Category Archives: christian life

November 6, 2013 · 23:49

Letter to A New Military Chaplain Part V: Count it All Joy

“The theologian who labors without joy is not a theologian at all. Sulky faces, morose thoughts and boring ways of speaking are intolerable in this field.” ― Karl Barth

This is fifth part of a response to a question I had from a new Navy Chaplain. I have decided to post it here without any identification of the chaplain because I know that many men and women who are new to the military chaplaincy or who are exploring the possibilities of becoming a chaplain have the same questions. I was fortunate to have had a number of chaplains who at various points in my decision process and formation as a minister, Priest and Chaplain in both the Army and the Navy help me with many of these questions. Likewise I learned far too much the hard way and blew myself up on some of the “land mines” that almost all who serve as chaplains experience in their careers. This is the fifth of several parts to the letter and is my attempt to systematically explain my understanding of what it is to be a Chaplain serving in the military and in particularly the Navy. As I wrote this tonight I thought of one more installment so I expect soon that I will write it, but not tonight. The first three parts are linked here:

Letter to a New Military Chaplain: Part One

Letter to a New Military Chaplain: Part Two The Minefields of the Heart

Letter to a New Military Chaplain Part Three: The Minefields of the Soul: Power and Arrogance

Letter to a New Military Chaplain Part IV: The Minefields of the Flesh, Sex, Alcohol and Money

It has been a while since I started this series so tonight I figured that I would quickly finish what I started. The young Chaplain who I wrote this for is about to report to his new assignment and I do wish him well and pray that he will do well in it. If things go as I expect and he does well he should still be serving as a chaplain at least 15 years after I retire.

Thus for me this series is in a sense about passing the torch. I figure that in five or six years I will finally retire from the Navy Chaplain Corps. Of course that could change because I’m not God and so until I actually retire I will keep my head in the game. There is always a new generation and those of us who have labored need to be there for and be ready to do all we can to help, encourage and mentor those who follow us.

One of the things that I have learned over the course of 32 years in the military and 21 years as a military chaplain is that one must keep a sense of humor and not take oneself too seriously. In that time I have ran into many a chaplain and minister who lived their lives bereft of a sense of humor, had no ability to laugh at themselves and who were positively gloomy people. Saint Teresa of Avila made the comment “God save us from gloomy saints!” I think that she was right and she did take fire from people in the church because of her joyous spirit.

Now I have my times where I am not a happy camper. I can be morose and moody and sometimes even a bit cynical. However, that being said I try not to live my life that way and certainly do my best to keep a sense of humor, laugh at myself and even when things are not going well to try to find a silver lining in the otherwise dark clouds.

Chaplains have a unique ministry. We are not cloistered in parishes or trying to build churches. We serve in a secular institution with people who volunteer to serve their nation in often dangerous, lonely and arduous manners. Those who serve alongside of us on our ships, or in our units we in the Navy call “shipmate” and that transcends differences in religious beliefs, politics or philosophy. As the chaplain it is our duty in this secular institution to care for the people who we serve alongside. They are our parish whether they be believers or not. Pastoral care in this setting is about caring for and loving people who many times don’t believe like us (no matter what our religious tradition) respecting their faith or beliefs and treating them with the same dignity that we would want others to treat us, our families or our friends.

For me this is a joyful life. I like working outside the brick and mortar of the church because it suits my personality and way of doing life. I was a Navy “Brat” growing up. Had it not been for a Roman Catholic Navy Chaplain who helped care for my family when my dad was in Vietnam and a civilian church of our denomination made us unwelcome. I trace my calling back to that man. He was not about pushing his denominational or personal agenda, he simply cared about a military family who needed it.

I think that approaching life and ministry as a chaplain with joy is paramount. It is I think a reflection of the grace of God. As Karl Barth said: “Grace creates liberated laughter. The grace of God…is beautiful, and it radiates joy and awakens humor.”

In our military careers we chaplains will find many opportunities to lose our joy, to become graceless and to become consumed with our own status, promotion and even power. It is a temptation and danger of any kind of institutional ministry where there is an “up or out” promotion system. Thus we must be careful to keep our focus on caring for others, doing our best in all things, build collegial relationships and real friendships with others and trust God with how everything else works out.

Joy is essential if we are to be living sacraments or vehicles of God’s grace and we have to chose joy. As Henri J. M. Nouwen said: “Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”

So count it all joy.

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under christian life, faith, Military, ministry, US Navy

Tagged as chaplain ministry, god save us from gloomy saints, henri nouwen, joy, karl barth, military chaplains, navy chaplain corps, teresa of avila

October 27, 2013 · 23:57

Whoever Exalts Himself: The Snare of Ideological Christians

“Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.

“Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’

But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’

I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18: 9-14

Pope Francis astounded the catholic, and much of the conservative Christian world last week when he commented in a homily that Christians who had allowed their faith to become ideology had a “serious illness.”

The Pope’s comments would not have been so remarkable had so many Christians not have surrendered faith in Jesus for barren ideologies.

Pope Francis is no stranger to this. In Argentina where he served as a Priest, Bishop and Cardinal he saw this type of faith from ideologues of both the political left and political right. The conservatives were those who saw faith as something to buttress their standing and place in society condoning the heavy handed methods of torture, intimidation and murder used by military dictatorships. On the left he saw theologians and pastors who had embraced Liberation Theology who went beyond all the good things brought out by that theology and joined hard lined Marxists in a political struggle. Both sides in Argentina’s culture wars had a part in politicizing and turning the Gospel into ideologies which only used Jesus as to buttress their agendas.

Because of this he is probably a bit more understanding of the havoc that ideologues claiming to be Christians can do to the redemptive message of the Gospel. In the passage from Luke I cannot help but see so many of the ideologues that masquerade as ministers in our American society as the Pharisee.

Since many have not read or hear what the Pope had to say I am copying some of that homily here:

“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology. And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements.”

… “The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances the Church from the people. But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh? Already the Apostle John, in his first Letter, spoke of this. Christians who lose the faith and prefer the ideologies. His attitude is: be rigid, moralistic, ethical, but without kindness. This can be the question, no? But why is it that a Christian can become like this? Just one thing: this Christian does not pray. And if there is no prayer, you always close the door.”

“The key that opens the door to the faith,” the Pope added, “is prayer.” The Holy Father warned: “When a Christian does not pray, this happens. And his witness is an arrogant witness.” He who does not pray is “arrogant, is proud, is sure of himself. He is not humble. He seeks his own advancement.” Instead, he said, “when a Christian prays, he is not far from the faith; he speaks with Jesus.”

Today’s Gospel lesson from the lectionary was the passage from Luke quoted at the beginning of this article. It really is a remarkable passage. It is so because Luke notes that Jesus is talking to people who “were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.”

This is the mark of an ideologue and zealot regardless of their ideology. The sad thing is that when those people claim to be Christians that it does great damage to the faith, the Gospel and the witness of the people of God. One of the major reasons noted by a Barna Group survey in 2011 as to why young people were fleeing the church was that “Christians demonize everything outside of the church,” that “God seems missing from my experience of church” that “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” that “church is like a country club, only for insiders” and that they cannot “ask my most pressing life questions in church.”

Others have noted that many outside the church feel that Christians are selfish and not interested in those outside the church, are self centered and judgmental, and are unwilling to develop true friendships with non-Christians.

It is amazing when you think of it. I for one remember my days in Evangelical Churches where if you talked about someone that was not a member of the church that people would ask “are they saved?” That always bothered me because I had a lot of friends that were Christians but not Evangelicals, from mainline, Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. likewise I had friends outside the church, people who were non-believers, agnostics, atheists or members of other religions. I saw them as friends and people, but inside the sheltered and isolated cloisters of Evangelicalism they were less than fully human.

The words of Jesus to those he addressed in this passage from Luke are much like so many of us who claim to be Christians.

I have to admit that I still struggle many times with faith and that I get nervous when I see Christians appear to have no regard for others. Maybe it is because I was treated rather shamefully by Conservative Christians who I thought cared about me who when I experienced a faith crisis abandoned or even worse attacked me. Likewise when I was 12 years old and my dad was serving in Vietnam I had a Sunday School teacher tell me that my dad was a “baby killer.”

