Christmas Eve Eve Concert

I'm supposed to be showcasing my writing on this blog, but since we're about to embark on the first of our Christian calendar's two holy-days, I wanted do something unique that celebrates the faith uniting us.

And I thought, why not create an online concert for you dear readers, who faithfully trudge through my essays with me day in and day out?  I could share with you some of my favorite Christmas music, and the stuff you may not like you can just skip, proceeding to the next entry in this order of worship.  Don't worry - this music isn't all from old, dead composers.  Two of the pieces are quite new, putting a delicious twist on the assumption that "contemporary" needs to be flaky.

Just be forewarned: you might find yourself enjoying some truly great musical masterpieces!

Indeed, I invite you to consider this a worshipful experience.  Consider taking out about an hour of your day sometime this weekend to work your way through this playlist in a contemplative, yet celebratory fashion.

So, without any further ado, let us proceed with our virtual concert.  Just click the link on each music title.  Please be sure all other communication devices are either turned to "mute" or "off," and allow me to also remind you that any recording or photography during this concert is not permitted.

(That was a joke!)

And now, would you please join me as we invite the Lord's blessing on this time:

Invocation
"Oh great God, Whose incarnation we commemorate this season, help your people to worship you in spirit and truth, not just as we join in these praises to you, but as we continue throughout this weekend of celebration for your many good gifts to us, not the least of which is our very reason to be joyful, even your dear Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray.  Amen."


Opening Fanfare
J. S. Bach, "For the First Day of Christmas (Part 1)" from the Christmas Oratorio


Contemplation
"Of the Father's Love Begotten" Divinum Mysterium by Aurelius C. Prudentius, 413 A.D., translated by John. M. Neale and Henry W. Baker

1. Of the Father's love begotten, Ere the worlds began to be, He is Alpha and Omega, He the Source, the Ending He, Of the things that are, that have been, And that future years shall see Evermore and evermore.

2. Oh, that birth forever blessed, When the Virgin, full of grace, By the Holy Ghost conceiving, Bare the Savior of our race, And the Babe, the world's Redeemer, First revealed His sacred face Evermore and evermore.

3. O ye heights of heaven, adore Him; Angel hosts, His praises sing; Powers, dominions, bow before Him, And extol our God and King. Let no tongue on earth be silent, Every voice in concert ring Evermore and evermore.

4. (Not sung on this recording, unfortunately) This is He whom Heaven-taught singers Sang of old with one accord; Whom the Scriptures of the prophets Promised in their faithful word. Now He shines, the Long-expected; Let creation praise its Lord Evermore and evermore.

5. Christ, to Thee, with God the Father, And, O Holy Ghost, to Thee: Hymn and chant and high thanksgiving And unwearied praises be, Honor, glory, and dominion, And eternal victory Evermore and evermore!


Anticipation
"Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence"


Incarnation
"Once in Royal David's City"


The Narrative
"From the Squalor of a Borrowed Stable" by Stuart Townend

Despite its sub-par audio quality and quaint aesthetics, I chose this video because the girls who are singing come from an African orphanage, helping to represent the global breadth of God's salvific plans through the incarnation of His Son.


The Invitation
"O Come, All Ye Faithful"


An Affirmation
Hector Berlioz, "The Shepherd's Farewell" from L'enfance du Christ

Thou must leave thy lowly dwelling, The humble crib, the stable bare. Babe, all mortal babes excelling, Content our earthly lot to share. Loving father, Loving mother, Shelter thee with tender care!

Blessed Jesus, we implore thee With humble love and holy fear. In the land that lies before thee, Forget not us who linger here! May the shepherd's lowly calling, Ever to thy heart be dear!

Blest are ye beyond all measure, Thou happy father, mother mild! Guard ye well your heav'nly treasure, The Prince of Peace, The Holy Child! God go with you, God protect you, Guide you safely through the wild!


Awe
"O Magnum Mysterium" from the ancient Matins for Christmas; this version composed in 1994 by Morten Lauridsen of Los Angeles, California

Latin text:  O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in praesepio!  Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum. Alleluia.

English translation:  O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the new-born Lord, lying in a manger!  Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear Christ the Lord. Alleluia!

The abrupt ending of this video cuts out the concluding prayer, so I took the liberty of crafting the last sentence:

"Eternal God, Who made this most holy night to shine with the brightness of Thy one true Light, bring us who have known the revelation of that Light on Earth to see the radiance of Thy heavenly glory through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.

"Christ, Who by His incarnation gathered into one things earthly and heavenly fill you with peace and goodwill, and make you partakers in the joy of His love; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you always. Amen."


Exultation
J. S. Bach, "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" and "Et in Terra Pax" from the Mass in B Minor

Yes, we have South Koreans singing in Latin!  The Gospel isn't just for English speakers, is it?  I hope I don't need to translate, but just in case, "gloria in excelsis Deo" means "Glory to God in the highest," and "et in terra pax" means "and peace on earth."


Ascription
G. F. Handel, "Hallelujah Chorus" from Messiah

(And yes, tradition dictates that you now rise to stand in honor of the King of Kings - even if you're in your living room at home.)

I've chosen our new friends in South Korea to lead us in Handel's penultimate worship song - literally with tears in my eyes - as I rejoice with saints around our world who are celebrating the birth of our Savior this weekend along with us!  They sing the famous text from the Hallelujah Chorus in their native language, yet we don't need a translator to join along with them in joyous proclamation that He whose incarnation we commemorate will truly reign forever and ever!

Hallelujah!
_____

Cancelling Worship Because it's Christmas?

Oxymoronic.

That's what it is.

Churches closing for the day on Christmas Sunday.

Okay, maybe more "oxy" than "moronic."  Yet it's still counter-intuitive.

Sure, a lot of Christians today don't go to church when Christmas falls on Monday through Saturday. But maybe we should. When I was growing up and my family spent our Christmases in Brooklyn, we always went to Golgotha Finnish Congregational Church on 44th Street every Christmas night.  There was something about spending at least a short amount of time at church on that holy day that seemed appropriate.

Even if, every year, the service was rather inappropriately capped off by the minister's wife, Mrs. Salo, donning a Santa outfit and masquerading as Joulupukki down the center aisle of the sanctuary, handing out plastic fishnet stockings filled with hard candy to all us kids.

But we won't get into the Santa thing right now.  Her heart was in the right place!  Besides, it was less questionable because Joulupukki (pronounced "YOL-eh-bu-kee) is just a kind-hearted Finnish mortal, not an omniscient American deity.

Meanwhile... fast forward back to today, and consider the practice of evangelical churches hardly ever opening for corporate worship services when Christmas Day happens during the week.  Just because we don't go to church every Christmas Day now, you'd at least think believers in the day's Namesake would want to go to church and worship Him on what we call His birthday - on the same day we ordinarily go to church.

You'd "think" that would be the case, anyway, but in America, you'd likely be wrong. Local media here in north Texas are reporting that over 60 relatively prominent Protestant churches are cancelling corporate worship services this Sunday.

Not that you're a heretic for cancelling church on a Sunday.  Or that 60 churches not meeting this Sunday is a huge percentage of the total number of churches here in this religion-saturated part of the country.

Or that it's blasphemous to deny the sanctity of December 25.

There's nothing intrinsically sacred about the date.  It's almost a fact that Christ wasn't born on December 25.  History didn't record the date of His birth, and experts tell us it was more likely sometime in the spring than at the beginning of winter.  European tradition and the Roman Catholic Church selected December 25 more out of cultural contrivance than authentic historicity.  So December 25 is incidental, not inerrant.

But shouldn't what this date represents for Christians be symbolic and worthy of respect?  The incarnation of the one, holy, true God of the universe.  God with us - Emmanuel.  Christ, the Lord.  The most utterly fantastic miracle ever to take place on our planet.

And we're too busy unwrapping presents under conifers to bother ourselves by going to church?  Because, really: that's the only reason churches are cancelling Christmas.

Haven't we gotten the cart before the horse?  I use that imagery even though I hesitate at comparing the incarnation of our Savior to a horse.  But isn't that what churches are doing?  They're not even bothering to acknowledge the "reason for the season," like the trite saying goes.  It's too inconvenient.  It's not practical to expect enough Christian families to stifle their materialistic urges and assemble together for corporate worship.  We can't force people to attend by putting them on a guilt trip if they don't. Maybe if we have Christmas Eve services instead, our congregants who are upset about us not having church the next day will feel better.

Plus, with all those kids being deprived of their raids under the Christmas tree, knowing that every other kid in the world is being showered with toys at that very moment (as if even that were true), the service would be a cacophonous mess with parents shushing their squirming kids, and agitating themselves for the preacher to wind things up before Uncle Joe and Aunt Sally arrive for Christmas lunch.

