How should Christians react to the Taliban? Well, if we’re at all serious about our Christian identity, we must look to the words of Jesus:

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:43-44)

Many Christians think that Jesus didn’t have groups like the Taliban in mind when he told his followers, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” But when Jesus said, “Follow me,” did he actually mean that we should love our enemies in the same way he loved his enemies? Or, would Jesus rather that the United States bomb the hell out of the Taliban and terrorize them with our drones?

I’m pretty sure Jesus calls us to love our enemies in the same way he loved his. But it begs the question: how can we love the Taliban when they are just so…awful?

Making Friends with Crazy

Dan Terry (Photo: Reuters)

Look to the inspirational example of Dan Terry. His story is told in his biography Making Friends among the Taliban: A Peacemaker’s Journey in Afghanistan, written by Jonathan Larson. Dan was driven by his Christian faith to live in Afghanistan as a peacemaker. You might think that his religious identity would be a deterrent to building peaceful relationships with the Taliban, but that was not the case. “Dan was nothing if not a spiritually rooted and persuaded Christian, but that proved no hindrance to finding his place in a deeply Muslim society.” Far from accusing him of being an evil infidel, high-ranking members of the Taliban became friends with Dan and promised him safety as he journeyed throughout Afghanistan’s backcountry.

Dan’s Afghan friends had two nicknames for him. The first was his Afghan name, Dantri. The second was a bit more colorful: Pagal, which means Crazy. Indeed, “Sometimes people thought Dan was slightly unhinged, because he insisted on the good in all people, often in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”

Dan had intuited something incredibly important about human nature. When it comes to violence and peace, humans are mimetic. Without realizing it, we instinctively imitate the violence against us, but we also instinctively imitate peaceful actions. Dan’s story reveals the mimetic aspect of human nature and the power of love to transform violence. Once a visiting minister asked Dan how Christians should pray for the Afghan people. Dan responded, “What I can tell you is this. It must be with great love. Above all, we must love them.”

An Unlikely Love

Dan with his friends in the Taliban — to his right, a man who’d tried to stab him several months before. (Photo: The Terry family — www.gbgm-umc.org)

It was that radical love that made Dan friends with nearly everyone he met – even those who sought to persecute him. He was frequently captured by Taliban commanders, yet Larson writes that Dan was convinced “it was possible to conduct reasonable discussions […] with the Taliban when differences or difficulties arose.” Dan was once captured while traveling in the Afghan backcountry. The hostile commander who captured him thought he could extort money from him; but Dan had nothing to give. As the hours passed, Dan remained calm and friendly to his captor. Soon, his captor imitated Dan’s peaceful spirit. “They ate together and drank tea as conversation and camaraderie flowered. In time, it dawned on the captor that a strange friendship had sprung between him and his oddly warm hostage.”

Dan’s strange friendship with the Taliban continued to grow. He never carried a weapon to protect himself. He relied on love, kindness, and friendship. Dan “counted among his friends the Taliban commanders of his neighborhood, insisting that they were not the caricatures of evil portrayed in the West. Flint-like in his belief that there was something noble in each neighbor, Dan kept reaching for the humanity of each person he met.”

More Muslim than we Muslims?

One Afghan stated, “Dantri was more Afghan than we Afghans, and he was more Muslim than we Muslims.” According to this man, Dan was more Afghan than them because of his trustworthiness, loyalty, and sacred hospitality. What made him more Muslim? His Afghan friends claimed, “In the greatest commandments of our scripture–to practice humility; to be generous to widows, the orphans, and the poor; and to be selfless and persevering in the search for justice and peace–Dantri was more Muslim than we Muslims.” The mimetic aspect is obvious; Dan and his Muslim friends inspired one another to become more caring and compassionate. In the words of the Quran, “Good and evil cannot be equal; repel what is evil with what is better and your enemy will become as close as an old and valued friend.” (41:34)

Tragedy

After 30 years of working in Afghanistan, Dan tragically was killed along with a group of other humanitarian workers. They were ambushed and executed by 10 gunmen while delivering medical supplies to villages. Though there were investigations, the murders remain a mystery. The most prominent theory claims that the perpetrators likely were Pakistanis who didn’t know Dan. What we do know is that the Afghan Taliban, who we in the West think are quick to take responsibility for any act of terror, vehemently condemn the murder of their friend and deny any responsibility for the attack.

Still, Dan’s death could make us skeptical about his pursuit of friendship with the Taliban. We may accuse him of being foolish. Indeed, Dan’s life was filled with risk, but the alternative of war in Afghanistan has also been risky, and has only ensured a mimetic cycle of violence along with deeper enmity and distrust between our two nations.

Overcoming Stereotypes

Dan’s strange friendship among the Taliban gives me hope for humanity. Dan believed that the West and the Taliban have distorted images of each other that can only be reconciled through the pursuit of love and friendship. “If that is true,” writes Larson, “then the Taliban and Western societies, as well as diplomats, will need to surmount the caricatures that have been imprinted on the public mind–those cartoon-like distortions of each other that have served the cause of war but that now thwart any path toward lasting peace.”

