What if Christianity Became the Mark of a Political Point of View?

           So here is a premise that has been pulling at my mind.  There are certain Christian sectors that are highly identified with certain political beliefs.  More evangelical and fundamentalist streams of Christian thought and expression have been deliberately identified with the Republican right by Republican strategists.  Karl Rove is the name that I remember best in constructing this connection.

          But it is certainly not as simple as that, but that is the most visible connection I see.

          So here is the thing.  My understanding is that it was a political strategy on the right to intentionally court the vote and voice of this Christian stream of thought.  Honestly, it has left me very uncomfortable on a number of occasions to hear the defense and unconsidered approval of evangelical Christianity for President Trump. 

          But what if the evangelical church no longer serves as a secure and extended voting block for the political right, but becomes a marker of the political right?  What do I mean?  What if being a church member in that particular stream of thought becomes a litmus test for a Republican candidate?  What if it moves beyond simply being able to say that one is a Christian of the evangelical stream of thought, to having to have that proof, that congregation who claims their membership?  Who can speak to the faith foundation of the one seeking office?  What influence over a candidate does that offer?

          And I tell you, that scares me because there is a judicial theology concerning gender roles and identity, masculine authority, very broad considerations of application of the death penalty, and justification of defiance of democratic authority if it runs against this judicial theology, a theology that, in my mind, coopts the authority of God into the hands of fallen humanity with the hubris to speak in God’s name.  A literal cherry picked interpretation of the law of Moses as presently binding could pronounce the death penalty for homosexuality.

          To consider the Ten Commandments, as it stands now, "Thou shalt not murder" is the only one that is linked to the death penalty in our current judicial thought.  But making idols, using God's name in vain, and adultery all carry the death penalty in the law of Moses.

          History of both church and state are filled with the abuses of well-meaning Christian leaders (and exploitative Christian leaders) doing things for the political ‘good’ that are horrendous.  John Calvin, a leading theological thinker in my stream of Christian thought, was involved in a death penalty case in his tenure in Geneva. 

          The potential for such religious exploitation has been explored in novels like “The Handmaid’s Tale”. 

          The KKK was based in a very specific Christian theological stream of thought (a terrifying one!).  Christianity in this country divided when the nation divided over slavery at the time of the Civil War.

          There is a double-edged sword to a Christian lead in blending with a political ideology.  The first is that theology will be warped and twisted to provide support for aspects of that political ideology because they have been coopted into what defines ‘the faith’.  The second is that a judicial theology that can be absolutely brutal, especially in the face of having the power of the state to back it up, can twist a political platform that is still designed for a democracy into something authoritarian, even draconian.

          Doomsayer…I suppose I am.

Peter Hofstra

Is A Christian Political Agenda Even A Thing?

          So, Titus 3:2 and the Fairness Doctrine.  Be calm and tell the truth.  Not so much a political agenda as a dream for a better, calmer political landscape?  What then is the basis for a Christian Political Agenda-if we are going to use the language of the day?  Is that even a reasonable expectation?

          In the mainline, of which I am of a Presbyterian persuasion, Matthew 25, verses 31 to the end offers a pretty good template. 

31 ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. ³²All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, ³³and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. ³⁴Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” ³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” ⁴⁰And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” ⁴¹Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴²for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” ⁴⁴Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” ⁴⁵Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” ⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’

          It is such a good template that it has been the basis of worship resources from the PCUSA for her churches to use. 

          This is a scene from the final judgement.  Now, I grew up with the image that every person will appear before the throne of grace and will be put on trial for their lives.  That image comes from a Christian tract, a mini-comic where the sinner has been walked through the evil of their lives before being cast into the fiery pits of hell, very Hieronymus Bosch in its visual presentation.  It is also highly personalized.  The one panel that sticks in my memory is the one where the man on trial cries out when ‘the dirtiest joke he ever heard’, told to a friend on earth, is being rebroadcast in the Throne room of the Lord.

