Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
As 2009 draws to a close Jen and I wish to express our deep love and respect for you, our family in Christ. The apostle Paul wrote the following words to the Christians he loved in the city of Thessalonica: "For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy." You, the saints at TBC, have given us this same hope and joy, and very soon, this same glory.
Your love for all the saints stands out to us like a jewel. You have received grace to order your lives to love one another. Your participation in small groups is so often inconvenient, not only to your schedule but also to your ego, yet you persevere in these close-contact relationships. You have joined Christ Jesus in being burdened by the lives of sinners. You have learned that Christ's love in you can flourish even when his church disappoints you or disillusions you. Every year it is Jen's and my privilege to witness obscure yet extravagant of acts of love between you, the saints of TBC. This year was no different. Jen and I give thanks to God for your abundant love for one another.
Your works of service also cheer us greatly: painting the church, stocking the foodshelf, cleaning toilets, teaching Sunday School, shoveling snow, mowing grass, making meals, stacking wood, driving to DHMC, praying over heartaches both great and small. You are Christians! Your lives show that peculiar freedom of those who know Jesus, a freedom so well described by John Stott: "True freedom is not freedom from responsibility to God and others in order to live for ourselves, but freedom from ourselves in order to live for God and others." Your faithful giving also stands out this year. In a year marked by financial fear upon the earth you arranged your finances as those who have a Father in heaven. You gave close to $1,500 for Bibles to Iran. Through the Faith Promise you are on track to give another $15,000 to Tajikistan, Moldova, and The Fold in Lyndonville, VT. And on top of that we are not far off in meeting our commitments to our permanent missionaries and our local expenses at TBC. Your obedient faith continues to go public in your faithful giving. Jen and I give thanks to God for your generous giving of both self and wealth so Christ's gospel is proclaimed and his church built up.
Like the apostle John, there is no greater joy for us than to see you walking in the truth. So many of you have grown in your commitment and conviction to the gospel this year. You are standing firm in the faith. This has also been the year where some of you have shed the dead weight of errors and lies about God. We give thanks to God that in love he has chosen you, has given you his Holy Spirit, and now you show you are waiting for Christ's return by your holy and pure lives. Jen and I give thanks to God for your growing faith.
Lastly and most personally, we give thanks to God for how you have cared for us. You cheered when Reuben was born and continue to give your hearts to all our children. You have shared your lives with us, welcoming us into your homes. You have shown us patience. You have shared with us wisdom. You have showered us again and again with forgiveness. We love you. May God prosper you in His way this New Year, John & Jen.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
What do you think?
Christmas In New York
by Joseph Bottum
There was a woman screaming on Park Avenue, flecks of saliva spraying from her mouth as she raged into her cell phone, “It’s not my fault.” Over and over, like the high-pitched squeal of a power saw cutting bricks: It’s not my fault and a run of foul names, It’s not my fault and another run of names. It’s not my fault, you (blank)ing (blank). It’s not my fault, you evil (blank). It’s . . . not . . . my . . . fault.
I don’t know, maybe, whatever it was, it really wasn’t her fault. But her cell phone and makeup, her dark purse and blue coat, her warm leather gloves—the accoutrements of sanity around that face of public madness—made her seem guilty, somehow. Guilty of something, down to the bone. The man at the Salvation Army kettle kept his tense back turned against her as he rang his Christmas bell. The crowds of passing strangers fixed their eyes at uncomfortable angles and hurried by. A child stared anxiously till his mother began chattering about breakfast, overbright and overloud as she tugged him around the corner.
I saw the screaming woman for a moment framed by the giant candy canes and white Christmas garlands soaped on the window of the storefront behind her. Then the traffic light changed, and I crossed the street, my shoulders hunched in self-protection. It’s not my fault, you evil (blank). It’s . . . not . . . my . . . fault.
Is twice a warning or only a coincidence? For I heard the phrase again that same day, in the vestibule of the bank after work. New York is still one of the world’s great Christmas towns. Too dirty for too long to clean up well just for the holidays, Manhattan still makes a brave show for the season. The shop-window mannequins sport their Christmas finery, and the railings on the apartment buildings don their strings of lights and tinsel. Maybe movies—from Miracle on 34th Street on down—are what have made New York’s Christmases seem so iconic: the ice skating at Rockefeller Center, the skimpy elf costumes on the strutting Rockettes at Radio City, the sleigh bells on the horse cabs, the piles of toys at FAO Schwarz, the window displays at Lord & Taylor.
But at least, as a result, New York still tries. There in the bank, while I waited in line for an automatic-teller machine, I watched the city’s shoppers hurrying past, their arms full of Christmas packages, and listened to a man talking loudly on his cell phone, one foot up on the window sill.
“It’s not my fault,” he explained in a confident boom. “I’m just the kind of person who has to keep after things.” What is it about self-justification that always makes it seem so false? About that phrase “I’m the kind of person” that always makes it sound like the beginning of a lie? He was well dressed in loafers and slacks, a nice overcoat, and seemingly indifferent to the fact that the people at the ATMs could overhear him. With the effortless patter of a story told many times before—with the sort of smooth charm, in fact, that fails because it announces too openly just how charming it is trying to be—he launched into a long tale about how he didn’t really want to sue, but then he was the kind of person who needed to see that he got his rights, and it wasn’t his fault everything got so messed up.
It’s not my fault—the cry we’ve made every day since Adam took the apple. Down somewhere in the belly, there’s an awareness of just how wrong the world is, how fallen and broken and incomplete. This is the guilty knowledge, the failure of innocence, against which we snarl and rage: That’s just the way things are; there’s nothing I can do; I wasn’t the one who started the fight; it’s not my fault. What would genuine innocence look like, if it ever came into the world? I know the answer my faith calls me to believe: like a child born in a cattle shed. But to understand why that is an answer, to see it clearly, we are also compelled to know our guilt for the world, to feel it all the way to the bottom.
I sometimes wonder to whom all the city’s cell-phone talkers are speaking. People all around them, thousands and thousands: there, that angry balding man slamming past in his stained parka, and there, that coatless woman with the deliberately unfocused stare smokers wear as they stand with their arms crossed outside restaurants, and there, that tired-looking girl in the sweater trying to stop a taxi, and there, and there, and there—an endless stream of presence, and still they shout or murmur on the street, pouring secrets and imprecations into their clenched phones and throat microphones. Talking to the ones who aren’t there. Communing with the absent, like fortune-tellers with a crystal ball. Like mediums calling the dead.
