help a child discover their independence and leave the nest? Making a child or anything else a project for personal fulfillment, even “enlightened” personal fulfillment can inspire a lot of dark, twisted shit. 

Not only does enlightened self-interest fail to explain family ties, it doesn’t explain the ordinary and extraordinary sacrifices people make for their community and country.   I could say more, but it seems self-evident.

More than simply selfishly loving themselves, people are more likely to love and serve their families, their colleagues, clients, their work, their neighborhoods, nation, causes, and even nature.  

Augustine gave a social account of human nature when he taught that people are motivated by loves.  A full account of love involves things like loyalties, attention, service and sacrifice.  He defined sin as loving the wrong thing or loving the right thing wrongly.  Salvation, by his account, involves reordering of our loves bringing us get it closer to getting it right.  

Indeed, love provides way to connect the local with the global. For where love for the whole is weak, one might be persuaded to preserve the environment so one’s children may flourish or to prevent the ocean from flooding one’s beloved city.  One might even saw that we owe them.  

Given the problem of disordered loves, however, we can expect that just as love for children can inspire great good, it can also inspire evil.  Witness angry parents on the sidelines at a children’s sports events or the scandal where parents bribed people to get their children into competitive universities. Nothing assures us that love for children will, by itself, lead parents to preserve the environment for distant others or for the sake of life itself. We can do the right thing for the wrong reason.

Jonathan Edwards resolved this problem theologically.  He defined “true virtue” as “benevolence toward being in general,” which he viewed as the great chain of being that emanated from God.  Love for God provides motivation to love the world as a whole and to love its parts as God does.  The love of God lures us away from the temptation to idolatry, where we absolutize a finite part of the world and sacrifice others on its behalf (such as parents who bribed people to get their children into competitive universities).  From this view point there is an appropriate self interest or self love because the self has a worthy place before God.  Self-interest is enlightened when it is reordered to appropriately honor the good of others. 

I have two other observations:  I note that Singer’s attempt to rehabilitate free market ideology is individualistic.  This explains why, though Singer mentions collective action, he does not really address social policy, which is where many challenges facing the global world will be resolved. 

Also Singer notes the localism of the saying "charity begins at home."  But he is wrong to think it means that we have no obligations to others more distant. The saying is not that charity “ends at home.”  Rather, it "begins at home,” for how can we love those far away unless we first learn to love those close to us?

[raymondrroberts]

Not Crazy About Crypto

Here is why I never got excited about Crypto-currencies.

Currencies rests on a complicated mixture of real and symbolic value.  Real value has to do with what can you do with it in the real world?  Gold can be used in industry and for ornamentation, while the only value Confederate currency has left is as an historical curiosity.  While visiting a developing country, my brother found himself in a bathroom without toilet paper. Desperate, he decided that the local currency had more value as toilet paper than as currency. Digital currency lacks any real worth.  

Some clever person might observe that paper and electronic money also lack any inherent worth.  They would be right.  Over time our society has developed an agreement that dollars have symbolic value.  This shared recognition value makes it possible for us to do things like purchase groceries or assign value to a piece of art.  

We note here that the value of money is in constant flux, which makes the current inflation unsettling.  It goes without saying that we require good monetary and social policies to stabilize the value of money.  We should resist voices that would dilute the “full faith and credit of the United States.”  

All of this said, the symbolic value crypto enthusiasts ascribed to digital currency always seemed wanting. While it apparently did have value as a means of illegal exchange, that value was limited because it was never liquid. This is why it was pitched as an “investment” rather than an alternative way to bank or purchase groceries.  One can ask, under what conditions could crypto become a useful medium of exchange?  It would almost have to be something catastrophic, like a collapse of the current money system such that U.S. dollars became as useful as Confederate currency is today.  While not unimaginable, that seems unlikely.  Even then, I have a feeling that people would likely prefer something real, like gold or other useful items.   I remember once trading a used ballpoint pen for an intricate wood carving in Zambia. The seller initiated the deal. At the time, I thought this is nuts.  But upon reflection I realized that the Zambian Kwacha was nearly worthless and the average wage in Zambia was 1 U.S. dollar/day.  The pen represented something like two days work and could be readily exchanged. Maybe I did not appreciate the possibilities of the block chain, but since it lacked any real or much symbolic value, I remained skeptical.  Recent events at FTX confirm my suspicion.  Side Note: I oppose returning to the gold standard for a host of reasons.  Money was not that much more “real” when we were on the gold standard and people carried gold certificates they hoped were backed by banks.  That is, they hoped that the real and symbolic value aligned - they did not always.  The boom and bust period from the Civil War to the Great Depression teach that the gold standard does not ensure economic stability.  Populist calls during this time for a bi-metal monetary system of silver and gold (although based rank quackery) tell us that many people weren’t happy about the gold standard and its economic limitations. People who want us to return to the gold standard demonstrate a lack of historical knowledge and unfamiliarity with the history of money.

[raymondrroberts]

A Response to Mearsheimer

I have before me an interview with John Mearsheimer, a foreign policy realist who always offers an interesting perspective.  You can find the interview here.

Is the invasion our fault?  Mearsheimer has long argued that Russia would find  NATO’s expansion provocative.  Many lately have found his concern prescient. In his book, World Order, Henry Kissinger explains how the history of invasions (Khan, Bonaparte, Hitler) has led Russia to want buffer states. This history reminds us how much of the Soviet Bloc was about Russia rather than communist ideology. 

Of course, after the fall of the Soviet Union all those nations wanted to escape Russia’s orbit and join the rest of Western Europe.  How much weight should we give national self-determination?  

My own take is that acknowledging that NATO’s expansion was provocative doesn’t excuse Putin's invasion and shouldn’t distract us Putin’s rationale for the invasion, which purported to restore Russia to the glory of Alexander the Great and unite the Mir Rus [the Russian world].  We shouldn't view it as the sole reason for the invasion, but as an element in a complex picture.  (Similarly we should not echo Putin's claim that the H.W. Bush administration promised not to expand NATO.  Jame Baker has repeatedly denied making this assurance.)

Nuclear Weapons:  At this point I'm less fearful than Mearsheimer is that Putin will use Nukes, though I share his doubt that NATO would respond in kind.  At the same time Mearsheimer articulates why other nations are likely to look at this conflict and conclude that it is nice to have nuclear weapons to ensure that national sovereignty.  There is little doubt that this conflict would look much different if Ukraine had not signed the Budapest Memorandum and given up its nukes.  

