A Crazy Christian for Crazy Times

Jonathan Myrick Daniels - Seminarian, Freedom Rider (1965)

On this day, the church remembers an idealistic young seminarian who lost his life defending a friend from shotgun fire during anti-racism demonstrations in Alabama in 1965.  You can read a biography of him by clicking his name above.

His home church in New Hampshire, St. James: Keene, honored him this past Sunday with a transferred feast.  The Gospel and a sermon, by the Rev. Canon Ed Rodman, can be heard here.

I'm struck by how little we seem to have learned in the years since.  Even as we seem to be making glacial, grudging progress on sexuality issues, there seems to be a tension around race that bubbles much closer beneath the surface than I think I realized even a few years ago.  Sometimes it shows itself in subtle ways, like how people who largely support his policies still won't cut the President a break.  And then there are weeks like this one, where I'm sure -- for those who lived through it --  it feels like Selma all over again.

The nominating committee for the 27th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church released its candidate profile this week and invited members to present their nominees.

Having read the profile, my choice, made quite a while ago, was only more apparent. We have many deeply spiritual and talented people leading us, but yet we continue to be bogged down with apathy and fatalism, and many of our people and congregations have seemingly not overcome their squeamishness about evangelism and offering unabashed welcome. Visiting many churches feels like wandering into a private club whose signs and symbols are presented in a way that makes you feel as if not knowing them means you don't belong.

Meanwhile, outside the walls, the American public continues to equate Christianity with (at best) insipid platitudes and (at worst) attempting to erode their civil rights, fueled largely by the media power of the far-right machine and the politicians it controls. We continue to regard people of color as a threat, mock or disregard those who don't adhere to our expectations of gender and attraction, vilify the poor, and remain largely indifferent to the violence and exploitation going on both here and abroad.

In my admittedly limited experience, there is one person who has spoken truth to these things in a voice powerful enough to be heard over the din. He has, in my mind, the credibility and the charisma to wake this church up and inspire it for true mission, and he does so with grace and self-effacing humor.

For this reason I have informed the Committee that I nominate the Right Rev. Michael Curry, sitting bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina, to lead us forward.

If you are not familiar with Bishop Curry, and haven't seen it the last 4,962 times I have shared it, please screen his sermon from our last General Convention, "We Need Some Crazy Christians". It is, I promise you, well worth your time, and I trust you will understand my enthusiasm.  

And if you've seen that one, watch this one, which was given at the annual Convention of the Diocese of Connecticut.  He addresses the very squeamishness I speak of above and the effect it is having on our ability to reach people.  Oh, and baseball.

If he wins, I believe we need to devote considerable resources to get Curry's message beyond our own membership and to the world at large. We need to support him in this as if our very future depends on it, because it very well might.

I Can't Hear You

John & Charles Wesley - Renewers of the Church (1703-1788, 1707-1791)

"Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them."

ESTHER 3:8

Groggers, by Avi Schwab
Used under Creative Commons License

There is in the Jewish tradition a historical character so repugnant that -- when his name is said aloud -- the congregation produces such a racket so that they don't have to hear it pronounced.  When the Book of Esther is heard during the feast of Purim, there is even a special percussion instrument called a grogger that is used to generate some of the noise.  The sound it creates is a sharp and dry, much like the warning of a rattlesnake.

I like to think that there are few people in our contemporary lives who conjure up such profound universal dislike.  Of course there have been despotic figures throughout history -- responsible for swaths of misery and death -- whom we could agree the world would have been better off without. 

I can, however, think of one contemporary American family that probably fits that description.  While their actions are nowhere in the scope of the atrocities committed by Haman or Hitler, they manage to conjure up much of the same reaction.  And that is by design.  They want you to hate them.  They want you to hate them because they want you to talk about them, tell people about them, come out to confront them and possibly let your emotions get the best of you and do something for which they can -- shrewd scholars of the law that they are -- take you to court, where they will most likely win.  That's how they can afford to seemingly be everywhere at once, and -- now that they have forced America to once again acknowledge that even hateful speech is protected under our law -- they have vowed to redouble their efforts.

