Trouble In the Amen Corner

Mark Twain in his satire “The Second Advent” writes about an “Indignation Committee.”  Every church community has one, though it may not be called by that name.  The following song written by Archie Campbell and made popular by country music singer Porter Wagoner popped into my head because it illustrates how the “Indignation Committee” often gets things done.

“It was a stylish congregation you could see they’d been around.  And they had the biggest pipe organ of any church in town.  But over in the Amen Corner of that church sat Brother Ira and he insisted every Sunday on singing in the choir.  His voice was cracked and broken, age had touched his vocal cords and nearly every Sunday he’d get behind and miss the words.  Well, at last the storm cloud burst and the church was told in vine that Brother Ira must stop his singing or the choir was gonna resign.

So the pastor appointed a committee.  I think it was three or four and they got in their big fine car and drove up to Ira’s door.  They found the choir’s great trouble sittin’ in an old arm chair and the summer’s golden sunbeams lay upon his snow white hair.  Said York, we’re here dear Brother with the best res approbation to discuss a little matter that affects the congregation.  Now it is our understanding when we bargained for the choir, that they were to relieve us, that is, they’d do the singin’ for us.  Now we don’t want no singin’ except what we’ve bought.  The newest tunes are all the rage the old ones stand for nought.  And so we have decided:  Are you listenin’ Brother Ira?  You’ll have to stop your singin,’ it’s messin’ up our choir.

The old man raised his head, a sign that he did hear and on his cheek the three men caught the glitter of a tear.  His feeble hands pushed back the locks as white as silky snow and he answered the committee in a voice both soft and low.  

I’ve sung the songs of David nearly eighty years said he, they’ve been my staff and comfort all along life’s dreary way.  I’m sorry if I disturbed the choir.  I guess I’m doin’ wrong, but when my heart is filled with praise I can’t hold back a song.  I wonder if beyond the tide that’s breaking at my feet—In that far off heavenly temple where my Master I shall meet.  Yes, I wonder if when I try to sing the songs of God up higher; I wonder if they’ll kick me out up there for singin’ in Heaven’s choir.

A silence filled the little room.  The old man bowed his head.  The committee went on back to town, but Brother Ira was dead.  Oh, the choir missed him for a while, but he was soon forgot and a few church goers watched the door but the old man entered not.  Far away his voice is sweet and he sings his heart’s desire, where there is no church committees and no fashionable choirs.”

Tit for Tat

Tit-for-Tat means inflicting injury or insult in return after one has been injured or insulted.  The game is being played all the time these days in the political realm and I find myself caught up in it.  I don’t want to be caught up in it.  I don’t want to play the game. 

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” did not originate with the Hebrew or Christian Bible, though it is used in Exodus 21-24 and in Leviticus 24:19-21 and in Matthew 5:38-42.  The words actually come from the Code of Hammurabi.  Hammurabi was king of Babylon in 1792-1750 BC.   

Donald Trump’s favorite Bible verse is “an eye for an eye,” and I’m assuming his favorite is the one found in Exodus (he did not give a chapter and verse).  It certainly is not the one found in Matthew 5:38-42, where Jesus repudiates even the notion of “an eye for an eye.”  

In 2015 Trump said his favorite verse (we don’t know which one) in the Bible had greatly impacted his thinking and his character.  “Well, I think many, I mean, you know, when we get into the Bible, I think many.  So many…And some people—look, an eye for an eye, you can almost say that.  That’s not particularly a nice thing.  But you know, if you look at what’s happening to our country, I mean, when you see what’s going on with our country, how people are taking advantage of us, and how they scoff at us and laugh at us….And we have to be firm and have to be very strong.  And we can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you.”  Yes, we can, Mr. Trump, especially if we read all of it—including Matthew 5:38-42!

Mr. Trump often mentions the Bible as his favorite book, with “The Art of the Deal” as his favorite second.  I suspect there are many Christians (supposedly the people of the New Covenant) who share Mr. Trump’s favorite verse from the Old Covenant, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” regardless of Christ’s repudiation of that Tit-for-Tat game.   Indeed, Trump’s “spiritual advisor,” Paula White, implied the “eye for an eye” mentality in her opening prayer at Trump’s rally in Orlando this week, praying:  “Let every demonic network (did she mean the “treasonous media”) that has aligned itself against the purpose, against the calling of President Trump, let it be broken, let it be torn down in the name of Jesus.”   That means  Jesus’ repudiation of an eye for an eye— that means the Christian faith—that means “me”—are to be broken and torn down—because we are aligned against “the purpose!”

