Archive for March, 2010

A Christian Simple Living View Of Palm Sunday

admin March 28th, 2010

In church this Palm Sunday morning our pastor mentioned Marcus Borg and John Crossan’s book The Last Week which I had read a year or so ago. I suddenly saw a parallel between Jesus’ Rome and 21st Century America.

Borg and Crossan paint a Palm Sunday picture of Caesar’s army coming into Jerusalem from the West at the same time Jesus’ procession was coming in from the East, and the authors contrast the goals and methods of these diametrically opposed ‘armies.’

We can see the contrast as “the powers” of the Roman government vs. the anarchy (non-power) of Jesus’ radical new approach to life.

Rome, and each of its successive emperors, believed that the only way to have security and peace was through the “Pax Romana” – peace and security through force, thus guaranteeing a long and cushy reign for the emperors and the reigning elites. Rome believed in taking what they wanted and in a world order that would keep things that way. That order was tightly managed everywhere in the empire to be sure that the pax would not be threatened. All of society’s institutions including the religious infrastructure were forced or seduced into dancing to Rome’s tune.

Jesus’ radical way, however, was not ‘against’ the power of Rome, but was rather for demonstrating a way of living that was loving, instead of warring; caring, rather than manipulating; acting compassionately, rather than accumulating wealth.

It was a way of living that did not use force, power politics, self-aggrandizement, or wealth-accumulation. Jesus did not believe in, or use Rome’s power tactics and zero-sum games in confronting them. He did what they did not expect and in a way that did not further inflame the world but pointed toward peace, freedom, and real security.

Today, “the powers” would have to also include our massive consumer culture and its globalized corporations, factories, and outlet malls, along with the governments, worldwide, that support and enable it.

Our empire’s government is founded on the same notion of security as Rome’s, we just try to be more subtle about it and at least make a big show of negotiating with others, but when that fails, as it often does, we very quickly bring out the military to settle the matter. Once in a while that even works – but mostly not, now days. Maybe, as some have proposed, our empire is already in eclipse.

One difference between us and Rome is that multinational corporations play the tune and western governments dance to it in order to keep their power and money flowing. Perhaps even worse, all the elements of the consumer system conspire to brainwash us into believing that the best life – nay, our very survival – is in consuming more and more. Our entire culture, our governments, business and industry, educational institutions, and (gasp!) churches participate in the structuring of every facet of our lives to support this brainwashing.

So today in our Jerusalem, we have military and business armies entering our lives on one side in order to control our ‘good’ behavior and keep the good times rolling, while on the other side Jesus is entering on his borrowed donkey with his motley crew of fishermen and mal-contents.

He wants us to look deep inside ourselves, our neighbors, and our enemies, and see the humanity in each – that they are us and we are them – and begin to treat each other with compassionate care, equality, and justice rather than wasting our time, money, and, indeed, our lives accumulating and throwing away useless junk that merely serves to keep our “empire of junk” running, but which also distracts us from our real reason for living.

So Palm Sunday is really what Christian Simple Living is all about, and we need to find ways of implementing Jesus’ message about what’s really important in ways that do not use our culture’s abusive, disingenuine, and controlling tactics.

We need to be Christian anarchists (not using the tactics of The Powers) while helping our world to see our better way.

I’m a Hypocrite

admin March 3rd, 2010

I just have to clear the air about something before I go on to write any more posts.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Paul’s letter to the Romans. Our adult Sunday school class is doing a study of Romans at the moment, but what has been running through my mind has less to do with the class and more to do with my bumbling, stumbling, sometimes less than simple or faithful life.

I am particularly struck with Paul’s self-revelation that:

“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7:18-20, NIV).

Oh, that’s me through and through! Often as I sit writing these posts I begin to feel hypocritical because they don’t often describe what goes on in my soul or my addled brain. And what goes on in there isn’t always so pure, giving, or simple as some of my posts might imply.

I have written a lot about the foundation of Christian simple living being love and compassion for God’s people and his creation. But I have not written enough about my own struggle trying to be loving and compassionate while at the same time, being far from the genuinely caring person I would like to be and should be.

I have always had a real problem with a low-grade selfishness and defensive anger. I’m pretty good at keeping them under wraps with other people (not to mention while writing blog posts), but they are always lurking around inside my head, twisting my feelings and perceptions. I tend to get frustrated and angry easily when things aren’t going my way, and all of these un-loving traits really put a damper on actually being the kind of person Jesus asks us to be. It is said that loving kindness is supposed to be our natural response to the love God shows for us. But for me it isn’t natural and too often isn’t there at all.

