Aedificium

Well, the time has come. I haven’t done a seriously political piece since my inaugural post. I was asked today why I support the Democratic Party and not the Republican one, and the question was basically qualified with the suggestion that “when you don’t like either candidate, vote for the Republican one” because that’s the more Christian and trustworthy party.

No. No no no no no no no no no no! I understand the sentiment; I was myself seduced by the 2000 Bush campaign’s “compassioniate conservatism” and voted for a regime that year that has proven to be anything but. I see very little that is Christian coming from the Republican party. Taken collectively as a whole, I don’t really see much of it coming from the Democratic side either.

But I do see it from individual candidates, and when the candidate in question is running for president, I am willing to take him or her as representative of their particular party. And of the two candidates remaining, I am convinced that Senator Obama exemplifies a far more biblical position on ethics, religion, and public policy than any candidate in the 2008 campaign. For me, that is why I support the Democratic party. I believe the overarching rule that guides Obama’s position on policies and issues (to the extent we’ve seen from previous writing, speeches he’s given over the last four years, and current campagining so far) is more biblical than any Republican campaign in recent memory, perhaps since Abraham Lincoln.

I do not say “more Christian.” That is deliberate. It is my studied opinion that, at least in politics, this label is more divisive than unifying. (See yesterday’s post for an example.) “Biblical” may not be any better, but this is at least something I’m willing to take a chance on.

Recently I watched the film Amazing Grace, which is the story of William Wilberforce’s career in the English parliament and in particular his crusade to end the slave trade in the British Empire. Gifted with oratory and strength of will, we see Wilberforce at the beginning of the film struggling with the decision to enter a career in politics or the ministry. Wilberforce’s erstwhile friend and future prime minister of England, William Pitt, convinces him that he can serve both God and the state by using his gifts to challenge the ethics of the empire with the ethics of the kingdom of God.

I see the Republican party as being rich in moralistic ideology, but ethically bankrupt. There is no William Wilberforce in the Republican party, or if there is, he or she has yet to reveal him or herself. Yet I do see a lot of Wilberforce in Senator Obama. While I have no idea if Obama has ever held any dreams of ordained ministry. his faith clearly informs both is private life and his public politics. I believe Senator Obama to be a model for how prophetic faith can speak to political influence, and in how political attentiveness to the Biblical tradition, shared to varying degrees by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, can help the state do a better job of aligning itself with the Kingdom of God, even though it cannot - and will never be - the Kingdom.

I contend that Obama knows this. Read his 2004 speech at the Democratic Convention in Boston. Read his 2006 Call to Renewal Speech. To accuse Obama of having a distorted view of the Bible, as James Dobson does, or to outright accuse him of not being a “real” Christian, as Alan Keyes did in 2004, is to reveal how shallow the conservative understanding of Christian faith is on the one hand and knowledge of the Bible is on the other. There is more to Christian faith than simply being “born again” (which Obama is, in the authentic experience of a life-changing conversion), and there is far more than abortion or gay marriage in the Bible (in fact, the Bible is completely silent on both issues).

So, using Obama’s own 2006 speech as a basis for how his faith and how his deep understanding of biblical ethics informs and influences his life and career, what do we see? (I’m not going to single out issues; I trust you to do your own homework…) IHow about these:

“The majority of great reformers in American history were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.”

“And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, 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” (A Call to Renewal).

“But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.”

“Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”

“If we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice. Imagine Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address without reference to “the judgments of the Lord.” Or King’s I Have a Dream speech without references to “all of God’s children.” Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.”

Finally, in my conversation earlier, it came up that the Democrats place no value in the family, and that Obama hasn’t done anything to change that perception. This is simply not true; Obama has two young children himself and supports a traditional one-parent-staying-at-home environment, as well as families having the final right to determine what is best for their children. But more than that, Obama is on record in his support of the family as the fundamental social unit that will ever be the strength of the nation, and it is one that is similarly grounded in the biblical family ethic.

“Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important. And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation… But if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing – missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it” — Father’s Day Speech, Apostolic Church.

