Sojourners’ Jim Wallis Ponders Immigration, Guns at Washington National Cathedral

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comprehensive immigration reform, Dean Gary R. Hall, Episcopal, Evangelical Left, Gary Hall, gun control, Gun Violence, Immigration, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Jeff Walton, Jim Wallis, Sojourners, Washington National Cathedral

Sojourners’ President Jim Wallis appeared at the National Cathedral recently to talk about the direction of the country and his new book “On God’s Side”.

By Jeff Walton (@JeffreyHWalton)

Immigration reform legislation will pass Congress by the August recess, predicted Sojourners CEO and President Jim Wallis in an April 28 interview. Wallis sat down with Washington National Cathedral Dean Gary Hall to discuss immigration, gun control, the direction of young evangelical Christians and Wallis’ new book “On God’s Side.”

Part of a book tour, Wallis’ visit to the Episcopal Cathedral was followed the next day with an appearance at Hall’s former parish, All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California.

“I’m going to predict that by the August recess we will have comprehensive immigration reform,” Wallis declared, announcing that immigration reform is Sojourners’ top concern. “It may be the only positive thing we see in Washington, D.C. in the next few months.”

Encouraged by support from both Southern Baptists and some conservative groups such as Focus on the Family, Wallis reported that the Administration, Republicans and Democrats all cite the faith community as a “political game changer” on the issue.

Wallis also praised the Cathedral’s advocacy on gun restrictions saying it “warmed my heart” and categorized it as a “long-term battle.”

“The country has changed — Washington has not,” Wallis asserted, labeling gun owners’ groups like the National Rifle Association as “gun runners” and linking them to manufacturers rather than members. The author proposed that parents and pastors would ultimately change the firearms debate over the long-term.

“You and the bishops speaking out right away first thing was a great sign of hope,” Wallis said of Hall and the Cathedral’s public advocacy for increased firearms restrictions.

Hall asked Wallis to respond to a quote by Washington Episcopal Church Bishop Mariann Budde that it is time for religious bodies like the Episcopal Church to reach out to young Evangelicals who might not share their parents’ social views.

“There is a sea-change going on among young evangelicals,” Wallis reported, adding that the “none-of-the-aboves” who decline to identify with a specific church still believe in God, “they just don’t want to affiliate with religion.”

“I’m wondering if Lincoln was one of the first none of the aboves,” Wallis pondered, noting that the former president went to church but was not a member.

Pivoting back to his book, Wallis asked what it meant to be on God’s side.

“What religion forgets is I think the second commandment – to love our neighbor as ourselves,” Wallis explained, adding that “we forget who our neighbor is” and that God pushes out the definition.

“How do we extend our notion of who our neighbor is?” Wallis posited. “That’s a transforming ethic that makes the common good possible.”

Asked what could be done to restore the credibility of the church, Wallis responded that his theology of the incarnation is that “In Jesus, God hits the streets.”

“How do we surprise people by bringing unexpected hope? That, I think, is what brings credibility back.”

Asked about the importance of civility, Wallis replied that the country was hurt by the political climate.

“It’s more than losing good manners,” Wallis diagnosed, partly blaming the media, which he charged loves street fights and confrontation. The common good, on the other hand “isn’t sexy.”

The Evangelical Left official also made note of a statement on civility that he signed with the now-deceased Chuck Colson. “Learning to talk to each other and listen can be really important.” Wallis even echoed Colson in recalling that the lifestyle of the early church “created the evangelistic impact — ‘How do we live’ is the question.”

“Change happens here only when we decide for the common good outside of Washington,” Wallis announced, citing a “Bibles, badges and businessmen” trifecta of clergy, law enforcement and the business community in support of immigration reform.

Decrying cynicism as “a buffer against personal commitment,” Wallis said it was something only possible for comfortable people, with others preoccupied by a fight for survival. Wallis also argued that there is a difference between optimism and hope.

“Optimism is a feeling, hope is a decision you make,” Wallis defined. “Hope means believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change.”

Katharine Jefferts Schori’s Cosmic Earth Day

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Dean Gary R. Hall, Environment, Episcopal, Episcopal Church, Gary Hall, Global Warming, gun control, Gun Violence, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Jeff Walton, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Washington National Cathedral

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori spoke recently at a Washington National Cathedral service themed around Earth Day. (Photo: The Living Church)

By Jeff Walton (@JeffreyHWalton)

Salvation is a cosmic act about all creation “not simply a few human beings,” according to the Episcopal Church’s top bishop. Speaking April 21 at the Washington National Cathedral, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori gave an Earth Day sermon on becoming “effective shepherds and pasture tenders for the whole creation” but seemed to downplay mankind’s preeminent position in creation, placing humanity on equal footing with microbes.