So I have experienced the Christian ideologue attack from the left and the right. Neither time did I like it and I hate to say that I have little tolerance when I see it. Thus I try very hard, despite my own theological, philosophical and political leanings to treat people as I would want to be treated. Thus I have friends that range across the entire political and religious spectrum. I also probably have some enemies across the spectrum too, but it is not because I want to be.

I have become enamored with Pope Francis. I do not agree with everything that he says, but that being said I find him to be authentic and human, a man who I can not only respect as a religious leader, but as a human being. I would never want his job or for that matter to be anything more than a Priest, Chaplain and academic and in doing so care for the people that I serve as a Priest, Chaplain and teacher, as well as those who I meet in the places that many Christians would never enter.

I do hope that doesn’t sound arrogant because I certainly don’t mean it to be. I guess it is just because I have seen so much wrong done in the name of Jesus that I want to call attention to it without being an ass or being harsh.

So tomorrow begins a new work week. School continues as does the World Series and my Joint forces Staff College Softball league. This coming weekend I will be heading up to Gettysburg as part of a staff ride.

Have a great week and don’t forget the Gospel and the people that Jesus seems to care about.

Peace

Padre Steve+

Duty, Calling and Vocation

“So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ Luke 17:10

Today was one of those weird days. As I thought about the government shutdown and the political crisis that has enveloped our political system, as well as the very real domestic and foreign policy consequences of this asinine situation I was confronted with the scriptures for today from the lectionary.

I find it fascinating to find who timely the readings for the lectionary are, even though they have been set for years.

Today the Old Testament lesson was from Habakuk when in the first chapter the prophet cries to God about how bad things are and asks why God doesn’t do anything about it. The New Testament reading from Timothy was an encouragement from Paul to Timothy to remember his calling and vocation. The Gospel reading from Luke began with Jesus talking about faith but then discussing the duty and responsibility of the servants.

In light of the current asinine situation regarding our government which when you look at it logically makes no sense whatsoever the readings were pretty spot on. Habakuk complained to God about what a mess Israel was and was told by the Lord to hang in there and the the Lord had a plan. Paul wrote to Timothy in what obviously was a time of crisis in Timothy’s pastoral life and reminded Timothy about his calling. Likewise in the Gospel the real crux of the matter when well beyond the “faith” of the disciples but to the simple understanding that they were servants and the responsibility of servants was to do their duty.

Duty is something ingrained in me after 32 plus years of service in the military and over 22 years of ministry as a Army and Navy Chaplain. It is somewhat tied in with my sense of calling which was one of the few things that helped me hold in during the depths of my post-Iraq PTSD crash when I was for all intents and purposes an agnostic praying that God existed. I am glad for the deep rooted sense of duty, calling and vocation because otherwise I probably would be here today.

I have always liked the prayer of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits:

Teach us, good Lord,
To serve you as you deserve;
To give and not count the cost;
To fight and not heed the wounds;
To toil and not to seek for rest;
To labor and not to ask for any reward,
Except that of knowing that we do your will;
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Duty can be a hard thing, precisely because to do ones duty sometimes means that the situation will not be comfortable nor will the reward be great. Likewise there are times when doing one’s duty involves great sacrifice to do what is right. Now I am willing to fight for what I think is right, even if the costs are great.

Admiral Chester Nimitz wrote:

“God grant me the courage not to give up what I think is right, even though I think it is hopeless.”

That is a prayer that I can only respond to with a hearty “amen.”

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under christian life, faith, Military

Tagged as admiral chester nimitz, apostle paul, duty, faith, gospel of luke, habakuk, letter to timothy, st ignatius of loyola

October 3, 2013 · 23:40

It’s Called Sedition and Treason: “Prophet” Rick Joyner Calls prays for Military Coup to Oust President Obama

Sedition: To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against either the hatred of the people of the United States, or to stir up sedition, or to excite unlawful combinations against the government, or to resist it, or to aid or encourage hostile designs of foreign nations. Sedition Act of 1798

I am always amazed when certain political preachers make their pronouncements about how they think that God is speaking to them about political issues. However yesterday, when my troubles seemed so far away the radical Christian Dominionist and self proclaimed “Prophet and Apostle” Rick Joyner stunned me. Joyner is one of the leaders of what he and others like C. Peter Wagner call the New Apostolic Reformation which inculcates people to believe that they and they alone are hearing from the Lord and that the task of the church is to rule the earth and if need be judge and destroy those that do not agree with this particular form of Christianity.

Now as most people who really know me know it takes a lot to stun me, even from the right wing political preachers that crowd the airways and cyber space of the United States and the world. I am not a fan of these very non-pastoral and often quite un-Christian political animals who claim to be speaking for God.

Now I am all in favor of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, even for men like the prophet Rick. In fact when I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States it included defending the rights of irresponsible, hateful and idiotic men like Joyner and others like him no matter what their political or religious persuasion.

But there is a line where what someone says is irresponsible, hateful and idiotic, which mind you are perfectly legal and Constitutional; after all there is nothing prohibiting people from being hate driven fear mongering idiots. That being said there is a time when speech borders or crosses the line into what Federal law, common law and the laws of most western civilized countries which have a Judeo-Christian heritage call “treason” or “sedition.”

I think that yesterday the prophet Rick looked to me like he crossed that line. He said yesterday on his broadcast that in terms of the President Obama that our “only hope is a military takeover, martial law.” Not only that but he continued: “And that the most crucial element of that is who to the martial [sic] is going to be,” he said. “I believe there are noble leaders in our military that love the republic and love everything we stand for. And they could seize the government.”

Now obviously Joyner neither understands the Constitution of the United States, nor knows history our military. The fact is that most of us who have been around any time at all in the military know the history of just how bad military coups are for Republics or Democracies. The fact is that they seldom end well and usually bring about worse conditions than if sensible people took charge and let the political system work as it was designed. The fact that our often badly divided founders understood that there would be times that one faction, party or another would not be happy with the way an election turned out.

I would have linked the video of this absolutely insane, treasonous and seditious video Joyner’s Morningstar ministries have now pulled it. I guess that some clearer headed people, likely his corporate lawyers realized that this was over the line.

I wonder what Joyner and his supporters would say if a religious leader of another faith other than their own uttered such foolishness. I suspect that if there was a Conservative Republican in the White House that they would be calling for the prosecution, conviction, imprisonment or maybe even the execution of such a person who suggested the overthrow of the civil government. But then for such people the irony of this is too rich for them to comprehend.

The sad thing is that this is now par for the course for people like Joyner whose hubris, narcissism and Gnostic understanding of the Christian faith justifies their radicalism and arrogance. I took some time to read Joyner’s comments about this controversy in his “Morningstar Prophetic Bulletin” and it looks to me like he is willing to go even farther in the coming days. Speaking to his disciples he wrote:

“I am very glad for this controversy, even the outrage I have created in some by the Prophetic Perspectives program. To quote King David, “I will yet be more vile” (see II Samuel 6:22 KJV). I don’t enjoy controversy, but I do appreciate it for what it can accomplish. It is not likely that anyone will be able to speak the truth in these times without it. I intend to use the controversy started by that program to delve into more depth on these issues. Therefore, future Prophetic Perspectives programs will likely be even more controversial….”

Sad to say it looks to me like Joyner is looking to collect some cash for his ministry by getting them fired up. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s I heard Joyner speak and had some of his books. He is very good at deceiving people and ensuring his material well being by doing this kind of thing. He has been doing it for years. In fact he has been castigated by conservative and Fundamentalist Bible Christians for his incredibly shoddy and self serving “revelations.” Hank Handergraaf’s Christian Research Institute even noted that “Joyner leaves us no middle way. Either we treat him as God’s chosen super-prophet for the end-times, or we treat him as a man in the grip of evil deceit and seek to expose him as such.”

While I am not in agreement with Handergraaf on many things I can agree with him on this. Joyner and others like him in the Christian Dominionist movement are not only narcissistic, arrogant and full of hubris but are dangerous not only to those that follow them but to others. Especially those that they decide based on their personal “word from the Lord” are against Jesus.

Honestly this is little different from the way that people like Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban interpret Islam.

Yes if you ask me what Joyner is saying is seditious and borders on treason. However because people are afraid of the religious right in this country no charges will ever be filed. Joyner will get away with this and rake in more cash from those that he leads into disaster, people who swallow his heresy and radicalism hook line and sinker because it fits their world view.

