Category Archives: Pastoral Care

May 15, 2013 · 00:55

Bringing Faith to the Faithless and Doubt to the Faithful

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I like hard questions and hard cases. My life has been quite interesting and that includes my faith journey as a Christian and human being. It is funny that in my life I have as I have grown older begun to appreciate those that do not believe and to rather distrust those who proclaim their religious faith with absolute certitude, especially when hard questions are asked.  Paul Tillich once said “Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful.” 

I think that the quote by the late theologian is quite appropriate to me and the ministry that I find myself. I think it is a ministry pattern quite similar to Jesus in his dealings with the people during his earthly incarnate ministry. He was always hanging out with the outcasts, whether they be Jewish tax collectors collaborating with the Romans, lepers and other “unclean” types, Gentiles including the hated Roman occupiers, Samaritans and most dangerously and scandalously women. He seemed to reach out to these outcasts while often going out of his way to upset the religious establishment and the “true believers” of his day. He was actually quite successful at this, so successful that his enemies made sure that they had him killed.

I think that what has brought me to this point is a combination of things but most importantly what happened to me in and after my tour in Iraq. Before I went to Iraq I was certain of about everything that I believed and was quite good at what we theologians and pastors call “apologetics.” My old Chaplain Assistant in the Army, who now recently serves as a Chaplain and was recently selected for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel called me a “Catholic Rush Limbaugh” back in 1997 and he meant it quite affectionately.  I was so good at it that I was silenced by a former Archbishop in my former church and banned from publishing for about 7 years. The funny thing is that he, and a number of my closest friends from that denomination are either Roman Catholic priests or priests in the Anglican Ordinariate which came into communion with Rome a couple of years back. Ironically while being “too Catholic” was the reason I was forbidden to write it was because I questioned certain traditions and beliefs of the Church including that I believed that there was a role for women in the ordained ministry, that gays and lesbians could be “saved” and that not all Moslems were bad that got me thrown out in 2010.

However when I returned from Iraq in the midst of a full blown emotional, spiritual and physical collapse from PTSD that certitude disappeared. It took a while before I was able to rediscover faith and life and when I did it wasn’t the same. There was much more mystery to faith as well as reason. I came out of that period with much more empathy for those that either struggle with or reject faith. Thus I tend to hang out at bars and ball games more than church activities or socials, which I find absolutely tedious. I also have little use for clergy than in dysfunctional and broken systems that are rapidly being left behind. I am not speaking about belief here, but rather structure and methodology.

I think that if there is anything that God will judge the American versions of the Christian church is our absolute need for temporal power in the political, economic and social realms and the propagation of religious empires that only enrich the clergy which doing nothing for the least, the lost and the lonely. The fact that the fastest growing religious identification in the United States is is “none” or “no preference” is proof of that and that the vast amounts of money needed to sustain these narcissistic religious empires, the mega-churches and “Christian” television industry will be their undoing.  That along with their lack of care for anyone but themselves. Jesus said that his disciples would be known by their love for one another, not the size of their religious empire or temporal power.

The interesting thing is that today I have friends and colleagues that span the theological spectrum. Many of these men even if they do not agree with what I believe trust me to love and care for them, even when those most like them in terms of belief or doctrine, both religious and political treat them like crap. Likewise I attract a lot of people who at one time were either in ministry or preparing for it who were wounded in the process and gave up, even to the point of doubting God’s love and even existence. It is kind of a nice feeling to be there for people because they do not have to agree with me for me to be there for them.

In my darkest times my only spiritual readings were Father Andrew Greeley’s Bishop Blackie Ryan mysteries which I began reading in Iraq to help me get through the nights in between missions in Iraq and through the nights when I returned from them.  In one of those books, the last of the series entitled “The Archbishop goes to Andalusia” the miscreant Auxiliary Bishop to the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago goes to Seville Spain.  In the novel Bishop Blackie makes a comment after celebrating Mass in the cathedral at Seville. He said “Every sacramental encounter is an evangelical occasion. A smile warm and happy is sufficient. If people return to the pews with a smile, it’s been a good day for them. If the priest smiles after the exchanges of grace, it may be the only good experience of the week.”  (The Archbishop in Andalusia p.77)

That is something that I try to do now on a regular basis. Sure most of my sacramental encounters as a hospital chaplain do not occur during the liturgy, but often in the life and death moments and times of deep discouragement felt by the wounded, ill and injured. In that ministry I have found that there are many hurting people, people who like me question their faith and even long held beliefs.

On my way home from taking my little dog Molly home from a visit to the vet this afternoon I heard the old song by Nazareth called Love Hurts. The song always gets me. It is one of those “real” songs from the 1960s and 1970s that nails how life can be sometimes.

Love hurts, love scars
Love wounds and mars
In any heart not tough
Nor strong enough
To take a lot of pain
To take a lot of pain
And love is like a cloud
Holds a lot of rain
Love hurts

I’m young and I know
But even so, I know a thing or two
I have learned from you
I’ve really learned a lot
I’ve really learned a lot
And love is like a stove
Burns you when it’s hot
Love hurts

Some fools rave of happiness
Of blissfulness, togetherness
Some fools fool themselves, I guess
But they’re not fooling me
I know it isn’t true
I know it isn’t true
Love is just a lie
Made to make you blue
Love hurts

In 1977 a Christian singer, Erick Nelson included that song on an album called The Misfit and used it to lead into another song of his called He Gave Me Love. The album which he did as a duet with a lady named Michelle Pillar was always and still is one of my favorite albums. It was and still is one of the few works of “contemporary Christian music” to really deal with the hard questions of faith, including hurt, doubt and betrayal and the cost of following Jesus with any measure of authenticity. The song, the lyrics of which I include here are quite remarkable, because they talk about those themes.

When I was down, they wouldn’t stay
When I was hurt, they turned away
But Jesus called me and I must obey
He gave me love

You see, His friends all let Him down
And when He healed everyone around
All He got was a thorny crown
Because of love

Because of love for you
Because of life and truth
Because of love for you
Come take his love

Sometimes they laugh and are unkind
And others smile and say I’ve lost my mind
But all I know is what I find
And I find, He gave me love…

Love does hurt, and well deciding to love can bring a lot of pain, but I do think that it is worth it. Well, that is all for tonight. Until tomorrow.

