A Word for the Church (eCrozier #293)

On March 18, 2016, in culture, Good Friday, politics, Violence, by bishopbenhase

Below is a statement from The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops. We passed it unanimously, which, from my experience in the House, is a rare occurrence. That should indicate to the entire Church how strongly the bishops of our Church feel about this.

A Word to the Church

On Good Friday the ruling political forces of the day tortured and executed an innocent man. They sacrificed the weak and blameless to protect their own status and power. On the third day Jesus was raised from the dead revealing not only their injustice but also unmasking the lie that might makes right.

In a country still living under the shadow of the lynching tree, we are troubled by the violent forces being released by the season’s political rhetoric. Americans are turning against their neighbors, particularly those on the margins of society. They seek to secure their own safety and security at the expense of others. There is legitimate reason to fear where this rhetoric and the actions arising from it might take us.

In the moment, we resemble God’s children wandering in the wilderness. We, like they, are struggling to find our way. They turned from following God and worshipped a golden calf constructed of their own wealth. The current rhetoric is leading us to construct a modern false idol out of power and privilege. We reject the idolatrous notion that we can ensure the safety of some by sacrificing the hope of others. No matter where we fall on the political spectrum, we must respect the dignity of every human being and seek the common good above all else.

We call for prayer for our country that a spirit of reconciliation will prevail and that we will not betray our true selves.

Now for my personal thoughts on the above statement. While I agree 100% with what we bishops wrote, I think in some ways it’s not a strong enough warning. Our country is at a pivotal moment in its history. During times of great cultural change or of profound dislocation and uncertainty, nations historically have made poor choices in protecting the common good, but particularly for the less powerful, which usually meant religious or ethnic minorities. Those times of uncertainty have led nations to scapegoat those on the bottom rung of the ladder. Our nation has had signs posted in its history that read: “Irish need not apply” or “No Colored Folk” or “No Jews.” We imprisoned Japanese-Americans during World War II for no legitimate reason. We shouldn’t see ourselves today as being so morally pure or advanced that such things couldn’t happen again. They well could. When people are desperate they can act violently and irrationally. And when their desperation is fueled by scapegoating, it leads to a national moral failure.

Future generations of Christians in America will look back and offer their judgment on how we behave in the days ahead. Let’s pray that their judgment will find us faithful.

+Scott

 
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The Prince of Peace is Weeping (eCrozier #283)

On December 18, 2015, in culture, humility, Prince of Peace, Violence, by bishopbenhase

The Prince of Peace must be weeping for what we do to one another.

This month two deranged individuals murdered 14 souls in San Bernardino, California. They rationalized this heinous act as a fair and just response to a perceived attack on their culture and religion. Three years ago this month, another disturbed individual whose mental health and delusions were his rationale, murdered 26 souls, mostly children, in Newtown, Connecticut.

After San Bernardino, the cry from our elected officials was swift and clear: “The government must take action. We have to pass legislation to address this terrorist act. It must never happen again.” So legislation was quickly passed and more is planned. It seems the government has an important role in keeping us safe and our elected officials will “stop at nothing” to ensure our safety.

After Newtown, the cry from our elected officials was: “Let’s pray for the victims and their families. The government can’t take any action. We can’t pass any legislation to address these murderous acts so let’s hope they never happen again.” It seems the government has no role at all in our safety if it means conflicting with a particular interpretation of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. Our elected officials will “stop at everything” to avoid even considering what might be wrong with this interpretation.

The Prince of Peace must be weeping.

While the motivations behind both murderous acts were different, the acts themselves were surprisingly similar. And in both cases, the citizens who inflicted the carnage were able to legally obtain military-style weapons to do their evil. So, in both instances, the significant difference was how our elected officials responded.

When God became human at Christmas, God did not become a different kind of human from the rest of us. God entered our diseased, sinful, finite reality and became flesh to redeem us. God in a very vulnerable way said to all humanity: “Here’s my baby boy. He’s yours, too. Let’s see what happens.” And we know what happened. Over 30 years later we crucified God’s baby boy. Lethal violence is at the heart of the Christian narrative and God is trying to tell us something painful about ourselves through it.

Our violent, sinful nature should tell us something about ourselves that’s hard for us to hear. Left to our own devices, more often than we care to admit, we will choose violence and inflicting death as our first response to whatever appears to wrong us. But that should also help us shape how we order our public life. Knowing the violent sinners we are all, we must take steps to limit access to these murderous weapons. If not, such incidences will continue even more frequently.

The Prince of Peace is weeping: “Father, forgive them.” Are we listening to Jesus?

+Scott

 
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“Belief Perseverance,” San Bernardino, and Our Sinfulness (eCrozier #282)

On December 4, 2015, in Benedictine, grace, sin, Spiritual Disciplines, Violence, by bishopbenhase

According to new research reported on NPR, people who are experts in a particular field tend to become rigid and unwilling to consider alternative points of view related to their area of study. This is even true for people who aren’t really experts at all, but were helped to feel they were by the study researchers. They, too, became more rigid in their thinking about their field of “expertise” and became less likely to consider different points of view from their own. This is related to what’s known as “belief perseverance,“ the tendency to stay with a particular belief even though the body of evidence suggests one should reconsider. It’s also related to “confirmation bias” when one only interprets, favors, or recalls information that supports one’s already held conviction.

