Growing up, every Thanksgiving in memory started with watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on television. Live television is fine, but I used to wonder what it would be like to experience the whole parade thing in person. So when I was living in Manhattan, one year I decided to do just that.
Most people think the parade is just that: a parade. Floats, bands, drill teams, clowns, and Santa bringing up the rear. And while the Macy's extravaganza usually has all of these components, their flagship store at Herald Square was still the largest department store in the world back when I lived there (South Korea's new Shinsengae Centumcity Department Store, opened in 2009, is now the title holder) so they're compelled to do things over-the-top.
During Thanksgiving week, Macy's bombards the city with reminders of the parade, either to drum up support among the locals so the parade route will be stuffed with cheering throngs, or to warn the locals to git outta Dodge before the West Side and Midtown become gridlocked Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, the media machine in North America's largest metropolitan area publishes routes, recommends viewing areas, gushes about the newest balloons, runs poignant nostalgia stories about the parades of yore, and banters trivia about the Big Apple tradition. If it wasn't for the fact that this was New York City, it would be easy to wonder if the original holiday for being thankful wasn't being co-opted for a dazzling marketing barrage. After all, just how do the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes commemorate the Pilgrims?
They don't, of course. They're just advertising the season's mega-show at the storied Rockefeller Center performance hall, the Christmas Spectacular. Which, all kidding aside, actually is a must-see and so moving, I teared up both times I experienced it. If you travel to New York between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, the Christmas Spectacular is just that - spectacular. And you know I don't use that term lightly.
Backstage Before the Parade
After the traditional Thanksgiving Eve service at Manhattan's Calvary Baptist Church on West 57th Street, I walked with some friends through Central Park to the American Museum of Natural History at West 77th Street. A heavy, cold mist shrouded the park in a dark suspense, enhancing the glow from the Tavern on the Green's twinkling lights wrapped amongst its garden's trees.
Within earshot of Central Park West and the museum, we could hear the gleeful chatter of children and see the hazy glow of spotlights. Emerging from the park, we were swallowed up in a good-natured crowd of parents with children propped on their shoulders, video recorders drinking in the memories.
Memories of what? Of blowing up the famous balloons, of course! Every year, Macy's spends the entire night before the parade inflating Garfield, Betty Boop, Snoopy, Superman, and other icons of Western society. Beguiled by the scene of so much taking place so effortlessly - humming inflation machines were doing all the work - my friends and I strolled among the sprawling lumps of Mylar that were slowly taking shape, noses lifting off the pavement, fingers getting fatter, wrinkles vanishing from faces. On the balloons, I mean; not us.
For generations, families have made a tradition of watching these creatures take shape on the streets and lawns around the Natural History museum. On Thanksgiving morning, the parade belongs mostly to tourists and the rest of the country via television. But this ritual of the balloons' inflation, however, is New York's own little celebration, and some quirky sentiment inside me appreciated this backstage revelry.
Indeed, none of my friends from church who were admiring these misty, serene transformations with me were planning on attending the parade the next morning. For Gotham denziens starved for intimacy in America's most congested yet isolating city, these up-close-and-personal encounters with creatures which would later float above the crowds had become the part of the parade they most treasured.
Show Time
Thanksgiving morning didn't so much dawn as emerge grimly from the night, still chilly, and now drizzly. Being a vacation day, I slept in and watched the beginning of the parade on TV. As it begins on the Upper West Side, I had time before the real show arrived in Herald Square, a mere 15-minute walk from my apartment, where I planned on taking in the festivities.
Walking westward down a nearly-deserted 34th Street, I could see Pluto bobbing around the corner above Broadway four blocks ahead. If New York didn't already have enough bizarre sights, that would probably have been quite funny. As it was, with the raw breeze and spitting rain, Pluto's handlers probably didn't want him to get as high in the air as would be necessary to look really thrilling. It would have been nicer if we had the cold temperatures counterbalanced with bright sunshine and calm air. Oh well, this was still the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, I told myself.
In Herald Square, grandstands towered over the sidewalks, but television cranes and on-location RVs blocked most of the good views. Hundreds of people were milling about, no one seeing much of anything except probably those at the tops of the grandstands. Plus, since it was raining, we had to dodge umbrellas. So much for not arriving early, I chided myself! I could tell the crowd must have been mostly tourists - despite the weather and poor views, few people were as grumpy as I was. I kept forgetting this was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Finally, I found a good spot in a corner near 35th Street that police had barricaded, but were letting spectators occupy anyway. Remember, this was before 9/11, back before terrorism lurked around every New York corner. I found myself near one of the on-location RVs, and when I couldn't see the action in front of Macy's, I watched the action as people who probably were famous came and went. Although I didn't see anybody I actually recognized as being famous, by the way they acted, a couple of people apparently thought they were anyway.
Before long, yet far sooner than I expected, Santa Claus suddenly rolled through Herald Square, and without any fanfare, the parade was over. No announcer wishing the crowd "Happy Thanksgiving!" No encore. No scrolling of credits. Santa's sleight turned the corner headed to Madison Square Garden, and that was that.
Turning Towards Home
I turned around and went back to my apartment, the excitement of the parade fading with each block I walked. I couldn't escape a nagging disappointment that watching the parade on TV is actually better than being there live. The weather didn't make that much difference, the crowds didn't make that much difference. Even the lousy amplification - we could barely hear what was going on - didn't make up for the sheer confusion taking place within one short block in front of Macy's east entrance. So many acts, so many people, so much activity was churning through this small piece of real estate, that you didn't know what was what. Things were obviously being orchestrated for the TV audience, and those of us in the crowds were part of Macy's window dressing.
But did that mean the morning was a waste? Surprisingly, I didn't think so. Sure, it's all part of the commercialization of a holiday whose original intentions were faith-based. But considering how garish Christmas has become, a parade down the west side of Manhattan's Midtown seems almost tame these days.
Besides, as I turned to walk up my block, my mind shifted to the Thanksgiving feast I would be joining later in the day in Brooklyn with my aunt and family friends. Delicious food, loving family, good friends, a warm house...
Thankfulness has its privileges!
_____
Enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend! See you back here on Monday.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Art as Solace of the Mind
Show and Tell
"Majesty of God" by Judy Franklin, 2010
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
"I don't know much about art, but I know what I like."
"To each his own."
You'll be happy to know I'm not going to get into a lecture on art appreciation or how beauty should be defined. These popular phrases above reflect the subjective nature of our cultural encounters with the creative arts, and there's little point in anybody telling anybody else what they should or shouldn't appreciate.
Right?
Yet I'm not convinced that, overall, our society has done a good job of maintaining a beneficial interest in the creative arts. Maybe because over time, we've let subjectivism generate a nihilistic mindset concerning things that used to be important. Particularly in western civilization, we've become extremely pragmatic and efficient, to the point where if something doesn't serve a practical function, save us money, or make something easier, we're not interested in it. So art loses its importance.
Which is a bit perplexing, considering that compared with less sophisticated epochs in history, Westerners have more free time and expendable income at our disposal than ever before. But many of us fill this time with quantitative things like superiority-oriented sports, destination-centric travel, instant-pleasure amusements, passive movies, intense video games, and other goal-oriented activity. We measure things by scores, distances, fun, proficiency, and the like.
Just as I'm not going to set parameters for that which constitutes art, I'm not going to rate the ways we spend our free time as good or bad. I'm simply trying to point out that very little of what we choose to do involves the solace of the mind.
By "solace of the mind," I'm not talking about dumping everything that's in your brain into a bucket. Or abdicating common sense, propriety, and ethics. By "solace of the mind," without sounding like a New Age guru, I'm trying to convey the concept of engaging with beauty for beauty's sake.
Consider the infectious joy conveyed by the "flash culture mob" in Macy's downtown Philadelphia store a couple of weekends ago. Several hundred singers from the Philadelphia area convened in the main hall of the former Wanamaker's store and broke out into an unannounced rendition of the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah. Shoppers, caught off-guard, were delighted by the "random act of culture" which has been viewed on YouTube over 3.6 million times.
At the risk of sounding flaky, esoteric, or goofy, may I suggest that as our society has given up on the classic arts, which were intentionally designed to express beauty, we've lost a little bit of the humanity that has helped to smooth life's rougher edges? Is that a silly thing to suggest? I realize that here, my brave attempt at not telling you what I think good art is has faltered a bit; I can't deny having the "Hallelujah Chorus" soaring throughout the vast atrium at Macy's proved far more pleasurable than if it had been a rock anthem instead. But take the question in the spirit with which it is intended: have we forgotten how beneficial good art can be?
Museum attendance across the country has stagnated, dependant more on clever marketing and hip new buildings than the public's insatiable demand for timeless paintings, sculpture, and other visual media.
Symphonies, orchestras, opera and ballet companies, and live theater troupes have all begun strategizing for both their short-term and long-term survival as their audiences consolidate into an older, smaller, and less committed demographic. Perhaps now more than ever, the arts are perceived as being elitist and old-fashioned, which society at large automatically translates into unnecessary and hard to appreciate. Fun is far more easily obtainable from pop culture, even if pop culture doesn't provide the same rewards.
Which is the real issue here, isn't it? Not all art is as universally appreciated as the "Hallelujah Chorus," which while not everybody's cup of tea, certainly didn't cause anybody to erupt in anger in Macy's. But how many of those shoppers would prefer purchasing tickets to a rock concert instead of using free tickets to hear Messiah in concert? See what I mean?
Some paintings require more than a quick glance for their beauty to be seen. Sometimes you have to sit still and be patient as a musical score unfolds. Most sculpture requires at least a couple of complete 360's for the entire piece to make sense. Yet today's culture actually conditions most of us to expect instant gratification instead of expending much effort for a reward.
For something to be a solace to the mind, how much extra work is involved, really? Not that people can't find comfort in their favorite non-classical pursuits. But should we expect all of the bits of information and stimulation we stuff into our heads to be sufficiently dislodged by quick and/or easy entertainment? Can we mentally relax with good art in the same way we enjoy a video game or skiing? All pastimes provide fleeting encounters with enjoyment, but the afterglow of good art sticks with me longer than the afterglow of a B movie. Maybe I'm just different that way?
Not that art provides a magical cure-all, or is the fountain of youth. Great art can cure a gloomy day, but it can't cure diabetes. Nor am I advocating a revolt against pop culture entirely, because moderation in a variety of activities and interests can be like diversification in one's financial portfolio.
