Category: History

The Shining City, The Waning Light & the Howling Wolves

To those looking for a home that would be free

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I became an adult in 1978. I actually met the first George Bush at a political rally in Iowa in 1980. I supported Anderson in the primary because of his anti-nuclear stance, but Ronald Reagan won the primary. The first presidential election I voted in was 1980 when Reagan was elected to the White House.

By 1989, I was in law school (married with three children). I don’t remember Ronald Reagan’s exit speech from the White House. Life was pretty full for me then, but I have heard it since then, and I read it again tonight. These words I have copied from that speech as it is published on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum website:

“You know, down the hall and up the stairs from this office is the part of the White House where the President and his family live. There are a few favorite windows I have up there that I like to stand and look out of early in the morning. The view is over the grounds here to the Washington Monument, and then the Mall and the Jefferson Memorial. But on mornings when the humidity is low, you can see past the Jefferson to the river, the Potomac, and the Virginia shore. Someone said that’s the view Lincoln had when he saw the smoke rising from the Battle of Bull Run. I see more prosaic things: the grass on the banks, the morning traffic as people make their way to work, now and then a sailboat on the river.

I’ve been thinking a bit at that window. I’ve been reflecting on what the past 8 years have meant and mean. And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one — a small story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea. The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him. He yelled, ‘Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.’

….

The past few days when I’ve been at that window upstairs, I’ve thought a bit of the ‘shining city upon a hill.’ The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we’d call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.

I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”

Ronald Reagan’s shining city is the United States of America that I grew up with. Tall and proud, blessed by God, and teeming with people in a grand melting pot from every nation in the world. The harmony and peace were not always evident, but freedom stood firm against any assault.

“And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.” My ancestors entered those doors at various times between the late 1700’s and late 1800’s with the will and heart to make better lives for themselves.

Many people come here today with the same hopes and dreams, but our windswept shores were rocked by 9/11, and “the freedom man” was cowered. We have retreated behind self-protective ideologies and our light is waning behind the walls of our fear.

Perhaps, my favorite band over the past several years or more is Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange). I am a sucker for a good mandolin solo, and Andrew Marlin is a virtuoso of tasteful mandolin solos sprinkled effortlessly and seamlessly at the right times over compelling melodies, poignant harmonies and simple but profound lyrics.

One of my favorite Watchhouse songs is Wolves. It tells a new story. I will leave the embedded video of a live performance of the song with the lyrics to follow and some hope that we can find the harmony to our the values that once made us a better nation.

There she stands, so tall and mighty
With her keen and watchful eye
And the heart of a mother
Holding out her guiding light
It’s a hard road to travel
It’s old rock from end to end
The sun, it rises on her brow
And sets upon the great expanse

Everything’s so great, can’t get better
Makes me wanna cry
That I’ll go out howling at the moon tonight

There she stands, so tall and mighty
Her gaze facing the East
At her back our doors are closing
As we grin and bare our teeth
On the wind the wolves are howling
She cries to draw them near
Well turn around, turn around my darling
Oh, the wolves are here

Everything’s so great, can’t get better
Makes me wanna cry
But I’ll go out howling at the moon tonight
Yeah, I’ll go out howling at the moon tonight

The Birthright Citizenship Case Exposes a Constitutional Crisis Unfolding

The determination of birthright citizenship case may take years to sort out, but the balance of the separation of powers is at stake now.

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The determination of birthright citizenship case may take years to sort out, but the balance of the separation of powers is at stake now.

The Birthright Citizenship Case Exposes a Constitutional Crisis Unfolding

Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

How do we faithfully follow Jesus in a divided world?

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My daily Bible reading plan this morning began with this simple question:

How do you faithfully follow Jesus in a divided world?

(See the YouVersion plan called Fighting for Unity in a Divided World)

Judging by my social media feed, this question is poignantly apropos. It’s not just “people in the world” I see at odds with each other. I see many people posting memes under the banner of Christ, getting their lobbing verbal grenade’s at “the people in the world” and fellow Christians, alike.

I confess I have difficulty not being blunt, and for that I ask for your grace when I say that the spectacle saddens me. Humans have always lived in a world dominated by rising and falling empires, but Jesus came preaching a kingdom not of this world. Almost 2000 years after Jesus died and rose again to emphasize the Good News he proclaimed, we still fly our empire banners alongside Christ.

It wasn’t always like that, though. For almost three centuries after Jesus died on the cross at the hands of the Roman Empire, his followers proclaimed the Gospel without any influence or power in the world. His followers were mocked, derided, and marginalized, and they suffered cycles of persecution culminating in the Great Persecution.

Beginning in 303, Emperor Diocletian, who established a tetrarchy with Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius (the father of Constantine), issued a series of edicts demanding that Christians comply with traditional (pagan) religious practices. (See Wikipedia) Diocletian presaged the Great Persecution when he took power in 284, purging the army of Christians and surrounding himself with public opponents to Christianity. He led an “activist government” and promoted himself as “restorer of past Roman glory”. (Ibid.) (Making Rome great again?)

