American Exceptionalism, Except for....

This week I heard two strikingly different meanings of American exceptionalism, one from a congressman, and one from high school musicians.

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colorado) May 12: "I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America, but I do know this, that in his heart, he's not an American. He's just not an American." Coffman issued a written apology Wednesday evening. "I misspoke and I apologize," the statement began. "I have confidence in President Obama's citizenship and legitimacy as President of the United States." Then Coffman defended his intent. "I don't believe the president shares my belief in American Exceptionalism. His policies reflect a philosophy that America is but one nation among many equals. As a Marine I believe America is unique and based on a core set of principles that make it superior to other nations."

Conservatives often deride Obama over remarks he made in April of 2009, in which he said that he believes in American exceptionalism, "just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Obama added, "We have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional."

Obama also said that he is, "enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world." And he hailed America's, "continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity."  He frequently relates his own story when talking about the exceptional opportunities open to all people in this country.  Exeptionalism with no exceptions is Obama’s vision of American exceptionalism.

This past Tuesday night, between Rep. Coffman’s first and second public statements, I attended the spring vocal music concert at Mason City, Iowa, High School, where over 300 students in 10 ensembles in this public school of just over 1000 students sang. It was a wonderful evening of truly outstanding students singing college-level music.  These choirs consistently receive superior ratings. Exceptional?  Yes.  But what I saw as even more exceptional is that all youth are included, not for the sake of being better than somebody else, but for the sake of building community.  More than half the students in Mason City are on free or reduced lunch programs. This is not a privileged community where students can afford private lessons.  Anyone can be “chosen” to sing. One large choir open to all students in grades 9-12 is split in half and each can meet only every other day.

Rather than singing only national songs to emotionally stir the audience, I heard the music of a diverse global community in the heartland of America. The director said, “We ask students ‘What are composers from different parts of the world trying to say that we also feel?’ We look for similarities first in order to appreciate the differences.”   That’s inclusive exceptionalism with no exceptions.

The concept of “American Exceptionalism” goes back to the question about the very origins of the nation. Republicans have argued that the president fails to understand that the country was divinely inspired, based on the Declaration of Independence's assertion that citizens were “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

American exceptionalism often includes the concept that the United States is different from other countries in that it has a specific world mission to spread liberty and democracy.  (And for some that includes by military means.) Although the term does not necessarily imply superiority, many conservatives have promoted its use in that sense. To them, the United States is like the biblical "shining city on a hill."  This sense of “chosenness” leaves little place for all others. Are they unchosen? Is this American exceptionalism, except for all the rest of the world?

Senator Albert J. Beveridge, speaking on the floor of the Senate after his return from a tour of the Philippines in 1900 while the United States was waging a war of subjugation against the Filipino independence movement said, “God…has made us master organizers of the world…He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the redemption of the world.” When I used that quote in my seminary classes a few decades ago students would gasp in unbelief. Today they nod their heads, saying that’s what many people in this country believe.

American exceptionalism is a dangerous posture in the world and betrays the very democracy it would export:

On college campuses this fall, hundreds if not thousands of students will be restricted from registering to vote because of new voting laws passed by Republican-led legislatures in states during the past year.  Democracy except for…

Democracy (the core of “American exceptionalism”) except for those who find it hard to have the ever-more-narrowly-defined requirements for voter ID: elderly, low-income, African-American and Hispanic voters.   A “chosen people”…except that legislators are defining who the chosen ones are.  We are challenged to work toward inclusiveness without exception.

25th Anniversary of Constituting Convention of ELCA

Twenty-five years ago today Burton and I were in Columbus, Ohio, attending the Constituting Convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We drove from Dubuque. Yes, I was teaching here at Wartburg then. Burton was just beginning what would become his 15-year pastorate at Grace Lutheran Church in East Dubuque. I had been on three task forces over five years in preparation for the formation of the ELCA. And, perhaps more significantly, Burton and I had been part of all three of the Lutheran church bodies which were coming together.

We were at that time pastors in the American Lutheran Church. Each of us had entered the Lutheran church(es), as teenagers,hearing the Gospel in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. We had been part of the schism in that church body in the 1970's, like hundreds of others, finding ourselves outside the church when it excluded those who had a more open and inclusive view of theology, mission and ministry. (That exile produced the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches.) When living in New England we were in LCA-land and I served for a year a Lutheran Church in America congregation. So we wanted to be present those days twenty-five years ago this week when the people in those three church bodies of which we had been a part the three decades of our adult lives were coming together to form a new Lutheran Church. Coincidently, while looking in my file cabinet for something else, I discovered a file folder which had the program for the Constituting Convention and the folder for the Festival Eucharist.

Also coincidently, this is my week to preach and preside at Eucharist here in the Wartburg Seminary Chapel: Wednesday, May 2, the very day of the Festival Service. So we will be using texts and prayers from that service. Here follows the handout I will provide our student body, many of whom were not even born when the ELCA began:

Three Lutheran Church bodies: The American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church in American and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches came together April 30-May 3, 1987, in Columbus, Ohio officially to “convene” the ELCA. Beginning in 1982, hundreds of people worked for five years on The Commission for a New Lutheran Church and its many committees and tasks forces to prepare, not for a “merger,” but for something new. The Convention would make decisions which would enable the church to begin January 1, 1988. May 2 was the “Festival Eucharist.” The announcement read: “The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is now in place; the Holy Spirit has been continuing the effort to bring unity to the Body of Christ…we are now part of a larger communion and are being given new opportunities for usefulness in God’s holy Church. We have gathered in this place to give praise to God for grace and salvation. We have assembled here to offer thanks for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and to renew those vows which bind us together as the Servant of God. Dear friends in Christ: Lift up your hearts. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.”

