The Father Who Went to Jail
October 30th, 2008 § 4 Comments
Sermon audio (10-26-08): Aggression Against Christ In You
Last week, I received an email with a video claiming that a Massachusetts man went to jail for protesting pro-gay material that his son was given in public kindergarten. The video was produced by the Family Research Council (FRC), and was sent up and down California by the American Family Association (AFA). It interested me because of the defiant beggar we are studying at our church these days (audio above).
Let’s score it.
First, I’ll make a distinction. I am discussing the way this story is told by the video’s producers, the FRC. The Parkers, the couple featured in the video, will have said many things in the process of making it, only a few of which the producers kept in the presentation. So I am focused on the decisions made by the producers, and by those who distributed the video.
Start with the email that went out from the AFA. The subject line was, “A father goes to jail to protect his son.” That was written to be scary. The implicit claim is that if one father is arrested then others will be too. The explicit claim is that the father was arrested was “to protect his son.” If those claims are true, then the subject line is scary for a good reason. If not …
Move to the video’s music. The sad and scary sound of the introductory music sets an ominous atmosphere for the story. It’s a not very subtle technique that lowers the video’s tone to that of a tabloid piece or a negative political ad.
The narration of the story is calm. For the beginning, the producers seem to have made the sensible decision to let the facts of what the Parkers’ son encountered speak for themselves. He was given a book making a positive portrayal of a homosexual household. The producers show the Parkers expressing shock that they were not informed about this book in advance, but their point of view comes across without melodrama.
So far, while I am bothered by the tabloid gimmick telling me what to feel, the video lays out its case in a defensible way. It asserts that if same-sex marriage is legal then teaching about it will come in public schools, regardless of parents’ views. This is a reasonable assertion, and the tone and content of the video up to this point are consistent with it.
But the story abruptly lurches toward a shocker ending, as the subject line of the email and the tabloid gimmick announced it would do. Mr. Parker demanded an assurance from a school administrator that he would be notified before any more teaching about homosexuality, adding that until he received such an assurance he would not leave the school.
The producers show Mr. Parker saying that he was arrested, and they juxtapose comments from Mr. and Mrs. Parker making the clear assertion that he was arrested for demanding his parental rights. The producers show Mr. Parker describing the small filthy cell, and they show him breaking down. Then they switch to a voice-over of Mr. Parker giving a call to arms.
The video, in other words, tips from a reasonable assertion to a shocking one, an assertion that totalitarians run Massachusetts. If indeed a school administrator had Mr. Parker arrested for demanding parental rights — for using his rights to free speech – then we have a clear case of tyranny.
So what about that claim?
Here is the Boston Globe story on the incident. “David Parker was arrested for trespassing … when he refused to leave the building until school officials promised to give him prior notification of their use of books that include homosexual characters.” Arrested for trespassing.
Contrast the story on WorldNetDaily. “The dispute grabbed headlines when Parker, on April 27, 2005, was arrested and thrown in jail by school officials over his insistence on being notified regarding his son in kindergarten being taught about homosexual relationships by adults.” Thrown in jail because of the gay agenda.
You’re the administrator. The guy in your office escalates a disagreement by saying that he will not leave the facility until you give him what he demands. At this moment, what’s the issue? And what’s your decision? In an era of random school violence that has been the subject of planning and training at all levels for at least a decade, your decision is open-and-shut. He does not have the right to make that threat.
The score is: Boston Globe – 1, FRC/AFA/WND – 0. Whatever value the video might’ve had in warning Californians about the probable consequences of the failure of Prop 8 is undermined by the producers’ fatal overreach. This was not a case of state aggression, but of civil disobedience. If you are a victim of state aggression, you get thrown in jail against your will. If you protest through civil disobedience, you have announced that going to jail is your intention.
Mr. Parker may make this clear when he speaks without producers editing his statements. (He comes close to doing so at one point in the video itself.) What dismays me about this video is the willingness of the producers and the activists to exploit such an incident for no other purpose than fear-mongering.
When did Christian leaders decide that propaganda was okay?
“Bach Plays Loud” by Christopher Raley
October 22nd, 2008 § Leave a Comment
Bach plays loud above a-rhythmic freeway groans
and jerk and gun shifts of shiny metal hulls,
coffee in paper cups, sleep edged with thought,
bodies within bodies, slaves of slaves.
Pop-rock plays sedation when florescents buzz
and black phones swarm like angry bees
spinning aggression from hive instinct.
The office man yawns, the office girl grins
and pop rock plays a love song
none contend yet all believe.
But Bach plays loud a second world
once heard never again possible to ignore.
When a soul through a medium a hundred years old
breathes a pitch that vibrates the spheres
and builds the release of up looking down,
I see aggression like cars-silent objects moving-
and in the void I find that world
still marked and living.