The late associate Justice of the Supreme Court and Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials wrote: “[I]n our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds — that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.”

Joyner and those like him fit Justice Jackson’s description.

God help us all.

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under christian life, faith, History, Military, ministry, News and current events, Religion

Tagged as c peter wagner, christian dominionism, false prophets, hank handergraaf, justice robert h jackson, military coups, new apostolic reformation, osama bin laden, rick joyner, sedition, sedition act of 1798, taliban, treason

September 26, 2013 · 21:28

God’s Unfathomable Love: The Antidote to the False God of Christian Dominionism

“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.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I find much inspiration from the past, especially in the lives of men and women who opposed evil, especially evil done by those who perverted the Christian message. One who always challenges and inspires me is the German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer grew up in an era of world war, the collapse of Empires and social order, economic collapse, revolutions and the rise of the greatest evils that the world has ever seen. Bonhoeffer recognized evil in the world and the dangers of radicalism. He was a child when the First World War ended and the Kaiser abdicated and Germany went through a violent civil war, the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles, economic calamity, Communist and Fascist coup attempts which finally led to the Nazi takeover by legal means. When the Nazis came to power Bonhoeffer was a young pastor. He was one of the first to recognize the evil of the Nazi state and Nazism as well as its hold over Christians from all denominations who rushed to embrace Nazism.

We live in somewhat similar times. The times are unsettled and great evil exists, evil which seeks to destroy the world in order to make it in its own image. Some of these are materialist and secular while others are rooted in the Great Religions. Still others are found in the mysticism and individualistic spirituality people who see the world and for that matter humanity as the enemy.

However for me the most troubling are those who claim the mantle of Christian Dominionism, Reconstructionism or the Seven Mountains theology. I say this not because the others do not pose a danger but because this popular perversion of the Christian faith is little different from the Moslem extremists of the Taliban in its goal of establishing a theocracy. Something which if I recall was opposed by the founders of the United States and enshrined in our Constitution.

We are well acquainted with the extremism associated with Islamic terrorism. Likewise we know all too well the more politically based ideologies which have committed murder on a massive scale. However Christians are not immune to radicalism. They see radicalism as a godly response to the evils of their time.

Bonhoeffer saw the danger of Christians who become radicalized in relationship to how such radicalization stands in antithesis to the Gospel which is about restoring fallen humanity to relationship God. The Apostle Paul put it well, that Christ has“given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2nd Corinthians 5:18b-21

Bonhoeffer penned wrote about Christian radicalism from inside a Nazi prison while awaiting his execution.

“Radicalism always springs from a conscious or unconscious hatred of what is established. Christian radicalism, no matter whether it consists in withdrawing from the world or in improving the world, arises from the hatred of creation. The radical cannot forgive God his creation. He has fallen out with the created world, the Ivan Karamazov, who at the same time makes the figure of the radical Jesus in the image of the Grand Inquisitor. When evil becomes powerful in the world, it infects the Christian, too, with the poison of radicalism. It is Christ’s gift to the Christian that he should be reconciled with the world as it is, but now this reconciliation is accounted to be a betrayal and denial of Christ. It is replaced by bitterness, suspicion and contempt for men and the world. In place of the love that believes all and hopes all, in the place of the love which loves the world in its very wickedness with the love of God (John 3:16), there is now the pharisaical denial of love to evil, and the restriction of love to the closed circle of the devout. Instead of the open Church of Jesus Christ which serves the world till the end, there is now some allegedly primitive Christian ideal of a Church, which in its turn confuses the ideal of the living Jesus Christ with the realization of a Christian ideal. Thus a world which is evil succeeds in making the Christians become evil too. It is the same germ that disintegrates the world and that makes the Christians become radical. In both cases it is hatred towards the world, no matter whether the haters are the ungodly or the godly. On both sides it is a refusal of faith in the creation. But devils are not cast out through Beelzebub.” (Letters and Papers from Prison p.386)

This Christian radicalism has become a very real part of the American religious-political landscape and it has managed to poison a generation through the theology of Dominionism and Reconstructionism. The man who can be called the founder of this movement was R.J. Rushdoony. Dominionism has become one of the loudest and most powerful voices in American Evangelicalism, the Charismatic and Pentecostal movement and other Christian groups spanning the denominational spectrum. This version of the Christian faith is an Old Testament militancy based upon Israel’s conquest of the Land of Promise.

Some examples of Rushdoony’s theological argument which is echoed by many American Christian conservatives are found here:

“Israel was attacked by Amalek. According to Deuteronomy 25:17, Amalek “feared not God.” Amalek’s attack on Israel, according to the “Midrashic lore,” was an obscene defiance of God and a contempt for God. Where men attack God’s people, there we often have a covert or overt attack on God. Unable to strike directly at God, they strike at God’s people. There is thus continual warfare between Amalek and Israel, between God’s people and God’s enemies. The outcome must be the blotting out of God’s enemies…. the covenant people must wage war against the enemies of God, because this war is unto death. The deliberate, refined, and obscene violence of the anti-God forces permits no quarter… this warfare must continue until the Amalekites of the world are blotted out, until God’s law-order prevails and His justice reigns.” R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1973), p. 318.

Rushdoony’s son in law Gary North is now the primary ideological and theological spokesman for the Dominionist movement. He is very popular and influential in many conservative and political circles and with the Tea Party movement. North makes the following comment in relation to the Christian’s relationship and attitude when dealing with the world:

“It occurs to me: Was Moses arrogant and unbiblical when he instructed the Israelites to kill every Canaanite in the land (Deut. 7:2; 20:16-17)? Was he an “elitist” or (horror of horrors) a racist? No; he was a God-fearing man who sought to obey God, who commanded them to kill them all. It sounds like a “superior attitude” to me. Of course, Christians have been given no comparable military command in New Testament times, but I am trying to deal with the attitude of superiority–a superiority based on our possession of the law of God. That attitude is something Christians must have when dealing with all pagans. God has given us the tools of dominion.” Gary North, The Sinai Strategy: Economics and the Ten Commandments (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1986), p. 214n

This militancy has gained popular support since the 2008, 2010 and 2012 elections. It is reflective of the bitter and angry undercurrent which pervades many Christian political activists. Many of these people are very comfortable with using violence against those that they believe are their enemies.

However such words and actions often mirror those of their proclaimed enemies, radicals who have used similar words of violence and justification of brute force to achieve their goals. Those who do not agree with the theology or ideology of the Dominionist movement are the enemy. Dominionists are quite clear. Thy will stop until they conquer and destroy their opposition. The war between the “godless and the godly” to quote Bonhoeffer is actual a war against the creation and humanity that God through Christ seeks to redeem.

Bonhoeffer made a very poignant observation:

“There is a truth which is of Satan. Its essence is that under the semblance of truth it denies everything that is real. It lives upon the hatred of the real and the world which is created and loved by God. It pretends to be executing the judgment of God upon the fall of the real. God’s truth judges created things out of love. And Satan’s truth judges them out of envy and hatred. God’s truth has become flesh in the world and is alive in the real, but Satan’s truth is the death of all reality.” Bonhoeffer Ethics p. 366

As I look around and see the great conflict in our country with Christians determined to win at any cost and demonize any contrary opinion. I fear for what will overtake us as the “Satanic truth” proclaimed from all sides of the political and religious spectrum consumes the land.

The antidote to this is simple but profoundly difficult. People of faith, especially those that claim to be Christians must demonstrate the love of God to all people no matter how vile their outbursts or prejudice. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians “God has entrusted the ministry of reconciliation to us.” It is this reconciliation of the real Incarnate Jesus Christ that must be made present in the midst of the current darkness. The Christian radicalism of the Dominionist movement is as poisonous as godless radicalism and it has no answers. It is time to cast it aside.