Dan’s life was based on the crazy, infectious love that Jesus taught. After meeting Dan, some war-weary Afghans in the central highlands responded mimetically to Dan’s peaceful spirit by forming a society called the Hezb-i-Pagal: the Party of Crazies. “The sole condition of membership is a ‘mad’ pledge to seek the good of the community and to disavow fighting and corruption.” Today, the Hezb-i-Pagal is headquartered in a village just west of Kabul. The requirement for membership is to help construct community buildings, including schools, clinics and mosques.

Dan’s story is inspiring, but I’ll be honest, I’m not going to Afghanistan to befriend the Taliban any time soon. Sometimes we can think less of ourselves by comparing our lives to those of people like Dan. But that’s not the point. Rather, Dan’s radical Christian love and commitment to friendship can be practiced by anyone, anywhere.

The post Making Friends among the Taliban: A Peacemaker’s Journey in Afghanistan appeared first on The Raven Foundation.

Influential pastor John Piper provides the latest example. While most of my friends on Facebook and Twitter lamented the devastation wrought by the Oklahoma tornado, Piper decided to show off his biblical acumen with this tweet:

Piper’s tweet is a bit ambiguous. His reference to Job doesn’t say that God caused the tornado, but Piper has historically claimed that God causes these types of disasters. In fact, this wouldn’t be the first time he has tweeted something so theologically insensitive. A few years ago Piper claimed God caused a tornado in Minnesota because God was angry at homosexuals. Piper’s god is a fickle Cosmic Jerk.

Job and the Satanic Principle of Accusation

Rachel Held Evans brilliantly points out the irony of Piper’s reference to Job in her article “The abusive theology of ‘deserved’ tragedy.” She states, “The great irony of Piper using the book of Job to support his theology is that the story of Job stands as an ancient indictment on those who would respond to tragedy by blaming the victim. That’s exactly what Job’s friends did, and the text is not kind to them for it, because Job is described as ‘blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.’” Adding to the irony of Piper’s reference to Job is that Satan is the Accuser. (See footnote “b” in this online Bible.) While it’s true that Satan only appears in the first two chapters of the book, Job’s “friends” take on the satanic principle of accusation, and of blaming of the victim. Ironically, by blaming the victims of the Oklahoma tornado, Piper is acting satanically, imitating Satan’s accusations in the same way that Job’s friends did.

Bad Things Just Happen

John Piper calls himself a Christian, but I don’t think he knows Jesus. Whenever Jesus talks about natural disasters, they are just that, natural disasters. He never blames anyone for them; instead he points to them as an opportunity to show God’s love. Jesus was once asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” He responded, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned.” Then the power of God worked through Jesus to stop the accusations and heal the man.

When people told Jesus that towers fell in Siloam and killed 18 people, Jesus asked, “Do you think they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?” He answered his rhetorical question by saying, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Repent of Satanic Theology

What does Jesus want us to repent of? Jesus challenged the age-old assumption that God causes bad things to happen to bad people. That’s theologically satanic. Yet we love this assumption as long as tornadoes don’t bother us, because it makes us think we are better than those people over there! Jesus tells us to repent of such satanic theology. Bad things happen to everyone.

But the unfortunate truth is that there is a little bit of John Piper in all of us. Whenever something bad happens to someone, we want to know why. Why did he lose his job? Well, he must not have worked hard enough…the way I do! Why did she get lung cancer? Well, she smoked too much…I smoke just the right amount! All of these “answers” become addictive because they make us feel morally superior to the other person and they give us excuses not to respond with loving compassion to our suffering neighbors.

We need to repent of blaming the victim so that we can respond to our neighbors’ suffering with compassion. And we need to repent of the idea that God is out to get people. God’s not against you or me or even John Piper. God doesn’t cause natural disasters. Bad things just happen, so stop blaming God. God wants us to stop finding someone else to blame and to start working toward healing one another.

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Carey Mulligan and Leonardo DiCaprio as Daisy and Gatsby

There’s no doubt that he made a great sacrifice for Daisy at the end of the movie – you all know what I’m talking about, but I won’t mention it specifically in case there is someone who doesn’t remember the end of the story. Anyway, that act of self-giving colors our interpretation of his love – we believe he truly loved her because only love seems capable of such a heroic act. But I wonder what would emerge if we could put that act aside for a moment and examine Jay’s attitude towards Daisy with a colder eye, like the eyes on the billboard.

Fact One: Jay fell in love with Daisy as a soldier at a dance under a moonlit sky the night before he was being shipped overseas. We can hear his thoughts. He tells us that if he falls in love with this girl, he knows his life will be changed forever. That’s perfect, because Jay has been on a mission to change his life. Born into poverty, he has been chasing after success and wealth ever since. A wealthy man took him under his wing and Jay took this man for his model, imitating his mannerisms down to the odd phrase, “old chap”. All his life, Jay has felt empty and in that moment on that fateful night, he grasped at love as a way to fill up the hollow spaces. That the object of his love was Daisy seems to have been a complete coincidence.

