Missional Explorer

The Dreaded "H" Word!

Speaking of heresies, I find it so incredibly interesting that we all so quick to drag out the hoary and supposedly terrifying word "HERESY" whenever some disagrees with our opinions.  "Heresy" is, after all, such a delicious word as it marginalizes and condemns someone else's views while keeping our own views so obviously "right", beyond critique, and wrapped in the mantle of God's blessings.  Reminds me of two quotes I've mentioned before.  The first attributed to Dallas Willard, the second to Abraham Lincoln.  Quoting Dr. Willard, I like to tell my classes that "There are over 33,000 Christian denominations in the world. . . and they all think they are right."   Implied of course is the fact that no single organization or individual can possibly be "right" on everything because, to be "right" on everything would make one "God".  Despite this fact, we continue to play the games that I've got a handle on everything and, if you disagree, I might just drag out the H-Bomb in order to put you in our place.

As for Lincoln's quote, in light of the fact that both the North and the South were claiming God to be on their side, Lincoln was asked for his response.  Lincoln responded almost prophetically "God cannot be for and against the same thing.  One side therefore must be and both sides may be wrong!"  I wish that we could be more careful in using the H-word to bolster our own interpretive opinions. 

Selective Memories: Mythmaking in American History

Reflecting on history is a tricky process.  Most people I encounter seem to feel that history can be seen and understood completely objectively as if seen from God's point-of-view: seamless, non-controversial, with little nuance or interpretation required.  Historical "facts" are just like scientific "facts", right?  They either are or are not "true" and there is no such thing as "gray".  Yet, in teaching history for the past 16 years and reading about history far longer, I have come to accept the reality that the field of history is not the "objective" science that most people would wish it to be but far more like the field of anthropology where INTERPRETATION is the pathway to understanding. 

I've been reading, for example, a book that was recommended several weeks ago in a local newspaper.  It's called   Worshipping the Myths of World War II: Reflections on America's Dedication to War by Denver author Edward W. Wood Jr.  Mr Wood's credibility in talking about WWII would seem to be high in my estimation because he was severely wounded in the fighting in Europe and still lives with his scars (emotionally and physically) every day.  Wood is supremely frustrated by much of the mythmaking that has developed around WWII in both print and film mediums (Stephen Ambrose, Tom Brokow, Steven Spielburg, etc.) so he wants to set some things straight from his own experience.  In this small but fascinating book, Wood reflects on what he sees are four destructive myths of WWII as it has been "romanticized" in recent years.  First, Wood challenges the myth that WWII was "The Good War"; second that WWII was fought by "The Greatest Generation"; third that "We Won World War II Largely on Our Own"; and finally "When Evil Lies in Others, War is the Means to Justice". 

While all of the points Wood challenges as myths are incredibly interesting (and historically, not only plausible but probable), the myth I found most challenging was his last one which one of my teaching colleagues, Kyle, and I have taken to calling the Myth of Redemptive Violence.  Whether in movies (which is a huge Hollywood staple) or in real life, we love to embrace the belief that violence if pursued for just causes in a just manner will alway yield to just results.  Most people (including often myself) respond to WWII by saying this was an unavoidable "just war" in which barbaric and fanatical dictators, Adolph Hitler in Germany and Tojo in Japan, needed to be stopped.  To have avoided fighting would have been to yield to the "appeasers" who, as history is often interpreted, already made the matter worse.  Yet, Wood correctly exposes this facade and traces WWII not just to Hitler and Tojo but to the larger and earlier travesty of WWI (in itself presented at the time in mythic verbiage as "The War to End All Wars) particularly in the disaster perpetuated by the Treaty of Versailles which effectively ended the fighting of WWI but, in it's systematic injustice and brutal treatment of Germany (to say nothing of carving up the "spoils" of the Middle East into arbitrarily assigned nation-states with irrationally drawn boundaries established by European interests rather than any sane assessment of religious or ethnic realities on the ground), Wood correctly identifies that seeds were sown in history that would lead directly and unavoidable to both WWII as well as our present chaos in the Middle East.  And yet we continue to live with these myths that WWII (as other wars) are somehow unavoidable. 

