It's a modern day Romeo and Juliet. It's one of the most important tv shows of the last decade. And it completely explains what we're seeing these two weeks at General Conference. And I don't blame you for not watching it. No one did. Which is why it was canceled after just one season.
People who know me will not be surprised to hear its an Aaron Sorkin show: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. While many would be right to suggest I overhype anything done by Aaron Sorkin, I truly think this one season of television was incredibly important for its portrayal of the culture wars. While the show is about a late night sketch comedy show, the real focus of the show is the divide between different segments of culture told through both personal and corporate levels. The corporate level looks at the president of the network's dealings with the chairman and the board as her less than saintly life is paraded through the press. The personal level is two-fold: both in the love story between the conservative-evangelical cast member, and the liberal-agnostic head writer, and in the story of the head writer and head producer's firing years before told in reverse. Initially the show presents the cultural problem and deep divide facing our country, particularly on religious and political fronts. It ultimately asks the question: can these divides be bridged? On a personal level it seems to answer yes, with the cast member and head writer coming together and love conquering all. On a corporate level the answer is much more ambiguous.
As I watched General Conference this year, I was struck by how the culture wars have not stopped in the years since Studio 60 or the years since Bush left office. Instead, I think they've only gotten worse. Studio 60 cast part if not all of the culture wars as being shaped by religion. Can evangelicals in this country talk to people who could care less about religion? But even in a room full of Christians, it seemed as if we couldn't talk to each other. In the last five years, we have become even more segmented, even more entrenched in the culture and viewpoints of our little corner of the world.
Young and old. Male and female. American and international. Liberal and conservative. Protestant liberal and evangelical (fundamentalist). Southern and northern. Eastern and western. South east Jurisdiction and everyone else. The culture wars are no longer fought on one battlefield. Instead, we have countless skirmishes on any issue we can. We have countless alliances between different demographic groups. But those alliances are as tenuous as the chord keeping us all together. As I watched General Conference I felt sad that the more we talk about things, the farther and farther we seem to get. As I watched General Conference I was depressed that as the demographic distinctions grow, so does the mistrust.
At the end of his documentary on the Allen Iverson Trial, Steve James says, "Maybe Allen Iverson's troubled life also holds a mirror up to us: when it comes to our own complicated struggles over race and class, justice and injustice, retribution and redemption, what do we want our children to see?" To that end, maybe General Conference is holding a mirror up to us. And maybe the general discomfort we are all feeling is that we do not like the church we are showing our children, the church we are showing our congregants, the church we are showing the world. Maybe we don't like the culture wars to which we feel ourselves becoming submissive. Maybe we don't like the trenches in which we find ourselves living and for which we find ourselves fighting. Maybe we don't like what we see.
At the end of the day I think Aaron Sorkin wrote Studio 60 for two reasons. I think Steve James made a documentary on the Allen Iverson trial, a trial that's almost twenty years old at this point, for two reasons. I think both of these men wanted to dramatize the situation, to dramatize reality, to present reality to us in no uncertain terms. But I also think these men did this because there is something about naming that allows situations to move forward. There is something about naming a political, religious, or racial divide that provides a future for us to bridge the divide. There is something about naming the problem that allows for hope.
We need to name our differences. We need to name our divides. We need to name our mistrusts and our fears and our anxieties. We need to be able to name the assumptions we carry. We need to be able to name our concerns. We need to be able to name the elephant in the room because that is the only way forward.
I don't know what it would look like to name who we are, where we come from, and what we really care about at General Conference. But I believe that the only way for us to grow as a healthy community and to begin to cross some of these divides it to name our disagreements. Let's create a healthier church, because I'm tired of what this mirror is showing me.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Human Sexuality
I should say from the outset that the conclusions I will draw on Human Sexuality are my own and do not represent the ethics, beliefs, or theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The method, however, will be his. The conclusions will be mine.
If you have ever heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, chances are you know he tried to kill Hitler. Well, more accurately he was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. The plot was discovered by the SS, Bonhoeffer was identified as a part of the conspiracy, and then he was placed in a Concentration Camp and ultimately killed for his role in the conspiracy. If you have ever heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, chances are you already knew that. What you might not know is that Bonhoeffer was a committed pacifist.
The next question rightly becomes: How can a committed pacifist have been involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler? And the crazy thing is, Bonhoeffer's actions were entirely consistent with his ethics. In order to explain this, I'll have to turn to his essay, "Christ, the Reality, and the Good." I do this not as an academic exercise for intellectual curiosity (although there is merit in that), but because I think Bonhoeffer's Christian ethic is exactly what's needed at this point in time and might help bridge the divide we see in the debates on Human Sexuality in the Christian church.