Fact Two: Daisy chose another man to marry. Oops. And the other man was successful and wealthy, exactly what Jay wanted to be. He found himself replaced by his future self, the self he dreams of being. At one point, Daisy’s cousin, Nick, tells Jay that he can’t relive the past, but Jay insists that he can. Indeed, that is exactly what he is trying to do. He wants to rewind the tape to the moment when Daisy chose someone else so she can see that she had really chosen him all along. Are you lost? Well, Jay is a bit lost, too. He doesn’t love Daisy as much as he loves being chosen by her, a choosing that will let him know he has become the somebody he has longed to be.

Fact Three: Not only does Jay want Daisy to leave her husband, he wants her to tell her husband that she never loved him. Though she tries to do so, she fails because it just isn’t true. She did love her husband and maybe still does. (Why Daisy loves men who use and abuse her is another story!) Nick pleads with Jay not to ask more of Daisy than she can give, but Jay won’t accept less than a complete rewriting of history. Daisy must choose him – she must never have chosen anyone else. Why? Because nothing less than total possession of this woman will satisfy him. His love is obsessive. Daisy is an object he must possess, like his mansion and his money, objects that signify he has become someone real.

Okay, I know – the great sacrifice. Maybe what Jay is able to do for Daisy at the end is something truly loving. Or maybe it’s about keeping his grasp on her. Surely, if the gesture had succeeded, she would be indebted to him for life. However you interpret the ending, up to that point Jay’s feelings for Daisy are self-serving and manipulative, not love at all.

I always wondered what was so great about Gatsby. Maybe the title refers to the impossible-to-fill emptiness he felt inside. Did he love Daisy? Perhaps in the only way he knew how.

Gatsby didn’t understand his obstacles to true love. Too often we find ourselves in the same predicament. Helping to identify these obstacles is what I had in mind when I wrote The Wicked Truth About Love. Gatsby and Daisy would have learned a lot about themselves if they had taken the quiz in my book. Give it a try yourself at thewickedtruthaboutlove.com.

The post Daisy & the Great Gatsby: Was it Truly Love? appeared first on The Raven Foundation.

President Bashar al-Assad

Al Jazeera and My Search for Answers on Syria

My search for answers has led me to the English site of Al Jazeera. Headquartered in Doha, Qatar, media outlet Al Jazeera provides a non-Western, Arabic perspective on current events and as I’ve explored their programs, I have come away impressed by their thoroughness and professionalism. They actually offer in-depth reporting that addresses my questions. Now, that doesn’t mean that I have found easy answers or that I have abandoned my skepticism of media outlets or government rationales. But what I have found is a valuable insight into cultures and conflicts that I know nothing about. Accepting my ignorance is the first step toward understanding.

Mimetic Theory as Key to Violence

But mimetic theory shows us that at their core, violent conflicts never change, even though the names, places and causes vary widely. As I search for understanding in this particular conflict, I allow those universal truths to guide me. If mimetic theory has taught me anything, it’s that the use of violence is accompanied by a weird schizophrenic split: our belief in our own goodness is the strongest when we are acting our worst. So trying to sort good guys from bad guys in violent situations is a surreal exercise: everyone is committing atrocities while proclaiming their own goodness. Paradoxically, this means that each side believes in the goodness of their violence while condemning the violence of their enemy. It’s as if we can look in a mirror and see our violent reflection but not see that we have become the twin of our enemy.

The Victims of Violence

Victims of the violence in Syria (Photo: www.tutufoundationusa.org)

However, there is a truth about goodness and evil in all the confusion — one I try very hard to listen for. Again, it’s something I learned from mimetic theory: difficult to hear above the din of all the schizophrenic stories are the voices of victims. They are the ones caught in the crossfire who are suffering and dying while politicians, partisans, and armed militias battle it out for victory. I write this only one day after atrocities were reported in a Syrian town in which women and children were slaughtered along with their husband and sons. Why? Of course there are reasons, but the reasons are schizophrenic delusions. If we want sanity, the victims’ voices are the ones we must strain to hear.

Al-Khatib Condemns Religious Scapegoating

Sheikh Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib (Photo: www.presstv.ir)

Recently, the leader of the coalition of forces rebelling against the regime of Bashar al-Assad resigned. He was only in the post for five months and his resignation does not bode well for peace. His name is Sheikh Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib. Take the time to learn his name. He is the former Imam of the famed Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, widely regarded as a moderate and a long-term critic of the Assad regime. He has been arrested four times, has survived an explosion that hit the security compound where he was being held during his last period of detention, and fled to Cairo in July 2012 after being warned of threats on his life from the security services. Upon his resignation he gave an interview to Al Jazeera. I encourage you to listen to the entire interview, but I quote here from the translation of his comments in the sub-titles on the screen. He condemns the cynical use of religion to stir up violence:

We are tired of politicians who are leading people to slaughter… there are always fake victories and ideologies, and they invoke the name of Allah and religion. Many people are being killed and this is never accepted by Allah and religions… There is falsification of religious conscience… there is manipulation of people’s inborn religious feelings… religion is the finest feeling humans hold… religious feelings are always provoked so people can kill each other… this was a message to all people so the entire region is not dragged into the conflict.