Just don't dismiss good art as irrelevant or outdated. And don't assume I'm some snobby Renaissance man who can tell his libretto from his ritornello. I'm not crazy about opera, and I don't care for ballet at all. But play anything by Bach, Beethoven, and sometimes even Mahler, and my mind can find its solace quite nicely, thank you very much.
You don't even have to pay a lot to get a bit of culture. My church hosts an annual arts festival, and the photo in today's essay shows one of the entries, a cut-glass and crushed-glass mosaic by Judy Franklin. Entitled "Majesty of God," Franklin's work uses the birth of Christ to express a grand theme of the Incarnation with a pastel palette suitable for swaddling an infant.
So maybe it will never hang in MoMA or the National Gallery. But it's good therapy to consider the crushed glass as not only snow, perhaps, but diffusers of light. Amidst all of the pastel coloration rises the golden sun (Christ as "beauteous Heavenly Light") and the stark red field punctuating the cross. Indeed, at the center of Franklin's work is the Cross of Christ, Trinitarian triangle, and further afield, a beveled gold radiance.
Why is it good therapy? For one thing, each of these components gives testimony to the deity and holiness of Christ. Perhaps we don't actually see a visual representation of Christ, but that's not an entirely unBiblical consideration, is it? Franklin does not concern herself with what God Incarnate may have looked like, because she's creating a depiction of His majesty, which for us today is far more important.
If you just glance at this work and tick off its obvious attributes; "broken glass: check; fang-looking things: check; pretty colors: check; cross in the middle: check;" then you're not engaging with the message Franklin has woven into each of her components.
Here's a challenge for you: don't look at this photo - gaze at it instead. No matter how much theology and doctrine you know about Christmas, what is this composition telling you about the Christ child? As you work these truths over in your mind, do you realize how things you were thinking about before you began reading today's essay here have been placed on your brain's back burner?
That's the solace of the mind I'm talking about.
_____
Monday, November 15, 2010
Making Music at Macy's
People may accuse me of many things, but being at the cutting edge of cultural fads will never be one of them.
For example, I'm just now getting around to talking about the October 30 "flash culture mob" event at the old Wanamaker's Department Store - now a Macy's - in downtown Philadelphia. Over 2 million people have already viewed the YouTube video of several hundred singers gathered in the department store's main hall who break into an unannounced rendition of Handel's thrilling "Hallelujah Chorus" from the Messiah.
You may recall that earlier this year, the City of Brotherly Love was plagued by a violent social phenomenon called "flash mobs," in which large gangs of rowdy teenagers would congregate and storm through city streets en mass, destroying private property, injuring passersby, and generally inciting chaos which wreaked havoc on businesses, imperiled racial harmony, and generally make Philadelphia life miserable. One flash mob even tore through the very same Macy's which hosted the "Hallelujah Chorus" singers, with punks punching stunned shoppers and destroying store fixtures and merchandise.
What a great juxtaposition, then, to have this event at the very same venue, showcasing the best of Philadelphia against its worst. In case you haven't yet seen it, click here for the most wonderful five minutes of Christmas shopping you'll ever spend.
Of course, the accolades reverberating around cyberspace by people responding to this video don't need repeating here. They're simply proof that the arts remain capable of moving the soul. As part of the "Random Acts of Culture" project by advocacy group Knight Arts, the Philadelphia event wasn't the first such production, nor will it be the last. The purpose for these events is to remind average Americans that the arts provide a surprisingly humanizing balm to our lives. Good art is good because we don't need somebody to explain to us why we're enjoying it. Sure, there were probably a lot of shoppers in Macy's who would never list classical music as their favorite, but they could still appreciate the grandeur they were witnessing. Chances are, blasting a rock anthem throughout the store would probably not have the same effect at all.
And kudos to Macy's, which could have just as easily nixed the whole idea, fearful of offending customers who might object to a Christian song being belted through the sales floors of the historic shopping mecca. Granted, Philadelphia's flagship Wanamaker's makes an ideal venue for just such an event, with its soaring atrium and historic pipe organ, the world's largest. And art lovers of many different faiths can appreciate the aesthetics of Handel's music on a purely artistic level, even if, as I've said, the oratorio genre isn't their favorite. Still, Macy's could have approved the general idea but insisted on a different song. As it was, however, with Christmas shopping underway and the doldrums of a weak economy to shake off, the right choices were made all around.
Oddly enough, I've watched the video several times with both the sound on and with the sound muted, and either way, I get kind of a goose-pimply vibe when I realize that black and white, young and old, are joining together to sing this incredible piece of music. At the end, there's a broad, tall black man, raising his right arm as he sings the final "Hallelujah," a wide smile breaking across his face. Indeed, the expressions on so many faces in this video - spontaneous wonderment, joyful surprise, incredulous awe, and realizing they were witnessing something incredibly special - tell a story all their own.
And yes, that story needs to be told in this day and age, as our society slides into sociopolitcal frustration, economic despair, and personal anomie. Not exactly because of the Biblical text enshrined by Handel's Messiah, although even those who consider this masterwork as just a nice piece of music will be forced one day to acknowledge what it says.
If we could start at a base level, however, of acknowledging that great art has value, we all have five minutes in our day to stop and be personally touched by it.
I can't resist wondering if the impact would have been the same if the singers had performed something more saccharine like "White Christmas," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," or even "Hey, Santa Baby." As well-known as these songs may be, they don't make you stop in your tracks or otherwise pause to take in the moment. But the "Hallelujah Chorus" does, doesn't it? There's some element of transcendency about it that takes us away from the everyday and adopt a comparatively reverential demeanor, even if you just appreciate the music as music, not as a triumphant anthem of Christianity.
Indeed, doesn't it make you stop and bask in the beauty of something that takes a bit of ourselves and flashes visions of your "happy place" across your brain?
That's why this video has become a YouTube sensation. And probably why you'd like to see it again - so here's the link, again!
See? A little bit of culture does a body good!
____
Sneak peek: I'm planning a follow-up to this essay later this week!
For example, I'm just now getting around to talking about the October 30 "flash culture mob" event at the old Wanamaker's Department Store - now a Macy's - in downtown Philadelphia. Over 2 million people have already viewed the YouTube video of several hundred singers gathered in the department store's main hall who break into an unannounced rendition of Handel's thrilling "Hallelujah Chorus" from the Messiah.
You may recall that earlier this year, the City of Brotherly Love was plagued by a violent social phenomenon called "flash mobs," in which large gangs of rowdy teenagers would congregate and storm through city streets en mass, destroying private property, injuring passersby, and generally inciting chaos which wreaked havoc on businesses, imperiled racial harmony, and generally make Philadelphia life miserable. One flash mob even tore through the very same Macy's which hosted the "Hallelujah Chorus" singers, with punks punching stunned shoppers and destroying store fixtures and merchandise.
What a great juxtaposition, then, to have this event at the very same venue, showcasing the best of Philadelphia against its worst. In case you haven't yet seen it, click here for the most wonderful five minutes of Christmas shopping you'll ever spend.
Of course, the accolades reverberating around cyberspace by people responding to this video don't need repeating here. They're simply proof that the arts remain capable of moving the soul. As part of the "Random Acts of Culture" project by advocacy group Knight Arts, the Philadelphia event wasn't the first such production, nor will it be the last. The purpose for these events is to remind average Americans that the arts provide a surprisingly humanizing balm to our lives. Good art is good because we don't need somebody to explain to us why we're enjoying it. Sure, there were probably a lot of shoppers in Macy's who would never list classical music as their favorite, but they could still appreciate the grandeur they were witnessing. Chances are, blasting a rock anthem throughout the store would probably not have the same effect at all.
And kudos to Macy's, which could have just as easily nixed the whole idea, fearful of offending customers who might object to a Christian song being belted through the sales floors of the historic shopping mecca. Granted, Philadelphia's flagship Wanamaker's makes an ideal venue for just such an event, with its soaring atrium and historic pipe organ, the world's largest. And art lovers of many different faiths can appreciate the aesthetics of Handel's music on a purely artistic level, even if, as I've said, the oratorio genre isn't their favorite. Still, Macy's could have approved the general idea but insisted on a different song. As it was, however, with Christmas shopping underway and the doldrums of a weak economy to shake off, the right choices were made all around.
Oddly enough, I've watched the video several times with both the sound on and with the sound muted, and either way, I get kind of a goose-pimply vibe when I realize that black and white, young and old, are joining together to sing this incredible piece of music. At the end, there's a broad, tall black man, raising his right arm as he sings the final "Hallelujah," a wide smile breaking across his face. Indeed, the expressions on so many faces in this video - spontaneous wonderment, joyful surprise, incredulous awe, and realizing they were witnessing something incredibly special - tell a story all their own.
And yes, that story needs to be told in this day and age, as our society slides into sociopolitcal frustration, economic despair, and personal anomie. Not exactly because of the Biblical text enshrined by Handel's Messiah, although even those who consider this masterwork as just a nice piece of music will be forced one day to acknowledge what it says.
If we could start at a base level, however, of acknowledging that great art has value, we all have five minutes in our day to stop and be personally touched by it.
I can't resist wondering if the impact would have been the same if the singers had performed something more saccharine like "White Christmas," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," or even "Hey, Santa Baby." As well-known as these songs may be, they don't make you stop in your tracks or otherwise pause to take in the moment. But the "Hallelujah Chorus" does, doesn't it? There's some element of transcendency about it that takes us away from the everyday and adopt a comparatively reverential demeanor, even if you just appreciate the music as music, not as a triumphant anthem of Christianity.
Indeed, doesn't it make you stop and bask in the beauty of something that takes a bit of ourselves and flashes visions of your "happy place" across your brain?
That's why this video has become a YouTube sensation. And probably why you'd like to see it again - so here's the link, again!
See? A little bit of culture does a body good!
____
Sneak peek: I'm planning a follow-up to this essay later this week!
Friday, November 12, 2010
When Racism Tends to Prove Itself
Sometimes, it seems as though I'm fighting a losing battle.
Yes, I know: to you, it probably seems like I fight a lot of losing battles! Like I'm some sort of Don Quixote of the blogosphere, picking fights with windmills in the form of elite Republicans and constitution-crossed Christians. Alas, if only I were as skinny as he was.
But no; while those battles may indeed be lost in the court of public opinion, I'm still convinced I'm right. Truth is truth regardless of whether or not the majority of people think it to be. Instead of my windmill wars, the battle I think I'm losing is my battle to be racially tolerant and non-prejudiced against people from other cultures. To lose this battle will mean I am unequivocally wrong.