Sometimes New York hints at something different. There is a strange impression the city gives after a snowstorm—a kind of epiphanic feeling, a sense of being taken for a moment out of time. People walk in the middle of the streets. A few pull out their skis and slalom down First Avenue. The taxis all disappear, and for a moment the whitewashed city looks clean and small-townish.
But New York cannot play for long at being the New Jerusalem. The ultimate time-bound place, it cannot step outside the rush and rattle of commerce. The supreme City of Man, it cannot pose as the City of God. With their town bright and almost pretty, New Yorkers act for a few moments as though things have changed—or rather, as though these few moments don’t count, as though the apocalypse of falling snow has lifted them out of time and the storm had left them for an instant clean and unhurried. Last winter, I saw an old-fashioned toboggan—ten or twelve feet long, the wooden slats curling to a two-foot swoosh in front—being drawn along 14th Street, filled with laughing children. Who has room to store a toboggan in Manhattan on the off-chance of snow? Someone, clearly. Someone who has been waiting years for the white apocalypse.
Most Christmases, however, there are only cold drizzles, the icy rain that never seems to wash anything clean. I emptied my pockets on the way home from the bank: another Salvation Army kettle, a drunk man on the sidewalk with a hand-lettered sign I couldn’t read, a woman rattling change in a paper cup. I hate the city, all tarted up in its tawdry Christmas clothes. Mewing us together on its streets, it forces us to see the human stain. It forces us to know. It’s not my fault, I muttered as I blew on my cold hands. May God have mercy on us all. It’s . . . not . . . my . . . fault.
Joseph Bottum is editor of First Things.
by Joseph Bottum
There was a woman screaming on Park Avenue, flecks of saliva spraying from her mouth as she raged into her cell phone, “It’s not my fault.” Over and over, like the high-pitched squeal of a power saw cutting bricks: It’s not my fault and a run of foul names, It’s not my fault and another run of names. It’s not my fault, you (blank)ing (blank). It’s not my fault, you evil (blank). It’s . . . not . . . my . . . fault.
I don’t know, maybe, whatever it was, it really wasn’t her fault. But her cell phone and makeup, her dark purse and blue coat, her warm leather gloves—the accoutrements of sanity around that face of public madness—made her seem guilty, somehow. Guilty of something, down to the bone. The man at the Salvation Army kettle kept his tense back turned against her as he rang his Christmas bell. The crowds of passing strangers fixed their eyes at uncomfortable angles and hurried by. A child stared anxiously till his mother began chattering about breakfast, overbright and overloud as she tugged him around the corner.
I saw the screaming woman for a moment framed by the giant candy canes and white Christmas garlands soaped on the window of the storefront behind her. Then the traffic light changed, and I crossed the street, my shoulders hunched in self-protection. It’s not my fault, you evil (blank). It’s . . . not . . . my . . . fault.
Is twice a warning or only a coincidence? For I heard the phrase again that same day, in the vestibule of the bank after work. New York is still one of the world’s great Christmas towns. Too dirty for too long to clean up well just for the holidays, Manhattan still makes a brave show for the season. The shop-window mannequins sport their Christmas finery, and the railings on the apartment buildings don their strings of lights and tinsel. Maybe movies—from Miracle on 34th Street on down—are what have made New York’s Christmases seem so iconic: the ice skating at Rockefeller Center, the skimpy elf costumes on the strutting Rockettes at Radio City, the sleigh bells on the horse cabs, the piles of toys at FAO Schwarz, the window displays at Lord & Taylor.
But at least, as a result, New York still tries. There in the bank, while I waited in line for an automatic-teller machine, I watched the city’s shoppers hurrying past, their arms full of Christmas packages, and listened to a man talking loudly on his cell phone, one foot up on the window sill.
“It’s not my fault,” he explained in a confident boom. “I’m just the kind of person who has to keep after things.” What is it about self-justification that always makes it seem so false? About that phrase “I’m the kind of person” that always makes it sound like the beginning of a lie? He was well dressed in loafers and slacks, a nice overcoat, and seemingly indifferent to the fact that the people at the ATMs could overhear him. With the effortless patter of a story told many times before—with the sort of smooth charm, in fact, that fails because it announces too openly just how charming it is trying to be—he launched into a long tale about how he didn’t really want to sue, but then he was the kind of person who needed to see that he got his rights, and it wasn’t his fault everything got so messed up.
It’s not my fault—the cry we’ve made every day since Adam took the apple. Down somewhere in the belly, there’s an awareness of just how wrong the world is, how fallen and broken and incomplete. This is the guilty knowledge, the failure of innocence, against which we snarl and rage: That’s just the way things are; there’s nothing I can do; I wasn’t the one who started the fight; it’s not my fault. What would genuine innocence look like, if it ever came into the world? I know the answer my faith calls me to believe: like a child born in a cattle shed. But to understand why that is an answer, to see it clearly, we are also compelled to know our guilt for the world, to feel it all the way to the bottom.
I sometimes wonder to whom all the city’s cell-phone talkers are speaking. People all around them, thousands and thousands: there, that angry balding man slamming past in his stained parka, and there, that coatless woman with the deliberately unfocused stare smokers wear as they stand with their arms crossed outside restaurants, and there, that tired-looking girl in the sweater trying to stop a taxi, and there, and there, and there—an endless stream of presence, and still they shout or murmur on the street, pouring secrets and imprecations into their clenched phones and throat microphones. Talking to the ones who aren’t there. Communing with the absent, like fortune-tellers with a crystal ball. Like mediums calling the dead.
Sometimes New York hints at something different. There is a strange impression the city gives after a snowstorm—a kind of epiphanic feeling, a sense of being taken for a moment out of time. People walk in the middle of the streets. A few pull out their skis and slalom down First Avenue. The taxis all disappear, and for a moment the whitewashed city looks clean and small-townish.
