Monday, December 28, 2009

The Good Old Days of Adventism

Sometimes I hear people pine for the good old days when the Adventist church was characterized by a wonderful zeal and a pure commitment to the proclamation of Jesus and his end time message.

According to Ellen White, such mythic purity never existed.

In 1893 she wrote, "It is a solemn statement that I make to the church, that not one in twenty whose names are registered upon the church books are prepared to close their earthly history, and would be as verily without God and without hope in the world as the common sinner" (GCDB, February 4, 1893 par. 9). To paraphrase: 95 percent of church members were in a state of damnable spiritual corruption.

Perhaps one might argue this was late in the development of the church--by 1893 James White had been dead for 12 years. Surely things were better when the church was younger. Maybe. In 1867, EGW wrote, "Names are registered upon the church-books upon earth, but not in the book of life. I saw that there is not one in twenty of the youth who knows what experimental religion is. They serve themselves, and yet profess to be servants of Christ; but unless the spell which is upon them be broken, they will soon realize that the portion of the transgressor is theirs" (1T504, repeated in MYP 384). Again, just to make sure you get the math: in 1867 ninety-five percent of the young people on the church books were lost.

These statements apply to the laity. What about the clergy, the men and women who lived in poverty and devoted their lives to preaching the three angels messages.

"Every minister should study closely the manner of Christ's teaching. . . . There is not one in twenty who knows the beauty, the real essence, of Christ's ministry. They are to find it out. . . . Then all this tame sermonizing will come to an end; for frequently this is an exhibition of self, rather than the fruit that the teacher bears who has been at the feet of Jesus and learned of Him" (6MR 72; PaM 281.2).

So back in the good old days, 95 percent of the preachers did not know the real essence of Christ's ministry. Their preaching was an exhibition of self. Ninety-five percent of the young people were damnably self-absorbed. Ninety-five percent of the church members were as "verily without God" as common sinners.

So, without apology, I am boldly in favor of a church that is different from the church of the pioneers. I advocate progress, change and reform. The church of 95 percent failure is not a trustworthy model for our life today.

(Doing the research for this blog entry reminded me of the evils of Messages to Young People. The tone of that book was consistent with the notion that 95 percent of Adventist youth were damned. No wonder my teenage religion was characterized by fear and anxiety.)

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Another Way of Knowing

The other day I was listening to a music review. It was vintage NPR--the reviewer was an academic, a professor somewhere, his tone and vocabulary properly urbane. The subject of the review was a new release by a pop band based in London. The clips played during the review featured raw, unpolished voices and lyrics that spoke of loss and longing and evoked in the listener intense emotion.

I laughed at the utter incongruity of the tone and style of the review and the reality of the music. Not that I can imagine any better "tone and style" for such a review. A review of music is a different way of knowing from "enjoyment."

"Enjoyment" is a higher form of knowing when it comes to music. Rational analysis has its place, but it is derivative. There would be no rational analysis without the prior reality of emotional, musical knowing.

The same is true for other art forms. Writing "about" a painting has its place, but we know a painting better by gazing at it. Rational analysis may enrich our viewing. Still, rational analysis is derivative or secondary to the knowing that comes by viewing with open eyes and receptive spirit.

The same is true in spirituality. Theology--rational discourse about God--is secondary to the experience of the divine. The power and richness of spiritual experience is the original motivation for theology. Theology does not arise out of philosophy and logic. Rather all of these--theology, philosophy, logic--are attempts to process data or experience that is prior to the rationalizing efforts.

Just as it is possible to become so engrossed in rational analysis of music or art that we are diverted from the best knowing that comes through enjoyment, so in the religious realm we can become so engrossed in rational analysis (e.g. theories of inspiration, the atonement, the incarnation or the covenants) that we fail to devote adequate time to enjoyment.

Rational analysis is at least as inadequate for spiritual life as it is for music and art. If you want to really know spirituality, at some point you have to shut up and enjoy.

