Tue, 08 May 2012 21:54:25 -0800WeeblyWed, 21 Mar 2012 10:28:29 -0800http://www.lutherantrinity.com/2/post/2012/03/multiply-picnics.htmlIn the past decade or so two commentaries on American social life caught my eye.  They are Bowling Alone – The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam (Simon & Schuster) and Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 – 2010 by Charles Murray.

Harvard Professor, Robert D. Putnam, wrote Bowling Alone, an analysis of public life in our country published in 2000.  He believes that American history shows a story of ups and downs in civic engagement, not just downs – a story of collapse and renewal.

For example, citizens today score about as well as did their parents and grandparents on a civics tests.  However, we average four more years of formal education as did our forebears.

Since the mid-1960’s Americans have become 15-20 percent less interested in politics and are 25 per cent less likely to vote.  However, I wonder if the national elections of 2008 and the recent publicity of the coming 2012 elections will demonstrate an increase in voter participation.

Organizational data shows that in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, there was an increase in American involvement in civic associations of all types.  However, during the last third of the twentieth century, there has been a 10 to 20 per cent decrease in organizational membership.  On the other hand, the “tertiary” members of an organization never meet face to face, but are on the growing mailing lists of organizations.

Thus, with the decline in civic associations during the past three decades, Putnam used the bowling alone image to title his work.   And from what I’ve seen, bowling leagues are still popular, but not to the extent they were post World War II.

I took up bowling as a child in the 1950’s and you could find me every Saturday morning at Mike Jakovac’s Golden Eagle Lanes – all eight of them.  Don Carter, Ray Bluth, Dick Weber, Tom Hennessey and Pat Patterson of the famous Anheuser Busch Bowling Team were my heroes.

Commenting on American religious life, Putnam noted that religion is the central fount of American life.  However, even though organized religion flourished in the first six decades of the twentieth century, it has faded over the last three or four.  Thus, as the twenty-first century began, Americans were less likely to attend church and the churches are less engaged in the community.  But we do know that in the recent decade, the more charismatic and evangelical branches of Christianity have grown.

But all is not lost.  Civic engagement can be renewed.  In the last chapter of Bowling Alone, Putnam provided challenges for American public life to happen by 2010:

1.      Increase the level of civic engagement to parallel that of our grandparents;
2.      Ensure America’s workplace to be family-friendly and community-congenial;
3.      Work toward a great awakening so that Americans are more deeply engaged in a spiritual community and more tolerant of the faith and practices of other Americans;
4.      Ensure that Americans will spend less leisure time sitting passively alone in front of glowing screens and more time in active connections with fellow citizens.

Finally, Putnam concluded Bowling Alone with Henry Ward Beecher’s advice a century ago – multiply picnics.
Now that is good advice to multiply picnics as we let go of an overabundance of isolation and individualism and happily gather to connect to others for the building up of community and public life.

As Christians we know something even better than picnics.  We call our Sunday worship service a feast as we gather at Christ’s table of grace as we receive a foretaste of the feast to come in the Eucharistic Meal.

As we gather in Christ’s name for Word and Sacrament, we do not lose our individuality.  We are all drawn closer to Christ and to each other in His body and by His love.  Christ builds us up so that we share our gifts and support each other as brothers and sisters in the faith.

In 1st Corinthians 12, St. Paul commented on the individuality and community of the body of Christ:
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
And God has appointed in the church
first apostles,
second prophets,
third teachers;
then deeds of power,
then gifts of healing,
forms of assistance,
forms of leadership,
various kinds of tongues…

For Christians the life of faith has both personal (individual) and communal aspects.  God has indeed given gifts to each one of us in the body of Christ.  But these gifts are not to be kept to oneself, but shared for the building up of Christ’s body. 

In Christ’s body, we retain our individuality, our God-given gifts, our personal faith, and our spiritual journey which has its own unique dimensions.

But we also are deeply connected to each other in Christ’s body so that together we can rejoice, together we can cry,
together we can worship, together we can study, together we can serve, and together we can engage in holy conversations.
Since the time of the publishing of Bowling Alone in 2000, have we seen signs of  revival of American community life?

Could recent interest in the November national elections be one sign of renewed interest in American public life?

Could the growth of the more charismatic or evangelical Christian denominations or recent growth in the Roman Catholic Church point to a kind of great awakening in American religious life?

Could the increase in restaurants, businesses, and cultural activities in downtown Chattanooga hint at a new and vibrant community life?

