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Some summer faith-based reading: 6-18/19-16

It's time to heave some new faith-based book titles at you as possible additions to your summer reading. I know some people choose escape literature -- mysteries, romances, that sort of thing -- for summer, but I see no reason why you also can't mix in a few volumes of theological substance.

So I'm going to describe a few new books to you here this weekend, some in much less detail than others. But I'll give you links to a place where you can buy the book or learn more about it if it sounds a little bit enticing.

Onward:

Public_faith_in_action-- Public Faith in Action: How to Think Carefully, Engage Wisely, and Vote with Integrity, by Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz. A few days ago here on the blog, I reviewed an excellent book, For the Healing of the Nation: A Biblical Vision, by Russell Pregeant, that is in deep harmony with this book by Volf and McAnnally-Linz.

Which is to say it looks at how the Christian faith should lead people to be engaged in public life in ways that are consistent with life-affirming biblical values. Volf is a terrific theologian from Yale Divinity School. He book Allah: A Christian Response should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand and heal the divisions between Muslim and non-Muslim Americans. McAnnally-Linz is a Yale research scholar who has worked with Volf for several years.

Together they look at some of the more pressing issues in American politics from the environment to poverty to health care, migration and more. They begin by insisting that "Christians aren't Christ's followers just in their private and communal lives; they are Christ's followers in their public and political lives as well." So that must make a difference in how they approach public issues.

They emphasize the need for Christians to debate and discuss these issues honestly and to recognize that there will be differences among people of faith. But differences do not mean that people of faith can't work together as followers of Jesus to work for the reconciliation of the world. In this tawdry, distressing, explosive election year, this is the kind of book that can provide a reasonable framework for much of the American population to be in dialogue that builds up instead of the kind that destroys and demonizes others.

-- If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty, by Eric Metaxas. This book is in harmony with the one above it here in the sense that it acknowledges serious problems in the American political system and in the ability -- or, more accurately, the willingness -- of the American people to protect and defend our system of government of, by and for the people. If we fail in our task as a people, he writes, "our nation will soon cease to exist in any real sense." In various ways, Metaxas urges Americans to "go forth and love America." Which, of course, has a lot to do with sacrifice, with thoughtful participation in the political process, with being discerning and with carrying through with our civic responsibilities.

-- Dying to be Happy: Discovering the Truth About Life, by Chris Stepien. This is a book about death, dying and Christian faith by a Catholic writer whose previous novel about Jesus as a boy I reviewed here. This one is a call to live fully in the present and to appreciate the gift that life is. It's quite personal, dealing with his wife's breast cancer and his mother's escape from the Nazi killing machine in Poland in World War II. The writing lacks some freshness but it expresses a deep faith and sincerity and its lessons about grasping the reality of death are on target.

Live-Like-You-Give-a-Damn-- Live Like You Give a Damn, by Tom Sine. I very much liked Sine's 1991 book, Wild Hope, and, in fact, helped to get him invited to speak at my church about what he called his "Mustard Seed Conspiracy" of Christians seeking to be more faithful followers of Jesus. In this new book Sine encourages readers to listen to the needs and wisdom of young people he calls "social innovators," who are challenging the Christian church to break out of its walls and engage in ministries that respond to the many wounds of today's world. Sine has been a useful voice in spurring the church to be open to new ideas, and this book is his way of continuing that journey in a new era of global consciousness and social media.

-- God and the Afterlife, by Jeffrey Long, with Paul Perry. The author, Long, is a radiation oncologist whose previous book, Evidence of the Afterlife, proved popular. It and this new book are based on studying thousands of so-called "Near Death Experience" reports. This book focuses more on the fact that many people who have gone through NDE says they have encountered God. "Remarkably," Long writes, "the content of near-death experiences is strikingly consistent. Even after rigorously studying NDEs for over fifteen years, I still marvel at how amazingly similar these experiences are regardless of the experiencer's age, cultural beliefs, education, or geographical location." None of this constitutes scientific proof of a God or of heaven and and afterlife, of course, but because such proof is unavailable these findings may be as close as we can get for now. (This book's official publication date is June 28.)