So do it, already.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Seek the Peace of your CIty

It was “interesting times.” The cream of Jewish society was in exile in Babylon. The city of Jerusalem was under siege by Nebuchadnezzar. In Babylon, prophets urged the Jews to keep their bags packed. Any day now God was going to return them to Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, prophets urged the people to keep up a heroic resistance against the besieging army.

Against all this came the counsel of Jeremiah to the Jewish exiles in Babylon: seek the peace of the city where you live. Get married, take care of business. Get on with life—in Babylon.

Jeremiah was confident that God would eventually act for the deliverance of his people. They would return to the promised land. IN THE MEANTIME, they were to be good citizens of Babylon.

I think this applies to us. As Christians and Adventists we look forward to the Promised Land of Revelation 21 and 22. However, our primary responsibility now is to be good citizens here. Protecting the environment, working for quality public education, participating in the creation of effective civic and commercial infrastructure—we ought not leave all the doing and thinking about these things to people who are unaware of Jesus and heaven. If we believe God cares enough about this world to eventually redeem it, it makes sense to model God’s care in our own lives.

So get involved. Make a difference. Not just by doing “evangelism,” but by seeking the peace and prosperity of your city. Jeremiah 29:7.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Sex as a Right Wing Weapon

This week I heard a heart-breaking report about the systematic rape of women in Zimbabwe. According to a human rights organization, men wearing the T-shirts, singing the songs and spouting the slogans of Robert Mugabe’s party systematically raped women affiliated with opposing political parties. The rapists told the women they were being raped because of their connection with the wrong political party.

* * *

One of the very dark stains on American reputation in connection with the Iraq war was the use of sexuality as an instrument of abuse in the prison at Abu Ghraib. As in Zimbabwe, the actors featured in the news coverage were lowly foot soldiers. Yet it is clear the abuse was condoned, if not instigated, by those higher up, perhaps all the way to the top.

* * *

Just this week I received an email with the subject line: “Do you recognize this person?” Since the email was from a devout Seventh-day Adventist and was addressed to a family circle that regularly trades emails, I opened it unsuspectingly. To my shocked surprise, the email featured a collection of photos of a nude young woman purported to be President Obama’s mother.

I presume the Christians (yes, more than one was involved) who forwarded the nude photos would condemn Mugabe’s thugs for their horrific violence. I hope they would condemn the use of sexual assault as an instrument of war in the Abu Ghraib prison. If they see the evils of Mugabe and Abu Ghraib, what blinded them to the gross evil of participating in a right wing effort to use sex as a weapon against President Obama?

The American “right” claims to be for family values, moral integrity, and the sanctity of marriage and life. So what’s up with circulating pornographic images purportedly of the President’s mother? What “family value” does this represent?

When I did a cursory look on line for more info, it seems the pictures were first circulated by right wing partisans in October, 2008. So it’s taken a year of forwarding before it was finally sent to the devout Adventist who forwarded it on to me. The same cursory search strongly indicated the person in the photos is not, in fact, the President’s deceased mother.

Even if the photos were genuine portrayals of Ann Dunham, the President’s mother, circulating them puts the people who forward them in the same moral camp as Mugabe’s thugs. I say this by analogy to Jesus’ statement in Matthew that hatred is allied with murder. Obviously, as a victim, it is preferable to be hated than to be killed. And it is preferable to have inappropriate pictures circulated than to be raped. Still, the circulation of these photos, authentic or not, is using sex as a weapon which is morally akin to rape.

Ecclesiastes declares there is a time for peace and a time for war. It is appropriate to strongly oppose policies, actions and statements by the president. Give money, sign petitions, contact your legislators, talk to your neighbors. Campaign for what you believe in and against what you believe is wrong-headed or evil. But the next time you are tempted to use sex as a weapon, don't.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Desert Rendezvous

I plan to spend some time in Death Valley in March, 2010. If you'd like to visit around the campfire let me know. Maybe we could meet up.