When I read such studies, I usually ask myself if such conclusions ring true from my own life experience and in my observation of how others seem to behave. In this case, boy does it ever. You see, I like to think of myself as an expert on many things. Maybe you do, too? Whether it’s Anglican theology, baseball game management, the deficiencies of mid-century modern architecture, or the tragedy of Mark Richt’s firing as the head football coach at UGA, I have an “expert” opinion. When I’m honest with myself, however, I have to admit I’m not an expert on any of those subjects. But part of me wants to believe I am. It seems we’re wired for such a tendency. I do have beliefs and views about each of the examples I listed. In some, I have more learned beliefs than in others, but truth demands my honesty. I’m not an expert in any.

And that brings us to yet another mass shooting this week, this time in San Bernadino. I can’t understand why we as a society are doing nothing substantial to curb the wide availability of assault-style automatic weapons, which are clearly designed to kill lots of people quickly. It’s seems obvious to me what needs to be done: we need to get all these assault weapons out of the hands of all but the law enforcement community. Is it my “belief perseverance” that leads me to that conclusion? Do I have “confirmation bias” in that I’m failing to seriously consider alternative points of view from my own when it comes to this kind of gun violence? I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. I try to listen to opposing views on this subject, but none of them makes any sense to me.

This is all part of our human sinfulness. We want to believe that our views and beliefs are superior to others; that our judgment on things is more insightful. I know my own tendency when another person challenges some belief I hold. Rather than consistently exercising Benedictine obedentia and listening deeply to what they say, I sometimes ignore them as they speak and begin to formulate a rebuttal to their position. Such spiritually immature behavior is the norm for all of us unless we discipline ourselves to respond differently. I’m working on developing more spiritual discipline in all this.

Resting in the grace of Jesus gives us the courage for such disciplining of our immature reactivity. If we trust that God has reconciled the world through the cross of Christ, then when our beliefs or views are challenged, we don’t need to react to somehow prove that our convictions are superior to others. We don’t have to “prove” anything.

+Scott

 
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Our Resignation in the midst of Gun Violence (eCrozier #270)

On September 4, 2015, in culture, Violence, by bishopbenhase

Vester Flannagan stood on a balcony at the Bridgewater Plaza shopping center near Roanoke, Virginia and adjusted his smart phone camera. He then walked toward Alison Parker, a local TV reporter doing a live interview, filming himself as if he were part of video game. Flannagan aimed both his gun and camera and murdered Ms. Parker and her cameraman, Adam Ward, and severely wounded the person being interviewed. I have not and will not watch this video. I’ve only heard it described in writing. But millions of people have watched it. Flanagan put his own version online through Twitter and Facebook. He apparently did not have that many “followers” or “friends,” so that means people thoughtlessly assisted in the distribution of his demented video.

Dr. Adam Lankford, a criminal justice professor at the University of Alabama, presented a paper this week to the annual conference of the American Sociological Association. His presentation showed a strong correlation between the availability of guns and the frequency of gun massacres. He postulates that America’s high rate of public mass shootings is connected with the number of guns circulating in the country. “A nation’s civilian firearm ownership rate is the strongest predictor of its number of public mass shooters,” he explained. Apparently, we are at the top of a very shameful category: public mass shootings. That should be a shocking piece of information.

But truth be told, we’re not shocked by this any more. We’ve lost that particular capacity sometime over the last few years. Stories such as these are now regular parts of our news cycle. We hear or read about the latest one, shake our head, and pour our morning coffee. In addition to what happened near Roanoke, last month a police officer near Houston was brutally executed while pumping gas into his patrol car; and, in June, a sick young man slaughtered 9 people in a church in Charleston. These three are just recent examples. You know there are many, many more. You’ve read or heard about them, as have I. We just have to hear the name “Sandy Hook” or “Aurora” and our minds go right to those horrific murders. But, sadly, we’re no longer shocked. We just sigh and say: “that’s just the way it is.”

We have made a collective decision, rational or not, faithful or not, that all these murders are just the price we must pay so we can continue to have all these guns circulating so freely in our country. Can there be any other explanation for why we have done nothing after witnessing all these murders? Our inaction speaks volumes. Our inaction says that however much we deplore these murders, they are acceptable losses of human life if it would mean any restriction to our free access to guns (and not just any guns, but guns specifically manufactured, not for sport, but for killing our fellow humans). I’ve actually heard purportedly rational people say that such murders are the price we must pay for the current Supreme Court’s interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. The rationality of that eludes me.

But we need to regain a sense of shock for what we’re becoming, for what we now find acceptable, for what is becoming a new normal in our common life.  
+Scott

 
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