Grace-without-God-- Grace Without God: The Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging in a Secular Age, by Katherine Ozment. In recent polls, almost a quarter of American adults now identify as religiously unaffiliated. That doesn't mean they don't believe in God or don't have some kind of spiritual life, just that they aren't members of any definable faith tradition. When this author found herself unaffiliated from having essentially lived an unexamined life after growing up Presbyterian, she set out to explore the options for a moral foundation for such persons. This interesting book is the result. It seeks answers to such questions as "Where do secular people go to celebrate and transmit their values? Where is the nonreligious ritual space?" Faith communities that are struggling with membership losses might well learn some useful information here on the basis of the findings of a careful observer and good writer. 

-- Buechner 101: Essays and Sermons by Frederick Buechner, with an introduction by Anne Lamott. Consider this a sampler for the world's many fans of Frederick Buechner, a Presbyterian pastor who has spent his life writing terrific things. The book contains chapters about Buechner and by him. If you've deprived yourself of his wisdom and insight in fiction and non-fiction, start here.

-- The Way of Silence: Engaging the Sacred in Daily Life, by Brother David Steindl-Rast. The author draws on experiences in his family of origin to encourage in readers the idea that "we are all meant to be mystics." In whatever faith tradition, mysticism is the path of a personal experience with God, and Steindl-Rast suggests that the corridor we must pass through to have such an experience is full of pregnant silence and one in which one senses being profoundly alone: ". . .when I am truly alone, I'm one with all."

Pilgrim-journey-- The Pilgrim Journey: A History of Pilgrimage in the Western World, by James Harpur. Because the senior pastor of my congregation is on sabbatical, we're having more guest preachers until mid-August. This recent sermon from such a preacher, Wendie Brockhaus, focused on pilgrimage, the subject of this helpful book. Clearly it's a topic of growing interest in various faith communities, and this book provides some context for the renewal of the practice of pilgrimage in the West. "The first Christian pilgrimage," he writes, "could be said to be the journey of the Magi to the Christ child. But Christian writers have also looked back to the Hebrew Bible to find inspiration for the idea of pilgrimage, one example being Abraham, who was called upon by God to leave his home and to start a new life in the land of Canaan." The practice of pilgrimage is in a resurgence mode, and this is the book to take along on your own journey.

-- A Way to God: Thomas Merton's Creation Spirituality Journey, by Matthew Fox. Can there ever be too much written about the thoughtful, prolific, fascinating 20th Century American Trappist monk Thomas Merton? Well, not yet. And Fox's book is a worthy addition to the literature on Merton. Clearly Fox finds in Merton a lot of Fox, just as historians in search of the historical Jesus usually find the historian's Jesus. But there is a lot here about Merton's insights and teachings that, if not new to his millions of fans, at least will be good reminders of why he has been so honored. 

Illuminating-the-way-- Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics, by Christine Valters Paintner. It's hard to learn from those who have preceded us if we don't know about them, of course. So the author, who describes herself as the online abbess for Abbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery, has put together profiles of a dozen monks and mystics, each of whom represents a particular admirable characteristic or trait. Build your life on these models and you'll almost certainly be on your way to being a saint.

-- The Cross, Our Only Hope: Daily Reflections in the Holy Cross Tradition, edited by Andrew Gawrych and Kevin Grove. This is a revised volume of year-long daily reflections that first was published in 2008. The new edition contains some new entries, a new forward and introduction and other revisions. The reflections come out of the Congregation of Holy Cross. If you're not familiar with this corner of the Catholic Church, know that its ministries include the University of Notre Dame and Ave Maria Press, the publisher of the book. The Congregation was founded in France in 1837.

And, finally, a work of fiction:

-- A Daughter's Dream, by Shelley Shepard Gray. This is the second novel about Amish life in Gray's "Charmed Amish Life" series. She's written many novels about the Amish. In this one a young woman who always wanted to be a teacher finally gets a job in an Amish school, but it she finds it's not what she expected.

* * *

MUSLIMS REPORT POTENTIAL TERRORISTS

It probably will not shock you to know that Donald Trump was wrong again -- this time when he said that American Muslims "don't report" potential violent extremists. As this RNS piece notes, various law enforcement official say the opposite is true. That's not a bad rule in this political season: If Trump says something, it's wise to investigate the probability that the opposite is true.


Here's some advice on how to sin better: 6-17-16

The Rev. Steve Shoemaker, a family friend from Urbana, Ill., should be dead by now. Doctors told him more than six months ago that his pancreatic cancer meant he'd probably not survive six months.

Sin-A-WeekHe's now passed that limit.