And oddly enough, even here, the majority of people will probably think I am right to harbor mistrust of different cultures. Well, people who disagree with me when I pick on conservatives, anyway.
Tale of the Suspicious Honda
Yesterday morning, I witnessed two cars that I didn't recognize come slowly down the street in front of my house. One of them, a dark blue older-model Honda Accord, stopped, and the other, a dark green older-model Buick Century, pulled ahead of it and U-turned in the street.
A short, thin, Hispanic male got out of the Honda, opened its trunk, and took what appeared to be an overstuffed bag of something from the Honda to the trunk of the Buick. He returned to the Honda, got another bag out of its back seat, put it in the Buick's back seat, and jumped in the car himself. Then the Buick tore off up the street, in the direction from which it had just come.
Suspicious, I got my camera phone and went to the Honda which had been left in the street. About this time, a neighbor came out of her house, and we both began to chat about the Honda, which both of us knew didn't belong to anybody in the neighborhood.
Suddenly, the Buick returned from another direction, and the Hispanic guy hopped out with a car battery in his hands. We watched as he popped the hood of the Honda and proceeded to change out the batteries. My neighbor and I automatically assumed that the guy was having simple engine trouble, and we even casually called out to him that we thought the car was stolen. He laughed, but still couldn't get the car started. The Buick drove off, up the street, and eventually, the Hispanic guy closed the Honda's hood and walked up the street, presumably to a friend's house.
The Honda stayed in the street for the rest of the day, and on into this morning. That's when I began to get suspicious again.
By about 10:30 this morning, nobody had come to work on the Honda, and I smelled a rat. I got my cell phone and went out to the car, calling 911 to report an abandoned vehicle. The operator asked me for the license plate number, and when I told her, she quickly asked me to repeat it.
"Sir, that car has been reported as stolen," she sternly confirmed to me. "We'll have the police out to file a report shortly."
As it turns out, at about 9:00 am yesterday morning, a woman in Grand Prairie, the town between Arlington and Dallas, reported that her Honda had been stolen. The Hispanic guy turned up in our neighborhood only an hour later, probably intent on stealing something else, but surprisingly for him, the car he'd stolen only an hour ago died in the street. His partners in crime, following behind in the Buick, took him someplace to get a battery, but it, too, was dead. At least, whatever was broken in the Honda wasn't fixed by getting a different battery. At any rate, the Accord still wouldn't start, so they abandoned it there on our street.
Thinking It Through
Now, a lot of things don't add up. The police said car thieves often cruise suburban neighborhoods to ditch stolen cars, but if that's what they were doing in our neighborhood, why did they bother to come back with a different battery? And why did they even take the risk of stopping in front of my neighbor's house, when the two of us were on her front walk, looking at the Honda? Why did they think the battery was the Honda's problem, after they had smashed the ignition switch to start it in the first place? (The police said that was how they stole the car.) The Hispanic guy had even muttered something to me about needing a jump start, but that's where the story got weirder still.
I've always heard preachers say that men should stop and offer to fix broken-down cars on the side of the road. But I've never done that, mostly because I'm not a mechanic, but also because of my good ol' New York training to not get involved. So I just walked into my house, although something in my conscience chided me that I should get my car and help the guy out. But I ignored that little voice, and didn't really think about it again until the cop told me the car was stolen.
What if I'd gotten my car - a much newer Honda Accord - out of my garage to help jump-start the guy's battery? Since he'd just stolen the older Honda, might he have pulled a gun on me and demanded my own car instead? What about if he'd pulled a gun on my neighbor and me when he returned to the old Honda?
Why Did He Have to be Hispanic?
I should have called 911 when my neighbor and I first had suspicions about that old Honda. If I had, the police might have caught the criminals, or at least gotten the stolen car returned to its rightful owner sooner. But my neighbor and I both tried to give the Hispanic guy the benefit of the doubt.
For me, at least, my thought process went this way: if this was a young white guy, would I automatically think there was something nefarious about this situation? Was it because it was a young Hispanic male that I had gotten suspicious? It's not a crime for people - Hispanic or otherwise - to have car trouble, even if they don't live in your neighborhood. If I was in a Hispanic neighborhood, and had car trouble, would the Hispanic residents get upset having a white guy leave his car in the street to go and get help?
To what extent did my efforts at being politically correct allow this Hispanic guy to get away with auto theft? It had rained between yesterday and when I called 911, so the police didn't even bother to check for fingerprints. Granted, if I had called 911 yesterday, the car wasn't stolen, and the Hispanic guy came back with a tow truck as the police were inspecting the car, I'd have looked pretty stupid.
But as it turns out, the Hispanic guy was a crook, and I would have been interpreting the situation correctly had I not fought the artificial element of refuting racial profiling. Because racial profiling is the more natural response, isn't it? Down here in the southwest, the statistics run hard against Hispanics and blacks when it comes to crime. Granted, a plethora of reasons exists for this reality, but still, it's reality. We have a few white bank robbers, but most street crime comes at the hands of people with darker skin.
I Want to do the Right Thing, but What Is It?
I'm an odd person - I readily admit it. And because I'm different, I don't like being pigeonholed by other people, or having other people making false assumptions about me. So I try hard not to do the same to other people. It may not seem like it sometimes, but I do.
So it's extremely discouraging to me when things happen that tend to prove why many people actually are racist. I don't want to be forced to look at everybody who I don't recognize as belonging in my neighborhood - which is about 95% white, an anomaly in central Arlington - with a suspicious eye, particularly if their skin tone is different than mine.
But it sure seems like this Hispanic auto thief has given me plenty of reason to justify it. And maybe that's what I dislike most of all.
_____
Yes, I know: to you, it probably seems like I fight a lot of losing battles! Like I'm some sort of Don Quixote of the blogosphere, picking fights with windmills in the form of elite Republicans and constitution-crossed Christians. Alas, if only I were as skinny as he was.
But no; while those battles may indeed be lost in the court of public opinion, I'm still convinced I'm right. Truth is truth regardless of whether or not the majority of people think it to be. Instead of my windmill wars, the battle I think I'm losing is my battle to be racially tolerant and non-prejudiced against people from other cultures. To lose this battle will mean I am unequivocally wrong.
And oddly enough, even here, the majority of people will probably think I am right to harbor mistrust of different cultures. Well, people who disagree with me when I pick on conservatives, anyway.
Tale of the Suspicious Honda
Yesterday morning, I witnessed two cars that I didn't recognize come slowly down the street in front of my house. One of them, a dark blue older-model Honda Accord, stopped, and the other, a dark green older-model Buick Century, pulled ahead of it and U-turned in the street.
A short, thin, Hispanic male got out of the Honda, opened its trunk, and took what appeared to be an overstuffed bag of something from the Honda to the trunk of the Buick. He returned to the Honda, got another bag out of its back seat, put it in the Buick's back seat, and jumped in the car himself. Then the Buick tore off up the street, in the direction from which it had just come.
Suspicious, I got my camera phone and went to the Honda which had been left in the street. About this time, a neighbor came out of her house, and we both began to chat about the Honda, which both of us knew didn't belong to anybody in the neighborhood.
Suddenly, the Buick returned from another direction, and the Hispanic guy hopped out with a car battery in his hands. We watched as he popped the hood of the Honda and proceeded to change out the batteries. My neighbor and I automatically assumed that the guy was having simple engine trouble, and we even casually called out to him that we thought the car was stolen. He laughed, but still couldn't get the car started. The Buick drove off, up the street, and eventually, the Hispanic guy closed the Honda's hood and walked up the street, presumably to a friend's house.
The Honda stayed in the street for the rest of the day, and on into this morning. That's when I began to get suspicious again.
By about 10:30 this morning, nobody had come to work on the Honda, and I smelled a rat. I got my cell phone and went out to the car, calling 911 to report an abandoned vehicle. The operator asked me for the license plate number, and when I told her, she quickly asked me to repeat it.
"Sir, that car has been reported as stolen," she sternly confirmed to me. "We'll have the police out to file a report shortly."
As it turns out, at about 9:00 am yesterday morning, a woman in Grand Prairie, the town between Arlington and Dallas, reported that her Honda had been stolen. The Hispanic guy turned up in our neighborhood only an hour later, probably intent on stealing something else, but surprisingly for him, the car he'd stolen only an hour ago died in the street. His partners in crime, following behind in the Buick, took him someplace to get a battery, but it, too, was dead. At least, whatever was broken in the Honda wasn't fixed by getting a different battery. At any rate, the Accord still wouldn't start, so they abandoned it there on our street.
Thinking It Through
Now, a lot of things don't add up. The police said car thieves often cruise suburban neighborhoods to ditch stolen cars, but if that's what they were doing in our neighborhood, why did they bother to come back with a different battery? And why did they even take the risk of stopping in front of my neighbor's house, when the two of us were on her front walk, looking at the Honda? Why did they think the battery was the Honda's problem, after they had smashed the ignition switch to start it in the first place? (The police said that was how they stole the car.) The Hispanic guy had even muttered something to me about needing a jump start, but that's where the story got weirder still.
I've always heard preachers say that men should stop and offer to fix broken-down cars on the side of the road. But I've never done that, mostly because I'm not a mechanic, but also because of my good ol' New York training to not get involved. So I just walked into my house, although something in my conscience chided me that I should get my car and help the guy out. But I ignored that little voice, and didn't really think about it again until the cop told me the car was stolen.
What if I'd gotten my car - a much newer Honda Accord - out of my garage to help jump-start the guy's battery? Since he'd just stolen the older Honda, might he have pulled a gun on me and demanded my own car instead? What about if he'd pulled a gun on my neighbor and me when he returned to the old Honda?
Why Did He Have to be Hispanic?
I should have called 911 when my neighbor and I first had suspicions about that old Honda. If I had, the police might have caught the criminals, or at least gotten the stolen car returned to its rightful owner sooner. But my neighbor and I both tried to give the Hispanic guy the benefit of the doubt.
For me, at least, my thought process went this way: if this was a young white guy, would I automatically think there was something nefarious about this situation? Was it because it was a young Hispanic male that I had gotten suspicious? It's not a crime for people - Hispanic or otherwise - to have car trouble, even if they don't live in your neighborhood. If I was in a Hispanic neighborhood, and had car trouble, would the Hispanic residents get upset having a white guy leave his car in the street to go and get help?