At the Constituting Convention the three church bodies brought water in three vessels to the one font. The new church received the Presentation of the current Roster of Congregations, and the Presentation of the current Roster of Clergy. Not having been able to come to agreement on the report on the Task Force on Specific Ministries on the various lay rosters of the three church bodies, those rosters were frozen for six years and a “Study on the Nature of Ministry” was authorized. The ELCA elected its first bishop. By the third ballot the top four names were: David Preus, William Lazareth, Barbara Lundblad and Herbert Chilstrom; Chilstrom would be elected. Previous to the convention it had been decided that the ELCA would be less hierarchical, more diverse and open to all voices. Representation principles would provide for more equal numbers of women and men on boards, committees and at assemblies, broader representation of laity and of people of color. This would provide a substantial change. The structure of the church would be broad and interactive; there were “expressions” of the church: congregation, conference, synod, region, and churchwide (rather than “national”). The convention made a final decision on the site for churchwide offices, not Milwaukee, but Chicago.

Other significant business including election of the vice president, secretary, editor of the as-yet-unnamed church periodical, the first church council, boards and committee, and adoption of a budget. The conventions decided about Inter-Lutheran Cooperation and Lutheran World Federation membership. They would study continuing ELCA membership in the World Council of Church and the National Council of Church of Christ in the USA. The convention accepted the recommendation of the task force on Theological Education: all eight seminaries would come into the new church.

Those assembled saw, “Why”…a mission drama and had a Birth Day Party and committed themselves “in the Unity of the Spirit” to “One Church Made New.”

So Why am I More Afraid of My Neighbor? And What Congregations Can Do

The man’s voice on the phone responded when I asked, “Who is this?”
“Adam”
“Who are you?” I said. I had just rung the number of my husband’s cell, the cell he had a half an hour before said he had misplaced. So I had tried to “call” the phone, both of us hoping the ring would tell Burton where it was…in his car, or in the parsonage where he was staying as an interim pastor.

But the person who called back said he was “Adam.” He said he had found the phone in a parking lot. It made sense. Burton had been at Northeast Iowa Community College where he teaches just that afternoon before he drove to Waterloo, Iowa, where he is serving a parish. “Adam” could have picked it up and taken it with him. But why had he not turned it in at the school? I didn’t ask. I simply asked where he lived and said I would come and retrieve it.

Of course. I would go to Adam’s house and pick up Burton’s phone. No problem. So, why was there even a slight hesitation of fear? Because I have been surrounded by news of Trayvon Martin, murdered by a self-appointed neighborhood watch person. I care. I care very much. I have long been aware of the “mother’s talk” that African-American women give to their sons when they reach a certain age because they know they are not safe being black on the streets of the United States of America.

I care about those sons. Those sons are my sons. When we lived in inner cities of Detroit and New Haven we organized people to not be afraid of one another. We did not arm them to kill each other. I care.

And yet here I was, at least slightly hesitant to go to Adam’s house, a stranger’s house. The irony of course is that as a white woman, benefiting from white privilege, I am much more free to walk or to drive around town, in little danger of being shot. But, you see, violence is contagious. How far have we come, down the road of suspicion of the stranger? The man who authored the “Stand Your Ground” Florida bill, the first in the nation with about 20 states following suit, believes to this day such laws have saved lives. (In fact, there have been many, many more people killed by guns.) They are needed, he says, because this is a more dangerous world. So the argument goes. We need to arm more people because there are more people with guns. And then, when we have more people with guns, more people will need guns to defend themselves. That’s why I am more afraid of my neighbor. We, collectively, are collaborating in suspicion. And those who are “guilty” by virtue of “walking while being black” are by far the most vulnerable of all, so much so that most often it does not even make the news.

But this time it did! Rep. Corrine Brown, at the large rally in Sanford, Florida, last night, said, “I want an arrest. I want a trial” Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton said, “Trayvon is my son. Your son.” His father, Tracy Martin, earlier in the day walked the sidewalk where his son last walked and mourned this young man. You see, Trayvon, at age 9, had pulled his father from a burning house, saving his life; Tracy mourned the fact that he had not saved his son’s life. But how could he know he would be shot on his way home from the store?

So what can congregations do? Close our doors or go out together into the community? Draw inside and become gated communities or open wide the gates and proclaim new life in the One whose resurrection we will soon again celebrate?
We are called to create safe, trustworthy environments where we can be different together. Those are my words for setting a teaching and learning environment in the classroom and they apply to the neighborhood, to the community and to the globe. We don’t need guns in the classroom. And we don’t need to teach each other how to stand our ground. We need to teach and learn how to set hospitable spaces, to trust, to know about each other, so we do not need to be suspicious.

This means that faith communities will need to work hard--very hard--with other faith communities, with neighborhood groups, with police forces, school districts and with any one and any group or coalition, not just after a tragedy, but before. And it can be done. Not community watches with self-appointed vigilantes with guns, but communities of people. We are commissioned to build communities that are safe for everyone. Take back the night. Take back the day. Come outside and know each other. No more, “Get back from the window, they all have guns out there.” This mission of faith communities together will not be easy because of how far down the road of suspicion and violence we have come. What can your congregation do? First, talk together. Then, empower one another to act, right in your own neighborhood, and also at the local, county and state level legislatively. Go outside, walk around. Who is there? Who is not there? How can we be and become communities of people who know and trust and work together for justice? At times like this, and all of the time!

I don’t want to be afraid to go to a house to pick up my husband’s lost cell phone. Oh, I know how to take precautions. We did when we lived in the inner city. I do here in Dubuque. But I didn’t want to be afraid tonight, as a testimony to the freedom from fear that we need to provide for everyone. I could have called a friend to go with me, but I decided to go alone. I wrote down the address. I did call Burton at his church 75 miles away and told him where I was going and when I would arrive and he asked that I call him when I arrived…sensible things.

I found the house and went up to the door. The barking dog didn’t know me. But a smiling old gentleman came to the door and handed me Burton’s phone. “I went out to pick up my grandson at the Community College,” he said. “Tonight when the phone rang, I didn’t know what to do, but Adam did.” “Thank you for calling me,” I said. “Thank you for finding my husband’s phone.” “Thank you” …thank you for so much more that I didn’t say, for his smile, for being my neighbor across town on a street I had not been on before. We did not have to kill each other. Thank God.