Contact me at johntmclarty@gmail.com

Friday, December 4, 2009

Christmas Lament


Once I got past my outrage and shock at the news of the murder of the four Lakewood police, a lament from the Christmas story has played over and over in my mind: (Lakewood is on the south edge of our parish.)

A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.

A voice is heard . . . weeping and great mourning . . . weeping for children . . . because they are no more. Not the lines usually featured in Christmas pageants. Still they are there, integral to my favorite part of the story, the camel-riding wise men.



Two thousand years ago, an angel visited a young woman in the town of Nazareth to announce she was going to have a baby. In fact, the angel declared, her baby was the person Jewish prophecy had been talking about for 2000 years, the Messiah.

This was fantastic news was complicated by one small wrinkle: Mary, the young woman, was not married, and she wasn’t sleeping with her fiancé. How could she have a baby?


The angel explained her pregnancy would be the result of supernatural intervention by the Holy Spirit.

Wow! Fantastic!

Except for the complications. Her fiancé made plans to dump her. The people in town were scandalized by her pregnancy. She was alienated from her family. Fortunately, the angel visited her fiancé and persuaded him the baby really was a supernatural creation by God, not the result of treachery on Mary’s part.

About nine months later Joseph and Mary traveled south from Nazareth to the town of Bethlehem to register for a head tax imposed by the Romans. Every hotel room in town was taken. Joseph finally found them a place in an inn-keeper’s barn. And that’s where Mary gave birth. After cleaning him up and loving on him, she wrapped him in Jewish baby clothes and laid her baby, the promised Messiah, the rightful heir to the throne of Israel, in a feed box. Not exactly the crib you’d expect for the Savior of the World.

Later that night shepherds showed up at the barn with a story that almost made up for the disgrace of the barn delivery. The shepherds had been outside town tending their sheep. Suddenly from out of nowhere, an angel appeared in dazzling light. He said he had come to announce the birth of the Messiah. Prophecy was now fulfilled. The promised one was on the ground. The waiting was over. The key to identifying the divine baby was this: He would be wrapped in a Jewish baby blanket and lying in a feed box. Then the herald angel was joined by a massive choir singing, “Glory to God in the highest and to those on earth, peace and good will.”

It was a fantastic story. And the story didn’t stop there.

Forty days later Joseph and Mary took their baby to the temple in Jerusalem for a special service required for all first born males. As they walked into the temple they were met by an old priest who performed the required ritual, then went on to pray an astonishing prayer about their baby. Lifting his face toward heaven, he said, “Now Lord, you can let me die in peace because I have now seen the Savior you promised, the one who will be a light to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.”

Wow! That must have thrilled Mary’s heart. But there was more.

Handing the baby back to Mary, the old man, Simeon, had a personal message for Mary, a caution. Yes, her baby was the promised king. And no, it would not be easy sailing, Simeon warned her. “Many people will violently oppose him,” Simeon said. “And a sword will pierce your own soul also.”

The Christmas story reminds us there is a complicated plot behind our faith. Yes, we know goodness wins. Love and mercy, justice and truth are the eternal, inexorable forces. Pain and evil are transitory, their triumphs ephemeral. Still in the Christmas story and in our own lives, the complications of plot are large and daunting. Sometimes staggeringly brutal. Even for citizens of the kingdom of God, a sword sometimes pierces our own souls also.

When this happens, it is no proof we have stepped outside God’s plot. Our wounding is no evidence we have been inattentive to our Master. According to the prophecy of Simeon, the life of greatest hero in God’s story was going to rouse fierce opposition and eventually drive a sword through his own mother’s heart. That was not the end of the story. It was, however, an inescapable part of the story. You can’t be part of God’s story and avoid all pain.

This much is clear in the Christmas story, and we haven’t yet come to those haunting words: A voice is heard in Ramah . . . weeping and great mourning for children . . . because they are no more.

The lament comes in the next chapter--in the Wise Men story.