Yeah, there's too many logistics to overcome for families to put aside everything else and congregate for worship.  Too many sacrifices to be made.  After all, Christ came to give us freedom, not shackle us to church schedules.  He wants us to be happy and enjoy our holidays free of church responsibilities.

Well, with that attitude, why not chuck corporate Sunday worship services out the window completely?  If we can't set aside the presents for one day every seven years (like the Jewish practice of forgiving debts every seven years - go figure) and attend church just because it's Sunday, and we're Christians, who serve Christ, Who tradition says was born on this day... then what is our faith worth?

Probably not much more than a plastic fishnet bag in the shape of a sock filled with hard candy.
_____

On Not Getting the Write Job

Even though I blog almost every weekday, I like my privacy.

I write about personal convictions, yes, but they're convictions I'd tell almost anybody.

For example, I've written about my stance against gay marriage, but one of my best friends is gay, and I've already told him the same things I've blogged for you.  He doesn't agree with me, but we're still friends.

I've written about my centrist political opinions, even though those same opinions seem to cause more friction between my evangelical friends and me than my gay marriage opinions do between my gay friend and me.

Odd, huh?

Occasionally, I've even allowed myself to wander off into some musings about unemployment, an exceptionally personal subject for me, since aside from my monthly writing gigs with Crosswalk.com - for which I'm extremely grateful - I recently completed my second year of being jobless.

To be honest, I really don't like talking about myself. At least when it comes to topics where I'm seen as weak, unproductive, and insignificant.  Three things almost every working American considers the unemployed to be.

Weak, unproductive, and insignificant.

Conservatives figure something's drastically wrong with my work ethic, while liberals say I'm proof our economic system is broken.  Either way, in our culture, for the most part, if you're unemployed, you're disenfranchised socially.

Perhaps I've been woefully naive in thinking that if I could prove myself at writing, I'd be able to get a writing job.  My supportive editor at Crosswalk.com, upon learning that I wanted to write, suggested that about a year and a half of three blog entries each week oughta provide a decent portfolio for prospective employers to evaluate.

Which may be true... if anybody was hiring.  What few connections I have in the writing world paint as depressing an employment scenario in all forms of publishing as exists in virtually any other profession.  Basically, it seems as if employers in the United States - except for the federal government - are holding their collective breath, waiting for the current White House occupant to be voted out of office so they'll know what to expect tax-wise.  If there's one thing capitalism doesn't thrive upon, it's fiscal uncertainty.  And that's what we've got in Washington these days.

Not that it's just President Barack Obama's fault, especially since none other than the Wall Street Journal came out yesterday with an uncharacteristically negative assessment of Republican leadership in both the House and Senate.

But I think something else, other than national politics, may be at work.  Not just in America's employment numbers, but my own individual experience as one of the chronically unemployed.

God may be allowing our society to experience some fundamental changes in the way we view work, employment, financial rewards, and the purpose of money.

Living off of credit card debt and generous gifts of cash from family members isn't a healthy long-term plan for anybody.  But it's what many unemployed Americans - not just me - have been doing for a while now.  We're assuming that good times will return, and that debts will be repaid, and that we'll become givers again, instead of takers.

But the cynic in me increasingly wonders if, whenever any "good times" return, they will take more the form of adequate provision rather than abundance.

We were told that education is the key to financial reward, but these days, plenty of under-educated people can earn salaries larger than over-educated professionals in fields like education and healthcare.  Just ask anybody looking for employment, and anybody responsible for hiring, and they'll tell you that interpersonal connections weigh far more than education and experience in today's job market.  Statistically, it may still appear as though the more education people in our society receive, the more money they can earn; but individually, that's far from any guarantee.

Granted, I can't hold my BA in Sociology as a get-a-great-job-easily card.  But I never expected to get rich off of it.  I never thought it would be so worthless in our economy, either.  Liberal arts alumni, for all the gushing corporate America does over people qualified to think wholistically, have probably become the least-employable people on the planet, since it seems companies don't want employees who extrapolate information as much as they want robots to blindly process that information.

I can do both in a job.  Shucks, like many liberal arts majors, I've spent years doing more of the latter than the former in a variety of jobs!  But as many employees become less human in the eyes of their employers and more of a cost factor, the pay available for the mundane jobs continues to slide.  At least in terms of the cost of living, and executive pay.

We're told that it's because we're not worth as much as we used to be, now that we have a global economy.  Which may be quite true.  But at some point, even $10 an hour won't pay the expenses corporate America still expects the working class to accrue.  After all, ours is a consumer-based economy, and if the working class doesn't have the money to buy the stuff companies make, then whose fault is it that our economy suffers?

We hear of how our new generation of college graduates would prefer flex time over higher wages.  We're told that the conventional 9-to-5 job is quickly becoming outdated.  But how much of this is a product of employees actually getting what they want in our job market, and employees having to settle for what the job market offers them?

Even supposing I'd long ago given up on surviving on a simple BA and plowed ahead into a law degree, like many unemployed  (or, as employers claim, "unemployable") liberal arts people do, have you heard how many lawyers are getting laid off these days?

Meanwhile, as I pass through yet another Christmas season as an unemployed person, with my meager mutual fund long ago scraped clean, my savings account bone dry, and plenty of people telling me I write well - but none of them able to give me a job doing so for a living wage, I've come to see that one of my few options is to evaluate what God may be telling me about how I've spent money in the past, how grateful I should be for those who give me money now, and how I should leaven my desperation for employment against the writing I thought He was guiding me into over two years ago.

And frankly, it doesn't help me to realize that I'm not the only person in this predicament.

Actually, I'm surprised more Americans aren't concerned that so many people like me exist in our country.  Not so that I can feel an outpouring of sympathy, because sympathy is the last thing I and most of America's unemployed want.  Or need.

But because if our economy can limp along for three years now, with all of us out of work, who says it can't absorb the impact of even more people losing their job?
_____

Pay the Innocents from an Equity Bucket

"I am innocent."

"These charges have no basis in fact."

"I will vigorously defend myself against these charges."

Oh, be sure your sins will find you out, you liars.

Are you as tired as I am with all of the public figures who get accused of a major crime, insist they're innocent, and then either get proven guilty in a court of law or end up pleading guilty themselves?

They're never held to account for the way they misled the public by insisting they were innocent, even as they most likely knew all along their claims were bogus.

Case in point:  disgraced Brooklyn State Senator Carl Kruger, who when arrested and charged with $1 million in kickbacks this past March, claimed through his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, that he'd never accepted bribes or abused his position.

Granted, considering the cost of living in New York City, breaking the law for a paltry $1 million seems a little stupid on Kruger's part.  If he'd been smart, instead of simply saying he was not guilty, he'd have pled his case to his fellow New Yorkers:  "Hey, how far do you think I could go on $1 million in this town?  Do you think I'd forfeit my reputation for such cheap bribery?

Well, turns out, he did just that.  Today, after nine months of feigning innocence, Kruger turned himself in to the United States District Court in Manhattan to plead guilty on four of the five charges pending against him.  He's agreed that he's guilty of  two counts of fraud conspiracy and two counts of bribery conspiracy, which add up to a maximum of 25 years in prison.

It's hard to tell which is more embarrassing for him:  being forced to admit he's been lying all this time, or getting caught over a sum less than most one-family houses sell for in Brooklyn's best neighborhoods.

Granted, a New York State politician pleading guilty to corruption is hardly newsworthy in and of itself.  If the state really wanted to, it could probably turn its sprawling Modernist capitol complex into a prison to hold all of their corrupt public officials, and run the state's business out of a nearby Starbuck's with whomever's left.

The point is that just like so many other people who've been indicted and know they're guilty, former Senator Kruger - he resigned before pleading guilty to avoid being automatically terminated upon his plea - lied to the public without impunity for months.  Sure, a lot of people probably didn't believe him, but it could always be said that "a man's innocent until proven guilty."  And Kruger banked on that rhetoric to continue holding his Senate seat and exploiting a lavish - garishly gaudy, actually - lifestyle on the Brooklyn waterfront.

Yeah... about that lifestyle.  The never-married Kruger, 61, has been the State Senator for 16 years representing an upper-middle-class enclave called Mill Basin, along the murky shoreline of southeastern Brooklyn.  He lives with a pair of brothers, who are both unmarried gynecologists, and the brothers' divorced mother.  In a farcical stucco palace originally built for a Mafia crime boss.  A guy who reputedly had the architect for his home knocked off, probably for agreeing to design such a horrible-looking dwelling.

At four stories of somber gray walls and navy blue stripes - yeah, hideous, right? - with goofy white clip-art-looking decorations haphazardly stuck on, the "mansion" Kruger shares with the gynecologists and their mother boasts its own private dock, which was built on public land.  Metal sculptures sprout from the yard, evoking warped planking left over from some Mafia construction project.  A fake miniature mountain, replete with scraggly pine trees and disturbing statues of children, completes the bizarre homestead.