The Presiding Bishop’s sermon illustrated the interconnectedness of all life with an examination of how humans coexist with bacteria.

“Microbes are part of us, in a very real sense our intimate neighbors or members, and the task is to learn how to manage the system for better health as a whole and in all its parts,” Jefferts Schori proposed.

“This work is about consciousness of our connection to the whole, and tender care of the other parts of that whole,” Jefferts Schori intoned. “It is simply another form of loving our neighbor as ourselves, for the neighbor is actually part of each one of us.”

During the processional hymn “God the sculptor of the mountains” congregants sang of “God the potter of the land: you are womb of all creation.”

The service recalls two of Jefferts Schori’s previous sermons. As Presiding Bishop-elect in 2006, Jefferts Schori stated “Our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation — and you and I are His children.” At Episcopal General Convention in 2009 the Presiding Bishop denounced “the great Western heresy: that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God.”

Addressing Violence

Jefferts Schori sat down with Cathedral Dean Gary Hall the same morning for an hour-long discussion in which she responded to church controversies, environmental stewardship and openly speculated about women’s ordination in Eastern Orthodoxy.

Asked by Hall to respond at the end of a week of difficult news, the Presiding Bishop reported that the church could assist in building a network of relationships “that provide balance and encourage resilience in the face of challenge.”

“Violence is a response to challenge, loneliness, loss, lack of meaning in life,” Jefferts Schori said. “I think that is a creative place for us to be engaged.”

Jefferts Schori also called Christians to consider their use of language in responding to violence, but was not just referring to intemperate words.

“Is the language we use intrinsically violent, or does it lead towards peace?” the Episcopal Church official asked.

“Think of all the martial hymns we have in the church,” Hall added.

On the Environment

Asked how her background in oceanography informed her understanding of humanity’s interconnectedness with the planet, the Presiding Bishop replied that oceanographers are trained to think systemically and “You can’t study anything in isolation.”

Affirming that the Gospel changed the relationship between human beings and God, Jefferts Schori added “it changed something about the relationship between all of creation and God.”

“We tend to focus very parochially on our own interests” Jefferts Schori observed, asserting it is part of the “eternal human challenge to widen our perspective over who is part of this community.”

On climate change, Jefferts Schori encouraged individuals to make daily decisions about the use of fuel, food, and water to “grow a consciousness” in addressing a “disconnect between daily life and the reality of climate change.”

Recalling his time as Rector of an Episcopal parish in Malibu, California, Hall cited beach erosion as evidence of a changing climate, pegging it to what he asserted were rising sea levels.

Asked about the church’s role in evangelism, Jefferts Schori praised bishops’ gun control advocacy and the Cathedral “being bold and forward in proclaiming what your vision of a healthy society looks like, what the kingdom of God needs to look like in this place.”

The Presiding Bishop also pointed to “movement outside the walls of the church” and “engagement where people spend their lives.”

“We are leaning how to do that, because it’s been so long since we have,” Jefferts Schori revealed.

Addressing Church Controversies

Asked to respond to a statistic that the Episcopal Church is significantly more white than the U.S. population, Jefferts Schori replied that there are places in the Episcopal Church that have been more intentional about embracing diversity but “we’ve got a long way to go.”

Asked to respond to claims that the Episcopal Church is declining due to its embrace of social issues such as same-sex marriage, Jefferts Schori did not contest the claim, instead noting that all mainline traditions are facing numerical decline over the past 30-40 years. The growth of conservative denominations was not mentioned.

“The reality is that any time you take a clear position on something, some people decide that they don’t want anything to do with it,” Jefferts Schori determined. “At the same time, a clear position is also an invitation to those who do want something to do with it.”

Asked about how to match the national church’s emphasis on climate change at the congregational level, Jefferts Schori suggested “you have to be intentional” and that local clergy were concerned about getting burned “preaching about something that is supposedly controversial”.

“I think it is a basic challenge to our understanding of sin,” Jefferts Schori claimed. “We are being self-centered in the way we live on this Earth and it is impacting other people. Sin has consequences. We are dumping our garbage in places that make it more difficult for other people to live.”