Peace

Padre Steve+

4 Comments

Filed under christian life, faith, History, Political Commentary

Tagged as 2 cor 5:17-21, christian dominionism, christian radicalism, christian reconstructionism, dietrich bonhoeffer, evangelical christianity, gary north, r j rushdoony, satanic truth, seven mountians theology

September 25, 2013 · 21:14

The Poisoning of American Politics by Radical Christian Dominionists

Religious Liberty in the Massachusetts Bay Colony…the hanging of the Quakers…a model for the Dominionists

“When the pretended friends of religion lead infidel lives; when they carry religion to market and offer it in exchange for luxuries and honors; when they place it familiarly and constantly in the columns of newspapers, manifestly connected with electioneering purposes, and when they are offering it up as a morning and evening sacrifice of the altar of political party- these men are placing a firebrand to every meeting house and applying a torch to every Bible” Abraham Bishop in an oration at Wallingford CT on 11 March 1801

“See, the problem is, is that Satan has had too much of his way in our society because he has a government! And the only way to overthrow a government is with a government. It won’t happen otherwise.” C. Peter Wagner

Every time that I hear a politician of any party invoke God or quote scripture my stomach turns. In our modern era this really began with Jimmy Carter. For better or worse the man wore his faith proudly. The Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher from Plains Georgia let it all out when he talked about his faith, sin, lust and adultery in a Playboy Magazine interview in 1976.

There was actually nothing wrong with what he said or that he identified himself as a “Born Again Christian.” But Carter set a precedent and brought a previously apolitical part of the population into the political process in a way never seen before.

Urged on by politically motivated preachers like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee and James Robison Evangelicals like the young Michelle Bachmann rushed to the polls like flies to a honey trap. Before long posturing political preachers were in the became a staple of conservative politics and the core of the Republican Party base.

Now 35 years later we have radical preachers openly clamoring for a Christian theocracy and brazenly advocating the complete dominion of Christians over all areas of life. The theory is called “Dominionism” or “Seven Mountains” theology. Many of these preachers are openly allied with a number of high profile Republican Presidential candidates in a take no prisoners campaign to destroy their opposition within the Republican party and nationwide.

C. Peter Wagner a Professor of Evangelism at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena California is one of the most prominent proponents of this political theology and he wrote:

“Our theological bedrock is what has been known as Dominion Theology. This means that our divine mandate is to do whatever is necessary, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to retake the dominion of God’s creation which Adam forfeited to Satan in the Garden of Eden. It is nothing less than seeing God’s kingdom coming and His will being done here on earth as it is in heaven.” Letter dated 31 May 2007

Of course by 1980 Carter was tossed aside by his Evangelical supporters like cup of boiled peanuts gone bad. The preachers who once supported him disappointed with him over the Panama Canal treaty and the economy ditched him and whipped up Evangelical support for Ronald Reagan. Reagan wiped Carter off of the electoral map like Sherman marching to the sea.

With Reagan’s victory the now emboldened preachers pressed for more power. Groups like Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition became major supporters and contributors to conservative candidates and politicians as did James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and the American Family Association.

Now Reagan to his credit talked a lot about faith and God but he certainly could not be considered one of the real Evangelical Christian faithful. He was divorced and a sparse attendee of the mainline Presbyterian Church USA. He was married to a woman who brought mediums into the White House to conduct séances. He cut taxes but raised taxes when he needed to. He withdrew U.S.Forces from Beirut after the Marine barracks was destroyed with the loss of 241 American lives and he became Soviet Premier Gorbachev’s buddy. Before he was President he raised the sales tax in California and signed one of the most liberal and permissive abortion laws in the nation. That was well before the Roe v. Wade decision. In short if he was running now for any office he would already be out of the race as a Republican.

Since Reagan departed the Presidency the preachers and politicians are aided in their struggle for control by the third member of the Unholy Trinity the pundits such as serial divorcee Rush Limbaugh, the Talibanesque team lead by Joseph Farah at World Net Daily and a host of others.

Now to be fair Democrats were and are not above using preachers and scripture for their own purposes. Some seeking to capitalize on the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other early civil rights pioneers not only used their pulpits to further civil rights which I have no issue with but to promote themselves and a place at the table in the Democratic Party and its policies. Others minsters mainly from liberal denominations used their pulpits to promote all sorts of other agendas that were called liberal, socialist or left wing, even though most had decent scriptural support and in some cases were supported by the social teachings of both the Roman Catholic and some Protestant denominations. However Liberal politicians have never used these preachers over the years as brazenly as conservative politicians use Evangelicals, Charismatics and other conservative Christians including Roman Catholics.

Bill Clinton was a master of using scripture in his campaign as well as in enunciating his policies. He got everyone going with his “New Covenant” acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic Convention which was a masterful speech though it brazenly co-opted a Christian theme as its own. Initially some of the current radical preachers we Clinton backers as the felt that President George H.W. Bush was leading the United States into the New World Order.

What tickles me is that one of the leading Seven Mountain’s “prophets named Paul Cain spoke at my church after the election and said that “God told him that Bill Clinton would be elected and that it was because of Clinton’s “humility.” Joyner wrote in Rick Joyner’s Morningstar Prophetic Bulletin in 1993 “The Lord said that He was giving us a new president who is better than we deserve. He represents a reprieve from a New WorldOrder that the Church is not prepared to face at this time…”

I love it when self appointed prophets catch themselves on their own tangled web of lies. Of course the real reason had nothing to due with the Christian faith but the fact that Cain and his ilk didn’t like George Bush and believed that he was ushering in a “New World Order. This was shameless, but then that is nothing new.

Now as a disclaimer as a 16 year old I worked for Gerald Ford’s campaign and voted for Reagan twice. Since I became a Republican because of the radicalism espoused by George McGovern in 1972 when my dad was in Vietnam surrounded by the North Vietnamese. This made me a very pro-military and anti-Communist. It was because of Carters foreign policy flubs and weakness that I supported Reagan. I was and still am a Christian, but I didn’t vote for Reagan or any other Republican because of their faith or the faith of their opponent. Now I do like it when men and women that I vote for represent the best of their faith and don’t lord it over those that are not of their faith. When I vote I vote the vote for a candidate based on what I see as their qualifications for the office and not their religious views.

Unfortunately there are a number of prominent candidates and their supporters that seem to want Theologian in Chief. Politicians can see that and that pander shamelessly to their religious supporters often to the exclusion of all others. If I want a theocracy I’ll go to Iran or Saudi Arabia thank you, but I don’t and you shouldn’t either unless you are planning to convert. But that is the plan of the Dominionists.

However those pursuing the radical Seven Mountains Dominionism actually want a theocracy will use any party or any President to establish it. Clinton didn’t give it to them so they went to the Republicans. Their rhetoric is scary. Rick Joyner who is one of the big supporters of this movement within the Tea Party and Republican Party said something that should give anyone that has a hankering for religious liberty and liberty of conscious chills. Perry is not simply a ranting nut but a nut that has the ear of viable Presidential candidates. Back in 1996 Joyner wrote about what was going to happen to Christians that didn’t agree with his understanding of his prophecy threatening to change “the very definition of Christianity….for the better….”

“On February 23rd of this year I was shown for the third time that the church was headed for a spiritual civil war … the definition of a complete victory in this war would be the complete overthrow of the accuser of the brethens’ strongholds in the church … this will in fact be one of the most cruel battles the church has ever faced. Like every civil war brother will turn against brother like we have never witnessed in the church before … this battle must be fought. It is an opportunity to drive the accuser out of the church and for the church then to come into unity that would otherwise be impossible … what is coming will be dark. At times Christians almost universally will be loath to even call themselves Christians.Believers and unbelievers alike will think it is the end of Christianity as we know it and it will be through this the very definition of Christianity will be changed for the better.” Morning Star Prophetic Bulletin May 1996

Cindy Jacobs another one of these politically connected prophets made this claim on the internet back in 2000:

“For there is a radical sound that I have issued – there is a sound that has come from heaven, and it even now has come to earth. And the Lord says, these are going to be days where I am going to trouble the enemy through you. These are going to be different days than you have ever known, and I am going to require sacrifice of you that you cannot imagine. I am going to require a sacrifice of your children, says the Lord. And the Lord says, I’m going to shake everything that can be shaken…” and that “There are churches that will be command posts for revolution, and to these command posts I would say, I am going to bring a revolution. Look and see; I am calling radical revolutionaries to the church.” http://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word/85

If you ask me that is a threat to all Americans. One of Joyner’s friends the late John Wimber who founded the Vineyard Churches said of his neighbors at Calvary Chapel “Calvaryites are sometimes a little too heavily oriented to the written Word.” That is something Wimber criticized Christians that he saw as too heavily oriented to the Bible. Simply being a Bible Christian is not good enough for the Dominionists, theirs is an all or nothing take no prisoners approach that discounts 2000 years of Christian history, theology and tradition in favor of their alleged “words from God.”

