SOCIAL ENGINERING

As I heard the story Newt Gingrich was on a TV program and he made some negative comments about Representative Ryan’s budget. He called it “social engineering.” That remark was so troubling to Rush Limbaugh that Rush called Newt on the phone. I saw the clip of the call. Rush demanded to know what Newt meant. “What is Social Engineering?” Newt Gingrich said that he was against any time Government tried to tell us what to do. Mr. Gingrich said he was opposed to Government involvement in our lives. He was opposed to Government involvement whether it was from the Liberal side or from the Conservative side. Social Engineering was where Government was trying to control our lives.

On this week-end where we remember those who have died in defense of this country, one has to wonder if they did not die in defense of social engineering. They were willing to give their lives to protect and defend the values and the system of government that we have. And what we have is a system of government that is built on the constant debate about social engineering. The bottom line is that we all want social engineering. We need social engineering. We could not be a society without social engineering. It is just that we have a variety of ideas of how that engineering should look like and be done.

Nobody is opposed to social engineering, government telling us how to behave, when it comes to driving on the highway. Somebody has to tell us all to stay on the “right side of the road.” We want somebody to check our medicines and make sure they are safe. We want somebody to inspect the restaurants and make sure they are healthy. When a beautiful 6 month old little girl gets beaten to death by the mother’s boy friend, there is a great cry that Social Services should have been there and taken the baby. There are just so many things that make our lives together better because Government is playing a major role in trying to protect us all.

But it is just as true that there are major areas where we have a great debate about where Government should be in our lives. Women believe that Government has no right to tell them what they can do with their bodies. There are millions who believe that Government should prevent women from having abortions. There are millions who believe that Government should ban tobacco and all forms of smoking. There is even a baseball executive who thinks chewing tobacco ought to be banned. There are millions of smokers who think that Government has no right to tell them if they can or cannot smoke. There are those who think that government, the school systems, ought to teach evolution. There are others who think government has no right to “impose” that system on them.

Social Engineering, government telling us how to live, is something that I think those who died defending this country would understand. They went and fought as the Government told them. They believed in this country enough to accept the orders of the Government. Social Engineering is the only way we can ever live together. And the great thing about this country is that we have a way to have a debate about how that engineering will look. Part of me thinks Social Engineering is what being a faithful person of religious conviction is all about... building a better society.

If Not Now, When?

There is a preacher who is convinced that the Rapture will be tomorrow. Well, who knows how many people have thought they knew the day and the time, and sat on mountains waiting for it to come? There are some interesting things about that expectation.

One it is only very recent in Christian history that the notion of Rapture and Thousand year reign and that whole schematic has been developed. There was a hope from the beginning of the Early church that Christ would come soon, but the diagrams and the plot line for how it would all turn out is only a couple of hundred years old.

Two, Jesus told us not to worry about when it would happen. Nobody knows and even Jesus said he did not know when God would complete creation and restore it and fulfill the dreams of a new creation: a new heaven and a new earth. So why waste a lot of time trying to do what Jesus told us not to do.

Three, Jesus seemed to me to talk a lot more about how we were to live with each other in this world. Sermon on the Mount, the sheep and the goats, the parables all talked about how we were to love God, love our neighbors and then be a part of the kingdom of God. In fact, the strange things is he talked more about our relation with money than he did almost anything else. He seemed to focus pretty heavily on this world's conduct.

Four, there seems to me that the notion of a "new heaven and a new earth" somehow suggests that we may not be "lifted up and taken away" from this earth as to be a part of that miracle which transforms and renews this earth. So that when Jesus comes we may meet him in the sky but that might be like greeting him on the donkey and we rally with him as he comes on down to earth and completes the creation story.

Five, Why would you imagine that you need to do something different if you are already living as faithfully as you can? If you are one who expects the Rapture, then you probably have been active and faithful in your Christian living, so why worry about it? It has been an abundant life in faith so far, and if Christ comes tomorrow, I expect it will be an abundant life in whatever way He wants to take it. Even So, Come, Lord, Jesus.

The Religious US

The lesson was from Acts and it told the story of the Early church and how they lived together. They studied together and informed themselves on the words of Jesus and the stories from the Apostles. They had fellowship. They worshipped together. They had communion together daily and they shared everything they had with each other. It is pretty explicit that the money that one had was put in a big pot and you took out what you needed. I would have liked to be a part of a church that made that a standing part of the call to worship. Put in what you can; take out what you need. They talked about a community, a one body, one faith, one baptism, one fellowship.

One of the constant themes in my Old Testament studies was the "corporate identity" of the people of Israel. They were one. If anyone sinned, the whole group got punished. All for one and one for all. It was a reality in the minds of the Jewish people. They were to care for the stranger in their midst. They were to leave food in the fields for the poor. They were to care for the whole.