Diocletian finally ordered “a general persecution” on February 23, 303. The reign of persecution was short-lived (unless you endured it, I suppose). Constantius, the father of Constantine, restored legal equality for Christians in Gaul in 306, and Maxentius usurped Maximian’s control in Italy and North Africa in the same year with a promise of religious toleration. When Licinius ousted Maximinius in 313, the persecution was formally ended.

The political ebbs and tides of the time (with implications for the church) are reminiscent of our political shifts from right to left to right in recent years. Perhaps, little has changed in that way, yet the change that followed in 313 was unprecedented, and this change set the course of the Church on a path it had never before traversed.

Eusebius, the Christian historian, wrote as a contemporary of Constantine with glowing approval of the events that changed the course of Christianity forever. Eusebius is the person who preserved the details of Constantine’s personal story of conversion to Christianity.

As the story was told by Constantine, he had a vision in 312 shortly before an imminent battle with a challenger to the throne of the Roman Empire, Maxentius, whose army outnumbered Constantine’s. Constantine saw in the sky a giant cross with the inscription, “In this sign conquer!” The vision was followed by a dream that evening in which Jesus purportedly came to him and told him to conquer in his name. Thereafter, Constantine established the cross as the standard for his army and the banner under which the Roman armies marched to battle and conquered in the name of Christ, the lamb of God who died that we might live.

The words of John Dickson have been echoing in my mind since I listened to Episode No. 21 of his Undeceptions podcast.

In the podcast (titled Post Christian) featuring the Australian journalist, Greg Sheridan. John Dickson commented on the approval by Eusebius of Constantine’s use of the cross as a symbol of conquering on behalf of the Roman Empire this way:

“A people used to mockery and social exclusion – and worse – were now invited into the very center of power. And perhaps most bizarrely, the Christian sign of humble self-sacrifice – a cross – was now the formal path – the very symbol – of the Roman war machine. It is so hard to get my head around when I consider what Jesus said about the cross – his cross – and its social implications.”

Juxtaposed to the image of Roman armies conquering under the sign of the cross in the name of Jesus, Dickson recalled the story of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who asked Jesus asking to seat them on the right and the left of Jesus when Jesus rose to power. These brothers, like many First Century Jews, expected a conquering Messiah. They interpreted the prophets to predict a Jewish Messiah “who would lift Israel above Rome and crush the enemies of God.”

Jesus gave them a response they didn’t expect and likely didn’t understand at the time:

“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

Mark 10:38

The other disciples became indignant with James and John thinking, perhaps, they they deserved glory and recognition also. They, like many before and after them, may have viewed religion as a path to power and influence, and they may have been annoyed at the audacity of James and John out of jealousy. At this, Jesus brought them together and set them straight.

“You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:41-45
Continue reading “Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing” →

Myth, Seasons, and the Resurrection of Jesus

Should the claim that Christianity is similar to prior, pagan mythology concern us?

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The god of the sea and oceans Neptune (Poseidon).

Popular trends arise in culturally contingent ways, and those trends often dominate the public mind for a season. Thus, the idea that Christianity borrowed from prior pagan mythology gained notoriety with the rise of New Atheism. The Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007) is a poster child for this popular trend in thinking.

The Zeitgeist movie forces the narrative, ignoring glaring dissimilarities, and manufacturing similarities that don’t really exist. It ignores (or isn’t familiar with) the relevant academic scholarship, but it has been watched well over one million times. We might say that the Zeitgeist movie has become legendary in a truly mythic sense itself.

I will go out on a limb, nevertheless, to say that Christians have shown far too much angst over this trend of claiming that Christianity is similar to prior pagan mythology. There are critical differences, and they are significant, but there are some similarities also. Do the similarities pose a problem for Christianity?

The short answer is, no. In fact, if truth is truth and reality is reality, ancient, pagan attempts at explaining that reality are likely to hit on some metaphysical truth. If they didn’t, I might begin wonder about the nature of reality and our ability to recognize and understand it.

Mythic literature as a genre is an attempt to provide some explanation and understanding of basic realities and the ebb and flow of life. I am reminded of these things as I sit outside on an unseasonably warm day in November with a view of trees bared of their multicolored leaves that have been collected by my earnest neighbors in piles lining the suburban streets for pickup.

Fall is ebbing into the dark night of winter. The subtle coolness in the breeze portends (what seems to me now) a distant spring. I am braced for what comes next as I enjoy what is likely to be the lest vestige of warmer days for longer than I care to think about.

My hope for the spring, however far off it seems in my present mood, is rooted in my experience of the certainty of the seasons. I know my hope is not fanciful, even as I brace (all too knowingly) for the cold, bleak trudge ahead.