I confess that I have been a fan of Obama since his Boston speech in July of 2004. I distinctly remember saying to myself “if this is what the Democratic party is about now, I’m in.” Not to say that I agree with all of Obama’s policies or even that i think he interprets individual details of the Bible the same way I do. But I do believe that his vision, like that of William Wilberforce 180 years ago, is more consistent with Biblical ethics and the Kingdom of God than the competition’s. Should the Republican party be able to trot out a Wilberforce or an Obama or another Abraham Lincoln, I will be more than willing to give the party a fair hearing. Until then, for this blogger faith and understanding lead me to break ranks with my evangelical brethren and cast my vote for the Democratic candidate for President. Barack Obama in 08.

I’m supposed to be working on the dissertation, but I’ve gotten bogged down in some nasty German linguistics. Last night I was doing some reading designed to kind of “wind me down” and came across what I see as a prophetic comment from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his Letters and Papers from Prison. So much for winding down. I’d love to hear some thoughts on the implications of this for the church today. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

“And we cannot be honest unless we recognise that we have to live in the world etsi deus non daretur [even if there were no God]. And this is just what we do recognise - before God! God himself compels us to recognise it. So our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8.17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering”.

PS - Thanks Jack.

Just came across this, in the latest Orion Magazine:

Doctrine

I love the church
of the osprey, simple
adoration, no haggling
over the body, the blood,
whether water sprinkled
from talons or immersed
in the river saves us,
whether ascension
is metaphor or literal,
because, of course,
it’s both: wings crooked,
all the angels crying out,
rising up from nests
made of sticks
and sunlight.

- Todd Davis

Indeed. It sounds like it could have come right out of Aldo Leopold or something.

… of Matthew 21.31-32. Dedicated to today’s whitened sepulchers.

“Look, I’m trying to set it straight with you guys. The abortionists and gays and the liberals! are gonna be in God’s world before most of you guys who think you’re in the Right. I mean, guys like John, King, and Wallis, and Edwards and Obama talked about hope and justice and you don’t give them the time of day, but “those other guys” do, and even after seeing what King did and Wallis is doing and what Edwards and Obama are fighting for, you still won’t change your minds and believe them!”

Last week I wrote a bit of my personal, experiential observations of our local homeschool coop. So tonight I’m looking to make good on the promise I made that I’d write a follow-up that was more analytical and reflective. So be warned: this is more of an essay than the last piece, but I think it’s a useful exercise for me and perhaps for others as well.

As a preface to my analysis of Homeschooling, I should state up front what I feel the business of education is, or perhaps more accurately, what I believe it ought to be, whether it is college and university education, graduate education, or grade-school education. At the end of the day, my evaluation of education draws most of its inspiration from Wendell Berry, who has not really written systematically about his educational philosophy (so far as I know), but who nevertheless has plenty to say about it scattered throughout his writings. My thoughts on it, likewise, are directly related to my work in the academy, which is to say that it influences what I do in my teaching on the one hand and that my subjects of study shape the reasons I teach at all.

Like Berry, I see the education of young people as being centered on developing the creativity of the individual person in a way that encourages responsible action in the local community and the larger society as a whole. Education needs to embrace a role that leads students develop their humanity in relation to other people and to the physical land where they live. What we teach should be somehow connected to where we are in life (geographically and otherwise) and to where students are. Berry would say that education’s primary role is to instill knowledge that is experiential, relational, creative and imaginative, democratic, local in its orientation, and fundamentally interactive with the natural ecology of where we live. Just so. To the extent that education is individual-centered, I maintain that this individualism (in the classic liberal sense of developing the full potential of the student) is, nevertheless, rooted in the local community in that the “potential” is precisely the ability of the student to contribute to the life of the community through his or her own gifts, place, and so on. Finally, the purposes of education needs to encompass the concepts of goodness and wholeness, which is to say that we need to teach our young people the ability to judge what is good and whole.