From Winter to Spring at the County Political Convention

I saw my first robin Saturday morning, a sign of an early Spring. It’s been a short winter, and early spring.

Surely we could have been outside Saturday doing early yard work. Or, just have gone for a walk on the river front. But, no we had received a postcard with a reminder of the Dubuque, Iowa, County Convention of the political party to which we belong. The news media were all over those famous Iowa Caucuses in early January; Saturday, Mach 10, 130 delegates selected at the precincts arrived at Northeast Iowa Community College for a day of deliberation. No news media. Just us citizens.

We began with prayer by a pastor who was in the role of citizen delegate that day. The prayer was inclusive of all faiths. Then we said the pledge to the flag. Then, not unlike an ecclesial assembly, we were invited to look around and greet one another with handshakes. We heard words from county elected officials, words of encouragement and challenge. With redistricting, there will be challenges to fair representation. Our state senator’s words were kind and inspiring. Our state representative, who had been Speaker of the Iowa House until the 2010 election, spoke. He lives in a modest house in Dubuque and each year invites people to his home on St. Patrick’s day. At the county level, people know each other and are known. (I was surprised leaders knew my name.)

With voter suppression laws are a huge issue across the nation (see my earlier blog). Iowa has been able to hold back that initiative by Democrats retaining, by a small margin, control of the Senate. Still, helping people—all sorts of people—be able and empowered to vote this year is our task.

The day proceeded in what I thought was a wonderfully civil manner. Through proper procedure and careful listening to one another we chose 21 males and 21 females to represent Dubuque County at the District Convention in April and the State Convention in June. Some of the party leaders stepped back and put their names on the alternate list so that more “regular people” could be delegates.

After lunch, hard work of deliberation on the Platform began (15 pages, 763 lines). Surely the nice weather outside would entice people away. And would the work of these 130 delegates at a mere “county” convention matter in the large scheme of things? But the Platform Committee had done their work and now these delegates did theirs. I have been to many, many church conventions. Some are collaborative; some full of rancor. But this day at NE Iowa Community College, the delegates deliberated for three more hours, listening carefully to one another. Each section began with a “Mission Statement” which summarized our “commitments” to Agriculture; Climate and Environmental Integrity/Stewardship; Education; Energy; Environment; Government and Law; Health and Human Services; International Policy; Taxes; and Veterans.

A person took the microphone to say, that “Immigration” was emerging as a significant enough issue to be a separate section, not just part of “Government and Law.” It was agreed upon by consensus. Another person quickly noted that “Immigration” would then need a “Mission Statement” and that perhaps lines 465-467 from the section could be moved to serve that purpose. Agreed!

That was the tone of the afternoon! People paid attention—to the issues and to one another. A platform plank under “Environmental Integrity/Stewardship” on open leaf burning, composting and mulching, could not be resolved quickly, because of rural concerns of open country in this prairie/savanna context. “Could some of you work on that and we’ll come back to it?”

We proceeded with conversations about commerce and collective bargaining, about rebuilding the financial support for public education that has been cut in the past 15 months, about international trade policies and nuclear weapons. If someone wanted to amend the Platform with a substantive change, one had to submit it in writing with 20 signatures. During the course of the afternoon that happened a number of times.

One proposed an amendment related to the “under God” words that were added to the Pledge of Allegiance during the Cold War period a few decades ago. Dubuque County is highly Roman Catholic and very churched. Even so, there was good, clear conversation about why removing those words might be very good to say this is a pluralistic nation of many faiths, people who believe in other than a monotheistic god or in no god. It was decided that such an amendment, at this time, might not serve well.

Another proposed amendment related to contraceptives. Again, this is a highly Roman Catholic area. The amendment was not opposed because of religious reasons. In fact a man suggested changing the words “women” to “people,” saying that birth control is a responsibility of men and women. Conversation continued about words for “access” and “insurance” and these 130 people worked it all out by consensus: “We support birth control being accessible for all people through their health insurance with no co-pays.”

The afternoon was growing long. People monitored their time at the microphones, and so did the leaders. Still they gave fair time to individuals who had submitted written minority reports. It was clear to most, including the ones who proposed them, that they would not pass, but they were considered, seriously considered and through debate the assembly learned. Then, we returned to the issue of open leaf burning with the addition of “except for resource management.” And we ratified our deliberated Platform, now to be sent on to the District Convention. There our voices would be joined with many others, and likewise at the state and eventually the national conventions.

The day that began with my seeing of a robin, a sign of Spring, concluded with a strong sign that I had seen participatory democracy; I had witnessed intelligence, wisdom and pragmatism. These people had deliberated all afternoon…when surely they could had been outdoors on that amazingly warm Iowa March day. Did it matter? It does!

When we returned home we saw crocuses blooming in our yard where only a week before all the trees had been covered with snow.

Separation of Church and State offers Freedom to be Religious in the Public Arena

People laugh, but I wonder. If we aren’t really supposed to take Rick Santorum’s view about religion in the public world seriously, then why are there so many people cheering him on?

Whether or not he wins or loses in the various state primaries and caucuses, the issue of church and state and the place of various faith communities in a pluralistic culture remain.

I’ve blogged about these things before. After all, the name of this blog is “Conversations on the Church’s vocation in the Public World.” Now these issues are before us, and all twisted up. We need to get our history straight. If Rick Santorum feels like throwing up when he hears John F. Kennedy’s speech, then Santorum doesn’t know his history. In the fall of 1960 JFK needed to make clear that should he become president of the United States, the pope would not be dictating policy of this nation. There would be “absolute” separation.
Mr. Santorum, now saying he would take back his words that the speech made him want to throw up, has, however, gone even further by insinuating that only non-religious people can have a voice in the public square and that the voices of people of faith (e.g. conservative evangelical Christians) would be excluded by adhering to separation of church and state.

