Thursday, February 20, 2014

The Ugly Christian


Rodney Wallace Kennedy, Ph.D.
Remember The Ugly American?  First the book and then the movie with Marlon Brando?  Well, now we have the ugly Christian.  Seriously, the country is full of Christians whose brand of love is just plain ugly.  They are judgmental, censorious, pushy, arrogant, and rude.  They are loud, boisterous, and nosey.  Guess what?  I need a twelve-step program for ugliness.  “My name is Rodney, and I’m an ugly Christian.  I am often critical of those who disagree with me.”  Is there a way we can overcome this ugliness and return to the world of truth, beauty, and mutual respect?
The ugly Christian, like a starving carnivore, feasts on the presumed sins of others.  They are like Pharisees: blue-nosed busybodies.  The sins they concentrate on are so microscopic, so petty, and so none of their business.  Yet if you talk to an ugly Christian, he assures you of his love.  He reminds you that he didn’t write the Bible, and he is obligated to enforce what the Good Book says.  A sincere and earnest woman preacher with a large television audience assured an interviewer that she loved the Jews.  When asked if her theology of the rapture, which includes the destruction of almost all the Jews, made her declaration of love false, she smiled and said, “That’s not me talking.  I’m just telling you what God says.”  How can such ugliness – a divinely sponsored holocaust – come from such a pretty face?
I have no doubt that the ugly Christian acts out of a perception of love.  In fact, Christians have one refrain when they are criticized for the way they treat others.  For example, when the ugly Christian talks about gays, he will insist, “I love gays.”  Fred Phelps, of godhatesfags.com swears he is the only person in America that actually loves gays.  This Kansas preacher, who unfortunately bills himself as a Baptist, is so ugly he must have been attacked by the entire ugly forest.
I also, if questioned about my frequent disdain for fundamentalism, say that I am acting in love.  I will insist that it’s nothing personal.  Yet, I know that when it comes to religion, it’s always personal.  For the ways that I am complicit in spreading the ugliness, I apologize.  My purpose is to call attention to the ugliness and find ways we can all move beyond it.
I know.  Christians will be offended by my thoughts.  In that sense I am being an ugly Christian.  That is not my intention.  Ugliness has no party loyalty.  Liberals and conservatives are capable of spewing intolerance and disrespect.  I know that many well-intentioned Christians are trying to protect the morals and values of our country.  I have no doubt of the sincerity of these deeply concerned and easily offended Christians.  They have correctly called attention to the fact that we are a troubled society.  I am aware of how much my own language can be dismissive, elitist, and jarring.  My purpose is to invite all religious people into the conversation, so that we can all concentrate on how to promote beauty and truth instead of ugliness.
Still not buying it?  Well, talk to some of the people who have been damaged by us ugly Christians.  Talk to people hurt and marginalized by religion.  Interview a gay man whose parents and church keep sending him away to retreats where they try to use spiritual power to make him go straight.  Talk to a divorced woman who feels excluded and alone because her church has labeled her unworthy.
Talk to members of our community who are Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist.  Talk to them and learn of the prejudice they face, the humiliation, the condescension, and the patronization.  Ask a conservative Christian how it feels to be treated as an ignorant anti-intellectual.  Ask a liberal how it feels to be called an unbeliever.
How can we tell if we are ugly Christians?  Well if we are short-sighted, conceited, and power-hungry, chances are we are among the ugly.  If we are arrogant, rude, and pushy, we should count ourselves as ugly Christians.  If we believe we have the absolute truth and everybody else is wrong, if we are zealous, judgmental, and harsh, if we are always filled with anger at others, if we demonize everyone we don’t like with devil terms like “radical feminist,” “liberal,” “gay lover,” “socialist,” “unbeliever,” “fundamentalist,” “right wing radical” – if we are any of these or all of them, we are ugly Christians.  If we are unwilling to grant the possibility of being wrong and others being right, we are piling on the ugliness.
The increasing ugliness among Christians causes me great pain, because I believe religion is still our best hope.  In writing these thoughts, I have participated in the spirit of ugliness and I repent of my sin.  Perhaps the title of this article should be, “One Ugly Christian to Another.”  Yet I feel that religious people must be aware of the ways in which we come across to other people.  We could do so much more good if we would not turn off so many people with our mean and ugly spirits.  Let the beauty treatment begin for all of us.  I have an appointment at 10:15 Wednesday morning.