So it certainly feels like we have come a far way from the religious roots as we have moved more and more into a religious attitude that is personal salvation, private religion, and the resentment of any one telling us what to do. We seem to be emphasizing the individual personality and resenting any kind of community limitations or restrictions.

Jesus does not speak to me in a garden alone. That was my grandfather's favorite hymn, so it saddens me to find it so anti-faithful. Jesus speaks to me through the records of the Scripture as they are taught and shared with me by the community of believers called the church, as together we sit under the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus speaks to me in conversation with that tradition of Christian faith that is more than two thousand years old, and in conversation with the reality that we are living on a small planet with billions of other people. It is not all about me and mine. I suspect that lots of time God and the community is not really troubled because I don't feel good or like what has happened. The Corporate community of the People of God is bigger than me, and probably is bigger than just those who are known as Christians. In fact, when you listen to so much of the stuff coming out of places called churches and their individual salvation and their prosperity promises, one wonders whether they want to be part of the Whole body of faith.

Another Step?

Maybe it is another way to talk about life and death. Or another way to speak of crucifixion and resurrection. I am thinking about the words "inclusion" and "exclusion." The recent vote in the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America (PCUSA) to remove the constitutional language that prevented openly homosexual people from leadership, ordination, and public acceptance is but another small step along the way.

I have been reading the History of Great Britain and through out that history is the theme of the expansion of the people who could be in the government. The steady expansion of the vote, the steady inclusion of more and more classes of citizens into the power arrangement. The great desire to exclude people from positions so that the power could stay in the hands of a few and yet changes kept coming that forced the few to include more and more groups.

I think of our own constitution which began with the power only in the hands of white males who had property and worth. Black slaves were not even included as whole people. So we have had a series of Amendments to the Constitution to include in the voting process more and more people. The fight has been long and hard to include women, to include Blacks, to include people without property.

The same fights have been waged within the church as to who could be elected to offices, who could be ordained as Pastors, and who could be in leadership roles. First only men, then after civil war Blacks were included in their own churches, then Women got ordained, and now even some Blacks are welcomed in white churches. The vote this week which gave victory to the Amendment 10A is a vote to include homosexuals as pastors and elders and deacons.

Perhaps the push for inclusion is a push for life, a push for resurrections, because the larger the circle the more gifts and more blessings are possible. The push for exclusion is a push for death because it has a way of squeezing out the joy and the excitement of life. The forces that keep trying to exclude others is a force that brings death to hopes, death to opportunities, death to the opportunities to receive the gifts that others have to give. One can only imagine the kinds of wonderful things we might have had if many of the people who had been denied and excluded from opportunities had been included and invited to share their talents. There was only one tree in the Garden that God excluded from the list of the possibilities. We were invited to enjoy all the rest. A might big inclusion. The Circle not only need not be broken, it needs to keep expanding to the Glory of God.

Jesus: Pacifist or Non-Violent

He asked the question at the table with five other people. The other people were clergy. He asked in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, "Was Jesus a pacifist?" There was a long silence as apparently none of us wanted to be the first. Then one of us said he did not think Jesus was a Pacifist but he did think Jesus was a believer in non-violence. That evoked an interesting debate and some agreement. Jesus was confrontational. He did go to Jerusalem where the power struggle would take place, but he did not call down the legions of angels. He told Peter to put away the sword and healed the bloody ear. He did not back away from confronting people when their behavior was less than what he thought was right. But he did say turn the other cheek. He did say give your shirt if they take your coat. He did say pray for your enemies and bless those who persecute you.

The question does make visible again the great difficulties of living as a citizen of the Kingdom of God and as a citizen of any nation. The events of the death of Bin Laden and the means by which he was killed place a follower of Jesus in a great bind. These decisions and these actions, it seems to me, demonstrate the great tension of being "in the world, but not of the world." Jesus told us we have to be wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.

There are rights, duties, obligations and privileges that come from being a part of a nation. St. Paul even acknowledged that such powers were established for the welfare and happiness of society. But those obligations and duties, those choices, those decisions often are obligations, decisions and duties that run counter to the ethics of the kingdom of God. The world is still the fallen creation that has not yet become the fully realized Kingdom of God. To fulfill the obligations of the Constitution of one country will bring each of us into conflicts with what we understand our obligations as citizens of the Kingdom of God are. It was for this reason, I think, that Martin Luther urged us a believers to sin boldly, and believe in forgiveness.

Would Jesus have approved the assault on Bin Laden? The torture, the invasion of another country (we seem to be getting pretty comfortable with doing that) the assassination? There is a big part of me that does not think that would have been his way, but the President has different choices, different obligations, different responsibilities and only God will be able to judge whether that was justice or not. That is why we depend so much on grace.