To what extent did my efforts at being politically correct allow this Hispanic guy to get away with auto theft? It had rained between yesterday and when I called 911, so the police didn't even bother to check for fingerprints. Granted, if I had called 911 yesterday, the car wasn't stolen, and the Hispanic guy came back with a tow truck as the police were inspecting the car, I'd have looked pretty stupid.
But as it turns out, the Hispanic guy was a crook, and I would have been interpreting the situation correctly had I not fought the artificial element of refuting racial profiling. Because racial profiling is the more natural response, isn't it? Down here in the southwest, the statistics run hard against Hispanics and blacks when it comes to crime. Granted, a plethora of reasons exists for this reality, but still, it's reality. We have a few white bank robbers, but most street crime comes at the hands of people with darker skin.
I Want to do the Right Thing, but What Is It?
I'm an odd person - I readily admit it. And because I'm different, I don't like being pigeonholed by other people, or having other people making false assumptions about me. So I try hard not to do the same to other people. It may not seem like it sometimes, but I do.
So it's extremely discouraging to me when things happen that tend to prove why many people actually are racist. I don't want to be forced to look at everybody who I don't recognize as belonging in my neighborhood - which is about 95% white, an anomaly in central Arlington - with a suspicious eye, particularly if their skin tone is different than mine.
But it sure seems like this Hispanic auto thief has given me plenty of reason to justify it. And maybe that's what I dislike most of all.
_____
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Sagrada Familia's Exuberant Homage
So, there we were, my longtime friend Gretchen Schwab and I, browsing through Barnes & Noble, and suddenly she shrieks with excitement. To her noisy delight, she'd stumbled upon a big photo book of the architect Antoni Gaudi. Gretchen could barely contain herself. With giddy enthusiasm, she held it up for me to see.
"Isn't he the guy who designed wavy building facades in Spain?" I groaned, betraying my own personal distaste for Gaudi despite my friend's obvious admiration. Not that Gretchen, an avant-garde spirit herself, could be dissuaded. The fact that we didn't share the same opinion about such a polarizing designer didn't faze her one bit.
In case you've never heard of the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi, he's not as obscure a historical figure as you might think. If you've visited Barcelona, you may have seen at least some of his striking apartment houses and curvaceous windows. But just by looking at Barcelona's skyline, you'll learn all you really need to know about him by his most famous commission. Indeed, his phantasmagorical Sagrada Familia basilica, which towers over the city, serves as an apt metaphor for his unusual life and ardent Roman Catholic faith.
After 130 years of construction, it remains unfinished, yet every bit as controversial and improbable as when he took over what was supposed to be a conventional neo-Gothic project in a conventional Spanish city. Indeed, even with completion still two decades away, a mere photo of Sagrada Familia will elicit an emphatic response. Not many buildings have that power.
Of Spain and Modernists
Gaudi is to architecture what Salvador Dali is to art, which since both men were Spaniards and cohorts in Modernism, probably shouldn't be surprising. Almost everybody has seen Dali's bizarre "Persistence of Memory" with its limp, dripping clock faces. Gaudi takes surrealism one flamboyant step further with his signature facades and windows. Only he's working in 3D, which meant that for Sagrada Familia, his only limitations came from physics and finances.
Interestingly enough, Sagrada Familia has been a pay-as-you-go, or expiatory, project for the Catholic church. In other words, faithful parishioners in Barcelona, not the treasury in Rome, have funded the construction of Gaudi's vision. That says a lot about the commitment to this vast undertaking by the people that have claimed it as their legacy.
But aside from special services, they've only been officially worshipping in Sagrada Familia for less than a week. After 130 years, the church has just recently been consecrated for regular use. On November 7, Pope Benedict XVI sprinkled "holy water" on the church's massive altar, making it suitable for use during daily Mass.
Tourists, meanwhile, have been visiting the site for decades, making it a stunning, world-famous attraction while masking its ineffectiveness as a working Catholic religious building.
Indeed, the church is still a living construction site. Its website even warns tourists that during strong rain or wind, the church will be closed because the elements can still enter the building. Officials hope to have the enormous basilica finished by 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death. Even though Sagrada Familia has already become part of the Catholic lexicon in Barcelona.
Church as Really Expensive Art
As intriguing as it is, however, and as exquisite as many of its architectural flourishes may be, and as impressive as the hand-crafted engineering of the towering structures have proven to be, there's an uncomfortable question that remains: is it all worth it? Along with New York City's incomplete Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Sagrada Familia pays hallowed homage to the ancient construction techniques of centuries-old cathedrals. It's no secret why Sagrada Familia and Saint John's are the only two projects of their kind in the world today: their exorbitant cost, the poor availability of skilled labor, and the sheer amount of time required to hand-craft key structural elements fly in the face of modern efficiencies. How viable a religious project is Sagrada Familia when this year's cost alone could reach $24 million?
Gray-suited accountants could quickly rattle off the conventional religious items $24 million could more readily purchase today. Protestant scholars could bemoan the extravagance as typical hubris by the Roman Catholics. Secularists would question whether the ancillary financial benefits to Barcelona's tourism industry exceed annual construction expenditures. Some critics even wonder if Pope Benedict's consecration, timed as it was after recent priest sex scandals in Europe, represented a splashy way to jump-start a moribund Spanish branch of his church.
Sagrada Familia certainly stuns the senses. Its size trumpets majesty. Its exterior embellishments put the "gaudy" in "Gaudi." Its soaring interior spaces audaciously subordinate mortal visitors. Its exquisite ceiling coffering is literally over the top.
Years ago, as an architecture student, I saw slides and photos of Sagrada Familia in lectures and textbooks, and scoffed at the absurdity of it all. At first, the tube-like latticework spires reminded me of war correspondent footage of pockmarked churches bombed during the World Wars in Europe. Indeed, even the novelist George Orwell called Sagrada Familia one of the world's most hideous buildings.
Maybe because Gaudi seems to be mocking the reverential classicism inherent in the great Gothic cathedrals, the traditionalist in me silently revolted against Sagrada Familia. Having already become prejudiced against Gaudi because of those silly windows and wavy building facades that we students had already encountered in theory lectures, Sagrada Familia just seemed like more of the same petulance and contempt for conventionalism.
Extra or Ordinary?
But now, looking at fresh images from the basilica, with more windows, parts of a roof, and a greater sense of cohesion as distinct components begin to resemble a spacial unit, I'm tempted to wonder if Gaudi's contempt for conventionalism may actually be appropriate for a house of worship. I still don't like parts of Sagrada Familia; the Nativity Facade looks like something sculpted from bleu cheese, the spires still seem caricaturish, and some of the vaults look like bats wings. Indeed, none of it is ordinary.
God is holy, which means He's set apart from the everyday. Yes, He's the Creator of the everyday, but only He is worshipped by all of His creation. Who else could possibly claim that? Do Gaudi's exuberant flourishes and garnishments draw attention to themselves as surreal elements of the structure? Or, do they individually and corporately point to the Deity towards Whom the activities within these spaces are intended?
I'm not going to get into the distinctives of Roman Catholicism vis-a-vis evangelical Christianity, particularly since arguments can be made that some aspects of Catholic liturgy are blasphemous to evangelicals. But ultimately, it is the God of both Jews and Christians to Whom acts of worship will be conducted in Sagrada Familia. Maybe not in ways most evangelicals, including myself, will embrace. Yet what Gaudi has envisioned for this basilica doesn't much depend on the forms this worship will take. By all appearances, his building embodies its own proclamation of the excellencies of our Creator God. Even if that proclamation defies convention.
Architecturally speaking, many religious structures today betray a slavish devotion to money and budgets more than they do a distinct acknowledgement of the deific properties of the Person being celebrated in the space. While prudence and fiscal discipline remain important Christian virtues, the story of the woman who broke open the expensive bottle of perfume to wash Christ's feet gets far less pulpit time.
Or household budget time. With many statistics showing less than half of all members contributing financially to their church, yet with many Christians enjoying discretionary income for a variety of unnecessary trinkets, trips, and trophies - and I'm preaching to myself here more than anybody else - no wonder Gaudi's effusive Sagrada Familia seems almost ludicrous next to our warehouse-looking megachurches. Even little country churches - which historically have embraced the best expressions of their local cultural aesthetics - now exude all the charm of a brick box.
What are we worshipping in these functional yet uninspiring places? Are we worshipping our hoarding mentality, spending just enough so that church members don't need to compromise their materialistic lifestyle? Or are we lavishing our Creator with material expressions of our love for Him?
Not that good design and inspiring architecture need to cost a lot of money. God-given creativity can do a lot with not a lot of cash. And not every faith community can - or should - come up with $24 million a year for their building fund. Sometimes, though, I wonder: don't we need to acknowledge that God doesn't want our ordinary stuff when we come to Him in worship?
Is He worth our ordinary effort, or our extraordinary effort?
_____
"Isn't he the guy who designed wavy building facades in Spain?" I groaned, betraying my own personal distaste for Gaudi despite my friend's obvious admiration. Not that Gretchen, an avant-garde spirit herself, could be dissuaded. The fact that we didn't share the same opinion about such a polarizing designer didn't faze her one bit.In case you've never heard of the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi, he's not as obscure a historical figure as you might think. If you've visited Barcelona, you may have seen at least some of his striking apartment houses and curvaceous windows. But just by looking at Barcelona's skyline, you'll learn all you really need to know about him by his most famous commission. Indeed, his phantasmagorical Sagrada Familia basilica, which towers over the city, serves as an apt metaphor for his unusual life and ardent Roman Catholic faith.
After 130 years of construction, it remains unfinished, yet every bit as controversial and improbable as when he took over what was supposed to be a conventional neo-Gothic project in a conventional Spanish city. Indeed, even with completion still two decades away, a mere photo of Sagrada Familia will elicit an emphatic response. Not many buildings have that power.
Of Spain and Modernists
Gaudi is to architecture what Salvador Dali is to art, which since both men were Spaniards and cohorts in Modernism, probably shouldn't be surprising. Almost everybody has seen Dali's bizarre "Persistence of Memory" with its limp, dripping clock faces. Gaudi takes surrealism one flamboyant step further with his signature facades and windows. Only he's working in 3D, which meant that for Sagrada Familia, his only limitations came from physics and finances.Interestingly enough, Sagrada Familia has been a pay-as-you-go, or expiatory, project for the Catholic church. In other words, faithful parishioners in Barcelona, not the treasury in Rome, have funded the construction of Gaudi's vision. That says a lot about the commitment to this vast undertaking by the people that have claimed it as their legacy.