I am often asked by friends and acquaintances who fear Islamic extremism, for influential Muslim voices that represent moderation. Al-Khatib is one such voice. Seek and you shall find!

The U.S. as the Good Guys?

Today, the U.S. is going through the usual dance to avoid facing the truth of victims on the ground. Our President, Secretary of State and other spokespeople want us to believe that the real issues in Syria are the threat of Islamic terrorists, that weapons of mass destruction might be used, and the risk of sectarian violence. The implication is that evidence of either terrorism or WMDs would prompt us to take military action. If we had such evidence we would know who the bad guys were and then we, the good guys, would be compelled to act. It seems to me that the victims of the current violence, or those created by our future intervention, are not part of this calculus.

Al-Khatib Warns of the Risk of Escalating Violence

A woman and children outside a makeshift house at a refugee camp in northwestern Syria. (Photo: AFP-JIJI)

Here is one more quote from al-Khatib’s interview that is especially relevant to my quest for guidance in knowing how to be helpful. In this excerpt, al-Khatib gives victims a voice and calls the world to account for its inability to hear and respond to their suffering. Again, this is from the English translation on the video – it’s a bit rough in spots but you can’t miss his point:

I think the international community does not know what it wants to do. It has its own problems and has not tried to understand the issue from a human standpoint. Each country is busy with its internal problems and that is why Syria is not given enough attention… it’s been left deserted for a long time and then they begin to talk about other problems… now they say that the main problem is terrorism… the main problem is chemical weapons… the main problem is minorities… There have not been any radical person in Syria… there have not been a threat of chemical weapons[,] there have never been a danger imposed by the minorities. They left us for two years, getting killed and now they come to talk. If you keep on sleeping, bigger problems will come to the surface and the whole world will regret it.

I hope this foray into listening for the victim’s voice in the Syrian conflict encourages you to learn more. Here is an excellent video, also on Al Jazeera, about contemporary Syrian political history. Keep reading and listening to our domestic media but also to Al Jazeera and other international sources, and as you do, be sure to keep in mind the two constant truths in all violent situations: 1) All the parties are schizophrenic and 2) The victims know the truth.

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It all started a few years ago. A member of my youth group worked at one of their stores in a suburb of Chicago. I was minorly troubled that she was employed at the store. But what really flamed my loathing for Abercrombie was when they asked her to model their clothes for their catalogue. She told me about their offer and I responded in the only way an over-protective youth pastor could:

“NO! Absolutely not! No way in Hell are you doing that!!!”

I don’t think that Abercrombie is evil per se. I only hate them because they stand for everything that I’m against!

Over the weekend, BusinessInsider.com published an article titled “Abercrombie and Fitch Refuses to Make Clothes for Large Women.” The article included a comment made by Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries in 2006. He described his business strategy by stating:

In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny.

Doesn’t that just get your blood boiling?

I’m trying not to blame Jeffries here. He would make an easy scapegoat. The truth is that he is part of the marketing and advertising industry. He doesn’t necessarily have to be noble and compassionate. His job is to motivate people to buy his product.

How does the marketing industry sell produce? It’s all about desire. Desire for stuff is contagious. It spreads from one person to another. “Cool” is contagious too. Desire and cool are mediated to us through others, and in the case of advertising, through models. Companies spend millions of dollars on models who infuse their products with cool. This drives our desire for products. So, if you want an easy, albeit likely expensive, way to become cool, just wear the same clothes as the model.

Or, ironically in Abercrombie’s case, wear the clothes that their models don’t wear.

Advertising is about identity. It emphasizes membership status and labels people either “in” or “out,” “cool” or “uncool.” It’s not just Abercrombie and Fitch that does this. I’m a 34-year-old-slightly-overweight-but-don’t-tell-anyone-about-that-last-part man. My favorite retail store is Costco. Talk about membership! I have to pay $110 per year just so that some dude named Earl will let me through the front door.

As angry as I am at Abercrombie, their strategy is not much different than other companies. Abercrombie is a product of an American culture that idealizes certain standards of beauty. Those cultural standards are dangerous to everyone’s souls.

Many have already said that Jeffries’s comments are demeaning to the kids who are not “cool,” but what I’d like to point out is that they are just as cruel to the “cool” kids. The reason that I told my youth group member that there was no way in hell she was going to model for Abercrombie was because it would mess with her self esteem. Abercrombie is part of an American culture that tells people their ultimate value is achieved through beauty. But this “achievement” is unattainable because it is always based on mediated desire that enthralls us to endless cycles of cut-throat competition, tearing our neighbors down so that we can feel superior to them. Because it’s not just about being beautiful or cool; it’s about being more beautiful and cool than your neighbor. We don’t want to just keep up with the Jonses; we want to surpass the Joneses. And then the Joneses want to surpass us. Once we delve into that competitive trap we risk becoming enslaved to an insatiable rivalry with our neighbors that consumes our lives.

The good news is that Abercrombie’s advertising model isn’t working. According to Robin Abcarian of the Los Angeles Times, the company is becoming uncool – their stock has dropped 20% since the time of Jeffries statement in 2006.