But instead of watching TV all day or moping around and driving his wife Nadja nuts, he has resurrected and added to some poetry (though he never calls it poetry), publishing it recently in a wickedly funny, prophetic new book called A Sin a Week.

The subtitle tells a lot about the irony, satire and truth you will find here: "Fifty-two sins are described here in loving detail for folks with the inclination and ability to do wrong, but who have run out of bad ideas."

It's illustrated with wonderful cartoons by T. Brian Kelly.

Steve recently explained some things about his work on his CaringBridge page, where he keeps friends up to date on his health:

I began writing poetry in Urbana High School. I continued the questionable practice in college. Ten years later my first poem was published in a reputable journal.

Twenty years after grad school, I believed a collection of my poems could be made around the theme of sin. I hired an undergraduate cartoonist, T. Brian Kelly, who had a weekly strip in the Daily Illini student newspaper to illustrate them. At $20 a poem I could afford it, and he needed the money.

A Sin a Week became the title and I sent the manuscript to finally a total of five unimpressed NY publishers. They said few books of poetry sold well. Then I put it in a drawer for 25 years.
 
A month ago Doris Wenzell of Mayhaven Publishing asked me if I had a collection of my poems she could see. She had heard I had readers of my poems on FaceBook, especially since I had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Two days later I handed her my manuscript with my newly added subtitle.
 
Ill-49She loved it, we signed a contract, she rushed through the editing and printing because of my predicted shortness of time, and the book has now been selling for a week. Reviews from early readers have been good.  
 
Notice the book says it describes sins, not that it is poetry. The first sin described is "Lying."  Ancient writers referred to the Devil as "the Father of lies." This theme continues throughout the book, notably in my never revealing the book is poetry.
 
This is my confession -- if you choose to order a copy, you've been warned.
 
So what "sins" does Steve write about? Oh, some of the usual suspects: "Lie," as he mentions above, "Drink," "Gossip," "Lust." But others are much less direct and occasionally puzzling. Such as the "sin" of fasting. Or of "Love."
 
In "Join a Sect," for instance, he mentions the people who reject the tight religious group the protagonist supports:
 
But when they jeer, we feel no hurt, no loss,
we have the way, the truth, to comfort us.
 
One page is left blank, but the blankness has a picture frame around it. The opposite page describes what the reader is supposed to understand: "THE SIN OF OMISSION, DUMMY."
 
In "Keep Your Hand on the Wallet: A Country Song for a Male Singer," Steve concludes this way:
 
We used to walk down the street together.
Your small arm 'round me and mine 'round you.
I loved to feel your hand in my jean pocket,
Now your hand is gone, and my wallet too.
 
Well, maybe you get some of the idea from a man who understands satire, who understands metaphor, myth, allegory, who understands fun and our inability to explain all of life.
 
Steve is a serious man who understands what to take seriously and what deserves ridicule or rescue or laughter. I met him years ago through one of my sisters, who, with her husband, met Steve and Nadja when Steve was a pastor in Raleigh, N.C.
 
For 18 years he was pastor of McKinley Memorial University Presbyterian Church in Champaign, Ill., and then served for nine years as executive director of the University YMCA in Champaign on the campus of the University of Illinois.
 
Steve's son, daughter and wife will, no doubt, be thrilled to have this last piece of art from him. And you'll be happy and enlightened to own a copy, too.
 
(In the photo on the left you see Steve starting to fly a kite when I visited him at his Illinois home 10 years ago.)
 
* * *
 
OF ALL THE PLACES
 
Where can you go to find good and improving relations between Jews and Muslims? Would you believe Kosovo? Fascinating story. Have a look.
 
* * *
P.S.: My Facebook account was hacked yesterday. Please don't friend the fake me (who, last I saw, had about 35 friends. I have nearly 2,700, which is one way you can tell the real me from the fake me). Of, if you have friended him, unfriend him. Report him to Facebook. Thanks.

Countering hatred one person at a time: 6-16-16

Ramadan-2

In times of trauma, one of the most effective things we can do is simply gather together and be present to one another as we seek to understand and respond to the pain.

Sometimes that happens inadvertently.

On Sunday evening, for instance, my congregation, Second Presbyterian Church, hosted a fast-breaking Ramadan meal for Muslims connected to the Dialogue Institute Southwest. Nearly 50 Christians and Muslims came together to learn more about each other's traditions and to participate in the breaking of the Ramadan fast on the seventh day of this month-long Islamic observance. The gathering had been planned weeks ago.

