Putin and the American Right

It's so amusing to watch the right-wing in this country grind and gnash their teeth over Ukraine.  They can't seem to decide whether it is Obama or Putin that they hate more.

Actually, it's quite clear to me.  They loathe Obama much more than Putin.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that they almost admire Putin for his strength, his cunning, his willingness to defend his country's interests (as he sees it) in the face of critics all around the world.  (Take note of the picture--I found this on a right-winger's FB page.)  Of course, they wouldn't want the 'Russian' Putin here, but then again, they wouldn't at all mind an American 'Putin', eg Dick Cheney.

Frankly, the American right-wing (eg Sarah Palin) couldn't care less about Ukraine....many of them know nothing about it, its history, culture, religion, politics.  (Those who do and also have some truely libertarian views, like Rand Paul, actually agree or at least sympathize with Obama's caution on the issue of Ukraine.)

All they know is that this is a great opportunity to lash out--once again--at the man they truly despise....President Barack Obama.  How delicious!

Further Reflections on Ken Ham and Creationist Science

I've got to hand it to Ken Ham.  One can only admire what this immigrant from Australia has accomplished in pursuing his vision of 'creation science' and in founding the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.  He has also brought succor and rejoicing to the millions of religious creationists in America, some of them relatives and friends of mine.

Ken Ham's view of the 'descent of man'.

My only problem with all that is that he is profoundly wrong, in my opinion.  Creation science is not really science at all, rather it is an attempt by fundamentalist believers to defend their faith in the historicity and scientific validity of the first eleven chapters of Genesis, using whatever means are necessary, including the rejection of much of what everyone these days seems to call 'mainstream' science, but what I prefer to call just 'science'.

I have over the years collected a fairly large cache of books on the subject, but every time I try to get into the books, I find myself put off.  It may be simple boredom, or it may be some leftover emotional hangup from my childhood, which was fundamentalist in orientation.  I don't know.

Nevertheless, one doesn't need to be a scholar on the subject of fundamentalism and creation science to outline some of the basic problems with it.  I'm probably more familiar with the subject from a number of different viewpoints than most people, so I'll probably just continue writing about it as long as it's in the news.

To begin with, one should in fairness acknowledge a basic historical fact, namely, that the vast majority of Christian folk in Europe and America, including most clergy, prior to the mid 19th century, probably did actually believe in a young earth, a literal Adam and Eve and Noah's Flood.  And for good reason: although modern science had been around since the 17th century, nothing to that point had directly challenged the teachings of the Church (which until the 18th Century Enlightenment dominated Western culture) about the creation story found in the Book of Genesis.

It was only when modern geology and biology came together in the 1840s and 1850s to challenge the notion of a 6,000 year old earth and a much more gradual development of life on earth, that it all hit the fan.  At that point, the basic paradigm of creation of the earth and of biological life shifted drastically to what we know today.  Nonetheless, there have always remained pockets of Christian believers who could not let go of the older paradigm, especially in America, where evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity has always found a more favorable place to thrive than in the Old World.

However, as I almost accidentally discovered the other day, this conflict actually goes back many centuries to the early days of the Church.  Even among the 'Early Church Fathers', as they are often called, there was a recognition that a 'literal' interpretation of Genesis wasn't always the best Christian interpretation, given the uncertainties of nature and the common-sense observations of persons since long before Christ.

For example, here is the great St. Augustine of Hippo, famous Church theologian, writing about the interpretation of Genesis back in 408 AD:  "It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation." --The Literal Interpretation of Genesis.

It is no accident that 'liberal Christianity' also came into its own in the 19th Century in Europe and America.  Liberalism in religion (and this is true for all world religions) was/is an attempt to come to grips with modern forms of thought, including modern science, and somehow make Christian faith compatible with at least some of the modern ways of thinking.  Over time, most of Christianity made its peace with modern science, and in the process developed many new ways of thinking about the basic issues of Christian faith.  Unfortunately, much of this does not get transmitted from what the clergy learn in seminary back to the parishioners in the church, so that, for example, there is much ignorance about the meaning of Genesis among rank and file Christians.

One real problem I have with 'creation science' and its fundamentalist thinking is that young people 'on the fence' about faith may think that that represents the dominant Christian approach to science and feel they have to choose between Christian faith and modern science.  Indeed, that seems to be Ken Ham's direct challenge: either accept a 6,000 year old earth, along with Adam & Eve and Noah's flood, or simply reject the Word of God (and thus God himself) and suffer the eternal consequences!

That may satisfy the fundamentalists among us, but for the rest of us, it is a very unsatisfactory solution.  Most people, Christian or otherwise, wants a religious faith that works cooperatively and tries to 'sync' with the results of our ongoing scientific tradition.  In other words, most people want the good fruit of both religion and science in today's world, believing that in the end, both kinds of investigation and knowledge give us a part of the Truth.