But New York cannot play for long at being the New Jerusalem. The ultimate time-bound place, it cannot step outside the rush and rattle of commerce. The supreme City of Man, it cannot pose as the City of God. With their town bright and almost pretty, New Yorkers act for a few moments as though things have changed—or rather, as though these few moments don’t count, as though the apocalypse of falling snow has lifted them out of time and the storm had left them for an instant clean and unhurried. Last winter, I saw an old-fashioned toboggan—ten or twelve feet long, the wooden slats curling to a two-foot swoosh in front—being drawn along 14th Street, filled with laughing children. Who has room to store a toboggan in Manhattan on the off-chance of snow? Someone, clearly. Someone who has been waiting years for the white apocalypse.
Most Christmases, however, there are only cold drizzles, the icy rain that never seems to wash anything clean. I emptied my pockets on the way home from the bank: another Salvation Army kettle, a drunk man on the sidewalk with a hand-lettered sign I couldn’t read, a woman rattling change in a paper cup. I hate the city, all tarted up in its tawdry Christmas clothes. Mewing us together on its streets, it forces us to see the human stain. It forces us to know. It’s not my fault, I muttered as I blew on my cold hands. May God have mercy on us all. It’s . . . not . . . my . . . fault.
Joseph Bottum is editor of First Things.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
What do you think?
Merry Marketing
Stores give us something to believe in — shopping.
by James Martin, S.J. for The Wall Street Journal, 12.17.2009
I like Christmas as much as the next Christian. And by that I mean the Feast of the Nativity — the one with Jesus being born in a manger. The one Linus talks about every year on "A Charlie Brown Christmas." That Christmas I like.
The Christmas I don't like is the one most people find wearying: the commercial one. And this year what's been irking me are the slogans that companies are deploying in their December ad campaigns that hope to have it both ways: They're using religious themes without actually being religious. Call it faith-based advertising.
Some aren't bad. This year J.C. Penney's ads featured the slogan "The Joy of Giving." (Giving is, needless to say, laudable.) But many advertisers couldn't seem to decide how religious their ads could be. Most are eager to glom onto the highly profitable Christmas angle without being Christian, which would be a challenge even for Don Draper and his "Mad Men" copywriters. The cover of the Land's End catalog — which is bursting with preppy families who apparently divide their time between laughing dementedly, drinking steaming mugs of hot chocolate and petting horses — says: "Make it Merry!" Make what merry? Celebrating the birth of Christ or petting a horse?
Likewise, the Container Store, a packaging company, wanted to remind shoppers to mail in time for Christmas but couldn't quite bring itself to say the word. "Only 15 Days Left!" said one of its ads on December 10. Fifteen days till what? Arbor Day?
"Magic" is another popular word on Madison Avenue: Pier One's catalog says, "Make Christmas Magic!" Sadly, all I can think of is Mary and Joseph standing around Harry Potter in a manger.
And this year the Gap's ads are just plain weird. Their TV commercials feature perky models rapping out the following ditty: "Go Christmas! Go Hannukah! Go Kwanzaa! Go Solstice! You 86 the rules, you do what just feels right. Happy Whatever-you-wannukah, and to all a cheery night!" But the models are clearly wearing sweaters and scarves in bright red, the traditional Christmas color. In other words, the Gap is selective about what gets 86ed. Actual religious beliefs? Those go. Holiday trappings that can move a few sweaters? Those stay.
The winner of this year's worst catch phrase is a tie: between Macy's and Eddie Bauer. Macy's shopping bags say, "A million reasons to believe!" In what? What does Macy's want us to believe in? That Jesus is the Son of God? (Imagine that on a bag.)
Nearly as maddening was the cover of this year's Eddie Bauer catalog, which proclaims "We believe." As with Macy's, I was eager to find out just what Eddie Bauer believed in. The Council of Chalcedon's fifth-century declaration that Jesus was fully human and fully divine? Not exactly. Page three professed the retailer's creed: "We believe in the world's best down."
Of course I know that this is the way marketing works. Retailers use anything to hawk a product. And I'm sorry to be a stickler, but it's strange seeing the Christian faith being used and denied at the same time.
Nonetheless, I try not to get too upset about it, because I don't want to let commercialism distract me from the reason to celebrate Christmas Day. Because I really do have a million reasons to believe.
— Father Martin is a Jesuit priest and author of "My Life With the Saints" (Loyola Press, 2006).
Stores give us something to believe in — shopping.
by James Martin, S.J. for The Wall Street Journal, 12.17.2009
I like Christmas as much as the next Christian. And by that I mean the Feast of the Nativity — the one with Jesus being born in a manger. The one Linus talks about every year on "A Charlie Brown Christmas." That Christmas I like.
The Christmas I don't like is the one most people find wearying: the commercial one. And this year what's been irking me are the slogans that companies are deploying in their December ad campaigns that hope to have it both ways: They're using religious themes without actually being religious. Call it faith-based advertising.
Some aren't bad. This year J.C. Penney's ads featured the slogan "The Joy of Giving." (Giving is, needless to say, laudable.) But many advertisers couldn't seem to decide how religious their ads could be. Most are eager to glom onto the highly profitable Christmas angle without being Christian, which would be a challenge even for Don Draper and his "Mad Men" copywriters. The cover of the Land's End catalog — which is bursting with preppy families who apparently divide their time between laughing dementedly, drinking steaming mugs of hot chocolate and petting horses — says: "Make it Merry!" Make what merry? Celebrating the birth of Christ or petting a horse?
Likewise, the Container Store, a packaging company, wanted to remind shoppers to mail in time for Christmas but couldn't quite bring itself to say the word. "Only 15 Days Left!" said one of its ads on December 10. Fifteen days till what? Arbor Day?
"Magic" is another popular word on Madison Avenue: Pier One's catalog says, "Make Christmas Magic!" Sadly, all I can think of is Mary and Joseph standing around Harry Potter in a manger.
And this year the Gap's ads are just plain weird. Their TV commercials feature perky models rapping out the following ditty: "Go Christmas! Go Hannukah! Go Kwanzaa! Go Solstice! You 86 the rules, you do what just feels right. Happy Whatever-you-wannukah, and to all a cheery night!" But the models are clearly wearing sweaters and scarves in bright red, the traditional Christmas color. In other words, the Gap is selective about what gets 86ed. Actual religious beliefs? Those go. Holiday trappings that can move a few sweaters? Those stay.
The winner of this year's worst catch phrase is a tie: between Macy's and Eddie Bauer. Macy's shopping bags say, "A million reasons to believe!" In what? What does Macy's want us to believe in? That Jesus is the Son of God? (Imagine that on a bag.)