Going even further, this insistence on living with selective memories through mythmaking is not confined to just war but to other examples of massive self-delusion as well.  Only one of which is what has been called the "Romance of Reunion" after the Civil War, a myth which somehow explains that Reconstruction and Reunion after the Civil War took only about 12 years after which the U.S. was fully recovered and "lived happily ever after".  And I actually taught this tripe for 10 years before I began to sense that something was not "smelling quite right".  Digging deeper, I discovered layers of self-deception which did, indeed, allow America to somehow "move on" but, in my most recent years of teaching, I have explained to students that while the North "won" the Civil War in the sense that the Northern States were victorious on the battlefield and the slaves were "freed", the careful study of history yields a different result for Reconstruction and Reunion after the Civil War.  There is no question that the South "won" that war and, in doing so, dictated the terms by which the reunion of North and South would take place with newly freed Africans the biggest losers in the face of a new kind of slavery imposed by enforced segregation.  This war wasn't settled for another 100 years and, as some authors have pointed out, is still being fought today. 

A pertinent question at this point is this:  If we are willing if not actually eager to live with myths like these from history, what current myths are we living with today and therefore compromising not only historical truth but our walk with Christ???   

Church as "Chaplain" to American Democracy?

"Both the conservative and the liberal church, the so-called private and public church, are basically accommodationist in their social ethic.  Both assume wrongly that the American church's primary social task to to underwrite American democracy".  Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon in Resident Alien: A Provocative Christian Assessment of Culture and Ministry For People Who Know that Something is Wrong.

An interesting transformation happened on our way into the 21st century.  While churches and pastors used to be respected as part of the center of Western culture, we now face a growing situation(some have called "post-Christendom") where churches in general and Christians in particular have become increasingly marginalized and therefore unwelcome in public conversations.  This has already happened with greater alacrity in Europe and Canada where it has become almost a liability to be identified as a Christian in public conversations.  Christians are intolerant, right?  Waking up to this transition, a growing number of Christ-followers are not only embracing life on the margins as the location where we have always been lived most authentically as followers of Jesus but are also now questioning the role that "Christianity" has played in Western culture.  Has institutional Christianity (and Christians) been "used" as spiritual cover for all kinds of roles that have nothing whatsoever to do with faith?  In other words, has Christianity played the role of chaplain to Western culture, conveniently used when a national crisis hits or democracy needs legitimizing and/or defending but then cast aside as irrelevant when the need passes?

A growing number of Christ-followers are answering "yes" to this question and are furthermore suggesting that we must embrace our marginalized status as the place where faith thrives best and therefore reject the siren song of power and privilege with which we have been tempted to seize in order to correct the world's ills.  I've read recently that some are interpreting the three temptations that Satan offered to Jesus as part of this narrative.  Many more are tracing the quantum shift of a "powerless and persecuted" early church to a "powerful" alliance of church and state back to Constantine when the Roman emperor not only eliminated the persecution of Christians but proceeded to compel/coerce everyone to be confirmed into the Christian religion.  History shows that Constantine, of course, had multiple motives including his desire to unite his empire behind one "religion".  History also shows that Constantine himself was profoundly ambivalent about his one Christian faith but rather used Christianity to bring peace to the empire.  While it is perfectly understandable that the early church greeted Constantine's elimination of persecution as heaven-sent, Stan Nussbaum, in interpreting South African missiologist David Bosch's seminal work Transforming Mission, points out in hindsight the tragic result:

"At the time Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal, the church was like an infant that has never seen a cobra.  The child does not know how to the charm the snake.  It does not even know not to pick it up by the sharp end.  When the church announced a political theology in which the church and state were inseparably united, it did not know what poison it was letting into its system.  It could not foresee what historians have noted since: 'Orthodox churches tended to become ingrown, excessively nationalistic, and without a concern for those outside".  The bite of the pro-Christian state proved more deadly to mission than the bite of the anti-Christian state had ever been."  Stan Nussbaum in A Reader's Guide to Transforming Mission.