Maybe there's no law against having bad taste, but if there was, Kruger would already be in jail.

As the Feds were building their corruption case against Kruger, they compiled a series of recorded telephone calls in which the senator and one of the gynecologist brothers shared obvious proof of an intimate interpersonal relationship, yet even knowing the tapes will undoubtedly be played in court for the world to hear, Kruger has maintained that he's not gay.

And no, it's not a crime to be gay, either.  But continuing to insist the evidence proving the fact is wrong seems more of a case of serial denial than logical public relations.  After all, this is Brooklyn.  And a liberal part of Brooklyn, too.  He's already bought-off plenty of voters, back when he could still run for office. What's he got to lose by at least being honest about his sexual orientation?

It's as though he's living in a fantasy world, where reality is only what your lawyer can't get you out of.

Sadly, Kruger isn't the only public figure guilty of playing the public for a fool in this way.  He's just one of today's more interesting perpetrators of this deceit.

Unfortunately, all of these claims of innocence that inevitably get blown out of the water when the truth comes out do have victims.  The victims are all of those people who are accused of something they really didn't do.  They get hauled off to the courthouse, they're forced to do a perp walk, they hold impromptu press conferences pleading their innocence, all to the deaf ears of the public. 

The court of public opinion is often woefully unfair.

We've become desensitized to cries of innocence because "where there's smoke, there must be fire." But by the time an innocent person is proven to be so, the public doesn't care anymore, or the story isn't relayed properly, or the wrongly accused has already lost too much credibility and social standing to make up whatever they've lost while living under suspicion - if indeed they can even get back to where they'd been before being wrongly accused.

So, I have a solution to this inequity.

We should create an "equity bucket."

Everybody who gets accused or arrested for something and proclaims their innocence should be encouraged to put a significant amount of money in the "equity bucket."  If they manage to get all the way through a trial with proof of their innocence - and their integrity - intact, then they get all of that money back.  Plus interest - kind of a "we're sorry" for putting an innocent person through the wringer like that.

How does the amount paid out in interest get funded, you ask?  If the accused person finally admits that yeah, they're guilty as sin, or the courts prove they're guilty, the person forfeits all of the money they put into that "equity bucket."

Something tells me there will be more than enough money left over after the truly innocent are proven to be so, that the "equity bucket" will probably never run out of funds.

Unless enough people who are guilty of crimes actually 'fess up when they're caught.  And forgo the charade of innocence in public.

Because just as people who know they're guilty hope their claims of innocence can somehow morph into corroborating proof in a court of law, too many innocent people lose too much getting lumped in with all of the genuine losers.

"Be sure your sins will find you out."

That works most of the time.

Except if you were innocent to begin with.
_____

S'No Leadership Fabrication

What is the definition of "leadership?"

If leadership can be defined as the ability to get good people to do great work, despite your own inadequacies, then this story will show I'm probably a good leader.

Otherwise... not so much.

Many Christmases ago, while living in New York City, I attended historic Calvary Baptist Church on Manhattan's West 57th Street, a major cross-town boulevard.  Desperate for Christian fellowship in the big bad city, I had joined the volunteers at Calvary's primary outreach to the city's singles, a Friday night coffeehouse ministry featuring contemporary Christian music.

I know - I know!  Contemporary Christian music has never really been my thing, but as I said, I was desperate to connect with Christians of my own "age and stage" in a meaningful way.  And the Solid Rock Cafe, as the ministry was called - after the famous Hard Rock Cafe restaurant down the street - needed volunteers.

Plucked from Obscurity

Calvary in general, and the Solid Rock Cafe in particular, were wonderful microcosms of the city's diversity.  We had a college student of Indian descent who set up the lighting, a photographer who set up the sound equipment, a Ford fashion model who ran the kitchen, and various other believers of all backgrounds, professions, and skin colors who filled in wherever they were needed.  Surprisingly, perhaps, considering the evangelical wasteland most of America's Northeast has become, almost all of the musicians we auditioned lived in and around New York City.  And while some were obviously better than others, I don't really recall us ever having anyone who was downright awful.

As it happened, a few weeks after I joined this group, the woman who'd been leading the ministry announced she was pregnant and would be stepping aside.  Not to worry, however; Amy had been one of the few married volunteers.  She and her husband had purchased a house out on Long Island, and now they were starting their family.  So everything was great.

Except that all of the other long-time leaders in the ministry who could have stepped into her shoes had defected from Calvary to join Tim Keller's fledgling church, Redeemer Presbyterian.  And although Calvary didn't mind former church members volunteering at the Solid Rock Cafe, church leadership wanted a Calvary member in charge for accountability reasons. 

One evening, while still living in Brooklyn, I got a call from Amy asking me to consider taking over for her.  I was floored - I hadn't yet joined Calvary as a member, and I was still learning the ropes - but since I was eager to get further involved, I accepted.  Calvary's pastor who oversaw the ministry, an associate pastor named Ken, met with me and agreed with Amy's selection.  And since nobody else already in the ministry wanted the additional responsibility, they welcomed my promotion with open arms.  And probably a fair amount of relief that somebody else was willing to take over instead of them.

Hey - I was young and naive.  I didn't know until later about all of the intricate church politics at Calvary that squeezed Ken through the ringer sometimes.  Music-wise, Sunday mornings were strictly classical and traditional at Calvary, and I loved that about the church.  Yet even though I'd come from a church here in Texas that had gone completely contemporary, I didn't fully appreciate how threatened some of Calvary's long-time members were by the rock music going on downstairs every other Friday evening.

Off-Off-Off-Off-Off-Broadway

On coffeehouse nights, we'd set out a sandwich board sign on the sidewalk along 57th Street outside Calvary's sanctuary doors.  We'd bring up a table from the basement and collect the modest $5 cover charge right there in the narthex, often with the doors wide open, until Calvary's deacons decided - wisely, probably - that having a cash box right by an open door along a major cross-street in Manhattan wasn't the safest idea.  We later moved our welcome table back downstairs, to a mezzanine below the sanctuary near the fellowship fall, our usual coffeehouse venue.

When I say casual and understated, that's what our operation was.

One time, while sitting at the welcome table with the narthex doors opened to 57th Street, I watched as a few tourists walked by, and they saw our sandwich board announcing "Solid Rock Cafe."  They stopped, shook their heads, and then lamented something about how even New York's Baptist churches were going to Hell in a handbasket.

That's why to this day, despite my strenuous objections regarding most contemporary Christian music, and my contention that "Christian rock" is an oxymoron, I choose my words extremely carefully.  During my tenure at the Solid Rock Cafe, I learned that there is a difference between the music and the hearts of its performers, even though sometimes that difference is difficult to discern.

At any rate, since I was in charge, I instituted a regular schedule of administrative meetings for the entire volunteer staff, so we'd all be on-board with what was taking place in the ministry.  Not that we did anything earth-shaking.  I would draft agendas for our meetings, give everybody a copy, and we'd work through them at a steady clip.  In my youth and naivete, I thought that's how all church meetings ran, until Ken remarked that our meetings were among the quickest he'd ever endured during his years of church ministry.

And indeed, attendance at the meetings actually grew as more of our volunteers realized they were efficient and respected their time.  Somehow, we'd manage to address everybody's concerns and feedback without hopping onto a lot of rabbit trails - something I myself am woefully guilty of instigating during meetings for which I'm not in charge.

During one of these meetings, we came up with the idea of hosting a special Christmas concert for the Solid Rock Cafe, where we'd feature a catered meal and a major talent.  (That's show-biz lingo for a popular musician.)  We'd had large concerts before, with the likes of Kathy Troccoli and Scott Wesley Brown, but they were conventional productions in the sanctuary.  This time, we'd do something more intimate, with tablecloths and special lighting, making it more of an event than just a generic night out.

The first Christmas we sponsored this concert, featuring Calvary member and Broadway actor George Merritt, our concept was very well-received.  So the next year, we decided to take it a step further.

White Christmas in Fellowship Hall

Calvary's fellowship hall is like many Baptist fellowship halls - more functional than fancy.  To fix that, at least temporarily, we needed an inexpensive yet striking solution.

I learned that as a member of 57th Street's business association, which included such famous neighbors as the Russian Tea Room, Steinway Hall, and Carnegie Hall, Calvary had a standing offer for discounts from a fabric store down the block.  Apparently, 57th Street used to be part of New York's fabric district, and a few venerable shops remained nearby.

Remember, I was young and naive.  I came up with the wacky idea of completely covering the drab off-white walls of our fellowship hall with yards and yards of white fabric, with maybe some silver thread in it to conjure up the idea of snowbanks with softly glistening flakes.  Ken's secretary went down to the fabric shop and selected what seemed like miles of white fabric with silver string woven into it, which the shop sold us for next to nothing.  Granted, it wasn't stylish fabric; I wouldn't have wanted to wear anything made out of it. But it suited my idea, and the price was certainly right.  So the Thursday night before our Christmas concert that year, I met with several volunteers after work to drape it around the room.