Nearly as maddening was the cover of this year's Eddie Bauer catalog, which proclaims "We believe." As with Macy's, I was eager to find out just what Eddie Bauer believed in. The Council of Chalcedon's fifth-century declaration that Jesus was fully human and fully divine? Not exactly. Page three professed the retailer's creed: "We believe in the world's best down."
Of course I know that this is the way marketing works. Retailers use anything to hawk a product. And I'm sorry to be a stickler, but it's strange seeing the Christian faith being used and denied at the same time.
Nonetheless, I try not to get too upset about it, because I don't want to let commercialism distract me from the reason to celebrate Christmas Day. Because I really do have a million reasons to believe.
— Father Martin is a Jesuit priest and author of "My Life With the Saints" (Loyola Press, 2006).
Friday, December 18, 2009
E-note 12/18: Becoming A Little Child
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
In Matthew 18:3 we hear these words from the Lord Jesus: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” What a glorious mystery that God himself has done the very thing he says we must do. God has become like a little child to show us the way into his forever kingdom.
What does Jesus mean that we must become like little children? The answer is in the manger. When the Son of God took on our flesh, literally becoming a little child, He put himself in the care of his heavenly Father. He lived his life humbly and lovingly dependent upon the Father. Come what may he did the Father’s will. Come loneliness or friendship, come comfort or cross, a little child does his father’s will. Jesus tells it to us straight: unless you change and become like a little child you will be shut out of the kingdom of the little Son, the Son who gladly did the will of his Father.
"Unless you change." Those words remind us that it will do us no good to say, "I believe," while continuing to do our own will. "Unless you change and become like little children" is a call to receive God as your ever-present Father. Those who do not change, those who refuse the rule of the Father, they are lost. They are not sons. To remain enthroned over our own lives will cost us two kingdoms, our own and Christ's. But to change will cost us only one kingdom, one all men will lose anyway. And this is the good news: the change Jesus requires is the change Jesus gives. He gives it by taking us by the hand and showing us all the goodness of his Father. None can claim this Father to be wicked or unjust or unkind. The Father of the Lord Jesus is the Father of loyal love. He is the Father of every good and perfect gift. He is the Father who never forgets. He is the Father of faithfulness and all compassion. He is the Father of our eternal brother, who through his resurrection is the firstborn from the dead.
No man was ever more at rest in the presence of his Father than Jesus. By showing us this eternal relationship in the flesh, Jesus dares us to change. By revealing in the flesh the love and subordination of the Triune God, Jesus dares all flesh to become his brothers, submissive sons of the same Father. Praise be to God, the perfect submission of the Son is gifted to all who will be changed by it, changed into little children, submissive sons of the Father in heaven. Grace and peace, John
In Matthew 18:3 we hear these words from the Lord Jesus: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” What a glorious mystery that God himself has done the very thing he says we must do. God has become like a little child to show us the way into his forever kingdom.
What does Jesus mean that we must become like little children? The answer is in the manger. When the Son of God took on our flesh, literally becoming a little child, He put himself in the care of his heavenly Father. He lived his life humbly and lovingly dependent upon the Father. Come what may he did the Father’s will. Come loneliness or friendship, come comfort or cross, a little child does his father’s will. Jesus tells it to us straight: unless you change and become like a little child you will be shut out of the kingdom of the little Son, the Son who gladly did the will of his Father.
"Unless you change." Those words remind us that it will do us no good to say, "I believe," while continuing to do our own will. "Unless you change and become like little children" is a call to receive God as your ever-present Father. Those who do not change, those who refuse the rule of the Father, they are lost. They are not sons. To remain enthroned over our own lives will cost us two kingdoms, our own and Christ's. But to change will cost us only one kingdom, one all men will lose anyway. And this is the good news: the change Jesus requires is the change Jesus gives. He gives it by taking us by the hand and showing us all the goodness of his Father. None can claim this Father to be wicked or unjust or unkind. The Father of the Lord Jesus is the Father of loyal love. He is the Father of every good and perfect gift. He is the Father who never forgets. He is the Father of faithfulness and all compassion. He is the Father of our eternal brother, who through his resurrection is the firstborn from the dead.
No man was ever more at rest in the presence of his Father than Jesus. By showing us this eternal relationship in the flesh, Jesus dares us to change. By revealing in the flesh the love and subordination of the Triune God, Jesus dares all flesh to become his brothers, submissive sons of the same Father. Praise be to God, the perfect submission of the Son is gifted to all who will be changed by it, changed into little children, submissive sons of the Father in heaven. Grace and peace, John
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
What do you think?
How Would Jesus Call?
A Column for the Dallas Morning News
A Column for the Dallas Morning News
By Ken Myers
An article in the April issue of Wired magazine makes some frightening predictions about the dangers of three cutting-edge technologies. Though Wired is better known for treating the latest gadgets and high-tech systems either with irreverent glee or awe-filled reverence, this article, written by Bill Joy, cofounder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems (and thus a high priest among the digerati), sounds more apocalyptic than messianic. Joy warns that future developments in genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology (the development of microscopic machines) may pose a serious threat to human existence. All three technologies aim to create self-replicating mechanisms.
Joy's article makes some very serious points that ought to be of particular concern to theologians and religious ethicists. Even if his most ominous fears prove to be as ill-founded as Y2K hysteria, his concern for attending to the unintended consequences of technology is instructive.
With few exceptions, religious people have not given enough thoughtful attention to the social and cultural consequences of emerging technologies. When technical devices are used for obviously immoral purposes (e.g., pornography on the Internet), Christians express concern. But church leaders and theologians give far too little attention to the subtle ways in which technologies reshape our lives and thereby re-configure our moral understanding of the world.
Technologies are usually developed to make a particular task more convenient, and convenience is valuable. But it is not the only valuable thing, and it is up to individuals and communities to determine when an increased level of convenience is actually a hindrance to other human values.
Cell phones, for example, make it easier for us to have immediate access to others and to remain perpetually accessible. But certainly there are times when cell phones should be turned off or left at home. Some restaurants now require guests to disable their cell phones while dining. This shows respect for the ambience of their dining rooms and honors the desire of other diners not to be forced into the role of eavesdropper.