So what are we to make of this "snake" of nationalism where allegiance to church and state have become so intertwined?  Is political power (coercion) and the nationalism it engenders a legitimate avenue for Christian participation in "bringing all things under the lordship of Jesus Christ" or is it possible that, when we resort to political power and nationalism we give in to the temptation that Jesus resisted and somehow sacrifice the best of what we have to offer to a fallen world?  As Hauerwas/Willimon suggest, "The problem is that when Christians in America take as their fundamental task to make America work, we lose our ability to survive as a church.  We do so because in the interest of serving America the church unwittingly becomes governed by the story of America" instead, I might add, of the more important narrative that is God's Kingdom and Mission earth. 

"Christian" Textbooks in Particular

If textbooks in general are often corrupted by the process (too many hands, too many compromises, etc.), you might be able to imagine my opinions on what are called "Christian" textbooks.  The first problem, of course, is this:  If the only difference between "Christian" schools and the government schools we call "public" is that "Christian schools use Christan textbooks", I would suggest that Christians are straining at gnats and swallowing camels.  Having worked in a Christian school for the better part of the past 16 years, doing school in a Christlike manner must go far beyond the textbooks we use and, in fact, go to the very core of HOW we do school together (including structure, goals, methodology, etc.)!!   But hopefully that is only stating the obvious (despite the fact that I know specific schools who claim their main Christian distinctive lays in the textbooks being used).

My second, more important, rant is the content which often passes for fact/truth in the Christian textbook industry.  One gripe is that most every Christian textbook I know of is so incredibly low on encouraging/creating opportunity for critical thinking that it could best be classified as "thinly veiled propaganda".   These books are simply not helping our kids "learn how to learn" and in a time when our world is desperate for Christ-informed voices and lives, our Christian textbooks are settling for "memorizing facts" and "regurgitating pre-digested information".  (If you doubt this premise, you might want to check out Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind)

Exploring further, however, to "see how far the rabbit hole goes", I must also speak to the content of what passes for "truth" in many Christian textbooks.  At this point, I must speak from my own primary content areas of history and government but I have also talked with teachers from other content areas enough to know that the same dynamics are also at work in science and often literature in particular.   But let's take only a few examples from history.  One "Christian" American History textbook (which shall go unnamed--from one of the leading publishers I might add) dedicated all of one sentence to the role of the Ku Klux Klan in American history explaining it like this:  "In the face of poorly conducted government, some Southern whites resorted to using illegal methods in attempts to improve the situation.  They organized secret societies such as the Ku Klux Klan (which) sometimes resorted to violence."  Illegal methods?  Sometimes?  Is this textbook truly helping kids understand an enormously tragic part of our past which today would be called "mass terrorism" or even "ethnic cleansing"?  Another example from this time period:  "The removal of the last federal troops from the South in 1877 is generally considered to mark the official end of Reconstruction.  Even before that time, Northerners and Southerners, freedmen and former masters began to find ways to restore harmony and cooperation."  Say what?  Harmony and cooperation in the form of violently imposed segregation which truly extended the Civil War for another 100 years??  Yes, the states were (depending on how you define the term) "reunited" but these sentences are simply not true and certainly do nothing to help our kids understand racial issues today.  In fact, to make my point, I used to have the kids in my classes physically write a line through these sentences and write the word "bullcrap" in the margin.  (For those of you who might want a more complete and truthful picture of this time period, I would strongly recommend Nina Silbur's The Romance of Reunion: Northerners and the South 1865-1900  or David W. Blight's Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory .)  By the way, this particular textbook devotes a total of one sentence to the importance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in American History summarizing his significance as "Leader of the civil rights movement who was assassinated in 1968".   This, my friends, would be laughable if it were not so tragically misguided.  Is it no wonder that our kids, "Christian" kids who might otherwise have the opportunity to participate in meaningful dialogue over racial history and tensions, are so clueless when they come to the table??  And these are only a few select examples from one textbook.   There are other equally pathetic examples from this textbook and other textbooks that are even worse. 

Just a thought in parting.  If any of you truly have a vision for reaching kids today in a Christian school context, consider the textbooks we have at our disposal and perhaps you entrepreneurial types might consider the Christian textbook industry as a wide open marketplace opportunity for ministry.