Backyard wonders continue...

Wile E. Coyote or Foxy Fox?

Most people are familiar with Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner as cartoon characters from Looney Tunes.  In each episode, Wile Coyote attempts to catch that fast-running ground bird, the Roadrunner, but is never successful.  Coyote comes up with all kinds of absurd and complex contraptions to try to catch his prey—and all of them “backfire” with Coyote losing the game.

The term “foxy fox” implies a person who is “cunningly shrewd.”  Erwin Eugen Rommel, the German general and military theorist, was nicknamed the “Desert Fox” during the African campaign in World War II.  

A fox is very adept at concealment and can run with great speed for long periods of time.  A fox has tremendous stamina.  One of the fox’s cleverest hunting techniques is “charming” or “conning” its victim. When it gets close to its prey, the fox will slyly perform some rather weird antics—leaping, jumping, rolling, chasing itself—thus charming the prey’s attention.  Meanwhile the fox is moving closer and closer for the kill.

How do we characterize Donald Trump? Is he a Wile E. Coyote or a foxy fox?  Like the Coyote, he has come up with all kinds of absurd statements and slogans to conn us, but unlike the Coyote, he seems always to avoid the “backfire,” typically by providing an alternative reality.

Perhaps he is more like the fox. He does seem to have a strange, but cunning shrewdness.  His weird antics continue to charm his base.  He has “joked” about the possibility of a third term (in spite the two- term mandated by the Constitution).  He tweeted last weekend: “(do you think the people would demand that I stay longer?…).  In March 2018 he said of the Chinese President:  “He’s now president for life.  President for life.  No, he’s great.  And look, he was able to do that.  I think its great.  Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.”  He said at an event at the White House just a month or so ago: “I was going to joke…and say at least for 10-14 years, but we would cause bedlam if I said that, so we’ll say six.”  I wonder if there might be a “document locked up in a vault in the White House that has a 10-step plan to make Donald Trump president for life.”  Trump’s antics, strange as they may seem, have a purpose—to conn his prey.  Whether he can be characterized as Wile E. Coyote or a foxy fox, yours truly will remain the Roadrunner, creating “backfire” not only for an illegal third term, but a “backfire” to avoid even a  second term.

Another Backyard Wonder....

Two Ways of Thinking

When we deal with religious questions and scientific questions we are dealing with two different ways of describing reality.  I do not mean that one or the other is some kind of alternative reality as is fashionable just now in the political arena.  I mean that religion and science deal with the same reality, but have  a different way of describing it and the two should not be confused.  The book of Genesis in the Bible is not a scientific account of creation, and it should not be interpreted as scientific.  The book of Genesis asks, “Why?” and its answer is “God.”  Science looks at the world and asks, “How?” and its answer is that the world has evolved over millions of centuries—an answer that does not in any way undermine belief in God.

Robert McAfee Brown used four statements to make this point:

2+2=4

I love you.

Babe Ruth hit 619 home runs in his major league career.

I love you too.

The first and the third statements are of a different order from statements two and four.  One and three are factually verifiable:  “you can look them up.”  Statements two and four cannot be “proved” in the same way; but they can be just as “true” for a meaningful living of life as any of the “factual” statements. 

Shakespeare in the play, As You Like It, tells us that there are “…tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones.”  He is saying that there are lessons to be learned from the woods and the metaphors he uses help underline the truth of his statement.  But the statement is obviously not “TRUE” as an actual literal set of facts.  A proof-reader would revise the statement to read:  not “tongues” in trees—but “trunks in trees, stones in the running brooks, sermons in books.”  That would make the statement factually true—that is, scientifically accurate, but quite unimportant.  Shakespeare’s statement is a valuable description of the woods while the proof-reader’s factual version is pointless.

Science can tell us how old the world is and how it has developed  by analyzing the evidence.  Science cannot tell us why the world has come into being. We live in the same reality—we just have two different ways of describing it.  One asks, “How” and the other asks, “Why.”  (It really isn’t that simple, but I thought my thoughts on the matter might help someone).

Back yard wonders continue...

Mark Twain Speaks to Our Present Bellicosity

Mark Twain wrote an essay on the duty of righteous dissent in the early 1900’s.  Twain’s concern was the American military actions in the Philippines and the reaction of the American public to that event.  The essay, though written over a hundred years ago, speaks to our present bellicosity toward our allies, Iran, and the rest of the world.