That, I hope, is a sign that it is becoming outdated in American culture to divide the world up into a cut-throat competition of “cool” and “uncool.” Maybe, just maybe, our culture is beginning to redefine our standards of human worth so that they aren’t based on the clothes we wear and our cultural ideals of beauty.

Maybe. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s important to remind ourselves that the only way out of Abercrombie’s trap is by a desire that is mediated through an entirely different model. This model would encourage us to give up our competition to be “cool”; this model would lead us away from basing our worth on the clothes we purchase; this model would lead us away from tearing down our neighbor so that we can feel good about ourselves. Instead, this model would encourage us to derive our worth from building up our neighbors and loving them as we love ourselves.

The post How Abercrombie and Fitch Became Uncool appeared first on The Raven Foundation.

Angelina Jolie, right, in 2001 with her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, who died in 2007 at 56 after nearly a decade with breast cancer. (Photo: Fred Prouser/Reuters)

Okay, not the only focal point. But enthusiastic gossip and passionate opinions are signs that something powerful is happening at the level of identity. When you applaud Angelina as a good person or fine actress, you are literally identifying with her. By being her fan, you can help yourself to a serving of her identity, boosting your sense of being good and valuable.  Maybe you even get a tattoo or have your lips plumped or consider adoption or become involved with refugee campaigns. She helps you become “someone” – not as big a “someone” as Angelina, of course, but someone, nevertheless, who is Good like her.

The same effect happens in reverse. When you condemn Angelina, you get an identity boost. By distancing yourself from her wickedness, you affirm your own goodness. You refuse to wear vials of blood around your neck, have an affair with someone else’s husband, or fake caring about humanitarian causes to boost your popularity. Why? Because you are a good person! And you know you are good because you are not like Angelina. So you see, whether you are an Angelina fan or an Angelina hater, your sense of yourself as good is achieved, at least in part, in relationship with her. That’s what explains the pleasure we feel when she gives us something really meaty to gossip about. Nothing thrills more than a good scandal because it provides a booster shot to our insecure sense of goodness.

So when Angelina went public with her decision to have a mastectomy, what she called “My Medical Choice,” we couldn’t stop relating to her as a source of identity. Everyone is taking sides, as is our custom. Whether we applaud or condemn her decision, either way we are not seriously discussing the issue. Because when it comes to Angelina the celebrity, our major issue is always getting an identity boost from her. It was probably a bit naïve for her to think that we would react in any other way. She is not our friend, after all, not a “person” in any real sense. She is a “personage,” a distant but tantalizing figure who captures our imagination and invades our identities.

Many people are wondering if Angelina did the right thing. I’ve been asked it a few times in the last 24 hours and my family and friends know I don’t traffic in celebrity gossip very often! Yet they want to know what I think and because I have not been either an Angelina fan or a hater, my reaction is subdued. I have nothing to win or lose by praising her or by trashing her, for that matter. I don’t feel scandalized or in a position to judge. She made a personal decision and because she’s a personage she went public with it; it’s as simple as that.

But if you are a woman facing the difficult medical decision to have a preventative mastectomy, and you are wondering what to think about Angelina’s decision, here’s what I’d suggest:

• If you are a fan or a detractor, please seek advice elsewhere because the impact of her revelation on you is too problematic. You may over-identify and think that what’s good for Angelina is good for you. Or you may rebel and insist that you would never do what Angelina did just because she did it. Either way, you are not thinking clearly about what is right for YOU.

• If Angelina gossip doesn’t do anything for you, then you can take her experience as a data point. You will be able to detect some hints of Angelina’s personality in her letter: that the death of her mother was a terrible loss, that her children are more important to her than her own body, and that she is the type of person who cannot bear to feel out of control. You will be able to see that all those factors influenced her decision and that different issues will influence yours.

Facing difficult medical conditions is never easy. If we can see through our Angelina love/hate daze, perhaps we can hear her words of advice without it being tainted by her celebrity:

I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.

She recognizes that her choice is not for everyone. She hopes that all women at risk for breast or ovarian cancer get good advice and make their own informed choices. Not necessarily Angelina’s choices, but options that work for them. So do I, Angelina. So do we all.

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I felt both sides. My mother died 13 years ago from cancer. I was 20 years old at the time. Each Mother’s Day is a reminder that I can’t wrap my arms around my mother, send her flowers and a Hallmark card, or call her to express my loving devotion. Yes, it’s painful. But Mother’s Day is also a reminder of the good times that I shared with her: her joy during Christmas, her love of Disneyland, and our shared fascination with Star Trek, for example.

But there’s a big problem with all of our celebrations of Mother’s Day. While many have written about how we’ve over-sentimentalized this cultural ritual, I want to point out how we’ve diverted from its profound and radical intent.