          So, to avoid hell, let the love of Jesus be expressed in the loving behavior of personal daily living.

          (It is SO tempting to get sidelined into a theological discussion of faith and works, but not today).

          But in Matthew, the schedule of proper and improper behavior is not the behavior of personal daily living, it’s living life in relation to others, by definition it seems, less blessed than we.  To play off a Buddhist metaphor, this is a ‘six fold path’, to feed the hungry, to slake the need of the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the imprisoned.  To whom is this carried out?  To the least of one of my family (“My” being personal pronoun for God).  It is sort of an applied ‘love of neighbor’.

          It is an agenda of love and justice.  “Peacemaking” is huge for us. It is also a corporate vision. 

          For me, I have preached on how the expression of our love of neighbor, our love being defined in terms of what happens in Matthew 25, being an expression of our love of God. 

          Here’s another bite as food for thought.  Borrowing the Buddhist metaphor, we find the same call to care of others in that faith-maybe more powerfully focused than in our own faith.  If we are going to gather these all into a group we call ‘charity’, it expresses one of the pillars of Islam.  And one does not need a faith-based reason to carry out such behavior.

          Sounds like the basis of a “political platform” that would find broader appeal than just to a Christian base.  Or would it be more appropriate that this expression of ‘love of neighbor’ being the “platform” of good living?

          I do not think a Christian Political Platform can even be a thing.  So what else is there? 

Peter Hofstra

The Fairness Doctrine

           My verse of political exchange as a Christian: Titus 3:2, “Remind them…to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarrelling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone.”  How might we manage that?  Perhaps by the “Fairness Doctrine”.

So here is something interesting, at least to me.  We used to have efforts to keep the news correct and balanced in this country.  According to a USA Today “Fact Check” report, from Nov. 28, 2020,

“The Federal Communications Commission has long been charged with issuing broadcast licenses to radio and television stations that operate in the "public interest, convenience and necessity," per its website.

In 1949, the FCC issued a report that established the duty of broadcast licensees to cover controversial issues in a fair and balanced manner. That obligation was termed the Fairness Doctrine.”

What is the “Fairness Doctrine”?  As described in the article, it goes something like this:

“Its basic requirements were that broadcasters "devote a reasonable portion of broadcast time to the discussion and consideration of controversial issues of public importance" and "affirmatively endeavor to make ... facilities available for the expression of contrasting viewpoints held by responsible elements with respect to the controversial issues," per a report by the Congressional Research Service.

"In practice, it required broadcasters to identify issues of public importance, decide to cover those issues, and then to afford the best representatives of the opposing views on the issue the opportunity to present their case to the community," the report explains.”

But that is not where we are now.  I went looking at the FCC website to see what they said ‘officially’.  Did not find the Fairness Doctrine per se, but here are the limits of broadcast journalism when it comes to ‘the truth’:

News Distortion.  The Commission often receives complaints concerning broadcast journalism, such as allegations that stations have aired inaccurate or one-sided news reports or comments, covered stories inadequately, or overly dramatized the events that they cover.  For the reasons noted previously, the Commission generally will not intervene in these cases because it would be inconsistent with the First Amendment to replace the journalistic judgment of licensees with our own.  However, as public trustees, broadcast licensees may not intentionally distort the news.  The FCC has stated that “rigging or slanting the news is a most heinous act against the public interest.”  The Commission will investigate a station for news distortion if it receives documented evidence of rigging or slanting, such as testimony or other documentation, from individuals with direct personal knowledge that a licensee or its management engaged in the intentional falsification of the news.  Of particular concern would be evidence of the direction to employees from station management to falsify the news.  However, absent such a compelling showing, the Commission will not intervene.  (copied and pasted 1/25/22)

It seems that the Fairness Doctrine was taken down as basis of FCC work in 2011 and more particular applications of how the process can be abused, as with hoaxes or this, news distortion, took its place.