As it turned out, early Sunday morning a shooter who told 9-1-1 operators he was pledging allegiance to ISIS murdered 49 people at a gay night club in Orlando and wounded at least 53 more.

It was one more shock for the nation and one more knife to the heart of millions of American Muslims who are seeking to be good citizens and to stand against the radically deformed brand of their faith that violent extremists are pushing.

As we gathered, our associate pastor, Kristin Riegel, offered a prayer in which she spoke of the families of the Orlando victims, and when Eyyup Esen (pictured speaking in the photo above) of the Dialogue Institute Southwest prayed before our meal he did the same.

Eyeball to eyeball. This is how bigotry gets deconstructed. This is how we come to know one another as human beings with many of the same dreams and hopes.

This kind of interaction does not replace the need for vigilance and good, fair law enforcement. But it provides a way to invest a little in each other's lives. And, in the end, that is how hatred will lose.

* * *

NOT EXACTLY CUTTING EDGE THINKING

The Southern Baptist Convention this week adopted a resolution asking its members not to display the Confederate battle flag any more. Exactly the right thing to say, though 151 years later than it should have been said.


A proposal for healing our nation: 6-15-16

This is a time of deep political, cultural, economic, educational and theological divisions in the United States. The old sweeping stories by which we used to live, those meta-narratives that provided the national myths that defined us, have crumbled or are crumbling.

Healing-nationWe have reached an appalling time when the two presumptive presidential nominees of our major political parties have enormously high negative ratings and when one of those candidates is so far out of his party's traditional boundaries that many top party members are pledging not to vote for him or at least not to work for his election.

Into this disheartening mix comes a new book that I think can help, if only it can be read with an open heart. It's For the Healing of the Nation: A Biblical Vision, by Russell Pregeant.

The book is both confessional and prophetic.

It's confessional in the sense that Pregeant, who has taught religion and philosophy and been a chaplain at Curry College in Massachusetts, takes a hard look at the racist environment in which he grew up in Louisiana just before and then during the Civil Rights Movement. What he finds in that retrospective disgusts him. The so-called Southern way of life was rooted in racism. White supremacy in one form or another was everywhere. It was the sea in which the South swam.

It's prophetic in the sense that Pregeant goes back to the Bible and finds there not a guide book, not a history book, not a seamless document to be read literally but, rather, a source of life-giving values that, were they adopted by Americans today, would remake our politics and our society in ways that are just, compassionate and merciful.

Pregeant, whose excellent earlier book on how to read the Bible I reviewed here, insists that our binary approach to politics and religion -- left vs. right -- is not helpful.

Early in this new volume, he says that he will "feel free to criticize both major parties and the perspectives we typically term Left and Right. But I also caution readers not to make the all too common assumption that the best options always lie at a midpoint between two current poles of thought. For I believe that the biblical vision of a just society calls all points on the current spectrum -- even the middle, which many Americans hold so sacred! -- into question."

The stories Pregeant tells of his youth in the South are compelling, as he slowly awakens to the racist lies that long provided the rationale first for slavery and later for Jim Crow, segregation and the white power mechanisms that dominated life there.

He calls that Southern system what it was: an idol. And he describes how hard it was for him personally to smash that idol when "the vast majority (of Southerners) held together a set of admirable values on the one hand and loyalty to a dehumanizing social arrangement on the other."

The Southern idolatries, he says, "competed with the biblical faith that so many in the South professed." What idolatries? "A naked racism that made a fetish of skin color and named blacks as 'the other'; an understanding of the universe that allowed some groups to dominate others and reserve privileges for themselves; and an economic order that distributed wealth so unjustly as to render many people, both black and white, virtually powerless."

If Pregeant had to unmask and then reject those idolatries, he also had to walk away from the idea that the Bible had been essentially dictated by God to its many authors and that it was without errors of any kind. People who take those views of the Bible ultimately cannot draw out of it the wisdom it contains in its broad use of metaphor, allegory and myth.

But drawing on a broader understanding of the biblical witness, Pregeant spends the rest of the book looking at many issues of justice in society, from economic oppression to environmental devastation to mass incarceration to war and peace.

This is the sort of book that can help Americans make sense of the turmoil and divisions they see around them and that can offer a way forward that is respectful of differences among and between people.