The forum concluded with a question about the Presiding Bishop’s legacy and the role of women in the church, Jefferts Schori noted that Mary Magdalene, the first to proclaim the resurrection, is still called by the Eastern Orthodox Church “Apostle to the Apostles”.

“The Orthodox haven’t yet ordained women, although it would appear they are at least theologically more open to it than the Roman Catholic tradition. Women have been essential to the leadership of the church since the very beginning, even though the roles they have been permitted to fulfill have changed.”

“Ending” Gun Violence and the Limits of Politics

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evangelical, General Board of Church and Society, gun control, Prohibition, United Methodist

By Mark Tooley @markdtooley

An official with United Methodism’s Capitol Hill lobby office has pronounced he was “devastated” by last week’s defeat of gun control measures in the U.S. Senate. He angrily declared: “Shame on the Senate for not acting to end gun violence.”

“END” gun violence? Would any of the proposals for expanding background checks or banning “assault” weapons have “ended” gun violence? Would even a complete ban on all gun ownership? No. The debate is whether legal limits on gun ownership would perhaps significantly reduce gun violence.

Maybe reduction rather than “end” is what this United Methodist lobbyist actually meant. But it revealingly is not what he said. His expansive hope follows in a century long tradition of Methodist political perfectionism, starting with the Methodist crusade for Prohibition, which assumes God’s Kingdom can be established through state action.

End nuclear weapons. End poverty. End violence. End war. If only we exert ourselves sufficiently through politics, human evils can be banished. Or so we have been told for many decades by Methodist activists ostensibly speaking for the church. At least the original Prohibitionists were actually widely supported by church members. The statist and utopian political crusades of recent decades are largely unknown to most church members, most of whom would disapprove if informed.

United Methodist official political stances, covered in a 1000 page Book of Resolutions, assert countless political stances in the church’s name, each supposing that legislation can eradicate some targeted evil. Dating back decades, the church officially supports banning all handgun ownership for example. Policy makers don’t typically strongly heed the United Methodist lobby because they understandably are skeptical they represent many church members. But church members should be distressed by this ineffective public witness by our church.

Various gun control measures may or may not reduce some gun violence. But none of them will ever “end” gun violence. Nor will laws ever “end” poisonings, stabbings, bludgeonings by blunt objects or countless other ways to murder. Hopefully all people of good will work to strengthen a society disposed against murderous violence. And the state has a divinely ordained duty to punish the murderous. But laws will never intrinsically change human nature, which is bent towards evil, and can only be restrained and redeemed by God’s grace, operating through countless earthly and supernatural mediations.

Methodism has never really had an articulated theory of the state or a public theology. Instead, it has over two centuries of busy activism, some of it effective, most of it not. Much of modern U.S. evangelicaldom is now replicating this deeply flawed pattern, asserting that Christian political witness entails lobbying for unending new laws and restrictions that will fundamentally alter human nature.

Who are the great thinkers in Methodism or U.S. evangelicaldom today who are developing a more effective and faithful public theology that recognizes the limits of politics in this fallen world under God’s sovereignty?

Faith Leaders Take the Easy Road on Gun Control

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Bill of Rights, Church, Constitution, Episcopal Church, gun control, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Luke Moon, Politics, religion, Sojourners

Faith Leaders calling for gun control (Photo credit: YouTube)

By Luke Moon (twitter @lukemoon1)

In 1992, I was serving as a missionary in Peru when I got word that my best friend, Shane, had killed himself.  Friends told me he had been acting strange and reckless that day.  While riding in a friend’s car to a party, Shane took out the gun he used for work as a security guard, pointed it in the air and pulled the trigger.  The gun didn’t go off.  When they arrived at the party, he was playing with the gun again, this time he pointed the gun at his own head and said, “If this doesn’t misfire, I’m dead.”  He killed himself that night as friends were gathering for a birthday party.

I know what it is like to lose a close friend in such a tragic way.  But I tell this story in part because I have personally been affected by gun violence and in part because the talking points memo from Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence says that it is important to start every conversation on gun control with a personal testimony.  But unlike the faith leaders advocating gun control, my testimony does not see gun control as the solution to gun violence.

Recently, “faith leaders” gathered at the National Cathedral for “Gun Violence Awareness Sabbath.” This multi-day event feature religious leaders from a variety of faiths all talking about the plague of gun violence.  Funded by Michael Bloomberg, these leaders hoped to harness their authority as faith leaders to impact political debates in Congress.  This event was not simply about gun violence; it was also about gun control.  The measures they explicitly advocated for was a ban on assault-style rifles, limits on the capacity of gun magazines, and universal background checks.  Aside from the fact that these are purely symbolic gestures that will do nothing to stop gun violence, these faith leaders seem more inclined to treat a symptom of societal breakdown rather than the disease.