Given that security guarantees given by the United States and Russia (!) encouraged them to relinquish  the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal, if we don't support them in this conflict, how will that impact other security guarantees we have made?  Would it lead to nuclear proliferation? Nationalism:  Mearsheimer discusses Ukrainian nationalism, but doesn't  address Putin's effort to stoke Russian nationalism.  Putin’s nationalistic saber rattling resonates among Russia’s far right, but, given given how many draft eligible men have fled the country, it don’t seem to have much traction among the larger public.  Limited Aim Strategy:  Mearsheimer’s biggest mistake is confusing hubris for a "limited aim" strategy.  Reports are that the otherwise poorly equipped invasion force was carrying dress uniforms for their triumphant march in Kiev.  Everyone thought they'd roll in without much resistance.  Leaders want victory on the cheap (see my comments about Biden below).  Given the ease with which the "Green Men" took Crimea and Putin's own justifications for the war, I think it is more accurate to say that Putin, underestimated Ukraine, and NATO.   Recently heard an interview with Robert Lieber that you can find here.   He's way more Hawkish than me, but makes the point that W's overreach in Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama's (and the nation's) desire to pull back from those fiascos and Obama's failure to follow through on his "red line" after Syria's chemical weapon attack, signaled to Russia and China that the United States was in global retreat and they could take Crimea and expand territorial claims in the South China Sea and not get push back from us or our allies. Long War:  Mearsheimer believes we are in for a long war.  He may be right.  My read is that Ukraine is going to make a push after the ground freezes, hoping that Russia's inadequately equipped, poorly trained, low morale army will collapse.  Reviews I've read suggest that all Russian fortifications are along Ground Lines of Communication and vulnerable to flanking.  Intercepts of calls suggest that Russian troop morale is in the toilet and that the citizenry understands that things going poorly.  

If the Russian army collapses, I think we have to again worry about the specter of nuclear weapons, especially if Ukraine invades Crimea.  That said, there isn't a good way for Putin to use them without hurting his own troops.  He’s bound to know that NATO’s response, while likely to be conventional, will be fierce.  

No End in Sight:  Recent books I've read about peace talks (Gideon Rose and Dan Reiter) suggest that Mearsheimer is correct in assessing that neither Ukraine or Russia are ready for peace talks.  Katrina vanden Heuvel's, to pick an easy target, is correct that the war will end with peace talks. Ukraine is not going to roll tanks into Moscow and dictate peace!, but like a a lot of folks lately who are calling for talks, she pays NO attention to the preconditions that will make talks productive, incentives to negotiate, trust between parties, enduring grievances, and what parties imagine they can still achieve on the battlefield. Mearsheimer is sadly right.  The war is going grind on.  

Concluding Thoughts:  While I think Biden has on balance done a pretty good job, I don't think he's been straight with the American people about the sacrifices we're making or telling us why they are worth it.  I think this is dangerous.  This is really costly and he owes it to explain why it is worth doing.  If the public doesn't understand why the inflation, maybe recession, the budget deficit, etc., is worth it, the 2024 election may become a referendum on the war.

We do need to be thinking about what peace looks like (even if we can't yet foresee how the war ends).  Removal of Putin? Who replaces him? Yevgeny Prigozhin?  He's a monster and arguably worse.  I fear the Russian economy will be broken that we will leave them simmering in resentment. That means that reparations will be, at best, symbolic.  I would support a Marshall Plan for Ukraine and Russia, though both could be a tough sell (as was the Marshall Plan).  

Pray for peace.

[raymondrroberts]

A Thanksgiving Prayer

Creator God, you are the source of everything that makes life possible and worth living. From your hand comes the marvel of matter, the mystery of time, and the wonder of life itself. You have given it all: From particles in the quantum universe, smaller than we can imagine, to immensities of space that we cannot begin to fathom. It all exists because you created it and sustain it. And it is good!

Loving God, you have given us everything: life, food to nourish our bodies, the breath within us, dear people we care for and who care for us, a society that produces plenty, and minds to enjoy and appreciate your gifts. Your generosity knows know end: For you have not withheld your own self, but have given us Jesus, your Word, the clue to the meaning of all things, our redeemer and friend. You have even given your own Spirit to strengthen and lead us.  

For everything past that makes possible the gift of this present moment we give you thanks. And for your promised future, in which suffering and brokenness of the world can find healing and meaning, we offer you grateful hearts.  Even as we count our blessings, O Lord, help us to make our blessings count for your purposes. Keep us mindful of those in need. As you bless this meal, blessus to your service, for the sake of Christ Jesus, our Lord.  Amen.  

[raymondrroberts]

I have in front of me a curious article by Derek Thompson titled, “Workism Is Making Americans Miserable:  For the college-educated elite, work has morphed into a religious identity—promising transcendence and community, but failing to deliver.” While I appreciate Derek Thompson's observation that worshipping work is a dead end, I strongly disagree that Americans worship work because we have “shifted from ‘jobs’ to ‘careers’ to ‘callings.’”

Thompson's understanding of "calling" is simply inadequate to his analysis. To understand why, simply ask, "Called by whom?” Indeed, contrary to Thompson, the way to avoid the temptation to worship work, may be to understand how a "calling" can give work meaning while also saving us from idolizing it. Or to put it another way, we should understand that “faith in an intangible and unfalsifiable force of goodness” is a not a separate and tangential avenue for meaning but is deeply entwined in the tangibility of work.

In the American Protestant tradition, a "calling" gave work meaning by setting it in a larger framework of relationships and purpose. From this perspective, the “particular calling” of being a lawyer is not just "a job" where you make money, or a "career" where you make "partner;" rather, it is a way to serve God and neighbor. Lawyers should do more than serve their families by earning money and providing for them. They should also do more than serve the neighbor who is their client who pays them. Lawyers are called to serve God’s causes on earth through the practice of law. While the call to pursue justice is universal, lawyers, as officers the court, have a special responsibility to seek justice. Weaponizing the law to subvert or avoid justice is a violation of their calling, no matter how legal it may be or how meaningful a lawyer may personally find it.

The traditional concept of “calling” or “vocation” has many other important things to say about the purpose of institutions and a world in which people are unemployed, underemployed, work for starvation wages, and struggle to find meaningful work. I grant Thompson's larger point: that the American Protestant narrative has receded in the national imagination and that this evacuation has opened the way for “workism.” However, I continue find a “calling” or “vocation” as a meaningful way to work into a larger perspective without giving it ultimate significance.  In fact, I don’t really see another way to find the balance he notes has been lost. 