Pop-rock chastises imagination
and straps with silk, black bands
the erotic pulse to the image bed-
get me home, get me laid,
get me money, I’ll be ok.
Pop-rock sings a sex dirge where
the stifled cubicle births a bored frustration.
But Bach plays loud above a-rhythmic freeway groans
and jerk and gun shifts of shiny metal hulls.
We close our eyes, we frantic speed.
We sensual blind, we dream of dead stopping.
Coffee back in paper cup, thought edged with sleep,
body within body, slave of slave,
I am ready to cut these weights
and fly.
Solzhenitsyn on Our Consumer Society
October 16th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
Sermon audio (10-12-08): Your Experience Matches Jesus
I believe there are two problems in American spirituality today.
First, each person now has permission to be selfish. Our society encourages people to think, “Nothing is significant unless it matters to me.” This selfishness has shrunk relationships, ethics, and even the worship of God to matters of convenience and preference, rather than leaving them as matters of right and wrong.
Second, our culture of conformity has suffocated individuality. A person seems to have no place in our society unless he lines himself up with a demographic profile. We are forced as never before to think in terms of self-presentation, whether on our Facebook page, in our professional attire, or in our speech patterns. How I appear is who I am — no eccentricity allowed. This has meant the decline of personal uniqueness, a measure of how much we value the image of God.
The two problems are paradoxical. How can we see the growth of selfishness and the death of individuality at the same time?
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian writer, was the greatest spokesman for individualism in the 20th century. He survived a term in the Soviet Gulag, writing the experiences of his fellow inmates on scraps of paper that he buried in bottles for later retrieval. In 1974, he was exiled from the Soviet Union and he moved to America. He gave a speech at Harvard on June 8, 1978 in which he described Western culture in America from an outsider’s point of view.
He sketched the selfishness of the consumer society. “The majority of people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about. It has become possible to raise young people according to these ideals, leaving them to physical splendor, happiness, possession of material goods, money, and leisure, to an almost unlimited freedom of enjoyment.”
Yet Solzhenitsyn found the happiness of the selfish consumer shallow and even degrading. He spoke of the cold war against communism: “The forces of Evil have begun their offensive; you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?”
American society, though it was wealthy, was not the model Solzhenitsyn prescribed for his own people. “After the suffering of many years of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits, introduced by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor, and by intolerable music.”
There was a difference between the experiences of East and West. In contrast to the conformity produced by Western ease, the East, under the continual burden of oppression and death, produced deep individuality. “Life’s complexity and mortal weight,” he said, “have produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting characters than those generally [produced] by standardized Western well-being.”
He saw conformity in all areas of American life, even in the most prestigious places in academia, like Harvard. “Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. There is no open violence such as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to match mass standards frequently prevent independent-minded people giving their contribution to public life.”
So how did Solzhenitsyn account for this paradox, the simultaneous growth of selfishness and death of individuality?
He said that the “prevailing Western view of the world” is “humanistic autonomy: the proclaimed and enforced autonomy of man from any higher force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of everything that exists.”
The reason human beings become selfish and conformist is because they refuse to serve God.
Individuality in Christ, such as we are studying in John 9 with the example of the man born blind, allows a person’s uniqueness to flower without allowing his selfishness to inflate. As we saw on Sunday (audio at the top), the man’s sufferings after his healing began to match the sufferings of his Healer. In that fellowship of “life’s complexity and mortal weight” with Jesus, the beggar showed a deep dissent from the authority of the world, and a deep submission to the authority of Jesus at the same time.
If we want to solve today’s two spiritual problems, we have to strike at their common root, as Solzhenitsyn did thirty years ago in his speech that defied the groupthink at Harvard. We have to subvert the perspective that refuses to rise above the human.
“Jazz Is the Jagged Edge” by Christopher Raley
October 15th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
Jazz is the jagged edge,
so give me the beautiful cloth,
not for edges or beauties
but for threads making patterns
whose colors interplay to the cut-off sharp.
Building sweetly is rarely heard,
so give me dissonance that punctures
the dream ahead we make when behind is blind.
Hardly ever we see fully into either,
and beauty is not completely born
yet of frailty something beautiful.
Arguers are never solved,
so give me agreers who disagree,
revelers and punchy diggers
who regard the soft under-belly of pose
as a mother regards her child’s will.
They gently abuse their armor to shreds
and fall tender at the tough tissue of heart.
Few things consist,
so let the contradictions praise the consistent.
The blind man cannot see,
so let him tell of colors hidden in night.
The deaf man cannot hear,
so let him describe the timbre’s subtle change of pain.
The mute man cannot speak,
so let him sign what we do not say.
The dead man cannot live
so let his dry bones moisten
at the rain brought him by the wind.