Blessings and Peace

Padre Steve+

Love Hurts lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, HOUSE OF BRYANT PUBLICATIONS

HE GAVE ME LOVE Words and Music by Erick Nelson 1977 Maranatha! Music All rights reserved.

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May 9, 2013 · 23:46

Back from the Abyss: Padre Steve’s Reflections of 5 Years Dealing with PTSD Faith and Life

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“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.” Elbert Hubbard

It has been five full years since I descended into the hell of the abyss that is PTSD. Back in the late spring and early summer of 2008 just a few months after my return from what I still consider my best tour of duty in over 30 years of military service with US advisors and Iraq Army and Security forces in Al Anbar Province in 2007-2008 I was in a state of emotional and spiritual collapse.

I really couldn’t believe then what was happening to me or they way that it would end up shaping my life to the present day. In retrospect my return from Iraq marked a beginning of a personal hell that for a number of years seemed like that it would never end. It was painful, it was isolating and it marked a profound change in the way that I saw God, faith, politics and social justice. It changed me in ways that I never could have imagined when I got on a bus heading for Fort Jackson South Carolina following the July 4th holiday of 2007.

Those brave souls that have followed me on this website as well as those that are still my friends despite occasional disagreements and misunderstandings, those that may not understand me but still are my friends have seen this.

So five years later what is it like?

I still have trouble sleeping, not as much as I used to but enough to impact my life. I don’t take heavy doses of sleep meds anymore, just some Melatonin as well as a mild dosage of an anti-anxiety medication and anti-depressant. A far better combination than medications that made me feel like I was hung over without that benefit of sharing too many drinks with friends at the local watering hole.

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As opposed to the years immediately following my time in Iraq I have to say that I am no longer self medicating with alcohol. I remember in 2009 going out for dinner, having a few beers, then going to a ball game and drinking a few more and coming home with Krispy Kreme donuts and drinking more beer on a regular basis and usually taking a couple of shots or Jaegermeister or glasses of Spanish Brandy just to get to sleep so I could go back to facing life and death situations the next day in our ICUs. I don’t need that anymore, even though sleep can be problematic and dreams and nightmares rivaling anything I can watch on my HD TV…

I still love to pony up to the bar and share a couple of pints with friends but I don’t need it to numb myself into feeling no pain. Talking with many other vets who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan or even Vietnam I know that I wasn’t alone in those dark days.

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I have become a bit less hyper-vigilant though when I come home to Virginia Beach than I was just three years ago and most certainly five years ago in May of 2008. However, that being said I do notice that I am more on guard on the roads and that little things, sirens, emergency vehicles, loud noises and traffic still set me off more than when I am in rural North Carolina. This week I have been home because my wife Judy had some surgery and I have had to readjust to the traffic, noises and other things that I haven’t really had to deal with the past few years. That has been both interesting and enlightening.

I absolutely hate air travel. I don’t like the crowds, the stress of security or the constant delays, changes and overcrowding. Truthfully I felt more comfortable flying the skies of Iraq on Marine, Army and Air Force fixed and rotor wing aircraft and on occasion being shot at in Iraq’s Al Anbar Province than I do on any airline today in this country.

Physical fitness matters more than it did before, even though I was in very good shape before and during my time in Iraq. But when I came home from that I was not only wounded in mind and spirit, but my body was beaten up. Chronic nagging injuries and chronic pain kept me from doing what I liked doing and what helped me keep my physical-spiritual and emotional balance. Those nagging injuries took a long time to heal, and they took some adjustments on my part which took me several years to adapt to and compensate in my physical regimen.  I can say now that I am in as good or better shape than I was before I left for Iraq in 2007. Maybe I’ll write a best selling book and do an exercise video like Jane Fonda…

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Whereas in 2008 through 2010 and even until 2011 I was exceptionally sensitive to criticism to the changes that were occurring in my life including my move to the “left” both theologically and politically I have gotten to the point that I realize that it is more important to be honest and authentic as to who I am and what I believe. I have found that those that really matter to me don’t care so much about those things and that relationships maintained with people who don’t always agree with each other where all remain their personal integrity are far more rewarding than relationships that are first and foremost decided by allegiance to political or religious orthodoxy no matter what side of the spectrum it is from. I hate group think. Thus though I have to now consider me to be on the “liberal” side of the political and theological divide I still have to be considered a moderate simply because I refuse to make people my enemy simply because I disagree with them or they with me.

When I began this site in the spring of 2009 I named it Padre Steve’s World…Musings of a Passionate Moderate. I think I did that because it actually described me then, and now, even though I am pretty passionately liberal about some things and that doesn’t bother me in any way because it comes from my wrestling with God and faith and realizing that integrity matters more than about anything else. I have toyed with changing the title of the site but have decided against that because I am a moderate liberal committed to a Christian faith that speaks for the oppressed and is willing to confront those that would use faith, political or economic power to oppress the weak or those different from us.

Since I returned from Iraq in 2008 I discovered what it was to really question faith and God. To become for a couple of years a man who was for all practical purposes an agnostic praying that God still existed and cared. I discovered that in doing so that faith returned, different but more real than I had ever experienced in a life spent in the Christian faith and ministry.

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That brought change because my rediscovered faith brought me into conflict with people in the church denomination and faith community where I had been ordained as a priest. I was asked to leave and found a new home church and denomination that fit my life, faith experience and where I could live and minister in complete integrity. In the church that took me in during the fall of 2010 I can be faithful to the Gospel and care for the lost, the least and the lonely, especially those who have been abused by churches and ministries that have sold their soul to right wing political ideologues whose only concern is their political power and influence and would use churches and Christians to do their evil bidding. I guess that I learned that just because someone wraps the Bible in an American Flag, believes that Jesus brought us the Constitution and says that they “support the troops” it doesn’t necessarily mean that they care a whit about the Bible, the Flag, the Constitution or the Troops. I hope that isn’t too harsh….

Oh well, I feel that I am beginning to ramble so I will say good night and “God Bless,” no matter what God that you profess or for that matter don’t profess.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 19, 2013 · 23:32

A Memorial Service as Tragedy Strikes Camp Lejeune on the 10th Anniversary of the Beginning of the Iraq War

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“God didn’t put us here for that pat on the back. He created us so he could be here himself. So he could exist in the lives of those he created, in his image.” Chaplain (Captain) Fr Francis Mulcahy M*A*S*H 

The past week has been difficult at Camp LeJeune. We lost a sailor, a hospital corpsman who died by his own hand last Monday. He was a veteran of Afghanistan and his death came as a surprise to his friends, family and shipmates. Today we conducted his memorial service. It was a full house. His family travelled to be here and his friends, those that served with him while he was assigned to the Marines as well as his current shipmates were there in abundance.