I feel like Paul even to his point of writing “Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” Often my anger at myself and others occurs in an instant – so fast that it takes me by surprise, as if someone else were controlling me. Now, having some professional background in the mental health field, I know that isn’t the case, but it sure feels that way and I know exactly what Paul was writing about.

It can be very depressing because I work hard at trying to change these irrational feelings. I pray and meditate on it daily, and try to become more like what Christ asks of us. But it’s a long hard struggle and sometimes (OK, often) not successful. I feel like giving up.

There is now substantial brain research showing that far more of our behavior and feelings are genetic, chemical, and neurological than mental health professionals used to believe, so some of this comes with us into the world rather than it all being intra-psychic processes. Like substance abuse, these ‘innate’ emotions can make us feel like they’re totally out of our control.

Of course, both from a psychological and faith point of view, regardless of how in-born some of these traits might be, they still belong to us, and we have a responsibility to the rest of the world (as well as ourselves) to tame them and make the best of them. I believe that was inherent in Christ’s message.

So once in a while, I remember that I have made some changes over the years. I have become a little more compassionate and a little less reactive through meditation and prayer. It’s just that I’m not anywhere near where I should be, and I’m terrified that my blog posts make me out to be, what I might call, an intuitive lover: one who loves instinctively and well, and therefore lives a very joyful and naturally simple life.

After all, only someone who is really good at all this, and is well-practiced and disciplined in compassion and living simply would be in a position to write about it for the whole world, right?

Not in my case! I write, not because I’m so good at living this way, but because I think these things are desperately important, and that we should all be working on becoming compassionate Christian simple livers. I believe it’s what Christ expects of us, so we all have to do what we can – being on the journey together.

So I find some comfort in knowing that Paul had his moments too. I guess when you get right down to it though, I’m a neophyte at walking the compassionate talk, and at least a little bit hypocritical. I guess it’s another thing I’ll have to make the best of, because here it is, and it ain’t going away!

So I’ll press on, hoping that you will understand.

Thanks for reading.

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A Christian Anarchist’s View of Lent

admin March 1st, 2010

Another Post in an Occasional Series on Christian Anarchy


As I noted in my February 2 Post “The Perils of Prosperity” and Christian Anarchy, the term ‘anarchy’ does not mean ‘against’ or ‘anti’ authority or government. The ‘an-‘ prefix actually means ‘un-’ or ‘not-’ and ‘archy’ comes from ‘archos’ meaning ruler, therefore anarchy means “no ruler” or “no government.”For the secular anarchist this means being autonomous or being governed only by oneself.

Christian Anarchy

“Christian anarchy,” however, defines the term as having little or no faith in, or being unimpressed with or skeptical of, any organization or principle that claims to have authority over us or some portion of our lives or our society. That would certainly include government of all types, but other organizations as well, including retail stores, manufacturers, banks, schools, churches, fraternal organizations, peer pressure, fads and fashions, as well as psychological and sociological theories. These arkies (to use Vernard Eller’s shorthand term) attempt to govern or control us in some way – usually for their benefit rather than ours – although at times they may benefit us as well, even if that isn’t their intent. The trick is to not pay attention to what they say their intent is, but rather what their actions show their real intent is.

Instead, Christians are ultimately responsible to the rule or governance of God, “The Arky of God”, rather than human institutions or value systems.

This does not mean that we can ignore our government, or that we should never participate in any of the other arkies. As both Jesus and Paul pointed out in different ways, we must give government its due for the sake of good order, and sometimes we have a legitimate need for the others arkies as well.

It does mean , however, that we should have little faith in these institutions and we should not expect them to save us from ourselves or anything else. As we all-too-painfully know, human institutions are sometimes effective but they are also just as often not, therefore they are not to be trusted or depended on and we should not invest a lot of energy in them, because they can slowly, unobtrusively, take considerable control over our lives. And sometimes we don’t even notice the takeover until we’re past the point of no return. That’s how we become addicts. It sneaks up on us.

“The Archy of God”

For the true follower of Christ (or the faithful Jew or Muslim) there is only one arky – The Arky of God – and no other arky is to be allowed to take precedence over it. That was true for the law as well as for the New Testament. So Christians are to be ruled or guided only by God and not by human organizations, simply because our organizations are extremely fallible and ultimately always let us down – not infrequently disastrously. Human organizations have a way of misleading us in the service of the organization’s own goals which all too often, are at odds with God’s intent and sometimes their own founding principles, mission statements, and good intentions.