This is not about theology or faith at all. It is about power and money. Leading Dominionist C.Peter Wagner wrote: “nine of the components of GAN {Global Apostolic Network} are on my heart, but especially those related to wealth and wealth transfer. I am in touch with 17 potential wealth transfer brokers, some of them expecting release momentarily. It is hard to comprehend, but some of them go to multiple millions, billions, and more. My task is to prepare a high integrity infrastructure for distributing these funds when they begin to flow. Zion Apostolic Network and The Hamilton Group are in place as agencies to carry this out. Our motto is “Sophisticated Philanthropy for Apostolic Distribution.” Letter from Global Harvest Ministries dated August 20, 2007

The original Dominionist was R. J. Rushdoony who was very open in what he believed:

“One faith, one law and one standard of justice did not mean democracy. The heresy of democracy has since then worked havoc in church and state . . . Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies.” R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law p.100

Rushdoony’s son-in-law Gary North was even more blunt about the ultimate goal of Christian Reconstructionism:

“We must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.”

This is the real goal of Rick Perry’s The Response prayer meeting of 2011 and the perverted gospel that these preachers use to get politicians to fulfill their agenda and Perry obliged them well. If it was simply a day of prayer then others that were not Christians would have been welcome. It has been made manifest in now countless examples of political brinksmanship motivated by uncompromising politicians, pundits and preachers who have adopted an almost “Talibanesque” view of life, faith and politics.

Some of these preachers are not above advocating or praying for death of their political opponents. There was a whole campaign of prayer against President Obama led by the discredited and court-martialed Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt. He and others advocated praying the imprecatory prayers of the Psalms including Psalm 109:8 which says: ‘Let his days be few; and let another take his office.’ Massachusetts based preacher Scott Lively advocates killing gays overseas and supports laws in places like Uganda to legalize that. Unfortunately the list can go on and on.

Old Abraham Bishop was right; these people are setting fire to every meeting house and putting the torch to every Bible. Unfortunately most of their supporters will either ignore or quash what I and others write about these people. Truth doesn’t matter to them.

I had that happen to me. Sometimes even from people that know me or have served with me at the altar. Facts didn’t matter, all that mattered were the talking points and the agenda. The founders of this country did not as these people say desire anything like this. In fact Thomas Jefferson said “History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose.” (letter to Baron von Humboldt, 1813)

God help us all.

Peace

Padre Steve+

5 Comments

Filed under christian life, faith, Political Commentary, Religion

Tagged as 1976 election, abraham bishop, c peter wagner, calvary chapel, christian coalition, christian dominionism, christian theocracy, cindy jacobs, congresswoman michelle bachmann, democracy, democrat party, focus on the family, gary north, george h w bush, gerald ford, gordon klingenschmitt, james dobson, james robison, jerry falwell, jimmy carter, jimmy carter playboy article, john hagee, john wimber, moral majority, pat robertson, paul cain, president bill clinton, president ronald reagan, r j rushdoony, republican party, rick joyner, rick perry, rush limbaugh, seven mountians theology, tea party, the american family asociation, the response, the unholy trinity, theocracy, vineyard churches

September 22, 2013 · 22:43

Social Justice from the Prophet Amos and Pope Francis

Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and destroy the poor of the land!

“When will the new moon be over,” you ask, “that we may sell our grain,

and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat? We will diminish the ephah,

add to the shekel, and fix our scales for cheating! We will buy the lowly for silver,

and the poor for a pair of sandals; even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!”

The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Never will I forget a thing they have done! Amos 8:4-

There is a certain joy and challenge to having to preach every week, especially when one follows the lectionary instead of making things up as we go based on our favorite theological biases or interests.

Thus coming back to a place where I am having to preach each week it is a challenge. It is interesting for me to see what the Bible has to say on issues that Christians including me like to ignore. The funny, but not so funny thing is that those parts of the Bible that many conservative American Christians of all denominations, but especially Evangelicals like to ignore are the kinds of passages that are more the norm than the exception. Thus we tend to ignore the really challenging things and focus on what tickles people’s ears. Now I have never been a fan of having my ears tickled but evidently some do or the Apostle Paul wouldn’t have not warned Timothy about it.

In the United States Christians have it good. As rich and fashionably well to do entitled Christians we love to cite verses that talk about prosperity. Those more theologically adept love to misuse the writings and theology of John Calvin to show who our material success somehow equals God blessing us. The sad thing is in order to do that many of us will totally ignore most of Jesus’ teachings about the misuse of wealth and the abuse of the poor as well as those of Paul, James, and the vast majority of the prophets of the Old Testament in such matters. But then what do they know? They didn’t study Ayn Rand did they?

I can only imagine what Amos, a prophet from Judah whose ministry was primarily directed at the Kingdom of Israel in about 750 BC would be if he walked among American Christians today. I mean really, think about it. Amos almost sounds like he is talking about the Prosperity Preachers and those in the church who for the sake of partisan political power are willing to ignore or even worse to sacrifice the most vulnerable people in society for their own place at the seat of power.

How Constantinian of them. Yet Amos and most of the other prophets seem to have a most egregious disregard for the issues that contemporary Christians have sacrificed on the altar of political power and expediency. Yes “Christian Right” I and they are talking about you.

Pope Francis is nailing the issue. For too long the Christian Church in the United States and western Europe have been engaging in the so called “culture wars.” While some of the issues are legitimate including some of the pro-life related issues, they are actually subordinated to a broader and much more insidious agenda which is neither Christian or for that matter American, at least in the sense understood by the religiously tolerant and pluralistic founders of the country understood.

Ever since Nazi apologist Pat Buchanan (See his book Hitler Churchill and the Unnecessary War) declared the beginning of the “Culture Wars” in 1992 and long after the foundations were laid by others on the Christian Right the Church, Evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic decided on the Christian version of Jihad to achieve political goals. In fact men like Catholic theologian Peter Kreeft actually wrote books like Ecumenical Jihad to define their strategy and goals. Clothed in the veneer of Constantinian virtue these people helped lead the church into an abyss that from which may not be able to extricate itself in our lifetimes.

Unfortunately the problem is that the culture wars are more often fought with the goal of maintaining the political power and influence of Christians while ignoring the very tenants of what writer after writer, prophet after prophet and even Jesus made foundational issues of their day. We Christians have sold out the Gospel in order to be co-opted by the very people and interests who hate the kind of justice that Jesus and the prophets preached about.

When Pope Francis talked this week about those “culture wars” this week in a number of ways. He decried the manner in which some bishops were more at war with the culture than caring for the people of their own dioceses and how in terms of caring for and loving people “The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules…” He said that in regard to the focus that many Catholics have had on abortion and homosexuality. Pope Francis said: “The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all.” To finish the week, or rather to start this week on a high note Francis attacked the culture of greed which many in the church have blessed and furthered.

I am all in with Pope Francis on this because he is speaking the truth. The fact is that he is saying things that most of us do not want to hear. Francis is talking about redemption, the fact as the Apostle Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself counting men’s sins not against them.”

Yes these are tough words, but the proof of their validity is in the pudding. Non-believers want nothing to do with the church, even if they happen to like what Jesus says and many believers are fleeing the church and not coming back. And yes this is different than the days when young people would leave the church for a few years and then come back. The folks leaving now for the most part have no desire to return. The reasons are self evident. It is not Jesus, nor is it even doctrine. It is how Christians and the Church treat the world. Something that Pope Francis seems to understand while many of his Bishops as well as leaders of Evangelical Christian Churches in the United States seem oblivious.

George Barna, an Evangelical Christian who runs one of the most respected polling agencies around has done a number of polls on this very subject. Sad to say his polls, which are scientific in the way they are conducted line up with what I am saying here and what Pope Francis is speaking about.

One Barna poll asked the words which most describe Christianity. The results: Hypocritical, anti-homosexual, insincere, sheltered and too political. Another Barna study dealing with why young people are leaving the church included that nearly 25% of young people said “Christians demonize everything outside of the church” while 20% said that “God seems missing from my experience of church” while 22% said that “church is like a country club, only for insiders” and 36% said that they were unable “to ask my most pressing life questions in church.” That survey was of young people of Christian backgrounds, people for the most part raised in the church.