Except... all of the walls were concrete.  Duhh... it was a basement room, after all, and the walls were structural!  For some reason, I had assumed we could just tack the fabric discretely into the walls, but we quickly determined that we'd need a staple gun, or a hammer and nails.  But remember - this is New York City, a place where things like staple guns, hammers, and nails aren't necessarily in ready supply.  Fortunately, somebody with keys rummaged around in the locked janitor closets and found a huge hammer, and finally some small tacks.

We had a tall stepladder, which I, as the leader, proceeded to climb, so I could tack the cloth up against the cracks between the walls and the suspended ceiling.  Except, as you might imagine, the tacks wouldn't hold much weight for very long.  Oh, it was so frustrating, getting this shiny fabric put in place, only to have tacks fall out after you'd moved the stepladder along a few feet for another attachment job.

I've never been known for my patience.  I had a pounding headache and could barely breathe from an intense sinus infection.  I was tired, I hadn't had any dinner, since I'd rushed uptown to the church from my office downtown, needing to project an image of responsibility and authority by being early for the project.  For some reason, none of us expected this to be a complicated endeavor.  Yet we were making no progress at all.

How many times I dropped the hammer onto the floor while trying to nail those small tacks, I can't recall.  We had enormous, surprisingly heavy bolts of fabric that I didn't want to cut - even though doing so would have made our job easier - because I wanted seamless rolls of the glistening white fabric wrapping around the room.

Finally, I dropped the hammer one too many times - into my face, as I was looking up - and it fell into my left eye socket, popping my glasses off of my nose.  The falling hammer pushed my glasses awkwardly into my face, bending the metal frames, and cutting a small section of skin around my eye.  I could immediately feel it turning black and blue.

Of course, the tack bounced to the floor below, followed by the hammer, so I asked my friends to pick them up for me so we could continue.  But standing on the tiled floor, they all looked up at me on the ladder, and told me that enough was enough.  It had been a good idea to decorate the fellowship hall so elaborately, but we were wasting our time trying to make it work.  We didn't know what we were doing, and by now, we'd wasted so much time figuring out that we didn't know what we were doing, that we'd run out of time to do anything right.  It was late, I'd nearly gauged my eye out, fabric walls weren't essential to the concert, and we all had to go to work in the morning.

Their logic was irrefutable, so ruefully, I concurred.  We fixed up a couple of other minor details in preparation for the next evening's event, turned off the lights, and went home.

No Dreaming of This White Christmas

At work the next day, my sinus infection made me miserable physically, but my ineffectiveness at our decorating efforts the night before humiliated me - even though nobody at the office had any idea about it.  The scar around my eye didn't turn out to be as bad as it looked Thursday night, and I don't think any of my co-workers had even paid much attention to it.  I managed to make it through the day, so bundling up my dented pride, I ventured back uptown to salvage the concert that evening.

Tired, with throbbing sinuses and another empty stomach, I trudged up the steps from the Subway at 7th Avenue, across from Carnegie Hall.  I turned the corner and made my way down a blustery 57th Street to the church.  I pulled open one of the sanctuary's heavy wood doors, and plodded down the corner stairs to the fellowship hall, where I could hear my volunteers already bustling around in preparation for the evening's program.

What a reliable group of people, I thought with a weary smile.

I made my way through the mezzanine towards the balcony overlooking the fellowship hall, and there was Ken.  With two of my volunteer staffers, Krista and Michelle, who had been helping Thursday evening as well. 

And behind them I could see a beautifully-decorated fellowship hall, swathed with glistening white fabric from floor to ceiling!

Ken was beaming.  Krista and Michelle were, too.  The two women had each taken the afternoon off from their jobs to come in and figure out how to hang the fabric. 

Stunned.

I was stunned.  Floored.  Embarrassed.  Immensely grateful.  And then, proud.  Proud to have such friends, fellow servants in Christ, who would do such a thing.  Not for me, necessarily, although they said they really felt sorry for me after the hammer fell onto my face.

But they wanted our Christmas concert to be what we had envisioned it to be during our planning meetings - something special, and a bit unique.

When I tell people today, "some of the best friends I've ever had, I made when I lived in New York City," this is the caliber of people I'm talking about.

Follow the Leader

Throughout that evening, I remember a number of our patrons telling me they couldn't believe they were in the bowels of Calvary's bland fellowship hall!  We dined on a full-course gourmet meal prepared by a church member who used to own an exclusive catering firm.  Then another member of the church, who ran both a public relations firm and a popular solo singing career, provided the lush music for our concert.  And the room glistened not only with people enjoying themselves and being ministered to, but the faint twinkles of what - if you squinted hard enough - could have been snowflakes sprinkled along the softly-lit floor-to-ceiling fabric.

To this day, I still don't know how Krista and Michelle managed to hang the fabric and keep it on the walls without causing permanent damage.  I'm sure they told me, but I was too stunned for it to register.  Today, I thought of e-mailing Michelle, with whom I'm a FaceBook friend, and asking her again, but I think I like keeping this part of the story a little mystery.  For all I know, they duct-taped the fabric on the walls, and incurred the wrath of Calvary's sextons who had to repair the damage when it all came down.  I have no recollection whatsoever of who took it down, or when.  Usually, we were responsible for leaving fellowship hall looking like the Solid Rock Cafe had never taken place.  But I was so humbled by the efforts of my friends that my mind has blocked out what we ever did with all that fabric.

I moved from New York City before the next Christmas concert, but even years later, a friend at Calvary relayed to me that they were still using that fabric for Christmas events at the church.

These days, I've become disenchanted with the incorporation of snow themes with Christmas.  Experts tell us that even though we don't know the exact time of year in which Christ was born, it most likely wasn't anytime in December.  Or even the winter.  And Israel rarely gets snow, even if it was.

Not only may the European traditions of Christmas corrupt the historical integrity of the birth of Christ, they could be becoming increasingly insignificant as more and more people around the globe learn about the Son of God.  People who have never even seen snow.  And have no idea how or why it figures into the Nativity.

Nevertheless, to me now, it's not so much that the fabric with the silver threads looked like snow on the walls of Calvary Baptist Church's fellowship hall.  It's that my friends thought it was a cool-enough idea to try and create the effect by quietly, willingly taking time off from work, and figuring out how to make it happen.

A really good leader would have probably forced themself to think up a way to make that happen on their own.  Or at least have done a bit more reconnaissance around the venue before determining an effective course of action.  Or maybe even pressured the sextons to hang the fabric themselves, since they're the facility experts.

Ultimately, however, I'm satisfied appreciating the fact that volunteer staffers, without being asked, were willing to make extraordinary efforts out of kindness, and with no guarantee of reward.

After all, that's what God wants in all of His true servants, right?

Whether we're called leaders or not.
_____

Don't Ban Logic in Cell Phone Debate

So, you say letting other people driving while using cell phones is dangerous.

But you don't want the government banning you from doing the same thing.

Granted, the chances of banning drivers from cell phone use aren't very good.  It would take an extraordinarily gutsy politician to carry that banner in his or her state, and politicians don't like to be gutsy.

In the meantime, however, reaction to the news that the National Transportation Safety Board recommends a ban on cell phone use in the drivers' seat has brought a ton of anti-government ravers out of the woodwork, all squawking about how the Nanny State Police will soon smother the United States with silly laws.

And while I agree that we shouldn't need a law banning stupid behavior - like using cell phones while driving - plenty of Americans (myself included) have already proven that we're more than willing to risk this extraordinarily dangerous behavior simply because we can.

The only penalty we receive comes if we damage our vehicle - or ourselves - in an accident.

Precedents and Enforcement

But is banning cell phone use, even though it sounds like a draconian measure, entirely un-American?

Consider the rules imposed by the Federal Communications Commission against certain swear words and sexually-suggestive terminology on the nation's airwaves.  Rules that, were they abolished, would elicit howls of protest from many of the same people protesting the proposed ban on cell phone use.

And cuss words don't kill anybody.

To a degree, roadways are like airwaves, are they not?  They're both a form of public domain, shared by society, and intended for our overall protection, productivity, and enjoyment.  Yet just as we recognize the need to police the airwaves for the good of our entire society - particularly to protect children who do not need exposure to such content at such vulnerable ages - don't we also need to protect drivers and their passengers on our roadways?

Granted, one of the strongest arguments against outlawing cell phones is the question of enforcement.  For government to create a Nanny State law is one thing, but for it to create an unenforceable Nanny State law is rubbing salt into the wound.

Unfortunately, the only realistic way to force drivers to hang up and drive is to tie penalties to such a driver who gets involved in an automobile accident.  Their cell phone records would have to be researched by the police.  However, that doesn't sound like a terribly efficient process.  Neither am I sure whether a search warrant would need to be issued, or how much liability might be linked to the trail of cell phone activity.