I got interested in this after reading a report that President Ronald Reagan did away with ‘the Fairness Doctrine’, the immediate result of which was the rise of partisan news outlets, in particular, Fox News.  But that is not the case.  The FCC has jurisdiction over licensees on the public airwaves.  Fox News and CNN and most present news comes on cable, unregulated.  Kind of like the newspapers in this country in the 19^th century. 

If you want to know more in that regard, my source is “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”, where Doris Kearns Goodwin traces the politics leading up to the election of President Lincoln.  A significant portion of that is how each side had its newspapers to get its partisan message out to the electorate-sounds a lot like online news and cable news today.

So, to return to the USA Today Article,

“The Fairness Doctrine only applied to broadcast licenses.

The report by the Congressional Research Service notes that broadcast is "distinct from cable, satellite, and the Internet, which are all services for which consumers must pay.

"It does not appear that the Fairness Doctrine may be applied constitutionally to cable or satellite service providers," it continues.”

My knee jerk reaction is to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine.  But who then would get to interpret what that means?  According to the article, the Democratic Congress attempted to codify this into federal law in 1987, but it was vetoed by President Reagan.  That may be a good thing, especially in this political climate.

          If I read this right, whichever side held the White House holds the strings to the FCC regulatory base because the FCC is in the Executive Branch.  And whichever side held the Congress could attempt to legislate how the Fairness Doctrine applies.  Or, far more easily, either party could simply ignore the Doctrine for their own benefit had they the political clout to do so.

          Without the Fairness Doctrine, the limits of ‘news reporting’ seems to run to the edges of what is acceptable under the First Amendment.  In a country where spending money has been deemed ‘free speech’, that is a little intimidating. 

          This is all patriotic me.  This is me worrying after the future of our democracy in the United States.  What about the Christian me?

          Are their ‘biblical boundaries’ to the First Amendment?  Boundaries that we, as Christians, would voluntarily hold ourselves to as people of faith?  Do the tenets of the “Fairness Doctrine” provide Christians as a way to bring together the First Amendment and Titus 3:2 (the Biblical basis for my argument on what political speech should look like)?

          Can I go any further without putting people completely to sleep?  More to come. 

Peter Hofstra

On Politics and the Church

Where do politics fit into the church?  Since hearing a story on NPR contrasting 2 churches, one essentially a church based on a brand of partisan patriotism that practically elevates Donald Trump to the status of the divine and the other a mainline Protestant denominational church pressing for acceptance of all gender stances, both admitting that there is very little for them to talk about, I have been haunted by this question.

I am not for a church that either theologically folds into a political point of view or one that declares everything political as somehow off limits.  The first possibility submerges the church to the political mudslinging of our nation.  The second practically cripples our ability to function.  As an analogy, Interpol, the international police force (yes, there is one of those actually, not just in the movies), has its hands tied against anything ‘political’.  It leaves a rather narrow slice of crime for their work.  To avoid any topic that might be construed as ‘politically motivated’, leaves us with a very narrow slice of the world to operate in.

I am also not one who believes that the sphere of the church is limited to the transcendent, esoteric, end of all mindset that we need to be ‘preparing’ for at the expense of the world around us.

So Sunday, our core verse was Titus 3:2 which is, with the lead in from verse one: “Remind them…to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarrelling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone.”  Around this is built a two-fold argument by Paul that 1. The Lord Jesus does not need our works of righteousness for our salvation and 2. The divisive individual effectively gets a ‘three strike’ rule to stop arguing for the sake of arguing before they are turned out of the church.

That was written in a time when the church was still effectively an organization with a single voice.  Nowadays, someone does not like our church's point of view on something, there is sure to be another congregation not too far off that will draw them in.   