We wanted free speech, and now we've seen what that can sometimes cost.  As upsetting as it is to see such vile people be handed a victory, I do not think the Supreme Court could have ruled any differently. Once you start deciding that some speech is subject to censure, you're opening the door for any opinion that is unpopular to be repressed. As we have seen during certain political conventions, even as it is the First Amendment does not protect protesters when the vague claim of a security threat trumped their right to assemble peacefully and speak their minds. Do we really want to open the door for courts or -- worse -- legislators to decide what speech should be protected and what is fair game for punishment?

What upsets me more is the knowledge that the outrage of the public, now that the targets include military families, Catholics, the Swedish, Queen Elizabeth and whatever other group has managed to cross their delusional paths, was pretty much non-existent when the only people whose funerals were being picketed were AIDS patients. Where was Sarah Palin then?

So what do we do?  One school of thought -- which seems logical -- is that we respond to the way civilized people respond to an act of shocking incivility whose only purpose is to gain attention: we stop rewarding it with more attention.  Readers should tell news outlets "This is not news. Stop covering it." Interviewers should not kid themselves into thinking they will be the one who can foster a rational conversation.  Counter-protesters should stop thinking they will get the upper hand. Satirists should stop going for the easy laugh by giving them a platform for their bile.

We have tried it.  It didn't work.  So stop rewarding the behavior.  Turn your back.  Don't react.  Stop feeding the beast and maybe it will go away. After all, with any miscreant you encounter, what happens next is as much about you as it is about them.  In this case, they may serve us Christians well, because -- in a scramble to make sure others know we're not like that -- its up to us inclusive types to witness to our own understanding of who God does and doesn't hate.

If that doesn't work, maybe we should all be issued groggers.

An Hour (And Halfway Around the World) Away

Last month, a Certain Party and I -- along with some friends and (briefly) my mom -- spent some time in Florida.  The beginning of the trip was our annual week on the beach on Captiva Island, and this year, for variety we drove across the state to visit a former co-worker and her husband near Palm Beach, then up to Orlando for a few days in the theme parks.

Our route, skirting the southern and eastern edges of Lake Okeechobee, took us through orange and sugar country, a part of Florida most visitors never see.  We had lunch in Clewiston, a busy if not thriving town with a big K-Mart and a Goodwill store, and shared the restaurant with a cluster of Mennonites, their traditional dress incongruous with the brightly colored Formica and florescent lights. 

We made a wrong turn in Pahokee, whose nickname "the muck" was aptly chosen; it is surrounded by thousands of acres of soggy fields.  Once a thriving center of commerce, big agribusiness has left Pahokee chewed up in its wake.  Most of the businesses have closed, and the 6,000-odd residents were left without much opportunity or hope, as President Obama learned when interviewed by town resident Damon Weaver, then 10.  Many residents seemed to be just hanging around, waiting for something -- anything -- to happen.  The only other ticket out seems to be football, as this tiny town has sent at least seven players to the NFL.

Pahokee 4, by Christopher Dick 2006.  Series on Flickr.
Used under Creative Commons License

From there, it was only about an hour to Hobe Sound, where our friends live.  The acres of fields and weathered shacks abruptly give way to gated driveways, manicured lawns, faux-Spanish patio homes and lush  non-native vegetation. An hour away, but it could have been halfway around the world as we chased alligators on golf carts and enjoyed drinks by the pool. 

As kids we visited Florida a number of times, always driving down.  I remember only snippets of those trips, but I'm old enough that overt signs of institutionalized racism were likely quite evident to someone who knew to look for them.  Now, as so many of America's towns have been pounded into corporate cookie-cutter sameness, it's harder to get a sense of what was, and easy to forget how badly we acted, not very long ago.  But you only have to look at the differences between places like Hobe Sound or even Clewiston and Pahokee to see that -- while some of us have been lucky enough to enjoy the fruits of progress -- there are still plenty of us who have been left behind. Those distinctions are not always drawn on racial lines, but the pattern of boxes you check still makes a big difference in how big your slice of American Pie will be.

Thus I was glad to hear that the Cathedral Church of St. Peter & St. Paul in Washington DC (known by most as the National Cathedral) is in the process of installing a bust of Rosa Parks above a doorway.  I learned recently that it was at the pulpit in this same church where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered the last Sunday sermon, entitled "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution"  before his assassination in 1968.