Indeed, Canada and some US jurisdictions already ban most forms of cell phone use, and some experts claim that crash rates have not declined in those areas.  They try to draw the conclusion that laws banning cell phone use don't work. Yet might this apparent proof actually reflect a woefully ineffective enforcement of those laws?  In other words, the reason current laws don't seem to be reducing the number of accidents may have less to do with these laws being misguided and more to do with these laws incorporating unreliable enforcement methods.

The same number of people may be driving and using their cell phones, even with new laws against such behavior, knowing they won't get caught or penalized.  If and when they do get in a wreck, maybe they just don't tell law enforcement. After all, who's gonna know, if the police don't subpoena their data records?

Isn't the enforceability issue a red herring anyway?  Wouldn't a well-written cell phone ban be about as effective as laws against driving without car insurance?  Haven't most of us resigned ourselves to the fact that only a law will force some people to maintain proper car insurance?  But people driving without insurance don't get caught unless they get stopped for some other infraction, or they're involved in an accident.  So in a sense, laws already requiring insurance are about as "unenforceable" as a cell phone law would be.

The point is that people can throw opinions on the wall of objections all day long, hoping enough will stick to create a plausible scenario of justification as to why banning cell phones is a bad idea.

Is it the Nanny State's Fault that We Need One?

But it really isn't, is it?  It's unpopular, it's inconvenient, it's government-creep... but we Americans have a bad habit of taking liberties and taking them for granted, and in the process, abusing them.  It's like children whose parents give them an inch an they take a mile, only to recoil in distress when the parents realize that their kids can't handle the responsibility.

Ultimately, working through the logistics of banning cell phone use won't be an exercise in futility - even if broader bans on the practice never materialize - as long as Americans realize that driving while on the phone truly is a dangerous distraction, and we collectively make concerted efforts at curbing our own dangerous behavior.

As for making yet another law, just know that the distance between being accountable for your actions and being protected from people who don't sometimes requires a law prescribing just how much unaccountable behavior society can withstand.

And the longer it takes a society to figure out what that amount is, more lives generally end up being at stake.

I hope we can live with that.
_____

Making a Call for Safety

This past Saturday, when rehearsal for our church choir's Christmas concert concluded, I walked to my car.

I got inside, checked my cell phone, and saw that I had two new messages.  So, I listened to my voicemail, and I returned my calls.

As I did so, I noticed three other choir members make their way individually to their parked cars, get inside, and then sit, like I was doing, listing to their cell phone messages and returning calls.  I could tell, because they kept holding little cell-phone-shaped devices up to their ears.

So there we all sat, in one of our church's parking lots, in our vehicles, conducting personal business on our cell phones.

Before we drove away.

We got on our cell phones and got done what needed to get done before we got onto city streets and freeways.  That's how responsible drivers use their cell phones.

Childishness by the Public Usually Leads to the Nanny State

Unfortunately, my fellow choir members and I this past Saturday are in the minority.  Not only because our church still has a chancel choir, and not even because we sing in it.  But because we respected our responsibility as safe drivers.

When other drivers abdicate that responsibility, who needs to compensate for that?  This is the question our government has decided it needs to answer by recommending a ban on using cell phones while driving.

Admit it:  we haven't needed our National Transportation Safety Board to identify drivers' use of cell phones as a dangerous behavior.  We all know it is.

The question is who protects the driving public from drivers who refuse to discontinue dangerous behaviors like cell phone use while driving?

I'm looking around, and I don't see anyone else but the government.  As unpleasant a notion as generating even more legislation may seem.

Not that banning cell phones in the interest of public safety would be a precedent.  A similar argument was used for creating mandatory seat belt laws.  The theory goes that even though a seat belt won't keep you alive in every automobile crash, people who wear them have a greater survival rate than those who don't.  Plus, wearing a seat belt helps keep drivers behind the wheel where they can better maintain control of their vehicle before they ever crash.  And hopefully avoid an accident altogether.

But with cell phones, the argument that banning their use strikes at more than just personal safety.  Many people conduct business on their cell phones while driving.  They check up on their kids, or their spouse.  They order dinner, they console a friend, or they call for directions out of a dangerous neighborhood.

You have to be flat-out ignorant to ignore the safety benefits of wearing a seat belt - benefits which help ameliorate the consternation of having government-mandated seat belts.  Nevertheless, the fact that we need to have a law requiring seat belt use demonstrates how belligerent the driving public can be when it comes to common sense. But cell phones aren't exactly seat belts; they have so many uses, and they've rapidly become practically indispensable for many people.

Couple the cell phone's perceived indispensability with our distaste for draconian laws against popular behavior, and the NTSB isn't winning many friends with their recommendation yesterday to ban all forms of cell phone use by drivers of moving vehicles.  Such a ban would include not only hand-held phones, but hands-free phones and texting.  The only exception would be in case a driver needs to call 9-1-1.

Although I'd like to think that we don't really need such a law, the statistics appear to prove differently.  And even anecdotal evidence suggests that far too many people assume they're the exception to the rule when it comes to distracted driving.  We've all driven or ridden past vehicles where the driver is floating around their lane, obviously so engrossed in their telephone conversation that what's happening on the roadway is of secondary concern at best.

Many of us - even when we're not on the phone as we drive - have forgotten that driving is not supposed to be a solitary activity.  When we turn on the engine to our vehicle, and back out of our driveway, we automatically begin a civic endeavor, becoming a joint user of a public conveyance.  We enter a realm in which we share reciprocal responsibilities with every other driver.  A realm in which safety for all of us is Job Number One.

Just getting from Point A to Point B doesn't matter if we cause a wreck along the way.  Or get involved in one.

Driving is not blank time.  It is not the dead zone between Point A and Point B.  Just because driving is so routine doesn't make it any less important as an activity.  Cars don't have autopilots, like planes do, because our pathways aren't as restricted as those for airplanes.  We don't ride on rails, like trains, whose courses are controlled by engineers hundreds of miles away.  And as America's streets become more and more congested, drivers are getting bombarded with more and more things to compromise safety.

In addition, our driving public has had more than a decade's worth of practice to adapt to driving while on cell phones, and we just haven't done a good job of it.  When cell phone technology was first introduced, America's drivers had a prime opportunity to demonstrate that we could handle the responsibility of driving safely while on the phone, but unfortunately, we blew it.  Maybe not you specifically, or me, but drivers in general.

Clarifying the Conversation Conundrum

Admittedly, frequent rebuttals to this idea include the valid contention that oftentimes, a person-to-person conversation with somebody riding in a vehicle with the driver can also be distracting.

Yet consider the difference in scenarios between passengers in the same vehicle all having a conversation, and people in two different places having a conversation.  Everybody riding in the same car likely will have a greater awareness of their shared surroundings, and be able to interpret compromising situations, cutting off conversations so the driver can make impromptu maneuvers to avoid danger.  Things like bumper-to-bumper traffic, or a car weaving towards yours at high speed:  everyone in the car shares a vested interest in letting the driver address each situation with minimal distraction. 

Compare that to talking with somebody driving a vehicle you're not inside of.  You're completely excluded from the driver's immediate environment.  You aren't aware of the moment-to-moment conditions they're facing and needing to accommodate.  In such conversations, both you and the driver will more likely attempt to continue an active dialog regardless of safety threats encountered by the driver and completely unbeknownst to you.  Or, the driver will slow their vehicle down so dramatically - or weave about mindlessly as they talk to you - that they become a hazard to other drivers.

You know you've seen it happen.  Maybe you're guilty of it yourself.  Even when no accident takes place, what makes up for the fact that as a distracted driver, you put yourself and other people at risk?

Do it enough times, and the law of averages starts to work against you. And the rest of us.

Equality Under the Law - This Does It, Right?

For better or worse, as a society, we bring laws upon ourselves to combat actions - or inaction - that sufficient numbers of our fellow citizens have proven as detrimental to our overall safety.

So don't blame the government for saying we need laws preventing cell phone use while driving.  Blame your fellow Americans for botching years of opportunity in which they could have proven such a law isn't necessary.

And if you're pro-life, like I am, what's the difference between legally recognizing behaviors that can imperil life either inside or outside the womb, behaviors about which too many people maintain a dangerous ambivalence?

Besides, for all of the businesspeople who have begun squawking that a cell phone ban would cripple their ability to conduct commerce: take heart.  Since the law would apply to everybody, it would mean that your competition wouldn't be able to make calls behind the wheel, either.

You can still pull into a parking lot to make an important telephone call or check messages.

Just like my fellow choir members did.

And if all that just sounds too old-fashioned for you, then think of it this way:  if America's drivers had proven we still can incorporate old-fashioned logic and common sense when it comes to safety, cell phones, and driving, we wouldn't be needing another law to protect us.

From ourselves.
_____

New York's State is the Empire

Unbelievable!