It was a time to grieve. The young man was beloved by his friends, respected and cared for. However something that none of us will ever know or understand overwhelmed him. It may have been the trauma of war, maybe something else, but he maintained a facade that kept his friends, family and shipmates away from whatever despair drove him to take his life.

It was a time for all of us to grieve. It was as William Shakespeare wrote in McBeth a time to “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o’er wrought heart and bids it break.”

But even as we grieved the news filtered to the base that 7 Marines assigned to the Second Marine Division were killed, and a number of others injured when a mishap occurred where they were training in Nevada. Evidently either a mortar round either exploded in the tube or as it was being handled during a live fire exercise. They join the thousands of men and women who have died or been wounded in preparation for, the conduct of or the aftermath of their service in Iraq or Afghanistan. The death of each one leaves a void in the heart of a loved one, friend or shipmate.

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Staff Sergeant Ergin Osman KIA Afghanistan

I have lost friends and shipmates in all phases of both wars and their aftermath. Some have died in combat, others while supporting combat operations of natural causes or accidents, some have committed suicide, including a Priest and Chaplain who served in both Vietnam and Iraq. Still countless others endure injuries or illnesses that will eventually kill them.

Likewise there are far too many more who have sustained terrible injuries to their minds, bodies and spirits that time will never heal. The young men and women that I see every day, those with the physical wounds of war and those with the unseen but sometimes even more disabling injuries such as PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury or Moral Injury remain in the fight, sometimes with the sole mission of recover or remaining alive.

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Ten years after the war in Iraq began and twelve and a half years after 9-11 and the invasion of Afghanistan the costs continue to build in lives and treasure. In Iraq almost 4500 American and over 300 other coalition casualties, more than 500 contractors and nearly 10,000 Iraqi Soldiers and Police and countless thousands of Iraqi civilians have died. US wounded alone number almost 35,000 in Iraq. In Afghanistan there are over 2100 US dead and about 1100 NATO and Coalition dead, hundreds of contractors, and thousands of Afghans with over 17,000 more American military wounded. Every day nearly 20 veterans take their lives while thousands of others struggle with physical, psychological and spiritual wounds of war, wounds that don’t heal even as they find that they no longer fit in the country that went shopping when they went to war. The costs of both wars now are building into trillions of dollars, costs that will continue to grow even after the wars wind down.

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Two time Congressional Medal of Honor Winner Major General Smedley Butler, US Marine Corps wrote:

“What is the cost of war? what is the bill? Major General Smedley Butler wrote: “This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all of its attendant miseries. Back -breaking taxation for generations and generations. For a great many years as a soldier I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not only until I retired to civilian life did I fully realize it….” (See War is a Racket: Remembering Major General Smedley Butler USMC and Why He Matters ) 

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Likewise Lieutenant General (US Army Retired) Hal Moore, who is immortalized in the film We Were Soldiers and book We Were Soldiers Once…and Young told West Point Cadets in 2005:

“The war in Iraq, I said, is not worth the life of even one American soldier. As for Secretary Rumsfeld, I told them, I never thought I would live long enough to see someone chosen to preside over the Pentagon who made Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara look good by comparison. The cadets sat in stunned silence; their professors were astonished. Some of these cadets would be leading young soldiers in combat in a matter of a few months. They deserved a straight answer.

The expensive lessons learned in Vietnam have been forgotten and a new generation of young American soldiers and Marines are paying the price today, following the orders of civilian political leaders as they are sworn to do. The soldiers and those who lead them will never fail to do their duty. They never have in our history. This is their burden. But there is another duty, another burden, that rests squarely on the shoulders of the American people. They should, by their vote, always choose a commander in chief who is wise, well read in history, thoughtful, and slow-exceedingly slow-to draw the sword and send young men and women out to fight and die for their country. We should not choose for so powerful an office someone who merely looks good on a television screen, speaks and thinks in sixty-second sound bites, and is adept at raising money for a campaign.

If we can’t get that part right then there will never be an end to the insanity that is war and the unending suffering that follows in war’s wake-and we must get it right if we are to survive and prosper as free Americans in this land a million Americans gave their lives to protect and defend.”

Needless to say, Moore, a West Point graduate has not been asked back.

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Thousands of young Americans, as well as NATO or other Allied nation soldiers, including Iraqi soldiers that I knew and Afghans that I have not worked with have died or been mangled by these wars. Yet too many Americans, Europeans and others that have sent young men and women to these wars have no stake in the game.  Most people continue with the mundane aspects of peacetime life while their political, religious and business leaders plot even more war. Syria, Mali, North Korea, Iran…where will it end?

Today we mourned a shipmate and friend at Camp LeJeune even as we wait to see who else that we know have been killed or injured in this latest training accident. I was honored to be a part of the memorial and happy to be of help to the families and friends of my sailor. At the same time I too grieve and wonder just how many more will have to die before the madness ends.

I left the base after the ceremony, and saw the massed trucks of the local and national news networks parked outside the gate like vultures. When I got home I hugged my dog Molly, I love that little dog, she has helped save my life after my time in Iraq. I then went for a four mile run on the beach and then had a couple of beers with my dinner while at the bar with my friends at my local watering hole.

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The old regulars there have nicknamed me “Father Mulcahy” a name that some people at the hospital have also given me. Maybe it is that I ear round steel rimmed glasses. Maybe it is because I will join in the occasional poker game , football, basketball or NASCAR pool, which by the way I won the NASCAR pool this week. Or maybe it is just because they didn’t know I was a Chaplain or Priest until a mutual friend and co-worker told one of them. Until then I was just Steve, the guy that wore the Orioles and Giants baseball gear. Now I have become their Priest and Chaplain, funny how that works. Regardless, it is a nickname that I cherish, because when I was growing up Fr Mulcahy symbolized so much of what I thought was good in a Priest and Chaplain. The writers of M*A*S*H made him very human. But I digress…

As we mourned today I was reminded of something that Helen Keller said, something that I think no matter what any of us grieve is true. “We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world–the company of those who have known suffering.”