Bonhoeffer begins the essay saying, "Those who wish even to focus on the problem of a Christian ethic are faced with an outrageous demand--from the outset they must give up, as inappropriate to this topic, the very two questions that led them to deal with the ethical problem: 'How can I be good? and 'How can I do something good?' Instead they must ask the wholly other, completely different question: what is the will of God?" He is right on. Oftentimes in Christian ethics we seek to do the good, to do the right thing. But, as Bonhoeffer explains, "When the ethical problem presents itself essentially as the question of my own being good and doing good, the decision has already been made that the self and the world are the ultimate realities. All ethical reflection then has the goal that I be good, and that the world--by my action--becomes good." However, for Christians, that is not the correct starting point. The self and the world are not the ultimate realities, no matter what the Enlightenment and modernity attempt to tell us. For the Christian, the ultimate reality is God and God's revelation of God's self in Jesus Christ. That is the center of everything for Christians.
It is this concern, the centrality of God in Jesus Christ, that leads Bonhoeffer to assert positively that, "If it turns out, however, that these realities, myself and the world, are themselves embedded in a wholly other ultimate reality, namely the reality of God the Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer, then the ethical problem takes on a whole new aspect. Of ultimate importance, then, is not that I become good, or that the condition of the world be improved by my efforts, but that the reality of God show itself everywhere to be the ultimate reality." The implications of this completely change the center of ethical reflection, which is shown in the way Bonhoeffer concludes this introduction. He writes, "Where God is know by faith to be the ultimate reality, the source of my ethical concern will be that God be known as the good, even at the risk that I and the world are revealed as not good, but as bad through and through." When this is the beginning and end of Christian ethics, new freedom and imagination becomes possible. Freedom and imagination that I am not seeing as I watch the United Methodists gather at General Conference.
Before switching gears completely to modern issues, I want to stay in Bonhoeffer for a bit to further highlight how his ethic lives and works in real life. Because of the way Bonhoeffer interprets the center of Christian ethics, his focus is not on doing good, but on acting responsibly. "Responsible action" becomes almost a technical term in Bonhoeffer's ethics and it is rooted in the original question at the heart of Christian ethics: what is the will of God? For Bonhoeffer, the will of God is not just a stand in for 'good', but rather touches on the the Christological center of his argument. He writes, "We said at the beginning that the question of the will of God must take the place of the question about one's own being good and doing good. But the will of God is nothing other than the realization of the Christ-reality among us and in our world. The will of God is therefore not an idea that demands to be realized; it is itself already reality in the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The will of God is neither an idea nor is it simply identical with what exists, so that subjection to things as they are could fulfill it; it is rather a realty that wills to become real ever anew in what exists and against what exists." The will of God is the Christ-reality continuing to take form in our world. As Christians, we are called to announce and celebrate the Christ-reality in our world. We notice the will of God as it takes shape in the crucible of lived reality. Christian ethics is not discerning and determining the will of God as if it existed ethereally. Instead, it is a positive statement of where the Christ-reality is taking shape in the world.
Then what is the Christian to do in the crisis moments of lived experience? Act responsibly. Again, this is a technical term in Bonhoeffer that represents how Christians ought to act in the world. Essentially, responsible action is following the conscience. It is doing what we believe to be right in a given situation. Except there is one caveat: an admission that we might be wrong. It is an ethical codification of Luther's (probably apocryphal) maxim, "Here I stand, I can do no other." About responsible action, Bonhoeffer writes, "The man who acts out of free responsibility is justified before others by dire necessity; before himself he is acquitted by his conscience, but before God he hopes only for grace." This is most helpfully explained by looking at Bonhoeffer's decision to engage in the plot to assassinate Hitler.
Bonhoeffer never said he was right. Bonhoeffer never said that violence was against God's will unless the person was realllllllllllly bad. Bonhoeffer never wavered on his stance that to kill was sin. But in that moment, he could not do anything other than be a part of the plot to kill Hitler. Given the situation, the responsible thing to do was to take part in the conspiracy. It wasn't good. It wasn't right. But it was the only thing he felt he could do and still be able to look himself in the mirror.
So we see that there are sometimes when we can't do 'good'. Or at least to say we are doing 'good' is merely a veiled attempt at justifying ourselves before God and the world. But the Christian message is we have no justification for ourselves. We aren't good. We don't do good. But if our concern was that God would be the good, if our concern that God would be seen as the good, then we would be free to attempt to be responsible. Bonhoeffer did what he thought was necessary all the while knowing that the Sermon on the Mount stood in direct opposition to his actions. He did not attempt to justify himself or his actions before God. Instead, he did what he had to do and hoped (even to say trusted would be too far) that God would have grace for him.