The disease that causes the symptom of gun violence, and countless other social issues, is broken homes and broken people.

My best friend Shane came to live with my family while we were still in high school.  He had a nasty relationship with his grandparents who he had lived with since his dad left and his mom ditched him.  In many ways my family became his family, but there was still a lot of pain in his life.  Sadly, Shane’s story is increasingly common; even then, I was the only person in my group of friends whose parents were still together.  A recent report by the Marriage and Religion Research Institute noted that 87% of teenagers in DC lived in a broken home.  The vast majority of these broken homes are fatherless.  Countless studies how shown that across the board kids from fatherless homes are more likely to drop out of school, join gangs, get incarcerated, get pregnant, etc.  And it should be no surprise that gun violence is highest where broken and fatherless homes are most common.  However, if gun control was the solution to gun violence, DC should have one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the nation rather than the highest.

In addition to coming from a broken home, my friend Shane was also a broken person.  He was broken in the same way each of us is broken—by sin.  The Very Rev. Gary Hall, Dean of the National Cathedral noted in his sermon on Gun Violence Awareness Sabbath that “gun violence will continue to be a religious problem as long as people like you and me are sinners.”  Sadly, Rev. Hall downplays effect on us, noting, “My judgment is limited and finite and partial. Real spiritual and psychological health begins with an acknowledgement of my situation. “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6). That’s what the Bible means when it calls us sinners: not that we’re bad, merely that we’re cosmically accident-prone.”

Our sinfulness is more than just being cosmically accident-prone; it’s even more than we’re bad.  We are wicked and evil lies in every heart.  But so does the Law of God. The reality is that the Law of God is written on our hearts and gives us the capacity for virtue which is the very foundation of civil society.  The more we lose the self-governing virtue the more external laws become necessary.

The Founding Fathers recognized that a just and moral people should and could be entrusted with great responsibility.  The responsibility given to us by our freedom of speech also implies the wisdom to self-censor.  That absence of the wisdom of self-censorship is modeled by both Hollywood and Westboro “Baptist Church.”  Likewise, the responsibility to own a gun implies the wisdom to know when and how to use it.  My father taught me how to shoot guns and also taught be that I could never shoot something living if I didn’t plan to eat it.  The absence of fathers teaching their children how to handle the responsibility of gun ownership is at the root of gun violence.

Those who are advocating for gun control clearly don’t think people can be trusted with the responsibility and the supposed evidence is apparent because 18 people die from a gun each day.   But because the perverse peddle porn and the gang bangers kill does that mean we should tear up the Constitution?  Should we destroy the Bill of Rights because of the irresponsibility of the few?  There are 270 million guns in the hands of civilians and just 18 are used to kill people every day.  Does this mean the millions of people who are responsible with their guns should be punished or deprived of the right to be responsible?

The initial discussion following the tragic Newtown, Connecticut shooting included a addressing issues of mental health, violence in the media, and violence in games.  All of these have been discarded because they demand a deeper look at the social ills of our nation.  It is simply easier to talk about high capacity magazines than the porn magazines that have perverted a generation of young men.  Faith leaders should know that promoting useless and symbolic laws is easy, but we are called to a more difficult task which truly transforms society–discipleship.

Presbyterians Exploiting Lent for Gun Control

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gun control, Jeff Gissing, PCUSA, Presbyterian, Ron Sider

How does the church pursue the common good? (Photo credit: Internet Monk)

By Jeff Gissing (@jeffgissing)

One of the chief points of differentiation between theological ethics in the evangelical tradition and in the mainline tradition is the locus of authority. For evangelicals the chief—even the exclusive—source of authority is sola Scriptura (Scripture alone). Despite authoring numerous confessions and catechisms, all viewed as penultimate, Scripture remains the centerpiece of evangelical theological ethics. Beliefs and practices require some biblical warrant in order to be binding upon the conscience of the individual Christian.