I'd like to suggest that Christian people in particular give some attention to cell phone etiquette. A thoughtful set of manners regarding cell phones could be a small but significant way of reducing the sum total of dehumanizing behavior in American culture. Such manners could demonstrate the high value Christians place on embodiment, expressed in our doctrines of Creation, Incarnation, and Resurrection.
What could cell phones possibly have to do with the Incarnation? Both involve the significance of physical, embodied presence before others. The presence of another person before us is a kind of moral claim, asking for the recognition appropriate to a fellow human being. Likewise, when we make ourselves present to others, we are showing respect. Thus when we visit someone in the hospital or in prison (a situation Jesus alludes to in Matthew 25) instead of just phoning or sending flowers, we demonstrate by our presence a higher level of regard for their well-being.
The idea of presence is an important one in Biblical religion. In his second letter, the Apostle John writes, "I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face." The Church is called the ekklesia, the assembly, the place where believers are present to one another to encourage one another to love and good works.
By contrast, holding a telephone conversation while walking down the street or up an aisle at the supermarket pointedly ignores the presence of others. The importance of physical presence is thus de-valued. It also poses a kind of challenge to passers-by.
In an earlier, less hectic time, when you wanted to make a phone call, you isolated yourself temporarily in a telephone booth (ask your parents if this is an unfamiliar term). This guaranteed privacy for yourself but also spared strangers the awkwardness of hearing half of your conversation, especially if the conversation involved intimate personal details. The more primitive technology imposed limits on where your body was when you made a call, but certain notions about presence and
boundaries were also encouraged.
Just because we are now able to make calls anywhere anytime doesn't mean that we should. Whether or not we should is a question that, to my knowledge, hasn't even been raised.
To treat the presence of another person with indifference is not just rude. It is dehumanizing. Bill Joy's dire predictions about technologies destroying humanity may not come to pass. But there are already many instances of the thoughtless use of technologies diminishing humanity. The unexpected and untested convenience of cell phones has brought us into territory previously uncharted by convention. The devices come with technical instructions, but no guidance about their well-mannered use. Encouraged by a theology of human dignity, embodiment, and the value of presence, Christians have the resources to make some small but notable difference in this cyborg culture. Resistance is not futile.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
E-note 12/10: Advent Traditions
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
One of the traditions we keep in our home each year is a careful marking of the days before Christmas. With a scrupulousness that waxes and wanes we try to live the days of Advent with punctures of heavenly light. Sometimes it is the felt Jesse Tree that Jen made ten years ago that guides us to the star over Bethlehem. Each day a felt square is turned after a scripture reading. Each turned square reveals an icon of great significance in the unfolding drama of Christ's redemption. Each day something hidden is revealed. Other years we have marked these days with a simple table-top Advent wreath made with mismatched candles. Sometimes even tea candles will do. A candle is lit each night to prophesy the coming light of the Savior.
But this year all our own traditional devices were preempted in mid-November when a friend's gift from Germany arrived. John and Barb Findley, old friends from Wisconsin (who have lived in Germany and now live in Florida) sent us a "house of sweets" to mark the days of Advent. Every day you are to pull out a little box from the larger house. Each box is numbered with a day of the month and each box is filled with a German cookie of some sort. We have found that German cookies are an acquired taste no matter how much chocolate they have been bathed in. But even so, when you mix the longing to see what is hidden with the sweetness of chocolate it is very difficult for a child to forget about "tonight's box!" Mom and dad, of course, intensify the longing by requiring a reading and prayer before each box is opened.
So I am thankful this year for 25 little boxes of Christmas cookies from Germany. I am thankful because they do what our Advent tradition always aims to do: they mock the idols of efficiency and consumerism that do not slumber in our hearts at Christmas time. I am also thankful for the new thing the cookies from Germany do for our family tradition: they sweeten it, literally. The expectation of something sweet has aided our remembering daily worship this year in ways that readings alone have not. Sweetening our family worship time with chocolate and sugar is not an idea that a bibliophile like me would come to naturally. I tend to be suspicious of gimmicks and tricks and treats encroaching on worship. But because I, in every way, am a flawed son of Adam, I am flawed even in my suspicions. In fact, it is easy for me to become suspicious of childhood itself, a darkness that if left untended can keep me from entering the Kingdom of God (see Mark 10:15). So thanks be to God for gifts not wanted nor expected. Which reminds me, get a child you love Eugene Peterson's book, The Christmas Troll. It sweetens the message of Christmas for children in surprising and satisfying ways. Grace and peace, John
One of the traditions we keep in our home each year is a careful marking of the days before Christmas. With a scrupulousness that waxes and wanes we try to live the days of Advent with punctures of heavenly light. Sometimes it is the felt Jesse Tree that Jen made ten years ago that guides us to the star over Bethlehem. Each day a felt square is turned after a scripture reading. Each turned square reveals an icon of great significance in the unfolding drama of Christ's redemption. Each day something hidden is revealed. Other years we have marked these days with a simple table-top Advent wreath made with mismatched candles. Sometimes even tea candles will do. A candle is lit each night to prophesy the coming light of the Savior.
But this year all our own traditional devices were preempted in mid-November when a friend's gift from Germany arrived. John and Barb Findley, old friends from Wisconsin (who have lived in Germany and now live in Florida) sent us a "house of sweets" to mark the days of Advent. Every day you are to pull out a little box from the larger house. Each box is numbered with a day of the month and each box is filled with a German cookie of some sort. We have found that German cookies are an acquired taste no matter how much chocolate they have been bathed in. But even so, when you mix the longing to see what is hidden with the sweetness of chocolate it is very difficult for a child to forget about "tonight's box!" Mom and dad, of course, intensify the longing by requiring a reading and prayer before each box is opened.
So I am thankful this year for 25 little boxes of Christmas cookies from Germany. I am thankful because they do what our Advent tradition always aims to do: they mock the idols of efficiency and consumerism that do not slumber in our hearts at Christmas time. I am also thankful for the new thing the cookies from Germany do for our family tradition: they sweeten it, literally. The expectation of something sweet has aided our remembering daily worship this year in ways that readings alone have not. Sweetening our family worship time with chocolate and sugar is not an idea that a bibliophile like me would come to naturally. I tend to be suspicious of gimmicks and tricks and treats encroaching on worship. But because I, in every way, am a flawed son of Adam, I am flawed even in my suspicions. In fact, it is easy for me to become suspicious of childhood itself, a darkness that if left untended can keep me from entering the Kingdom of God (see Mark 10:15). So thanks be to God for gifts not wanted nor expected. Which reminds me, get a child you love Eugene Peterson's book, The Christmas Troll. It sweetens the message of Christmas for children in surprising and satisfying ways. Grace and peace, John
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
What do you think?