The words, “separation of church and state” indeed are not in the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson wrote them in response to a letter of October 7, 1801, from the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptist Association, in which they, “rejoicing” in his “election to office” said, “Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals; that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions,” and added, “But, sir, our constitution of government is not specific.”

Thomas Jefferson responded: “Gentlemen….believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God…I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature would ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and state.” He concluded, “I reciprocate your kind prayers…and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect and esteem.”

There are various kinds of separation: absolute, functional, institutional, transvaluative, equal. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in its constitution (4.03n) pledges to “work with civil authorities in areas of mutual endeavor, maintaining institutional separation of church and state in a relation of functional interaction.” That’s another way of saying that we hold to both the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First amendment; we also believe that all faith communities are called to work together for the common good, yes, carry out our various “vocations” in the public world.

Barack Obama, in a keynote address at the Call to Renewal’s Building a Covenant for a New American Conference in Washington, D.C., in 2006, told his own faith background story, of an adult working as a community organizer in Chicago. He saw Christians “who knew their book.” He said, “the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and challenge powers and principalities....I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source. Of hope.”

Obama went on to say people “need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practices. …it wasn’t the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was the Baptists. …It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religion….” His speech goes on at length concluding with “a hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all.” A worthy goal!

Pluralism, Parenthood, Contraception and Roman Catholicism

Many issues in the past couple of weeks have accumulated faster than I have written about them. I hope not faster than you have had a time to think about them. That’s been hard, however, because of whose voices are chosen to not only express their views but to frame the issues in the media. Therefore the challenge: create places for conversation where people can think and talk and explore deeply the issues and to carry out ministry in this public, pluralistic society.

Planned Parenthood in the past few years has suffered growing attacks, countess false accusations that have hindered its ability to offer services to those who need them most: women with few if any other resources for women’s health care particularly reproductive care. With a target on its back, the public was beginning to believe, “Planned Parenthood is bad.” Then came the backlash to the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s pulling its funding. I am among those contributors to Planned Parenthood. I’ve seen and experienced its service, offering contraceptive advice and help for decades. It wasn’t a matter, as one news broadcast framed it, of “two titans battling it out.” Indeed “war” is the very last image women want to use. It’s about birth, not death. By the end of the week many women wanted to know that these two organizations could be ways women could be united in working for women’s health. There are issues that remain, of course, about board membership, etc., but more than that, I think questions remain for us to think about:

How can we as people of faith work together so that parenthood is a joint responsibility?

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, already 20 years ago, in one of its earliest social statements deliberations, adopted by a 2/3 majority at its churchwide assembly in Orlando Florida in 1991 a Social Statement on Abortion. It begins with acknowledging our unity and our diversity within the church and goes on to state up front that the Church is in support of life. It says that the “church recognizes parenthood as a vocation that women and men share.”

If one is not in favor of abortions, why not fully support knowledge about, access to, and responsibility for contraception by both men and women?

The ELCA Social Statement on Abortion reads:
“Prevention of unintended pregnancies is crucial in lessening the number of abortions. In addition to efforts within church and home, this church supports appropriate forms of sex education in schools, community pregnancy prevention programs, and parenting preparation classes. We recognize the need for contraceptives to be available, for voluntary sterilization to be considered, and for research and development of new forms of contraception.”

How might we shape the conversation to include care for children after birth?

The ELCA Social Statement on Abortion goes on:
“Many women choose abortion in a desperate attempt to survive in a hostile social environment. In order to affirm the value of life and reduce the number of abortions, it is essential for us as a church to work to improve support for life in society.

"Greater social responsibility for the care, welfare, and education of children and families is needed through such measures as access to quality, affordable health care, child care, and housing. Sufficient income support for families needs to be provided by employers, or, in the case of the unemployed, through government assistance. As a society we need to provide increased support for education, nutrition, and services that protect children from abuse and neglect.
“Because parenthood is a vocation that women and men share, this church supports public and private initiatives to provide adequate maternity and paternity leaves, greater flexibility in the work place, and efforts to correct the disparity between the incomes of men and women.”

Why are prominent men still given the most voice in decision-making concerning women’s bodies? (As I write this blog, the news report that the Obama administration this afternoon might come to some accommodation with the Roman Catholic Church is headlined, “Will the Catholic bishops be satisfied?”)

The ELCA Social Statement of 20 years ago says: (And we ask, where are we today?)
"In the case of abortion, public policy has a double challenge. One is to be effective in protecting prenatal life. The other is to protect the dignity of women and their freedom to make responsible decisions in difficult situations. Pursuing those ends is particularly formidable because our society is so divided on this issue, and because women, people of color, and those of low income are so under-represented in legislative and judicial processes. In its advocacy regarding these issues, this church should exert every effort to see that the needs of those most directly affected, particularly the pregnant woman and the life in her womb, are seriously considered in the political process."

And there are more questions for our conversation about the church’s vocation in the public world:

What are our responsibilities in making sure that all people have access to affordable, quality health care?

How do we shape the questions and the conversations in ways that men and women are equally responsible for their sexuality and their sexual relationships?

Why don’t we see as many advertisements on TV for contraceptives as we do for Viagra?

How far have we come and what do we still need to do to make sure that women and their bodies are not kept captive in male-dominated power systems?

Since men are taking a more full role in male-female relationships in the public as well as private life, how do we support such men and hold these caring, life-sustaining, mutually accountable partnerships up as role-models in a world that still fears women in full partnership with men?

How do we uphold single people and people of differing sexual orientations as well as heterosexual married couples in their commitments to lives of faithful vocation?

How do we live together as people of many different faith traditions with different values and ethics, respecting one another’s beliefs without imposing ours on others?