In contrast, the mainline Protestant notion of authority developed quite differently. Mainline Protestants came to believe that an ethics derived exclusively from Scripture and experience would necessarily be blind to the insights of the social sciences—handmaidens of the Social Gospel experiment.^[1] In their so doing, they exhibited a blindness of their own since the late twentieth century has provided some rigorous critiques of the social sciences as a tool for theology and ethics.^[2]

This difference of authority is demonstrated quite clearly in the Lenten petition issued by the PC(USA)s Office of Public Witness. Most Christians understand that, as a penitential season, Lent provides us with the opportunity to examine our own hearts and to embrace new disciplines and practices that will enable us to follow our Lord more closely.

Lent is a solemn observance that enables Christians to prepare for Holy Week and our celebration of Christ’s sacrificial death and subsequent resurrection victorious over both death and sin.

This has traditionally involved prayer, repentance, charity, and some form of self-imposed discipline. In other words, we misunderstand Lent when it becomes an opportunity to inform someone else of their sin, to demand that they engage in some prescribed action we suggest, and then to baptize it with language of theology. This is precisely what this petition seeks to do when it states, “The resolution [Gun Values, Gospel Values adopted by the 291th General Assembly in 2010] calls both the church to support and the federal government to establish laws that will prevent and reduce gun violence.”

As I’ve noted elsewhere, the PC(USA) fits squarely in the mainline tradition, which places a priority on “social righteousness” above the other purposes of the Christian church. The petition acknowledges this and calls “people of faith” to “make earnest strides to challenge the pervasive culture of violence that permeates our social fabric.”

All Christian can surely agree that a culture of violence—in all its macabre manifestations—is something we ought to resist.

We all can agree, I would hope, that “bring[ing] peace to our homes, streets, and public venues” is something we can embrace. Where we will differ is in our understanding of how this “bring[ing] of peace,” this change to the “social fabric,” will take place. The petition envisions peace almost exclusively through the enactment of legislation limiting access to certain types of weapons and ammunition. There may be some wisdom in this, but is it really within the purview of the church to make decisions as to what legislation will be efficacious in reducing gun crime?

The answer to this question depends on your answer to another question: how is the church is to serve the “common good”? There may be many answers to this question. None of them is, however, that the church was created by God to advocate for specific policy solutions that will bring about a positive result through the state’s coercive power. So when the petition urges legislation that “reinstates the assault weapon ban that expired in 2004—banning all assault weapons and high capacity magazines”; “Require[s] universal background checks when purchasing any firearm”; and, “Make[s] gun trafficking a federal crime” it has overstepped its purpose and misconstrued its mission.

The church, in its theological reflection, frames the issue and defines what outcome is right in the eyes of God (with specific reference to Scripture). The church’s power, as the reformers contended, is simply ministerial and declarative. That is to say, the church can say what Scripture says to an issue. It may not dare step beyond what may, by good and necessary inference, be understood from the Scriptures.

In its Lenten petition the PC(USA) has succeeded in redefining Lent and misunderstanding the purpose of the church to the detriment of both. When it states that the PC(USA) has a “gun violence policy” the petition steps across the border into absurdity. After all, recent ecclesial court decisions and the new Form of Government have established that the church doesn’t really have a policy on whether the doctrine of the Trinity must be believed by Teaching Elders, but it does one on gun violence.

Christians are free to develop convictions regarding whether or not individuals ought to be free to own a certain type of firearm. They may even band together to form para-church entities that will argue their case. It is wrong for the church—as the church—to enter into this sort of specific policy debate, especially where Christians of good faith may differ.

Whatever one’s convictions on the issue of gun control, it will always be the case that the church exists, at least in its most significant form, in the context of a particular parish rather than in some denominational agency or governing body. The Office of Public Witness insists that this petition will “[call] for common-sense federal measures to reduce gun violence,” and states that it “is one small piece of a larger strategy to address the culture of violence that pervades our nation.” Perhaps. What is less debatable is whether anyone, let alone congress, will be watching when this interfaith coalition delivers its petition to congress in Eastertide.

Forming Christians in the virtues—by Word and sacrament—is one of the chief tasks of the parish. The other is carrying the Good News into its community. This doesn’t include “preach[ing] sermons, teach[ing] bible studies, and becom[ing] involved in efforts to change our culture of gun violence.” These twin tasks will enable Christians to live in a way that contributes to the common good. And to the extent that a denomination loses sight of serving this end, it ceases to be a faithful church and has become something else altogether.

 

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^[1] Max L. Stackhouse and Raymond R. Roberts, “The Mainline Protestant Tradition in the Twentieth Century” in Ronald J. Sider and Dianne Knippers, eds. Toward an Evangelical Public Policy. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 96.

^[2] See John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).