Jesus was still an infant, probably about a year old, when his parents were startled by mysterious visitors–the three wise men. (They’re the guys you see on camels in Christmas scenes in church yards.) They were wealthy men, maybe even nobility, from ancient Persia or Babylon–modern day Iran or Iraq. They had observed the sudden appearance of a new star. Modern scholars have speculated it might have been a supernova or comet. More traditionally (and more believably) it has been interpreted as supernatural light created by angels. In any case, these Wise Men understood this celestial phenomenon to be an omen announcing the fulfillment of ancient prophecies about the birth of the Messiah. They had traveled all the way to Jerusalem to worship the new born divine king.

When they arrived in Jerusalem after months of travel, to their astonishment no one in the Holy City knew anything about the birth of this divine king. Finally, some old priests suggested they check out the town of Bethlehem a few miles south of Jerusalem. An ancient prophecy had named Bethlehem as the birth place of the Great King.

In Bethlehem, the Wise Men located the Holy Family, paid their respects and gave Joseph and Mary some very impressive, expensive gifts. Then they headed home strategically avoiding Jerusalem.

Can you imagine the sweet pleasure Joseph and Mary experienced in this visit? These impressive men had traveled a thousand, maybe two thousand miles, to pay obeisance to their son! Proud parents, they must have drifted off to sleep that night filled with pleasant dreams of a sweet future. Only to have their sleep interrupted by an angel with bad news.

The Wise Men’s traipsing about Jerusalem asking everybody if they had any information about a new king had not escaped the notice of the current king of Jerusalem--King Herod. He had interviewed the Wise Men and asked them to be sure and let him know when they found the baby so he, too, could pay his respects. Completely unsuspecting they would have returned to Jerusalem after visiting the Holy Family if an angel hadn't warned them not to.

The angel that woke Joseph said Herod was going to kill every baby in Bethlehem. They had to get out now!

Herod probably would have killed the Wise Men if they hadn't gotten beyond his reach before he realized they had left the area. He sent his soldiers to Bethlehem. Joseph and Mary escaped with Jesus. That's the good news. But what about the dozens? scores? hundreds of families that received no warning and did not escape?

The town was filled with an awful dirge, the heart-shattering wail of mothers bereft of their babies.

Matthew, says it fulfilled an ancient prophecy.

A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
inconsolable because they are no more.

According to Matthew, this monstrous holocaust had been foreseen. The Christmas story included not only the escape of Jesus and his family to Egypt, it also included the non-escape and execution of the babies of Bethlehem.

When you read the ancient prophecy, there is no mention of King Herod and the slaughter of babies in Bethlehem. The connection between these words and the mothers of Bethlehem is the universal reality of grief and the notice God takes of it. Through Matthew these eloquent words are recast to sweep the grief of mothers everywhere and make their grief part of the Christmas story.

Which brings us back to the horrific story of this week's murders.

What do we make of four policemen being killed while planning a day’s work over coffee? No warning. No provocation. They were just doing their job, working for the well being of the community when a gunman killed them. In cold blood. Is this also part of the good story God is writing? Is there any way their deaths can be included in the final writing of the triumph of God and goodness?

We know there are dark powers afoot in the world. Is this chapter of the human story utterly under their control? Is God simply absent?

If the Christmas story offers any guidance at all, it offers us hope that all events, even those which evoke inconsolable grief, will be woven back into the final version of history that traces the triumph of God and goodness.

This truth is hinted in a phrase that appears at the end of this chapter in Jesus’ life. His parents escaped from the holocaust in Bethlehem by fleeing to Egypt. After several years as refugees there, King Herod, died and they decided to go back home to Palestine. In connection with their sojourn in Egypt, hiding from the butchery of Herod, Matthew comments cites another ancient scripture, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” As with the words about the weeping of Rachel, so with these: there is nothing explicit in the text about the Messiah. Still Matthew hears in these words a spiritual truth that transcends textual precision. God takes every part of our story–even the parts that seem at first glance to have been written by the powers of darkness–and turns them into essential elements of plot in the good story he is writing.