Let me give the last word to St. Augustine:  "In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture."

First Reactions to the Bill Nye-Ken Ham Debate on Science vs. Creationism

I was raised in a fundamentalist church where I was taught from the cradle the things that Ken Ham presented a few days ago in his online debate with 'Science Guy' Bill Nye. About 45 years ago, at the age of around 17, I rejected that fundamentalist worldview and have never turned back. Everything I have learned since then--in college, in seminary, in graduate school, and in my personal study as a Methodist pastor for 35 years--has only reinforced that rejection.

Illustration presented by Ken Ham and the Creation Museum

Which means that I accept the results of 'mainstream' science, in all of its various forms, whether biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, archeology, geology, or whatever.  The universe was created billions of years ago in the Big Bang, not thousands of years.  Likewise, sometime in the almost unimaginably distant past, life developed on earth and over millions of years has evolved into the biosphere that we experience today.

To the contrary, as you can see from the illustration presented by Ken Ham during his creationist presentation, he believes that his fundamentalist interpretation of the first 11 chapters of the biblical book of Genesis somehow trumps all the knowledge that modern science provides to us.  The pictures he shows there could have taken directly from my Sunday School class in 1st grade.  (We used the flannel-graph kind, colorful cutouts stuck to a flannel board on an easel....those of you who grew up back in the 1950s and 60s in fundamentalist Protestant Sunday School will know exactly what I mean!)

This boggles my mind.  The notion that the story of creation as given in Genesis should be taken to be a scientifically and historically accurate account of what actually happened some 6,000 years ago leaves me speechless.  It's hard to know how to counter such a weird thought in this day and age.  To me, it's akin to trying to prove to Mormons that the Book of Mormon is not historically and scientifically accurate.  (In the Book of Mormon, Jews came across the Atlantic Ocean in big boats thousands of years ago, were the ancestors of the American Indians, and welcomed Jesus when he paid a visit to Missouri after his resurrection.)

Poor Bill Nye.  He tried very hard to be nice and fair and balanced to Ken Ham in his presentations and responses, and I give him credit for that.  But this was a mission impossible, because as Ken Ham openly said toward the end of the 'debate', there is no evidence of any kind that would change his mind about 'creationism', because it is a basic religious conviction for him, and to concede anything would be to (for him) deny his faith in Jesus Christ, which of course he will not do.

Now, I'm not saying that Ken Ham isn't a smart man.  He clearly is quite intelligent, and very pleasant and courteous as well.  The problem, of course, lies in the nature of his basic religious presuppositions: namely, that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are historically and scientifically accurate and infallible. Why does he believe that?  Because--as he said several times during the debate--they are the Word of God, and obviously God cannot be wrong.  With those starting points, you pretty much end up where he ends up, modern science be damned.

I've got more to say about this whole thing, but I'll put it in a followup post.

Messiah Part 3: "For Unto Us A Child Is Born"

This third video of pictures and music from 'Messiah' tells the story of the Virgin Birth, beginning with the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Mary in Nazareth, her journey with Joseph to Jerusalem/Bethlehem, the birth of Jesus and the shepherds' visitation in Bethlehem, and finally the return of the Holy Family to Nazareth, where Jesus was brought up until the time when he began his divine ministry as an adult. All pictures were taken in the Holy Land by Mary Beth and myself in 1993. (The picture of the silver star at the 2 min. mark was taken in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, at the traditional site of Jesus' birth.)

Messiah Part 2: "Comfort Ye My People" and "Every Valley Shall Be Exalted"

In this second video of Messiah (about 7 min. long), I am combining two movements--Comfort Ye My People & Every Valley Shall Be Exalted--with pictures from the Holy Land that Mary Beth and I took on our trip there in 1993 (and then a later trip I took with Nathan and some church members in 1996). Jerusalem is depicted in the first movement and the environs of the Sea of Galilee are shown in the second. (Don't forget that you can watch any YouTube video 'full screen' by clicking on the button in the lower right corner of the video.) Merry Christmas!!

Messiah 'Overture'

I have set the 'Overture' from Messiah to pictures that Mary Beth and I took on our trip to the Holy Land in 1993.  These particular photos come from the wilderness lying between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.  This particular version of Messiah was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir.

"A Highway for our God"....An Advent Sermon

December 4, 2005; Rev. Carl Lindquist

First UMC, Morganton, NC

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.  A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.  And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.  For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”    Isaiah 40:1-11

If there is one thing that Americans love, it would be their automobiles, don’t you think!  There is no love affair more important in terms of its impact on our lives or our culture.  Cars and trucks dominate our economy, with one of seven jobs involved somehow with them.  They profoundly determine where we live, (mostly in the suburbs,) the way we date, the way we build our cities and towns.  Automobiles even help to dictate what wars we fight, because when you import most of your oil and much of that oil goes to run our cars and trucks, it helps to make sense of why we’re willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to fight wars in the Middle East, where there is mostly desert but also a whole lot of oil.