But aside from special services, they've only been officially worshipping in Sagrada Familia for less than a week. After 130 years, the church has just recently been consecrated for regular use. On November 7, Pope Benedict XVI sprinkled "holy water" on the church's massive altar, making it suitable for use during daily Mass.Tourists, meanwhile, have been visiting the site for decades, making it a stunning, world-famous attraction while masking its ineffectiveness as a working Catholic religious building.
Indeed, the church is still a living construction site. Its website even warns tourists that during strong rain or wind, the church will be closed because the elements can still enter the building. Officials hope to have the enormous basilica finished by 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death. Even though Sagrada Familia has already become part of the Catholic lexicon in Barcelona.
Church as Really Expensive Art
As intriguing as it is, however, and as exquisite as many of its architectural flourishes may be, and as impressive as the hand-crafted engineering of the towering structures have proven to be, there's an uncomfortable question that remains: is it all worth it? Along with New York City's incomplete Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Sagrada Familia pays hallowed homage to the ancient construction techniques of centuries-old cathedrals. It's no secret why Sagrada Familia and Saint John's are the only two projects of their kind in the world today: their exorbitant cost, the poor availability of skilled labor, and the sheer amount of time required to hand-craft key structural elements fly in the face of modern efficiencies. How viable a religious project is Sagrada Familia when this year's cost alone could reach $24 million?
Gray-suited accountants could quickly rattle off the conventional religious items $24 million could more readily purchase today. Protestant scholars could bemoan the extravagance as typical hubris by the Roman Catholics. Secularists would question whether the ancillary financial benefits to Barcelona's tourism industry exceed annual construction expenditures. Some critics even wonder if Pope Benedict's consecration, timed as it was after recent priest sex scandals in Europe, represented a splashy way to jump-start a moribund Spanish branch of his church.
Sagrada Familia certainly stuns the senses. Its size trumpets majesty. Its exterior embellishments put the "gaudy" in "Gaudi." Its soaring interior spaces audaciously subordinate mortal visitors. Its exquisite ceiling coffering is literally over the top.Years ago, as an architecture student, I saw slides and photos of Sagrada Familia in lectures and textbooks, and scoffed at the absurdity of it all. At first, the tube-like latticework spires reminded me of war correspondent footage of pockmarked churches bombed during the World Wars in Europe. Indeed, even the novelist George Orwell called Sagrada Familia one of the world's most hideous buildings.
Maybe because Gaudi seems to be mocking the reverential classicism inherent in the great Gothic cathedrals, the traditionalist in me silently revolted against Sagrada Familia. Having already become prejudiced against Gaudi because of those silly windows and wavy building facades that we students had already encountered in theory lectures, Sagrada Familia just seemed like more of the same petulance and contempt for conventionalism.
Extra or Ordinary?
But now, looking at fresh images from the basilica, with more windows, parts of a roof, and a greater sense of cohesion as distinct components begin to resemble a spacial unit, I'm tempted to wonder if Gaudi's contempt for conventionalism may actually be appropriate for a house of worship. I still don't like parts of Sagrada Familia; the Nativity Facade looks like something sculpted from bleu cheese, the spires still seem caricaturish, and some of the vaults look like bats wings. Indeed, none of it is ordinary.
God is holy, which means He's set apart from the everyday. Yes, He's the Creator of the everyday, but only He is worshipped by all of His creation. Who else could possibly claim that? Do Gaudi's exuberant flourishes and garnishments draw attention to themselves as surreal elements of the structure? Or, do they individually and corporately point to the Deity towards Whom the activities within these spaces are intended?
I'm not going to get into the distinctives of Roman Catholicism vis-a-vis evangelical Christianity, particularly since arguments can be made that some aspects of Catholic liturgy are blasphemous to evangelicals. But ultimately, it is the God of both Jews and Christians to Whom acts of worship will be conducted in Sagrada Familia. Maybe not in ways most evangelicals, including myself, will embrace. Yet what Gaudi has envisioned for this basilica doesn't much depend on the forms this worship will take. By all appearances, his building embodies its own proclamation of the excellencies of our Creator God. Even if that proclamation defies convention.
Architecturally speaking, many religious structures today betray a slavish devotion to money and budgets more than they do a distinct acknowledgement of the deific properties of the Person being celebrated in the space. While prudence and fiscal discipline remain important Christian virtues, the story of the woman who broke open the expensive bottle of perfume to wash Christ's feet gets far less pulpit time.
Or household budget time. With many statistics showing less than half of all members contributing financially to their church, yet with many Christians enjoying discretionary income for a variety of unnecessary trinkets, trips, and trophies - and I'm preaching to myself here more than anybody else - no wonder Gaudi's effusive Sagrada Familia seems almost ludicrous next to our warehouse-looking megachurches. Even little country churches - which historically have embraced the best expressions of their local cultural aesthetics - now exude all the charm of a brick box.
What are we worshipping in these functional yet uninspiring places? Are we worshipping our hoarding mentality, spending just enough so that church members don't need to compromise their materialistic lifestyle? Or are we lavishing our Creator with material expressions of our love for Him?
Not that good design and inspiring architecture need to cost a lot of money. God-given creativity can do a lot with not a lot of cash. And not every faith community can - or should - come up with $24 million a year for their building fund. Sometimes, though, I wonder: don't we need to acknowledge that God doesn't want our ordinary stuff when we come to Him in worship?
Is He worth our ordinary effort, or our extraordinary effort?
_____
Friday, November 5, 2010
Right Talkers Can Be So Wrong
By now, most of us know it was a hoax. Or, at the very least, a poorly-reported story.
As I write this, President Barak Obama is jetting his way across the globe with his wife and daughters to begin a 10-day trip to Asia that starts in India, where it was reported that security costs would run $200 million per day. It was estimated that over 30 warships, 40 planes, several bullet-proof limousines, 3,000 staffmembers, and dozens of hotel rooms would be involved in an excursion to break all previous records for a presidential state visit.
And right-wing elites were hopping mad. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other conservative pundits pounced on the story as just more proof about how out-of-touch the Obamas really are. First it was Michelle's lavish trip to Spain, which even drew gasps of surprise from the liberal press. There was the family's 27-hour snub of the oil-stricken Gulf Coast in favor of an impromptu weekend in Bar Harbor, Maine, and a longer vacation on Cape Cod, two New England havens of exclusivity.
At least when George Bush took his vacations, he usually went to his personal ranch here in Texas, which even his ardent left-wing detractors struggled to call fancy.
For Obama, the hapless limousine liberal, a $200 million-per-day junket to Asia, at the start of Diwali, no less, just seemed like more of the same wasteful spending from which Republican talking heads make their livings.
Except nobody bothered to run down the story's sources. Nobody checked leads. Nobody tried corroborating the validity of any facts. Nobody ran the security financials. Not even me when I posted a link to the story on my FaceBook page. I found the original story from an Indian news outlet on Google, and assumed media standards in India were at least as strong as ours. In addition, I figured the scathing implications from this story for our Democratic president would be enough to silence the American media, which would explain why nobody else was onto the story. The liberal media elite were still smarting over the results of Tuesday's elections; why would they heap any more bad news on Obama's plate?
I Apologize
But, I should have known better. Not that North America's leading press agencies report the news perfectly all the time, or exist in a vacuum free of bias. But it wasn't until yesterday that conventional media outlets decided the rumors had festered long enough, and spokesmen from both the White House and the Pentagon addressed the phantom scandal as nonsense.
So, to all my FaceBook friends and their friends who responded to my post, I'm truly sorry for being complicit in spreading falsehoods about our president and this Asia trip. Sometimes it may not seem like it, but I strive to make sure the things I tell my friends aren't rumors or gossip. I'll try to be more careful in the future.
Anybody Else? Rush? Glenn? We're Waiting...
There's more to this incident, however. I'm also taking this opportunity to prove why I don't believe Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck deserve much credibility. Not because I was gullible enough to think they might be right. And not even because we were all wrong. But because of what they haven't done.
Although this story has been proven false, neither of these two blowhards have acknowledged that. None have yet made any public retractions, which media personalities with any integrity would have done. They haven't even bothered to apologize for misleading their audience, which proves their sullen disrespect for people who hang onto their every word. And of course, they haven't apologized to the president. Apparently, free speech only goes one-way for these right-wingers.
For the record, Rush appears to have simply dropped the story. Like it never existed. But as of 11:56 am CST today, Beck's website still carried the story, "Financial crisis? What crisis? Obama spending $2 billion to visit Mumbai" on its home page.
This is what Beck says:
"If Mumbai sounds familiar to you it's because less than 2 years ago, radical Islamic terrorists carried out massive attacks that killed 173 people and wounded 308. It's so dangerous there that the President is traveling with 3,000 people, bringing 34 warships, and spending $200 million a day to make the trip. What in the world is so important to take such a risk, and the financial burden in the middle of a crisis? Something isn't right."
It's Not Right of the Right
Well, you are correct, Pontificator Beck. Something isn't right, and it's your own warped desire to make a name for yourself at the expense of somebody many conservatives don't like anyway. Obama's presidency, as ineffective and wasteful as it may be, is expendable in your pursuit of ratings and sensationalism. Granted, you couch your story in the form of a curious question, perhaps thinking that gives you the leeway to backtrack later and say you were just presenting a rumor to your audience without actually endorsing it yourself. But is that a hallmark of a trustworthy person?
What harm does any of this do? What's another negative story about Obama when so many already-angry voters have participated in one of the most anti-incumbent elections in history?
For one thing, it harms the conservative agenda by further obfuscating the relevancy and accuracy of the information they disseminate to their base. You can't say this is the first time Rush, Beck, & Co. have sacrificed integrity for ratings.
Second, it demeans the office of the US presidency, not so much for getting information wrong but failing to own up and apologize. Rush, Beck, & Co. hate it when their mortal enemy, the media, demeans Republican presidents, but apparently Democratic administrations are expendable.
Third, it shows to Third World idiots how easy it is to get Americans all worked up over something that isn't true. As new media takes more and more control of our information flow, propaganda can only become more insidious and more difficult to qualify.
Fourth, it's simply wrong ethically. If you make a mistake, don't we all still need to apologize and take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again? Have maturity, respectability, and integrity simply ceased to be important?
Two months ago, Glenn Beck hosted a rally in Washington DC with the slogan of "restoring honor."
See the discrepancy?
