The Faithful Skeptic

I took a long hiatus from blogging - something like 2 years.  What you forget is how exciting it is to have someone actually reading your blog.  I think a bunch of my recent traffic (and by “bunch” I mean about 3 people) has come from the Methoblog.  The Methoblog is a cool project by Jay and Gavin - one of the things they’ve done is aggregated the feeds of the methodist-oriented blogs and displayed recent posts on a sidebar.  So that got me thinking - how far would I be willing to go to get traffic?  I bet some choice, inflammatory posts with catchy titles would do the trick…

So I came up with:

Given the recent discussions on authority of scripture…

“Synoptic Gospels = Mad Libs?” - Archeologists have discovered that the synoptic gospels were actually based on a early, Roman version of Mad Libs.  Unfortunately, it turns out that 2000 years of Christianity were based on some Centurion’s kid’s middle school joke.  Bummer.

and debate on evolution…

“Jesus a monkey’s uncle?” - Anthropologists, through some very remarkable fossil discoveries, strongly believe that at least one of Joseph and Mary’s other children actually devolved into a monkey.  This startling finding throws everything modern science knows about the theory of evolution into the air.  In a curious coincidence, the monkey’s name appeared to have been George.

and the LDS church…

“Mormon gold plates in Macy’s?” - The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints has long believed that the gold plates that Joseph Smith discovered (and later translated and published as the Book of Mormon) were returned to the Angel Moroni in the 1820s.  However, on Black Friday an astute shopper noticed a special at the Macy’s in Salt Lake City - a limited edition set of gold plates with some incomprehensible text.  Even after she discovered that her coupon for 20% off any one purchase only applied to a single men’s handkerchief she went ahead with the purchase and now owns a fantastic LDS artifact!  The spokesperson for the LDS church declined to comment on the story.

It’s tempting, but that would be wrong.

Last week there was a USA Today opinion piece floating around the internet from a Baptist minister talking about homosexuality.  He was suggesting that if science were to prove that homosexuality was not a choice, then Christians who oppose it might lose their moral credibility.  It was an interesting article and probably got the attention it did because it was a baptist minister that wrote it, as opposed to an episcopalian or a methodist.

But the fact is that science hasn’t “proven” that homosexuality isn’t a choice, at least to the satisfaction of social conservatives.  So at this point it is still a fairly theoretical discussion.  I have a couple of thoughts on the question of scientific proof.

We used to go to church with a fellow United Methodist that is a reproductive biologist.  From what I hear, he’s one of the top reproductive biologists in the country (and the world).  He’s a very smart guy who spends his time getting monkeys pregnant (and some other stuff too).  We were having an adult education class on homosexuality and the church.  He argued that from a scientific perspective, he’s very confident that homosexuality is biological in origin.  There is some fairly groundbreaking research (also from Oregon) about homosexuality in sheep that he feels makes a very good case for a genetic role in homosexuality.  But don’t be thinking that’s he some crazy liberal hippie - he’s a fairly middle-of-the-road type of guy.

The point he made is this: If we accept that homosexuality is not a choice, and the research to this point would seem to suggest that this is the case, the question then becomes whether this is a behavior that we as a church and a society wish to accept and/or promote.  There are a lot of other conditions/behaviors that have genetic and/or biological causes that we’ve decided are not in the interest of society and that we should try to correct. 

He also presented a more specific way of looking at the issue.  As a reproductive biologist, his research is dedicated to helping treat infertility and high-risk pregnancies.  So he wonders about the wisdom of supporting a behavior that limits human ability to reproduce.  If the biological imperative of species is to reproduce, should we support ANY behavior that limits reproductive possibility?

That then opens up all sorts of questions like environmental concerns, the Biblical imperative for reproduction, etc.  Ultimately his questions are just as troubling as the ones we have if we don’t accept homosexuality as being not a choice.  Now we start asking if we should try to “fix” gays and lesbians?  But if they truly are born that way, couldn’t that be seen as an expression of God’s love and acceptance of them?

While I think it is obvious that there are no easy answers, we also need to watch out for the false promise of easy answers.  Some sort of universally accepted scientific research isn’t going to solve the problem - it will just present a whole new set of troubling questions.

I’ll follow up with my other thought in a new post.

In my day job I’m a public administrator. I do a lot of different things, but generally that’s a good description. In the public sector we deal with a lot of intractable conflicts and our job as public administrators is to some extent to mediate those disputes, but also accomplish the mission of our organization.

Some of the most “wicked problems” (this is a term from the public administration scholarly literature - it means complicated problems that don’t have any easy answers) at the local level deal with questions of land use. For instance, where can Walmart build? Where should we house sex offenders? How do we adjust airport flight patterns? These tend to be extremely contentious issues and our public involvement processes usually frustrate citizens rather than making them feel like they participated in a meaningful way. Some of the most common criticisms of public processes is that they allow for only token participation and that most decisions are made or heavily influenced by technical experts.