Almost unbelievable, at least.  And even though I'm laughing as I type this, so very sad.

I'd already begun writing today's rant - excuse me - today's "essay" with my topic about fiscal waste in New York State firmly in mind (that's not the funny part). Then I noticed on one of my source websites a new headline about cops for a New York government agency earning over $200,000 per year.

Here it is: New York-New Jersey Port Authority beat policeman earns $221,000 a year

It's a poorly-worded headline, to be sure, since the Port Authority doesn't beat anybody but taxpayers.  But then again, maybe that's the true hidden meaning here.

Doing the Math in a High-Tax State

Turns out, 66 police officers employed by the Port Authority, funded by both New York State and New Jersey, have racked up over $41 million in overtime this year - and the year isn't even over yet.  The highest-paid cop has already taken home $265,059, which is more than most of the Port Authority’s executives earn in a year. Shucks, the PA's top dog earns only $289,667 a year.

It's not as though the region around New York Harbor doesn't have other law enforcement agencies.  Each city and town has their own police force, dwarfed by the mammoth NYPD itself.  Then there's the transit authority's police department, two state police departments, who knows how many private security firms, plus redundant federal law enforcement agencies.

And then there's the Port Authority, with its own cops.  Patrolling mostly facilities where the feds share jurisdiction, like airports, bridges, tunnels, wharves, and commuter trains.  Sure, they're all significant terrorist targets, but it's not like patrol officers from the PA don't have Homeland Security personnel providing heavy backup.  Or, for that matter, access to the highly-effective resources of the supremely-equipped NYPD.

Now, I wasn't intending to warm the cockles of my right-wing readers' hearts by blasting fiscal waste in New York. Nor was I attempting to engender some conservative bona-fides on my part by playing the low-tax hawk. Particularly after Wednesday's critique of Tony Perkins' theologizing about capitalism.

No, I was merely going to lament the tawdry state of financial affairs and abdication of logic on the part of my fellow New Yorkers in my home state.

And then, the Port Authority beats me to it!

For the record, my original examples of funny money in the Empire State come from two depressing stories out of Syracuse. The first involves a proposed remodeling project for a 100-year-old dilapidated mansion for which the developers flatly projected a loss of at least $200,000. The second involves the announcement yesterday in Albany, the state capital, of $104 million in "economic development incentives" to non-profits around Syracuse.

When Doing the Math Still Doesn't Add Up

Preserving a community's heritage is important. But it's not like Syracuse is running out of old buildings. The gritty, aging city, decimated by suburbanization after World War Two, still boasts a hearty stock of ornate Victorian and Queen Anne manses that have been carefully preserved and painstakingly updated. Then there are the many more, um, "antique" houses of dubious architectural distinction and even less credible aesthetic authenticity sitting all around town, in various stages of repair.

At the bottom of the scale rests an unfortunately high number of completely vacant structures, many of which have served as single-family homes, then apartments, then small businesses, and now finally, empty shells. In their day, they may have been grand, but today, they're eyesores, havens for crime, and drags on nearby property values.

Surprisingly, despite its terrible economy and continuing erosion of jobs, Central New York in general and Syracuse in particular have managed to preserve a decent standard of living without significantly compromising an all-American quality of life. This means that even though taxes are horrendous, old homes in inner-city Syracuse can still fetch respectable prices, considering how much it costs to heat those large domiciles during the state's frigid winters.

Which also means that all is not lost when it comes to trying to salvage an established neighborhood's respectability and pride.  So after looking at one of the city's more aggrieved, abandoned eyesores for more than twenty years, members of Syracuse's University Neighborhood Preservation Association near the acclaimed campus of Syracuse University announced a $1.1 million restoration project for the old pile.

Their aim is to clean up the three-story, two-porched, turreted, and grandly-proportioned house on a lushly wooded corner lot and turn it into four multi-storied condominiums.  Ranging in price from $125,000 to $200,000 apiece.

You do the math.

Four condos, even at the premium price, only gets you to $800,000 out of an estimated $1.1 million remodeling pricetag.  Even with some creative financing to make up part of the differential, the neighborhood association anticipates losing about $200,000 when all is said and done.

A herculean task of retrofitting a former one-family house, last used as a Jewish veterans group's headquarters, into four individual condominiums. Accommodating historic preservation rules and environmental hazard laws, while incorporating all the modern conveniences people expect when paying $150,000 for a condominium in a small city.  In the Rust Belt.  Where property taxes beat you down even more than the weather does.

All that work, and they know going into it that they'll lose - lose! - the equivalent of constructing a brand-new house.  That could probably be sold for a profit, since the vibrant university community is so close-by.

It's great that these urban pioneers love their neighborhood so much that they're promoting the opportunity to take a bath on such an expensive gamble.  But what does that say about their ability to recognize what fiscal solvency looks like?

High Taxes Paying for Economic Development? Go Figure

Then there was the much-heralded announcement yesterday that Central New York State would be receiving over $100 million in state economic development aid. 

I was wary about that news from the start.  Where does any government get "economic development aid" except from taxpayers?

Sure enough, not only is this money coming from already-overburdened taxpayers in New York State, but not a single for-profit organization is included on the list of recipients.  Indeed, every penny of that money appears to be headed for the many large non-profit organizations which subsidize life in this otherwise economically-desolate part of the country.

Incredibly, several for-profit small and mid-sized businesses that had applied were actually excluded from the list of groups awarded money.  Money that is coming from taxpayers who, if their taxes weren't so high, wouldn't be needing "economic development" grants from the state to begin with.

Top it all off with today's revelation that the Port Authority is bent on turning its patrol officers into One Percenters.  At least in terms of annual income, which for One Percenters has a threshold only a few thousand more dollars more than what these guys have earned so far this year.

And what else can you do but laugh?  And feel sorry for those people in places like Syracuse, some of whom don't even realize that losing $200,000 on a $1.1 million construction project isn't a good investment.

For years, I've thought that the motto, "the Empire State," meant that New York's capitalistic might was unexcelled.

These days, I'm thinking that the motto means the state IS the empire.
_____

Don't Put a Dollar Sign on Faith

Time was, bad theology told previous generations of America's Christians that activities like going to the movies was a sin.

Almost two centuries before that, bad theology led Christians on witch hunts in New England, staging religious trials which today we're learning were probably ploys to deprive unpopular women of their property.

Nowadays, Christians not only represent a significant market for Hollywood, they even produce movies themselves.  Even lonely old widows are today pursued by faith-based organizations hoping to be included in their wills.  Proving that over time, people of faith can managed to work through a lot of bad theology.  So does that mean evangelicalism in the United States is finally legitimately authentic?

Of course not.  Today we have people bent turning America into a religious state by melding weak interpretations of Scripture with passionate patriotism.  People, for example, like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Institute, who wrote on CNN.com Tuesday that Jesus championed free markets and wouldn't have endorsed the recent Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

Perkins claims that "Jesus rejected collectivism," even though Biblical accounts of the early church actually show them practicing it joyfully.  And Perkins claims "the parable of the king and the servants endorses the principles of business and the free market," although the Bible never teaches of Christ personally endorsing any economic system.

*Sigh.*

If Perkins was alone in his contention that Christ and the Bible preach capitalism alongside salvation by grace, then his editorializing on CNN wouldn't matter much.  Unfortunately, however, free markets being the God-endorsed economic system for all mankind has become a stunningly prevalent and popular idea among many American evangelicals.  Many of America's politically conservative evangelicals, that is.

The Gospel is Not Salvation by Money

Why has capitalism become a virtue of Biblical proportions among Republicans of faith?  Might viewing America's economic system through such a theological lens help us protect the wealth many of us have managed to amass here in the United States?  Might preaching capitalism also help deflect personal responsibility?  Not the personal responsibility we accuse impoverished people of forsaking because they apparently don't work hard enough.  But the lack of responsibility rich people feel towards helping out the less fortunate?

Not that capitalism and free markets are wrong in and of themselves.  Or that America's welfare system hasn't degenerated into a morass of generational poverty. 

All things considered, even in their excesses and abuses, capitalism and free markets represent the best systems for managing an economy.  For proof, just look at the two Koreas:  robust South Korea, and shriveled North Korea.  But as good as capitalism and free markets are, they still were never ordained as God's financial rubric.  For Perkins to draw that conclusion from the words of a Man Who literally owned only the clothes He was wearing is gravely misleading. The fact that Christ refers to making a profit in the parable of the talents is to help explain that, as Perkins surprisingly manages to state correctly, "there are no excuses for doing nothing" with the resources God has given you.

If Perkins can take this parable and extrapolate a doctrine of capitalism from it, then can't somebody else take Christ's command for the rich young ruler to give away all his possessions as a doctrine of communism?