It is, in other words, a necessary and healing word for a wounded nation in a wounded world. And in light of the Orlando massacre, this book seems all the more necessary.

* * *

ENOUGH SILENCE -- IT'S TIME FOR SOME SHOUTING

Speaking of the Orlando massacre, a member of Congress from Connecticut, Jim Himes, has decided that the typical "moment of silence" that Congress observes after such disasters is a foolish abomination. As he told Slate, ". . .we should be shouting the names of the people who are killed in preventable violence, not standing there in some mock and tepid ritual of sanctity — this smug 'We care' statement in the face of gross negligence. I’m not going to be part of it anymore." There, friends, is a prophetic voice -- the kind we need today. 


Will the U.S. outlaw Christianity? 6-14-16

I no doubt shouldn't be surprised but I always am when I hear American Christians say they believe their faith is under such a strong attack that one day the religion will be legally banned.

XianflagIt's not that there aren't people who dislike at least some Christians intensely. And it's not that there aren't already countries (see Saudi Arabia) where public Christian worship is not allowed. And it's not that the percentage of Christians in the population is so unchanging and strong (it's slowly slipping, though the vast majority of Americans still identify as Christian) that the future of the faith here is so solid it can never be challenged.

But to suggest that there's a plot to destroy Christianity in the United States strikes me as baseless paranoia. And yet that is precisely what a reader of mine wrote to me the other day in response to this blog entry criticizing Rep. Paul Ryan for abandoning his moral center and endorsing Donald Trump.

"I believe," the man wrote, "that if we elect a Democrat in 2016, it will be illegal to worship Jesus Christ in this country when my son is my age. He is 13. I am 67. That would be the year 2070."

Are Democrats godless heathens bent on destroying Christianity?

I'm thinking this will come as a surprise to the party's presumptive presidential nominee, who is a United Methodist kind of Christian.

Does this thinking come out of the conspiratorial nonsense that labels Barack Obama a Muslim? That lie, after all, is believed by a staggeringly large number of Republicans (in some polls, by more than half).

I simply don't know. And the man's belief is one of those odd contentions that there's no way to disprove. We will have to wait until 2070 to find out whether the man who wrote to me is right or I'm right. (I'll be 125 years old in 2070 and may no longer care much.)

But just imagine the enormous revolution of thinking and the intentional deviation from of our national history that would have to take place in just 54 years for it to be illegal to worship Jesus in the U.S. Still, one way to move in that direction would be to begin to erode the foundation of religious freedom in the U.S. How? Oh, let's say by declaring that no Muslims will be allowed to come to the U.S. That, at least, is where Donald Trump would start.

So, yes, we must be vigilant about protecting religious liberty, as guaranteed by the Constitution. But to live in fear of a future that, at least now, seems wildly improbable strikes me as a waste of time and energy. But at least the man who wrote to me about this told me that he has "tremendous respect for you. I keep an article you wrote about 20 years ago in my 'important Documents' folder."

I don't know what that article was, but when someone demonstrates that sort of excellent taste in writers it's best to ponder -- and not ignore -- his point.

* * *

PONDERING SOURCES OF ANTI-GAY PREJUDICE

There still is much we don't know about the motives behind the Orlando massacre, but what we do know is far from comforting. Not only have we learned that the shooter pledged allegiance to ISIS, but we certainly know he chose to attack a gay night club during Gay Pride Month. As this Religion News Service piece notes, "If there was one message in the massacre, it seemed to be that LBGT people are still not safe, and that religious teachings — or at least a narrow reading of them — may be a contributing factor to hatred against gays." Despite the progress Americans have made in recent decades to make sure members of the LGBTQ community are treated as equals in our society, there still is much anti-gay bias, and much of it finds its roots in a misreading of the Bible. For my essay on what the Bible really says about homosexuality, click here. Much of Islam is far from gay-friendly and if it turns out that the shooter, as it now appears, was a radicalized Muslim, then we'd have to search for the sources of anti-gay bias not so much in the Bible but in Islam itself.


Understanding the Apostle Paul as a Jew: 6-13-16

As has been clear for a long time -- but especially since the 1960s -- the Apostle Paul has been a stumbling block between Jews and Christians.

Paul-within-JudaismIn the standard Jewish interpretation of that remarkable man's life, he was a traitor to his Jewish faith for becoming a leader of the Jesus movement. In the standard Christian interpretation, Paul saw the light and rejected Judaism, helping to found the religion that superseded it, Christianity.