It seems completely natural that ancient mythology captures this duality in stories that have religious significance. These experiences are common to man. We remind ourselves of the hope of spring as we gaze in wonderment at fall trees in the throes of seasonal death and the chill onset of winter. It reminds us of our own life and death sagas, even now in all our modern comforts.

Our modern comforts allow us to be a bit more disconnected and circumspect, perhaps, than our ancient forbearers. Those comforts and great advances in scientific knowledge allow us to be intellectual about these things. Ancient pagans lived literally at the mercy of the seasons, and all the things they didn’t know played like gods on the stage of their fraught imagination.

Modern people chalk seasonal changes up to natural cycles that just happen. We believe humans chased all the gods off long ago. The ownership we have asserted in our knowledge of the way the world works gives us an illusion of control that I surmise is not all that much different than the ancients, who sought some ownership and control of this world through the mediators of gods they thought they could appease.

Pagans found solace in the seasons as we do. Myth is rooted in collective experience, and it is driven by an impulse to understand and import control into our experience. We also have a natural inclination to seek meaning. We might call this impulse a “religious” one.

Though we have the chased the gods off, we still have a religious impulse. Though we no longer believe in many gods, and we no longer venerate ancient myths with more than a curious read, the idea of one, Creator God God persists, and it is not explained away by modern science and knowledge. The Bible, though it has ancient origins, stands up to our modern scrutiny in ways that pagan myth does not.

Continue reading “Myth, Seasons, and the Resurrection of Jesus” →

The Errors of Our Ways: Science, Religion, and Racism

That Christians should have known better seems self-evident to us today. But, what of science?

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Most people know well the checkered history of Christianity on racism, especially in the United States. Much less is said (and therefore known) on the checkered history of science on racism in the west. One reason for that difference in our collective memories is the Enlightenment narrative: that science rescued the world from Christianity. More on that below.

I am not writing today to criticize Christianity less or science more for the moral failing of the history of racism in America. I am writing to bring some clarity where a popular narrative muddies the waters.

I think most people can agree that American (and British) Christianity has a racist past, but we have short (and biased) memories on this score. History is replete with dominant people groups subjecting other people groups to slavery, genocide, and other atrocities. It wasn’t just Americans, or western civilization, or Christians that perpetuated the evil of slavery.

That we even call those things atrocities today is a credit to Christianity. The story of Jesus voluntarily dying at the hands of the dominant power of his day, urging his followers to live lives of self-sacrifice, and looking after the benefit of others as he did changed everything.

It took three centuries, but the cross eventually became the symbol of this religious movement characterized by self-sacrificial love.

Prior to the death of Jesus, the cross was the ultimate symbol of the exultant might of the dominant state over its subjects. Those in power determined the values of the society they ruled, and those values were imposed with Draconian force on those who lived under that power.  “Might makes right” was just the way the world was for most of history.

Tom Holland, in his seminal book, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, found the nexus for a radical change in the west in the crucifixion of Jesus. That event and the movement it inspired changed forever how the west (and now the rest of the world) views power and morality.

Tom Holland was an atheist When he did the research for this book. His area of expertise is Greco-Roman history. He was steeped in the brutish nature of the Roman world that championed power and elite, male dominance over all that was weak.

When he set out to trace his secular humanist values in western civilization, he knew there was some discontinuity between the Greco-Roman values he knew so well and his own, modern notions of basic human rights, so he was curious to locate the origin of that seismic shift.

His book, Dominion, traces our modern values from the roots where he found them in the history of western civilization. He found they go back to Jesus of Nazareth and the people who gave their lives to follow him.

The death of Jesus on the cross radically subverted the assumptions that ruled the world to that point. The Greco-Roman world that valued and honored power above all things gave way over time to the man who is claimed to be the Savior of the world who let himself be led like a lamb to his own slaughter. His life and message of self-sacrificial love became the bedrock for modern civil rights, human dignity, and the assumption that the powerful should shelter and care for the weak.

The criticism of Christians for racism and its worst manifestation – slavery – is deserved. Mostly because Christians “should’ve known better”. Of all people, Christians should have known better!

The water gets murky, though, in our modern memory because it has been influenced by a narrative that obscures the truth. The narrative that exposes the failing of Christianity often does so by directing attention away from the nonreligious world of reason and science, as if there is “nothing to see here.”

This view that rose to prominence during the Enlightenment is prevalent still today. It puts the full weight of condemnation for our failings on religion (and Christianity in particular). This is a false narrative, and, it obscures the truth and warps our perceptions that still persist.

There is nothing inherently wrong with science and reason. It is people who are flawed, and the flaws of people are not confined to science, or religion, or to any particular ideology or worldview. No ideology or worldview is immune.

Continue reading “The Errors of Our Ways: Science, Religion, and Racism” →