Ultimately, Perkins blows his credibility a few paragraphs later when he claims "wins and losses are determined by the diligence and determination of the individual."  Wow.  Not only is that stunningly unsympathetic towards the legions of hard-working Americans who've lost nest eggs in Wall Street's recent travails, it is frighteningly heretical if Perkins is precluding God's sovereignty over the affairs of man.

Let's just hope Perkins didn't mean it the way he wrote it.

Some semblance of a free market economy obviously existed within Israel during the time of Christ's earthly ministry, so it would be only natural for Christ to incorporate the principle of investing as He taught His disciples.  Indeed, to a large extent, economic principles from what we today call free markets and capitalism today were used even in Old Testament times in terms of rewarding labor, commercial transactions, and ownership of property.  But just because free markets and capitalism are the most useful and productive tools for a nation to grow its economy doesn't mean God deigns to lower Himself to be a pitchman for socioeconomic paradigms.

The Bible is God's story of redemption from sin.  That includes being freed from the love of money.  It also, actually, includes being freed from debt every seven years, not charging excessive interest, sharing with those in need, paying all your taxes dutifully, and running your businesses so you can provide jobs for God's people.  All things that are quite counter-cultural to us Americans.  In fact, speaking of being counter-cultura, the Gospel of Christ is applicable for His children who live in remote Papuan jungle villages, oppressive Burma, Communist Cuba, and Socialist Greece, just as it is applicable for the believers who lived during feudal times, or who live today in converted condominiums literally across Broad Street from the New York Stock Exchange.

Perkins, myself, and all Americans benefit greatly from the economic system we enjoy in this country.  Is it perfect?  Of course not.  Has greed corrupted some of the basic principles of capitalism?  Of course it has.  But Christ was never, ever concerned with helping His disciples establish a financial economy on Earth.  He instructed at least one rich guy to give all his money to the poor.  Gulp!  Christ cherished the Widow's Mite, while blasting the monied classes who only gave a token of their wealth to the temple.  Not one of the rich people celebrated in the Bible were hoarders or miserly with the money with which they'd been entrusted.  How many middle-class Americans - let alone our One Percenters - would be so commended by Christ if He returned for a 21st Century checkup of His Church?

Talents and the Irony Thereof

When He gave the parable of the talents, was Christ expecting His followers to assume He simply meant to go out and earn money until He returned?  Or was Christ teaching that with whatever resources He may choose to bless us, and in whatever amount, we are to deploy those resources for His glory?  Yes, those resources may take the form of money, but they could also be an education, a particular skill like fixing toilets, or an ability to make other people laugh at honest humor.

Your talent may even be reaching out to people desperate for meaning in their life, like money-lovers who lust after financial wealth, or those who lust delusionally after other forms of satisfaction instead of salvation by grace.

Just this past weekend, an unemployed drug addict died of an apparent overdose at one of the Occupy camps here in north Texas.  He was just 23 years old.

Was he simply another lazy loser, as one of the commenters on the story has posted online, or was he, as Perkins insinuates about the Occupiers from his caustic editorial, enjoying the "luxury" of being unproductive?

Frankly, I didn't think too much about the story of this guy's death when I first heard about it on the news, either.  But then today, I learned that the drug addict was a nephew of a friend of mine.  A woman who, ironically, is practically part of the much-reviled One Percenters.  She isn't one by income, since her take-home pay pales in comparison to that of her clients.  But she almost could be one by virtue of the fact that her clients are international banks with offices sprawling throughout the world's major financial centers.  Clients for whom she works long hours as a financial management consultant.

She told us on FaceBook one morning this past fall of standing outside the Lower Manhattan skyscraper housing a major Japanese bank, one of her clients.  She was talking on her smartphone, wearing a navy pinstripe suit, with a leather briefcase in her other hand, the picture of Wall Street power, being ogled by a gang of roving Occupy Wall Street protesters.  She said it was an oddly eerie feeling, suddenly being cast as a One Percenter by people who didn't know who she was.

She manages a team of consultants from Europe to Asia, all of them worlds away from her less-vaunted status as an aunt to a homeless, 23-year-old drug addict in Denton, Texas.

Now, granted, I haven't exactly been lavishing the love on America's Occupiers myself.  But I have acknowledged that in their more lucid moments, Occupiers have been able to at least remind the rest of us that our economic system has injustices - or, at least, discrepancies in functionality - that need to be fixed sooner rather than later.  To the extent that Perkins points out how productivity benefits society more than petulance does, I can echo his sentiment.  But why do I have the nagging suspicion that Christ looked down on the Occupiers with less sorrow over their sociopolitical ideologies than concern over their eternal destinies?

One of Wall Street's legitimate power brokers will be joining with her family to bury a dead Occupier in the next couple of days.  Economics couldn't save Darwin Cox, my friend's nephew, just as it can't save anybody else.

That's why the Gospel isn't about money.  But rather, the extent to which our love for it - indeed, our love for any created thing - can take the place of our love for Christ.

Mr. Perkins, I hope you agree with me:  this is not bad theology.
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Pro-Life or Just Pro-Laws?

Back on October 24, I wrote this regarding abortion:

"It's a subject about which I rarely write.  Mostly because I consider it a settled issue."

And at least for me, abortion is a settled issue.  It's wrong.  It's the denial of life.  And I don't think there's much to argue about it.

But apparently, I've been wrong.  At least, wrong about that last part, about the abortion issue being a topic over which little additional discussion is necessary.

Since I first admitted that I rarely write about abortion, abortion has become a flash point.  Not between liberals and conservatives, necessarily, but among evangelicals.  Evangelicals who appear to be "going rogue" over the methodologies by which America's pro-life lobby has been pursuing Roe v. Wade.

I'd never heard about the Personhood Movement until it flamed up in Mississippi this past autumn, driving a wedge between rash, pugnacious legal agitators for the cause and longtime pro-life advocacy groups like the National Right to Life committee and the United States Council of Catholic Bishops.

The idea of the Personhood Movement was to re-write state constitutions to define a legal person as one whose protections begin at the point of conception.  Which sounded good in theory, but left many other legal doors wide open for misinterpretation and even more crushing applications of the very ruling which started it all:  Roe v. Wade.

Fortunately, two Personhood attempts in Colorado and one this fall in Mississippi failed at the ballot box.  I say "fortunately" not because I'm pro-choice, but because I believe that in order to right the wrong of Roe v. Wade, we need to be crafting a far more robust strategy based on irrefutable legal integrity on the federal level.  After all, since when is murder a states-rights issue?

Then yesterday, I learned of the Heartbeat Bill being pursued by more rogue pro-lifers in Ohio.  On its face, this new measure sounds a lot more competent than the Personhood agenda, since it directly addresses parameters for both life - a heartbeat - and when abortion would be illegal:  upon the detection of a heartbeat.  Such a measure would be hard for even some ambivalent pro-choicers to ignore, since a heartbeat is a pretty basic proof of life.

Yet here too, the Heartbeat Bill may be the right fight, but it's being fought in the wrong place.  A state law cannot trump federal law.  Period.  This is a national issue, not an Ohio issue, or a Mississippi issue, or something for just politically-conservative states.  Plus, assuming conflicting laws regarding abortion will force a Supreme Court verdict amenable to pro-lifers does not justify the rancor, disharmony, and flat-out lack of logic that rogue pro-lifers have been perpetrating in their quest for success.

Brashness has become an admired trait among many conservatives in general and evangelicals in particular.  Being the bull in the China shop is now a desirable thing to be.  Words like "reckless" and "risk" have become popular terms in the church lexicon.  It's cool to be rude, casual, and unscripted.  Because we've grown fond of acknowledging that Christ's Gospel is offensive to unbelievers.

Yesterday, as I struggled to craft an essay reflecting my heartfelt views on the subject that carefully admonished - yet came short of denigrating - our friends in the rogue pro-life camp, I found myself coming back to one incontrovertible fact.

Some evangelicals prefer to handle the abortion issue as a purely legal matter, not a human one.

Many of us seem far more willing to bash the practice of abortion than we are willing to stoop down and minister to people struggling with a pregnancy they think they can't handle.  But after all, abortion on demand wouldn't exist if it wasn't for people thinking they needed it.

Let's think this through, instead of simply reacting to it emotionally.  Does the abhorrence we people of faith project about abortion revolve around an anger over a medical procedure?  Does abortion anger us because it represents the sordid narcissism of our culture?  Or do pro-lifers appreciate the gravity of a cultural ethos which helps drive some parents of pre-born children to consider abortion to be an acceptable, albeit unpleasant, option?

Frankly, isn't it a lot easier to vilify pro-choicers as amoralists than to sit down with real, hurting, human beings with complex sexual problems (which is what causes unwanted pregnancies, after all) and deal with these problems on a one-to-one basis?

So, in other words, is the pro-life movement concerned with simply outlawing something, or trying to minister to the root of the dysfunction which results in abortion on demand?  Because if all pro-lifers want to do is pass a law - ostensibly to save lives - but they have little concern over the people who think abortion can be a solution to an unwanted pregnancy, might even if we in that battle, we lose the war?