Timothy of Florida
by Anthony Esolen
Well, I was sorry last night to learn that Tim Tebow, unquestionably the most beloved young man in the state of Florida, will not be leading his Gators to a third national championship game. I am breaking with long family tradition in feeling sorry; we are Penn State fans, and adhere to a certain hierarchy of hate, according to which Florida has long been pretty low down on the list -- or near the top, depending on how you want to look at it.
Nevertheless, I am fascinated by the Tim Tebow phenomenon. It is true that he is a talented quarterback, and anybody who brings two national championships home is going to be treated like a prince. But sports allegiances do not come within a hundred miles of explaining why people love him so much. No doubt there are visitors to this site who can fill in the details, but from what I gather (and sports reporters these days are notoriously unwilling to write about such things, as any number of people like Kurt Warner and Albert Pujols will testify), Tebow is the homeschooled son of Christian missionaries. He won't ever be President of the United States, because he was born in the Philippines, where his father still works, and where he himself has gone many times to assist as a missionary. His mother apparently was advised by Filipino doctors to abort him, because the placenta had gotten detached; they told her that the child would certainly die, and that her own life would be in grave danger. I am not sure of the specifics of the medical situation. Suffice it to say that she turned the doctors down and put her life, and her baby's life, in the hands of God. Timothy Tebow was born, rather long of limb and skinny, but healthy. His body shows no signs of ever having been undernourished: he is six feet five inches, upwards of 250 pounds.
It seems that Tim Tebow heard the call of the missionary early on in life; also heard the call to play football. The two callings were united in his childhood hero, Florida quarterback Danny Wuerffel, who went on to play a while in the NFL, and then who established something called Desire Street Ministries, for the destitute (and the often criminal) in New Orleans. Wuerffel, not coincidentally, is a devout Christian. Tebow possesses that drive to excel that characterizes all great athletes, but what distinguishes him is a strange hunger to love others; as if he could not get enough of making people happy. He leads his teammates, or as many of them as are willing to go, on a run roundabout the stadium before a home game, to greet people, shake their hands, wish God's blessings upon them, or just thank them for being there. Men slap him on the back, boys shout, girls cry, "We love you, Timmy!" -- and for all of that, there seems not to be the trace of arrogance in him; he is a big kid, in love with God, and therefore in love with life and people. The fans apparently have taken to imitating his eyeblack: he always wears a patch under his eyes, with a different scripture verse noted upon it each game (Hebrews 12:12 against arch-rival Florida State). There's a great picture of him in what looks like a leather imitation of ancient armor -- he's got a beaming smile, because he's Goliath in a little church production, and a six-year-old boy is about to bring him down.
He says that his four priorities are God, family, academics, and football, in that order. And because they are in that order, while he may not be the greatest football player graduating from college this year, he has certainly touched more lives than any other player has, by far; and not only touched the lives, but brought perhaps something infinitely more valuable than a national championship in football. He has -- I don't think this is an exaggeration -- been the means whereby they have been reminded of the holy; he has therefore brought them hope.
Now this is exactly what the secular world cannot do. It can, with some considerable inefficiency, bring people food and medicine. It can run families into the ground and destroy communities, replacing them with the wraiths called mass education and mass entertainment. It is very good at that. It cannot bring hope; in fact it is almost the definition of secularism, that there is no hope to bring, other than a modest amelioration in one's physical conditions, before death. It does not plunge into the worst of all slums, the dilapidated heart of a man or woman steeped in evil, to say, "You are of incomparable worth; I love you; we are brothers, because we have one Father." That is what Danny Wuerffel does. It is what Tim Tebow will likely go on to do. And note the power of one good young Christian -- who is the light whereby a stadium filled with strangers becomes, for a few fleeting moments, a society.
Why should it not be so? "I praise you, Father in heaven, and give you glory," said Jesus, "for you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned of the world, and have revealed them unto babes." God reveals Himself to the innocent and the humble, not because He is playing a kind of ironical trick upon the learned -- as I used to think. It is because God by His very nature is, though glorious, also innocent and humble. Abraham Joshua Heschel, in Man Is Not Alone, makes the point again and again. The deities of the Greeks were passionate about their status on Olympus, and which nymph to ravish. The Lord is passionate about widows and orphans. The Lord appears to Moses in a thorn bush -- as if to say, "I am in the smallest things." So he appears to Elijah, in the still small voice. That is the Lord's glory. He is everywhere to be found, says Heschel, except in arrogance. Mainly he is to be found in love, for ubi amor est, ibi est oculus, says the mystic Richard of Saint Victor. Mr. Tebow may or may not read such things; it hardly matters. He knows Jesus.
One last point. Thomas Merton wrote once that the history of the world is led by great saints and great sinners. Let all the young people glancing at this post take heed. I am not young anymore, and it has taken me many years just to acquire sufficient wisdom to appreciate, as from afar, the goodness and the saintly courage of that young quarterback. Imagine, just imagine, if there were a hundred such, or a thousand. Imagine young men and women, with the beauty and the ardor of Christian faith, touching a college, a school, a street, a home. Merton recalled World War II and wondered whether -- and he wasn't being arrogant; his point was that all Christians should have wondered the same thing -- it might have been averted if only he [Merton] had been holier. You Christians who are young, never understimate the power of the goodness that Jesus has planted in you, to bring hope to souls in despair, and light into a dark and silly world.
by Anthony Esolen
Well, I was sorry last night to learn that Tim Tebow, unquestionably the most beloved young man in the state of Florida, will not be leading his Gators to a third national championship game. I am breaking with long family tradition in feeling sorry; we are Penn State fans, and adhere to a certain hierarchy of hate, according to which Florida has long been pretty low down on the list -- or near the top, depending on how you want to look at it.
