Nice or Vice? Part 2

For Part 1, click here

Part 2:

A lot of the decisions I've made about my lifestyle wouldn't mean much to anybody else if they were simply personal preferences and pragmatic habits. And I don't deny that preferences and pragmatism play a part in my choosing not to drink, limiting my movie-watching, and so on.

In addition, I hesitate invoking the apostle Paul's instruction for protecting "weaker" believers from freedoms some enjoy but others consider to be sins. Not only do I not like thinking of myself as a weak person because I don't drink, but, because I don't think it's necessarily a sin TO drink, nobody of faith who drinks in my presence challenges my perspective on the subject. I have had friends ask me first if I minded if they had a beer or glass of wine, and while I've appreciated their courtesy in asking, I'm not offended when they don't. I don't like it when believers joke about getting drunk, because the Bible repeatedly identifies inebriation as sinful. But that requires a different response than worrying if I'm going to sin if I sip somebody's margarita.

So the scripture I believe best reflects my conclusions on the subject of freedom to participate in "vices" comes from 1 Corinthians 6:12, which says "all things are lawful, but not everything is beneficial" (paraphrased). In other words, for areas in life where options exist that aren't prohibited by scripture, we have the freedom to engage those options, but we need to understand that doing so won't necessarily be to our advantage.

For example, although Christians have the freedom to drink as long as they don't get drunk, there could be situations and circumstances where it would be better if you didn't. If you think simply going to someone's house and dancing to contemporary Christian music with a group of people is harmless fun, you may be right, but you could be putting yourself in a situation which invites other sin. You might dismiss concerns about yoga as irrelevant since you don't study all of the eastern spirituality that traditionally goes along with it, but practicing the physical manifestations of the Hindu religion risks compromising the Holy Spirit's working in your life. Maybe nothing bad will happen. At least not that you'll notice. But contrary to some popular teaching on the issue, is taking risks such as these - under the guise of freedom in Christ - wise?

It's Not Easy Being a Freedom Flaunter

In a way, people of faith who flaunt their Biblical freedoms aren't as free as they like to think they are. Think about it:

• Christians who drink need to monitor their intake and remain vigilant against getting drunk.
  
• Christians who go to movies need to carefully preview what they want to see, since there's little excuse any more for watching sinfully-explicit movies with all of the reviews available in cyberspace.


• Christians who like to dance - even just awkwardly jiggling their bodies at wedding receptions - need to be evaluating the music, the words, and their imaginations, all while trying to have a good time.

Maybe it's worth it for some people of faith to voluntarily put themselves in situations where they constantly have to be on guard against sin, but I know that at least for me, I can wander into sin on my own quite nicely, thank you very much, without the additional incentives provided by things I don't need in the first place.

Indeed, abstinence can free you from need, want, and anxiety. At least, if you really want to exercise freedom. God isn't standing in Heaven with a humongous mallet, waiting for us to sin so He can pound us into the dirt for our indiscretion, but neither does He expect us to willingly make ourselves available to sin. His grace may be free, infinite, and lavish, but should we take it for granted?

Christ died to free us from our sins, and His death on the cross grieved the Trinity in ways you and I will never, ever be able to comprehend. If we really want to serve our Creator Savior, then shouldn't we actively seek to honor His sacrifice, even though doing so won't earn us any more freedom than we already enjoy in Him?

Balancing the Benefits of Freedom

Then there are people who claim that the very exploitation of our Christian freedoms helps to confirm Christ's love for us and God's desire that we enjoy life to its fullest. After all, life is a precious gift, and since all things have been made by God and none are intrinsically evil, believers display the authority given to us by our Creator to be rulers and subduers of the Earth when we reclaim fallen pleasures for our use.

Since there's nothing in the Bible that explicitly contradicts this theory, I suppose believers can go off and practice it if they like. But don't we Christians have bigger fish to fry? Does not having a direct refutation from scripture mean a green light is automatically flashing? Aren't there other aspects of our faith walks which are, in fact, spoken to directly in scripture and for which we will be held directly accountable? Have you already mastered discipleship, outreach to widows and orphans, honoring your parents, and other responsibilities expected of all believers? I know I haven't, but then, I don't multi-task well. When we get to the Great White Throne, will God be as interested in what wines we enjoyed as how we've worshipped Him in spirit and in truth? How much of our enjoyment of Biblical freedoms exists more as a phenomenon of our affluent society and hedonistic pursuits than a sincere desire to honor God with every area of our lives?

True, freedom in Christ means we don't need to be scared by the eternal consequences of pushing the envelopes of prudence, modesty, and conventional worldly behaviors. But before any of us goes off into our liberty-laced lifestyles, shouldn't we ask ourselves questions like these:

• Which is more important: demonstrating freedom in Christ by dancing in mixed company, or modeling the principle of being set apart by voluntarily limiting your dancing to environments in which you don't open yourself up to sin?


• Which is more important: demonstrating freedom in Christ by exercising with yoga, or obfuscating any connection with a demonic religion by choosing another form of physical fitness?


• Which is more important: demonstrating freedom in Christ by smoking cigars (talk about your oral fixations!), or admitting that the smell really isn't as great as your buddies tell you it is, and that cigar smoke can also cause cancer?

Conclusion

Remember, we'll all be held accountable to God for how we answer these questions - or whether we even consider them at all.

Not that I have any greater edge over anybody else when it comes to living a holy life. I'm not saying that people who've answered these questions differently than I have are on the road to you-know-where. After all, piety can become the sin of pride.

And we all know what pride comes before!
_____

Nice or Vice? Part 1

I do a lot of things differently than fellow evangelicals with our freedoms in Christ.

There. I've said it. I know it makes me an oddball Christian, but that's the way I am.

My parents raised my brother and me with relatively strict guidelines about what were and weren't appropriate behaviors for followers of Christ. And yes, that helps explain what some might call my prudish mindset today. My parents taught us that it was acceptable to deny one's self pleasure, a concept which has practically vanished from popular consciousness. Today, I refrain from drinking, smoking, dancing, gambling, and doing yoga. I hardly ever go to the movies. And fellow Christians think I'm weird.

I don't do these things because I believe they'll keep me from going to Heaven. Nor is my lifestyle a direct hold-over from when my parents controlled my habits. Rather, the maturation process I've been undergoing as a person of faith has forced me to evaluate why I would or wouldn't continue in the behavioral path laid out for me by my parents. And while, yes, I've ended up making some of the same conclusions they did for their own lives, I haven't done so with a regimented mindset tempered by mere traditionalism or fear.

Instead, a more accurate estimation of my behavior would be to say that I've developed my own rationale for choosing to participate - or not to participate - in certain things for one reason: honoring God.

I'm Not the Prude You Might Think I Am

Now, before you think I'm getting all holier-than-thou, trying to take you on a guilt trip or crush you with layers of legalism, let me explain.

There comes a time for all of us when we make decisions about whether we're going to drink, dance, go to movies, and all the other vices that society at large used to frown upon, but now embrace as part of modern life. While in the evangelical church a wide range of opinions still exists regarding the appropriateness of such activities, the tide has definitely turned towards a wider practice of them, mostly in reaction to the generations of fuzzy logic which prohibited them.

You know what I mean: the hell-fire and brimstone preachers who damned anybody to Hell who drank so much as a glass of beer or wine. The Sunday School teacher who warned nice girls not to compromise their virtue by going to the movies. Back in the olden days, a lot of rules were based on real concerns about societal mores, but the rationale behind them seemed to lack its own integrity.

And although it may not be readily apparent, that is the crux of the issue when we make decisions about the activities in which we choose to engage. Most of what used to be considered vices aren't actually wrong in and of themselves. Rather, the mindset with which we participate in them can speak louder than the actual activity.

I'm not here to preach against any of these things, or to set up parameters for salvation whereby you or I can determine if somebody is saved or not based on whether they do them. While I'd love to lay down the gauntlet and insist that everybody needs to share my perspective on these issues, I realize the plank that is in my own eye may be obscuring my ability to remove the speck that may be in yours.

Instead, as I've journeyed along my path contemplating the holiness of God and how we are to serve Him with our lives, I've had to cross a number of bridges spanning legalism, habits, propensities, and historical tradition to come up with rationales for why I do what I do and don't do what I don't.