I have been wanting to say something about what I think should be clear by now, but obviously is not: we live in a pluralistic society in which all of us in many ways are called upon to help fund things which we may not need, want, or might well be against. Diana Butler Bass has said it well her blog February 7, 2012. I quote parts of it here:

“….everyone knows that we now live in a fully pluralistic society—and that religious pluralism raises some serious questions about the Catholic Church’s plea to be exempted from providing access to birth control at institutions employing and serving the larger public. These questions go to the heart of what is means to be a faithful believer and a good citizen.

“There are millions of religious Americans who pay taxes or follow government regulations that support something to which they morally object. Quakers and Mennonites pay taxes for the military and often serve in non-combat settings during war. Jewish and Muslim taxes support subsidies for pork farmers and shrimp fisheries. Mainline Protestants provide public funds to faith-based groups who convert people away from liberal Protestant churches. Christian Scientist taxes go to Medicare and the National Institutes of Health. Fundamentalists support student loan programs for future ministers at Harvard Divinity School. Atheists fund military chaplains. LGBT Christians and Jews pay the salaries of judges who rule against their desire to marry. Is the government trampling upon the religious liberties of all these people, too? No. All these groups practice their faith in tension or tandem with ethical commitments without accusing others of bigotry.

“Catholics might think that they are being singled out having their money go to something that offends them. They are not. The success of American Catholicism means that Catholics are not special and they get to be treated like everyone else. We all pay for things we like; we all pay for things we don’t like. Everybody is offended by something, somewhere, by some program, somehow. The American ethical conscience often bends like a reed in a complicated, diverse society.

“Americans put up with the offense for a very good reason: The government is not a church. The government attempts to represent the interests and well-being of the whole public by providing military defense, helping farmers, assisting those who serve prisoners and the poor, caring for the elderly, fostering scientific research, supporting students, and giving soldiers someone to talk to or pray with on the battlefield. And yes, part of the public good is that women get to choose if and when they have babies. The government funds all this with a common pool of tax money and a mix of public and private services without theological tests available to all Americans—no matter what Quakers, Mennonites, Jews, Muslims, Methodists and Episcopalians and Lutherans, Christian Scientists, Southern Baptists, atheists, or even Roman Catholics think, teach, and proclaim in their traditions and congregations. Everybody participates. And everybody works out the tensions in creative, faithful, and theologically rich ways. Indeed, the tensions are the source of American religious vitality.

“It is easy to accuse the government of violating religious freedom. But what, exactly, is a secular government to do? Set up the Governmental Office of Theological Ethics to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whose taxes go for what programs, develop a strategy for exemptions, determine which institutions serve the public and which do not, adjudicate between conflicting moral and religious systems, punish those who step on another’s ethical prohibition? Do only the biggest religious groups get the government to assuage their ethical qualms? Or, should we bag secular government altogether and become a theocracy? Should government services be earmarked on a percentage basis toward the religious affiliation of taxpayers? Perhaps all religious groups should become sects and provide services for only those who share their theological views.

“Or maybe we should keep working at the restless and ever-evolving tension between being religious freedom and separation of church and state in our wildly diverse nation.

“This isn’t a war on religion. It is just America.”

And one more question of mine:
What difference has it made for us all,women and men,that in the ELCA we now have women bishops, women cleargy, men and women on every roster and laity fully participating in our framing of social statements?

Between Caucus Night and Epiphany

Between the Iowa Caucuses, January 3, and Epiphany, January 6

We gathered at the E. B. Lyons Interpretive Center. It was dark driving down the lane to the Nature Center at the south edge of Dubuque, Iowa. One could hardly find the way. But once there, arriving even before the announced 6:30 door-opening time, the parking lot was already full. And inside were our neighbors. I saw colleagues from Wartburg Seminary, where I'm a professor here in Dubuque, who waved us over to sit by them. There was Pat Murphy simply helping out, our State representative and former Speaker of the Iowa House. I spotted Carolyn Farrell coming in, a Roman Catholic nun from the next neighborhood over, who once served as Mayor of Dubuque.

But mostly they were the ordinary folk…no, I take that back, including Pat and Carolyn, we were all ordinary folk. Who meets at the Nature Center in the middle of winter? Well, the press wasn’t there. It was, after all, the “other” caucus night in Iowa. But people kept streaming in. At last count there were 150 and standing room only. Yes, many had come to hear the president (streaming video with some precincts in Iowa, not ours), but more significant, I believe, was these people had come to be part of a conversation in participatory democracy.

The Democrats, unlike the Republicans, each four years, do not take a secret ballot. We meet, listen, talk and then go to different parts of the room in preference groups and simply count the number of people there. Then, if some groups are too small to select one person to go on to the county caucus, people talk with each other some more, reconfigure and count again until there are viable groups.
So what was the big deal last night? I know, I know, the media was on the other side of town. I’m not sure they could have found us out in the dark woods anyway. (There were other precinct meetings in Dubuque; ours just happened to be south of town where there’s a growing population.) But I wish the media had been there, or at least some witnesses to this event at the Nature Center.

After hearing from Pat and the president and about the organizational structure of this form of participatory democracy, the question was asked if anyone there wanted to caucus for any other candidate than the president. That option was there, but no one did, so we did not divide into preference groups. Four years earlier, when the Precinct 2 Caucus was held at Wartburg Seminary, it was quite a different scene…and exciting night which ended in Barack Obama garnering about 50% of the precinct goers…but you know all about that.

Because a few precincts were gathering together last night, we then divided with half of us going downstairs to the science lab where we took small stools off tables and talked with our closer neighbors, those from down the street and the next streets over. We talked about issues and decided who would go on to represent us at the County Caucus coming up in March. We could send 7 delegates. We decided. And then one woman proposed that everyone else of us be listed as alternates. We could do that because anyone can go. Who would serve on the Platform Committee and who on the Credentials Committee? (The last is not a pro forma issue if you read my last blog.) We signed the petitions for our state and national candidates to represent us. It was easy to be involved. Oh, and yes, we passed the hat (an envelope actually) for funds to support our party’s work. Then we ratified our decisions. There was conversation, laughter, seriousness of purpose, and inclusive participation.