Nevertheless, I am fascinated by the Tim Tebow phenomenon. It is true that he is a talented quarterback, and anybody who brings two national championships home is going to be treated like a prince. But sports allegiances do not come within a hundred miles of explaining why people love him so much. No doubt there are visitors to this site who can fill in the details, but from what I gather (and sports reporters these days are notoriously unwilling to write about such things, as any number of people like Kurt Warner and Albert Pujols will testify), Tebow is the homeschooled son of Christian missionaries. He won't ever be President of the United States, because he was born in the Philippines, where his father still works, and where he himself has gone many times to assist as a missionary. His mother apparently was advised by Filipino doctors to abort him, because the placenta had gotten detached; they told her that the child would certainly die, and that her own life would be in grave danger. I am not sure of the specifics of the medical situation. Suffice it to say that she turned the doctors down and put her life, and her baby's life, in the hands of God. Timothy Tebow was born, rather long of limb and skinny, but healthy. His body shows no signs of ever having been undernourished: he is six feet five inches, upwards of 250 pounds.
It seems that Tim Tebow heard the call of the missionary early on in life; also heard the call to play football. The two callings were united in his childhood hero, Florida quarterback Danny Wuerffel, who went on to play a while in the NFL, and then who established something called Desire Street Ministries, for the destitute (and the often criminal) in New Orleans. Wuerffel, not coincidentally, is a devout Christian. Tebow possesses that drive to excel that characterizes all great athletes, but what distinguishes him is a strange hunger to love others; as if he could not get enough of making people happy. He leads his teammates, or as many of them as are willing to go, on a run roundabout the stadium before a home game, to greet people, shake their hands, wish God's blessings upon them, or just thank them for being there. Men slap him on the back, boys shout, girls cry, "We love you, Timmy!" -- and for all of that, there seems not to be the trace of arrogance in him; he is a big kid, in love with God, and therefore in love with life and people. The fans apparently have taken to imitating his eyeblack: he always wears a patch under his eyes, with a different scripture verse noted upon it each game (Hebrews 12:12 against arch-rival Florida State). There's a great picture of him in what looks like a leather imitation of ancient armor -- he's got a beaming smile, because he's Goliath in a little church production, and a six-year-old boy is about to bring him down.
He says that his four priorities are God, family, academics, and football, in that order. And because they are in that order, while he may not be the greatest football player graduating from college this year, he has certainly touched more lives than any other player has, by far; and not only touched the lives, but brought perhaps something infinitely more valuable than a national championship in football. He has -- I don't think this is an exaggeration -- been the means whereby they have been reminded of the holy; he has therefore brought them hope.
Now this is exactly what the secular world cannot do. It can, with some considerable inefficiency, bring people food and medicine. It can run families into the ground and destroy communities, replacing them with the wraiths called mass education and mass entertainment. It is very good at that. It cannot bring hope; in fact it is almost the definition of secularism, that there is no hope to bring, other than a modest amelioration in one's physical conditions, before death. It does not plunge into the worst of all slums, the dilapidated heart of a man or woman steeped in evil, to say, "You are of incomparable worth; I love you; we are brothers, because we have one Father." That is what Danny Wuerffel does. It is what Tim Tebow will likely go on to do. And note the power of one good young Christian -- who is the light whereby a stadium filled with strangers becomes, for a few fleeting moments, a society.
Why should it not be so? "I praise you, Father in heaven, and give you glory," said Jesus, "for you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned of the world, and have revealed them unto babes." God reveals Himself to the innocent and the humble, not because He is playing a kind of ironical trick upon the learned -- as I used to think. It is because God by His very nature is, though glorious, also innocent and humble. Abraham Joshua Heschel, in Man Is Not Alone, makes the point again and again. The deities of the Greeks were passionate about their status on Olympus, and which nymph to ravish. The Lord is passionate about widows and orphans. The Lord appears to Moses in a thorn bush -- as if to say, "I am in the smallest things." So he appears to Elijah, in the still small voice. That is the Lord's glory. He is everywhere to be found, says Heschel, except in arrogance. Mainly he is to be found in love, for ubi amor est, ibi est oculus, says the mystic Richard of Saint Victor. Mr. Tebow may or may not read such things; it hardly matters. He knows Jesus.
One last point. Thomas Merton wrote once that the history of the world is led by great saints and great sinners. Let all the young people glancing at this post take heed. I am not young anymore, and it has taken me many years just to acquire sufficient wisdom to appreciate, as from afar, the goodness and the saintly courage of that young quarterback. Imagine, just imagine, if there were a hundred such, or a thousand. Imagine young men and women, with the beauty and the ardor of Christian faith, touching a college, a school, a street, a home. Merton recalled World War II and wondered whether -- and he wasn't being arrogant; his point was that all Christians should have wondered the same thing -- it might have been averted if only he [Merton] had been holier. You Christians who are young, never understimate the power of the goodness that Jesus has planted in you, to bring hope to souls in despair, and light into a dark and silly world.
Friday, December 4, 2009
E-note 12/4: Forgiveness
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
In my reading this week I came across this gem of wisdom from Norwegian pastor and Lutheran brother, O. Hallesby (now deceased). His comments spring from Galatians 3:3, the apostle Paul's timeless question for all who profess faith in Christ: After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? (Galatians 3:3). Here is O. Hallesby:
We all need this question. There are many Christians who began promisingly, but who have little by little sunk down into a weak, soft, cowardly, and bungling life, with the result that their Christianity is only a shadow, yes, a caricature of what it at one time was. Permit me to mention one of the most important causes of this degeneration of the Christian life. We sin in our daily affairs. It may be that we have a violent temper or that we are peevish, untruthful, or frivolous. Father, mother, spouse, brothers and sisters, children or servants see it. Here is where many Christians have lost their boldness, both before God and people. They do not give up Christianity. That they cannot do. But they become defeated warriors. Unhappy and unmanly or unwomanly. With the pressure of a bad conscience to contend with continually. The wounds of the soul will not heal. True, they confess their sins to God and try to comfort their restless soul with the grace of God. But peace and joy will not return.
The simple and absolutely unfailing remedy for this cancer of the Christian life is this: Pray for forgiveness! I mean ask the people for forgiveness who have witnessed your failures. Tell them that you did not act like a Christian. Tell them how it hurts you. And you will experience the releasing effect of such confession. The fact that it is exceedingly hard for all of us to ask for forgiveness shows how sin has ravaged our lives. We instinctively seem to think that we lose something essential if we ask for forgiveness. Pray God for courage to do this, and you will see how you will succeed in your whole Christian life.