Pray for me a sinner.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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March 11, 2013 · 23:54

Doing the Gospel: “Beyond the Possible” by Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani A TLC Book Tour Review

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Beyond the Possible, 50 Years of Creating Radical Change at a Community Called Glide, Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani Harper One Books, New  York 2013 

“You never know when the Spirit will knock at your door…” 

I seldom read books by American pastors of any denomination. I have gotten over the cult of celebrity associated with most of our most esteemed preachers. Likewise, when I read a story about a church, be it a local church or denomination I am generally filled with skepticism and wonder when I am going get hit on for a financial contribution or political favor. I guess that I have seen the light in regard to how many church leaders run their business. Or maybe I am just a bit cynical having spent many years in the Mega-Church world and worked for a nationally recognized and now very politically active “evangelist” about 20 years ago.

When I received the note from the good people at TLC Book Tours to do a review on this book I almost turned it down but then thought well “what the hell? If I think it’s bullshit I can rip it apart.”

However I cannot do that, even after reading it. I had remembered the name of Cecil Williams from growing up east of San Francisco in the 1970s. At the time I thought Williams a bit too radical and not “Christian” enough. Of course I knew little of him or of Glide only what I saw on television news reports, many of which were not always the most complimentary of him. Since I knew little of Glide that impression was what I had for many years. However, over the years I would occasionally see Pastor Williams on different interviews and was impressed with him and what I heard. I didn’t necessarily always agree but he was impressive, not the liberal monster I thought him to be.

Of course the book is a memoir of Williams and his wife Janice Mirikitani and how their lives intersected with a dying church in the heart of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, a place ridden with drugs, crime and poverty. It was a place that most of the church members had departed from. It was a church, like so many that had seen better days. It was a church like the one that I was baptized in as a baby which as the neighborhood that it was located slid into poverty and change in ethnic composition saw the majority of its membership move away. Eventually, that Methodist church died and was closed. It was a fate that Glide Memorial Methodist Church was heading to when the last 35 members welcomed their new pastor, Cecil Williams in 1963. It was a moment of change. It was a moment when a fresh breeze blew through the church.

The book chronicles the stories of Williams, the son of a church janitor and his wife in Jim Crow San Angelo Texas and his early life under those laws. It tells of his struggles as a pioneer African American student at SMU’s Perkin’s Seminary and his part in the Civil Rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s, including time in a Birmingham jail.

It also tells the story of a young Japanese American woman, Janice Miritikani who with her family had endured the pain and humiliation of being incarcerated after the attack on Pearl Harbor simply because they were Japanese. It is her story as well, a story that was not only about the prejudice that she experienced the dehumanizing experience of rape and incest covered up by family and cultural pressures, the story of a woman who prayed for God’s presence and struggled as God remained silent.

It is a story of love, faith hope, purpose and the endless possibilities that exist when one sees that which is considered “beyond the possible.” It is a book that tells of struggle of a community which many people did not consider redeemable. It is the story of a church and of people, not just Williams and Miritikani but the people who in turbulent times launched a church that has become a bastion of living the Social Gospel, speaking prophetically to those in power and working for the benefit of the least, the lost and the lonely.

Glide, the community is a place of acceptance and love, a place which serves and empowers those without power, without a voice. Providing care to the homeless, the jobless, the needy, the HIV infected and those suffering from AIDS, those battling drug and alcohol abuse, those rejected for their lifestyles and a host of others. The Glide foundation, which Williams has headed since his “official” retirement from the church is one of the top philanthropic organizations in the nation.

Now there are some that would not agree with Williams and the message of Glide. It is a church that welcomes people of all walks of life and faith. It is a church with a door open to all, even those who would come to the church intentionally to cause trouble as did a number of White Supremacists attired in  White Power, Neo-Nazi and Neo-Confederate images, who ended up staying when their hate was met by love. It is a church where the rich and the poor worship together in a service called a “celebration.”

Glide is a strange animal. It is a by all definitions a politically and socially active Mega-Church with about 11,000 members. Those that know me well and read this site regularly know that I am not a fan of most Mega-Churches. To me most, regardless of their theological or political views seem to exist for themselves.  However, Glide is a place that thanks to Williams, Miritikani and those that over the past 50 years have sacrificed to build reaches out to redeem the community where it resides and does not exist for itself. It may not speak the same language as the contemporary Evangelical Mega-Churches but it is reaching those who quite often would be unwelcome in those churches. It is the embodiment of the love of God, an incarnation of the love of Jesus to those that would be, and were in fact the same kind of people that Jesus himself went to in his earthly ministry.

This book is inspirational to read for anyone who has a heart for those disenfranchised and uncared for by the church or the world. I found it hard to put down. The message “you never know when the Spirit will knock at your door” was real to me as I read this book during the Season of Lent. Indeed it is possible for God and the people of God to go Beyond the Possible.

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I highly recommend it to anyone and plan to visit Glide the next time that I go to San Francisco and hope that should I be involved in parish ministry after my Navy career is over that I can emulate the spirit and love that I saw described in this book.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 10, 2013 · 00:32

Everyone Dies…But Not Everyone Lives: Thoughts on Life, Death, Faith and Community

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“Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times, it’s the only time we’ve got. ~Art Buchwald”

I had an epiphany during my post Iraq PTSD crash….“Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.” I actually think that I remembered a similar quote from the movie Braveheart but whether it was a real epiphany or simply an errant movie quote that resonated in my badly shaken brain it really doesn’t matter.

The value of living life to the fullest really came to me then. Now I admit, though I discovered that truth, it was often difficult to make real in my life. That being said, living every day matters to me and doing so in community with others, people who have an important part in my life.

To get to this point has not been easy. I have seen a lot of death and destruction in my life: I’ve experienced trauma, had people shoot at me, been robbed at gunpoint, been on aircraft with mechanical problems, narrowly missed terrorist bombs and a lot of other rather “sporty” events.  Likewise I have seen death and trauma up close and personal.  Babies born too early to live, elderly people passing away after long lives, young men killed and maimed by war, children and the elderly maimed, cities and villages devastated.  I’ve seen people of all ages whose lives have ended suddenly either to disease or trauma and seen people suffer long and painful deaths which can only be described as excruciating.

In all of this though I have also found life in people who no matter what their circumstance choose to live and often seen the grace of God in the midst of great suffering. It is as Anglican theologian Alister McGrath says: “Life under the Cross.” I had one of those experiences with a Navy widow when I was serving as the ICU chaplain at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth back in 2009. The woman in her dying moments continued to look after those around her, thanking people, blessing people, laughing, joking, crying and praying.  I had the privilege of conducting her funeral, she was a saint.