What this draws down to is not so much a question of political belief but the expression thereof.  Jesus said love our enemies.  Paul is telling us to be nice to them.  So this is a matter of what is appropriate behavior for the Christian.  That brings us back to verse 2.  Be nice.  There is a line from a movie that goes “Be nice…until it is time not to be nice…”  The follow up was ‘when is that time?’  Jesus knows that one, not us.

To coopt a phrase that has practically become anathema to my own political thinking, “make America great again”, that is only going to happen from the side of Christianity when we lay down our anger and rhetoric, all the tools of negative political campaigning and mudslinging, and we come to the table using the rules Paul has laid out for us, in the name of Jesus. 

          The way I see that happening is for all Christians to confess their attitudes and their behaviors and their opinions of their opponents to the Lord, to lay them down at the cross, and to return to the behavior Jesus expects of us so we can really “do” in the manner of people saved in Jesus Christ.

Pastor Pete

Fantastical and Debilitating Electricity

          In the media I have been seeing conflicting messages about electricity.  On the one hand, there appears to be ‘fantastical’ electricity out there that is going to solve our climate problems.  This fantastical electricity is what is going to power all the electric cars which are replacing cars running on fossil fuels so that there will no longer be emissions from our beloved automobiles destroying the atmosphere. 

          On the other hand, just read an article on ‘bigthink.com’ about debilitating electrical use.  In our air conditioners.  It is a vicious cycle.  The world gets hotter, so we run our air conditioners to stay cool.  That does three bad things.  First, it cycles the hot air out into the atmosphere, adding more heat to the total equation.  Second, it has the potential to vent atmospheric-damaging chemicals that are used in the cooling cycle.  Third, they use debilitating electricity that is generated at power plants that use fossil fuels, just think of car exhausts but magnified exponentially.

 

          A picture is worth a thousand words, so I will just use those words some place else.

          So here’s the thing.  The whole truth is not out there.  What are the real costs in fossil fuel burning to power our electric cars?  How do power plant emissions stack up against automobile emissions-fossil fuel for fossil fuel?  How much better can we make the system if we prioritize cars over air conditioners?  Or the other way around?

          Why do we care?  Unless we are Christians who have dismissed this world to go on the days of destruction as we await the return of Jesus, the Bible tells us its our job.

          In Genesis, the Creation, humanity was made the steward of God’s creation.  We were tossed out of the garden, but that mandate was never revoked.  However, in some translations, the mandate is very much in line with our exploitation of creation.  We are told ‘to subdue’ the earth.  Which we have, very effectively.

          But here’s the thing.  If the mandate to be God’s stewards on the earth has not been revoked.  And if the language of ‘subduing it’ was issued before we sinned and fell from grace so it has been corrupted by sin, just like everything else…that means our stewardship is one more piece of our humanity that comes under the redemption of Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross.  That means 'subjugation' comes under the mandate of God's perfection and not human sin.  It is a very different picture.

          So we need to care about what happens to the earth.  We need to be able to evaluate the media when the development of electrical cars is spoken of almost joyfully.  We need to educate ourselves on what we are doing to the world.  Because that is our job. 

So here’s a bit of speculation.  When the end does come and the promise of a renewed heaven and a renewed earth are fulfilled, and we are called home to the promise of eternal life in the love and nurture of our God, what if stewardship continues to be our job?  Sure, God can maintain the creation, whether it is the Garden before the Fall, or nature that groans under the weight of sin in this present age, or the renewed nature in the life to come.  What if the joy of Heaven is tending to what God has created that is now redeemed, uncorrupted by sin?

So, God made us to tend to God’s creation.  I like what the Westminster Catechism teaches us about the purpose of humanity.  We are created to glorify God forever.  Makes me think that glorifying God is going to include something about tending to the creation.  Makes me believe that the expression of our glory to God in this life includes the care of this creation.  Makes me hope that heaven is more than the cartoons that portray people in togas and angel wings flying about playing harps.  But back to the present.