So just let me tell you how I've reached the decisions I've made for myself.

Oral Fixations

Interestingly, one of the vices mentioned in the Bible but receiving very little attention today concerns overeating and gluttony. For years, I scoffed at Christians who'd drink themselves under the table, while I scarfed down as many pastries, pizzas, and whole pints of Ben & Jerry's as I could. Of course, now that I've got a belly the size of Rhode Island, it's finally hit me that gluttony is as much a sin as drunkenness. It's just doesn't kill other people like alcoholism can.

And as for drinking, I can't say people who drink wine with dinner or have a beer at a ballgame are sinning. I have to assume that the Bible accurately describes the wine Jesus created at the wedding feast as a vintner's bouquet. I don't deny that the apostle Paul advised Timothy to medicate his upset stomach with wine.

No, my reason for not drinking is twofold: first, my grandfather was a dastardly alcoholic, and I'm not convinced that the propensity for alcoholism isn't genetic. Second, since I have such an oral fixation on food, I hate to think how I'd treat booze. Some people say a good meal isn't perfect unless accompanied by the right wine, but I already have a problem with idolizing food, so how might adding liquor to the mix solve anything? Others say Holy Communion is best celebrated with fine wine, so as to echo the Bible's many metaphors about the fruit of the vine, but unless you're using the most expensive wine available, isn't grape juice just as good? North Americans benefit from healthy, safe water from the tap, so wine isn't necessary to satiate thirst. No, it's just more prudent for me to abstain, and so far, I've been able to.

Interestingly, for those of you who do drink alcohol, one of the best guidelines for doing so comes from none other than liberal actor Alan Alda and his character, Hawkeye Pierce, on M*A*S*H. Towards the end of the series, he told his cohorts at the 4077 he had learned to drink when he wanted to, not when he needed to. Needing something indicates the control of that something over you; drinking when you want to generally will help keep you from overdoing it, because you'll probably be at an event you'll want to enjoy and remember.

I'm More Flexible With Movies

When I was growing up, my parents didn't want my brother and me going to the movies, and that lasted until we were in high school. By that time, however, I'd realized how destructive my daily doses of television had become to my ability to concentrate, read, and use my imagination. So I've intentionally moderated my movie intake, especially since you have to pay for movies, as opposed to free TV (I've never had cable).

Some people can spend hours discussing cinematic stories, but not me. It's not a sin to go to the movies, but I question the merit of spending so much time consuming so much that, in the grand scheme of things, isn't necessary. Sometimes when friends become engrossed in movie talk, I try to tally the hours they've spent watching these flicks; not that I can judge if their expenditure of time is any worse than how I spend my own free time, but rather, how differently we view our options for time management. I prefer being outside, good conversation, or even running errands at a leisurely pace to sitting in a dark room for two hours being spoon-fed somebody else's interpretation of a story. Entertainment is one thing, but needing so much of it - and of such oftentimes questionable quality - seems to speak more to a conviviality with the world than a respectful acknowledgement that we should be separate from it.

Not that I didn't enjoy "Toy Story 3" this past summer. But it was the first movie I'd seen in about a year. My favorite movie is the first Airplane, with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as a close runner-up. The only chick-flick I've ever enjoyed is Crossing Delancey, but mostly because the grandmother in the movie reminds me so much of my father's mother. I've never seen Star Wars - an admission which draws gasps from most people - yet I consider Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, despite their raw content, must-see's, if for nothing else than their historical importance.

I also think the last half of the epic Titanic is worth it for the phenomenal animation. But that's about as far as I go with movie talk!

Shake that Groove Thang

Dancing presents a far trickier line of logic. Because I don't deny that dancing is referenced in the Bible, I obviously can't say that dancing in and of itself is sinful. Indeed, as you'll soon discover, I actually think it can be beneficial in the proper context. But we have some ground to cover before we get to that point.

We at least need to agree that the dancing which took place in Biblical times was directed to the Lord and the mighty deeds God had accomplished for His people. With the possible exception of King David's dance witnessed by his jealous wife Michal, during which the modesty of his attire was compromised, the civic exuberance displayed by the gyrations of those dancing honored God and were set in the context of a wholesome celebration.

However, we need to draw a distinction between celebrating the goodness of God and moving our bodies to music not designed for God's pleasure. If you don't accept that music doesn't exist in a moral vacuum, then you're not going to agree with anything I say further. But if you affirm the qualitative properties of music, then you can appreciate the lines I'm drawing.

While dancing itself isn't necessarily sinful, it can be a slippery slope. As an activity, dancing can invite bodily movements to both non-edifying (secular) and Christian music, which can generate lustful thoughts, which can corrupt its participants. I know that involves a lot of assumptions and sounds old-fashioned, but it's true, isn't it? Of course, dancing a waltz can be far removed from the primalness of hip-hop or hellish cacophony of hard rock, but if you're not dancing to a legitimate song of praise to God, then you should at least seriously monitor the music to which you're dancing. And how you move your body.

Why? The human body is a beautiful assortment of sexually provocative curves and appendages, which we often forget in our carnal world. While some women can spark lust in a man just by walking down the street, many more women can take men on a fantasy ride with a little subtle help from the poses their body strikes while dancing.

While women don't seem to have as much of a problem with lustful thoughts while dancing as men do, it's not unheard of for women to develop sexual thoughts while males gyrate provocatively to human-focused music. Call me a prude if you like, but I'm not really the one making up the rules here, am I? Biology and psychology play greater roles than we like to admit.

Personally, I believe that dancing is an activity best left to a husband and wife, because I don’t think spouses can have sinfully lustful thoughts of their covenant partner. Actually, judging by the marriage relationship some of my friends have, a healthy dose of "lust" for one's spouse could work wonders! As a single man, however, I know that for myself, I have enough problems with lustful thoughts in ordinary situations than to attend a dance of any kind, because society tends to import all sorts of sexual innuendo at most types of dances.
_____

Next: Abstinence frees you from both need and want. At least, if you really want to exercise freedom.

Reflections of Strike One - New Reality

The First World Trade Center Attack: Friday, February 26, 1993

Part One - click here
Part Two - click here
Part Three - click here

Conclusion:

Back at the office, I discovered how brown-outs got their name. The elevators worked just fine, but on our floor, the fluorescent ceiling lights were decidedly dull. Combined with the overcast skies outside, the office actually had an eerie yellowish-brownish tinge when I walked in.

By now, the computers were completely useless, with software programs refusing to open even when hard drives managed to reboot. Several of my co-workers had simply turned off their desktops and were doing the manual component of invoicing – literally, by hand.

As a freight forwarding firm, we dealt daily with steamship companies, many of whom were located in the World Trade Center (WTC), and our messenger wanted to know if there was any point in him trying to run documents over there. Which, of course, there wasn’t.

My boss called in again from California, by now having seen live footage of the scene on television. Knowing that a lot of the documentation we'd need for invoicing would still be over in the Twin Towers, and assuming no one among the thousands of soot-covered evacuees would have thought to bring our paperwork out with them, he realized we were limited in what we could get done. In addition, he expressed concern about our own welfare, knowing that although our building wasn’t affected, getting out of Lower Manhattan that day would only get more complicated as the afternoon wore on. Remember, this was before the recent fad of residential conversions in Lower Manhattan - back then, the streets still cleared out after quitting time. (As it happens, our old office building is now a condominium.)

Freaky Friday

Since the brown-out had knocked out our computers, and we didn’t know how - or how long - the elevators were still running, we decided to get what we could to the post office, and then call it a day.

Three of my co-workers lived on Staten Island, just a ferry’s ride away from the pier near our office building. A fourth co-worker who lived in New Jersey and always commuted via the PATH train underneath the WTC decided to take the ferry with them, and called her boyfriend to have him drive over and meet her at the terminal on Staten Island.

I lived between Gramercy Park and Murray Hill on the eastern side of Manhattan, and I’d walked home before. Today being Friday, however, I would be headed straight uptown to Calvary Baptist Church, where I was a member, near Central Park. I would have a quick dinner at a small diner near Calvary (they had a great pasta salad – nothing greasy!) and then MC the contemporary Christian music ministry at my church, an event held every other Friday evening.