Much of contemporary education, however, focuses on the development of “skills” that will make people productive not in their own local community, wherever that may be, but in the global industrial and consumer-capitalist economy. I agree again, here, with Berry, who argues that schools - by which Berry means public schools - are “mind dominated” by outside forces (the global industrial/capitalist doctrine) that essentially dictate what students are to take away from their education. In my work in New Testament, Judaism, Greco-Roman religion, Early Christianity, and Islam, scholars know this kind of imposed “mind domination” by the terms of “cultural hegemony,” stemming from work of Antonio Gramsci. Cultural hegemony is the essentially the ability of those in power (from small communities to global industry and national governments) to package thoughts. It is the ability to control “knowledge production” by packaging the hegmonic power’s ideology into the distillation and dissemination of culture. (more…)

In my recent reading of writing by and about early Christians I started thinking (again) of connections to the modern state of affairs within Christianity. This time it’s over the sheer number of variations on Christianity. This is, of course, the case today; we have the Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church, the SBC, ABC, UMC, and on and on and on. What strikes me, though, is that we define ourselves as Christian, but we also define ourselves in the terms of the type of institutional Christianity to which we belong. “I’m a Methodist!” We also define others in similar terms, as if it’s obvious that we are Christians anyway, so that doesn’t need to be said when identifying another: “You’re Methodist? I had always thought you were Catholic!” (I get this a LOT, by the way.) What is interesting to me is the identification we have with the denominational institution of “the church.”

Backing up 1800-1900 years or so, however, there was every bit as much diversity then as there is now, and possibly more. But the really interesting thing is that there was no real institutional “church” by which to define Christians. Christian identity was far less tied to institutions and their requirements for memberships, like belief, creeds, and so on (these did in fact come, of course, but not in the 2nd and 3rd centuries) than it is now. I’m tempted to say they were lucky that way.

The modern and postmodern church can learn from this. Forget the institution for a minute, forget the dogma and doctrines, forget the “rules” for “being Christian” as established for the last 250 years. Focus instead on the gift of its diversity. Focus instead on the fact that every ekklesia was a local community nourished by its understanding of the gospel messages in their own situation in the Empire, without being concerned with whether or not their understanding fit in with the authoritative, universal party line. Focus instead on praxis, on practice, on people being far more concerned with living their lives in imitatio Christi within that community and less concerned with whether or not their lives conformed with political positions or Churchly standards of conduct.

Sigh. Recovering the memories of this is a task worth undertaking, but it sure is exciting.

In the church newsletter I get from our former church in NH, a fiercely right-wing, conservative evangelical parish, there was tucked into the middle of the thing a little “scorecard” (Democrat Side; Republican Side) for the major presidential candidates. With the NH primaries a couple days away, some comments are in order.

The scorecard begins with a reminder to the church membership that they have a civic obligation to vote in the NH Primary on Jan. 8. Check.

It then quotes Proverbs 29.2: When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people mourn. Here we go. As true as that statement may be, I want to know who, in our day, are the “righteous in authority?” Has the US ever had such an authority? The first potential “righteous authority” that comes to my mind in American History is Abraham Lincoln, who wasn’t even a regular church-goer and who was killed for his efforts. I suppose if “righteous” means “Christian,” we widen the field a bit… probably to the entire line of Presidents. So that’s not helpful. If we limit our choices, then, to evangelical Christians, we’re limited to Presidents from the post-WWII era; and if we go even further, we could limit to candidates endorsed (ordained?!) by the Moral Majority and Religious Right, yielding us Reagan, Bush Sr, and Bush Jr, none of whom can justifiably be termed more “righteous” than anyone else, and who strike me personally as being less on the side of justice than on the side of unbridled capitalism and militarism.

Anyhow, the scorecard then quotes the IRS’ description of churchs’ rights to distribute these types of things (here): “Certain voter education activities (including the presentation of public forums and the publication of voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity” (7). Check; I think that churches have a bit of an obligation to do this kind of thing, but it has to be done in a non-partisan manner, which means listing ALL issues, and not cherry-pick certain ones that the church, or the writer of the newsletter or compiler of the scorecard, believe are the only important issues that a “righteous” leader seeking authority need to be concerned with. The particular scorecard I have in front of me fails this critical test; while it does tell the church who it should vote for (that would be too obviously partisan!), it lists only six issues, and further restricts those issues to particular topics rather than all relevant ones. For example:

Life (the Unborn) and judge appointments.
Liberty - 2nd amendment, gun control
Happiness - Marriage and low taxes (!)
Illegal immigration
US Military vs. Terrorists - Al-Queda (sic) in Iraq

Next to this “issues” column are the Democratic candidates Clinton, Edwards, and Obama with their positions on these issues on one side of the sheet, and the Republican candidates Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, Romney, and Thompson on the other.