The World Is Crooked


Rodney Wallace Kennedy, Ph.D.
Corporate scandals rock our world often enough to tempt me to believe the world is crooked instead of flat.  My interest increased when I discovered that a number of the biggest crooks are born again Christians.  There’s disconnect between the faith of some corporate executives and their propensity to steal money.  Dare we forget that stealing puts us at odds with the Commandment: “THOU SHALT NOT STEAL” and in cahoots with one of the seven cardinal sins: GREED.
Another surprise: The country’s obsession with sex – heterosexual and homosexual – has escalated to such a fever pitch, it appears that stealing and greed are minor and insignificant vices.  Ann Coulter recently defended Enron’s former CEO by saying that he is no different from George Soros.  She claimed, somewhat incredulously, that both are either saints or both are criminals.  What a strange defense that Enron’s CEO is no worse than any other rich man on the planet.
Why the silence in the churches about stealing and greed?  Perhaps it is difficult for preachers to tell their congregations the truth.  After all, Jesus constantly warned of the dangers of money, and preachers tend to equate fortune with faith.  Greed seems to possess the soul of mainline Christians.  Chaucer’s preacher in Canterbury Tales says, “Greed is the desire to acquire earthly goods and give nothing to those that need.”
But how do we know when we are being greedy?  What would happen if the church confessed its greed-possession and repented?  What would happen to the economy?  After all, we recognize that the economy depends upon a certain amount of greed and the government on some system of “spoils to the victor.”
Perhaps there’s a trickle-down effect with greed.  The media inundates us with images of white-collar crime.  People lower on the food chain get the impression that a little stealing is not bad.  For example, last week my telephone bill had a $38.40 billing from a third party company.  I called SBC and the excellent customer service representative told me that this company was an internet services provider.  I called the internet company.  The nice customer service rep explained that her company was only the billing agency and that I needed to contact the heretofore nameless internet company.  She gave me the number.
I called the internet services provider.  The equally nice customer service rep explained to me that someone in my company had ordered their internet services and she had a telephone tape to prove that the transaction had actually occurred.  I asked her to play the tape for me.  She put me on hold for twelve minutes and thirty seconds (I’m obsessive compulsive and I timed her response).  Once she returned to the conversation, she informed me that they were having technical difficulties with the telephone tape logs.
How did I get this billing on my SBC account?  Sure, it could be a computer glitch.  The sound you hear is my skepticism filling the room.  Here’s what happened.  A sales representative called my 800 number, made out an order form and billed me for the service.
Since I pay my SBC bill online, I rarely look at the itemized charges.  That, of course, is my mistake, but no one has ever actually confused me with a business person.  When I checked previous bills, I discovered that I had been paying for nonexistent internet services for four months.  After chalking up part of that bill to my stupidity (there’s not a better word), you are left with stealing predicated on human greed.  That’s the trickle down from a corporate mentality and a government that winks at stealing and abhors sexual misdemeanors.  You can’t say you believe in God and steal money.
After all, how hard it is for preachers to tell congregants they are greedy, on the one hand, and with the other hand, demand that those same congregants give more money.  The world, as in ages past, is a crooked place.  That is why the prophetic message of the Jewish prophet remains so crucial to our national health: make straight a path in the wilderness.