After everyone else had gone, I stayed behind in the office for a while just listening to the radio, which by now had gone to an all-news format with constant coverage of the emergency at the WTC. Apparently, our radio station was one of the few left on the air, since the main broadcast tower atop One World Trade had been put out of commission by the explosion. We'd discover later that several television stations would be without their signal for days.

Staff at the law firm next door were getting ready to head home early, too, so before they left, I went into their office to look out at the Twin Towers again. This time, the garage entrance was clearly visible; I don’t remember seeing any smoke, and rescue workers were busy going in and out. As far as I could see, West Street remained choked with fire trucks and other emergency vehicles, responders who’d come from all over the city when officials still weren’t sure what they were dealing with. Was it a disaster involving Consolidated Edison and their combustible steam pipes, as my co-workers and I imagined? Was there some sort of massive structural failure within the bowels of the WTC? Or, as some reporters were suggesting, was this some sort of terrorist act?

Terrorism Not Yet a Part of Life

Back in 1993, terrorism on United States soil remained almost unimaginable. It hadn’t happened before, at least on this scale. There was the LaGuardia Airport Christmas bombing in 1975, but even though it killed 11 people - five more than we'd learn died at the WTC - it destroyed only a baggage claim area. The Oklahoma City bombing would still be two years in the future.

Within hours of the Trade Center explosion, New York media was reporting that over 100 claims of responsibility had been phoned in from terrorist organizations just within the city. Before then, most of us had no idea so many hate groups existed in the United States, let alone the Big Apple. Since that sounded so absurd to us, it made the idea of terrorists striking the WTC that much more unlikely to us. At the time, anyway.

As I closed up the office and struck out for Uptown, mapping out in my mind the subway routes that were probably open to me, I once again crossed the pedestrian bridge spanning the gaping mouth of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.

Just like it had been at lunchtime, the ramps below me were eerily empty and quiet. They should have been bumper-to-bumper with rush hour traffic. I looked to my left, and gazed at the Twin Towers soaring four blocks away, a bright blue police helicopter hovering mid-way up Tower Two. Perhaps it was scanning the buildings from the outside, or supervising the last stage of their evacuation. By now, we still didn’t know anybody had died; we assumed somebody must have been killed, but police and fire officials were still crawling around all of the buildings in the WTC, making sure everybody had gotten out.

Without any problems, I got the N and R straight up to 57th Street, at Carnegie Hall, just half a block away from Calvary Baptist. After an early dinner, I arrived at the church’s fellowship hall with plenty of time to help transform it into a coffeehouse for the evening. About a dozen volunteers and I ran the show. A college student and graphic designer set up the lights and sound system, a genuine Ford fashion model cooked delicious hors d'oeuvres, an accountant and private school teacher staffed the ticket desk, and different local Christian bands provided the music. Only because nobody else wanted to, I MC’d the evenings, and that night, I commented to the crowd of about 40 on the day’s drama downtown at the WTC.

Unbelievably to me, a couple of people still hadn’t heard about it, many others hadn’t heard how serious it was, and nobody seemed overly concerned. Even late on that Friday evening, I think most of us still assumed it was a Con Ed accident.

New Era Dawning

By the end of that weekend, however, we would learn it wasn’t Con-Ed’s fault at all. Instead, Muslim terrorists had rented a yellow Ryder truck in New Jersey, loaded it with explosives, and detonated it in the WTC’s underground parking garage. Apparently, their plan was to topple Tower One with their bomb, and that as it fell, Tower One would destroy Tower Two (assuming, of course, that Tower One didn’t fall into West Street, the old AT&T building behind it, or the open plaza to its right; or, as we all witnessed on 9/11, basically collapse in on itself).

I remember our office staff laughing out loud when we heard on the radio days later that the FBI had arrested a couple of the terrorists after they reported the Ryder truck stolen and went back to where they rented it to claim their deposit. With idiots like that trying to blow up New York landmarks, we quickly assumed that while the city might be plagued with other major disruptions like February 26’s in the future, we had little else to fear.

In fact, after the WTC was cleaned, repaired, remodeled, and reopened, I was standing in line in the lobby of Tower Two, waiting to get a photo identification badge that would give me open access to the complex, since I often ran errands for the company there. I remember chatting with a couple of other guys in line, also waiting for their badges, and we got to joking about the foiled destruction of the very building we were in.

Like typical civilians who mock government bureaucracy, we saw the I.D. procurement process as useless red tape meant to pacify building tenants who might be leery about moving back into the towers. Just another hoop to jump through, just a veneer of security to try and show that the Port Authority is serious about protecting their headquarters. After all, nobody would be insane enough to attempt the destruction of the Twin Towers ever again.

I so wish we were right.
_____

Reflections of Strike One - the Drama

The First World Trade Center Attack: Friday, February 26, 1993

Part One - click here
Part Two - click here

Part Three:

I was taken aback. Talking to the damsels in distress at Burger King, it didn’t occur to me just what it looked like for these thousands of people to leave the World Trade Center (WTC) all at the same time. (FYI, police helicopters did pluck over 100 people from the tower roofs that day, including a pregnant woman who gave birth soon after being rescued.)

Evacuation can be a great equalizer. At least from skyscrapers. When you’re emptying two 110-story buildings, executives, managers, secretaries, clerks, and custodians who were interspersed across 220 floors worth of offices and one very exclusive restaurant suddenly become one human mass facing the same predicament. There isn’t one emergency stairwell for million-dollar CEOs, and another one for hourly employees. It’s sheer physical fitness, not your job title, that spells the difference between getting out with enough energy to make it home, or just getting out.

Indeed, all ages, body types, and physical conditions were represented in the grim, sooty lines of WTC tenants shuffling out of the towers. Some were walking arm-in-arm for mutual support, some were almost being carried by two other people. None were talking, many were coughing. Women were walking barefoot, having taken off their high heels back on the twentieth floor landing, or maybe the 82nd. I remember seeing photos of handicapped people who were forced to leave their wheelchairs behind, and had been carried down by gracious co-workers.

Trudging down 90, 60, 30 floors in smoky dimness, with hundreds of people in front of you, and hundreds more pressing down behind you, with more being added floor by floor as you descended. Can you imagine?! The claustrophobia alone must have been oppressive, let alone the anxiety of not really knowing what was going on. What energy that must have required for everyone involved!

Whenever tragedy strikes the Big Apple, its mayors always like to say these are times when New Yorkers shine. And sure enough, everybody had worked together to get out of the buildings alive. Nobody was complaining, nobody was bickering. Everybody was too exhausted. They also seemed to be dazed, since nothing like this had ever happened to them before.

Lines of Soot-Covered Survivors

Oddly enough, the long lines of huddled evacuees slowly marching from the towers were being herded by police officers to walk alongside the towers themselves, instead of letting them roam out into the plaza. As I walked back around to the eastern side of the WTC plaza, I could see why.

Craning my neck and looking high into the snowy sky, bits of stuff were falling from the upper floors of the Twin Towers, and it wasn’t snow. It was… furniture! Later, when I got back to the office, I heard on the radio that people waiting for congestion to clear in the emergency stairwells were smashing office furniture through windows to try and let the smoke escape and allow fresh air in. So bits of furnishings and shards of glass would occasionally rain down, onto the rooftops of shorter buildings around the towers, and into the plaza below. I don't want it to sound like leather chairs and sofas were crashing onto the plaza like bombs during the London Blitz, but enough debris was falling to make walking out from the relative shelter of the plaza’s periphery exceedingly dangerous. That’s why the police were forcing evacuees to stay in their narrow lines alongside the buildings.

Another reason also became clear: as the evacuees came towards the parking lot that was never used, more police officers were ready in a surprisingly well-organized distribution system with bottled water, blankets, and towels, handing them out to the grateful, freezing, exhausted, soot-covered office workers one by one. For evacuees who could barely walk, cops draped blankets over them and helped them onto waiting stretchers. Ambulances had lined up in rows, filling the otherwise unused parking lot and turning it into a sort of triage.

I vividly remember one tall woman with what we Texans call "big hair" that was dusted with soot. She was wearing a plush, knee-length mink coat – obviously having taken the time to retrieve her valuable fur before vacating her office – and still had on her high heels. After all, even in an emergency, some New Yorkers wouldn’t dare forego their fashion sense. She walked towards me, patting the sleeves of her thick mink, and each time she did, soot puffed out of her coat. It was obviously ruined, and by the look on her face, she knew it. Undaunted, or perhaps simply resigned to reality, she strode past me and into the throngs of people milling about the ambulances, on into the bizarre afternoon.