Now, let me ask this: these are the only issues that concern the church and that determine whether or not a candidate is “righteous” or not? Is the only “Life” concern just abortion? What about the life of our seniors? How about life issues for capital punishment? Stem cell research? If the church is going to take a stand on the sanctity of life, it had better be the sanctity of all life. But it is not, in this case. And the only issue that concerns “liberty” is the right to bear arms and infringements on that right through regulations on gun ownership and purchase? For the life of me I can’t see why the church would really mark this as an issue that deserves its intervention except for the fact that uncontrolled gun ownership threatens the issue of sanctity of all life. If gun regulations are the only potential threat to “liberty” as an issue, I think we should thank our Maker and do what we can to prevent unbridled weapons proliferation from helping us meet Him. “Liberty” has a lot bigger fish to fry (see: Patriot Act[s]).

Happiness: As an issue, this borders on the absurd. To even suggest that our happiness as citizens depends on our definition of marriage and civil unions on the one hand and low taxes on the other, and to suggest that our happiness should be determined by government, is more insulting to the voters than anything else.

The Immigration category is an interesting one in that this is, I think, the only “serious” issue that doesn’t deal exclusively in stereotypes. It’s still short, one-word “scores,” and they are still kind of hot-buttonish, but at least there’s room here for discussion. The Republican side of the sheet reduces the issue to no driver licenses, strong law enforcement, and the border fence; the Democrat side reduces the issue to Amnesty, welfare and other possible government benefits. For what it’s worth, it seems to me that the church needs to wrestle with this one more than it has and certainly needs to do more than support a border fence (or not) and whether or not illegal immigrants can drive. What would be the prophetic response to this from Jesus or the Hebrew prophets? What would Amos say? The very thought of that gives me the chills.

Finally, the military vs. Terrorists issue, conveniently reduced to “Al-Queda (sic) in Iraq.” Yikes. I quote the scorecard’s representation of this from the Democrats: Clinton would “require warrant to tap comm/,” favors “US Gradual Withdrawal” (bold in original) and is “For openly gays in military.” Edwards would “Move Git’mo detainees to US/” and is for “US Immediate Withdrawal.” Obama: “Require warrant to tap comm/” and favors “US Immediate Withdrawal“. Now, on the other side, the Republican side, the whole thing is reduced for each candidate to “Fights Worldwide” for each and every candidate. (And yes, “fights” is in bold in the original.) This is a caricature that belongs more to political cartoons than a serious voter’s aid. The implications here are that the Democrats don’t care about terrorism, which is patently untrue. It also buys into the Bush rhetoric that Iraq is all about terrorism, when we’ve known for years now that it’s not, and in fact the whole Iraq thing hasn’t reduced terrorism but has put us more at risk for additional acts than we’ve ever been, not just at home, but internationally. This is stating the obvious to most people, but apparently it’s not for others. The church needs to ask the candidates - ALL of them - how its “solution” to the Iraq quagmire reflects justice and not simply law and vengeance (and not simply how their policy tries to fix stupidity, ineptitude, and mass deception, as important as those are right now).

Lastly, a comment on what is NOT here in the scorecard. How can the church, ANY church, honestly feel that gun control is a bigger issue than environmental stewardship? That happiness promoted by lower taxes is more righteous than improving the life of the poor in this country and throughout the world? That definitions of marriage are more important than a just system protecting those who think, feel, and love differently than others? That keeping others out, others who are trying to escape oppressive regimes and systems of gross injustice, and placing sanctions on those who have escaped rather than trying to guide them to citizenship, is a bigger issue than the plight of millions of seniors who are outliving their retirement and social security benefits, and of even more millions of lower-class families abused by an absolutely unjust healthcare system, who have to choose between paying the bills and receiving medical treatment every single day? Where are these issues?