[raymondrroberts]

Gethsemene

I wrote this song back in the mid-1990s.  Finally recorded it this week.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oRM5J5cW3k&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2FfNR0-mdmAnB73dqqGNoqhA-zUxk0sTgACBcssVKwVBGZS5W6tmEb0Ho

[raymondrroberts]

Should Churches Ditch Screens?

I have an article before me titled, “Why Churches Should Ditch the Projector Screens and Bring Back the Hymnals.”  

I find SO MUCH WRONG WITH this article that I barely know where to begin. But before I do share my misgivings, let me put to rest a possible misimpression my negative response could give. I do not hate “traditional worship. In fact. I love it. It has blessed my life. This does not change the fact that this article is wrong to the point of being unhelpful. 

1) “THE SCREENS ARE UGLY.”  I love beautiful sacred spaces, but the church of Jesus Christ has often gathered in unlovely sacred spaces:  store-front churches, village huts, homes in Capernum, Catacombs, and (gasp!) gymnasiums. Even when screens are used they are not left blank during worship, but are illuminated, often in ways that could be said to be digital stained glass.  They can enhance worship, particularly for visual learners. Finally, I thought we weren’t gathered to worship the building, but God’s glory. 

2) “PROJECTOR SCREENS REFLECT OUR TECH OBSESSED CULTURE.” The author never considers that most Christians have never used a hymnal, or that hymnals reflect a technology, or that the earliest hymnals had no notes, or that the rise of hymnals revolutionized church music, creating controversies such as whether people should just sing the psalms or whether they could sing songs of “human invention” in worship.  

3) “HYMNALS PROVIDE DEEP THEOLOGICALLY RICH WORSHIP.” Maybe.  As someone who has sung hymns out of hymnals that contain speculation and sometimes rank heresy, count me unpersuaded that technology, in itself, determines whether a song is deep or theologically rich. 

I do grant that having a community of theologians and musicians curating music has many advantages. That this doesn’t happen with contemporary music speaks to the failure of denominations to support “contemporary music” in a changing society.  If I am honest, this is resistance is raised by people who are heavily invested in the status quo.  And if I am more honest, I observe that too many of these folks dismiss contemporary music’s repetition as boring (except when it is Taizé) and consider the adoption of the cultural vernacular as vulgar (except when 3rd world Christians do it).  Like this article, many objections reflect a certain certain blindness. 4) “TO SAVE WORSHIP WE MUST REDISCOVER HYMNALS.” This is silly. It is as silly as saying that “to save worship we must adopt new technology.”  The future of worship does not depend on either.  It depends on our ability to lead people to praise God’s glory.  Maybe if the author considered the demographic trends he bemoans, he’d have offered a more creative response. “The heavens are declaring the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1) They have no hymnals or screens and their praise extends to the heavens.

[raymondrroberts]

A Brief Defense of Liberal Democracy

This essay is pieced together from excerpts of a paper I delivered in Bangkok in November 2019.  Observers note that the quality and quantity of liberal democracies is in decline[1]  Globally, authoritarianism and ethno-nationalism are on the rise. It seems like a good time to consider why Christians ought to support liberal democracy.

This map indicates the state of democracies worldwide, for an explanation click this link.

I have a general target in mind when I talk about liberal democracy. By liberal I mean provisions that require states to protect the rights of individuals and groups, particularly minorities, through its laws. By democracy I mean forms of government that empower citizens to regularly elect their political leaders in free, fair, and meaningful elections.[2] While some scholars distinguish liberalism and democracy, identifying “illiberal democracies,” I note that liberalism and democracy are mutually dependent. When liberalism declines, a tyranny of the majority emerges.[3]  

Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr famously rooted his defense of democracy in Christian anthropology, saying,

“[The human] capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but [the human] inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”[4]

Image of God

A Christian anthropology begins with the conviction that all people are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). This belief supports the dignity of every person and authorizes a special concern for the poor, weak, and vulnerable. It undercuts elitist ideologies and ethnic prejudices, providing a point of solidarity across what can sometimes appear to be unbridgeable tribal, racial, national, linguistic, historical and cultural differences. In the face of humankind’s incredible diversity, gifts, status and conditions, it provides a metaphysical-moral reason for equality before the law. People who view others as bearing the image of God have good reason to oppose illiberal populisms and ethno-nationalism.

Natural Law

A Christian anthropology also holds that God has endowed every human being with a natural law, or a moral sense.[5] This idea was developed from the Apostle Paul’s observation that gentiles who lack the revealed law of God nevertheless possess the capacity for moral reasoning. The Apostle Paul said that God had written the law on their hearts, giving them a conscience (Romans 2:14-15). This is why people of other religions or no religion so often manifest good will.

In the 11th Century the conviction that every person was capable of discerning right and wrong became the foundation on which natural law thinking developed and European law was reconstructed. Since Hugo Grotius in the 17th Century, natural law and the Protestant (and, later, enlightenment) elevations of the individual conscience provided a foundation for international law, secular government, and inter-religious dialogue.[6] The belief that human beings can discern right and wrong undermines exclusionary claims that moral insight and practice is limited to religious texts, the interpreters of these texts, or the members of communities formed around these texts.

As it relates to democracy, the belief in natural law funds a hope that societies can find thin ethical agreement across the diversities of religion and culture. [7] Natural law provides a foundation for social solidarity among dissimilar peoples, grounding confidence that individuals can transcend personal and tribal interests to imagine common public goods. Similarly, it mandates that every citizen participate in democratic conversation and decision-making. It also undercuts defenses employed by oppressive states that claim their violations of human rights reflect distinctive cultural values that deserve respect. Together, the doctrines of the image of God and natural law provide a theological rationale for the human capacity for justice.

Sin

While everyone has a moral sense, we everywhere see how this sense can be muted and twisted to evil ends. Christians attribute this failure to sin, a doctrine built on the Apostle Paul’s statement that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3.23). As a description of human nature, the doctrine of sin accords with observations that human beings are inclined to estrangement and destruction. Whether from finitude, anxiety or trauma, human interests, moral reasoning, laws, and institutions tend to “curve in on themselves” (Augustine). That is, human beings pursue constricted visions of the good that fail to honor the Creator and Redeemer’s expansive purpose for “all things” (Colossians 1:15-20).