Some people see the answer to these sorts of problems as a new model for civic engagement. The objective is to provide pathways for meaningful public involvement and utilizing technical experts in advisory roles. To some extent these methods are untested and we don’t really know if they work much better. The idea is that if people are actively involved, their voices are heard by decision-makers, and the decision process is transparent they’ll feel better about the outcome - even if they don’t get their way.

So how does this relate to the church? I wonder if similar models would or could apply to our church structures? In the Methodist church our bureaucratic structure is much like the government and decision making processes are very similar. The process is also heavily driven by technical experts, who in this case happen to be clergy. Could the answer be more lay involvement, better decision processes, and increased transparency?

Or are those things even the problem?

Personally, I tend to be fairly skeptical of this sort of model in the public sector. I think the trouble is that most of the issues hit people close to home, literally and figuratively. Even if they have an authentic opportunity to voice their opinion, they still care very deeply about the outcome. A lot of citizens would probably trade a civic engagement model of participation for a sham process if it meant they could keep the sex offenders out of their neighborhood. What we see when these decisions don’t go the way the vocal citizens want is that they just move. They disengage and try to find a place to live without these issues - whether those are sex offenders, Walmart, or airports. Granted, most of the processes we have now aren’t modeled on true civic engagement concepts - maybe it would be different, but I doubt it.

Does it matter in the church how much involvement and participation we have on issues like homosexuality? At some point we have to make a decision (or reaffirm a decision) on ordaining gays and lesbians. We have to take a stand where some in the church will win, and some will lose. I think the question of whether the losers (for lack of a better term, whomever they may be) will continue to engage is primarily a function of the intensity of their belief on whatever the issue happens to be. And I think the issues that face the Methodist church today also hit really close to home and the intensity of belief is extremely high.

So that’s the question - do we need more discussion? Or more authentic discussion? Or just draw our lines in the sand and go our separate directions?

In the heyday of my blog (when I had all of three or four readers), my most popular posts were on the divisive issues.  I waged battles on issues like homosexuality and the church and the inerrancy of scripture.  I’m a political person, and part of me really likes those discussions.  But is also tiring.  How many times can we have the same argument?

There’s been some discussion lately on the LDS church and heresy at Locusts and Honey and darwinism/evolution at Post-Methodist.  I’ve tried to stay out of those arguments because engaging feels totally pointless.  Personally, I don’t understand the LDS church, but I’m not inclined to write them off as heretics.  I’ve accepted evolution (and natural selection) as a scientific fact and don’t think it is contradictory with my Christian faith.  Obviously, others disagree - strongly.  So what’s the point in arguing? 

I think maybe the better discussion, at least for the methoblogosphere, is whether the Methodist church has room for the diversity of viewpoints that exist in the world?  I’m not sure that we can, but at the same time I think the alternative is narrowly defined ideological churches serving particular communities.  I don’t think that serves the broader church either.  It also doesn’t work, in my opinion, to just gloss over our very distinct theological and ideological differences.

Are we stuck?

So the conversation going below in the comments and at Jason’s blog has ignited a minor controversy in the methoblogosphere.  As far as I can tell, a post by Art has led to both Jason and Art taking down their posts on the topic.  I hope they’ll find a way to continue the conversation, because I think it was somewhat productive. 

As I was thinking about this today, one of the things that occurred to me is that we have a problem of engagement.  By that I mean that we have unclear rules of how we talk abou the issue.  So much of the abortion discussion happens as political debate.  In political debate, the objective is victory.  As such, it has become (at least lately) no holds barred, all-out rhetorical war.  And that rhetorical war has occasionally begat real physical violence, though less so recently.

But I think in the church we’re called, or should be called, to a gentler form of discourse.  But yet almost all of our history in this topic has been in political conflict.  I think it is really tough to ratchet down the rhetoric and really listen to people.  While the stakes in the religious debate are less obvious and less material than those in the political debate, they’re still very high.

Anyway, here’s hoping the conversation can continue.

There is a cool non-profit in Portland, Oregon called Free Geek.  They accept donations of old computer equipment and provide refurbished machines to other non-profits.  The equipment they can’t refurbish, they safely recycle.  I recently donated a bunch of old equipment to them.  Anyway, last weekend they were robbed.  So if you’re in the area and have old computer equipment or would like to give them some cash, check them out here.

Jason at Post-Methodist has a post up titled, The Reality of Abortion.  The point of the post is to point out links to a video on YouTube called “The Silent Scream.”  It is a video that shows the abortion of a 12 week-old fetus (though in a document here, Planned Parenthood questions the fetal age).

Personally, I think any abortion is a tragedy.  As a matter of public policy, I think we ought to do whatever we can to prevent abortion.  By that I mean encourage and facilitate adoption, fund sex education and contraception, guarantee that every pregnant woman in the United States has access to prenatal care, and that every child has health insurance.  As a policy practitioner, I don’t believe banning abortion would be an effective strategy.  There is a fundamental supply and demand problem that proponents of abortion bans ignore.  But anyway, abortion is a tragedy in my mind.