Sing it With Me: "We Need Dirty Laundry"

By this time, news crews were everywhere, and as evacuees from the towers came towards the parking lot triage area, some reporters would dart towards them, trying to get an interview. Some were shooed away by cops who were trying to assess evacuees with medical needs. But not many evacuees had the interest – or the breath – to talk with the reporters anyway. They just pushed by the media folks, only wanting to go home.

Other evacuees lined themselves up at the backs of ambulances staged in the parking lot. Paramedics worked feverishly with oxygen tanks and masks, helping people clean their faces, and even cleaning up after some evacuees simply vomited what they’d inhaled in the towers. Even as the medics were multi-tasking on multiple patients, the lines at the back doors to their ambulances continued to grow. But the evacuees were patient, for the most part; glad to be safely out of the towers.

Patience, however, was lost on the news crews who were roving around the triage area, like vultures looking for prey. Who could get the best story? Who could find the evacuee with the most harrowing tale to tell? What better place to look for provocative stories than these ambulances, where weary survivors were being treated?

The only time I became disgusted at what I saw came when I watched TV news crews try to push their way into the backs of ambulances where paramedics were treating injured people on stretchers. Reporters and their technicians actually pushed aside waiting patients and tried to clamor inside the ambulances, light poles and microphone poles being stuck inside with absolutely no regard to the people or equipment that was being poked and jabbed inside. This happened repeatedly, from ambulance to ambulance, as all of New York’s media hounds tried to scoop each other with interviews of the sick.

At first, it was disturbing, but as I witnessed it happening multiple times, it became appalling. I couldn’t believe that here we were, in the face of what was rapidly being realized as a major emergency, and sick people were being pushed aside and jostled so news reporters could try and advance their own careers. This had nothing to do with getting first-hand accounts of what went on inside the Twin Towers. Those reports could be collected after everybody was safely home and over the day’s shock. The only reason for those reporters to be as belligerent as they were in aggressive pursuit of interviews and video of sick people in ambulances was their own lust for making a headline. I’ve never held the media in very high regard, but after that day, news reporters have ranked just above used car salesmen in my book.

Suddenly, a cop saw a particularly insensitive reporter trying to shove his way into the back of an ambulance, pushing back a cluster of evacuees waiting for help. “Hey!” she yelled, a hefty black officer, reaching over and physically pulling the reporter by his arm out of the ambulance, his hand-held microphone dropping to the pavement. The evacuees who had been pushed aside gave the reporter looks that matched the sooty marks on their faces, otherwise too weary to express their own anger at the reporter. When the reporter started to protest, the officer simply ordered him to stay back and not get in anybody’s way.

By now, the snow had mostly stopped, and the smoke drifting from the tops of the Twin Towers was clearly visible. After soaking in a bit more of the human drama unfolding before me, and finally seeing one too many reporter push aside evacuees waiting for help at the ambulances, I decided to return to the office, having more than enough material of my own to share with my co-workers who had stayed behind.

I headed back past the Burger King, walking down Trinity Place, to the relative sanity of our busy little firm.
____

Tomorrow: Conclusion

Reflections of Strike One - Lunch

The First World Trade Center Attack: Friday, February 26, 1993

Part One - click here

Part 2

Of all the streets in New York City famous in their own right, Trinity Place isn't one of them. It's practically the back door service road for its far more stellar sibling, Broadway, another block east. Some office buildings and restaurants which feature prominent entrances on Broadway literally have their back doors on Trinity Place.

Indeed, as dowdy Trinity Place parallels the part of iconic Broadway slicing through the world's financial capital, it provides the quiet yin to Broadway’s teeming yang.  Even its traffic flows in the opposite direction: north.

Its name comes from the grand old Trinity Church, consecrated in 1846, which faces Broadway at the head of Wall Street, and whose historic graveyard – including the remains of Alexander Hamilton and steamboat inventor Robert Fulton – looks out over the suitably quiet roadway as it links Battery Park to the eastern flanks of the World Trade Center (WTC).

On this dreary February Friday, I walked up Trinity Place, past the solemn stone wall buttressing Trinity Church’s cemetery, and past what was then the American Stock Exchange.  Usually the only people I ever saw on this walk were traders from the exchange, outside on their smoke breaks, always in shirtsleeves, no matter the weather.

Business as Usual?

Before 9/11, the WTC complex consisted not only of the Twin Towers, but also a collection of much shorter buildings scattered around the feet of their much taller siblings.  They were squat, odd things clad in black metal, surrounded by a parking lot that I only ever saw used once – during a marketing promotion for new Ford Probe sportscars.

When I turned the corner at Liberty Street, my gaze passed over the WTC complex there in front of me, and apart from all of the emergency vehicles lining the street, I couldn't see much that didn't look normal.

In New York, it's not unusual to see what civilians might consider to be an inordinate number of police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances at the scene of what turns out to be a minor emergency. You can't really complain when dozens of first responders turn out for a dumpster fire in a city with so much unpredictability.

In addition, the snowy skies obscured the towers' upper reaches, masking the smoke which, by now, had begun billowing out of their tops as if they were two cigarettes (which I had always thought they looked like anyway).

Things almost looked placid enough for me to go on into the WTC's underground mall and have lunch in their food court. But that was back before the Port Authority started modernizing its public spaces with national retailers and better restaurants.  Unless you liked tasteless hotdogs, or dining in a plastic wood ambiance of vintage 1970's diner kitsch, for all of its wonder, the Twin Towers were gastronomically disappointing.  At the very top, both literally and figuratively, sat the multi-star Windows on the World restaurant, where my office used to hold its annual Christmas dinners.  And then at the bottom - and I do mean the bottom, near a yawning cavern lined with escalators descending to the PATH station - were those dimly-lit, decidedly non-gourmet offerings for the masses.

No, I didn't feel like walking much further for greasy fast food when Burger King was right here, and their chicken sandwich was actually quite tasty. So as I turned the corner onto Liberty Street, I ducked into the two-story Burger King which still stands today.  This very same Burger King narrowly missed being destroyed on 9/11, and the police turned into their temporary command post on that fateful day.

Everything seemed normal at Burger King.  I got my order, and walked upstairs to their main dining area.  Looking out a window facing Liberty Plaza (now called Zuccotti Park), munching away, I figured that with everything appearing so routine, our concerns about the brown-out, the smoke from the WTC’s garage, and the emergency vehicles still parked all over the place seemed overblown.

Not Everything is Normal

Then I started glancing around the dining room at my fellow customers, and at the next table, I noticed several young women huddled over hot teas and coffees.  They had no coats on this frigid day, and their blouses were dingy gray.  Come to think of it, their hair had fine soot on it, and their faces looked like they had been hastily washed, maybe in Burger King's bathroom?  They were talking in earnest about the PATH commuter trains to New Jersey being diverted from the Trade Center.

So I interrupted them, and asked if they were from the WTC.  Yes, as a matter of fact, they had been evacuated from one of the towers, with not even enough time to go and get their coats from a nearby closet.  They had perspired from trudging down what seemed like miles of emergency stairs, they had frozen when hustling across the open plaza at the base of the towers, and they were coughing from all of the soot they’d inhaled both inside and outside the buildings.  To cap it all off, they’d learned that both the commuter trains and the subways with stops in the basement of the WTC were shut down.  This was before regular passenger ferry service had been established between Jersey City, Hoboken, and the World Financial Center (near the WTC).  How were they supposed to get back to their homes in New Jersey, across the Hudson River?

Well!  Here were three beautiful young women with a problem I could help solve.  I rarely get such an opportunity.  I assumed as much of a knight-in-shining-armor pose as I could muster, and I shared with them my admittedly well-honed knowledge of the other local subway stops they could try.  They’d probably be able to catch the Lexington Avenue line or the N and R and go up to 42nd Street, then hike over to the Port Authority bus terminal for any number of bus lines into the Garden State.

“Oh, I’ve heard bad things about the bus terminal,” one of the young women cautioned.  So I assured them about how much safer the bus terminal is during the day than it is at nighttime, and how if they stick together, they should be fine.