Sin is inventive.[8] Calvin described human beings as “idol factories” constantly finding ways to turn from God. Sin is not necessary, but it is universal. Its corrupting distortions infect every aspect of human being. In the Reformed Tradition this aspect of sin is conveyed in the term, “total depravity.” Sin is embedded in and passed down in culture, deforming every individual and institution in society. It even corrupts individuals and movements engaged in redemptive efforts to heal souls, ameliorate sins affects, and reform social evils. The cross of Christ specifically arouses suspicion of political and religious power.

The doctrine of sin prompts us to recognize the countless ways human beings and their institutions pursue evil purposes. It leads us to anticipate the inventive ways that social, economic and political systems fall short of their life-giving promise. It amplifies sensitivity to corporate and structural evil and triggers apprehension whenever we face concentrations of power. People equipped with a strong doctrine of sin are not dismayed when they confront xenophobia, racism, imperfect democratic institutions, or desires for a strong authoritarian leader.

The doctrine of sin makes the church skeptical that moral and religious appeals can, by themselves, correct injustice or protect the common good. It underwrites efforts to surmount problems inherent in concentrations of power through mechanisms of transparency (reporting requirements, whistleblower protections, freedom of information laws, and a free press). It seeks to diffuse the problems of concentrated power by setting power against power with checks, balances, and limits.

Sin’s realism about the human capacity for evil points to the necessity of vertical democratic systems of transparency and accountability (voting) and horizontal checks on power across the various branches of government. It predicts that, over time, governments that are not required to protect the rights of individuals and groups, particularly minority groups, can be counted on to violate those rights. Indeed, it predicts that even governments that are required to protect the rights of individuals and groups will fail at their responsibilities. Again, while authoritarian governments may efficiently pursue public goods, over time they can be counted on to abuse their power in ways that are destructive to individuals and society.[9] Just as the human capacity for justice makes democracy possible, human sin makes democracy necessary. NOTES [1] For example see Larry Diamond, “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession,” Journal of Democracy 26 (1) (2015): 141-155. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Diamond-26-1_0.pdf.

[2] In this definition I follow John J. Mearsheimer’s definition of “liberal democracy, adding a responsibility to protect group rights.” See The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities, (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2018), pg. 11.

[3] Mearsheimer is an example of the former scholar.  Yashca Mounk is an example of the latter scholar. See, The People Vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Dangers and How to Save It (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2018).

[4] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944), pg. xiii.

[5] Jean Porter claims that natural law viewed as a “universal capacity of moral discernment.” She claims the later was the foundation for the development of the natural law tradition. See Jean Porter, Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 1999). See also, Jean Porter, Nature as Reason:  A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 2005). Notice that this Reformed perspective, after taking scriptural bearings, turns to some Roman Catholic resources.

[6] While Grotius is sometimes credited with providing a secular basis for international law, we ought not forget that his optimism concerning natural law grew out of his Christian faith. See Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, Book 1 (Indianapolis:  Liberty Fund, 2005). In a similar way, Edwin Corwin has argued that American Constitutional Law rests on this higher law background. See, “The Higher Law Background of American Constitutional Law,” Harvard Law Review (XLII, No. 2, December 1928), pg. 149ff. http://www.romeroinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CorwinHigherLaw.pdf.

[7] It also suggests that thin ethical agreements, such as the United Nation’s statement on rights, can inspire peoples to construct thick moral reasons for supporting those rights. For a discussion of the contributions of Protestant views of natural law to liberal political thought see Adam B. Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (New York:  Free Press, 1992).

[8] This creativity may explain why the church has marshaled many metaphors to describe sin and its remedy, grace. Metaphors for sin and grace abound, they include:  sickness and salvation, bondage and liberation (redemption), non-alignment (missing the mark) and justification (alignment), estrangement and reconciliation, debt and forgiveness, disorientation (lost) and reorientation (found), constriction and expansion, disordered love and reordered love, corruption and renewal, death and life.

[9] Other doctrines have similar practical relevance. The doctrine of covenant illumines the social nature of human being and can help us understand what we owe God and one another. The doctrine of creation has ecological ramifications that can reframe the economic challenges faced by nations and the global community. The doctrine of reconciliation has horizonal dimensions that speak to estrangement between people.

[raymondrroberts]

Thoughts about liberal democracy

[raymondrroberts]

Trump and the Christian’s Power

I have before me an announcement by Donald Trump promising that “If I’m president, Christians will have power.” As a theologian I find so many things wrong with this statement that it is hard to know where to begin.

Let’s start with the blatant unbelief. The power of Christians is the power of God. Period. We don’t need any other power. Or at least we shouldn’t, if we believe what we say we believe: that the power that created the world has defeated sin, evil and death.

I think of John Updike’s poem, Seven Stanzas at Easter.  The first goes like this:

Make no mistake: if he rose at all It was as His body; If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit, The amino acids rekindle, The Church will fall.

You can find the rest of this great poem here. 

My point is that those who are drawn to Trump’s appeal for power and dominance betray a lack of confidence in God’s power.  

We should also note that the desire for some other power, in this case the power of government, ought to trigger the idolatry warning:  We’re bending our knees to the secular power of the Presidency. 

Second, there is the “foolishness to the Greeks” dimension of the Christian understanding of power.  (You can find in One Corinthians.) The cross reveals a “power made perfect in weakness.” It serves, it denies the self, it empties" itself, it lays down its life in love for others. It does not accumulate power for itself to secure its existence, but, trusting God, it follows Christ in reaching out to God’s world.

The point is that the power of the gospel is found by giving it away.  Yes, it is counter-intuitive. To the worldly it looks foolish, but it is the way of life.  

Third, does anyone, for a second, really believe there would have been less of a howl had Trump suggested banning Christians? What a silly, stupid thing to say. 

Fourth, given the restrictions of the First Amendment, how on earth would a President change how stores greet people? Forget the fact that the word “holiday” means “Holy Day,” do we want government dictating the greeting you get at stores? If we feel more secure thinking our own religion has official status, we’ve probably forgotten the one who says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” 

Fifth, in Exodus 20.7 and in Deuteronomy 5:11 it says, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.” Using God or religion for personal advantage counts as misuse.  God is not a means to our ends.  