During Christmas…Epiphany won’t come until Friday…many of us have gathered in large churches and small, and yes in living rooms and kitchens. Two Christmas programs are memorable because of the people who participated and the message they sent. To be sure, I’m not comparing Caucus Night and Epiphany, only (because I write this day) in so far as the importance of gathering for inclusive participation. One program was on a Sunday morning in a tall sanctuary in Waterloo, Iowa, where my husband is interim pastor. No doubt in years past there were hundreds of children in the sanctuary, but this year, because the downtown congregation is smaller now, we heard the Christmas story from a rather small group of children, and, adults. Every child and youth, including the youngest who would hold the star, and the three young men who had been confirmed and, typically, no longer in attendance regularly, was included meaningfully. They knew why they were there and the importance of their participation.

The woman who wrote it told me afterwards that she had been a child she remembered not having a part and she now wanted everyone to be involved. Those robed to be the cast of Nativity figures, however, were adults, of all ages, from one holding a real baby, to a shepherd who needed help getting off his knees at the end. The children had prepared questions and the adults, in character answered them. All of us were moved by the thoughtful, real, answers, from the struggles of Joseph, to the dilemma of the in-keeper, to Herod, who confessed that sometimes people with power make bad decisions. We were there, all of us, and no one was insignificant as we pondered what we knew and what we had yet to learn from one another in this baby Jesus.

The second Christmas program I attended was here in Dubuque on a Sunday evening. The church was full; it was hard to find a seat. The script was well written and all knew their parts, challenging us to consider the story of the nativity amid our contemporary pressures. The evening ended with what might have been considered an “add-on,” but which I found to be a moving way that brought us all worshipfully together. Tina St. Aubin, a Wartburg Seminary student, doing her Educational Ministry field work at this congregation, had been teaching the children some liturgical movement in addition to their practice for the program. She had told me the adults had been standing at the edges of the practice session, joining in. And so, this Sunday evening, with the children in the nativity scene, the pre-school young ones filling the sanctuary, all the others gathered around, on the steps, up the aisle, surrounding us all. We all become participants as two women sang “Mary’s Song” (by Mark Lowry and Buddy Green):

Mary, did you know? Did you know that your baby boy would come to make you new? Did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters? Did you know that the child you delivered will soon deliver you? Did you know this sleeping child you’re holding is the great I Am?

Did you know?

Now, on a morning-after-Caucus Day of ever-ending interpretations of what an 8-vote margin means, that’s a question to ponder. Blessed Epiphany

The Most Important Issue Not Being Talked About

So many issues unfolding in front of us each day that they may overwhelm our ability to deeply consider them, much less to take action. And all are important, particularly as they intersect in the public world. But one I see so little about amongst all the "Your Voice, Your Vote" commentaries on political candidates, is all of those people who are daily losing their vote.

The Voting Rights bill of the 1960's finally permitted people of color who had been denied the vote since the inception of this nation, to vote. People worked so hard, organized, were beaten, went to jail and died so that all could vote. It never occurred to many of us that those rights might be legally taken back just a few decades later. This very year in dozens of states laws are being passed to insist on voter I.D. That all sounds innocent enough, perhaps even noble. I mean, who wouldn't want to prevent voter fraud? But the truth is that "voter fraud" is a bogeyman. One is more likely to be hit by lightning than to commit voter fraud. The Bush administration spent 5 years investigating voter fraud and convicted only 86 people among 196 million votes cast.

So why are all these states passing laws that will disenfranchise millions? Some estimate 5 million people who voted in 2008 will not be able to vote in 2012 and the number is climbing of those being disenfranchised. They are people who don't have a driver's license. That already targets the young, the old, the poor (who don't have a car), and those people living with disabilities.

Hear the story of the 90-some-year-old woman who has voted in every election except one when she was ill, since women were able to vote. More elections than almost any of the rest of us. She has been a faithful citizen, exercising her voice and vote in the public world. But in 2012 she will not be able to vote. She took all of her documentation including birth certificate, records of utility bills paid at her current address, etc. to the center where she was to go to obtain a new special I.D. card. But she didn't have her marriage license from decades ago which showed her change of name. No matter she has been a widow for years. She had a stellar voting record but now she was denied the right to vote next year.

Why would anyone want to deny this woman the vote? Why are people of color being denied I.D. cards for such technicalities at such great rate?(I'm not even commenting on the issue of the political party in power in various state legislatures.) It's my guess that it might be connected to what has been on the news since the 2010 census, that the "majority" whites population may someday become the minority. People fear the "other" and demographics are changing. The country feared what would happen if half the population, namely women, were "allowed" to vote. People feared "Negroes" being "given" the vote a hundred years after emancipation. In 2008 eligible Latino voters were 9.5% of the population (up from 8.2%); eligible African-American voters were ll.8% (up from ll.6%); eligible Asian-American voters were 3.4% (up from 3.3%); eligible White (non-Latino)voters were 73.4% (down from 75.2%) Looking at those figures, one should still ask, "What do white folks have to fear?" But fear has its own power.

There is nothing so fundamental to democracy than the right to vote. For citizens of voting age, voting is a right,not a privilege, not something a voter should need to prove again and again. If someone votes unlawfully, that is a crime which can be prosecuted. As a nation the price of freedom is leaving open the possibility some will break the law (but we have seen how small that number is) in order that we not deny millions their right to vote.

So, what can we, who have a driver's license and find voting easy, do? One, honor that right and use it. And, I might say, reflect on just how hard it might be for us to find all those "correct" documents, marriage license, etc, particularly when the list for some targeting people keeps changing and growing of what is needed.

Second, it means that as part of our vocation in the public world we need to aggressively scrutinize new laws or laws being proposed in our state legislatures that have the potential to disenfranchise people. If the laws are there, we can reach out to people within our faith communities and beyond..often the invisible ones...who may be disenfranchised without their even knowing it, or who have never had the means or transportation to register to vote. We can help them find documents, take them to register, advocate on their behalf.