Frank Schaeffer, son of the late Dr Francis Schaeffer noted in his book Crazy for God: “I personally came to believe that a lot of the issues that were being latched onto by the Christian Right, whether it was the gay issue or abortion or other things, were actually being used for negative political purposes. They were used to structure a power base for people who then threw their weight around.” Schaeffer should know, in the 1970s and 1980s he was a key player in the growth of the political Christian Right.

But I digress…. Soren Kierkegaard noted “The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”

The fact is that if we actually decide to look at the way we do life, faith, politics and ethics in light of the writings of men like Amos, James and even Paul to some extent not to mention Jesus we might have to actually repent. But then, when all that matters is maintaining our political and social power who needs repentance?

But I digress, after all, repentance in our American Christian culture is never having to say your sorry. It is no wonder that Mark Twain noted: “If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.”

I think that old Amos might just be talking to us as much as he was talking to the people and leaders of Israel. But hey, I could be wrong.

Peace

Padre Steve+

PS. I do plan on doing some articles over the next few weeks about how people of all religions attempt to use the political and police power of the state to advance their beliefs and to demonize dissenters.

Would You Crucify Him? The Hard Question Christians Need to Ask Themselves Today

Would you crucify Him
Would you crucify Him…, my religious friend?
Would you crucify Him…, talking ’bout the sweet Lord Jesus
If He’d walk right here among you once again?

Well it’s another Jousting at Windmills Day at Padre Steve’s World and today we go back in history to a time the called the 70s.

Back in the late 1970s John Michael Talbot, a former rocker turned early contemporary Christian music artist became a Catholic and a lay Franciscan. Around that time he participated in a recording with a number of other artists from that early part of the CCM era, Second Chapter of Acts, Keith Greene, Barry McGuire and his brother Terry to perform a musical about the book of Acts called Firewind. In it John Michael wrote and performed a song that has haunted me ever since. It is a song that forces me to look at my life and the way that I treat others in the light of the demands of the Gospel. It is called Would You Crucify Him?

It really is one of the most haunting, and to use Evangelical Speak “convicting” songs I have ever heard. Unfortunately I think that the message of the song is often unheard or ignored by most Christians. I think this is the case since the time of Constantine when the Church gained the political backing of the State. Since then in almost every clime and place that the Church has enjoyed that privileged status it is almost always used in ways that would so grieve Jesus.

One cannot read the Gospels nor many of the Old Testament Prophets and think anything else. The harshest condemnations found in Jesus’ message almost always were directed at the religious establishment which used its power for its own gain. It was they who quite often despised the those that Jesus showed the greatest compassion and love: the alien, the woman, the leper, the tax collector, the criminal, the hated Roman occupiers of Palestine and others on the margins of society who were looked upon with scorn by the religious people of his day.

The sad thing is scorn and distain for the people that Jesus reached out to the most that is so often the case today among the leaders of what has to be called the political Religious Right. Unfortunately that attitude is so widespread among those people’s disciples that hatred in the name of Jesus is the new normal. The attitude is one of entitlement and privilege that frankly is scary. Rather than reach out in love and care to those different and than them they viciously attack them supposedly to “obey God and follow the Bible.” It is sad to say that quite often that we are no different than the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.

I have felt the sharpness of those attacks. Though I am a Christian I have been called a Nazi, a Communist, a Socialist an apostate and even most recently “Hitler’s Love Child” by a Twitter Troll and worse. The invective that I have been exposed to after my return from Iraq suffering from PTSD and questioning faith and struggling to believe in God again even while trying to minister to people facing death in ICUs and ERs really changed me. When faith returned it was different and I am glad for that and now for that matter really don’t give a damn what “Conservative Christians” think of me.

Unfortunately those that call me these things are all self identified Conservative Christians, mostly Evangelicals but sometimes Catholics and Mainline Christians who also identify themselves as Patriots who believe in the Constitution, whatever that means. The fact that I have sworn an oath to defend that Constitution and their rights under it and have done so for 32 years in both the Army and Navy in peace and war is lost on them. Instead I am the Nazi because I dare criticize their practice of the faith and stand up for those that they hate.

As a historian who has spent much of my academic life studying Weimar and the Nazi regime I have to say that those that most resemble the Nazis today are Conservative Christians, the whole God and Country crowd. The same understanding of faith that allowed “Conservative Bible Believing” German Christians to wholeheartedly support the Hitler regime and for those Evangelicals that want to claim the Martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a “Conservative” they had better think again. If they had actually read his books, writings and sermons they would find that he and most of the other leaders of the Confessing Church weren’t conservative at all, not in the sense that modern “Conservative Christians” understand the word.

Thus I have become a bit sensitive and when I see people who wrap themselves in the flag and claim the banner of the Cross mistreat others bothers me. There is a quote often misattributed to Sinclair Lewis that says “When Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” The quote actually appears to be a condensation of his thoughts and writings but taken in the context of when it appeared in the 1930s is quite correct. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco all co-opted the conservative Christians of their nations by appealing to their fears of atheistic Communism and Socialism as well as minorities, Jews, homosexuals and any other group.

The fact that many justify their assaults on others not like them by claiming that “the other side is just as bad or just as hateful” miss the whole point of Jesus who was quite empathetic about telling his disciples to “turn the other cheek” and “repay evil with good.” The really sad thing is that there will be probably at least one person at some time that visits this site and comments on this article who either tells me that I have misunderstood Jesus or cites another Bible verse to justify hating and mistreating others.

I am appalled at the way self identified Christians rant at people they disagree with, disapprove of or simply hate. I am appalled when I see them make common cause with non-Christian ideologues like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and others who spew venom at liberals, gays, women, blacks, Moslems, immigrants and others on a daily basis. Because of this I have taken up the causes a support the liberties of these people because they are the people that Jesus would have done the same for in his day.

But back to the song. Talbot and others like him came out of the 1960s and large parts of the Christian church condemned the whole youth revolution of the time. The things said by preachers of the hippies and the war protesters and those that were in the rock and roll music scene were and are shameful. So when a few churches began welcoming the “Jesus Freaks” who came out of it it was pretty cool.

The Talbots, Barry McGuire and others were among the first and they were quite revolutionary for their day. Barry McGuire’s song Don’t Blame God for the Sins of America is terrifying, especially when one sees just the incestuous relationship between much of the Christian Right, big business and the industries that promote war and violence.

Of course this was before established “Christian” record companies sensed the chance to make a fast buck by commercializing “Contemporary Christian Music” bought up the original small market Christian labels such as Sparrow, Birdwing and Maranatha! Music and turned it into a pile of very profitable slick rubbish. The fact is that there is not an Evangelical Christian entertainment conglomerate that would ever allow an artist to record a song like Don’t Blame God or Would You Crucify Him? today.

The first time I heard Would You Crucify Him? in 1979 on Firewind I cried. It struck my heart and I realized how easy it would be for me to be just like the Pharisees, Sadducees or the Imperial Church that used religion to keep power and crush the weak or those that questioned them.

Take the time to let the lyrics of the song set in. If you claim to be any kind of Christian please don’t blow them off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5pAyKWbtOU

Sometimes, in the cool of the evenin’
Truth comes like a Lover in the wind
Sometimes, when my thoughts have gone misleadin’
She’ll ask that same old question once again…

Chorus:
Would you crucify Him
Would you crucify Him…, my old friend?
Would you crucify Him…, talking ’bout the sweet Lord Jesus
If He’d walk right here among you once again?

She’s askin’, How many times have you looked down to the harlot
Lookin’ through her tears, pretendin’ you don’t know?
For once you were just like her, how can you be now so self righteous
When in the name of the Lord you throw the first stone

So now I turn to you through your years of your robes and stained-glass windows
Do you vainly echo your prayers “to please the Lord?”
Profess the Marriage with your tongue, but your mind dreams like the harlot
But if the Judge looks to your thoughts can’t you guess your reward?

Would you crucify Him
Would you crucify Him…, my religious friend?
Would you crucify Him…, talking ’bout the sweet Lord Jesus
If He’d walk right here among you once again?