Jazz is the jagged edge,
so give me the beautiful cloth
because the cloth is whole.
The eyes below do not see as the Head above.
So when the Head is stated,
I never fear the abstractions.
I already know the truth.
What’s Missing From the Needy Self
October 9th, 2008 § 1 Comment
Sermon audio (October 5, 2008): Jesus Invades Your Experience
The other day, I was riding with our old Dutch dairyman Pete in his massive red truck. Over the grinding of the diesel engine, we talked about today’s young men, and Pete observed that they seem to take years to figure out who they are, and what they should be doing with their lives. “I see it over and over, even in good families. There’s something missing in these guys.”
His comment made me think of my three-year-old son Malcolm, a tough, thick-set package of nuclear energy. He knows what he wants and he lunges for it. He had wanted, for instance, a ride in Pete’s red truck, thinking it was a fire engine, and he cried angry tears on my porch when we left. I wondered why our society dissipates boys’ drive and potency, and what I need to do to ensure that Malcolm keeps a healthy sense of self and grows up strong.
The woes of boys are getting increasing comment these days, but the problem of the formless, unmotivated, needy self is everywhere. Many people seem to lack solid identities, to be unable to form healthy relationships, seem to drift from one thing to the next like so much channel-surfing through life.
In this context, a pastor’s temptation is moralism. Every month or so, after surveying someone’s personal wreckage, I think, “I really need to do a series on time management,” or, “I’ve got to preach on financial priorities.” I wonder whether I give enough “practical application,” telling people what’s what.
If moralism is a temptation as a pastor, it is doubly so as a father. It is enticing to think that I can build up my son’s identity through his submission to my authority.
Moralistic preaching and parenting tries to rebuild crumbling boundaries using precepts. Thou shalt and Thou shalt not. If you allow entertainment to suck your time, then of course there won’t be enough hours in the day for your responsibilities. Thou shalt turn off the T.V. If you blow your money on toys, restaurant food, and mortgage-backed securities, then of course you won’t have a financial chair when the music stops. Thou shalt not go into debt.
But moralism has been the downfall of contemporary Christianity. The precepts of godly wisdom nurture life in those who already have life; but among the legions who do not, the Get a clue! method of preaching doesn’t edify. The “practical applications” of moralism merely compound people’s guilt.
Moralism has been the downfall of Christianity because it is not the gospel.
For the needy contemporary self, the only hope is God-focused individuality, the unique expression of God’s glory in a reborn personality. As we are seeing in our series on the man born blind in John 9, Jesus himself has to invade a person’s life, not merely to reset what a person does, but who a person is.
Consider an observation: Human beings cannot define themselves, but are only defined in relationship.
There are two common myths about the self. One is that you can be true to some wisdom or potential inside your personality, wisdom defined by you alone — the Oprah storyline. The other is that you can improve yourself, work hard, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps — the moralistic storyline. The two myths are equivalent in the sense that they both portray individuals having potential on their own.
Malcolm is growing up in a society that preaches these myths, and that requires him to invent himself according to one or the other, and sometimes both.
The reality is, Malcolm doesn’t have any sense of self autonomously. His definition of who he is comes from his relationships — and it always will. He learns about himself through the process of relating to me, to his mom, to his grandparents, to other adults in the community like Pete. His self-awareness as an adult will grow in the context of interaction. He defines himself in relationship.
If I surrender to the temptation of moralism, then I will raise Malcolm using precepts. I will portray Jesus as the person with high standards, who is forgiving of Malcolm’s faults, but who is all too frequently “disappointed.” Malcolm’s relationship to this Jesus will teach him a sense of self that is sickened by failure.
This is not the Jesus of John 9, who heals the blind.
Jesus is Malcolm’s creator, and designed Malcolm to display the works of God. All of Malcolm’s traits have the potential to make God’s glory visible. Because Malcolm has this potential, Jesus is invading his experiences. Jesus is not waiting for an invitation. Having paid for sin, and bringing new life with him, Jesus is able to slather Malcolm’s eyes with mud and give him spiritual sight. As Malcolm is defined more and more by his interactions with Jesus, even Malcolm’s limitations and faults will become visible marks of divine love.
The gospel calls for a new individuality in Christ, a uniqueness forged by loving relationship. The gospel resets who people are. I don’t know if the passive, disappointed Jesus who is just waiting for people to be interested in him is the sole cause of today’s unformed, unmotivated, needy self. There may be more causes than Christian moralism.
But I do know that what’s missing from people today is Jesus himself.
“Black-Out” by Christopher Raley
October 8th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
And then there was no light.
I fingered worn wood drawers-
their racket open a cringe in ear,
fumbled contents an echo in kitchen-
for a dim protector of sight:
flashlight like modernity’s heirloom.