_____
As I write this, President Barak Obama is jetting his way across the globe with his wife and daughters to begin a 10-day trip to Asia that starts in India, where it was reported that security costs would run $200 million per day. It was estimated that over 30 warships, 40 planes, several bullet-proof limousines, 3,000 staffmembers, and dozens of hotel rooms would be involved in an excursion to break all previous records for a presidential state visit.
And right-wing elites were hopping mad. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other conservative pundits pounced on the story as just more proof about how out-of-touch the Obamas really are. First it was Michelle's lavish trip to Spain, which even drew gasps of surprise from the liberal press. There was the family's 27-hour snub of the oil-stricken Gulf Coast in favor of an impromptu weekend in Bar Harbor, Maine, and a longer vacation on Cape Cod, two New England havens of exclusivity.
At least when George Bush took his vacations, he usually went to his personal ranch here in Texas, which even his ardent left-wing detractors struggled to call fancy.
For Obama, the hapless limousine liberal, a $200 million-per-day junket to Asia, at the start of Diwali, no less, just seemed like more of the same wasteful spending from which Republican talking heads make their livings.
Except nobody bothered to run down the story's sources. Nobody checked leads. Nobody tried corroborating the validity of any facts. Nobody ran the security financials. Not even me when I posted a link to the story on my FaceBook page. I found the original story from an Indian news outlet on Google, and assumed media standards in India were at least as strong as ours. In addition, I figured the scathing implications from this story for our Democratic president would be enough to silence the American media, which would explain why nobody else was onto the story. The liberal media elite were still smarting over the results of Tuesday's elections; why would they heap any more bad news on Obama's plate?
I Apologize
But, I should have known better. Not that North America's leading press agencies report the news perfectly all the time, or exist in a vacuum free of bias. But it wasn't until yesterday that conventional media outlets decided the rumors had festered long enough, and spokesmen from both the White House and the Pentagon addressed the phantom scandal as nonsense.
So, to all my FaceBook friends and their friends who responded to my post, I'm truly sorry for being complicit in spreading falsehoods about our president and this Asia trip. Sometimes it may not seem like it, but I strive to make sure the things I tell my friends aren't rumors or gossip. I'll try to be more careful in the future.
Anybody Else? Rush? Glenn? We're Waiting...
There's more to this incident, however. I'm also taking this opportunity to prove why I don't believe Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck deserve much credibility. Not because I was gullible enough to think they might be right. And not even because we were all wrong. But because of what they haven't done.
Although this story has been proven false, neither of these two blowhards have acknowledged that. None have yet made any public retractions, which media personalities with any integrity would have done. They haven't even bothered to apologize for misleading their audience, which proves their sullen disrespect for people who hang onto their every word. And of course, they haven't apologized to the president. Apparently, free speech only goes one-way for these right-wingers.
For the record, Rush appears to have simply dropped the story. Like it never existed. But as of 11:56 am CST today, Beck's website still carried the story, "Financial crisis? What crisis? Obama spending $2 billion to visit Mumbai" on its home page.
This is what Beck says:
"If Mumbai sounds familiar to you it's because less than 2 years ago, radical Islamic terrorists carried out massive attacks that killed 173 people and wounded 308. It's so dangerous there that the President is traveling with 3,000 people, bringing 34 warships, and spending $200 million a day to make the trip. What in the world is so important to take such a risk, and the financial burden in the middle of a crisis? Something isn't right."
It's Not Right of the Right
Well, you are correct, Pontificator Beck. Something isn't right, and it's your own warped desire to make a name for yourself at the expense of somebody many conservatives don't like anyway. Obama's presidency, as ineffective and wasteful as it may be, is expendable in your pursuit of ratings and sensationalism. Granted, you couch your story in the form of a curious question, perhaps thinking that gives you the leeway to backtrack later and say you were just presenting a rumor to your audience without actually endorsing it yourself. But is that a hallmark of a trustworthy person?
What harm does any of this do? What's another negative story about Obama when so many already-angry voters have participated in one of the most anti-incumbent elections in history?
For one thing, it harms the conservative agenda by further obfuscating the relevancy and accuracy of the information they disseminate to their base. You can't say this is the first time Rush, Beck, & Co. have sacrificed integrity for ratings.
Second, it demeans the office of the US presidency, not so much for getting information wrong but failing to own up and apologize. Rush, Beck, & Co. hate it when their mortal enemy, the media, demeans Republican presidents, but apparently Democratic administrations are expendable.
Third, it shows to Third World idiots how easy it is to get Americans all worked up over something that isn't true. As new media takes more and more control of our information flow, propaganda can only become more insidious and more difficult to qualify.
Fourth, it's simply wrong ethically. If you make a mistake, don't we all still need to apologize and take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again? Have maturity, respectability, and integrity simply ceased to be important?
Two months ago, Glenn Beck hosted a rally in Washington DC with the slogan of "restoring honor."
See the discrepancy?
_____
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Striving Rivals? Competition's Place in Church
Here's a topic that doesn't often come up when discussing Christian disciplines: competition.
Yet within the past few days, I've come across two different Presbyterians with two diverse opinions on the subject.
One, Louis Weeks, used to be a missionary in Africa, and currently is president emeritus of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. The other is Patrick Lafferty, currently on staff at my own Park Cities Presbyterian Church here in Texas. And while my personal prejudices may immediately be evidenced simply by introducing these two men, let's give Dr. Weeks the honor of setting the framework for considering the validity of competition as a Biblical characteristic.
Competition Good for Consumers, but Fellow Believers?
In his essay entitled Striving Together: Is There a Place for Competition in Ministry? which first appeared in Duke Divinity School's publication, Faith & Leadership, Weeks himself professes to never having seriously considered competition as a viable motivator for people of faith.
That is, not until a mentor of his boasted of its attributes.
This mentor had made competition the motivating factor for becoming a more educated Christian leader and preacher. He benchmarked his own progress in his professional faith life against other preachers and teachers, and whether the others knew it or not, engaged in a phantom race with them in his lifelong pursuit of learning.
Now, I understand that's not what most people would consider to be a negative form of competition. And, after all, it's the negative form of competition that raises the eyebrows in the context of things good Christians shouldn't do, isn't it? We think Christians should work together for the cause of Christ, and view competition as introducing unnecessary and even damaging behavior.
Competition, after all, implies that somebody is better at something than somebody else, and other people need to work harder to erase that lead. In economic terms, competition can benefit society by encouraging innovation and cost savings. At its core, competition involves discovering the weaknesses in competitors and exploiting those weaknesses for our own benefit. But it's one thing to invent a better widget through competition. It's another thing entirely to place yourself in competition with a fellow believer. To do so, you're forced to discover ways in which they struggle in their faith walk, lack the education you have, or have been led astray by the Devil. In reality, we end up using a fellow believer's weaknesses as leverage for us to succeed. Is that a proper demonstration of Christ-likeness? Isn't the world supposed to know we're Christians by our love for each other?
Sanctification Isn't Competition
Weeks appears to ignore these questions. He launches into an extrapolation of competition as a striving towards something in a fashion which God blesses because, after all, He gave us the desire to compete. Sports fanatics will abruptly stop here and endorse Weeks' theory heartily, because it appears to make a lot of sense. Many people derive considerable entertainment and even a physical adrenaline rush from participating in an intense sporting event. Even when I was watching the Texas Rangers play in the World Series this weekend, I found myself getting caught up in the excitement. And to a certain extent, there's nothing wrong with playing so as to prove who the better team is.
But when it comes to Christianity, we already know who the better team is. Indeed, we know Who is perfect at everything. So where does competition fit within communities of faith? Isn't it one of the weakest of arguments to justify doing something because "God gave us the desire to do it?" With that logic, we could sweep a whole ocean of sins under divine grace thanks to emotive proclivities. Any parent worth their salt can see right through the "it feels good, so it must be right" rationale, can't they?
Yet Weeks continues. He takes Paul's "running the race" analogy from 1 Corinthians 9 and "winning the prize" to validate the competitive spirit. If Paul did it, certainly we can compete against each other. But can we use such simplistic logic on this verse? Is Paul talking about running a race just to win a prize which will distinguish him as a purer follower of Christ than you and I? Instead, isn't he talking about the process of sanctification? In his analogy, a runner who values the significance of a race will train and discipline themself for their own good and the approval of the race officials. Where else in Scripture is sanctification compared to a competition between saints? When we reach those fabled Pearly Gates, will God be standing outside with gold, silver, and bronze medallions for win, place, or show?
Yes, we will get rewards of some kind based on what we've done with the opportunities God has given us for our earthly faith walks. But since He bestows the Fruits of the Spirit differently to His various children, can we tell what all of His benchmarks are for optimum performance so we can exceed what somebody else has done? Can we know how high-achieving somebody else's faith is? We can guess, based on their spiritual fruits, and we have Scripture to show us how to live lives that please God, but only He knows our hearts and the level of our true devotion to Him. Which means only He knows how well we're doing in the ministry opportunities with which He's blessed us.
Pegging our faith journey on what we see happening around us, how well we think other people preach, how well we think they teach or serve or cook or exercise their spiritual gifts, yadda, yadda, yadda... is this what Paul is talking about in his analogy of the race? We run so as to win the prize. But is God's prize based on a comparison between what you and I do here on Earth? Are we running against Paul, or Peter, or Billy Graham? Can you see how self-centered, humanistic, and ethnocentric such an approach can be? Is it really about us?
If Weeks' mentor wanted to please God as a preacher, and since being an effective communicator of Biblical exposition would be an appropriate use of the speaking and educational gifting God had given him, that still doesn't mean that pegging "success" on a pattern established by another preacher is a good way to gauge his own use of the gifts God had given him. Does it? Where in scripture do we receive instruction on how to quantify our faith performance and rank it against other believers? We can deploy Biblical discretion, but that's to help us be pure before God in a vertical relationship, not better than somebody else in a horizontal relationship.
The Personal Side of Competition
How does the concept of competition fit with the analogy of the Body of Christ as a physical body with many parts, organs, bones, and tissues? If the heart could compete against the eye, what would happen? If you left thumb wanted to race against your liver, what would happen?
No, I don't think competition is a good idea for fellow believers. Instead, let's move to Lafferty's viewpoint, which encompasses a far more holistically Biblical ethos.
Writing for Every Thought Captive, my church's weekly devotional e-mail, Lafferty takes a more relational perspective of competition, and in the essay from which I'm quoting him, talks about rivalry instead. After all, rivalry doesn't exist without competition, does it?