I know the people at this church, and I love each and every one of them, and in the off-chance that the compiler of this scorecard is reading this, I apologize for the presentation and perhaps the tone of this blog entry. I know that he, and the church, mean well, and getting people out to vote, even if it means adopting a partisan line here, is better than telling people not to vote (which does happen). But if we’re going to produce scorecards, let’s make one that reflects the church’s commitment to upholding biblical, prophetic justice and not the old-hat standards of one individual party.

Well, I’ve now been duly chastised by people online and in person for the lack of blogging over the last, oh, 5 months or so. So to kick off the new year, one of my resolutions is to try to blog at the rate I maintained for February-May last year, which was a couple of posts a week (and sometimes every day, but I make no resolutions to that effect). In particular, there seems to be a bit of a clamor for my thoughts on matters church related, especially after the (expected) lack of solicitors for this post a few weeks ago.

So. It’s New Years’ Eve, still another 3 hours before the ageless Dick Clark presses the “drop” button on the Times Square ball some couple hundred miles to the southwest of my present location. And to drop something of my own here, I stick with my advertisement. While I am not actively looking for a new church home, I’m sticking with my assessment, and if indeed some ekklesia does in fact send me an email, I’d love to talk more. And so all I want to know here, on this New Years Eve, is if there’s anyone out there with similar thoughts; pastors, laypeople, elders, deacons, bishops, whatever.

Anyone? Let’s get a dialog going. In the meantime, I’ll be diligent in blogging again, in between working on the dissertation.

I’m home from church, listening to a random selection of some of my Christmas music and thinking about various aspects of Christmas and Advent, Church, St. Nicholas and Santa Claus, and so on. Coffee with cinnamon with a nip of butterscotch schnapps.

Random thought #1. Second week of Advent lights a candle representing Hope. Like last week, the question has to be “What are we hoping for?” Can it be the same thing as waiting? Is it the same thing as expecting? I’m hoping that the Church may experience the Gospel anew. But do I expect it? Not especially. I expect more of the same, but I certainly am not hoping for it. Hope is the audacity to dream of and perhaps even prophesy the unexpected, the utterly new, the totally absurd. Hope is holding a newborn in your hands today and just dreaming the dream that the child lives and that you can leave him or her a world that is a little more like the Kingdom of God than it was when you found it.

Random thought #2. One can’t be faulted for thinking from time to time that graduate education is a Faustian bargain that may very well cost you your religious soul.

Random thought #3. Christmas is easily the most icon-saturated period of time in the entire year. There are more festivals and rituals that go with this season in America than any other American holiday. Most of these do not occur in the churches, but on civic spaces like malls, buildings, family dining rooms, state houses, and public squares and parks.

Random thought #4. What does transpire in the specific sphere of religion is always the happy, feel-good story of the Christ-child’s Nativity. The story itself, should we actually care to look at it carefully, is anything but. Indeed, the birth of the Savior is something worth celebrating and should be celebrated with joy and revelry, as the Romans celebrated the birthday of their own savior Caesar. But the story cannot lose any more context for its meaning than it already has. The Christ was born under empire, and the Gospels describe the Nativity in counter-imperial terms. His birth challenged the Empire of the World; considering America’s position as a 21st century Rome, we need to hear this story challenge us and unsettle us, lest a new Caesar or Herod order another massacre of innocents. Again. And again.

Random thought #5. Many of us know that the songs, images, icons, and general “folkloric” celebrations of Christmas have little or nothing to do with Christianity and the churches over the last 1800 years or so. We also know that much of our Christmas symbolism are “baptized” forms of ancient European and Mediterranean popular culture, and for this reason many Christians of more fundamentalist stripes, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and independent fundamentalist baptists, refuse to observe the holiday because it’s a pagan and Catholic thing, not a Biblical one. There’s a long history of this in the US, particularly from the Colonial Era and into the nineteenth century. But there have always been those who, even while recognizing the ancient pagan provenance of so much Christmas practice and symbolism, have baptized and re-christened the symbols into all Christian icons. Example: the candy cane, simply a confectionary convenience in shape, became a shepherd’s crook. Holly and Ivy became Christ’s crown of thorns and his drops of blood. Four calling birds and the other twelve days of Christmas became the four Gospels. And so on.