I know that death is a reality, those who seek to deny it only deceive themselves. Even Jesus died, there is no resurrection without death first. There is almost a death denying cult in the western world. Many doctors cannot look someone in the eye who has a terminal illness and tell them that the illness or something related to it will kill them.  We often rely on machines to extend life well after they serve any purpose in bringing healing to the patient forgetting that the patient is a person with hopes, dreams and wishes. Everybody dies…but how do we live?

I also know that there is injustice and poverty in the world, even in our country. I know that innocents suffer because of the choices of powerful nations and individuals, politicians, businessmen, dictators and even religious leaders.  There are times when we have to stand up to injustice. In fact that should be a normal part of life and faith. But when we do stand up against injustice we must be in the business of reconciliation and not revenge while we advocate for the least, the lost and the lonely, those who have no one to speak for them.

I know people who for whatever reason cannot seem to enjoy life or find happiness. I know people who cannot enjoy friendship with people who are not like them and I am sad for them. It almost seems that for them the glass is neither half full or half empty; but rather that there is a flaw in the glass that will cause it to explode and send a shard of glass into their eye. Mark Twain said that “the fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

There are also people of faith, or at least people that believe that they are people of faith who dehumanize others who don’t believe like them or live by the tenants of their particular faith. Some of these people actually kill in the name of their God and I am not simply talking about radical Islamic terrorists. There are plenty of examples of this among the Christian, Jewish and Hindu faiths throughout history.

There are plenty of others from every faith tradition who dehumanize other people. The members of the Westboro Baptist “God hates Fags” crowd who disrupt funerals of fallen US Servicemen and women saying that their death is God’s judgment on them for serving the United States. They despise the nation and the sacrifices of those that they mock while enjoying the freedom that both give them.

There are people in every religion who do this sort of thing, they dehumanize the people that God has created in his image. That being said I have seen others who have no faith who mock those who have strong religious faith and seek to deny them their rights. Both religious and secular radicals are often willing to use the power of government to silence  or even persecute those that they disagree with. Somehow I don’t think that this kind of life is what God intended, and certainly not by the men that wrote our Bill of Rights.

My Clinical Pastoral Education supervisor during my hospital chaplain residency said something to me that resonated then, and still does today. He told me that I had to stop living my life expecting failure and heartache. He said that I could actually write much of my own future by how I look at life and chose to live in faith, hope and dreams, to believe in a good future while remaining grounded in reality.  He opened the future to me, a future full of possibility,exploration and adventure.  A future of hope, friendship and faith.

I’ve learned, and it has been an often painful learning curve, to live and appreciate life and the great gifts that God has given me.  I’ve learned to laugh and live with people and to have friendships beyond what would have been my comfort zone even a few years back.

I have also learned that even if I believe something with all my heart it doesn’t necessarily mean that God agrees with me. I had to learn to turn off the incessant voices in the media that seek to divide and destroy their opponents, who belittle, silence, attack, dehumanize and quite often demonize those who disagree with them.  This doesn’t mean that legitimate differences should be pushed aside, but it is a call to civility especially for people that are entrusted with reconciling the world to God.

For me life has come to mean community and friendship, finding commonality while recognizing differences. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but that’s okay, it is a free country.  I’ll agree to disagree but do my best to remain respectful and not become enemies just because of a difference of views. I have chosen to live in this reality but unfortunately I don’t always live up to my own expectations.

As I look forward to another year of writing on Padre Steve’s World I hope that what I do in thought, word and deed is to live and to help others to live. There is far too much death, trauma and hatred in this country and the world not to attempt to do so.

Thank you for following this site and blessings,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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February 7, 2013 · 23:59

A Long Strange Trip Home from Iraq: A Five Year Trek to Healing

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“Sometimes the lights all shinin’ on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.” 

The Grateful Dead “Truckin’” 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pafY6sZt0FE

Just over 5 years ago I returned from Iraq a changed man. But the change was not complete, it was the fact that the man that I was before Iraq was shattered. I returned vainly hoping to return to what used to be “normal.” But that was not possible. I returned to a place where I felt that I felt abandoned at at times betrayed. I thought that I would be able to get through what I was feeling by working harder, praying more and pushing myself beyond my limits. Within months of my return I was in a state of emotional, spiritual and physical collapse.

Insomnia, nightmares, hyper-vigilance, acute sensory sensitivity to sight, smell and sounds that reminded me of Iraq, rage, depression, emotional distance from those that I loved. I drank more than I should have and self medicated because of chronic pain. Driving became an adventure, my hyper-vigilance made me drive like a Jedi Knight, the “force” was with me. Slow traffic, objects that resembled items that might hide IEDs alongside the road and aggressive or threatening drivers caused outright panic and anxiety.  This led to some unsafe driving practices on my part and thankfully a lawyer got my speeding tickets on US 17 in North Carolina reduced to mechanical violations.

I had deep anger at the politicians and leaders that took us to war and the media that lied about it. I had a spiritual crisis that left me for all intents and purposes an agnostic praying that God still existed. There were few clergy that I even trusted at all because most didn’t seem to either care or understand what I was going through. The only thing that kept me going was a hope that things might get better and only my sense of call as a Priest and Chaplain allowed me to continue in spite of my crisis. During that early period of 2009 I began this site and the article God in the Empty Places…Padre Steve Remembers the Beginnings of Padre Steve’s World helps recount those early days.

At first when things began I could not label what I was going through. But by the middle of June I was falling apart and during a seminar that I was coordinating involving the author of On Killing and On Combat, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman I was in such bad shape that the Medical Officer of EOD Group Two asked me “Are you okay Chaplain?” I told him “no” and after he was sure that I was not a danger to myself he set up an appointment for the next morning. Following his evaluation and subsequent evaluations at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth Virginia I was diagnosed with chronic and severe PTSD, anxiety and depression.

The road back has been long and often difficult. I mentioned that I was going through a spiritual crisis that left me for all intents and purposes an agnostic. It took nearly two years but in the act of conducting what are often called the “Last Rites” for a retired Navy doctor faith returned. It was what I call my “Christmas Miracle” though it actually occurred during Advent (see:  Padre Steve’s Christmas Miracle )

After that things still were difficult. Faith had returned but it was different, less doctrinaire and more accepting of others different than me. I still struggled with depression, anxiety and insomnia. I struggled in my marriage and it seemed that the only place that I could find peace was at a baseball park. The management of the local AAA International League team, the Norfolk Tides allowed me to come and visit the stadium and walk the concourses and be at the field during the off season as well.