The war isn't just saving lives of unborn, unwanted children, is it?  Abortion is sin, but it's no more heinous in God's eyes than our refusal to love sinners who make what we consider to be heinous decisions.  Remember, there's only one unpardonable sin, and that's denying the deity of Christ.

What is the pro-life movement supposed to be about?  The sanctity of life, and how God is honored by life.  Right?  It's not about laws as much as it is honoring God.  After all, to Him, our laws are mere mortal technicalities over which we like to spin our wheels.  Is outlawing abortion going to reduce the prevalence of unwanted life in our society?  It will save lives, definitely, and that is a good thing.  But is banning murder of any kind the same as ministering God's grace to our neighbors?  Remember, 20% of evangelical women report having had an abortion at some point in their lives.  So this isn't just about unchurched, heathen women, but women you and I may sit next to in church each week.  How do we speak the truth in love to these women, especially when we reckless compete amongst ourselves with contrivances to outlaw a particular behavior?  Even if it's in as noble a cause as outlawing abortion?

Make no mistake about where I stand:  abortion is evil and should be outlawed.  But until we can address the demand for abortion, will simply making it illegal - regardless of whether it's through Personhood, Hearbeat, or federal initiatives - truly impact our society for the Kingdom?

Love.  Joy.  Peace.  Patience.  Gentleness.  Goodness.  Meekness.  Self-control.  Even while Christ was throwing the money-changers out of the temple - the story many evangelicals rely upon to justify their brashness - He was teaching them verbally about His Father's holiness.

As we work to overturn Roe v. Wade, let's do it as a ministry, not an exercise in legal posturing.
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Logic Escapes Rogue Pro-Lifers

Logic.

It's something about which I write a lot.  Because it's incredibly important in life.

Yet apparently, logic can also be an inconvenient fact of life.  As the abortion war heats up again, some conservative activists seem to be using less logic than raw emotion.

Probably because emotion makes them feel like they're doing something, even when they're not.

First we had the Personhood Movement that voters in Colorado and Mississippi have thankfully defeated three times.  Personhood advocates hoped that declaring a fertilized egg as a legal person would force an end to abortions in those two states.  And that the inevitable legal wrangling between the poorly-worded Personhood legislation and federal laws stemming from Roe v. Wade would magically align on the side of life.

It wouldn't.

Now we have a Heartbeat Bill in Ohio that rogue pro-lifers insist will accomplish what the Personhood Movement could not.

But still, they're fighting the right battle in the wrong place.

Righteous Impatience or Impertinence?

I call them "rogue" pro-lifers because several of their leaders have splintered from the venerable National Right to Life campaign that has been working with the United States Council of Catholic Bishops for over four decades to eliminate legalized abortion.  These rogue pro-lifers have become frustrated with the slow pace of legislative action on the national front, so they've got it into their heads that attacking the abortion scourge will go faster if they trigger a legislative crisis on the state level.  And to do that, they've got to find a state that can pass some sort of bold pro-life law that flies in the face of an over-ruling federal amnesty for abortion.

The hope - and it's a long-shot kind of hope - is that the quandary created by conflicting state and federal laws on abortion will lob the issue up to the Supreme Court for a victorious defeat of Roe v. Wade.  But there's hope, and then there's logic.  Hope is one thing; getting a group of judges to rule in your favor is quite another.

Of course, this isn't the first time right-wing evangelicals have worked themselves into a lather over the pace of change in the United States.  Witness the Tea Party movement, which has scored some significant victories at the ballot box with the help of hefty numbers of evangelicals, but has pretty much only managed to foment one of the most intransigent, unproductive, and bitterly-divided governments in American history.

Granted, the Heartbeat Bill has better logic behind it than the Personhood Movement.  Banning abortions upon the detection of a fetal heartbeat is a more conventional legal approach, it doesn't tinker with the legal definition of a "person," and it's far more definitive in terms of what it does and doesn't do.  In other words, prohibiting an abortion on a fetus with a heartbeat is pretty frank and uncomplicated, whereas the Personhood legislation left many associated laws in limbo.

In fact, if it weren't for the pesky little fact that state law doesn't trump federal law, I wouldn't have any problem with the Heartbeat Bill.

But state law does come second to federal law, and that's the critical flaw in Ohio's Heartbeat Bill.  Abortion is not a states rights issue, just as murder of people outside of the womb is not a states rights issue.

And because we haven't yet seen a miracle in the abortion war even as people of faith have been unified against it, I have a hard time understanding why God would bless rogue pro-lifers with a miracle after they force division in an otherwise rightly-focused campaign.

Abandoning Grace for Gusto

Frankly, I'm not aware of everything the National Right to Life committee and the Council of Catholic Bishops have been working on to weaken - and indeed, eliminate - Roe v. Wade.  Have they made bad decisions during these decades of methodical advocacy for the unborn?  Most likely.  Has the process been mercilessly slow?  Yes.  Do evangelicals have a right to be frustrated at the pace of progress?  Of course.

But welcome to reality, people.  How many times does it need to be said that we cannot legislate morality?  Wouldn't a better tactic be to approach the overthrow of Roe v. Wade through cogent, legally practical, and purposefully cohesive tactics?  Tactics that will create a solution that can withstand whatever further legal challenges pro-choicers will attack it with?  It seems as though Ohio's rogue pro-lifers think a miraculous Supreme Court victory is not only a fait accompli, but a final hearing on the matter.  In order for abortion to be abolished permanently, we need a solid legal argument; not something slapped together with legal cracks pro-choicers can turn around and wrench apart.

After all, it's not even like the pro-life movement is on its last leg.  The Gallup organization has numbers suggesting that Americans may be getting increasingly intolerant of abortion on demand.  Although pro-lifers now comprise about 51% of the population, and that's still too few to mount a Constitutional change, it's already a step in the right direction.  We may actually be winning this fight in the court of public opinion!  Might creating factions within the pro-life camp now simply risk the unity that's gotten us over the 50% hump?

Remember, no state law banning abortion will be effective as long as Roe v. Wade is the law of the country.  But just as rogue pro-lifers say hope is all they've got with these legal shots in the dark, progress on the federal level is not beyond hope, either.

Before threatening to undermine decades of diligent work to overturn Roe v. Wade, rogue pro-lifers must consider whether their petulance and arrogance is even Biblical.  Can they identify anything anybody at National Right to Life has done that has defamed the cause of Christ?  Anything that has irreparably set back the pro-life movement?  Anything that could spell the imminent demise of the many pro-life pregnancy centers across the country currently ministering to desperate women and their impregnators and sharing the Gospel of Christ with them?  After all, just making abortion illegal won't stop unwanted pregnancies, will it?  And the fact that we're having an epidemic of unwanted pregnancies is the real problem here, not just the fact that it's presently legal to kill those unborn unwanteds.

We have enough factions, infighting, hurt feelings, and ineffectiveness within evangelical Christianity already in the United States without balking now, causing schisms within a hardworking group like the National Right to Life, and seizing on illogical attempts to ramrod half-baked legislation through a Constitutional system like square pegs through round holes.

I don't have any loved ones working with the National Right to Life organization.  I'm not sure that if I knew everything they did - and how they did it - I would affirm it all, but I know they've been diligent servants on this issue longer than I've been alive.  If that makes National Right to Life too out of touch with how to get legislation done in Washington, then somebody besides short-term-thinking rogue pro-lifers needs to prove it.

Christ wants unborn lives protected even more than we do.  He also wants us to live in peace with each other.  As long as legitimate efforts at overturning Roe v. Wade on the federal level are proceeding, what right do we have at causing dissension over something that stands an overwhelming chance of not working in the long run?

Some rogue pro-lifers would probably counter that in order to capitalize on that small chance of the Supreme Court tightening access to abortions, we need to pray our socks off for the Lord to make that happen.  Yet I ask you:  do you think believers haven't already been praying their socks off for the sake of the unborn at the hands of Roe v. Wade?  Why do you think the Lord hasn't already answered those prayers?  What makes attempts at undermining years of diligent legal maneuvering a more righteous prayer request than those diligent legal maneuverings you're trying to undermine?

Might we need to remind ourselves Whose battle this is?  God knows the heart within each one of us.  He knows the hearts of those desiring to protect the unborn through prudent application of the law, and He knows the hearts of those desiring to protect the unborn through reckless applications of legal interpretations.  The former appear to have faith that God is in control, while the latter appear to have faith that God can fix their mistakes.

Trouble is, although God always forgives us, He doesn't always fix our mistakes so that we don't have to live with the consequences.  If the consequence of poorly-crafted attempts at subverting Roe v. Wade end up backfiring in the Supreme Court, do we really want to live with those consequences?

For that matter, could the unborn?
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