So with that, these damsels in distress decided to hit the restroom one last time before striking out on what might be a long commute back home.

My work being done at Burger King, I decided that before I headed back to the office, I’d just stroll around the WTC one last time to see if anything at all exciting was taking place.  I bundled myself up – wondering if maybe I should make a chivalrous gesture and offer my wool coat to the damsels... but then thinking that plenty of stores were nearby where they could buy their own coats if they really wanted to.

Chivalry isn't dead, but sometimes it can be over-done!

Figures in Coal, Shuffling

I stepped out into the raw, snowy air, and made my way past all of the fire trucks and ambulances idling silently along Liberty Street and the southern edge of the WTC complex.  Huddled in my overcoat for protection from the biting wind, I walked down to the Bankers Trust tower (demolished after 9/11), which had an elevated mezzanine looking over Liberty Street to the entrance to Tower Two.

Throngs of people had gathered on the mezzanine, looking to the Trade Center, with faces marked by bewilderment and pensiveness.

I turned to follow their gaze.

And there I saw them.

Long, shuffling lines of gray and black, some people wearing coats, others coatless, but all covered to varying degrees in soot.  Coughing, but otherwise silent, without expression or vigor.

These were the evacuees from the Twin Towers - thousands of them.  About 50,000 people worked in and visited the WTC daily.  Take the entire population of Biloxi, or Ames, or Sheboygan, and funnel them out of two 110-story towers, four shorter buildings, and a shopping mall, one by one.  It would be quite a sight, even in the best of circumstances.

They moved like a line of insects in a cartoon, or more morosely, like the ill-fated lines of prisoners being herded to the gas chambers. Although not deathly, the mood was somber.  And quiet.

And so utterly still.
_____

Part 3 - click here

Reflections of Strike One - The Hit

 
The First World Trade Center Attack: Friday, February 26, 1993

I can still remember the sudden shudder and muffled explosion that rocked our 25th-floor office.

My desk faced north, and it was as if a sonic boom had rolled our building backwards, and then forwards.  Just for the briefest of moments.

Lights went out, cables clanged in elevator shafts down the hall, computers went dead.

It all happened so fast, we didn’t have time to be scared.  Our desktop computers immediately clicked and beeped back to life, florescent ceiling lights flickered back on, fax machines that had been in mid-transmission began squawking error messages, and alarm bells from the elevators started ringing.

And of course, a chorus of muttered expletives erupted from co-workers who, like me, did not welcome this disconcerting setback.  It was almost lunchtime.  It was also Friday, invoice day, and billables needed to go out the door.  Crashed computers and jammed fax machines were even less tolerated than on a normal day.

As we rebooted our computers and reset the fax machines, we wondered aloud about what had happened.  Did something blow up in our building, a 30-story pre-war office tower perched along the Hudson River in Lower Manhattan?  Maybe there was a massive car wreck at the entrance to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, which snaked by the entrance to our building?  Nah, is was probably stupid Con-Ed’s fault (New York’s power provider); one of their steam pipes probably blew.

And being New York City, a thick grid of streets and towers piled atop Consolidated Edison’s primitive pipes and substations, our concerns subsided quickly.  After all, even a trickle of melting snow could short out a third rail on subway tracks two stories underground.  With New York generally, and Manhattan particularly, one worries less about what you can’t see and even less about why it might be important.  As I’ve said before, New York life is lived in inches.  Your power's coming back on?  Then get moving again and don't look back.

So we were only marginally curious when the office manager in the law firm across the hall came over and invited us to come take a look out their north-facing windows.

“All this black smoke is coming out of the Trade Center garage,” she informed us.

Where There's Smoke...

Located four blocks south of the World Trade Center (WTC), our aging edifice featured a beautifully ornate lobby... and a vacancy rate past 75%.  Our 25th floor housed just two tenants - our freight forwarding company, with stunning views of the harbor and the Hudson River; and the law firm, which looked up West Street straight towards the Twin Towers.

Sure enough, from the law firm's office with a vista looking due north as the street below us curved slightly, we saw thick, sooty smoke billowing out of the entrance to the Trade Center's parking garage.  Not just puffs of gray; but heavy, charcoal-colored plumes.

And true to the New Yorkness of the moment, cars continued to plow through the smoke as it blew across West Street.  Pedestrians still plied the sidewalks and crosswalks, more concerned about dodging traffic than the smoke which must have been making their eyes water.  We could hear sirens, though, and within moments, a couple of police cars rolled up the street.

Actually, the sound of sirens would fill the air for the next hour or so as police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, and emergency officials converged on the World Trade Center, jamming West Street down past our building all the way to the Battery.  The whap-whap clipping noise of helicopter rotors would buffet the soundwaves around Lower Manhattan until after I left for the evening.

We looked at each other and agreed this was bigger than just an exploding steam pipe.  "Con-Ed has a lot of 'splaining' to do," I recall us mimicking in Ricky Ricardo spanglish.

Lunchtime

From what I can recall, the owner of our company, who lived out on Long Island, had taken that Friday off.  His son, my boss, was on a business trip to California.  Our sales manager was out sick, so the rest of us – about six in all – were holding down the fort.

Not that the lack of managerial supervision meant we could simply goof off.  On most days, our office ran itself quite efficiently, with all of us knowing what needed to get done and how to do it.  Our firm's executives knew they didn’t need to be on-site for us to be productive.  Besides, as I’ve said, Fridays were when we invoiced, and the woman who was in charge of billables had done it for so long she could do it in her sleep if she had to.  The one thing we couldn’t do without was computers.

Which, to our chagrin, started crashing multiple times, or failing to reboot.  Our screens dimmed, and software programs wouldn't open.  Between the staff at the law firm next door and ourselves, we realized we were having a brown-out.

Normally, we kept a radio on in the office, but today, the news announcers provided little help with what was going on.  This being before cell phones, the Internet, and texting, we were probably a bit more self-sufficient than people are today.  We didn’t wait for a play-by-play on the problems at the WTC, we just kept working as much as we could.

I remember that by the time we'd deduced we were having a brown-out, some announcement came over the radio that electricity was being reduced below the Brooklyn Bridge because of a fire at the Trade Center.  But here again, that was not unprecedented, either.  The summer before, a transformer fire had shut down half of the financial district and forced subway riders to walk across the bridge to catch their trains.  For all that is modern in New York City, so much remains so ancient.

My aunt, then a legal secretary for a Midtown firm, called me after a co-worker of hers heard that streets were being shut down around the WTC, and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel was closed except for emergency vehicles.  I told her we were fine, apart from the slow computers and constant wailing of sirens from the street below.  Soon, I would be going out to lunch, and I'd let her know what was happening.

My boss also called in from California, having heard of an emergency at the Twin Towers.  About all I could add was that we were having a brown-out and the computers weren’t working properly.  At least the invoices we’d already printed were getting out.  He simply encouraged us to get done whatever we could without our usual technology, although I'm sure he could hear his father grumbling on Monday that "we never had that problem before computers!"

Since our day's workload was rapidly being curtailed through no fault of our own, most of my co-workers decided to simply have a long lunch, and maybe things would be back to normal in a couple of hours.  So they placed an order from the diner down the block.

Being the nosy guy I am, however, and having never developed a taste for the burnt grease that diner called food, I decided to stroll up to the Twin Towers to see what was going on.  Since it was a snowy, windy, bitter day, and the diner delivered, nobody else wanted to walk up there with me.

By then, the elevators were back to normal, after some people had gotten stuck when the power came back on.  So I went downstairs, and across the pedestrian bridge spanning the mouth of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.  I marveled at how even though emergency equipment idled all along West Street, the wide ramps leading to the tunnels, instead of sucking in or spitting out cars and trucks like normal, were eerily quiet and empty.

And so utterly still.
_____

Click here for Part 2
Click here for Part 3

Slater Marks New Era of Flight?

To the list of pop-culture flash-in-the-pans, add the name Steven Slater.

Slater, the now-former flight attendant for Jet Blue airlines who erupted into a criminally-negligent tirade on a Pittsburgh-to-New-York flight earlier this week, has found himself with a gaggle of new Internet friends and a host of charges in court.