In June 2010 I found out that I had been selected for promotion to Commander, the next day my father died and a week later I found that I was being transferred to my current assignment. Just before my transfer I was told by a former Archbishop of my old church that I was “too liberal” and needed to find a new church home. I did with some help and it has been for the better, I still have many friends in that church including other leaders in it and the former Archbishop himself was removed for attempting to remove the military chaplains from that church to another. Change continued as did my struggles but some things were getting better. In spite of my own struggles I was determined to make sure that others like me were cared for and the new assignment at Camp LeJeune gave me plenty of opportunity.

I wrote an article on this site entitled Raw Edges: Are there other Chaplains out there Like Me? That article led to me being contacted by a reporter from our local newspaper, the Jacksonville Daily News they published an article about my struggle and recover in April 2011. Shortly thereafter I was contacted by the DOD Real Warriors Campaign who did a feature on me. That site did a feature on me http://www.realwarriors.net/multimedia/profiles/dundas.php that helped others connect to me and be able in some cases to tell their stories, or those of family members sometimes for the first time.

I was getting better but still struggling, especially with sleep and nightmares. Due to her medical issues my wife remained in Virginia when I went to LeJeune. Last December my dog Molly decided that she was going to stay with me and that was a big help. Her cheerful unflappable personality helped me begin to engage life again. Instead of going home to an empty apartment I was greeted by a dog that welcomed me cheerfully and made me get out of my shell. We ended up a couple of months later getting a new puppy for Judy, a puppy who has added a new dimension to all of our lives.

Finally last year I began some more therapy that was extremely helpful and about a month ago I stopped doing sleeping pills that did not help me sleep and left me feeling almost hung-over every morning, making it hard to function and even to get out of bed. Over the course of nearly 5 years I had been on a number of different medications and all had the same effect, even those designed to not leave the patient that way. My therapist suggested trying Melatonin on duty nights when I needed to be able to drive to work if there was an emergency at the hospital. I noticed a difference. My sleep was no worse and when I got up in the morning I actually felt somewhat rested.

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For the first time since I returned from Iraq I feel that I am functioning like a normal human being. Hope has returned and people that know me can tell the difference. Judy says that I am the man that she fell in love with again. In ministry I have found that what I went through assists me in caring for those going through great difficulties, any do to PTSD, TBI or Combat Stress, but others that are struggling with their place in life in the military institution, particularly caregivers including chaplains and medical personnel. At work I have more energy and connection to people than in years and I have developed more relationships with people on the island as well.

Do I still have days that I struggle? Yes. Is my sleep perfect? No. Do I still have nightmares and strange dreams? Yes. All that being said I know that for the first time in years I approach the Lenten Season feeling good, not just hoping things get better.

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It has been as Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead once sang “a long strange trip” but it continues to get better. If you know someone struggling from the effects of PTSD or other combat trauma there are a lot of resources, sometimes they are hard to find and in some places due to the numbers of personnel suffering they are in short supply, but they are still can be found. My encouragement to others is not to give up, not to lose hope and to keep seeking help. It took me five years to get back to what is my “new normal.” I can’t go back to what I used to be and I don’t want to, my definition of what is “normal” has changed and that is okay.

My views on life, faith, politics, ministry and social issues have changed over the years, I think for the better. Some might disagree, but that is okay, I have been called a lot of things by people that do not understand over the past few years, but I would rather have that than be where I was before Iraq. Iraq changed me in ways I did not expect. When I left for Iraq in 2007 I thought that I was immune to PTSD because of my experience in dealing with trauma and death both in the military and the civilian world. I was wrong, but despite what I have gone through I am glad for the experience.

There is still one constant in my life, besides my wife Judy who has suffered much during my ordeal, and that is baseball. I can only echo the words of James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams “The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and what could be again.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

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January 17, 2013 · 01:03

349: Active Duty Military Suicides Hit New High in 2012

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The 2000 Yard Stare by Thomas Lea

The Defense Department released the numbers for what Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has described as “epidemic” of military suicides. The total of 349 active duty personnel includes 182 Soldiers, 48 Marines, 59 Airmen and 60 Sailors. It does not include Coast Guard personnel. The last statistics for that service showed 5 active duty suicides for 2012 as of mid-August, the service had only seen 6 in 2011.

As of November there were 124 Army Reserve and National Guard suicides not on active duty, 6 Naval Reservists. I have not been able to find the data for Air Force Reserve and National Guard or the Marine Corps Reserve.  The reserve figures are of drilling reservists not of those in the Individual Ready Reserve (inactive reserve) who do not attend drill but have served their obligated active time and can be recalled to active duty until the end of their service obligation.

The Veterans Administration estimates that nearly 6,500 veterans take their lives yearly. The numbers include veterans of all wars not just those of Iraq and Afghanistan nor are they complete because sometimes death certificates do not record a veteran’s service.

It is growing problem that unfortunately will not get any better anytime soon. Part of the issue is that despite service attempts to change the culture there is still a stigma attached to those that seek mental health care. There are other reasons that factor into the equation, deployments, high operational tempo, lack of enough mental health care providers to meet the demands as well as the effects of combat stress injuries, PTSD,

Traumatic Brain Injury as well as what is now called “moral injury. One definition of Moral Injury “the lasting psychological, biological, spiritual, behavioral, and social impact of perpetrating, failing to prevent, or bearing witness to acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.” 

Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor twice wrote a moving of those afflicted with what we now call Moral Injury after World War One:  “Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. They were remolded; they were made over; they were made to “about face”; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think of nothing but killing and being killed.

The effects are as chilling now as they were in Butler’s day when he wrote:

“These have already been mentally destroyed. These boys don’t even look like human beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically they are in good shape but mentally they are gone….There are thousands and thousands of these cases and more and more are coming in all the time…”

I know. I see it every day but I see it in a number of ways. I see it in the faces of the Marines and Sailors going back and forth between Afghanistan, Iraq and now North Africa and also among those in the medical, mental health and chaplain services that care for these men and women.