It is certainly true that using religion and God to gain political advantage is a long tradition in American politics, but anytime a politician appeals to Christian voters as a particular segment of the body politic, it ought to alert our “spider sense” about the Third Commandment. I will also add that although I do not know Trump’s heart, this seems especially true when a politician has not previously indicated a great deal of care when it comes to Christian observance.

Which brings me to this fact: During election season politicians find religion, they have their pictures taken with their families, they change their positions on the issues. In short, they pander. When they appeal to the worst angels of our nature, it ought to make us feel dirty.

[raymondrroberts]

A Brief Defense of Liberal Democracy

This essay is pieced together from excerpts of a paper I delivered in Bangkok in November 2019.  Observers note that the quality and quantity of liberal democracies is in decline[1]  Globally, authoritarianism and ethno-nationalism are on the rise. It seems like a good time to consider why Christians ought to support liberal democracy.

This map indicates the state of democracies worldwide, for an explanation click this link.

I have a general target in mind when I talk about liberal democracy. By liberal I mean provisions that require states to protect the rights of individuals and groups, particularly minorities, through its laws. By democracy I mean forms of government that empower citizens to regularly elect their political leaders in free, fair, and meaningful elections.[2] While some scholars distinguish liberalism and democracy, identifying “illiberal democracies,” I note that liberalism and democracy are mutually dependent. When liberalism declines, a tyranny of the majority emerges.[3]  

Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr famously rooted his defense of democracy in Christian anthropology, saying,

“[The human] capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but [the human] inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”[4]

Image of God

A Christian anthropology begins with the conviction that all people are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). This belief supports the dignity of every person and authorizes a special concern for the poor, weak, and vulnerable. It undercuts elitist ideologies and ethnic prejudices, providing a point of solidarity across what can sometimes appear to be unbridgeable tribal, racial, national, linguistic, historical and cultural differences. In the face of humankind’s incredible diversity, gifts, status and conditions, it provides a metaphysical-moral reason for equality before the law. People who view others as bearing the image of God have good reason to oppose illiberal populisms and ethno-nationalism.

Natural Law

A Christian anthropology also holds that God has endowed every human being with a natural law, or a moral sense.[5] This idea was developed from the Apostle Paul’s observation that gentiles who lack the revealed law of God nevertheless possess the capacity for moral reasoning. The Apostle Paul said that God had written the law on their hearts, giving them a conscience (Romans 2:14-15). This is why people of other religions or no religion so often manifest good will.

In the 11th Century the conviction that every person was capable of discerning right and wrong became the foundation on which natural law thinking developed and European law was reconstructed. Since Hugo Grotius in the 17th Century, natural law and the Protestant (and, later, enlightenment) elevations of the individual conscience provided a foundation for international law, secular government, and inter-religious dialogue.[6] The belief that human beings can discern right and wrong undermines exclusionary claims that moral insight and practice is limited to religious texts, the interpreters of these texts, or the members of communities formed around these texts.

As it relates to democracy, the belief in natural law funds a hope that societies can find thin ethical agreement across the diversities of religion and culture. [7] Natural law provides a foundation for social solidarity among dissimilar peoples, grounding confidence that individuals can transcend personal and tribal interests to imagine common public goods. Similarly, it mandates that every citizen participate in democratic conversation and decision-making. It also undercuts defenses employed by oppressive states that claim their violations of human rights reflect distinctive cultural values that deserve respect. Together, the doctrines of the image of God and natural law provide a theological rationale for the human capacity for justice.

Sin

While everyone has a moral sense, we everywhere see how this sense can be muted and twisted to evil ends. Christians attribute this failure to sin, a doctrine built on the Apostle Paul’s statement that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3.23). As a description of human nature, the doctrine of sin accords with observations that human beings are inclined to estrangement and destruction. Whether from finitude, anxiety or trauma, human interests, moral reasoning, laws, and institutions tend to “curve in on themselves” (Augustine). That is, human beings pursue constricted visions of the good that fail to honor the Creator and Redeemer’s expansive purpose for “all things” (Colossians 1:15-20).

Sin is inventive.[8] Calvin described human beings as “idol factories” constantly finding ways to turn from God. Sin is not necessary, but it is universal. Its corrupting distortions infect every aspect of human being. In the Reformed Tradition this aspect of sin is conveyed in the term, “total depravity.” Sin is embedded in and passed down in culture, deforming every individual and institution in society. It even corrupts individuals and movements engaged in redemptive efforts to heal souls, ameliorate sins affects, and reform social evils. The cross of Christ specifically arouses suspicion of political and religious power.

The doctrine of sin prompts us to recognize the countless ways human beings and their institutions pursue evil purposes. It leads us to anticipate the inventive ways that social, economic and political systems fall short of their life-giving promise. It amplifies sensitivity to corporate and structural evil and triggers apprehension whenever we face concentrations of power. People equipped with a strong doctrine of sin are not dismayed when they confront xenophobia, racism, imperfect democratic institutions, or desires for a strong authoritarian leader.

The doctrine of sin makes the church skeptical that moral and religious appeals can, by themselves, correct injustice or protect the common good. It underwrites efforts to surmount problems inherent in concentrations of power through mechanisms of transparency (reporting requirements, whistleblower protections, freedom of information laws, and a free press). It seeks to diffuse the problems of concentrated power by setting power against power with checks, balances, and limits.

Sin’s realism about the human capacity for evil points to the necessity of vertical democratic systems of transparency and accountability (voting) and horizontal checks on power across the various branches of government. It predicts that, over time, governments that are not required to protect the rights of individuals and groups, particularly minority groups, can be counted on to violate those rights. Indeed, it predicts that even governments that are required to protect the rights of individuals and groups will fail at their responsibilities. Again, while authoritarian governments may efficiently pursue public goods, over time they can be counted on to abuse their power in ways that are destructive to individuals and society.[9] Just as the human capacity for justice makes democracy possible, human sin makes democracy necessary. NOTES [1] For example see Larry Diamond, “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession,” Journal of Democracy 26 (1) (2015): 141-155. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Diamond-26-1_0.pdf.

[2] In this definition I follow John J. Mearsheimer’s definition of “liberal democracy, adding a responsibility to protect group rights.” See The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities, (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2018), pg. 11.

[3] Mearsheimer is an example of the former scholar.  Yashca Mounk is an example of the latter scholar. See, The People Vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Dangers and How to Save It (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2018).

[4] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944), pg. xiii.