In public life let us multiply picnics to renew civic life.  And as we feast at the Lord’s Supper, may our faith not only build up congregational life, but also spill over to build up public life as we partake in picnics multiplied.

(My next reflection will focus on Charles Murray’s new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 – 2010.)






]]>Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:20:10 -0800http://www.lutherantrinity.com/2/post/2012/02/remembering-lent.htmlAs we approach the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday, I recall my earliest experiences with this season in the Lutheran church.

Emmaus Lutheran School in South St. Louis enrolled students from kindergarten through the eighth grade.   Many of those students were of German heritage and attended Emmaus Lutheran Church.  A typical method of teaching in the 1950’s was memorization.  At Emmaus we had to memorize Bible verses, prayers, Luther’s Small Catechism, and the hymns of Lent.

A few of the favorite hymns back then included, Jesus, I Will Ponder Now; Jesus, Refuge of the Weary; Christ, the Life of All the Living; Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted; Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed; Go to Dark Gethsemane, and several others of the same ilk – all dealing with the suffering and dying Christ.

Ask me to recite a verse or two of one of these hymns, give me a few moments to refresh my memory, and I can repeat them to you without missing a beat.  That’s not bragging, but only getting back in touch with the strictness of my German Lutheran upbringing at Emmaus Lutheran School where many of the students were blonde-headed and blue-eyed, all the teachers were dedicated to the LCMS parochial school system, and classroom discipline included pulling your hair, being struck by a wooden pointer, or writing I will not talk five hundred times on notebook paper.  No after school detentions back then!

Anyway, getting back to Lent…I recall Pastor Wilson’s famous I am Pontius Pilate sermon.  That was the first time I ever heard a sermon in the first person singular.  No, Pastor Wilson did not dress up like a first-century prelate, but the serious tone of his sermon made a lasting impression on me.  And as a child I began to understand the more somber nature of the season of Lent as we moved to Good Friday with a sense of repentance. 

Emmaus Lutheran School was always closed on Good Friday.  We were expected to attend worship on Friday evening, listen to the Passion narrative with reverence, and of course, sing a few of those Lenten hymns.

But I recall that on one Good Friday, I had the first practice of the baseball season. I caught a bus to the park where practice was held.  My dad picked me up when practice was over and then we picked up delicious fried fish from a local restaurant. As a Lutheran (my day was Roman Catholic), I was not required to eat fish on Good Friday, but since we lived in an area with many Roman Catholics, we joined in that tradition and ate our share of fried fish on this holy day.

Do you remember the season of Lent from your childhood?  What practices did you observe?  Do you still practice them today?

In the February, 2012 edition of The Lutheran, Pastor Robert Blezard reminds us that in this holy season we encounter God’s grace.  We are encouraged to fall into the river of God’s grace.  In more recent years, Lutherans have renewed the practice of observing Lent as a way to remember the water and Word of God’s grace in Holy Baptism.  Thus, the theme of Lent can be one of renewal as we ponder anew the life-giving water in this sacrament.

Perhaps this Lent we will not only sing the Lenten hymns of our childhood, but also include songs of Holy Baptism as we remember the mystery and awesomeness of God’s grace through the One Who went to the cross for us all. ]]>Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:16:38 -0800http://www.lutherantrinity.com/2/post/2012/02/moon-pies-ashes-and-a-cross.htmlMardi Gras is huge in Mobile, Alabama.  It’s big business and non-stop revelry as parades and balls capture the imagination of this city in January and February each year.  I know since I lived and served a congregation there from 1990 through 1998.

On Mardi Gras Day several parades in succession provided loads of fun and lots of laugh to the thousands who lined the downtown streets of this Gulf Coast city.  Schools were not in session and state and federal workers took off as well since no traffic was allowed in the heart of downtown Mobile.

Mardi Gras krewe members riding on decorated floats tossed their throws – moon pies, colorful beaded necklaces, and plastic cups - to the crowds some of whom have camped on the side of the street for several days just to get the right place to watch the parades.  My family always arrived on the scene in downtown Mobile in early morning under one of the large oak trees next to the old Episcopal church.

By day’s end all had eaten their fill of moon pies, cotton candy, pea nuts, shrimp, corn dogs and grilled meats.  And, of course, some had imbibed too much on the suds and were on their way to the Ash Wednesday hangover.