The problem I have this post is twofold (not that anyone cares about my opinion).  First, this is exactly the type of scare tactic that has worked so well with the war on drugs.  The problem is that pregnant women (and then men who got them there) who are in the situation of considering abortion aren’t there typically because they excellent support systems, financial stability, and community support.  They are alone, scared, desperate, and probably feeling trapped.  I don’t think the remedy in this situation is more pressure and pain.  I don’t see this an effective tool to help people make good decisions.  I think it just reinforces the idea in my head that many abortion opponents care more about the bigger policy goal than the women and men who are hurting.

My other problem is that I wonder if Jason is doing himself (and potentially his congregation) a disservice by posting something like this.  As I commented at his blog, would a woman in his congregation who had perhaps gone through an abortion and who was seeking pastoral counseling want to talk to him after seeing something like that?  I think it potentially creates an expectation of condemnation.  I’m not suggesting that pastors shouldn’t be hold opinions contrary to those in their congregation, but I wonder if there is some wisdom in softening them in order to preserve the possibilty for relationship? 

I don’t know what the answer is.  I do think that videos like this aren’t the answer.  If the faith community was serious about showing care for women, children, and unborn children, we’d stop spending money trying to change the law and we’d start spending it on healthcare for pregnant women and children, housing for the homeless, subsidies for adoption, and more. 

David has a good post on his call to missionary work.  It intersected well with something I’ve been thinking about lately - the UMC’s totally insane preoccupation with credentialing.  If I weren’t lazy, I’d do some research and list all of the credentialed positions in the church.  But I am, so I’m going to just shoot from the hip.  Send me any I forgot if you’re so inclined.  So, we have:

• Elders (full and probationary)
• Deacons (full and probationary)
• Local pastors
• Certified Lay Ministers
• Lay Speakers
• Certified Lay Speakers

To be blunt, I think our obsession with credentialing is bad for the church.  It keeps people out of ministry by erecting formal barriers and vesting power in the institution rather than the people.  I’m not suggesting that we completely eliminate credentialed positions, but there has to be a balance.  For example, I think that to some extent, some people believe that they cannot preach in church without taking a lay speaking class.  That’s not true, but I think it keeps some people from sharing their experiences and thoughts.

I’m not saying that the lay speaking training is bad or unnecessary.  But I think we should stop cloaking it in the culture of credentials and move towards a model of participation based on interests and skills, rather than positions.

I also don’t mean to suggest that getting an M.Div. is pointless or that I could be a pastor today with no training.  There will always be a role for professional clergy in the church, but obviously there are a lot of things that that us “unprofessionals” can do.  I don’t think the enduring power of the church is in people with graduate degrees in theology.  They are an essential part of the leadership of the church.

I made a very intentional statement above by referring to clergy (at least in the UMC and other mainline denominations) as “professionals.”  In graduate school, we had a long discussion about whether public administrators were professionals.  In doing so, we identified the standards that usually distinguish professionals from other knowledge workers.  In general, things like clear standards relating to performance of work, certification/approval by independent bodies, clear and formal standards for educational or experience requirements, etc.  Those standards ultimately boil down to one thing - barriers to entry.  For instance, random people can’t just decide they want to practice law, perform surgery, or prepare tax returns.  Those barriers to entry are designed to protect lay people from the unqualified doing things like practicing law, performing surgery, or preparing tax returns.

I would argue that professional ministry is just - a profession.  It is protected by denominational standards designed to restrict entry from the unqualified to protect lay people. Ministers can have a tremendous ability to hurt people through bad theology, violating boundaries, or lapses in personal integrity.  So the question becomes whether those barriers our denomination has erected have gone too far or not far enough.

I think we’ve become too top down in our desire to have the church led and protected by those with the proper education and training. I could write forever on this topic, but I’ll stop now.  Please remember that this isn’t intended to insult or demean our clergy.  It is more a call to the laity to step up and become more involved.  It is also a call to the church to rethink our focus on credentials.

Father Jake has a story about how some are claiming the new presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is not a Christian based on some comments she made in an interview with Time magazine.  (Just to be clear, Father Jake isn’t one of those questioning the Bishop.)

I saw a blog post earlier this week at Locusts and Honey where the author was criticizing someone for their use of Tarot cards in a spiritual practice.  He considered it idolatrous and related to the occult.

Maybe I’m just totally disconnected, but my first reaction to both controversies is “give me a break.”  Are we really wasting time with things like this?  Maybe I’m just an idiot, but I’d sure like to think we can find more pressing issues in the church to deal with.  I’m so tired of these sorts of disputes - maybe the issues are really important, but these seemingly petty arguments over points of theology or doctrine make us as Christians seem, well, petty.