There is no fantastical electricity in competition or distinction to debilitating electricity.  It comes from the same source.  It is our responsibility as Christians to work toward making the production of electricity ‘planet friendly’ or, if we prefer, ‘creation friendly’.  It is our mandate as stewards of God’s world.  I believe that the work we do for the creation now is but a reflection of the work we will have the joy to perform in eternity.

Rev. Peter Hofstra

The Squid Game: Implications to Faith

           “The Squid Game” begins with a recollection from childhood, friends playing the Squid Game.  It’s a running around game, something integrating elements of ‘Tag’, of ‘British Bulldog’, something to be remembered fondly.  That opening sequence is probably the only part that I would suggest that kids watch.  Because this show is brutal.

          It is also compelling, original in its brutality, and very well done.  From one article I read, it is apparently even better in the Korean in which it was written and produced.

          Okay, SPOILERS AHEAD.  Four hundred and fifty six people, all in desperate need of money, are selected, screened for their acceptance of physical assault in pursuit of money, and then thrust into an arena to compete for a fortune.  It’s a variation on the gladiatorial games.  It hearkens back, for me, to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome-the final movie in the franchise BEFORE the reboot.  There was the arena-Thunderdome-and the chant.  “Two men enter, one man leave.”

          In this case, four hundred and fifty six enter, one leaves.  And it is not a combat arena.  Rather, the contestants are subjected to kid’s games, like “Red Light Green Light” (and a very disturbing doll) or playing with marbles and so on.  But to lose is to die.  If the game is not rigged to kill you, the anonymous guards will do it, shot and executed.

          It’s a tale of what money will drive people to.  One of the more horrifying moments comes when, after the first game, after the deaths of half their number, they have an option, by majority rule, to end the game.  Which they do-the contestants do, without retribution.  But after some time in the ‘real’ world of their former desperation, the vast majority, when given the opportunity, return.

          It is not just a tale of what money will drive people to do when they do not have it.  We meet the VIP’s, the rich and bored of the 1% who gather to bet on these games.  They have money to do anything they want and they derive pleasure from watching the poor fight one another.  It is the boredom of the rich that pays for this entire enterprise-but that is one twist I will not spoil here.  It got me.

          Okay Pastor, why do you watch stuff like this, Pastor?  Is it to see how the faith is portrayed?  Well, there are a few moments where Christianity (which is the dominant faith in South Korea) is focused upon, and it does not come off well. 

          The more I watched this, the more the beginning of Ecclesiastes echoed in my mind.  “Meaningless!  Meaningless!  Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless.  What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?” (New International Version)

          This book of ‘wisdom’ carries a theme that the pursuit of the pleasures of life are ultimately useless in and of itself.  And the author, according to the introduction to the book, is King Solomon, the richest and the ‘wisest’ king of Israel’s history.  (Yes, the book does not mention him by name but verse 1 beings “The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem…”

          Why is “The Squid Game” so popular?  It is the latest manifestation of that ultimate burden of life and wealth.  It is meaningless.  People will die to get it.  People who got it will watch them dying to gain distraction.  Audiences will watch ever more brutal and violent portrayals of what ‘could happen’, like a world in which “The Squid Game” occurs, for the same reason.

          As I said, while Christianity takes its lumps in this vision of who we might be, that was not the emotional gut punch for me.  No, that came with the married couple among the contestants.  And the game with marbles.  I will not spoil what happens, except to say that that this was the moment when the pursuit of money swept over even love and affection. 

          In a world of boredom and desperation…I can hear the narrator speaking those words in a deep bass tone.  This is where real faith is so necessary.  “The Squid Game” is well done, very well done.  It touches something deep in the culture of the world.  I have to admit that the only thing that truly let me down was their attempt at a hopeful conclusion.  It struck me as a rather forced hook for Season Two.

