Who may dwell on your holy hill?
Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right,
and speak the truth from their heart...
who do not lend money at interest,
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.
Psalm 15:1,2,5
I saw an post on facebook this morning about my home state of NC proposing a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. (This is hardly novel, In fact, NC is the only southern state that currently has no such ban.) A friend shared a blog post that spoke against the amendment, but in a curious twist, facebook highlighted a quote that was actually an anonymous comment on the blog. It said, in part, "Who are you to question the law of G*d?" sic
This sort of argument is frequently invoked in the cultural war around LGBT issues. The problem, of course, is that many who invoke God's law do so very selectively. This point was driven home to me the morning psalm, which says that those who lend money at interest may not enter the Temple. And in case you are unfamiliar with the Hebrew form poetry which is used in psalms, it rhymes ideas and not words. That is, it features parallel phrases, and in this poem lending money at interest is paired with taking bribes. These two actions are seen, in some sense, as synonymous.
The Christian Church actually enforced a ban on lending money at interest until the 1500s. John Calvin, the founder of my Reformed tradition, was one of the first to come up with a creative way around the ban. He admitted that the Bible prohibited the activity, but he also saw the need for companies to come up with money to grow their businesses. And he said that because the ban on interest was there to protect the poor, lending money in ways that created jobs and income for the poor could be done. Even though it technically violated God's law, Calvin argued that it actually upheld the intent of God's law.
We long ago forgot that lending at interest was a carefully crafted, under-certain-circumstances, exception. We now allow absurd interest rates on credit cards and payday lenders who exploit the poor. And I never hear anyone invoke God's law or tell bankers that they are going to hell.
I raise such issues because I'm struggling somewhat as I look at our very fractured, partisan cultural landscape and wonder about a way out. I have long worried about the dark, "shadow side" of American individualism. It did help foster a society of creativity and achievement, but I fear that when it is not balanced by a strong, unifying community impulse, it becomes destructive. As with many other things, our greatest strength can also become our greatest weakness. And I see much of the partisan rancor in our society coming from this weakness. To some degree, political parties have become groups of like-minded seeking their own good and not the good of the whole. They even seem able to confuse their good with the good of the whole, and so the aims of the other party are "dangerous, treasonous," or "bad for American," all terms casually bandied about in political discourse.
But my personal struggling is not so much with the sorry state of American politics. It is rather with the sorry state of the Church that has made its own contributions to all of this. Somewhere along the way we in the Church happily went along with American, individualist notions, and gradually created the idea of a private, personal faith. Faith became about my personal beliefs, my accepting of some formula of salvation, and not about the peculiar sort of community Jesus called "the kingdom of God."
I think it well past time for the Church to admit that we have lost our way, and I say this from a moderate/liberal perspective. Our problem is not the loss of some religious veneer from American culture, nor will it be fixed by hanging the 10 Commandments on buildings, discriminating against LGBT individuals, or teaching Creationism in schools. Our problem is we that have allowed faith to become believing a few things and "going to church," and we have ceased to form people so that they are equipped to live by the ways of God's alternative community, the kingdom of God.
There are not easy fixes to this problem; no new program or class or strategic plan will do it. The time has come, as the prophet Joel said, to "Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble...Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing."
Jesus calls us to be a community of disciples, but all too often, we are little more than an occasional gathering of believers. Our beliefs have little impact on the lives we live, and yet we wonder why fewer and fewer of our children see any need for the Church. And it is time for us who love the Church to own up to this.
If I seem a bit depressed about the current state of affairs, I suppose that I am, and this may even cause me to overstate the negatives. However, as a Reformed Christians, a Calvinist, I am a cosmic optimist. God is ultimately in control. Congregations and denominations may disappear, but God was never bound to these. God's purposes are being worked out in ways beyond my comprehension. The promise and hope of good news to the poor, release to the captives, rest for the weary, and blessings for all the families of the earth are still moving forward. And I pray that I shall find myself a part of that movement, and not standing in its way.
Lord, have mercy.
No comments:
Post a Comment