Crackdown on Unlawful Church Campaigning


Rodney Wallace Kennedy, Ph.D.
For reasons explicable only to people lost in a world of political rationalization, Republicans and Democrats use churches for electioneering.  Ironically, some churches revel in being so used.  When confronted by this fact, both sides say that the other side is just as guilty.  What a circular piece of reasoning.  Since when do Christians justify unlawful behavior by claiming that everyone else does it?  Churches acting illegally and immorally stinks to high heaven.
For once, in the myriad disagreements that churches have with one another, we have a simple solution.  Churches should not become the political prostitutes of any party or candidate.  A church has higher loyalties.  Christians serve the Prince of Peace more than the president.  Christians owe allegiance to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, not the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.  No matter how we dress the modern nation, it is a dangerous institution as it offers with one hand to provide us with services and goods, and with the other hand, it invites some of us to die on its behalf.  As Alasdair MacIntyre says, “It is like being asked to die for the telephone company.”
The church exists as an alternative polis (to use the Greek word for “city” before we slimed it with the word “politics”) constituted “by the new reality of the kingdom of God as seen in the life and destiny of Jesus Christ” (Stanley Haurewas).  The church lives to interpret, critique, and often rebuke the politics of America, not invite it into the house of worship, baptize it, and pretend it has become godly.
Opening the church as a surrogate to a political party violates federal tax laws.  The Internal Revenue Service has released a new report outlining its enforcement of the federal tax law barring partisan political activity by churches and other charities.  In 2004, the IRS examined activities of 132 non-profits.  Approximately 75% of the 82 organizations examined, including churches, engaged in some level of illegal political activity.  As IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson pointedly says, “The law does not allow charities to participate in political campaigns.”  He also notes that a disturbing amount of political intervention took place in churches and warns, “We are going to provide more and better guidance and move quickly to address prohibited activities.”
Some of the illegal activities of churches include distributing materials recommending their members to vote for a particular candidate, pastors using their sermons to endorse/oppose a candidate (19 alleged; 12 determined), disseminating voter guides that encourage members to vote for particular candidates, placing signs on their property that show they support a particular candidate, giving improper preferential treatment to certain candidates by permitting them to speak at church functions, and making cash contributions to a candidate’s political campaign.
While there are preachers telling lies that they have a right to engage in partisan political activities, they should know better, and probably do.  Their claims are false and their activities are illegal.  There is not a single reason that gives churches the legal authority to engage in partisan political activity.
This doesn’t mean churches and pastors shouldn’t preach a biblical message of justice, hope, peace, and courage.  It doesn’t mean that pastors are prohibited from speaking truth to the powers and principalities.  Any church or church leader not actively involved in the life of our culture and society is an anachronism and an irrelevance.  Preachers, however, are called to be prophets of God, not religious spin doctors or spiritual shills for a particular candidate.
The Ohio governor’s race has been making national news because of the increased involvement of religious leaders.  Christians on both sides of the political debate have a moral obligation to report egregious violations of the federal tax law regarding political campaigns.  The church’s integrity, credibility, and honesty are at stake.  After all, we experience a grave loss when we can no longer tell the church from the K Street lobbyists, and we can no longer tell which came first, Southern Baptist preachers looking like Texas politicians or Texas politicians looking like Southern Baptist preachers.
Any church in Ohio that violates the election laws should be reported, investigated, and if necessary, lose their tax exempt status.  This is not a difficult law to understand.  All churches of all kinds should be able to abide by the law.

Dayton Dreaming


Rodney Wallace Kennedy, Ph.D.
All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.
Sitting on a park bench watching the Great Miami River drift through downtown Dayton makes me feel like paraphrasing Otis Redding: Two thousand miles I roam, just to make this city my home. Everything still remains the same. But instead of wasting my time, I’m dreaming of a different Dayton. Sitting on the bench watching the river roll away; dreaming, dreaming, dreaming Dayton.
The early church with its practice of having all goods in common swirls around my head. After all, Christian communities of shared goods do exist in the United States. For example, there’s Reba Place in Evanston, Illinois; a Mennonite congregation in an urban setting. Members of this fellowship have sold possessions, moved into shared space, and practice economic sharing and alms-giving. Our self-interest can hardly imagine an economy based on common need.
O.K. Reba Place is out of the question, but what if a coalition of churches in downtown Dayton held a summit to discuss ways to revive our city? And, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that the summit participants agreed to an action plan.
Members of the congregations move to the city. New homes are built, old homes restored, and more condos constructed.
The downtown churches purchase the 111 Building on the corner of Ludlow and First Street and the Beerman Building on the corner of Main and Monument. These buildings are converted to senior citizen housing and affordable housing for city firefighters, police, teachers, and city employees.
The Arcade opens again – converted, not to a gambling casino, as many fervently hope, but to a multi-story shopping, office, and residential complex. On the first floor, Dorothy Lane Market opens a store. Lord and Taylor opens a store in the Arcade. Restaurants open in the building. At Christmas time the department store windows again spring to life in a reincarnation of Rike’s. Children press cold noses to the glass in wide-eyed wonder.
Streets fill, day and night, with an amazing diversity of people. The sheer joy of aliveness echoes through the corridors. Downtown becomes a walking mall (no cars), with trees, shrubbery, flowers. A new elementary school, a new middle school, and an early college academy open in the city. The Miami River Chautauqua is founded and attracts thousands of visitors each summer to shows, conferences, and seminars.
As the city fills with people, doctors follow and open offices. The Miami Valley Hospital opens an out-patient clinic. The University of Dayton and Wright State University partner with Sinclair to offer additional courses in new buildings. The Dayton Daily News has to open an office back downtown to cover the excitement.
People live, work, walk, play, and worship in a thriving Dayton that is racially, culturally, and economically inclusive. Gays and straights live in harmony and without malice. Young families stroll the streets at night after attending a movie (that’s right, a multi-plex cinema in the heart of the city).
People representing a montage of race, class, and culture learn how to be true neighbors. Old black-white grudges dissipate. The sound of chips falling off old shoulders can be heard on both sides of the river. Angry old black men mellow; mean old white people lighten up. An old city changes from black-and-white to a living color, multi-dimensional urban delight.
Well, I say yes! Dream Dayton! Dream, dream, dream!