I wish we could do the same. What Bonhoeffer's ethics enable him to do is to say two things that we Christians find so difficult to say: "I don't know" and "I might be wrong." Bonhoeffer knew that Jesus said "Do not kill." Rather than cheapen the words of Christ in order to save himself, he damned himself in order to keep the words of Christ.
I watched this morning as a petition was defeated at General Conference. This petition (actually there were two of them) wanted to add language to the Book of Discipline that United Methodists disagree on issues of human sexuality. I wish we could admit that officially. I wish we could admit we disagree. I wish we could admit that we are torn. I wish we could admit that we don't all speak with one voice. I wish we could admit that we don't know. And that we could be wrong.
I know what Scripture says. I know what Scripture says about human sexuality, what Scripture says about love, what Scripture says about acceptance. I know all the arguments on all sides. I also know that the love that couples of the same sex and gender have for one another is real. I know that LGBT Christians are incredibly faithful and committed. Their witness is right and true and faithful and holy. I also know that progressive and conservative Christians are faithful and committed and their witness is right and true and faithful and holy. That is what I know.
Where should we go from here? Who should be allowed to do what and where? Who is right and who is wrong? What do we make of Scripture? Those are the things I don't know.
I don't know. But I can't tell anyone they aren't wanted. I can't tell anyone they aren't loved. I can't tell anyone that a core part of who they are as a person is wrong. I can't tell anyone that the love the feel for another is tainted and against nature. I cannot do that and still look at myself in the mirror.
So here I stand, and I can do no other. This is where I am, this is how I feel. But yet, I admit that I might be wrong. Can no one else admit the same?
Praise be to the one who alone is good, the almight and all loving God. One day he will sort this all out...
If you have ever heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, chances are you know he tried to kill Hitler. Well, more accurately he was involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. The plot was discovered by the SS, Bonhoeffer was identified as a part of the conspiracy, and then he was placed in a Concentration Camp and ultimately killed for his role in the conspiracy. If you have ever heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, chances are you already knew that. What you might not know is that Bonhoeffer was a committed pacifist.
The next question rightly becomes: How can a committed pacifist have been involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler? And the crazy thing is, Bonhoeffer's actions were entirely consistent with his ethics. In order to explain this, I'll have to turn to his essay, "Christ, the Reality, and the Good." I do this not as an academic exercise for intellectual curiosity (although there is merit in that), but because I think Bonhoeffer's Christian ethic is exactly what's needed at this point in time and might help bridge the divide we see in the debates on Human Sexuality in the Christian church.
Bonhoeffer begins the essay saying, "Those who wish even to focus on the problem of a Christian ethic are faced with an outrageous demand--from the outset they must give up, as inappropriate to this topic, the very two questions that led them to deal with the ethical problem: 'How can I be good? and 'How can I do something good?' Instead they must ask the wholly other, completely different question: what is the will of God?" He is right on. Oftentimes in Christian ethics we seek to do the good, to do the right thing. But, as Bonhoeffer explains, "When the ethical problem presents itself essentially as the question of my own being good and doing good, the decision has already been made that the self and the world are the ultimate realities. All ethical reflection then has the goal that I be good, and that the world--by my action--becomes good." However, for Christians, that is not the correct starting point. The self and the world are not the ultimate realities, no matter what the Enlightenment and modernity attempt to tell us. For the Christian, the ultimate reality is God and God's revelation of God's self in Jesus Christ. That is the center of everything for Christians.
It is this concern, the centrality of God in Jesus Christ, that leads Bonhoeffer to assert positively that, "If it turns out, however, that these realities, myself and the world, are themselves embedded in a wholly other ultimate reality, namely the reality of God the Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer, then the ethical problem takes on a whole new aspect. Of ultimate importance, then, is not that I become good, or that the condition of the world be improved by my efforts, but that the reality of God show itself everywhere to be the ultimate reality." The implications of this completely change the center of ethical reflection, which is shown in the way Bonhoeffer concludes this introduction. He writes, "Where God is know by faith to be the ultimate reality, the source of my ethical concern will be that God be known as the good, even at the risk that I and the world are revealed as not good, but as bad through and through." When this is the beginning and end of Christian ethics, new freedom and imagination becomes possible. Freedom and imagination that I am not seeing as I watch the United Methodists gather at General Conference.