[5] Jean Porter claims that natural law viewed as a “universal capacity of moral discernment.” She claims the later was the foundation for the development of the natural law tradition. See Jean Porter, Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 1999). See also, Jean Porter, Nature as Reason:  A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 2005). Notice that this Reformed perspective, after taking scriptural bearings, turns to some Roman Catholic resources.

[6] While Grotius is sometimes credited with providing a secular basis for international law, we ought not forget that his optimism concerning natural law grew out of his Christian faith. See Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, Book 1 (Indianapolis:  Liberty Fund, 2005). In a similar way, Edwin Corwin has argued that American Constitutional Law rests on this higher law background. See, “The Higher Law Background of American Constitutional Law,” Harvard Law Review (XLII, No. 2, December 1928), pg. 149ff. http://www.romeroinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CorwinHigherLaw.pdf.

[7] It also suggests that thin ethical agreements, such as the United Nation’s statement on rights, can inspire peoples to construct thick moral reasons for supporting those rights. For a discussion of the contributions of Protestant views of natural law to liberal political thought see Adam B. Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (New York:  Free Press, 1992).

[8] This creativity may explain why the church has marshaled many metaphors to describe sin and its remedy, grace. Metaphors for sin and grace abound, they include:  sickness and salvation, bondage and liberation (redemption), non-alignment (missing the mark) and justification (alignment), estrangement and reconciliation, debt and forgiveness, disorientation (lost) and reorientation (found), constriction and expansion, disordered love and reordered love, corruption and renewal, death and life.

[9] Other doctrines have similar practical relevance. The doctrine of covenant illumines the social nature of human being and can help us understand what we owe God and one another. The doctrine of creation has ecological ramifications that can reframe the economic challenges faced by nations and the global community. The doctrine of reconciliation has horizonal dimensions that speak to estrangement between people.

[raymondrroberts]

Thoughts about liberal democracy

[raymondrroberts]

A Brief Defense of Liberal Democracy

This essay is pieced together from excerpts of a paper I delivered in Bangkok in November 2019.  Observers note that the quality and quantity of liberal democracies is in decline[1]  Globally, authoritarianism and ethno-nationalism are on the rise. It seems like a good time to consider why Christians ought to support liberal democracy.

This map indicates the state of democracies worldwide, for an explanation click this link.

I have a general target in mind when I talk about liberal democracy. By liberal I mean provisions that require states to protect the rights of individuals and groups, particularly minorities, through its laws. By democracy I mean forms of government that empower citizens to regularly elect their political leaders in free, fair, and meaningful elections.[2] While some scholars distinguish liberalism and democracy, identifying “illiberal democracies,” I note that liberalism and democracy are mutually dependent. When liberalism declines, a tyranny of the majority emerges.[3]  

Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr famously rooted his defense of democracy in Christian anthropology, saying,

"[The human] capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but [the human] inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary."[4]

Image of God

A Christian anthropology begins with the conviction that all people are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). This belief supports the dignity of every person and authorizes a special concern for the poor, weak, and vulnerable. It undercuts elitist ideologies and ethnic prejudices, providing a point of solidarity across what can sometimes appear to be unbridgeable tribal, racial, national, linguistic, historical and cultural differences. In the face of humankind’s incredible diversity, gifts, status and conditions, it provides a metaphysical-moral reason for equality before the law. People who view others as bearing the image of God have good reason to oppose illiberal populisms and ethno-nationalism.

Natural Law

A Christian anthropology also holds that God has endowed every human being with a natural law, or a moral sense.[5] This idea was developed from the Apostle Paul’s observation that gentiles who lack the revealed law of God nevertheless possess the capacity for moral reasoning. The Apostle Paul said that God had written the law on their hearts, giving them a conscience (Romans 2:14-15). This is why people of other religions or no religion so often manifest good will.

In the 11th Century the conviction that every person was capable of discerning right and wrong became the foundation on which natural law thinking developed and European law was reconstructed. Since Hugo Grotius in the 17th Century, natural law and the Protestant (and, later, enlightenment) elevations of the individual conscience provided a foundation for international law, secular government, and inter-religious dialogue.[6] The belief that human beings can discern right and wrong undermines exclusionary claims that moral insight and practice is limited to religious texts, the interpreters of these texts, or the members of communities formed around these texts.

As it relates to democracy, the belief in natural law funds a hope that societies can find thin ethical agreement across the diversities of religion and culture. [7] Natural law provides a foundation for social solidarity among dissimilar peoples, grounding confidence that individuals can transcend personal and tribal interests to imagine common public goods. Similarly, it mandates that every citizen participate in democratic conversation and decision-making. It also undercuts defenses employed by oppressive states that claim their violations of human rights reflect distinctive cultural values that deserve respect. Together, the doctrines of the image of God and natural law provide a theological rationale for the human capacity for justice.

Sin

While everyone has a moral sense, we everywhere see how this sense can be muted and twisted to evil ends. Christians attribute this failure to sin, a doctrine built on the Apostle Paul’s statement that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3.23). As a description of human nature, the doctrine of sin accords with observations that human beings are inclined to estrangement and destruction. Whether from finitude, anxiety or trauma, human interests, moral reasoning, laws, and institutions tend to “curve in on themselves” (Augustine). That is, human beings pursue constricted visions of the good that fail to honor the Creator and Redeemer’s expansive purpose for “all things” (Colossians 1:15-20).

Sin is inventive.[8] Calvin described human beings as “idol factories” constantly finding ways to turn from God. Sin is not necessary, but it is universal. Its corrupting distortions infect every aspect of human being. In the Reformed Tradition this aspect of sin is conveyed in the term, “total depravity.” Sin is embedded in and passed down in culture, deforming every individual and institution in society. It even corrupts individuals and movements engaged in redemptive efforts to heal souls, ameliorate sins affects, and reform social evils. The cross of Christ specifically arouses suspicion of political and religious power.

The doctrine of sin prompts us to recognize the countless ways human beings and their institutions pursue evil purposes. It leads us to anticipate the inventive ways that social, economic and political systems fall short of their life-giving promise. It amplifies sensitivity to corporate and structural evil and triggers apprehension whenever we face concentrations of power. People equipped with a strong doctrine of sin are not dismayed when they confront xenophobia, racism, imperfect democratic institutions, or desires for a strong authoritarian leader.

The doctrine of sin makes the church skeptical that moral and religious appeals can, by themselves, correct injustice or protect the common good. It underwrites efforts to surmount problems inherent in concentrations of power through mechanisms of transparency (reporting requirements, whistleblower protections, freedom of information laws, and a free press). It seeks to diffuse the problems of concentrated power by setting power against power with checks, balances, and limits.