Simple Living, Christian Anarchy, and Lent

From a simple living perspective this would certainly be true for manufacturers and retailers.  These human arkies constantly push us to consume, throw away, waste, or play trendy fashion games in order to make their living (and then some).

Nothing wrong with making a living or a profit, but there is something very wrong with making either by pushing people to buy what they don’t need, can’t afford, and what might be harmful to them, the environment, or society at large. This is a good example of a dysfunctional human organization that is busy destroying itself and us along with it, thereby proving Christian Anarchy’s point. God said “Don’t do that!” but our human institutions do it anyway, blind to the broad long term effects. And they are not doing these things because they particularly care about our well-being. They’re doing it to make money.

Now here’s an anarchist’s golden example of the contrast between the world’s arkies and The Arky of God, perhaps better known as the Kingdom of God:

During Lent we are asked to “give up” some of our ego-driveness and be a little introspective and penitent for the things we have messed-up in our lives and with our brothers and sisters. For instance in last week’s post I described the carbon fast our congregation is undertaking during Lent to, in a tiny way, ameliorate the damage we have done to creation and society.

Meanwhile, as we plan to address some of our wrong-doing, both the arkies of business and industry, along with the arky of the Federal Government and the arkies of the major political parties are pressuring us to consume still more in order to “get the economy moving again.”

But from the point of view of Christian Anarchy, we all individually and as a society, created this economic mess by caving-in to our personal ego needs in the first place. To a greater or lesser extent (I of course leave it to you to be honest with yourself about the extent of your own involvement) we bought into the notion that we can and should have it all regardless of the cost. Thus we fell in love with and demanded more and more from the world’s  arkies:

  • Manufacturers, for more high-end, high-tech toys, labor saving devices and lifestyle ‘enhancements;’
  • Retailers, for more stuff of all kinds at far lower prices, and
  • Banks, to lend us more and more so we could have all of the above;
  • Investment firms, bigger returns faster on our investments t help fund our wants;
  • The real estate market, so our homes would be worth much more, so we could take out the money to buy still more stuff.
  • Government, whether it was for more freedom, less government, or lower taxes, or more freedom to make money any way we want , or subsidies, or social, economic and health programs of many types, and finally for big bailouts.

We fell under the spell of the secular arkies. We believed virtually everything they told us about who we are, where we should be going, and what we should be doing.

Our Internal Dialog About the Archy’s

“Oh, but not me, or at least not much…” you say.

Wrong. We need to be honest with ourselves.

We have built a huge perpetual motion machine, the “Grand Perpetual Consumer Arky”, that all of us now have to keep in motion by running as hard as we can in our little hamster cages (since, as it turns out, the Machine really isn’t running itself perpetually) until we either collapse from exhaustion or the whole machine collapses in on itself with us inside.

We have shot ourselves in the foot by saving too little, spending too much, and having too little thought or respect for God’s world and His people.

But those are just the outcomes. The real problem is the emotional and moral calculus that each of us carries out in the secret recesses of our minds and souls each day:

“I do like what the Grand Perpetual Consumer Archy is telling me about myself. It’s a really great arky! I really do want those things. I do want to look like that. I like the pleasures and conveniences they give me. I like my social and economic status and I don’t want to give up any of it. This is a nice life!

“But… I feel guilty about it. I know other people are suffering. I know the planet is a mess. I know what Jesus taught us about money and possessions and the needs of others, after all I do go to church (that counts for something doesn’t it?) But it would be so hard to do as he said and give up much of it – or even a little of it.

“OK God, how about a little compromise. Let me do just enough (but not too much!) to get rid of some of my guilt. Or better, tell me it’s OK to have what I already have while doing the little I do for others so I can continue living this way, or… please, maybe let me have just a little more. After all I don’t have as much as the guys on Wall Street! That must make me better already… and deserving of just a little more, right?!

“If you don’t strike me dead with a bolt of lightning on my way to work this morning, I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” OR,

“OK, OK, I’m not even going to ask. I’m just going to let the whole business lay there for a while – maybe you’ll forget about it, huh?”

We all do this calculus, some more, some less: you, me, the whole lot of us.

We have substituted the perverted logic and power of the Grand Perpetual Consumer Archy and all its sub-arkies in place of living in God‘s Archy – because, like Moses’ people, we thought we could do better by sculpting that golden calf all by ourselves!

And it is raising hell with our souls.

This is what we should be penitent about this lent!

More to Come on Christian Anarchy

“Which arkies can I trust, or merely use in this world? Any of them?”

“What does Christian Anarchy mean for me as a practical matter day-to-day?”