He writes: "Working out our own salvation [or, sanctification; what Paul was talking about when Weeks incorrectly applied the "running the race" analogy] first means to pause and reflect upon our priorities and practices — to take note of our patterns and how we conduct ourselves in them. Rivalry insists on proving ourselves right or better than others. It seeks to surpass them and it often manifests either in a delight over their loss or a despair at your own."
"If by what Jesus has done I am not only acceptable to God but beloved by Him, then my attempt to establish my worth through rivalry is not only a waste of effort, but entirely futile since it will only deliver a fleeting satisfaction, if any—in that is my folly."
"So rivalry offends God and destroys us as it seeks to best another. Whereas trust in the gospel assures us of an irrevocable acceptance by no less than God which a rivalrous spirit at first ignores, and then seduces me into a series of choices that will never yield abiding satisfaction. A preliminary grasp of the offensiveness and folly of rivalry is for now enough to move us to a new obedience—even if our walk by faith in that obedience is more often like a stumbling in it."
Reality Check
Seeking to serve God with the whole of your heart and being is certainly a noble ambition. But it's also a holy one. By invoking practices which require subjective interpretations about what God may or may not be doing in fellow believers, how do we position ourselves as their betters? To take Weeks' initial example, in the deceptively egocentric world of Christian preachers, benchmarking one's performance against someone else's may seem like an easy way to grade yourself and make improvements, but should Weeks and his mentor fall for such a beguiling trap?
Or should we? If we are to serve one another in love, bear with one another, and live in peace with each other (Colossians 3:12-15), where does competition fit in?
Maybe during a friendly round of golf or game of football. Or maybe even Scrabble.
But that's about it, isn't it? Not that this is a church rule or penalty meant to discourage improvement, but if we really love Christ and His people, we join with them in service.
Not against them.
1 Corinthians 9
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
_____
Yet within the past few days, I've come across two different Presbyterians with two diverse opinions on the subject.
One, Louis Weeks, used to be a missionary in Africa, and currently is president emeritus of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. The other is Patrick Lafferty, currently on staff at my own Park Cities Presbyterian Church here in Texas. And while my personal prejudices may immediately be evidenced simply by introducing these two men, let's give Dr. Weeks the honor of setting the framework for considering the validity of competition as a Biblical characteristic.
Competition Good for Consumers, but Fellow Believers?
In his essay entitled Striving Together: Is There a Place for Competition in Ministry? which first appeared in Duke Divinity School's publication, Faith & Leadership, Weeks himself professes to never having seriously considered competition as a viable motivator for people of faith.
That is, not until a mentor of his boasted of its attributes.
This mentor had made competition the motivating factor for becoming a more educated Christian leader and preacher. He benchmarked his own progress in his professional faith life against other preachers and teachers, and whether the others knew it or not, engaged in a phantom race with them in his lifelong pursuit of learning.
Now, I understand that's not what most people would consider to be a negative form of competition. And, after all, it's the negative form of competition that raises the eyebrows in the context of things good Christians shouldn't do, isn't it? We think Christians should work together for the cause of Christ, and view competition as introducing unnecessary and even damaging behavior.
Competition, after all, implies that somebody is better at something than somebody else, and other people need to work harder to erase that lead. In economic terms, competition can benefit society by encouraging innovation and cost savings. At its core, competition involves discovering the weaknesses in competitors and exploiting those weaknesses for our own benefit. But it's one thing to invent a better widget through competition. It's another thing entirely to place yourself in competition with a fellow believer. To do so, you're forced to discover ways in which they struggle in their faith walk, lack the education you have, or have been led astray by the Devil. In reality, we end up using a fellow believer's weaknesses as leverage for us to succeed. Is that a proper demonstration of Christ-likeness? Isn't the world supposed to know we're Christians by our love for each other?
Sanctification Isn't Competition
Weeks appears to ignore these questions. He launches into an extrapolation of competition as a striving towards something in a fashion which God blesses because, after all, He gave us the desire to compete. Sports fanatics will abruptly stop here and endorse Weeks' theory heartily, because it appears to make a lot of sense. Many people derive considerable entertainment and even a physical adrenaline rush from participating in an intense sporting event. Even when I was watching the Texas Rangers play in the World Series this weekend, I found myself getting caught up in the excitement. And to a certain extent, there's nothing wrong with playing so as to prove who the better team is.
But when it comes to Christianity, we already know who the better team is. Indeed, we know Who is perfect at everything. So where does competition fit within communities of faith? Isn't it one of the weakest of arguments to justify doing something because "God gave us the desire to do it?" With that logic, we could sweep a whole ocean of sins under divine grace thanks to emotive proclivities. Any parent worth their salt can see right through the "it feels good, so it must be right" rationale, can't they?
Yet Weeks continues. He takes Paul's "running the race" analogy from 1 Corinthians 9 and "winning the prize" to validate the competitive spirit. If Paul did it, certainly we can compete against each other. But can we use such simplistic logic on this verse? Is Paul talking about running a race just to win a prize which will distinguish him as a purer follower of Christ than you and I? Instead, isn't he talking about the process of sanctification? In his analogy, a runner who values the significance of a race will train and discipline themself for their own good and the approval of the race officials. Where else in Scripture is sanctification compared to a competition between saints? When we reach those fabled Pearly Gates, will God be standing outside with gold, silver, and bronze medallions for win, place, or show?
Yes, we will get rewards of some kind based on what we've done with the opportunities God has given us for our earthly faith walks. But since He bestows the Fruits of the Spirit differently to His various children, can we tell what all of His benchmarks are for optimum performance so we can exceed what somebody else has done? Can we know how high-achieving somebody else's faith is? We can guess, based on their spiritual fruits, and we have Scripture to show us how to live lives that please God, but only He knows our hearts and the level of our true devotion to Him. Which means only He knows how well we're doing in the ministry opportunities with which He's blessed us.
Pegging our faith journey on what we see happening around us, how well we think other people preach, how well we think they teach or serve or cook or exercise their spiritual gifts, yadda, yadda, yadda... is this what Paul is talking about in his analogy of the race? We run so as to win the prize. But is God's prize based on a comparison between what you and I do here on Earth? Are we running against Paul, or Peter, or Billy Graham? Can you see how self-centered, humanistic, and ethnocentric such an approach can be? Is it really about us?
If Weeks' mentor wanted to please God as a preacher, and since being an effective communicator of Biblical exposition would be an appropriate use of the speaking and educational gifting God had given him, that still doesn't mean that pegging "success" on a pattern established by another preacher is a good way to gauge his own use of the gifts God had given him. Does it? Where in scripture do we receive instruction on how to quantify our faith performance and rank it against other believers? We can deploy Biblical discretion, but that's to help us be pure before God in a vertical relationship, not better than somebody else in a horizontal relationship.
The Personal Side of Competition
How does the concept of competition fit with the analogy of the Body of Christ as a physical body with many parts, organs, bones, and tissues? If the heart could compete against the eye, what would happen? If you left thumb wanted to race against your liver, what would happen?
No, I don't think competition is a good idea for fellow believers. Instead, let's move to Lafferty's viewpoint, which encompasses a far more holistically Biblical ethos.
Writing for Every Thought Captive, my church's weekly devotional e-mail, Lafferty takes a more relational perspective of competition, and in the essay from which I'm quoting him, talks about rivalry instead. After all, rivalry doesn't exist without competition, does it?
He writes: "Working out our own salvation [or, sanctification; what Paul was talking about when Weeks incorrectly applied the "running the race" analogy] first means to pause and reflect upon our priorities and practices — to take note of our patterns and how we conduct ourselves in them. Rivalry insists on proving ourselves right or better than others. It seeks to surpass them and it often manifests either in a delight over their loss or a despair at your own."
"If by what Jesus has done I am not only acceptable to God but beloved by Him, then my attempt to establish my worth through rivalry is not only a waste of effort, but entirely futile since it will only deliver a fleeting satisfaction, if any—in that is my folly."
"So rivalry offends God and destroys us as it seeks to best another. Whereas trust in the gospel assures us of an irrevocable acceptance by no less than God which a rivalrous spirit at first ignores, and then seduces me into a series of choices that will never yield abiding satisfaction. A preliminary grasp of the offensiveness and folly of rivalry is for now enough to move us to a new obedience—even if our walk by faith in that obedience is more often like a stumbling in it."
Reality Check
Seeking to serve God with the whole of your heart and being is certainly a noble ambition. But it's also a holy one. By invoking practices which require subjective interpretations about what God may or may not be doing in fellow believers, how do we position ourselves as their betters? To take Weeks' initial example, in the deceptively egocentric world of Christian preachers, benchmarking one's performance against someone else's may seem like an easy way to grade yourself and make improvements, but should Weeks and his mentor fall for such a beguiling trap?
Or should we? If we are to serve one another in love, bear with one another, and live in peace with each other (Colossians 3:12-15), where does competition fit in?
Maybe during a friendly round of golf or game of football. Or maybe even Scrabble.
But that's about it, isn't it? Not that this is a church rule or penalty meant to discourage improvement, but if we really love Christ and His people, we join with them in service.
Not against them.
1 Corinthians 9
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
_____
Monday, November 1, 2010
Wolves in Shepherd's Clothing
This shouldn't need to be said. But apparently, some pastors don't understand that lying is a sin.
For example, a pentecostal pastor in South Africa recently told his congregation that "Jesus was HIV-positive."
And here in Arlington, Texas, a contemporary church erected a sign this October which declared "Jesus doesn't care."
In both cases, orthodox evangelicals protesting these claims have been met with blithe self-absolutions from pastors obviously more interested in trying to establish a name for themselves than proclaiming the Gospel.
Now, I am not a Bible scholar, but since when is it OK to lie about the Son of God? Especially when you're supposed to be doing His work?
"It's OK; I'm a preacher. I can lie and get away with it."
Really, people?
Free Publicity
In the South African case, Xola Skosana, pastor of the non-denominational Hope for Life Ministry, claimed that since Christ metaphorically took on the frailties and sins of mankind, it's OK to infer that Christ also had AIDS. And granted, although AIDS is primarily transmitted through sexual contact, it can also be contracted through such benign events as blood transfusions. Which, of course, didn't exist when Christ walked the Earth, which leaves us back at the provocative - and heretical - insinuation that Christ was sexually active.
The very idea should make us want to vomit. Shouldn't it?
"Of course, there's no scientific evidence that Jesus had the HI virus in his bloodstream," Skosana admits, phrasing his defense in words which still don't absolve the guilt of his lie. "The best gift we can give to people who are HIV-positive is to help de-stigmatize AIDS and create an environment where they know God is not against them, he's not ashamed of them."