I stepped out to night of little distinction,
color a nuance, shape a shade.
A point of orange raging then still
shows Ron smoking and his garage, I guess, open.
An inclination of dark against luminescent stucco
must be Madeline’s hair sliding over the baby.
Sound steps in the grass. I jerk to my right.
Moving in pixilated dim, a faint white smear.
You out too? You out too?
I believe we’re neighbors by commonality’s cold comfort.
The white smear leaves.
I’m alone on a dead road.
Back inside children clutch their toys
and wide-eyed guide the beam.
Midwives of the elemental,
they search wavering corners
for ghosts I’ve grown used.
The Opposite of the iPod
October 2nd, 2008 § Leave a Comment
Audio (September 28, 2008): Limitations You Would Never Choose
I love the visual energy of the iPod ads that feature young Dionysians wired for sound and abandoned to their music. 
But I don’t love the spiritual energy. The ads express the dominant American religion of Self. I need to throw off restraints. Inside of me is a unique vitality that I should unleash, and if I can live in my own sonic space (courtesy of Apple) my ecstatic power will burst out.
The individuality in Christ that we are studying in John 9 is the opposite of iPod religion.
When Jesus passes a beggar born blind, the disciples ask him why the beggar is so disabled, so limited. Who sinned, the man or his parents, to bring such a doom upon him?
A pretty revealing question. The disciples assume that the beggar’s suffering was caused by unrighteousness, an assumption for which they offer no evidence because they regard the blindness as evidence enough.
But they also seem to view the beggar’s limitations as destroying his potential. What might he have become if it weren’t for his or his parents’ sin? For the disciples, potential value is all about personal power. In relation to the beggar, they see themselves as righteous and free. They have their sight, their ability to move around unaided, their ability to work for a living. Their powers are what make them vital, valuable individuals.
To be sure, the disciples feel the beggar’s condition is tragic, but only from a speculative point of view.
Jesus does not see the beggar’s limitations the same way. He teaches the disciples that the man’s blindness was permitted so that “the works of God might be displayed in him.” The man’s potential, for Jesus, is not in capabilities. It’s in limitations. The man’s blindness and low status will offer a glimpse of God’s power that will be uniquely valuable to the world.
In saying this, Jesus does not minimize the severity of the beggar’s suffering. In fact, by healing the man’s blindness, Jesus rebukes the darkness of this world that creates pain and loss.
But Jesus does see limitations as divine opportunities.
Consider this: the limitations around the beggar do not disappear once he is healed. They just morph. The authenticity of the man’s experience is questioned by his neighbors, and he becomes a political target of the Pharisees. The man’s own parents, though they acknowledge him as their son, refuse to affirm his story out of selfish fear.
In releasing the man from one set of limitations, Jesus leaves him in another set. The man is even more alone now than when he was blind.
Yet it is the man’s solitude that displays God’s glory for a second time, in an even greater way than the healing. The beggar’s stubborn adherence to Jesus when no one else will support him speaks to us. “Whether [Jesus] is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” God uses a poor, illiterate man to rivet our attention and bolster our courage even after two thousand years. He uses the man’s limitations.
According to Jesus, the limitations on your life are full of potential for God’s glory. Your individuality in Christ is not just your advantages over other people, but is your whole person — especially your suffering.
The iPod religion of throwing off restraints, living in your inner world, and releasing your Self, is a heresy against life. Life is limited. Those who want to live do not dissipate their powers in fantasy.
Instead of the Dionysian madness of fake freedom, Jesus gives us the Christian madness of real joy.
“The Healing” By Christopher Raley
October 1st, 2008 § Leave a Comment
I start on a gurney’s white-starched sheets and lay
how he says and show what he asks and then
his finger through tissue and fat digs
to tension and hurt the pressure of healing.
I end to a world tilted off.
Every sitting now is how do I sit?
Every standing now is how do I stand?
But joints can neither find comfort nor return
where memory loses the force of habit.
I pray to pollutions like bottled little christs:
please dissolve to block the bent structures of body-
faith in alchemy through water and acid.
But pain is not the devil’s servant.
I swallow and yet it scrapes the vision of my proud pleasure.
Pain is the finger of rebuke. Pain is the grip of love.
I started on starched-white sheets
and waited for the healing to come.
The healing came and the pain did not go,
both.
I ended to a world tilted off,
not able anymore to accommodate its slouch.
I stand at a slant, my hip pinches me straight.
I sit at a slump, my leg pains me walk.
I walk head down passing the hidden
in cowering formation of chemical ignoring
while numbness spreads from the crimp in my spine.
His finger is pointing.
I raise my knowledge and pull straight my strength,
stabbed out of groveling
as if all these were merely flesh and bone.