Yet how many times have you quoted from your Bible
To justify your eye for your eye and your tooth for your tooth?
You say that He didn’t mean what He was plainly sayin’
But like the Pharisee, my friend, you’re an educated fool!

Peace

Padre Steve+

4 Comments

Filed under christian life, civil rights, faith, Political Commentary, Religion

Tagged as barry mcguire, Birdwing Music, christian right, confessing church, Constantine, contemporary christian music, dietrich bonhoeffer, evangelical christians, fascism, firewind, Franco, glenn beck, hitler, jesus, john michael talbot, keith green, maranatha! music, mussolini, nazi germany, religious right, right wing politics, rush limbaugh, Sinclair Lewis, Sparrow Music, would you crucify him?

August 18, 2013 · 22:34

Letter to a New Military Chaplain Part IV: The Minefields of the Flesh, Sex, Alcohol and Money

This is fourth part of a response to a question I had from a new Navy Chaplain. I have decided to post it here without any identification of the chaplain because I know that many men and women who are new to the military chaplaincy or who are exploring the possibilities of becoming a chaplain have the same questions. I was fortunate to have had a number of chaplains who at various points in my decision process and formation as a minister, Priest and Chaplain in both the Army and the Navy help me with many of these questions. Likewise I learned far too much the hard way and blew myself up on some of the “land mines” that almost all who serve as chaplains experience in their careers. This is the third of several parts to the letter and is my attempt to systematically explain my understanding of what it is to be a Chaplain serving in the military and in particularly the Navy. The first three parts are linked here:

Letter to a New Military Chaplain: Part One

Letter to a New Military Chaplain: Part Two The Minefields of the Heart

Letter to a New Military Chaplain Part Three: The Minefields of the Soul: Power and Arrogance

Dear Chaplain

It has been about a week since my last letter concerning the minefields that so easily ensnare those in the various Military Chaplain ministries. This section of my letter to you will be of the more practical type of advice and less philosophical and theological than the first several installments even though at the heart these observations are both theological and philosophical.

I chose the title of this section carefully because I do think that the way a number of New Testament writers deal with the subject of sin, calling it “the flesh” as opposed to “the spirit” is appropriate to the topic.

I think that people of my generation and earlier had a very high view of clergy. We didn’t think that they could do much wrong. Of course we all knew that they did but we didn’t like to talk about it, even productions such as Elmer Gantry did little to dissuade us from our beliefs that Ministers, Priests and Rabbis were somehow morally and certainly spiritually better than us. Even Hollywood maintained the myth, movies like The Bells of St Mary’s showed the essential goodness of the parish priest, while The Fighting 69th in which Pat O’Brien played the legendary Father Duffy, a man both streetwise and holy became the quintessential Chaplain of his generation.

In fact the prayer that he prays in the movie is one that I have echoed in my career as a Chaplain and I am sure that many others have as well.

“Almighty God, in Thine infinite mercy grant me, thy servant, the wisdom to guide my young flock through the trials of war. Oh, Father, they’re so young. So young and they know so little of life and nothing at all of that terrible and bloody altar towards which they move, carrying so eagerly the bright sacrifice of their youth. Their need will be great, O Lord, and I am weak. Therefore, I beseech thee through Thy Son, Christ, our Lord, grant me the strength to keep them steadfast in the faith, in decency and courage to the glory of God, their country, and their regiment in the bad times to come. And if in battle you see fit to gather them to your protecting arms, thy will be done, but let them die like men, valiant and unafraid.”

Of course there is Father Mulcahy of the movie and television series M*A*S*H. I actually liked the portrayal of him by William Christopher in the series better than the movie, perhaps because he became more than a bit player, but like many real life chaplains of every denomination an integral part of the life of his unit. His struggles are the same that many of us who serve as chaplains. In one episode he says to Hawkeye “For some time now, I’ve been comparing the disparity of our callings – Doctor versus priest. You fellows are always able to see the end result of your work. I mean, you know immediately if you’ve been successful. For me, the results are far less tangible. Sometimes… most of the time… I honestly don’t know whether I’m doing any good or not.”

The film and television portrayals of chaplains such as Father Duffy and Father Mulcahy are inspiring, as are the examples of so many good men and women who have served as military chaplains. Some of these even gave their lives in combat so others might live, or placed themselves in harms way to be the the visible representation of God’s presence in places that God himself seems to have abandoned.

That being said there are minefields that exist which even the most noble, caring and committed Chaplains can fall victim. They primarily lie in the real of Sex, Alcohol and Money, what we referred to as “SAM” when I was an Army Chaplain. Those are general categories to which unfortunately we need to discuss, illicit drugs, disobeying lawful orders and simple rudeness. I will save the issues of disobeying lawful orders and simple rudeness for part five, or Part V as they say in Roman numerals.

At any given time there are between a half a dozen and dozen military chaplains serving time at either Leavenworth or one of the regional Brigs. Others end up in trouble, are disciplined and then discharged from the the service often after devastating the lives of those that they served with. Those numbers are not included in the numbers incarcerated.

You wouldn’t think that sex would be a big issue being that we are supposed to be better at keeping our zippers up than others, but this is not always the case. I can cite from personal knowledge case after case where chaplains that I have known from across the denominational spectrum conservatives and liberals alike. Those actions have included heterosexual and homosexual relationships, inside and outside their units and sometimes involved the spouses of their unit members or parishioners.

For some this is due to the isolation that many Chaplains experience, be they married or single. Some are sexual predators, loathsome and evil animals masquerading as good, while others in moments of weakness succumb to temptation. I have had to go into a number of billets where the chaplain just before me had been relieved of their duties for sexual misconduct. Regardless of the reason the real fact of the matter is that when a chaplain is relieved and disciplined for their sexual misconduct their actions radiate out and damage the ministry and reputations of Chaplains who are completely innocent of wrong doing. This is much like how the actions of disgraced televangelists, pastors of large churches and Bishops or Priests implicated in pedophile or other sexual crimes cause problems for others in similar positions who again are without reproach. In every case where I have had to go into such a situation the onus has been on me to help heal the wounds and rebuild the credibility of the Chaplain Corps. This is true for every Chaplain who has to take a job where his or her predecessor was a criminal.

A Navy Chaplain being taken to the Brig after being convicted at Court Martial for sexual crimes (Marine Corps Times Photo)

Sexuality can be one of the greatest minefields that a military chaplain has to navigate, but there are others less visible that also trip men and women up.

The second major area is alcohol. I know a number of chaplains who have become alcoholics. I like to drink good craft beer, but I do know my limits now and am very careful about my consumption of alcohol. When I first came back from Iraq that was not the case. I did drink too much, mainly because I was in the process of coming apart with severe and chronic PTSD. I almost ended up in a bar fight one night and I am thankful that I never ended up in an accident or involved in any other alcohol related incident. There were times at various conferences that I would sit around and drink late into the night at the hotel with other chaplains going through similar problems as I was going through. For us it was safer than going to our superiors either in our churches or the chaplain corps.

That being said I have seen other Chaplains succumb to alcoholism and know one who in dealing with his own demons from service in Vietnam committed suicide while on active duty. Alcohol is also related to many of the incidents regarding sex, so even if it was not the primary issue it was a factor. I also know a number of chaplains who are involved with Alcoholics Anonymous and fight the battle of sobriety on a daily basis.

Related to alcohol are drugs. This is a relatively new phenomena and in most cases is related to prescription medicines, especially pain killers and anti-psychotics prescribed to treat the wounds of war, injuries and things like PTSD and TBI. Once again these are easy to become addicted to and chaplains are much like others when dealing with chronic pain, PTSD or TBI. Recently I saw something that I never thought I would see and that was a chaplain who tested positive for THC, the active ingredient in Marijuana. I figure that if there is one there probably are more that are using, many who battled addictions before their faith conversions and call to the ministry but when placed under the stress of this ministry go back to old friends.

The last component of SAM is money. I think this is a more difficult area in the Army than the Navy because in the Navy chaplains are not allowed to deal with the Religious Offering Fund, where in the Army a Chaplain at every installation is the Religious Offering Fund Manager. It is said by some that “money is the root of all evil” but I am not sure if that is exactly true in this case. I think that money and the power it brings sometimes reveals the inner character of a man more than anything. The great televangelist scandals of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the continuing saga of corruption at the Vatican Bank and the all too frequent revelations of ministers of all faiths misusing church finances are legend. When I had to manage a relative small installation chapel fund I lived in terror of making an innocent mistake, and thankfully I had an outstanding Chaplain Assistant and Parish Council to work with and maintained close contact with the fund manager at our higher headquarters.