That's the best gift we can give people, huh? Lying about the Savior of the World?
If you think that's preposterous, how about Brian Swiggart's attention-grabbing lie here in Texas? Swiggart, pastor of the Community of Lake Ridge, thinks that saying "Jesus doesn't care" is a cool way to drum up attention for his new church, which, BTW, is on the other side of the lake from the real subdivision called Lake Ridge.
"We created something quite compelling, didn't we?" boasts Swiggart, gloating about the recent Internet traffic their website has been getting. You see, www.jesusdoesnotcare.com is one of their URLs.
Swiggert goes on to clarify that what he means by the attention-getting phrase is Jesus doesn't care about a person's past sins. Yet that is also false, isn't it? If Jesus didn't care, then why did He have to die?
Madison Avenue Meets Church Street
Trying to attract attention to one's church has been a mainstay of pastoral one-upmanship for years. Robert Schuller commissioned internationally-acclaimed architect Philip Johnson to design an all-glass church. Jerry Falwell trumpeted the Moral Majority. Bill Hybels and Rick Warren twisted old evangelical models to market Christianity to wealthy boomers. Innumerable shucksters have gone on TV to advertise their "ministries."
But few of these people have actually used the name of Christ in such vulgar and sinful ways as Skosana and Swiggart, each of whom protest that they're not really lying.
So then, what is a lie?
According to Merriam-Webster, when a person tells a lie, they "make an untrue statement with intent to deceive," and/or "create a false or misleading impression."
What is so hard about understanding what those definitions mean? Skosana and Swiggert wanted to attract attention by positing a phrase which, taken in a generic cultural context, would naturally be provocative because the full expression of the phrase was not obvious. Both of these pastors revealed part of what they thought was true, but did so banking on their audience's reception of the phrases at face value. They wanted their audiences to misinterpret what they were saying. Doesn't that meet the threshold of "intent to deceive" and "create a misleading impression?"
Why This Matters
If you say "Jesus was HIV-positive," and you're trying to convey the metaphor that Christ can empathize with sinners, or people who are ostracized by society because of some physical condition, you need to immediately clarify and qualify what you mean to be implying. And I'm not sure you can accomplish all of that and still overcome the instant negative connotation you are delivering with such a provocative statement. Basically, in cultures familiar with AIDS and being HIV-positive, the immediate implication - for better or worse - is sexual promiscuity. And as the holy Son of God, such an implication represents unadulterated heresy. That in and of itself should automatically preclude a self-professed ambassador of the Gospel from uttering such a phrase.
Not to mention the fact that AIDS did not exist during the time of Christ's earthly ministry. Nor did blood transfusions, the only way a virgin would be able to contract the disease. So even on the basic level of historical fact, Soskana maligned the essential character of God's Son by ascribing to Him something that was impossible. Which, again, is heresy.
If Soskana was innocently attempting to utilize poetic license, and his attempt failed - which it did - and he immediately took responsibility for his mistake and inept conveyance of imagery, apologized to anyone in his audience who misunderstood him, and retracted his statement, then the matter would have ended. But he hasn't, it didn't, and indeed, Soskana continues pouring fuel onto the fire by insisting on defending his egregious claim. I think I can smell soot already.
Swiggart has proven to be no better. After reporters contacted him about his URL, he seemed pleased with all of the attention. It's all about getting the word out for his church, apparently. It's all about getting people talking and creating a buzz, shaking up what he consideres to be a stodgy Christian establishment and appealing to unchurched folks who like shocking the stodgy Christian establishment.
Well, shock-jock-pastor Swiggart, I've got news for you: your old-hat Christian establishment may have some stodgy views, but there's absolutely nothing stodgy about the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You think He doesn't care about sin? Then what are you doing in the ministry? What gospel are you shucking? Whose heaven are you promoting? Because it's not God's.
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Sound familiar? God did not spare anything, and even gave up His own Son for us. Why? Because we are filthy, sinful rags without Christ's salvation. We're prostitutes to the world. We're sheep without a Shepherd. We are lost in our trespasses and sins without Christ. Without Christ as our Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King, you, Swiggart, and I are bound for an eternal destiny in Hell. And you think Jesus doesn't care?
How dare you pastors trot out cheap tricks in the name of evangelism? How dare you vainly try to compromise the very message of salvation that supposedly has spared both of your scruffy necks?
If we don't plead for God's mercy and Christ's atoning sacrifice, acknowledging His holiness, purity, and righteousness, then what business do any of us have claiming to represent the Gospel?
"Do not be deceived. God will not be mocked."
Galatians 6:7
_____
For example, a pentecostal pastor in South Africa recently told his congregation that "Jesus was HIV-positive."
And here in Arlington, Texas, a contemporary church erected a sign this October which declared "Jesus doesn't care."
In both cases, orthodox evangelicals protesting these claims have been met with blithe self-absolutions from pastors obviously more interested in trying to establish a name for themselves than proclaiming the Gospel.
Now, I am not a Bible scholar, but since when is it OK to lie about the Son of God? Especially when you're supposed to be doing His work?
"It's OK; I'm a preacher. I can lie and get away with it."
Really, people?
Free Publicity
In the South African case, Xola Skosana, pastor of the non-denominational Hope for Life Ministry, claimed that since Christ metaphorically took on the frailties and sins of mankind, it's OK to infer that Christ also had AIDS. And granted, although AIDS is primarily transmitted through sexual contact, it can also be contracted through such benign events as blood transfusions. Which, of course, didn't exist when Christ walked the Earth, which leaves us back at the provocative - and heretical - insinuation that Christ was sexually active.
The very idea should make us want to vomit. Shouldn't it?
"Of course, there's no scientific evidence that Jesus had the HI virus in his bloodstream," Skosana admits, phrasing his defense in words which still don't absolve the guilt of his lie. "The best gift we can give to people who are HIV-positive is to help de-stigmatize AIDS and create an environment where they know God is not against them, he's not ashamed of them."
That's the best gift we can give people, huh? Lying about the Savior of the World?
If you think that's preposterous, how about Brian Swiggart's attention-grabbing lie here in Texas? Swiggart, pastor of the Community of Lake Ridge, thinks that saying "Jesus doesn't care" is a cool way to drum up attention for his new church, which, BTW, is on the other side of the lake from the real subdivision called Lake Ridge.
"We created something quite compelling, didn't we?" boasts Swiggart, gloating about the recent Internet traffic their website has been getting. You see, www.jesusdoesnotcare.com is one of their URLs.
Swiggert goes on to clarify that what he means by the attention-getting phrase is Jesus doesn't care about a person's past sins. Yet that is also false, isn't it? If Jesus didn't care, then why did He have to die?
Madison Avenue Meets Church Street
Trying to attract attention to one's church has been a mainstay of pastoral one-upmanship for years. Robert Schuller commissioned internationally-acclaimed architect Philip Johnson to design an all-glass church. Jerry Falwell trumpeted the Moral Majority. Bill Hybels and Rick Warren twisted old evangelical models to market Christianity to wealthy boomers. Innumerable shucksters have gone on TV to advertise their "ministries."
But few of these people have actually used the name of Christ in such vulgar and sinful ways as Skosana and Swiggart, each of whom protest that they're not really lying.
So then, what is a lie?
According to Merriam-Webster, when a person tells a lie, they "make an untrue statement with intent to deceive," and/or "create a false or misleading impression."
What is so hard about understanding what those definitions mean? Skosana and Swiggert wanted to attract attention by positing a phrase which, taken in a generic cultural context, would naturally be provocative because the full expression of the phrase was not obvious. Both of these pastors revealed part of what they thought was true, but did so banking on their audience's reception of the phrases at face value. They wanted their audiences to misinterpret what they were saying. Doesn't that meet the threshold of "intent to deceive" and "create a misleading impression?"
Why This Matters
If you say "Jesus was HIV-positive," and you're trying to convey the metaphor that Christ can empathize with sinners, or people who are ostracized by society because of some physical condition, you need to immediately clarify and qualify what you mean to be implying. And I'm not sure you can accomplish all of that and still overcome the instant negative connotation you are delivering with such a provocative statement. Basically, in cultures familiar with AIDS and being HIV-positive, the immediate implication - for better or worse - is sexual promiscuity. And as the holy Son of God, such an implication represents unadulterated heresy. That in and of itself should automatically preclude a self-professed ambassador of the Gospel from uttering such a phrase.
Not to mention the fact that AIDS did not exist during the time of Christ's earthly ministry. Nor did blood transfusions, the only way a virgin would be able to contract the disease. So even on the basic level of historical fact, Soskana maligned the essential character of God's Son by ascribing to Him something that was impossible. Which, again, is heresy.
If Soskana was innocently attempting to utilize poetic license, and his attempt failed - which it did - and he immediately took responsibility for his mistake and inept conveyance of imagery, apologized to anyone in his audience who misunderstood him, and retracted his statement, then the matter would have ended. But he hasn't, it didn't, and indeed, Soskana continues pouring fuel onto the fire by insisting on defending his egregious claim. I think I can smell soot already.
Swiggart has proven to be no better. After reporters contacted him about his URL, he seemed pleased with all of the attention. It's all about getting the word out for his church, apparently. It's all about getting people talking and creating a buzz, shaking up what he consideres to be a stodgy Christian establishment and appealing to unchurched folks who like shocking the stodgy Christian establishment.
Well, shock-jock-pastor Swiggart, I've got news for you: your old-hat Christian establishment may have some stodgy views, but there's absolutely nothing stodgy about the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You think He doesn't care about sin? Then what are you doing in the ministry? What gospel are you shucking? Whose heaven are you promoting? Because it's not God's.
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Sound familiar? God did not spare anything, and even gave up His own Son for us. Why? Because we are filthy, sinful rags without Christ's salvation. We're prostitutes to the world. We're sheep without a Shepherd. We are lost in our trespasses and sins without Christ. Without Christ as our Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King, you, Swiggart, and I are bound for an eternal destiny in Hell. And you think Jesus doesn't care?
How dare you pastors trot out cheap tricks in the name of evangelism? How dare you vainly try to compromise the very message of salvation that supposedly has spared both of your scruffy necks?
If we don't plead for God's mercy and Christ's atoning sacrifice, acknowledging His holiness, purity, and righteousness, then what business do any of us have claiming to represent the Gospel?
"Do not be deceived. God will not be mocked."
Galatians 6:7
_____