I do not pretend to be able to sketch a rational defense of my assertion that all of our story is ultimately reclaimed by God as essential elements in his glorious master narrative. It is a non-rational, non-historical, non-scientific assertion. It is a truth best expressed best through art. It lies behind the hope and sense of meaning we voice in our fairy tales, novels, movies, paintings and songs. It is congruent with love and our hunger for justice and mercy. It is a wonderfully satisfying foundation for fully humane existence.

The central message of the Bible is “God Wins.” Goodness, love, justice, truth, affection, beauty win. Evil and pain are temporary. Still, when we say God wins, we are acknowledging there is a struggle. God wins in the face of wickedness and chaos. God triumphs over entropy. God conquers random tragedy and purposeful evil. There is a battle. There are casualties. Close and personal, bitter and apparently senseless. There is weeping and crying.

And God wins. And because we are his people, we win.

The Christmas story includes the anguished wail of the mothers of Bethlehem. It includes the sadistic cruelty of King Herod. It features the heart-crushing threat by Joseph to break off his relationship with Mary because of her irregular pregnancy. It includes arriving in a strange town to discover there is no room in the inn and barely room in the barn with the cows. It includes the sword through Mary’s heart.

In these details, the Christmas story connects with our stories. It is as though in writing the story of the triumph of goodness and love, God writes slowly enough to sweep into his narrative all of our lives, the dark secrets, the crushing injustices, the insufferable disappointments, inexplicable accidents. He omits no detail of our stories in pulling together the master narrative that gives meaning to the grand sweep of history.

Having gathered all of our stories–the stories of all of us and the entirety of each of our stories–God moves the story toward its climax. The Christmas story does not end with the sword through the heart. It does not end with Herod still on the throne. It does not end with the wail of Bethlehem’s mothers.

The Christmas story ends–if it is even proper to use the word, “end,”–with the grand triumph of God and goodness and love. Jesus is on the throne. His people, too, are on the throne. There is no need for policing or violence. The entire cosmos pulses with glad harmony. Pain and tears have become so fuzzy in memory as to scarcely exist. Humans, all of us, are swept up in a gleaming wave of glorious life and happiness. Every being sings, “Yes! Glory, Hallelujah!”

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Damned Mercy?

Maurice Clemmons should not have received mercy. In fact, Mike Huckabee is damnably culpable for extending mercy to such a monster. If Governor Huckabee had not gone along with the recommendation of the clemency board, Maurice Clemmons would not have been out on the street. He would not have shot dead four police officers in the south end of my parish this past Sunday. For this act of damned mercy, Huckabee is disqualified from any further participation in national politics. At least this is what I’ve heard this week on talk radio.

Of course, by the same standard, God is disqualified from participation in national politics. God is responsible for the holocaust, the Boston Strangler, Timothy McVeigh and 9/11. God’s damned mercy allows undeserving sinners to go right on doing evil. And Jesus agrees with this divine policy of failing to incarcerate or incinerate sinners. He even agrees with God actually enabling them. Jesus said approvingly, “God sends his rain on the just and the unjust.” (Matthew 5).

I don’t know if Governor Huckabee would make a good president of the United States, but the fact that one of his “acts of mercy” was twisted by its recipient into an occasion for committing a horrific atrocity is no mark against the governor. It is easy in hindsight to argue that Clemmons should have been jailed for life at age sixteen. However, the people making the decision to reduce his sentence and ultimately parole Clemmons were doing their best to practice mercy toward a criminal without violating their role as guardians of social justice. Eliminating mercy from our treatment of criminals makes no more sense than eliminating mercy from any other sector of our social interaction.

Eliminate all mercy for criminals and you might as well go ahead and eliminate hope, affection, marriage vows, and childrearing–all of which look to an uncertain future and the absolute certainty that at least some percentage will prove misguided in hindsight. Mercy may open the door for damnable crimes. That does not make mercy itself damnable.