Twain was astounded by the public response to the war (prohibiting independence to the Philippines), which seemed to him to say, “Our Country, right or wrong.”  “…every man,” he wrote, “who failed to shout it or who was silent, was proclaimed a traitor—none but those others were patriots.  To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, ‘Our Country, right or wrong,’ and urge on the little war.  Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?”

He goes on, “For in a republic, who is ‘the country?’  Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle?  Why, the Government is merely a servant—merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t.  Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.  Who, then, is ‘the country?’”

In modern day terms, Twain asked:  Is it the media?  Is it the churches?  Is it the President? “Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command.”  They are but one in a thousand; it is the thousand that  “command.” It is “they who must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn’t.”

“Who are the thousand—that is to say, who are ‘the country?’  In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people.  Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility must speak.  And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of the pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians.  Each must for himself decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t….To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country—hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Who are “the country?”  It remains a good question.  Is it the current Administration, “right or wrong”?  Is it Congress?  Is it the press?  No, it is you and me who decide who is a patriot and who isn’t.  It is you and me who decide right and wrong.  Twain’s reaction to “Our Country, right or wrong” hits the nail on the head—“Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?”

The Human Situation

One of the great assets of the Christian faith is that it helps us avoid being naive about the human situation.  Authentic Christianity does not preach natural human goodness.  While there is in every person “that of God” there is also the recognition that we humans and the whole of creation (including our institutions which the Bible calls “principalities”)  are in a “fallen state.”  We are not yet what we could be.

Dr. Karl Menninger in his book (Whatever Became of Sin?)  written in 1973, reminded his readers, that “sin” is still in existence and that sin is the most prevalent malady of our modern world.” Sin is not drinking, playing cards, sex, etc. Sin is a much bigger and deeper thing.  Sin is “missing the mark,” the “mark” being “that of God” in us.  

Now we could blame this problem on God, because God did not create us “good” or “perfect” or “programmed.”  God created us FREE!  We, above all other creatures, have a choice of whether to respond to “that of God” in us, or to go another way.  The biblical “Fall” was our choice—we decided to go our own way—missing what it means to be created in the image of God.  “All we like sheep have gone astray.”  The Bible “is a great love story of God, the Lover, wooing human beings, the beloved, to choose Love over self.

With Frank Sinatra we can all sing, “I Did It My Way.”  This is the potential in every human heart because we are free—the choice is ours—and we typically choose our own way.  You can call it “self-centeredness” if you want.  

Any Christian who understands his or her faith is never Utopian.  We can do all we can to help make a better world, but we also realize that, a thousand years from now, if there are people on the earth at that time, there will still be self-centeredness (sin) because it is the price of person-hood.  We were created free.

Backyard wonders

Dark Days

As the nineteenth century concluded and the twentieth began, Mark Twain found the world scene darkened by military actions of the so-called Christian powers; nation preyed upon nation, the strong upon the weak.  “The time is grave,” he wrote.  “The future is blacker than has been any future which any person now living has tried to peer into.”

Now in this early twenty-first century there are those of us who feel that Mark Twain’s comment fits our present dilemma.  James Bridle’s book, New Dark Age, suggests that it is technology which will bring on this darkness, while others suggest it is in our attempt to go backward to another time, or the erosion of  character, tolerance, and good manners and decency, or the current pendulum swing toward nationalism.  

Sinclair Lewis affirmed Mark Twain’s view of his time and my view of our time when he wrote: “We can go back to the Dark Ages!  The crust of learning and good manners and tolerance is so thin!”  The “Dark Ages” in history refers to the Middle Ages—the term,  “Dark Age,” originated with Petrarch in the 1330’s.  Most modern scholars reject the term “Dark Ages” nowadays, finding it misleading and inaccurate to describe that period in history as a time of backwardness and ignorance. Some good things, the scholars say, some flashes of light, illumined the darkness of the time.

“The time is grave,” as Mark Twain put it and we can, as Sinclair Lewis wrote: “go back to the Dark Ages! For the crust of learning and good manners and tolerance is so thin.”  These are words that describe the reality of our time.  They also describe the beginning of the twentieth century that Mark Twain observed.  The words also describe the rise of Nazi Germany in the mid-twentieth century, and I’m convinced they speak of our own time and of “a future blacker than has been any future which any person now living has tried to peer into.”

BUT, we must not despair.  I do not know if there will actually be a new Dark Age or not, for the gift of prediction is not given me, but I do know that it is my task (and yours) to keep a light burning in the midst of the present darkness.  My faith is that we can overcome and that morning will come.  

As the Astilbe blooms each June without fail, so too there is in our nature
a reason for hope rather than despair