The Radical Origin of Mother’s Day

Diana Butler Bass recently wrote about the radical origins of Mother’s Day. Bass claims that many of the women who supported a day devoted to themselves had a political agenda that favored women’s issues. But one of the major issues behind Mother’s Day was not just a women’s issue; it’s a human issue. Bass quotes a poem written by Julia Ward Howe called “Mother’s Day Proclamation.” Howe is better known for having penned the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” in 1862. Her “Mother’s Day Proclamation” was written in 1870. It had nothing to do with battle, but everything to do with peace. After she observed the carnage of war, she wrote this plea:

Arise then…women of this day! 
Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly…
“Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God …

Howe’s message was radically religious and political. She stood in the footsteps of the Gospel message that proclaimed the Good News not of Caesar, but of the God revealed in Jesus. “Caesar” stands for all the political systems that attempt to create peace through “the sword of murder.” God, by contrast, creates peace not through “the summons of war,” but through the summons of sacrificial love.

Subverting Caesar

Contemporary theologian N.T. Wright says the same thing in his essay “Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire.” Paul, in the footsteps of Jesus, challenged the empire of Caesar. Wright states:

The main challenge was to the lordship of Caesar, which, though certainly ‘political’ was also profoundly ‘religious’. Caesar demanded worship as well as ‘secular’ obedience; not just taxes, but sacrifices. He was well on his way to becoming the supreme divinity in the Greco-Roman world, maintaining his vast empire not simply by force, though there was plenty of that, but by the development of a flourishing religion that seemed to be trumping most others either by absorption or by greater attraction. Caesar…had provided justice and peace to the whole world. He was therefore to be hailed as Lord, and trusted as Savior. This is the world in which Paul announced that Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, was Savior and Lord. (Emphasis mine)

Notice how politically subversive Howe and Paul were. Both challenged political systems that demanded loyalty and that “provided justice and peace” through violence. Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation and Paul’s mission both invite us to rethink our political loyalty in light of the God revealed through Jesus. First-century Rome, along with 19^th – 21^st century United States, frequently attempted to provide justice and peace through force, loyalty, and plenty of violence.

God doesn’t provide peace and justice through the sword, or the gun, or drone attacks. In Jesus, God provides true peace and justice by becoming what theologian James Alison calls the Forgiving Victim. Jesus the Forgiving Victim takes violence upon himself and offers true peace and forgiveness in return.

Mother’s Day: A Call to Subversion

Mother’s Day is not primarily a call for sentimental reflection about our mothers. It’s a call to subvert the violence of our world with non-violence. It’s a call to disarm. It’s a call to follow the God of non-violent love, not the violent Caesars of our world. Finally, Mother’s Day is a call to peace, justice, and love for all of creation. Only when our lives are patterned in that way can we live out Howe’s dream to “solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace.”

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Prayer is taking the chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up. The opposite may be true: We may not be able to get it together until after we show up in such miserable shape.

That’s all anyone really needs to know about Anne Lamott and her latest book on prayer Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. But I just can’t resist going on about my love for her.

How do I love thee, Anne Lamott? Let me count the ways.

I love my dear Anne because she is an amazing storyteller who is vulnerably honest about herself and our world.  She writes about the many ways that she isn’t able to get it together, how she shows up in such miserable shape, and how she finds herself loved by God. To many, that might sound self-serving. You know, like, “God loves ME!!!”

But what’s so beautiful about Anne’s writing style is that she invites her readers to discover God’s love for them – a love that is most easily received if we are honest about our faults. Anne is one of our best models when it comes to being vulnerably honest and receiving God’s love.

Help!

Anne claims that the three essential prayers begin with either “Help,” “Thanks,” or “Wow.” Anne’s radical vulnerability might offend some. There are those of us who believe in our own goodness, but Anne will have none of that. In her chapter called “Help,” she says:

If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.

Help! Because I’m caught up in the rat race. I spend so much time pretending that I’m not ruined, that I’m so much more successful than I actually am. I’m definitely more successful than the other guy! And this rat race, where we pretend that we aren’t ruined and that we are invulnerable, hardens our heart to loving our neighbors and to receiving God’s love. Because in the rat race, we try to grasp onto love by achieving more than others. But God’s love cannot be grasped and manipulated. It’s grace. God’s love is freely given to us, just as we are.

Thanks!

Thanks! Because gratitude is a transformative way of life that leads to freedom from hate and freedom to live into the mystery of God’s gracious love. Anne writes:

When we go from rashy and clenched to grateful, we sometimes get to note the experience of grace, in knowing that we could not have gotten ourselves from where we were stuck, in hate or self-loathing…to freedom. The movement of grace in our lives toward freedom is the mystery. So we simply say ‘Thanks.’ Something had to open, something had to give, and I didn’t have a clue how to get things to do that. But they did, or grace did. Thank you.

Wow!

Wow! because after praying Help! and Thanks! comes the awe of receiving God’s love. According to Anne, it doesn’t matter if we have it all together because:

God keeps giving, forgiving, and inviting us back. My friend Tom says this is a scandal, and that God has no common sense. God doesn’t say: ‘I have had it this time. You have taken this course four times and you flunked again. What a joke.’ We get to keep starting over. Lives change, sometimes quickly, but usually slowly.