Textbooks in General

As promised (or threatened), here is Part 1 of my take on textbooks.  After year of working with kids (and textbooks) for over 25 years, pardon me if I profess to be a bit jaded about textbooks in general (usually written by committee) and "Christian" textbooks in particular.  I'll deal with textbooks in general first.  My bias here is probably eeking out already because most textbooks are, indeed, written by committee and, as the adage goes, "can any good thing come out of a committee?".  The bigger the committee the more difficult the task as the resulting text is usually so watered down that it not only kills the subject dead (especially in history) but, by settling on compromise (as is required by committees) and avoiding anything controversial, we take away the very thing that gives life to a classroom and/or learner.  Curiosity is, indeed, the beginning of all true learning and by eliminating controversial or competing views on historical truth or presenting only one interpretation as truth, curiosity is effectively eliminated and replaced by what usually amounts to as a propaganda approach to learning.  History textbooks are particularly loathsome in this regard with one delightful exception being Joy Hakim's acclaimed series The History of US which, as a journalist by trade, she wrote only out of desperation after reading her grandkid's existing history textbooks.  I once attended a seminar led by Ms. Hakim and, if you think I am harsh on "textbook by committee", you should hear her take on the textbook publishing industry as a whole.

The second major problem beyond textbook by committee is that many teachers have the unfortunate tendency to see the textbook as their master instead of servant.  In my experience, the best teachers are "artists" not technicians and teach kids not curriculum.  As such, textbooks can play an important role but only in a selective sense. . . selective not only in what is being used but also in when and how it is being used.

There is a third problem of course which transcends how textbooks are made and used: the problem of content.  In learning about American History, I recommend two more books and you can probably judge both books by their covers.  The first is Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by Jame W. Loewen and the second is A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, a history of the U.S. written by those who were identified as the "losers" in history and who, therefore, lost the battle over who gets to interpret historical facts, significance, and events.

For those of you who know me of course, the irony of all of this is that, at this very moment, I am involved in actually co-writing/co-editing a textbook (of sorts) on "missional thinking/living".  At this point, the process has been both frustrating and engaging all at once.  And, like the committee who wrote the American Constitution, I think that we are often (as Benjamin Franklin described their work) "sawing boards to make them fit".  And we are a committee of only three.  As for the results, if everything goes according to plan, a "textbook series" (student text, teacher's text, and some kind of consumable product) will be published in early 08.   Even so, if you think I have strong feelings on textbooks in general, wait till you read my take on textbooks advertised as "Christian":-).   

Perceptions of America Abroad

Between catching up on 6 months of miscellaneous stuff here in Denver together with a computer crash last weekend,, I haven't been able to match this blog with the personal reflection we have been doing on our recent trip to the U.K., New Zealand, and Fiji.  In summarizing part of our conversation, let me say that Linda and I really miss a lot about our lives overseas.  For the past 6 months, we have lived a daily sense of adventure that, quite honestly, feels impossible to duplicate here in the States.  Secondly, we still miss New Zealand in particular. . . our friends, the stunning scenery, our daily cross-cultural contact, etc.  I just emailed a Kiwi friend that "things are not the same here in Denver as they were before we left. . . nor do I want them to be".  What remains to be seen is what direction our lives will take here in the U.S. based on our time abroad.

Speaking of which, I have already had numerous conversations with fellow Americans regarding the anti-American sentiment which we found so prevalent in our travels.  "How do others see us in the States?" has been a common question from those who know what we have been doing.  My initial response is to comment on how complicated this picture appeared to us.  On one hand, the near universal antagonism many people have for the United States (especially from those outside the international Christian community) is puzzling in the sense that it is almost a knee-jerk, politically correct response with often very little thinking behind it.  Media figures basically assume that most of their audience is anti-U.S. and do little to hide their own  bias (which often makes fun of Americans).  Yet, however much American conservatives love to bash the media, this anti-Americanism is not simply a media creation for we encountered lots of people who also assume the worst about the U.S.  Witness the recent poll numbers we read while returning to the U.S. that a majority of Europeans link the United States with North Korea and Iran as the countries most threatening to world stability.  This poll did not surprise us at all in the context of our trip.  More humorously, many people we encountered asked if we were Canadian. . . at least in part because it appears to be more polite to assume that one is from Canada than from the U.S. . . to assume that one is from the U.S. would be considered an insult:-).