Scholars who, at least 50 years ago, began the "New Perspective on Paul" movement believed both takes were wrong. Over the decades, as more and more scholars have looked deeply into Paul's role, they have come to agree that Paul was always a Jew and always considered himself a Jew. It's just that he was a Jew who believed the long-promised Messiah had come as Jesus of Nazareth.

Paul never rejected Judaism for himself and felt bound to be Torah-observant, though he saw no need for non-Jews joining the Jesus movement to become Jewish first. In fact, he argued that such a requirement would have negated the salvific work of Christ on the cross.

At any rate, the original "New Perspective" scholarship has grown and found new expressions, perhaps most recently in a book that scholar Mark D. Nanos co-edited called Paul within Judaism. As Nanos notes in the introduction to that book, "The challenge these scholars (writing in the book) have undertaken is to interpret Paul within his most probable first-century context, Judaism, before putting him into conversation with their own contexts or any of the discourses that have formed around the interpretation of Paul over subsequent centuries."

All of this work has implications for Jewish-Christian relations today, which is one reason Nanos, who lectures at the University of Kansas, keeps at it. He cares about those relations, as do I.

So I was glad the other day when he alerted me to an hour-plus interview he had done that is available here. He is speaking with a Christian interviewer who is pretty new to all of this scholarship about Paul. The first three or four minutes of the podcast is simply an introduction.

If this subjects intrigues you, I invite you to listen to Nanos explain more about the work he and others are doing to overcome the reality that, as he says in the interview, there's a common misunderstanding that Paul "is still the guy who gets in the way. . .Paul screws it up." But Nanos has come to insist that not only did Paul remain a Jew, but that he promoted Jewish values and Judaism itself to others, including those in the Jesus movement.

Sometimes it takes a long time to overcome conventional wisdom that, while it may be common place, doesn't contain much wisdom at all. Paul seen as either traitor to Judaism or the one who founded Christianity is an example. The podcast with Nanos should help you see all of that more clearly.

* * *

THOSE WHO HELP CALM THE STORM

The horrific Orlando night club murders have broken the nation's heart once again. While we wait to try to understand more about the perpetrator and his motives, let's remember not just the first responders but also the clergy who will be called on to comfort families and make some kind of theological sense out of this chaos and hate.


Celebrating a lovely place to die: 6-11/12-16

If you have read me with much regularity, you know that I frequently write about death and dying. In fact, just a few days ago here on the blog I wrote about the best eulogy I've ever heard. And the first piece in my first book, A Gift of Meaning, is a column I wrote for The Kansas City Star from the funeral of my mother.

One reason I write a lot about death is that I believe we'll never understand our own life if we don't understand our own death.

Elaine-M-KCHI also read a fair number of books about death and dying, including a new one I've just reviewed (the review hasn't yet been published) for The National Catholic Reporter, The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America, by Ann Neumann.

And I do volunteer work that directly or indirectly has to do with death, including serving on the board of Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care, which I consider to be a terrific non-profit organization. It's the largest hospice in KC, serving more than 300 people at any one time. (Did you know there are more than 30 hospices in KC, but only half a dozen of them, including KCH, are non-profit?)

One of the jewels of KC Hospice is the free-standing Hospice House at 122nd and Wornall Road, just across from Avila University. The other day, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the house, which provides a beautiful, peaceful place for the end of life, a place that allows families to focus on the person who is dying. The staff there is simply amazing.

(The photo here today shows Elaine McIntosh, the soon-to-retire KCH president and CEO speaking to those gathered for that celebration. Elaine has led the organization since the early 1990s.)

It's really quite astonishing to think about how much time, effort and resources are spent because we die. You can add to this list, but think about funeral homes, casket makers, embalmers, cremation facilities, florists, clergy, estate planners, hospitals, hospices, law enforcement authorities, obit writers, cemeteries, memorial gifts and on and on.

Within that mix, Kansas City is blessed to have a lot of caring people who work to make the end of the road more comfortable for people. And for 10 years the Kansas City Hospice House has done just that for hundreds and hundreds of people.

* * *

THE POPE TO SEE A DEATH CAMP

When Pope Francis goes to Poland late next month for a Catholic youth gathering he will visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Good. Everyone from everywhere needs to see the evil of which humanity is capable. I went there in 2007 when Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn and I were working on our book, They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue During the Holocaust. It's a hard, sobering thing to see such killing sites but no one who visits Poland should miss seeing at least one of the death camps that the Germans established in that country.