Third, we can contact U.S. Attorney General Holder and say we want the Justice Department to be active on this issue. And we can...this may be most important...work in our own states to overturn such laws or stop them from being enacted.

Fourth, we can put pressure on the media to make this a story, NOW. It will be too late when come next November, the day after the election, the news media finally, "surpringly" say, "There were millions who tried to vote and couldn't"

And, yes there are other very important issues in the news, and in our lives. Perhaps some who are reading this are participating in the "Occupy Wall Street" and "The 99%" protests. How do we grow protests into a movement?

And, there is the PBS series "Women, War and Peace" with two more episodes. Extraordinary and terribly important. Why do we need women's voices? Here's why.

And, and, and.....

Connecting Communities for the Common Good

I was privileged yesterday to attend here in Dubuque, Iowa, at the Northeast Iowa Community College Town Clock Center "Connecting Communities for the Common Good" with representatives from President Obama's Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Office. This was held in conjunction with Obama's Rural Economic Forum at NICC's Peosta campus just outside of Dubuque earlier in the day. What a privilege to be with these nine fine people in panel presentations and later for informal conversation at a reception at Loras College.

And what a change from the "Faith Based Initiatives" emphases of the Bush administration. J. David Kuo in the book, "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction," some years ago went to Washington wanting to use his Christian faith to end abortion, strengthen marriage and help the poor. Kuo said he reached the heights of political power. But after three years of being second in command in the President’s Office of Faith Based And Community Initiatives he found himself helping to manipulate religious faith for political gain. (J. David Kuo, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction, New York: Simon and Shuster, 2006.)

Yesterday was entirely different. In this administration we have an invitation to real partnerships in a religiously plural nation. Perhaps 150 to 200 people representing many faith communities and non-profit organizations were present. Dallas Tonsager, Under Secretary, USDA's Office of Rural Development said, "Thank you for your expressions of your faith." The mayor of Dubuque, Roy Buol and the interim president of NICC, Dr. Liang Wee, told of how the city and the college have grown to be places where diversity and collaboration for the common good are welcomed and appreciated.

Alexia Kelley, Deputy Director, and John Kelly, Senior Policy Advisor, for the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships set the tone. I added my voice and was thanked by many in saying that there are millions of Christians that do not have the cross and the flag all tangled up. We need to work together to create a trustworthy place for us to be different together.

So, why is it that the narrative that receives all the press is the one where presidential candidates blatantly profess this is and should be a "Christian" nation where capitalism rules and the poor are left behind? Ray Suarez in his book "The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America" makes clear that Christianity is not an American religion and that the American state is not necessarily Christian. The appropriation of American symbols by the conservative Christian right is a dangerous trend internally and certainly externally. When people in the Middle East hear this kind of talk it's no wonder they assume democratization means Christianization(Ray Suarez, The Holy Vote:The Politics of Faith in America. New York: Harper, 2007)

At the reception we talked about the need for a new narrative. Due to its beginnings under the Bush administration, "Faith-Based" to many means efforts of convert to Christianity under the auspices of the government. Lutherans and many Christian denominations have a much more healthy view of the relationship of church and state. In a pluralistic society we need to have institutional separation and functional interaction. See John R. Stumme and Robert W. Tuttle, Church and State: Lutheran Perspectives. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003. It’s religious pluralism that makes us strong.

So, how do we do that? How do we connect people in our communities for conversation and work together for the common good? I strongly encourage leaders of faith communities to explore the website www.whitehouse.gov/partnerships or phone 202-456-3394. There they will find connections to 13 centers. Faith-Based and Neighborhood representatives of some of these centers were with us yesterday: Max Finberg, Director, US Department of Agriculture Center; Mara Vanderslice Kelly, Acting Director, Department of Health and Human Services Center; Rev. Brenda Girton-Mitchell, Director, Department of Education Center; Jerry Flavin, Director, Small Business Administration Center, Terry Monrad, Executive Office, Department of Homeland Security Center. Also prsent were Doug O'Brien, Deputy UnderSecretary, USDA's Office of Rural Development, and Terry Sullivan, Small Business Development Center for Dubuque.

How do we make sure children in our communities are well nourished? How can churches and the government work together so that when school is out in the summer children do not go hungry? How can churches and the Small Business Administration work together in a small town to help people without jobs start a new business? How can leaders of faith communities, government and non-profits coordinate efforts in times of natural disaster? All of these partnerships are welcome and needed. As people of many faiths we can and need to work together. And we need to tell these stories. We need a new public narrative of what people of faiths (plural!) in America are doing together. Who will tell this story?

The River Just Kept Running

The river just kept running all night through our back yard last Wednesday. It had begun simply enough. As I left the seminary about 5 o'clock, the seminary president and I exchanged common thoughts, "Do you think it will rain?" "I don't know. Perhaps."

And then it started about 7:00 p.m. There were the on-and-off-again tornado warnings...which we do heed! Down to our lower level inside hallway Burton and I would go. The warnings finally stopped but the thunder and lightning continued until past dawn. And the rain. Too soon the river of water started across Fremont Avenue to the East when the catch basin there overflowed, forcing all that neighborhood of water into ours. The stream became a river perhaps 40 feet wide. The force was too great for the city storm drain out back and soon the rush of water could have drowned small children. It rushed on over the drain, through the neighborhood and finally to the ravine and railroad tracks beyond. When it was over the 6 inch record for Dubuque had been shattered by l0 to 14 inches throughout the Dubuque area, with East Dubuque particularly hard hit.

Well, when a river runs through your yard all night one can expect that the waters will also come inside. Burton had been awakened and he stayed awake all night. Now, on this fourth day since, the carpets are finally drying out. I need not go into the details of books and papers drying out and all the rest of the clean-up work. All of this is nothing compared to Joplin...or to the droughts for that matter in Texas and Oklahoma we saw just two weeks ago. Yes, this spring meant our needing a new roof because of hail and now a flood. But still, even when the river just kept running, we were ok.