While we found this blanket condemnation of the U.S. puzzling and, at times, frustrating for its lack of depth, we also encountered a critique of the United States that was far more helpful, balanced, and thoughtful in it's approach.  As I mentioned in previous blogs, we found that Americans have a very well-earned reputation for cultural arrogance, narrowness, and stupidity.  Plus, honestly, we are just plain too loud!  We couldn't believe it the first time we encountered Americans in large number on our trip, ironically at the Fiji airport on our way home. . . the decibels were astounding and the conversation we overheard mind-numbing in it's emptiness.  When these personal tendencies are combined with what is perceived as political arrogance (implicit in much of our current unilateralism which comes with an apparent attitude of "We don't care what anybody else in the world thinks.  We will do whatever we want to do.  Why?  Because we can!) and misuse of power (economic, political, and military--often perceived as a kind of cultural imperialism), it is no surprise that we are getting a double whammy of emotional backlash on the international scene.

There is no question that the U.S. makes a very big target for animosity due to its size, wealth, power, and attitude especially when it is perceived that Americans are using our size, wealth, power, and attitude for selfish ends.  The politics of oil immediately comes to mind as does American support of corrupt governments as long as they are "friendly" to the U.S. and/or "in our best interests".  In the regard, the American sabotage of the Hamas government which was democratically elected among Palestinians is shocking.  Yes, Hamas is tragically using violence for political ends in the Middle East but they are certainly not alone in doing so in that part of the world.  So the question becomes do Americans support democracy only when we approve of the results?

One final note: One might think that Christians in other countries would be more accepting or embracing of the United States during the "war on terror" but we have found that to be only marginally true.  In fact, in our 6 months of travel, we have generally found that international Christians, while often less rude and more charitable, still profess surprise and disbelief at much of American policy these days.  Anecdotally, I recently heard that many evangelicals outside of the United States have expressed concern for their counterparts in the U.S. as if to say "Do you know how scary you have become?".  If we in the United States cannot hear this message from our brothers and sisters abroad (with whom we should theoretically have much more in common than with our fellow Americans who walk outside faith), we indeed have a huge problem.

A New Barmen Declaration?

I used to tell my kids at school that part of heaven for history teachers is going to be using “time travel” to visit real-time actual events from the past.  This would be so cool!  One of the many fascinating periods I would like to see (though, thankfully, not have to live) would be the Confessing Church movement that sprang up in 1930’s Germanyas a response to Hitler’s attempt (largely successful, I might add) to co-opt the German church.  A small group of pastors (including, most famously, Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer) resisted this nationalistic equating of church & state by forming an underground gathering of leaders called the Confessing Church, ultimately issuing what they called The Barmen Declaration which stated unequivocally their opposition to equating allegiance to their homeland, however beloved, to their allegiance to God.  Bonhoeffer accurately saw this bastardizing of the Gospel as creating what he called a “tribal god” of our own making which would only legitimize our own nationalistic viewpoints.  Check out the Confessing Church for yourself especially the link which takes you to the full text of the Barmen Declaration at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessing_Church .  My own thoughts are that we often face similar pressures today though, thankfully, without the despotic dictator.  We are all tempted to re-create God in our own image in order to legitimize specific causes.  And, even more pressing in the U.S. today, is the ongoing temptation to equate passion for God with patriotism for country so that, whatever decision our country makes, we equate with God. Abraham Lincoln correctly saw this happening during the Civil War when he observed that both sides—North and South—claimed God to be on their side.  “One side must be and both sides may be wrong”, Lincoln observed.  “God cannot be for and against the same thing.”  In a similar vein, my thoughts have run occasionally in recent years to this interesting question:  Do we need a Barmen Declaration in the U.S. today?