Provider burnout, including suicide is a problem. Just recently a former Army Psychologist who had served in Iraq during the surge and had been treating veterans in the VA committed suicide. Less than two years ago, this man was the lead author of a article that dealt with burnout and suicide of caregivers. Peter Linnerooth who was awarded the Bronze Star in Iraq committed suicide on January 2nd 2013. His widow, also a mental health professional commented:

“He was really, really suffering…And it didn’t matter that he was a mental health professional, and it didn’t matter that I was a mental health professional. I couldn’t help him, and he couldn’t help himself.”

Linnerooth’s faculty advisor commented: “When he went in and when he came out, it was shockingly different…”

That was a problem then and it is a problem now. The thing is that these active duty 349 men and women, as well as the others I have mentioned where the numbers are not well defined are not just numbers. They are people. Real men and women, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. Their deaths at their own hand are more than the combat deaths in Afghanistan this year.

Dr Larry Shellito the Commissioner for Veterans Affairs in Minnesota said something that is dead on:

“Oftentimes, you have to look at the people that surround the people with (PTSD) to make sure they are also OK, because it’s got a multiple impact…It’s not just the individual who suffers, it’s the people who care for him.”

I see it all the time. Butler’s description of the men who served in the trenches that were in veterans hospitals and facilities nearly 20 years after the war ended are as true today as they were then. Ask any caregiver in the service or in the VA system and they will tell you how overwhelming this epidemic is.

It cannot be wished away and assuaged by people simply doing the bumper sticker “I support the troops” thing without looking deeply at what is causing this and investing in the lives of these men and women before their lives are completely destroyed. It also means that politicians and their think tank and media advisors who constantly beat the drums of war, without fully funding it and without caring for those that are sent to fight them must be held accountable by voters.

I know how this is on a real live up close personal basis as a chaplain. I went to Iraq and came back changed. The PTSD, depression, anxiety and hopelessness that I felt were overwhelming. Thankfully I am doing a lot better and I did get the therapy and assistance needed, but it took a while to get it and thankfully at my present command I had people that I worked with help me get the help that I needed. But I have been back almost five years. A lot of that time was spent in the wilderness wondering if there was hope, if I would ever get better and sometimes wondering if God even existed and if he did, did he care. During the whole time I continued to work with and care for others like me. Their injury also impacted me in ways that I could not imagine before I was afflicted.

I care about this issue, because it affects those that I serve as well as their families, communities and those that serve with them. 349 active duty suicides. Think about it. One is too many. 349 is inexcusable and that does not count all those that we cannot count because we don’t know the numbers or the full story.

349: Keep that number in your mind and do something about it.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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January 14, 2013 · 23:59

HD Dreams and Stranger Things Part Two: Sleep Medications and Dreams, the PTSD Conundrum

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Ever since Iraq I have had terrible times with insomnia as well as very vivid dreams and nightmares. I have written about it in a previous article HD Dreams and Stranger Things: PTSD and Sleep.

Over the past four years or so I have been on various sleep medications, none of which has done much of anything to help my sleep. Most have left me drowsy on awakening the next day as if I was hung over, without the fulfillment of getting shit-faced the night before surrounded by friends. Believe me a good craft beer, or a lot of good craft beer does me a lot more good than various sleeping pills.

At the same time they have done strange things with my dreams. At times they are most vivid and terrifying and at other times for whatever reason they have been practically suppressed depending on the medication.

I found that because of the amount of the anxiety and insomnia that I had that my doctors prescribed high doses of the various medications used. Most had little effect, sleep was still at a premium and in the morning I would wake up groggy. That was my life the past for the past five years if you count the time before I started taking sleep medications.

In the past week that has changed. I mentioned in that previous article that I was beginning a course of therapy that would involve some different techniques to help me deal with the symptoms of my PTSD. That therapy was incredibly helpful and helped me to put my experiences into a perspective that before was not possible. Likewise my therapist dealt with my frequent sleep disruptions and made recommendations concerning how to manage my sleep.

We experimented. Since I was on a fairly heavy dose of Lunesta and still had to maintain a duty pager adjustments had to be made. On the nights when I had no duty I took no medication with the effect of getting no sleep at all and feeling like crap the next day. On days I took my medicine I would get some sleep, frequently interrupted and always with the consequence of a drug induced hang-over in the morning. Finally we tried a couple of more things. First was the use of a over the counter sleep aid used by many physicians that have to work odd on call hours called Insomitrol. It is a mix of Melatonin and Gaba extract. On the plus side I did not feel hung over in the morning. One the minus side my HD dreams went to 3D Luscasfilm HD and were the most memorable, surreal and occasionally frightening dreams I have ever experienced. We ended that experiment and went to over the counter Melatonin. It has worked well. My sleep is no worse, my dreams are quite fascinating and I do not feel hung over in the morning. I have discontinued the use of the Lunesta.

I still take an anti-anxiety medication to help bring me down at night and I will be obtaining either on my own or through the military a bio-feedback program to use on my computer before I go to sleep.

Since starting the Melatonin my sleep has gotten better. The HD dreams are still there and memorable enough that I can remember them and hope to find some meaning and interpretation in them, even the nightmares.

Those of us that deal with the aftereffects of PTSD and trauma have much to deal with. Sleep or the lack of it, dreams and nightmares, medications and the use of other drugs or alcohol are rampant among veterans with PTSD. There is no “silver bullet” or “cookie cutter” that works for all of us. But for me this seems to be a means of freedom and healing. I hope that my experience helps others and encourages them to work with their physicians, therapists and spiritual advisors on their journey to healing.

I don’t understand all the scientific aspects of sleep. I am beginning to learn about them though and as I learn it takes away some of the fear of closing my eyes, which for me opens a world more vivid, surreal and sometimes terrifying than keeping them open. But it is an unexplored world for me, one that I hope and pray helps me continue to integrate my life, faith and spirituality in ways that I never could have imagined before.

To me that is absolutely fascinating and something that I look forward to experiencing.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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December 2, 2012 · 23:44

Advent and Life: God Loves the Real World

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O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer
our spirits by thine advent here;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death’s dark shadows put to flight.

(From O Come O Come Emmanuel) 

Today is the fist Sunday of what we in the liturgical Christian world know as the season of Advent.