These are all the ways that I love Anne Lamott. She opens the door to honesty and vulnerability, and in doing so she opens the door to receiving God’s love. Anne invites us to come inside; to pray along with her the words Help, Thanks, and Wow; and receive the all-embracing love of God. Are you ruined enough to receive that love?

The post Anne Lamott on Prayer: Book Review of Help, Thanks, Wow appeared first on The Raven Foundation.

Suzanne Ross and the cast of Aston Rep’s “Next Fall” at the Q&A

Hamlin plays Adam, who, unlike the Biblical Adam, has no relationship with God. Yet he finds himself in a long-term relationship with Chaitin’s Luke, a younger man who is a devout Christian. In fact, Luke is so devout that he believes in the Rapture, the plan of Salvation and that his own sexual orientation – and that of his partner – is a sin. An atheist and an Evangelical… hmmm. This does not appear to be a match made in heaven! See the show if you can (playing now through May 25, 2013), but whether or not you are familiar with the play, I think you will find my musings on the characters surprisingly familiar.

Faith

Though much is made in the play of the difference between Adam and Luke’s religious beliefs, it is a difference that signifies nothing. Why? Because both men are actively worshiping a god, and this shared act of worship trumps the superficial differences. Luke actually is torn between the worship of two different and contradictory gods – the God of love revealed to him through Jesus and the god of moral judgment represented by the religious authorities of his church. The god of moral judgment demands that he repent of sexual relations, what Adam calls after their first night of lovemaking “some amazing sinning”. Yet Jesus provides Luke with a comforting sense of warmth. He tells Adam that when he accepted Jesus as his Lord, “I felt home. For the first time in my life.” Which god ultimately claims his allegiance will determine Luke’s attitudes towards his own sexuality and his relationship with Adam.

Adam, on the other hand, puts his faith in Science. He finds it easy to debunk Luke’s belief in the Rapture and Salvation with rational arguments. Yet he fails to see that relying on Science to separate fact from fiction is the mirror image of Luke’s reliance on Jesus for the same purpose. Both Science and Christianity make truth claims requiring that believers accept them as, to use the religious language, Lord. Science is as much a god we worship as Jesus. What differentiates Adam and Luke is not that one has faith and one does not. They both have faith, but in different gods.

Happiness

Mark Jacob Chaitin (left) as Luke, and Ryan Hamlin as Adam, in AstonRep’s production, “Next Fall”

There is nothing wrong with the act of worship; in fact, there is everything right about it. Worship is the only way human beings come to know themselves. The gods we love are the gods who give us a story to tell about ourselves and that story is the key to our happiness. Unfortunately for Adam, the god he worships is actually making him miserable. Adam had dreams of becoming a writer, dreams that never materialized. For the last six years he has been working as a candle salesman in a friend’s shop. As he contemplates attending his high school reunion at the age of 45, he feels that as a substitute teacher, he’s a failure. Why? Because Adam worships the god of Science’s intimate companion, the god of Success. This god’s story is that Success is measured by respect, fame, and financial rewards. The heroes of the Success story are not candle salesmen, substitute teachers or failed writers. And certainly no Rapture-believing Christian will ever star in a Success story. Immersed in worshiping the gods of Science and Success, Adam believes that the condemnation of gay sexuality coming from Luke’s religious beliefs will only lead to self-loathing. Yet Luke has somehow managed to be happy in his relationship with Adam and even happier with his choice to drop out of law school to pursue an acting career. This is a seriously flawed plot line in the Success story. From Adam’s point of view, his own atheism rooted in Science is much more self-affirming. The story atheism tells is a gay-friendly one in which his relationship with Luke is normal. Oddly, though Adam does not believe in what he deems to be a judgmental God, he feels judged by his peers. Adam suffers from panic attacks, hypochondria and fear of death: all symptoms that, much to Adam’s surprise, do not afflict Luke.

Adam’s story is most seriously challenged by Luke’s lack of fear of death.

LUKE: I’m not afraid like you are, Adam. When the time comes, I welcome it. You could, too.
ADAM: I would love that, believe me. It’s like the one thing I envy you for, to know everything’s gonna be alright. No matter what…

Adam has a serious case of cognitive dissonance! The god of Success promises happiness, yet all Adam feels is judgment. Luke’s god appears to be all about judgment, yet Luke is relaxed and happy. What gives?

Love

Adam has a big problem. Luke’s faith has become a stumbling block for him. As if God were a rival lover, Adam wants Luke to choose between him and God. In the climactic moment of the play, after Adam and Luke nestle playfully on the sofa, they have this exchange:

LUKE: I love you.
ADAM: I know you do.
LUKE: But?
ADAM: I want you to love me more than you love Him.

Luke has no good answer for this. No answer at all really, and so Adam announces, “I can’t do this anymore,” and walks out the door.

This is not the first Adam in history who has found himself in rivalry with God and then loses his happiness in the bargain. When the first Adam begins to suspect that God is withholding something from him, he tries to take it for himself and loses paradise. There is nothing in the play to suggest that Luke had been withholding any of his love from Adam. In fact, it is just the opposite. Luke’s love is complete, both patient and kind. Adam, however, can’t bring himself to believe in it. The gods of Science and Success have filled his mind with worry and a sense of inadequacy, and he is plagued by a suspicion that something is wrong. So he figures that the wrong thing must be Luke and he blames him for holding back; thereby, Adam loses love in the process.