Another issue dealing with money is what we are paid when in a travel status. I know that there are Chaplains who play fast and loose with this and I know people in the travel and disbursing offices who tell me about the actions of chaplains that they have to deal with who are not playing straight with the system. In my case I don’t make claims that I cannot substantiate even if it costs me money. I would rather be absolutely honest on a travel claim and lose money that claim something that I may or may not be entitled to that might cause scandal and bring disrepute to God, my church or the Chaplain Corps.

Money is a great temptation and more than one military Chaplain has fallen to it.

The sad thing about all of this is that most of our religious traditions deal explicitly with all of these matters as do our various Service Regulations and Defense Department Instructions. They are not rocket surgery but they are the downfall of far too many chaplains, many of whom actually came into the ministry and chaplaincy with good motives. Once again I lay a lot of this at the feet of our churches and theological schools which for decades have stressed how to run a church program over any real pastoral or theological formation process.

I am lucky. I have made mistakes but I have had numerous chaplains in both the Army and the Navy help me to see the blind spots and teach me about these things. They span the denominational, theological and even political spectrum. Conservatives, liberals, men and women, Protestants, Catholics, Later Day Saints, Jews and even a Moslem.

I could easily have gone into detail about the specific incidents where I knew the people involved or had to deal with them or follow in their footsteps. Some have made the national media, but somehow to do so would be unseemly, after all I do not work for the National Enquirer or for that matter the Navy or Army Times. That being said the Chaplain Corps of the various services all have by percentage among the highest incidences of misconduct of any officer branch or community and this has been a constant since I began my military career in 1981.

That should be a warning. If you know something is wrong don’t do it. If you are unsure about something ask someone. If you need help get it before your actions destroy the lives of those you serve and bring disrepute to your office, your religious body, the Chaplain Corps of your military service and yes even God. After all God does tend to get the blame for all of the actions of those in his service so be careful, guard your heart and mind and for God sakes keep your zipper up and all appearances thereof.

Until the next installment,

Peace

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under christian life, faith, leadership, Military, ministry, Pastoral Care

Tagged as addictive behaviors, alcoholics anonymous, alcoholism, caregiver burnout and suicide, chaplain ministry, chaplaincy, clergy sex crimes, clergy sexual abuse, father duffy, father mulcahy, illegal drugs, MASH, military chaplains, military suicides, minefields of the flesh, pat o'brien, prescription drug abuse, PTSD, religious offering fund, sex alcohol and money, tbi, televangelists, thc, the bells of st mary's, the fighting 69th, travel claims, william christopher

August 9, 2013 · 00:48

Last Night at Rucker Johns: The Place Where Everyone Knows My Name

Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.
Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn’t you like to get away?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7U3lo80YrQ

Yesterday I did my final check out at Naval Hospital Camp LeJeune and today the movers came. It was too hot and humid. with the door open to allow their access while doing cleaning I felt sick by the time that they left. After resting a while I went to the bar at Rucker Johns restaurant. It has become over the past year and a half my local version of “Cheers.” A place that everyone knows my name.

I have written about leaving my duties at the hospital recently and I will miss the people there. I will stay in contact with quite a few. They are friends and colleagues, some who have walked through difficult times with me and I with them.

That being said for many years my life has been centered on work, and quite often when done with work I would withdraw to be alone. This was the case more often after Iraq, especially when I took up my assignment at Camp LeJeune. I would go to work and then go home. The only time that didn’t happen is when I would drive the 50 mile one way trip to Kinston to see the Kinston Indians baseball team. I met wonderful friends there, a number of whom have remained in contact, and one couple, Jerry and Toni Brophy have become like family.

Sometimes you want to go, Where everybody knows your name,

and they’re always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows Your name.

Having a place where people know you and care about you matters.

Apart from that the isolation for the first year and a half was at times maddening and even dehabilitating. When I did see Judy it was as if we were miles away from each other. By the summer of 2011 both of us wondered if our marriage would survive.

In December of 2011 Judy and I spend a month together after she had surgery on her Achilles Tendon. It forced us together and when she went back to Virginia our dog Molly decided that she wanted to live with me. In that month and over a couple of other visits Molly had discovered the joys of chasing deer and going to the beach and like any kid she decided that she wanted to be where it was really interesting.

Molly brought me back to humanity and in the process I began to seek contact with actual humans again. Since Judy and I have a place like the bar in the television show “Cheers” in Virginia Beach I sought something similar here. I found it at the Rucker Johns bar. There I met some wonderful people, Mike, New York Mike, Eddie, Dave (Ito), Wild Bill, Bill the future mayor, Lisa, Hancock, Felicia, Brian, Ron, Terry, and the bartenders, Billy, Christi, Tara, Caitlin, Grace, Michelle and Lexi and managers, Mark, Chris, Jeff, Wallace and Mark. There were others as well. They all welcomed me. We bought drinks for each other and this week I don’t think that I paid for a meal or a drink.

What I loved about this group, especially the core “4 O’Clock Club” was that they were real. In fact it was funny for the first couple of months they didn’t know that I was a Navy Chaplain or Priest. I find that advertising such things often puts a distance in relationships. especially in light of how many clergy treat people that don’t go to their churches or those that hang out at bars. Sad because Jesus seemed to hang out with the very people that many clergy have treat shamefully.

So initially the folks at Rucker Johns got to me as “Steve” the guy who wears Baltimore Orioles hats, jerseys, jackets and t-shirts every day. I think I can were something different every day for a month without breaking my Orioles habit. Soon I was going every day that I was in town, I found that I wanted to be around them, they were real, refreshing and fun.

They found out inadvertently that I was a Chaplain because New York Mike knew the secretary of our Legal Officer. She broke the news to him that I was not only a Chaplain and Priest but a Commander too. My cover was blown. Soon some began to call me Father Steve, Padre Steve or still just Steve. But our relationships grew. I was in the various NASCAR and Football pools, threw my money in on the Powerball lottery and played cards with them.

Tonight they gave me a t-shirt signed by all of them. The picture speaks more about it than I can write. I have received many going away gifts in my career, but this is something specially, because it had nothing to do with my position in the military. It was about friendship and still is. I plan of framing it.

Almost everyone I knew was there tonight. It was a wonderful time. I will miss these people and this place, a place were everybody knows my name.

It is so much like Cheers and I will miss it. The theme song to that show speaks to me in so many ways. The last verse of the song, which did not air on television said:

Be glad there’s one place in the world
Where everybody knows your name,
And they’re always glad you came;
You want to go where people know,
People are all the same;
You want to go where everybody knows your name.

I found that with the 4 O’Clock Club at Rucker Johns. In the morning I pack my car and drive home to be with Judy and my friends in Virginia Beach. But I will miss my friends here and I do plan on coming back whenever I can to this place, where everybody knows my name.

Peace

Padre Steve+

Category Archives: christian life

Letter to A New Military Chaplain Part V: Count it All Joy

Whoever Exalts Himself: The Snare of Ideological Christians

Duty, Calling and Vocation

It’s Called Sedition and Treason: “Prophet” Rick Joyner Calls prays for Military Coup to Oust President Obama

God’s Unfathomable Love: The Antidote to the False God of Christian Dominionism

The Poisoning of American Politics by Radical Christian Dominionists

Would You Crucify Him? The Hard Question Christians Need to Ask Themselves Today

Letter to a New Military Chaplain Part IV: The Minefields of the Flesh, Sex, Alcohol and Money

Last Night at Rucker Johns: The Place Where Everyone Knows My Name

Welcome!

Subscribe to Padre Steve's World

Comment Policy

Padre Steve’s World on Facebook

What’s Hot

Padre Steve's Inglorius Statistics

Recent Articles

The Vault: Padre Steve’s Archives

Categories

Blogs I Follow

Category Archives: christian life

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Welcome!

Subscribe to Padre Steve's World

Comment Policy

What’s Hot

Padre Steve's Inglorius Statistics

Recent Articles

The Vault: Padre Steve’s Archives

Categories

Blogs I Follow