On the day following this entertainment and self-indulgence when moon pies were forgotten, beaded necklaces tossed into a drawer, and plastic cups washed and tucked into a cabinet, it was time for ashes, a sign of mortality and dependence upon God for life.  The Roman Catholic, Episcopal and Lutheran communities in Mobile distributed ashes on the foreheads of worshippers in houses of worship to mark the beginning of Lent.

Gone were the parades, the throws from krewe members, decorated floats, dance bands from the ball rooms, and hundreds of thousands of people who lined the streets having the time of their life.

I often wondered how many of those folks who joined in the fun on Mardi Gras also joined in the procession to receive ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday.  Some did.  Other went back to their normal routines of life.  It is much easier to take a break to join in some good-natured celebration than to take a break to reflect upon repentance, works of love, and almsgiving – the discipline of Lent.

The journey through the season of Lent leads us to the cross of Jesus Christ where true life is found.  During my Mobile years, I wished and prayed that for many more people the moon pies of Tuesday led to the ashes on Wednesday and finally to the adoration of the cross on Good Friday.

]]>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:42:35 -0800http://www.lutherantrinity.com/2/post/2012/01/church-and-state-separation-or-interaction.htmlHere we go again with questions of church and state.

The front page of this morning’s Chattanooga Times Free Press featured the headlines, GOP bill seeking biblical displays.  Two Tennessee lawmakers are promoting a legally defensible way to display the Ten Commandments in country courthouses or on public grounds.

I recall the Ten Commandment display issue in Alabama in 2003 when then Alabama Chief Court Justice, Roy Moore, refused the federal court order to take down a Ten Commandments display in a federal courthouse.  He was dismissed for his refusal.

I don’t pretend to know the outcome of this bill nor will I offer a political opinion on this matter.  But here is what I can say from theological perspective.  Back in 1966 one of the predecessor bodies of the ELCA, the Lutheran Church in America, prepared a social statement entitled, Church and Society – A Lutheran Perspective (Check out this social statement and an updated version at www.elca.org.)

In the 1966 version, two terms helped us think about how the church relates to society.  The first term was called institutional separation which emphasized the freedom of both church and state to pursue their essential missions under God.

The other term entitled functional interaction recognized that neither church nor state need to dominate the other, but there are times when church and state are engaged on certain topics of justice.  Thus, the LCA some 45 years ago did not warrant a strict separation of church and state.  In Lutheran theology both church and state are ordained by God (Romans 13).

So, should there be a display of the Ten Commandments in Tennessee courthouses and on other public property?  Tennessee lawmakers are free to debate this issue. It depends on the ethics of each lawmaker and the majority will rule.  I am sure that constitutional scholars will offer opinions about whether or not the display of biblical symbols on public property violates the establishment clause.  And as Christians we are free to offer our opinions as citizens of both church and state.

The Christian Church is called to work for justice and peace in our country and around the world.  It is the Church’s responsibility to teach the Ten Commandments and model its obedience in daily life.  When the state sways from fair and just decisions, the church engages in dialogue with the state and calls the state to live out its purpose for liberty and justice for all.

Institutional separation and functional interaction is one way Lutherans have shared their faith and ethics within society.

]]>Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:33:26 -0800http://www.lutherantrinity.com/2/post/2012/01/first-post.htmlSo what would you do with this inner city ministry to youth called Club Fathom and Mosaic Church?

Violence at this establishment has tarnished its image and brought lawlessness to the good name of downtown Chattanooga which has prided itself on being family friendly.

The idea of working with inner city youth and welcoming them to the Christian faith is a good one, but one that also brings its challenges and dangers especially when teenage gangs become involved.

I understand that entertainment with the Club Fathom side of this ministry may be a way to reach wayward youth if done in a wholesome manner.  However, reports tell us that Club Fathom has gone way beyond good taste and the foundations of Christian ethics with lewd photos and other shady behavior.

There is a fine line in holding in tension a youth night club and a youth ministry.  I am not aware of any evidence that this parachurch ministry has converted any youth to Jesus Christ.  I have heard of no baptisms and no confessions of faith.  Such things may not always be reported in the news.  But the repeated reports of violence are hard core evidence says that all is not well with Club Fathom/Mosaic Church and this establishment needs to cleaned up or closed down.

Today’s article on the front page of the Chattanooga Times Free Press concerning taking care of the downtown homeless is a good indicator that a coalition of churches is an effective way of dealing with social ills.  It will take a coalition of resources from churches, community leaders, government and other social service agencies to deal with inner city youth gone wayward and violent.  ]]>