Photo by Carl Lindquist, in Israel, March, 1993

Be that as it may, when you love automobiles the way we do, one other thing is for sure: you’ve got to have lots of highways.  And we do love our super highways, don’t we.  They are a source of tremendous pride to us, and I once read somewhere that our highway system constitutes the single largest domestic government expenditure of money in American history.  And as we all know, there’s nothing like getting out on the open road, with a powerful, comfortable vehicle as your fingertips, and just driving for hours and hours.  We love it. 

Our highways allow us to move far from home and still return on a regular basis to see our families.  That was the reason we could move down from New York to North Carolina twenty years ago, even though most of our family remained there.  With the fabulous superhighways coursing through the American countryside, we could get on a four-lane highway within about a few miles of home at one end, drive for about 11 or 12 hours, and get off at the other end within a few miles of any of our relatives.  Oh, the magic of modern super highways.

"Was Jesus Patriotic?" A Sermon on Christian Patriotism

“Was Jesus Patriotic?”

Matthew 22:15-22; Rev. Carl Lindquisyt

Was Jesus patriotic?  If you’re like me, you’ve probably never thought of it that way before.  It’s really an odd question.  I guess that most of us, since we think patriotism is a good thing, off the top of our heads would say, “well, of course Jesus was patriotic.”

But was he?  After all, wasn’t he brought before the Roman governor Pilate by the leaders of his own country, where they told Pilate, according to the gospel of Luke, “We found this man perverting our nation, and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is a king.  He stirs up the people.” (Luke 23:2)  That doesn’t sound very much like a man who was seen as patriotic by his own countryman.  Pilate for his part didn’t necessarily agree with them, for he found Jesus not guilty of any crimes but he agreed to have Jesus crucified anyway, basically just to keep the peace there with those Jerusalem leaders.

If Chris Christie Were An IPO

If Chris Christie were an IPO, I would buy. He is the leading Presidential contender at this moment and probably will be for awhile. All the Tea Party candidates (Cruz, Rubio, Paul) are going: how does he do that? LOL

Is Christie very capable of political self-destruction? No doubt, given his tendency to real New Jersey bullying. But he is also charming and authentic, and he's not faking anything that I can tell. This is who he is. And America may just be ready for someone who is a pragmatic, no-nonsense head-cracker, who can also defy the conventional wisdom (like hugging the hated President Obama just before the 2012 election...LOL).

According to the NYT: "In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by over 700,000, Mr. Christie won a majority of the votes of women and Hispanics and made impressive inroads among younger voters and blacks — groups that Republicans nationally have struggled to attract."

Governor Christie--like him or not, agree with him or not on policy--has the look of a winner. (This is not an endorsement, just an observation!) And all the RINO talk being thrown around by the Tea Partiers is just spitting in the wind. Christie is the REAL THING, a Republican who can win.

The Godliness of Labor

“The Godliness of Labor

August 31, 2008; Rev. Carl W. Lindquist

First UMC, Lexington, NC

"Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us.  For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone's bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you.”  (2 Thessalonians 3:6-8)

Labor Day weekend is an appropriate occasion to talk about Christianity’s view of work and labor.  I would venture to guess that it is unlikely that you’ve heard a sermon on that topic!  While it’s not an official doctrine of the church, such as you would find in a creed or a book of systematic theology, one can find in the Scriptures and in our tradition a definite perspective of work and labor that is important for us to be familiar with, given the importance of labor and working to our everyday lives.

So let me begin by saying that this year marks the 114th anniversary of Labor Day as an official America holiday, originally established by Congress in 1894 to honor the social and economic achievements of the American workforce.  In the culture at large, Labor Day also has come to mark the official end of summer, the last chance to get away for a little vacation before the beginning of the busy fall season.

Today we want to very briefly look at what our faith understands about labor and work.  In the Christian faith, what we find is that work, in the ordinary sense of the everyday, routine labor by which we earn our daily bread, our livelihood and the means to sustain our life, is regarded as both normal and inevitable, a part of God’s created order of things in the world. 

In both the Old and New Testaments, productive labor is strongly encouraged.  In the Old Testament book of Proverbs 10:4, for example, we read, “Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth”.  The biblical writers did not think of labor as degrading, undesirable, or something to be escaped from.  Unlike the ancient Greeks, who tended to think of working as beneath the dignity of a citizen gentleman, leaving it for slaves and other inferior people to do, the Jewish people looked upon daily work as a normal part of the divine ordering of the world, and no person was to be exempt from it.