All well and good. But there comes a point where it’s too easy to re-christen anything and everything, and what bugs me about this is that the same principles are used to justify the all-pervasive practices of consumption that the Christmas season celebrates and perpetuates. It just galls me that many Christians, individual and collective, try to harmonize a system like this of gross capitalist injustice and advocacy of empire with a faith whose scriptures, which we supposedly consider to be fundamental to our identity, condemns this very thing. Ugh.

Random thought #6. It’s not healthy to watch the Grinch, Charlie Brown, any version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol, and the New Line Nativity Film all in the same week. It’s even worse if you read them in connection with the nativity stories of Matthew and Luke. Result: blogs like this.

This week’s message was a bit related to my own from a couple weeks ago, specifically the idea of Advent being a season of waiting in hope and expectation for “something.” My point (here) was precisely that Advent was the season of waiting and hoping and yearning for something new, but that we are too damn blind, stuck and stupid to really recognize anything new, because “everything” is new every year. Reverend Doctor left us with a challenge to think of something we are waiting for this Advent.

But as my five year old son asked (turning to his mom during the message, in fact!), “What are we supposed to be waiting for?” Indeed! and even better: “waiting is BORING. I don’t wanna wait and especially for something I don’t even know what I’m waiting for.”

Holy smokes, we have a critic in the making. Talk about the faith of a child. My kid’s question and complaint was more prescient than the message itself. Leave it to a 5 year old to liken Advent to Waiting for Godot.

But the kid’s right. That was the impact. In taking up Reverend Doctor’s challenge, you’ve got to ask this question and address the inevitable boredom if you do, in fact, decide to wait around for Godot. Because other than the usual suggestions (at least in liberal protestant sermo-theology) of justice, peace, civil rights in various formats, economic equality, healthcare, and unstated other possibilities (next paycheck, serenity at home, a sex life, overcoming addiction, etc) there wasn’t much of an answer. Is Advent about the possibility of all these? Well, sure. And I’ll be the first to say that these are all vital, essential, biblical, Christian ethical values we should indeed hope for in expectation. But is this any different than the rest of the year? No, and my kid knows it. Advent shouldn’t be just another opportunity to preach the same-old-same-old. This is exactly why we can’t see newness, and power, anymore; liberal churches continue with the program of justice, while conservative churches continue to drill home the narrative of Christ’s coming, his being born-to-die at the expense of really looking at the implications of this for social, prophetic justice. The former leaves out the narrative; the latter leaves out the prophetic (and I’m not referring to the apologetic “prophetic foretellings” of conservative and evangelical churches).

So what am I waiting for here? How about hearing from our pulpits a message that fuses the two? A prophetic message of justice that includes the narratives of Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2? We liberal church people can’t assume that our fellow parishioners are biblically literate enough to simply assume the prophetic and Gospel material is common and assumed knowledge part of our social mnemonic makeup. We’re generally not. That much is clear. We evangelicals can’t assume that we have any clue on what is really going on in the prophets when we read them for Advent. Thirty something years of being brought-up-born-again has revealed that to me as well.

This Advent, I’m waiting for something new. My prayer is that when it shows up, it’ll be like porn; I’ll know it when I see it. This Advent, I’m waiting for nothing less than something as radical and ridiculous as the idea of an unwed pregnant teenage mother bearing a baby at once human and divine who would scatter the proud-hearted, forgive sin, give light to us who sit in darkness, and speak through the mouths of the prophets of old. There is a waiting for this newness, but this waiting is a vigil, and it requires alertness, awareness, sensitivity, and vigilance. It’s not a passive waiting. It’s a waiting that involves getting off our ecclesiological asses and being vigilant in the dark. It’s nothing less than being vigilant for the Kingdom, a Kingdom here and now, always and already and to come. That’s what I’m waiting for. Not the usual; waiting for the usual is, as my son says, boring. If he knew the expression, he’d be dead on if he said “boring as hell.”

Exactly. Come, Lord. And FTLOG, bring Godot with you.