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January 31st, 2010Cache directory "/home/content/f/w/s/fwschmidt/html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/ttftitles/cache" is not writable.The Dog doesn’t need paragraphs
January 31st, 2010From time to time I thought I would post something on the lighter side and no small number of those observations will probably will involve our Gordon Setter, Hilda. For example, Hilda has taught me something about occupational hazards.
We are all socialized by our work lives in one way or another; and it is important to remember that what the work world wants from and offers us is not necessarily congruent with what we are meant to be. For example, academic life requires exacting attention to the scholarship on a given subject, detailed substantiation for the arguments made, and a long, carefully reasoned defense. Those are requirements that are usefully observed when seeking tenure or writing an article for an established journal.
They do not translate quite so easily into every day life. As my dear wife is wont to observe, “The dog doesn’t need paragraphs.” She does not need to have the commands, “sit” or “down” justified. She is not a consequentialist…”If you don’t stay, you will need to go to your crate.” And she is incapable of grasping the suggestion, “Visitors won’t enjoy coming, if you jump on them.”
We would all do well to double check the way in which we have been socialized at work. It does not all translate easily, obviously, or well beyond the walls of the workplace. There are times when the dog doesn’t need paragraphs, nor do others we love.
Happy Sabbath…wherever in the world you might be.
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January 30th, 2010Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German theologian, lived from 1768 to 1834 and is well known for his apologetic lectures that were eventually entitled On Religion: To Its Cultured Despisers. In his talks Schleiermacher argues that his contemporaries are sadly diverted by the extraneous dogma of the Christian faith and should attend to what he describes as its “inspiration” — an intuitive longing for God. The difference, of course, between balancing demands of faith and reason is a razor’s edge. It is possible to jettison so much of what makes a Christian a Christian that claiming the name can only be explained as a fearful or mindless clinging to something one no longer believes.
Marilyn Sewell, a Unitarian minister, was reminded of just how perilous that balancing act can be — not by another minister — but by Christopher Hitchens, well-known author and atheist. Playing Schleiermacher’s card in an interview with Hitchens, Sewell observed:
“The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?”
Hitchens responed, “I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”
Not surprisingly, Sewell suggested, “Let me go someplace else.”
In the effort to balance faith and reason — as well as faith and practice — the phrase “fundamentals of the faith” may now conjure up images and issues that are of little help in attempting to think, pray, and live in ways that are authentically Christian. We know those debates (or at least we think we do) and we quickly take up one side or the other of a long series of old debates. But Hitchens is right — though it was hardly his point. It is important for Christianity’s cultured adherents to ask themselves in what sense they can still be “meaningfully” called Christians. Without a reflective response to that question, there is no balancing to be done at all.
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January 28th, 2010Yesterday I watched Steve Jobs move his ever-innovating Apple Computer Company a step further into the future. The new I-Pad may or may not succeed, but whatever the outcome the hallmark of an innovator is the willingness to stretch, change, and slip the bondage of outmoded ways of working. A foundation grant, a bit of consultancy work, and service on the Board of Examining Chaplains for the Episcopal Church has taken me coast to coast in the last year. Along the way I’ve been exposed to the mainline church — or, to be more exact, the version of it in which I worship and work. What has become clear to me is that Church needs innovation.
As Princeton’s Robert Wuthnow observes, a longing for personal and spiritual homes inspired the Church of the 50’s and 60’s. Responding to the immigration boom, the post-war return of veterans, and a host of other influences, we built our spiritual homes with all the trappings that goes along with that impulse. We built houses of worship, crafted music, installed the best of organs, prided ourselves in the best of stained glass, and evolved the mature bureaucracies and institutions. Call it Church 1.9.20 — a slightly more robust version of Church with an operating system developed in the 19th century.
The difficulty is that this version of Church no longer addresses the demands of the current environment, nor does it attract the customers. We are long overdue for a change in the product line. Call it Church 2.1.10 — an authentic product of the twenty-first century and part of what will necessarily be an evolving product line. What are the essential elements of that new platform? Hard to say and I am interested in what others might be thinking, but so far this is my shortlist:
- Worship that makes the presence of God real
- Conversation that gives my life spiritual direction
- Community that reminds me I am not alone
- Opportunities for caring and giving that make a difference in the lives of others
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January 27th, 2010My wife, Natalie, and I have been catching up on the Fox blockbuster 24. Jack is back. And as she observed on Sunday in her sermon, what is striking is the fundamental simplicity of the story — all of the stories. The fate of the world hangs in the balance between the choices made by two kinds of people: Those who know the truth and are willing to sacrifice for it; and those who believe and live a life of lies, large and small. The navigation of life’s details is rarely quite so simple or clear cut, of course, and as any loyal 24 viewer knows, there will be difficult choices to make. But the choices, no matter how difficult are still made by two kinds people who are fundamentally different in their orientation to the world. What does God want for you life and mine? In any given instance, the details may be difficult to navigate. What is always clear is the kind of person God wants — men and women sold out to the Truth.