* * *

P.S.: Friday here on the blog I criticized Rep. Paul Ryan for abandoning his moral center by endorsing Donald Trump, an action that betrays most of what Ryan has stood for in his career. Now let me praise a leading Republican for refusing to abandon the moral high ground. That would be Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee. In a frank and clear interview with CNN yesterday, Romney said he would not be voting for Trump because Trump would seek to make "trickle-down racism, trickle-down bigotry, trickle-down misogyny" mainstream American ideas. (Romney also said he wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton because of policy differences with her.) Romney's clarity and honesty about Trump mean that he will be one of those Republicans with the moral credibility needed to rebuild a new Republican Party after it destroys itself this year by committing Trumpicide.


Giving away the moral high ground: 6-10-16

One of the reasons the American electorate seems so angry and out of sorts is that time and again we witness politicians who break promises and seem to have no core values. That is, they declare a set of values and then proceed to violate them.

Parker-1(One exception might be Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas, who seems so remarkably consistent that he's unwilling to change his beliefs about the benefits of sweeping tax cuts despite a bombardment of evidence that what he called an "experiment" in economic management has failed miserably. He's dead wrong -- foolishly and recklessly so -- but at least he's consistent, though that's no virtue in his case.)

A different story is Rep. Paul Ryan, speaker of the U.S. House. He has just proven himself to have the political morals and principles of a vacuum cleaner. And he's contributing further to the lack of trust Americans have in politicians.

I'm far from the only one saying that. Columnist Kathleen Parker (pictured here) was in Kansas City the other evening for an American Public Square event and lambasted Ryan for his political spinelessness and the compromise of his principles.

When it came to deciding whether to back Trump, Parker said, "Paul Ryan did not do what I hoped he would." She said she wanted him to tell the public that "I have thought long and hard about this, I have prayed, I have spoken to my family, to my close friends and I am here today to tell you that I cannot support Donald Trump. And the reason I can't is that it would betray everything I believe in. It would betray my children and everything I've taught them. It would betray my faith, which calls for compassion and empathy and understanding. And (so) today I'm going to surrender my position as Speaker of the House. . ."

But, of course, Ryan did nothing of the sort. Instead, he endorsed Trump, however reluctantly. He thus offered one more terrible example of a politician betraying his values.

So later in the week, when Ryan criticized Trump for Trump's attacks on a federal judge because of his Mexican background, Ryan's words had almost zero credibility, given that Ryan already have given away the moral high ground.

Another sad aspect of this is that once the Republican Party finishes destroying itself this election year -- and its demise in its current form is all but assured -- Ryan could have been a morally credible leader to recreate a new national party, perhaps similar to the way the GOP was birthed out of the collapse of the Whigs in Abe Lincoln's time. But now Ryan has thrown away that chance.

I'm not, by the way, making the argument that the Democrats have a presidential candidate without stain. Not at all. In fact, both Trump and Hillary Clinton have historically high negative ratings in polls that measure how voters feel about them. And many voters may decide either not to vote at all or to vote for a minor-party candidate, which, of course, will simply assure Clinton's victory.

But imagine how the American public might have reacted had Ryan done the right thing about Trump and stood by his values. Well, no doubt I'm being optimistic. After all, despite the many terrible things Trump has said in this interminable campaign, he still has a lot of support among those same Americans. Sigh.

* * *

TRUMP AS A 'MUSCULAR CHRISTIAN'?

How is Donald Trump like the late advertising executive Bruce Barton? Let this Atlantic piece count the ways as it also describes what Trump thinks of Jesus. You know, Jesus, the muscleman of God.


What does papal infallibility mean? 6-9-16

The idea of papal infallibility has been around since before it was officially declared church doctrine by the First Vatican Council of 1869-'70.

Papal-infallibilityIt does not mean the pope is sinless. In fact, one of the first ways Pope Francis described himself in an interview was to acknowledge himself as a sinner.

Nor does it means that everything the pope says is theologically or morraly correct and cannot be challenged. Rather, what any pope says is said to be infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra (from the throne) about matters of faith and doctrine. Such a claim of infallibility has happened hardly at all.