A lot of other flight attendants have rallied to Slater's defense, increasingly irate over the treatment they receive from passengers increasingly frustrated by the airline industry's increasingly rigid business models. For most airline employees and passengers these days, air travel has become something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

Airline Travel Isn't What It Was

I'm not ancient, but I can barely remember when flying was fun. My parents and people just a little older than me can recall a time when passengers dressed up for air travel; when flying represented glamor and prestige; when flight attendants were called "stewardesses" because almost all of them were female and were paid to pamper their passengers, not play luggage police.

A good friend of mine has been an American Airlines flight attendant longer than Slater has, and virtually every time she talks about her job, she says "Boy, it ain't what it used to be."

She's had a passenger hand her a napkin only to find a dirty diaper inside. An FAA official who just happened to be on the flight and observe the passenger's impudence actually fined the passenger for exposing a flight attendant to potentially hazardous material, since my friend was in the process of serving drinks.

She's had more than a few passengers yell at her because the carry-on bags they packed were too big for the overhead bins. As if that's my friend's fault.

And apparently, a tussle over the overhead bins contributed to the Jet Blue's Slater reaching the end of his rope. A female passenger inadvertently hit Slater in the forehead with her carry-on at the start of the flight in Pittsburgh, and then cursed him as he was trying to get passengers on the just-landed plane to remain seated while they taxied to their gate. Apparently, the same passenger that had gashed Slater's forehead in Pittsburgh had gotten into another tussle with another passenger before deplaning in New York. So Slater wasn't the only person on that flight who was having a bad day.

Landing in New York City

If this flight was similar to the ones I've taken into any of New York City's three airports, the scenario in the plane's cabin after landing is something I've witnessed myself. As soon as the plane's tires touched down onto the runway, the clicking of seatbelts filled the cabin as passengers immediately unlatched them. Yes, all passengers are supposed to remain in their seats with their seatbelts securely fashioned until the "Fasten Seatbelt" sign has been turned off (you can hear the intercom announcement now, can't you?), but when any plane lands in New York City, all bets are off.

This is New York City, passengers are thinking. We're New Yorkers. We've got important places to go and important people to see. Rules apply to dweebs and suburbanites and people from Iowa. I've gotta get off this tin can of a plane and get on with my important life.

Now, I haven't flown into New York City since 9/11, so maybe the rules are better enforced these days. But when I used to fly, this is how it always was. It never failed.

After touchdown, as the plane reached the end of the runway and turned onto the taxiway, somebody would get up and start rummaging around in the overhead bins. Usually, that was still too early for most everyone else, and the false-starter would get a sharp admonishment from a still-seated flight attendant, or the false-starter's embarrassed wife.

But as the terminal came into sight, the cabin would begin to crackle with pent-up expectation, as passengers waited on the edges of their seats (back when we still had legroom in coach), impatiently savoring the first sensations of the plane coming to a stop.

By this time, a flight attendant would be on the intercom, knowing what was about to take place, and nevertheless reminding everybody that we were to wait until the "Fasten Seatbelts" sign had been turned off before getting our stuff from the overhead bins.

But we all knew that didn't make any difference.

As I said, the cue was the initial sensation of inertia - the precise moment in time where you knew the plane had stopped. And suddenly, the cabin would erupt into a mad scramble for the overhead bins.

New Yorkers live their lives by inches. They rush to elevators. They curse out loud when somebody wants to get off at the second floor. They fight over taxi cabs. They body-slam themselves through closing subway doors. If your car is still stationary after a red light turns green, you can expect half a dozen horns to blare at you. Every second gained, every gain notched in competition with somebody else, every rule bent to give you more of something, that is the energy upon which many New Yorkers thrive. Or, at least, claim to thrive.

Meanwhile, the plane may be making a couple of last-minute lurches as the pilots position it for a complete stop. Doesn't matter to the New Yorkers frantically reclaiming their luggage from the overhead bins. They bounce into each other like its a bumpy subway ride. Seasoned flight attendants know resistance is futile at this point, but they drone on anyway over the intercom about the "Fasten Seatbelt" sign.

By the time the cabin door has been opened to the jetway, everybody has been standing in the aisle with their luggage for quite some time.

Golden Era Becoming the Leaden Era?

I wasn't on Slater's flight this week, so I can't say for sure that this scenario I've witnessed many times before actually happened then. Slater himself professes to be a "bag nazi*," meaning he was a stickler for baggage rules. A lot of passengers - who already feel like they're being nickled-and-dimed by airlines - don't like flight attendants who are sticklers for rules. My flight attendant friend who works for American Airlines predicts the pressure they're under to get planes to and from gates, combined with the increasingly miserable flying experience for passengers, will only get worse as the suits in the airlines' corporate suites remain sequestered with their profit/loss reports.

And that's the real problem, isn't it? As a veteran flight attendant, Slater's a product - along with many of his passengers - of the golden era of flight. Most corporate wonks who prowl the paneled halls of airline headquarters never stand in that increasingly minuscule space between the flying public and the front lines of new corporate income policies: flight attendants, gate crews, and pilots.

The skies haven't been friendly for quite a while now. Slater's meltdown may mark the new leaden era of flight.

_____
* I refuse to capitalize this word

In Whom Do We Trust?

Should an evangelical church encourage its parishioners to attend a class on "constitutional government and the promotion of freedom”?

My church has, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Right-wing politics oozes out of the assumption that studying one of our country's core documents is something churchgoers need to do.

Constitution of the Church?

Not that I'm against all right-wing politics. Shucks, some of my best friends attend church and are right-wingers. My church, Park Cities Presbyterian, boasts a highly-visible location bordering one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in one of the most conservative areas of Texas. While you don’t have to be a Republican to be a member of Park Cities Prez, a lot of church members think the two are synonymous.

True, conservative politics constantly lap at the shores of evangelical Christianity, but they virtually pound the beachheads at Park Cities Prez. In fact, I’m almost surprised somebody at my church thinks anybody's left in the pews who even needs to attend a class on the US Constitution!

Nevertheless, my church has seen fit to advertise a “Making of America” seminar by the National Center for Constitutional Studies.

All things considered, a seminar on the Constitution of the United States doesn’t rate among the worst things churchgoers could attend. Indeed, no matter the country they live in, people of faith have an obligation to be as active in civic life as they possibly can be. This means Americans, with our rich legacy of freedoms and living standards, actually risk being disobedient when we shirk opportunities to vote, run for office, and educate ourselves on issues in a non-partisan way.

Should Church-Goers Be Non-Partisan About the Constitution?

But it’s that non-partisan thing that’s throwing me on this seminar. The group sponsoring it, the National Center for Constitutional Studies, claims to be unaffiliated with any political party. However, its website’s homepage features an endorsement by right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck, who is not known for his bipartisan opinions. Among the books they sell on their site is “America’s God and Country” which features quotes equating references to Christian themes as salvific proofs. You already know what I think about the incessant need some conservative pundits have for practically cannonizing our Founding Fathers.

If the NCCS can conduct an impartial, balanced, and historically accurate seminar on the Constitution, I certainly can’t oppose it. But I still don’t think an evangelical American church has any business promoting such a class. That is not the purpose of Christ's body, neither does it glorify His divine sovereignty. Of all the wonderful things the Constitution is, it is neither doctrinal nor infallible. God did not author it. Granted, Presbyterians place great stock in the Westminster Confession and other creeds - documents written without divine inspiration - but at least our Reformed creeds and confessions employ proof texts from the Bible to qualify their theology.

Knowing what I know about Glenn Beck, too, doesn’t convince me that he would endorse an organization that doesn’t put a conservative political spin on something as important as the Constitution. Glenn Beck says many things I actually agree with, but he also pontificates a lot on issues he perceives through the narrow lens of WASP traditionalism. Pluralism isn't necessarily good, but neither is conventional neo-conservative ideology. Many Republicans today find considerable solace in what they believe to be the original intentions of America's early leaders, but what is the extent to which we replace our trust in the sovereign God of the universe with an idealized version of our country's past?

Liberals Aren't Uneducated, but Other-Opinioned

Not that left-wingers have a better grasp on our Founding Fathers’ intentions for the Constitution than conservatives. I believe Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, and the rest were flawed people with some good ideas and some really bad ones. But liberals want to be just as impertinent about core tenants of our history as conservatives are, only with different motives.