Advent is the beginning of the liturgical year, in a sense the opening day of a new season of faith, as much as the Opening Day is in Baseball. It is a season of new beginnings, of hope looking forward and looking back. It is a season of intense realism. It is a season where the people of God look forward to their deliverance even as they remember the time when God entered into humanity.  It was not simply entering the human condition as a divine and powerful being inflicting his will upon people but deciding to become subject to the same conditions know by humanity. As Paul the Apostle, wrote about him: “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,  but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death– even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5b-8) 

In the incarnation Jesus Christ shows his love and solidarity with people, humanity, the creation, reality. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

“God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but human beings as they are; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find repulsive in their opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, namely, real human beings, the real world, this is for God the ground of unfathomable love.” 

That simple fact is why Christ came.

He didn’t come to found a government. He did not come to exemplify “Christian” virtues or to condemn people that religious people condemned as sinners.

The meaning of the incarnation, and the hope of the season of Advent is that God loves people, even those that some that presume to be his spokesmen and women despise.

In the next few week there will be much written and said about Jesus. Much of it will not actually deal with Jesus or the people that he came to save but instead about the worldly power and influence of those who seek the profits of being “prophets.” Some of them will talk fervently about the “war on Christmas” as if somehow God and Christ are so small that they need government sponsored displays in the public square in order to be real, relevant or or for that matter important. What a small God they must have.

Somehow the message of Advent, the coming of Jesus is contradictory to the message of the for profit prophets. Certainly the early Christians had no government backing of any kind. They simply lived the life and showed God’s love to their neighbors, often at the cost of their lives and paradoxically the message was not crushed, but spread and overcame an empire. It was only when they became co-executors of government power that the message of reconciliation became a bludgeon to be used against those who did not agree with the theology of the clerics beholden to the Empire.

The Christ of the Season of Advent, the one who came and who promises to come again is not captive to the capricious message of the for profit prophets and their political and media allies. I would dare say that God is much bigger than them or those that they believe will somehow end the Christian faith as we know it. But then maybe the Christian faith “as we know it” is more a reflection of us and our need for temporal physical power over others than it is of Jesus.

All I know is that the simplicity of the message that “for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” is more powerful than any political-religious alliance. Likewise the two things that Jesus said to do in order to “inherit the Kingdom of God” were to “Love God with all your heart and love our neighbors as ourselves,” and similarly the words of the old Testament minor prophet Micah, who asked “what does the Lord require of thee? To love show justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.” But then there is not much money or political power in that is there?

But despite the inconvenience of a direct temporal profit or power which is so central to most churches, I do think that the message that God loves the real world is worth repeating. In fact I think that because the message of God’s great love for those deemed “repulsive” is so distasteful to the “for profit prophets” of our time that it is not only worth repeating, but actually believing.

It is a good reason for me to during this season of Advent to look forward to our celebration of the mystery of the Incarnation, the coming of the God who “emptied himself” and took “the form of a slave” in order to save his people.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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October 15, 2012 · 23:51

Talking Without Listening or Understanding: American Christianity 2012

“Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I think that “Christian” television, radio and entertainment is perhaps the among the most destructive forces in our society. In them a complete insulated subculture of demigods living in their own self made cloud-coo-coo land of make believe attempt to give answers for society’s ills, protect the faithful from the evil of non-Christian thought and for that matter of non-Christian people and to influence politics in ways that Jesus would never countenance.

I know this. I actually worked for a ministry of one of the current leading “Pastors” of the Christian political right back in the 1990s. The mindset inside the television and radio ministries of Evangelical Christianity is almost as insular, make believe, paranoid and power hungry as was the Papal Curia in 1517. Actually for someone who is a historian with a pretty in depth knowledge of the Reformation, particularly that of Martin Luther in Germany it is a frightening thing to see.

It seems today that preachers, in particular those in high profile mega-churches and ministries want to say something about everything under the sun and then throw in a “In Jesus Name” here and there to make their opinion sound Christian. Now that is not a problem limited to big name evangelists or even Evangelical Christianity. It exists in mainline churches, the Catholic Church and even other religions, can I get a Fatwah on that?

But because the leaders of the multi-billion corporate empires of the modern Evangelical movement have a vested interest in keeping the money flowing into their tax exempt institutions they must be relevant. Thus even if they no nothing about a subject they must write books and preach sermons on what God thinks of well you name the topic, everything from economics to foreign policy and even who God says you should vote for or against certainly not for the black guy in the White House, but I digress.

While beating their gums into a fervor and frothing at the mouth at evils real and imagined to keep their followers money coming they to use the Old Testament example of Esau “sell their birthright for a cup of soup.”

Bonhoeffer saw preachers of his era do the same thing and he was a critic of them with good reason. In their fear and hatred of the change that occurred when Imperial Germany went under and “Jews and Bolsheviks” threatened their position they ended up helping to create a climate where Hitler not only came to power but had the open support of many Christians and the tacit approval of the vast majority of German Christians of all denominations.

In the midst of crisis and uncertainty they gin up fear against “the non-Christian other.” The big problem for the German Christians of the 1920s and 1930s as well as our current crop of American church leaders is that they stopped listening and instead decided that they had the answers to all of society’s problems. In Germany after the Nazis were crushed by the Allies the Churches suffered major losses of credibility. Young people who had experienced the war, or who grew up in the desolation of post-war Europe left the churches in droves because of the terrible witness of supposedly Christian leaders and churches.

I would dare say that the vast majority of Evangelical leaders have simply stopped listening to anyone that would disagree with them. The evidence is manifold in our current political crisis in the United States where Christian leaders often are the most base and vile of all political pundits and politicians.

It is no wonder that the fastest growing religious preference in the country is called “the Nones.” In other words those with no-religious preference who have dissociated themselves from any Christian church. It is not because they have a problem with God or Jesus per say, it is because of the pompous asses that only care about them for the market share. Chuck Colson once noted that the Pastor of a large mega-Church told him that he was “paid to keep them coming in the door” not to preach any real truth, but to keep the empire afloat. Believe me the mega-churches and media empires of Evangelicalism require vast amounts of money just to keep their mortgages, air time and pastors well paid.

Moral lapses and corruption in these empires is rampant. Time after time the leaders of these “ministries” are exposed as money grubbing hypocrites who lash out at whatever group that they need in order to create straw men to keep their ministries alive.

Basically the leaders of Evangelicalism have stopped listening and even worse stopped caring about people. The empires must be maintained by “tithing units” as the son of a Bishop once called parishioners. It is the ultimate devaluing of people that Jesus died to save. Think about it. People only matter for the capital that they contribute to maintain the institution. I cannot think of anything more blasphemous and it will be the cause of the fall of contemporary American Evangelical Christianity.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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