But as Gerard Mannion of Georgetown University argues in this interesting and persuasive piece, the infallibility idea has caused many more problems than it has solved. Therefore, he says, the church needs a new way to referring to this whole matter.

". . .the time has come," he writes, "to ‘re-vision’ this doctrine. Indeed, I would suggest the time has come to reimagine and re-envision the entire system of ecclesial magisterium—how Catholic Church teaching authority is understood and practiced. Revisiting and reimagining the notion of infallibility will form a vital part of such an overhaul of the entire magisterial system—something necessary in order for the Church to flourish in its global and constructive gospel mission today and long into the future."

As Mannion notes, one of the Catholic scholars who has gotten caught up in the debate about infallibility (and reprimanded) is Hans Küng, though now Küng has been in communication with Pope Francis about the matter and the pontiff seems open to discussion about it.

I think it would be good for the Catholic Church if it could, as Mannion suggests, find a way to "re-vision this doctrine." For one thing, it might save a lot of confusion -- for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

* * *

THE LAND OF 10,000 GREETINGS?

In a campaign organized by the Minnesota Council of Churches, various congregations there are passing along Ramadan good wishes to area Muslims. Exactly the right thing to do. It doesn't turn the Christians into Muslims. It simply offers respect and the message that we can live in harmony despite our differences.


Another post-Holocaust duty: 6-8-16

Poland-271-K

When I was in Poland in 2007, doing interviews for the book I wrote with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn (They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust), Jacques and I visited quite a few Jewish cemeteries -- including at least one where some of his ancestors are buried.

(If my notes are right, the one you see in the photo above was in Lublin. The other photo shows part of a cemetery -- and probable human bone -- outside of Warsaw.)

Poland-163-KarIt was inevitably a sad thing to do. Those cemeteries that survived World War II (quite a few did not) have almost no one left to care for them. Headstones have fallen. Weeds have overgrown burial plots. In some places, various disturbances have churned the soil so that human bones are visible on the surface.

It's hard to go to such places and not have your heart broken.

Which is why I was happy to read this BBC story about volunteers in Poland who are working to restore order to some of the country's Jewish cemeteries, including the huge burial grounds in the heart of Warsaw.

"There are," the story reports, "1,400 Jewish burial places in Poland. Under restitution laws, these are gradually being returned to the Jewish community. But according to the country's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich, there are only 40,000 Jews living in Poland today. There is no money to maintain the graveyards."

So it takes volunteers. And, as the story notes, they're not all Jews, though some may have Jewish roots that they haven't yet uncovered.

Schudrich once told me that every day he has people coming to him to ask his help to determine whether they are of Jewish origin. Slowly the Jewish community is growing in Poland. In fact, if Schudrich's 40,000 figure is correct, that is nearly double what he told me nearly 10 years ago.

History gets preserved in cemeteries -- even terrible, painful history. And Poland would do well to find ways to aid the volunteers now seeking to reclaim Jewish cemeteries from the ravages of time.

* * *

DEMANDING BETTER RELIGION COVERAGE

The archbishop of Canterbury says he thinks the BBC should be legally required to cover religion to the same extent it covers politics, sports and other subjects. Well, I agree with his desire for more thorough coverage of religion, but that's the difference between England and the U.S. Here you can't mandate that the media cover anything. So if, like me, you want better coverage of religion, it's up to you to demand it of various media outlets.

* * *

THE BOOK CORNER

Very-good-gospel

The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right, by Lisa Sharon Harper. In the spirit of Christians who are sharply focused on making sure the gospel applies to all, including the oppressed and marginalized, Harper offers an interpretation of biblical writings that offer God's welcome and peace, or shalom, to all. When we focus merely on personal sin, we miss much of what the Bible has to say. As Harper notes, "The Scriptures are not silent on structural and systemic sin. The Bible overflows with God's responses to poverty, oppression, and governance." She gets into the controversial Genesis passage in which God grants to humans "dominion" over creation. But instead of that meaning raw exploitation of natural resources, she insists that the term "is not a call to exercise imperial power." Rather, she writes, such dominion "should maintain the well-being of all. . .Dominion -- stewardship -- looks like serving and protecting the rest of creation." No matter what subject she takes up, she does it remembering the spirit of stewardship and the justice it requires. "The very good gospel," she concludes, "answers the heart cry of our age. The ransacked world is crying out for the restoration of the governance of God and the shalom it brings."