Sin’s realism about the human capacity for evil points to the necessity of vertical democratic systems of transparency and accountability (voting) and horizontal checks on power across the various branches of government. It predicts that, over time, governments that are not required to protect the rights of individuals and groups, particularly minority groups, can be counted on to violate those rights. Indeed, it predicts that even governments that are required to protect the rights of individuals and groups will fail at their responsibilities. Again, while authoritarian governments may efficiently pursue public goods, over time they can be counted on to abuse their power in ways that are destructive to individuals and society.[9] Just as the human capacity for justice makes democracy possible, human sin makes democracy necessary. NOTES [1] For example see Larry Diamond, “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession,” Journal of Democracy 26 (1) (2015): 141-155. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Diamond-26-1_0.pdf.

[2] In this definition I follow John J. Mearsheimer’s definition of “liberal democracy, adding a responsibility to protect group rights.” See The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities, (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2018), pg. 11.

[3] Mearsheimer is an example of the former scholar.  Yashca Mounk is an example of the latter scholar. See, The People Vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Dangers and How to Save It (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2018).

[4] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944), pg. xiii.

[5] Jean Porter claims that natural law viewed as a “universal capacity of moral discernment.” She claims the later was the foundation for the development of the natural law tradition. See Jean Porter, Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 1999). See also, Jean Porter, Nature as Reason:  A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Press, 2005). Notice that this Reformed perspective, after taking scriptural bearings, turns to some Roman Catholic resources.

[6] While Grotius is sometimes credited with providing a secular basis for international law, we ought not forget that his optimism concerning natural law grew out of his Christian faith. See Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, Book 1 (Indianapolis:  Liberty Fund, 2005). In a similar way, Edwin Corwin has argued that American Constitutional Law rests on this higher law background. See, “The Higher Law Background of American Constitutional Law,” Harvard Law Review (XLII, No. 2, December 1928), pg. 149ff. http://www.romeroinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CorwinHigherLaw.pdf.

[7] It also suggests that thin ethical agreements, such as the United Nation’s statement on rights, can inspire peoples to construct thick moral reasons for supporting those rights. For a discussion of the contributions of Protestant views of natural law to liberal political thought see Adam B. Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (New York:  Free Press, 1992).

[8] This creativity may explain why the church has marshaled many metaphors to describe sin and its remedy, grace. Metaphors for sin and grace abound, they include:  sickness and salvation, bondage and liberation (redemption), non-alignment (missing the mark) and justification (alignment), estrangement and reconciliation, debt and forgiveness, disorientation (lost) and reorientation (found), constriction and expansion, disordered love and reordered love, corruption and renewal, death and life.

[9] Other doctrines have similar practical relevance. The doctrine of covenant illumines the social nature of human being and can help us understand what we owe God and one another. The doctrine of creation has ecological ramifications that can reframe the economic challenges faced by nations and the global community. The doctrine of reconciliation has horizonal dimensions that speak to estrangement between people.

[raymondrroberts]

A Memorial Day Sermon

Today is Memorial Day.  On Memorial Day we remember those died in this nation’s service.  We remember soldiers whose minds turned dark on the edge of a field, in the muck of a trench, or on the beachhead sand.  We remember sailors who died in a blast amidships and aircrew men who died from a shell bursting in air.  (Thanks to poet Richard Wilbur for imagery.)  Today we do not avert our eyes.  We remember.

WHEN WE REMEMBER THEIR SACRIFICE, WE PUT AWAY THE ILLUSION THAT WE ARE SELF-MADE.  We give up the foolish misapprehension that if we are successful it is only because we have pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps, that we have done this all by ourselves.

Perhaps more than any weekend, except Good Friday, we remember that we depend on other people. Our freedom, our success, our happiness, our lives rests on the sacrifices of others. We have, in large part, because they gave. We live because their lives were cut short and their possibilities never realized.  Many of them did not live to marry, or to see a child born or graduate, or to grow old and be able to complain about what a pain it is to grow old.

On Memorial Day we focus on those who made the ultimate sacrifice, but they are hardly the only ones we depend on.  We depend on family, and those like family, who make sacrifices out of love. We depend on people whose work requires them to stay up all night and who live with circadian rhythms that are perpetually out of synch, those who do menial, often difficult, dirty jobs, sometimes for not much pay, and first responders who put their lives in harm’s way to protect us.  When we remember how much we depend on others, the proper response is gratitude. 

 Gratitude is the basic Christian posture toward life, because we know that life is a gift. Thanksgiving is a spiritual practice.  It involves counting our blessings and naming our dependence on others and through these others on God, and giving thanks. Gratitude is especially fitting on this day.

ON MEMORIAL DAY WE ALSO PUT AWAY THE NOTION THAT WE LIVE ONLY FOR OURSELVES, the idea that we owe no one anything, that our responsibly ends with our skin. It is sad to say, but as American society has lost a Protestant Ethic, this notion has become more widespread. There has been an exaltation of selfishness.  Some will tell you that selfishness motivates all human behavior.  Some are even willing to go to far as to claim that selfishness is a virtue.

  Before the First Iraq War General Scwartzkopf put it more properly when he talked with the troops.  He said the reason soldiers serve is for love.  Love of country, love of justice, love of one’s community, love of one’s comrades.

 This fits with a basic Christian insight about human nature –that we are motivated by love and usually not just love of self, which creates a very small world, but love of family, colleagues, work and country. 

It is true: our loves are disordered by sin.  Sometimes we love the wrong thing:  We can love fame, or revenge, or riches. Or we love the right thing wrongly: we can have an exalted sense of self (as when we are selfish) or one’s community or nation, so we are unable to love others rightly.  In American history a healthy patriotism has sometimes deteriorated into an ugly nationalism.  And love for one’s comrades has sometimes turned into something horrifying and evil.  We Christians should be the most sensitive to this for we know that no nation can be equated with the kingdom of God. We should sense this before others do.  

But on Memorial Day the claim that selfishness is a virtue is revealed as a grossly inadequate and misleading truth - if one can go so far as to call it a truth.  On this day we remember people who knew better, who lived better than this.  They served a cause greater than self.  They had a larger vision.  They responded to our nation’s call with love and loyalty and laid down their lives.