Indeed, this is the basic problem with our country’s growing debate over government and law. Even a well-meaning seminar on constitutional history can be subject to significant interpretation based on the instructor's political preferences. Conservatives such as the NCCS insinuate the reason our government faces a pending constitutional crisis is because their opponents don’t know our Constitution. But that’s not the problem, is it? Liberals aren't as ignorant of the Constitution as they are opposite of the interpretation conservatives espouse.

Having an electorate which is educated on what the Constitution says and doesn’t say could itself become a tug-of-war between conservatives and liberals, each of which thinks their interpretation is right and the other’s wrong. In this vein, I’m not sure how the NCCS can help, since by all appearances, they are at least right of center, if not veering far right. Objectivity has become a commodity in scarce supply these days, which while not negating the value in studying the Constitution, certainly redefines it.

A Global Perspective

Which brings us back to my original question. My church isn’t the only one promoting NCCS and studies of the Constitution. But should churches be doing that at all? How much is too much when it comes to churches getting involved in the political life of our country?

What about our global perspective as people of faith? After all, the Kingdom of God is far greater than the United States. While we have fundamental problems in our country, many of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world would still love to trade places with us. Do communities of faith get too bogged-down in non-essentials when politics gets interwoven with doctrine?

If believers individually wish to attend events like a seminar on the Constitution, that's one thing. However, I don’t think churches should officially endorse them. The Gospel we’re supposed to be proclaiming is greater than our country and its Constitution. After all, Biblical freedom isn't so much about political freedom as it is freedom in Christ. Yes, a fine line does exist between teaching Christ’s expectations of His followers as national citizens and advocating particular political preferences. But isn't it a line we cross at our own risk?

The problems we have in the United States don't stem from a misunderstanding or misapplication of the Constitution; they stem from sin, don’t they? Presidents, judges, and legislatures who appear to be re-drawing the boundaries of our government’s three branches do so because of greed and lust for power. Friction between states and the Federal government take place because somebody wants what somebody else has. National borders aren’t protected because people bristle at laws. Take any negative headline from today’s newspaper and prove the root of the story doesn’t come from sin.

That doesn’t mean people of faith shouldn’t work for justice and peace, particularly here in America, where we have so many opportunities to do so. Learning more about our Constitution can be a good way of doing that, but applying what we know to be true from God’s Word is an even better way. Putting our faith into practice may involve learning about crucial documents related to our country's history, but more importantly, it means exercising the Fruits of the Spirit:

Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Gentleness. Goodness. Meekness. Self-control.

How people interpret the Constitution helps explain our current national dialogue. How we demonstrate Christlikeness to people who interpret the Constitution differently than us would make a better seminar.

After all, God is our refuge, not George Washington.

_____

Integrity Today Means Fewer Rules Later

Internal.
Revenue.
Service.

Three words that, together, can immediately conjure up a host of negative emotions.

In a conversation with a secretary at my church, the topic of IRS guidelines for expenditures came up, and how churches have to jump through more and more hoops when documenting every little expense.

I sympathized with my friend, and I agree that churches and other non-profits who want clean books have been burdened by a lot of busy-work by the IRS. However, I wonder how much of the IRS's suffocating accounting requirements may really be our own fault?

Not mine and my friends', of course; but of taxpayers in general.

Being Accountable

Indeed, when it comes to a lot of the encroachments conservatives accuse the government of making into our private lives and freedoms, how much of this government “interference” is the result of Uncle Sam’s thirst for power, and how much of it comes from our own abdication of personal responsibility?

After all, when a parent tries to teach a child personal accountability, and the child repeatedly fails to convince the parent they’re worthy of trust, a good parent will – albeit temporarily – re-assume control over that area from the child and try to teach the lesson again later.

Of course, when the government and the IRS take control of something, they’re loathe to relinquish that control back to us, so my parental analogy only goes so far. But do you see where I’m going?

My friend at church expressed her frustration over what looked like a matter of micro-management from the church's financial office. On the surface, it could have been misconstrued as maybe a subtle power play.

But I’ve worked in the financial office of a large church before. My boss at the time ran a strict set of books. Sometimes my fellow subordinate and I chuckled at how much documentation our boss insisted on having for every little thing. But then she let us read a church accounting newsletter she subscribed to. Its editors described some of the financial shenanigans churches were trying to get away with, and I realized that while the IRS may suffer from a power fetish, it’s gotten a lot of affirmation for its authority from the very organizations that owe it fiduciary integrity.

Of all the tax entities in America, churches should be the ones that strive to be the most above-board in their accounting, but many churches instead try to see how much they can get away with. That doesn’t sound like holy living to me. A lot of church people forget that taxation itself is actually affirmed by Christ when he told His mockers to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Churches that have abdicated their responsibility for abiding by this command have instead handed our privilege to be presumed above reproach to the IRS on a silver platter.

Handing Freedoms on Silver Platters to Uncle Sam

Indeed, how many other rights and freedoms have we handed to the government on a silver platter through our society’s abdication of personal responsibility? Just recently, conservatives howled at President Barak Obama’s new restrictions and additional layer of bureaucracy to ostensibly oversee Wall Street after its infamous mortgage meltdown. How much of this additional heavy-handedness could have been avoided if banks, mortgage companies, and home buyers hadn’t all been too greedy years ago?

After a spate of whistle-blowers, near-misses, maintenance problems, and other issues put a spotlight on the cozy relationship between the Federal Aviation Administration and big airlines, some politicians have started calling for stricter oversight of our sprawling aviation industry. Safety experts have generally heralded the news, while as expected, conservative business analysts decry further government meddling into our de-regulated skies. But what is the extent to which airlines have pressured the FAA to overlook, or at least squint at, their minimizing costs by minimizing maintenance and other factors? When passengers who have waited hours on tarmacs pressured Congress to come up with a “passengers bill of rights,” was Congress' acquiescence an overextension of government authority or simply an automatic response to a problem airlines weren’t willing to address themselves?

Today marks the 100th day of BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Since it began, the Obama administration has been pushing for further regulation and moratoriums on offshore oil drilling activity, claiming that BP’s multiple failures regarding this crisis provide enough proof that oil companies can’t be trusted. Many citizens, politicians, and business interests dependant on the complex offshore oil industry have protested the administration’s actions and fought it in court. Several large energy corporations have pitched money into a $1 billion pot to research state-of-the-art spill response mechanisms to try and demonstrate that they don't need further government oversight. However, two incidents within the past several days in Michigan and New Orleans involving oil spills in waterways don't speak well of an industry which by most accounts has had a duplicitous relationship with the Minerals Management Service, supposedly their government overseer.

Exceptions to the Rule

Which, to a certain extent, creates a case study in what should - and shouldn't - incentivize government “meddling” in affairs like these.

Personally, in relation to the Gulf of Mexico spill, I oppose moratoriums that affect any oil company but BP, because as far as we know, the other players in this industry haven’t spurned prudence like BP has. Yes, there have been accidents and spills, and a certain margin for error must be accommodated for with offshore deep water drilling when we're talking about accessing a commodity which fuels our very way of life. But we've never had anything of this magnitude in US waters, and as time goes by, we're learning more and more about how cavalier and careless BP has been regarding the Deepwater Horizon in particular and their corporate culture in general.

But how can I defend accident-free oil operators when I can't deny that the IRS has the right to apply the same strict reporting standards to all non-profits, not just churches which have proven to have unreliable books? I'm assuming that my church has clean, balanced books, so why should it abide by the same reporting standards as non-profits with tainted books? How can I say that ExxonMobile and other operators should be excluded from restrictions devised in response to a mistake of BP's?

Part of this apparent double-standard comes from the fact that far more non-profits exist than major oil companies. Crooked accounting practices are far more easier to hide than an exploding deepwater rig. In addition, while tax cheats can ruin lives, they rarely take them; whereas oil drilling is dangerous. Yes, tax fraud can cause many people problems for years, just as oil spills can, and I'm not implying that the Minerals Management Service doesn't need to be overhauled with new standards and oversight that affect all players. But as we've seen in the Gulf over these past 100 days, if the same practices and attitudes as BP's were being perpetrated on oil platforms across the globe, we'd be having disasters like this far more frequently. From what we know today, the proof simply doesn't support extending drilling moratoriums past the major culprit in the Gulf disaster, BP.