          So what do we do about this?  Wake up.  Realize how the ‘important’ things in life have been defined for us by the culture around us-the sinful culture around us.  There is an “AHA” moment in this for me.  Sunday’s service is based in the second half of John 14 as our Scripture lesson.  While not the focus of the sermon, there is one line in there, spoken by Jesus, “I cannot talk to you much more, because the ruler of this world is coming.  But he has no power over me.”  Obvious reference to the devil, I would think.

          Consider this.  “The Squid Game” portrays the world as it becomes under the present ruler of the world.  Consider the twisted, malevolent, evil guiding the culture of the world that gets audiences to be transfixed by this ‘what if’ possibility.  Consider how much we need to plumb the depths of our Christian faith, of the love and peace and forgiveness we are taught by Jesus to stand up to that ‘reality’.

The “Old Rich White Guy”: Considering a Four-Fold Path of Privilege.

          Have you heard of the pancake/waffle conundrum on social media?  I get on a social media platform and speak of how I like pancakes.  The first comment comes from someone asking why it is that I hate waffles.  The presumption of exclusion, one of the things that makes social media such an unstable platform for the exchange of meaningful information.

          I start there because I fear I am going to get a lot of the pancake/waffle conundrum going with this blog post.  In our nation right now, there is a powerful movement about deconstructing ‘white privilege’ in order to create a better tomorrow.  This is an incredibly important discussion to be having.  There is a huge corrective in the way things are in America that will come from its deconstruction.  But its only one piece of the puzzle.

          I was watching some Hollywood “high-lister” (I do not know who rates what in the alphabet of Hollywood lists), self-identifying with white privilege, a brave and personal decision to come out with, speaking with the conviction of solidarity with all who are white, that all have this privilege, that all must come to terms with it.  That kind of blanket conclusion, that all who are white must now surrender their privilege, it only works in some kind of social experiment where one of the presuppositions goes something like “all other things being equal.”

          If we can control for age and economic status and gender and what other factors that I am not cognizant of, then we can justify someone making this kind of blanket pronouncement, under ‘laboratory conditions’.  This is commentary on the old rich WHITE guy.  But this isn’t the lab.  Privilege is not one dimensional.  And a rich person telling people who are poor that they have to give up their privilege-no matter how they couch that word-smacks of hypocrisy to me.

          There is a privilege to being rich that we rarely talk about in this country.  Because that’s the American dream, isn’t it?  Build enough wealth and we are free to do ‘whatever we want’.  But how small a minority of the people hold how much a majority of the wealth?  And isn’t there an inherent conflict within communities, however they self-identify, between the ‘have’s’ and the ‘have-not’s’? 

          With the Old Rich White Guy, that is two of the four folds of privilege.  Now if you think I have spoken inadequately about white privilege and the evils of racism, addressing the privileges of age in a culture with an ever-heightening awareness of age discrimination is really going to start some fires.  Being old certainly does not mean being wealthy.  But wealth itself is often older than the current generation.  What was the line, “I made my money the old-fashioned way, I inherited it?”  Being old is a double-edged sword in this country.  On the one edge, you may be part of that group of wealth holders.  On the other edge, you may be forgotten and warehoused in a care facility.

          We also live in the age of the Internet zillionaires, ‘young ones’ with buckets full of money, money not made over generations.  But for every ‘young’ zillionaire who makes the news, how many…chronologically advanced individuals are there who hold disproportionate amounts of power and influence?

          And let us not forget the privilege of gender.  Being male has all kinds of privilege wrapped up in it.  But this privilege is also influenced by skin color.  I have read feminist essays speaking of white male privilege and womanist essays speaking of black male privilege.  And I am wholly unqualified to speak out on such a topic, except in the broadest summary.

          Privilege of life experience, privilege of economic status, privilege of race, and privilege of gender, that is simply my ‘four-fold’ path of privilege.  I have privilege in all four categories.  What I am saying is that privilege is more than a two-sided argument, that we need more clarity of the nuances of privilege and inequality if we are going to meaningfully implement change.