  MEMORIAL DAY REMINDS US OF OUR OBLIGATIONS TO OTHERS.  We have a debt.  We have a duty to honor the sacrifice of those who died.  We have a duty to the men and women of different races and religions, who gave their lives, to make certain that their sons and daughters enjoy all the privileges of citizenship and equality of opportunity in a free society.  We have a sacred duty to make certain that they did not die in vain.  We have a responsibility to build a more just society, a more perfect union. We should never allow national sins to rob their graves of a reason to die.

  We also have a duty to our community and our nation not to take the gifts we’ve been given for granted.  The temptation is often great, but we should be free riders on the sacrifices of others. We should not forget how much they have given us.  Rather, we should honor the sacrifice of those who gave their lives by taking inspiration from them.  They teach us that we are, all of us, rich poor, people of different religions, races, and regions of the country:  we are all in this thing called “Nation” together.  In the theology of our Presbyterian forebears, our lives are bound together in a covenant.  Or as Martin Luther King put it, are lives are woven together in a single garment of destiny.

When the demands of communal life come knocking, whether it is serving on jury duty (which I have never heard anyone speak of with any affection), or paying taxes, or serving the defense of our country, or voting, or obeying laws, or treating fellow citizens with respect, we should remember those who gave more than most of us ever will.  We should respond, the way they did.  Willingly.

Many popular political philosophies cannot appreciate what Memorial Day is about.  They name partial truths while ignoring deeper realities. But we, as Christians, can understand. God gives us a larger picture of participation in God’s world of many nations and peoples.  God gives us abundant life through Jesus Christ, who shows us a life worth living.

WE REMEMBER HOW JESUS TOLD HIS DISCIPLES, EVEN AS HE TELLS US, LOVE ONE ANOTHER.  And then he observed, “Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friends.” He walked the talk and laid down his life for us, for you and me, and for the world, offering forgiveness to his enemies and ours.

His sacrifice reminds us of the gifts that make our lives possible and fills us with gratitude. He reminds us that our lives are connected to others in ways that give rise to have duties and obligations to love one another.  And his example inspires us to love, and to serve, and to lay down our lives.

IT IS SAD TO SAY, but I do not think I appreciated what Memorial Day was about until I saw the movie, Saving Private Ryan. The movie is about a group of soldiers who are sent behind enemy lines to rescue a paratrooper whose brothers were killed during the D-Day Invasion. At the end of the movie Tom Hanks character, a dying Captain John H. Miller, says to Private James Ryan, “Earn this.” He pulls him close and he says it again, “Earn this.” 

The movie cuts to Miller’s tombstone, where a now elderly James Ryan says to his wife, “Tell me that I’ve lived a good life.”  She asks, “What are you talking about?”  He says it again, “Tell me I’ve lived a good life.” (You can find the clip here.)

The life God gives you in Christ and through the sacrifices of others is a sacred trust.  When I think about it, I realize that I CAN’T EARN IT.  I don’t deserve it. 

Yet, amazingly, the gift is still given.  I pray I have the strength to pass the gift along to others.Amen.

[raymondrroberts]

As Memorial Day approaches, let us consider the meaning of sacrifice.

[raymondrroberts]

Short Thoughts on Gratitude

First, we are richly blessed. These blessings flow from God through a dazzling network of others who make our lives possible. From earthworms to farm laborers, we would not be here except for the work and sacrifice of others. God, who is both our Creator and Redeemer, has blessed us in ways that are beyond counting. 

Second, every human emotion is fitting to some circumstance and time, but the sense of well-being we call gratitude operates as a sort of set point for human life. People often operate at their best when they are aware of how blessed they have been. For example, generous people usually get that life is a gift and that they can trust God the giver.  (Just to be clear, I am not saying people operate well without guilt, sadness, etc.)

Third, even though gratitude involves a sense of well-being, practicing gratitude is not first about finding our bliss. Rather it is about locating ourselves in God’s world as the recipients of great abundance. 

Fourth, as we locate ourselves in God’s world, gratitude should lead us to sense our dependence on God and others. An appreciation for what others have given may clarify our obligations to others. It may lead us to be ashamed at how we have failed to show appreciation, reciprocate or in some other way respond appropriately to the gifts we’ve been given. 

Fifth, when we practice gratitude in community (like a church) we should not only be grateful for our gifts, but for the gifts God has given others. Apart from a sense of gratitude for other’s gifts, gratitude can become an an exercise in solipsism. (”Aren’t I blessed!”)

Finally, when we talk about God’s gifts, we should not think we are the end recipient. When I was a child, my mom once dropped me off at a birthday party.  She asked, “Do you have your gift?” The gift wasn’t for me, but for another. Similarly, God’s gifts are not mine. They have been entrusted to me for the larger community. As I locate myself in God’s world, I may gain clarity of how I ought to be a good steward of God’s gifts.

[raymondrroberts]

Short Thoughts on Gratitude

First, we are richly blessed. These blessings flow from God through a dazzling network of others who make our lives possible. From earthworms to farm laborers, we would not be here except for the work and sacrifice of others. God, who is both our Creator and Redeemer, has blessed us in ways that are beyond counting. 

Second, every human emotion is fitting to some circumstance and time, but the sense of well-being we call gratitude operates as a sort of set point for human life. People often operate at their best when they are aware of how blessed they have been. For example, generous people usually get that life is a gift and that they can trust God the giver.  (Just to be clear, I am not saying people operate well without guilt, sadness, etc.)

Third, even though gratitude involves a sense of well-being, practicing gratitude is not first about finding our bliss. Rather it is about locating ourselves in God’s world as the recipients of great abundance. 

Fourth, as we locate ourselves in God’s world, gratitude should lead us to sense our dependence on God and others. An appreciation for what others have given may clarify our obligations to others. It may lead us to be ashamed at how we have failed to show appreciation, reciprocate or in some other way respond appropriately to the gifts we’ve been given. 

Fifth, when we practice gratitude in community (like a church) we should not only be grateful for our gifts, but for the gifts God has given others. Apart from a sense of gratitude for other’s gifts, gratitude can become an an exercise in solipsism. (”Aren’t I blessed!”)

Finally, when we talk about God’s gifts, we should not think we are the end recipient. When I was a child, my mom once dropped me off at a birthday party.  She asked, “Do you have your gift?” The gift wasn’t for me, but for another. Similarly, God’s gifts are not mine. They have been entrusted to me for the larger community. As I locate myself in God’s world, I may gain clarity of how I ought to be a good steward of God’s gifts.