So ends O. Hallesby's wisdom. So begins my self-preserving resistance to the work of the Spirit. I am amazed by how quickly and easily my mind slips into a state of protracted deliberation after reading Hallesby's counsel. I get tangled in questions of propriety: should I ask for forgiveness for that particular thought, for that particular unnoticed negligence, for that arguably justifiable anger, for that obviously small sarcasm or boorishness? But all such hedging is conceit. All such hedging testifies to my looking away from the cross of Calvary where I was crucified with Christ. All such hedging and hiding exposes me as a man who seeks to establish his righteousness by some other way than the way of Christ crucified. To be led by the Spirit is to be lead to the cross, where my right-ness has been gifted to me by Jesus himself. To be led by the Spirit is to be led into relationships where I don't have to establish my right-ness by hiding and hedging my failures. Right-ness is a gift from Christ crucified.
O Lord, save us from the decay of soul and body, the decay of heart and home, the decay of family and friends, that comes from striving to establish our right-ness before one another. We can not do without one another's forgiveness because we can not do without yours. Thank you loving Lord for giving it so abundantly. Amen.
O Lord, save us from the decay of soul and body, the decay of heart and home, the decay of family and friends, that comes from striving to establish our right-ness before one another. We can not do without one another's forgiveness because we can not do without yours. Thank you loving Lord for giving it so abundantly. Amen.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
What do you think?
MANHATTAN DECLARATION
A Summary
Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.
We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are (1) the sanctity of human life, (2) the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and (3) the rights of conscience and religious liberty. Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Human Life
The lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are ever more threatened. While public opinion has moved in a pro-life direction, powerful and determined forces are working to expand abortion, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Although the protection of the weak and vulnerable is the first obligation of government, the power of government is today often enlisted in the cause of promoting what Pope John Paul II called “the culture of death.” We pledge to work unceasingly for the equal protection of every innocent human being at every stage of development and in every condition. We will refuse to permit ourselves or our institutions to be implicated in the taking of human life and we will support in every possible way those who, in conscience, take the same stand.
Marriage
The institution of marriage, already wounded by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is at risk of being redefined and thus subverted. Marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all. Where marriage erodes, social pathologies rise. The impulse to redefine marriage is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil law as well as our religious traditions. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. Marriage is not a “social construction,” but is rather an objective reality—the covenantal union of husband and wife—that it is the duty of the law to recognize, honor, and protect.
Religious Liberty
Freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized. The threat to these fundamental principles of justice is evident in efforts to weaken or eliminate conscience protections for healthcare institutions and professionals, and in antidiscrimination statutes that are used as weapons to force religious institutions, charities, businesses, and service providers either to accept (and even facilitate) activities and relationships they judge to be immoral, or go out of business. Attacks on religious liberty are dire threats not only to individuals, but also to the institutions of civil society including families, charities, and religious communities. The health and well-being of such institutions provide an indispensable buffer against the overweening power of government and is essential to the flourishing of every other institution—including government itself—on which society depends.
Unjust Laws
As Christians, we believe in law and we respect the authority of earthly rulers. We count it as a special privilege to live in a democratic society where the moral claims of the law on us are even stronger in virtue of the rights of all citizens to participate in the political process. Yet even in a democratic regime, laws can be unjust. And from the beginning, our faith has taught that civil disobedience is required in the face of gravely unjust laws or laws that purport to require us to do what is unjust or otherwise immoral. Such laws lack the power to bind in conscience because they can claim no authority beyond that of sheer human will.
Therefore, let it be known that we will not comply with any edict that compels us or the institutions we lead to participate in or facilitate abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or any other act that violates the principle of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family.
Further, let it be known that we will not bend to any rule forcing us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality, marriage, and the family.
Further, let it be known that we will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves.
We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.
A Summary
Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.
We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are (1) the sanctity of human life, (2) the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, and (3) the rights of conscience and religious liberty. Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Human Life
The lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are ever more threatened. While public opinion has moved in a pro-life direction, powerful and determined forces are working to expand abortion, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Although the protection of the weak and vulnerable is the first obligation of government, the power of government is today often enlisted in the cause of promoting what Pope John Paul II called “the culture of death.” We pledge to work unceasingly for the equal protection of every innocent human being at every stage of development and in every condition. We will refuse to permit ourselves or our institutions to be implicated in the taking of human life and we will support in every possible way those who, in conscience, take the same stand.
Marriage
The institution of marriage, already wounded by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is at risk of being redefined and thus subverted. Marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all. Where marriage erodes, social pathologies rise. The impulse to redefine marriage is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil law as well as our religious traditions. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. Marriage is not a “social construction,” but is rather an objective reality—the covenantal union of husband and wife—that it is the duty of the law to recognize, honor, and protect.
Religious Liberty
Freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized. The threat to these fundamental principles of justice is evident in efforts to weaken or eliminate conscience protections for healthcare institutions and professionals, and in antidiscrimination statutes that are used as weapons to force religious institutions, charities, businesses, and service providers either to accept (and even facilitate) activities and relationships they judge to be immoral, or go out of business. Attacks on religious liberty are dire threats not only to individuals, but also to the institutions of civil society including families, charities, and religious communities. The health and well-being of such institutions provide an indispensable buffer against the overweening power of government and is essential to the flourishing of every other institution—including government itself—on which society depends.
Unjust Laws
As Christians, we believe in law and we respect the authority of earthly rulers. We count it as a special privilege to live in a democratic society where the moral claims of the law on us are even stronger in virtue of the rights of all citizens to participate in the political process. Yet even in a democratic regime, laws can be unjust. And from the beginning, our faith has taught that civil disobedience is required in the face of gravely unjust laws or laws that purport to require us to do what is unjust or otherwise immoral. Such laws lack the power to bind in conscience because they can claim no authority beyond that of sheer human will.
Therefore, let it be known that we will not comply with any edict that compels us or the institutions we lead to participate in or facilitate abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide, euthanasia, or any other act that violates the principle of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family.
Further, let it be known that we will not bend to any rule forcing us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality, marriage, and the family.
Further, let it be known that we will not be intimidated into silence or acquiescence or the violation of our consciences by any power on earth, be it cultural or political, regardless of the consequences to ourselves.
We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.
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