Next Fall – and the Next Fall and the Next Fall

Is this connection to the first Adam the “next fall” of the play’s title? Luke does promise to come out to his family next fall. But next fall comes and goes and still Luke has not fulfilled his promise. This failure is symbolic to Adam of the distance and difference between them. But blaming Luke for being himself, for being sensitive to his family’s potential inability to absorb his truth, comes very close to replicating the first Adam’s blaming of Eve for his own sin.

When we approach those who love us in a spirit of rivalry, when we blame others rather than admit we are worshiping the wrong gods, we reenact the first Fall. Rivalry and blame lead to the next fall and the next fall and the next one after that. I won’t give away the ending of the play because it’s really worth seeing the AstonRep production. But I will tell you that this Adam finds redemption in the moment when he is able to receive a new story about himself from Luke. In that moment, he tells us, “All the doubts, everything I’ve been questioning for the past five years, none of it meant anything, all of a sudden. It was just Me and Luke. That’s all that mattered.” At last, the false gods no longer compel Adam’s worship and so he begins to tell a more truthful story about himself. Perhaps for Adam this fall will be his last.

The post Adam Falls Again: A Review of Geoffrey Nauffts’s Play Next Fall appeared first on The Raven Foundation.

That’s one of the big questions in Jim Wallis’s latest book On God’s Side. It is the right question to ask because American politics seems irredeemably mired in the blame game. I, along with many other young people, was hoping for a new kind of politics five years ago when we helped to elect Barack Obama. We thought we were making that change for a new kind of politics. Yet, here we are, five years later and American politics is just as entrenched in the blame game as it was before.

Wallis speaks to my growing cynicism in a refreshing way in a chapter titled “Redeeming Democracy.” In it, he writes, “The cynicism around politics has reached a historic high. Democracy is the result of the steady expansion of human rights and opportunities, and yet we seem to have lost our belief in it or our ambition to take it to the next level” (181).

That’s exactly how I feel. I’m losing my belief in American politics and I have little motivation to take it to any level at all because I fear we will only go down. Yes, I’m cynical because we are in a fight for the common good and everyone thinks they are its biggest champions. We all think that our wants, needs, and desires are the most moral and true – that our policies are the best for the common good. So, who is getting in the way of the common good? When it comes to politics, we always blame the other.

In his book Psychopolitics, professor of clinical psychopathology Jean-Michel Oughourlian explores the psychology of politics. He writes, “The essence of politics is to identify the adversary/enemy and to ensure that this choice brings in its wake the adherence of the entire nation” (30).

This leads us to a very important question: Is there another way to be political?

Wallis points to the answer in his book by referring to G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton was a brilliant author, philosopher, journalist, poet, debater, literary critic, and Christian apologetic. After writing about many of the problems facing American politics and economics, Wallis states, “But I am reminded of what … G.K. Chesterton once said when asked what was wrong with the world. He reportedly replied, ‘I am.’” (208)

It is this self-critical and humble approach to politics that is missing in our cultural debate, but make no mistake: this is bigger than politics. It would be easy for us to blame those politicians for playing the blame game. But we will never solve the problem of blame by blaming. What we need is a different way of being human.

I’m convinced that Oughoulian is right. Politics is based on uniting against a common enemy. There is no way out of this trap. The key is found in Chesteron’s answer. We can no longer unite behind an external enemy. The enemy is within each one of us. Oughourlian states, “Politics must…clearly designate a precise, known, clearly designated enemy that is obvious to each of us and that underlies all of these problems: ourselves.” (81)

Throughout On God’s Side, Wallis states, “I have never seen the real changes we need come from inside politics. Instead, they come from outside social movements.” (295) I pray for the day when a major politician will model the self-critical humility it takes to genuinely lead us into a future where each of us examines the enemy within. I pray for that day, but we must not simply wait for that day. Yes, we desperately need to work for the common good, but as we work for the common good, let’s stop the blame game in our personal, social, and political lives. Blaming others is a form of scapegoating that blinds us to solving the very real problems that we face – it especially blinds us to our responsibility for those problems.

Can politics serve the common good? I’m still cynical. I worry about Wallis’s emphasis on fighting for rights – even if we “fight for the rights of all people.” (5) Fighting for rights makes us adversaries and leads us back into blaming one another. But there is another political vision that comes from the Bible. In Genesis 12, God calls Abram to do something political. It wasn’t to fight for his rights. Rather, God said, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Biblical politics is not about fighting for political rights. It’s about being a blessing to all the families of the earth. American politics will only be redeemed when we, as a people, critically examine the ways in which we haven’t been a blessing to our brothers and sisters on this earth. We must admit the many ways in which we have become a curse and an enemy to many families on this earth.

The Bible knows us better than we know ourselves. The Bible knows that only with self-critical reflection can our politics be redeemed. Only then can we repent and take the necessary steps to live into the biblical mandate of being a blessing to all the families of the earth.

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