It’s Obama’s economy now

No matter what Bush did or did not do, it’s Obama’s economy now. The Wall Journal has put it this way. “Americans have welcomed the Obama era in the same spirit of hope the President campaigned on. But after five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.”

For all his aura of certainty, President Obama is out of his league on this one. Everyone knows that the uncertainity is run rampant. Free market capitalists have run for the hills. Soon his aura will no longer be an aura. It will be an albatross. And what seemed to be confidence will soon be seen as arrogance and a refusal to be touched by human suffering based on ideology.

Idealogues are always willing that the masses suffer for the sake of an idea. Rather than relieve real suffering they imagine a class of sufferers who will be delivered by their policies. The problem, however, is that no one actually is in fact rescued.  As in utopian communism or statist socialism, everyone is enamored with the idea of paradise. But there is no acutal paradise.

I have been trying to find the compass points of the new administration. I am still looking.

When Bush took us into war and then told us not to sacrifice but continue to spend and shop, I ws stunned. Sacrifice apparently belonged only to a few, those actually involved in the war. Once again I am being told to spend and shop, but to what end? I am willing to sacrifice and enlist in a great cause. But there is no one trumpeting the great cause.

Someone has to give me more than “shop and spend” as the great response to crisis. And someone has to give me more than borrow and lend as the great solution.

It really is a shame to see Jimmy Carter part 2 play out before my eyes. May this moment in history be a moment to resurrect great ideas, clear vision and renewed strength for reenergizing the American experiment.

Some thoughts on music in the church

Two words come to mind: necessary and dangerous.

Music is necessary like poetry is necessary. It is not sufficient for our faith merely to say certain words. We must say them in a certain kind of way, not a mathematical way but a relational way. It is not enough to say to your lover “I love you, and if I change my mind I’ll tell you.” We have to give our words texture, weight, taste, smell and sight. We must make them felt.

But music is dangerous. It can convince me of experiences that are not acutally mine but which I wish were. I can sing “Blessed Assurance Jesus Is Mine”, love the s0ng, actually ‘feel’ the assurance but walk out of the worhip service with no more real assurance than I had before the service. Maybe that is why we love music so much. I am able to borrow other people’s experiences. Warren Zevon put it well.

I’m numb as a statue
I may have to beg, borrow or steal
Some feelings from you
So I can have some feelings too

Pope Benedict has encouraged the church to return to the Gregorian chant. This is so far outside of Protestantism that we can’t even relate to the concern being expressed. But his point is actually simple. The chant is enough music to have the benefits of music, but also enough words to keep us in touch with the message. The chant does not take us too high or bring us down too low. It leaves us in the middle and give us the capacity to remain intellectually engaged and spiritually focused. The chant puts a bridle on the horse called music.

There are two things that happen in the church when it comes to music. When it is revived it enlivens music. And, conversely, when it is dying it enlivens music. In one case the music expresses heart. In the other case it replaces the heart.

The big news in Atlanta is that Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman and Lou Giglio are teaming up to do super church. They will only be able to do it, of course, when Tomlin comes off tour. Lou, the preacher,  can do it any ole time. I can hear that giant sucking sound as Christians flock to a new happening. This is entrepreneurial, free market spiritual capitalism at its best. May the best church win. But make no mistake about it. The church will be built around music.

Music will be pushed to do the best that it can do. But it cannot do enough. It cannot give to us what we do not have. Music does not make a marriage or a home. And it doesn’t make a church or a temple for Christ.

Kathleen Sebelius, abortion and evangelicalism

I spent some years in Kansas right after seminary. It had an interesting blend of conservatism and populism. Its conservatism was never the Oklahoma or southern kind. It couldn’t be that passionate nor that focused. Kansas, unlike some of its sister states to the south, was not settled by southerners but by immigrant communities that tended to Lutheranism or Roman Catholicism, but not Baptist. Old-time religion isn’t a Kansas thing. So it is no real surprise that the Kansas governor is not just pro-choice but radically so.

A group that is lining up against Sebelius is the Catholic League, which notes on its Web site that the Roman Catholic governor’s “support for abortion is so far off-the-charts that she has been publicly criticized by the last three archbishops of Kansas City.” Anti-abortion activists are planning to strongly oppose Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama’s pick for secretary of health and human services, saying the Kansas governor’s positions on abortion and her ties to a late-term abortion provider are too extreme for her to be in charge of America’s health care policy.

Increasingly the Roman Catholic church is confronting RC politicians who support policies that are morally antithetical to RC teachings. I consider this a positive development. RCs, unlike most Protestants, see Christianity as more than teaching love and freedom of conscience. And I think that they are more ready than my branch of Protestantism to feel the dissonance between a confession of Christianity and the actual moral commitments of most confessing Christians.

I am always surprised at other church-goers’ surprise that I actually believe the Bible. Somehow they get the signal that while I may have my own beliefs, they are only mine. In fact, I still believe and teach that sex outside of marriage is wrong. I still believe that the practice of homosexual sex is sin. I still believe that abortion is against God’s law. I still believe that Christians should not divorce. I believe that most Christians who are divorced should remain single for Christ’s sake. I believe that those who are cohabiting are living in disobedience to Christ. I believe that those who practice such things should not take the Lord’s Supper.

There was a time when I actually thought that people came to an evangelical church because of its commitment to grace and salvation through faith alone. I no longer believe that.  I think that it as often has to do with the church’s confused moral vision. The Protestant church simply has a reduced capacity to maintain commitments to a moral lifestyle. And many of those who attend love it that way. In my area of the country the Protestant church has an influx of RCs who simply want to get remarried in a church, something they cannot do in their own communion.

It is no mistake that many of our heroes in the evangelical church are not known for their moral teachings, whether it be Warren, Hybels or Osteen. They are known for their teachings on how far grace can go to save a sinner and on personal meaning and fulfillment. In and of itself, I like that. But I have increasingly grown suspicious about silence on the direct relationship between virtue and happiness, as in, there isn’t much of one as most Christians see it. And one thing is clear, made all the more clear by pollsters such as George Barna – the church is as morally disinterested as its surrounding culture, perhaps even more so on some issues.

Anyway, as far as Sebelius goes, she is better than most President Obama could have chosen. But her own church believes she is morally deficient. I cannot say I disagree.