Not so with the more vulnerable. The national news focuses on the debt ceiling crisis. The "clock" just keeps running. How we view the coming deluge is important. How we hear the warning alarms. It is not simply the thunderous noise of politician voices. There is real danger here, for the most vulnerable. A debate is not just neutral when those with the power (money) can keep the vulnerable oppressed. The river that ran through our property simply followed a course to the sea. There are those with any power they can hold on to whose agenda it is to make sure wealth stays with the few, to have government that protects the weak fail and to see that a president that stands for justice is soon out of office.

Now if that sound harsh, consider the figures that came out this week: Whereas Blacks and Hispanics had been gaining in income and "wealth" in relation to Whites, the river of injustice just keeps running, seeking a new course that is devastating, right through people's homes and lives. Now "whites" have 20 times more wealth than Blacks. An article in the Jamaica Observer this Sunday, July 31 written by a woman in the Caribbean diaspora shows how the world sees the disparity. And the world is watching, not just the debate over the debt ceiling, but how the rivers of injustice just keep rolling through our land. Yes, it was a good thing that finally Blacks could share in the American Dream of home ownership, but when the housing crisis came it is now clear, at least to the minorities who suffer, that they were the ones most oversold with sub prime mortgages; they were the ones most likely forced to abandon their homes; and those who were renters lost the roofs over their head not because of hail but because their landlords could not pay the mortgages. Add to that the higher rate of job loss and long-term unemployment and we see the river of injustice just keep running.

Our waters have gone down. We will be fine. How can we carry on the conversation and work so that all will be?

Chairs at the Feet of God

We walked the lawn of the "Field of Empty Chairs" at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum this morning where on April 19, 1995, 168 people, including 19 children, were killed in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. The empty chairs, the reflecting pool, the "Survivor Tree" are beautiful. (I had been here once before, when there was just the wire fence with memorials surrounding the vacant space.) The scene that day was grusome. And terror, violence, rages on.

Therefore the statement of the memorial is profoundly important:
"We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity."

Yesterday we heard stories of survivors and of the education and outreach offered so that people might find alternatives to violence, from bullying to bombing. More needs to be done, of course. I remember so well, the first reaction of this nation: the assumption that the terrorists were from outside the United States, not from within. How far have we yet to go in learning to understand one another? In respect? And yet, I could not but respect this community of Oklahoma City for coming together to have conversation in the public world through empty chairs. May we the living sit down together on chairs for conversations of compassion and compromise in our mutual search for peace and justice.

I use the plural "we" because I am attending DOTAC, Diakonia of the Americas and the Caribbean, which meets every four years, this year, here in Oklahoma City with the theme, "Chairs at the Feet of God." Each of the days we focus on: worshipping chairs, listening chairs, working chairs, resting chairs, and sending chairs.

There are fifteen members groups of deacons, deaconesses and diaconal ministers, including Lutheran, Episcopalian, Methodist, and United Churches from Canada, the United States, Brazil and the Caribbean. This is the fifth such conference I have attended, seeing old friends and new. (Also every four years...therefore two years in between...Global Diakonia meets.) My husband Burton is as eager to attend as am I. Each time I am deepened in my commitment to servanthood ministry, strengthened by the stories of the services of my brother and sister diaconal ministers, and inspired for service to Christ. Diaconal ministry bridges church and world. Once again the conversations across the hemisphere draw us to the feet of God and sends us forth into the public world.

Conversations with my dentist and Jennaya

I’m a gagger! And my dentist of a number of decades knows that. Nevertheless he persists in caringly giving me the dental service I need. This morning, needing work done because of a broken tooth, while waiting for the gums to numb up after his injections, I told him I appreciated his care and that I trusted him, particularly because I gag. “I imagine there are some people who are afraid to come to you.” “Yes,” he said. We talked a bit about trust. And I commented that it’s that way in ministry, too. People need to trust you so that they can open up and tell you what’s really on their hearts so that you can serve them. “Yes, open up,” he said. We both caught the phrase that crossed over our diverse ministries in daily life. We need people to “open up” for us to do our work.

It was time for me to close (my mouth)again so he could proceed. But not before I had noted that pastors need to be careful not to make assumptions about what they will find “inside." People who may seem to “have it all together” may have deep wounds and those who come looking quite disturbed may not be so deeply distressed after all. He continued, both with his work with hands in my mouth, and with a continuing comment of his own: “I find, that, too. I may make pre-judgements about which people really care about taking care of their own health and which ones are too busy. And often I'm surprised.”

We carried on our conversations, across disciplines, his denstistry, mine theology, and found not only new meaning, new ways of conversing, but also new insights about each of our ministries.

My conversation with Jennaya took place across generations. For her 7th birthday, I for the first time put actual dollar bills in her birthday card...seven of them. The morning after the party we had a conversation about money. I don't think she's had much experience with "carrying-around" bills. She has been learning in first grade how to count, particularly dimes and quarters.

I asked her what she might do with her seven dollar? "I'm going to save it," she replied. "Good," I said. Then I went on to ask her what she knew about the things we use money for. To get started I said, "Such as for buying food...." She and I came up with quite a list, including "Paying for the house, their car," and yes, "giving to church." She knew that her offerings went to help people who needed help. And she had experienced her family giving her baby bed to a family that needed it.

But I was a bit surprised when she added to our list, "For work." I said, "For work? But, people pay us for the work we do." She quickly corrected me, "My teacher uses some of her money to buy things her students." She was right, of course. And then I began to think of how often people, including myself actually, do use money to spend on our work." Her own parents, also teachers do, and she has witnessed that. And, given the economy, we pay our own expenses that our institutions used to be able to pay for us.

What is money afterall? And what a privilege to be able to work, to serve, to minister in God's public world, as a seven-year-old and all of us, no matter what our generation. We learned together that morning, Jennaya and I, as we often do.