That's not to say that as the focus intensifies on our energy industry, further problems with other companies won't come to light, and further restrictions won't be forthcoming. If the BP explosion caught other offshore players off-guard, and they've been scrambling to fix their processes and fortify their procedures, then maybe this incident in the Gulf has bought some time for other companies, and they owe BP a favor!

Honesty Isn't Expensive; Cheating Is

The basic issue, however, is being responsible from the get-go. Individuals and corporations shouldn't wait until they're caught before embracing principles and enacting procedures to make themselves and their organizations honest, safe, and even profitable. Apparently, BP thought it was saving money for shareholders by running roughshod over best-practices, but look at how much saving money is costing them now.

Maybe some people want to gamble and risk not getting caught.

Unfortunately, it's those kinds of people who end up making officials like the IRS force everybody to jump through hoops. Setting the rules yourself at the start is a lot easier than somebody else setting them for you later on.

_____

Kissing the Son

Have right-wing politics begun to crawl into the backseat of America's evangelical church as we speed down our cultural highway?

All the big talking heads from those earnest Moral Majority days have either passed away or faded into obscurity. Although they had valid concerns about our country, they tended to rely more on political parties than the Sovereign One Who laughs at them. Even as they preached the evils of legalism, they insisted they could legislate morality.

Despite the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Hillary Clinton was convinced the Jerry Falwells of America had amassed, we still got AIDS, high divorce rates, high drug abuse rates, high teenage pregnancy rates, 9/11, and everything else with which they claimed God would plague America. Whether these were legitimate plagues or simply the inevitable fallout from decades of sin by people both inside and outside the church, it's hard to say, because for many leaders of the right, rhetoric often trumped discipline.

Partly as an extension of myopic Moral Majority activism, the evangelical church fragmented as idealistic seeker “paradigms” perpetrated pop culture on congregations nationwide. Eventually, the Republican Party was vilified by even some of its own members for bowing to right-wing special interests and marginalizing its appeal to independents.

We got Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, the biggest government bureaucracy we’ve ever had, and eventually simultaneous wars in the Middle East, along with ownership of GM and a ludicrous Wall Street bailout. Not to mention Rush Limbaugh.

Indeed, looking at our country today, could you guess the Moral Majority ever existed?

Tea and Pie

Not that all has been lost. Despite its kitschy media presence and illogical blowhards like Andrew Breitbart, our underdog Tea Party movement has been a grass-roots coup of sorts. Disenchanted voters of all stripes have emerged to showcase frustrations about over-lobbied legislators and reckless government spending. Although some Republican stalwarts worry Tea Partiers could actually dilute the conservative agenda, Republicans ignore the fact that they've had plenty of opportunities to right our fiscal ship, yet haven't.

Once the envy of pastors everywhere, Willow Creek Community Church’s now-tarnished seeker-sensitive overhaul of Christianity has inadvertently contributed to a backlash towards a more reformed theology, although some neo-Calvinists insist on dragging their electric keyboards along. The evangelical church has also been invaded by an Internet-fueled explosion in trendy preachers and hip ministries each clamoring for an ever-shrinking piece of the Christianity pie.

Which brings us to that part of the Christianity pie that still harbors lingering angst over how we’re supposed to be changing the world for Christ. Despite being accused of colluding with Catholics, respected activist Chuck Colson has launched manhattandeclaration.org in an effort to rally conservatives from multiple faiths around core faith values of heterosexual marriage, the sanctity of life, and religious liberty. Renowned PCA pastor Tim Keller helped found The Gospel Coalition in an effort to differentiate socially-progressive, theologically-conservative churches from more liberal mainline ones. And the granddaddy of them all, Focus on the Family, has seen the passing of the political-activist torch from founder James Dobson to… nobody seems certain.

Churches Reconsidering Their Political Roles

If any mortal knows the new political role our evangelical community is supposed to be playing these days, they’re keeping it a well-guarded secret. Indeed, opinions seem to be all over the map when it comes to how conservative religious leaders think we should be responding to issues like illegal immigration and nationalized healthcare.

Down at Florida’s famous Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, the death of founding pastor D. James Kennedy, who in his later years turned his pulpit into a hawkish political platform, made way for the comparatively dispassionate Tullian Tchividjian. As successor to Kennedy's staunchly conservative mantle, Tchividjian's reluctance to wear it came as an insult to some in the congregation. They perceived him as waffling on core social principles, a complaint which contributed to a church split which saw 400 people leave last year. How accurate are the frustrations and disappointments of these disaffected members who think Tchividjian is too soft on controversial topics? It’s hard to tell, since Tchividjian's supporters actually barred six rabblerousers from church property, a petulant move which was later castigated by a denominational committee.

Then there’s Keller, who also founded his own church, but on the liberal bastion of Manhattan Island. In multiple sermons, Keller has espoused what sounds to alarmed right-wing hawks like wealth redistribution, where rich church-goers contribute to the needs of less-wealthy congregants to help prevent poverty from disrupting their faith community. Keller, one of the celebrity pastors in the patriarchal Presbyterian Church in America, has also allowed women to serve Holy Communion, which he excuses as an olive branch to liberal urban females. That and other issues seem to have limited Keller's influence outside of reformed circles.

Media darling Rick Warren, pastor of uber-chic Saddleback Church in - where else? - California, has emerged from the seeker crisis he championed alongside Willow Creek with a far more pronounced public image. Warren has tried to play the political field, confounding some conservatives by hosting an election year summit of presidential candidates, despite being accused of playing in to the hands of Democratic political operatives. Some right-wingers have particularly vilified Warren as being too cozy with liberals on environmental issues like global warming.

Not to be outdone in confounding the conservative movement, the Southern Baptist Convention, that historic bastion of conservative ideology, has come out in support of what amounts to amnesty for illegal immigrants from Central America. Their reasoning is based on passages like Exodus 22 and Deuteronomy 10, which basically say Israel should not discriminate against foreigners in her land.

And then there’s Willow Creek’s own Bill Hybels, who not only has curried favor with Democratic politicians in the past, much to the consternation of conservatives, but has now sided with the Southern Baptists in lobbying Congress for illegal immigrant amnesty. Hybels and Leith Anderson, a pastor from suburban Minneapolis and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, claim to be forging new political alliances with Hispanics, many of whom would probably fit the general profile of conservative voters if... well, they were legal and could vote.

Faith Still Matters

Of course, none of these changes means that evangelical Christians no longer matter as voters. In some respects, it may be beneficial. Having people of faith wrestling over these issues rather than just accepting planks of a political party's platform could even result in believers reading their Bibles themselves to see what God really says - or doesn't say - about legislation we think is important.

The recent support by evangelical organizations for what is considered liberal policy - most particularly seen in the debate over illegal immigration, but also over nationalized healthcare and the environment - represents a marked departure for some people of faith who might have previously been expected to vote along the Republican party line. Having this dependable block of voters now segmented by the issues scares some conservatives who anticipate bigger battles over bigger issues and who think they need bigger numbers of voters to sway influence and policy.

While I personally oppose any form of amnesty for people who have intentionally broken laws to enter our country and contribute to the distortion of pay scales for menial labor, I can understand where the Southern Baptists and pastors Hybels and Anderson are coming from when it comes to respecting the dignity of life, even if you are illegal. However, since all three of these espouse the church growth movement, I suspect ulterior motives are at play in addition to their professed concern over human rights.

Other issues complicate our illegal immigration issue here in the United States which don't negate the validity of scripture referencing foreigners in Israel, but could mean those scriptures don't fully apply, either. These issues include Americans who don't want to pay for the real value of labor, immigration policies which can seem to reward the practice of illegal immigration, the responsibility of sovereign nations south of the Mexican border to curtail their endorsement of their countrymen violating our laws, and the rights of the United States to honor the path to legal residency people from other countries dutifully abide by.

Thanks be to God that we can bring these issues to His throne! To the extent that people of faith whittle away their personal agendas and focus on what glorifies Christ, perhaps the freedom from political partisanship can be one step towards a greater testimony from our lives and churches of His sovereignty and rule over all affairs of men:

1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, 3 "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us."
4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. 5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, 6 "As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill."
7 I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."
10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. - Psalm 2 (ESV)

_____