Before switching gears completely to modern issues, I want to stay in Bonhoeffer for a bit to further highlight how his ethic lives and works in real life. Because of the way Bonhoeffer interprets the center of Christian ethics, his focus is not on doing good, but on acting responsibly. "Responsible action" becomes almost a technical term in Bonhoeffer's ethics and it is rooted in the original question at the heart of Christian ethics: what is the will of God? For Bonhoeffer, the will of God is not just a stand in for 'good', but rather touches on the the Christological center of his argument. He writes, "We said at the beginning that the question of the will of God must take the place of the question about one's own being good and doing good. But the will of God is nothing other than the realization of the Christ-reality among us and in our world. The will of God is therefore not an idea that demands to be realized; it is itself already reality in the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The will of God is neither an idea nor is it simply identical with what exists, so that subjection to things as they are could fulfill it; it is rather a realty that wills to become real ever anew in what exists and against what exists." The will of God is the Christ-reality continuing to take form in our world. As Christians, we are called to announce and celebrate the Christ-reality in our world. We notice the will of God as it takes shape in the crucible of lived reality. Christian ethics is not discerning and determining the will of God as if it existed ethereally. Instead, it is a positive statement of where the Christ-reality is taking shape in the world.
Then what is the Christian to do in the crisis moments of lived experience? Act responsibly. Again, this is a technical term in Bonhoeffer that represents how Christians ought to act in the world. Essentially, responsible action is following the conscience. It is doing what we believe to be right in a given situation. Except there is one caveat: an admission that we might be wrong. It is an ethical codification of Luther's (probably apocryphal) maxim, "Here I stand, I can do no other." About responsible action, Bonhoeffer writes, "The man who acts out of free responsibility is justified before others by dire necessity; before himself he is acquitted by his conscience, but before God he hopes only for grace." This is most helpfully explained by looking at Bonhoeffer's decision to engage in the plot to assassinate Hitler.
Bonhoeffer never said he was right. Bonhoeffer never said that violence was against God's will unless the person was realllllllllllly bad. Bonhoeffer never wavered on his stance that to kill was sin. But in that moment, he could not do anything other than be a part of the plot to kill Hitler. Given the situation, the responsible thing to do was to take part in the conspiracy. It wasn't good. It wasn't right. But it was the only thing he felt he could do and still be able to look himself in the mirror.
So we see that there are sometimes when we can't do 'good'. Or at least to say we are doing 'good' is merely a veiled attempt at justifying ourselves before God and the world. But the Christian message is we have no justification for ourselves. We aren't good. We don't do good. But if our concern was that God would be the good, if our concern that God would be seen as the good, then we would be free to attempt to be responsible. Bonhoeffer did what he thought was necessary all the while knowing that the Sermon on the Mount stood in direct opposition to his actions. He did not attempt to justify himself or his actions before God. Instead, he did what he had to do and hoped (even to say trusted would be too far) that God would have grace for him.
I wish we could do the same. What Bonhoeffer's ethics enable him to do is to say two things that we Christians find so difficult to say: "I don't know" and "I might be wrong." Bonhoeffer knew that Jesus said "Do not kill." Rather than cheapen the words of Christ in order to save himself, he damned himself in order to keep the words of Christ.
I watched this morning as a petition was defeated at General Conference. This petition (actually there were two of them) wanted to add language to the Book of Discipline that United Methodists disagree on issues of human sexuality. I wish we could admit that officially. I wish we could admit we disagree. I wish we could admit that we are torn. I wish we could admit that we don't all speak with one voice. I wish we could admit that we don't know. And that we could be wrong.
I know what Scripture says. I know what Scripture says about human sexuality, what Scripture says about love, what Scripture says about acceptance. I know all the arguments on all sides. I also know that the love that couples of the same sex and gender have for one another is real. I know that LGBT Christians are incredibly faithful and committed. Their witness is right and true and faithful and holy. I also know that progressive and conservative Christians are faithful and committed and their witness is right and true and faithful and holy. That is what I know.
Where should we go from here? Who should be allowed to do what and where? Who is right and who is wrong? What do we make of Scripture? Those are the things I don't know.
I don't know. But I can't tell anyone they aren't wanted. I can't tell anyone they aren't loved. I can't tell anyone that a core part of who they are as a person is wrong. I can't tell anyone that the love the feel for another is tainted and against nature. I cannot do that and still look at myself in the mirror.
So here I stand, and I can do no other. This is where I am, this is how I feel. But yet, I admit that I might be wrong. Can no one else admit the same?
Praise be to the one who alone is good, the almight and all loving God. One day he will sort this all out...
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