The eCrozier

There is no need to insist that in a world where another Hitler is very possible the mere existence of nuclear weapons constitutes the most tragic and serious problem that the human race has ever had to contend with. Indeed, the atmosphere of hatred, suspicion and tension in which we all live is precisely what is needed to produce Hitlers.
– Thomas Merton, writing on February 6, 1962

The monk, Thomas Merton, wrote these prescient words 55 years ago. They’re as relevant today as they were then. From the tradition of our Christian Faith, there’s no possible moral justification for the use of nuclear weapons. By the consequences they produce, the use of nuclear weapons is immoral and any nation who would use them would be guilty of shocking immorality. One only need to look at the devastating, long-term aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagaski to confirm that historic truth.

And yet, some who claim the moral “high ground” argue their use is defensible using what’s classically known as the “Just War Doctrine.” Put forth first by St Augustine and then later elaborated by St Thomas Aquinas, this Doctrine has served as the Church’s moral guide for centuries. The Doctrine’s concluding admonition is this: “the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.” Using nuclear weapons, as the clear evidence of history has shown, certainly produces “evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.”

What complicates this (there’s always a complication, isn’t there?) is that we live in a non-Christian world. Until the last century, the western world still held to some semblance of Christian morality, but that’s no longer the case. Even as wars were fought in those years, there was some sense of moral accountability; that some things were simply beyond the pale; that there were some things moral agents should never do. That means it would be a mistake for those of us who attend ourselves to the way of Jesus to assume the war practices of any government today are automatically congruent with the Christian faith. While in some cases they might well be, we should never be “blank check” Christians or assume something must be “moral” because we’re the ones doing it.

Thus, Christians can’t assume that a leader of any government will follow our morality when it comes to nuclear weapons, the use of which produces a consequence so obscene as to render it morally intolerable. And as Merton suggests above, Christians must work to lessen “the atmosphere of hatred, suspicion, and tension in which we live” because that’s the very climate in which fascism thrives. When fear is ginned up and exploited, people are encouraged to abandon their Christian morality in favor of following false prophets who promise that they alone can offer us safety and protection. When such promises are accepted, they almost always produce a bargain with the Devil.

As Christians, staying passive and silent when any leader suggests that the use of nuclear weapons is a morally right thing to do, makes us complicit in the guilt of a potential, unspeakable crime against humanity. May God have mercy upon us all.

+Scott

Old man, take a look at my life, I’m a lot like you.
– Neil Young

I loved my grandfather. He taught me how to fire a rifle safely and accurately. He taught me how to mix mortar with just the right consistency, not too wet, but wet enough to make it sticky and hold together. He taught me how to “butter” a brick, put it in place, and use the heel of the trowel to tap the brick this way and that, so it would be plumb on the line. He was ever so patient. I never recall a time when he even raised his voice to me. Whenever I got into trouble with my parents and he was nearby, he’d look at me, wink and smile, and then I had the sense everything would be all right.

My grandfather also was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. When I was six years old, sitting on the back stoop of his house on Glenview Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio, he gave me a Klan pamphlet, and he told me that since I now knew how to read, I should read something important and useful. It was his effort to teach me something else, something much less edifying than how to “butter” a brick; something evil, something repugnant to God and the world God so loved.

No person’s life, however, can be easily explained or neatly pigeon-holed. These days we’re so quick to judge others and label them in a way that allows us to place them simplistically into the “evil” category. Human beings are much more complicated and messy than such simplicity justifies. Although I know very little about him, James Fields the young man who drove his car into a crowd of my former neighbors in Charlottesville, killing one and wounding many more, apparently grew up being fed a diet of racism. That diet was nurtured and supplemented by certain twisted people in his life who took the place of his deceased father.

I’m not asking anyone to absolve James Fields for his heinous act or his abhorrent I lours to give. It comes from God alone. Neither am I excusing anyone’s racist behavior. No just and compassionate society can long tolerate such hate and prejudice. But I am suggesting that we all humbly take a step back from our self-righteousness. I’ve heard many white folk recently congratulate themselves on how they’ve overcome their racism (some actually claim they never even had any). They’re now completely free of it, they say. Their inability to reflect honestly on their lives is quite astonishing to me. No person I’ve ever known has achieved such moral purity as to make that claim honestly.

“Old man, take a look at my life, I’m a lot like you.” People who knew him tell me that I remind them of my grandfather. I guess they’re right, at least in terms of our physical likeness. Am I a lot like that old man? Truth be told, the answer is both yes and no. It’s complicated. Was my grandfather an evil man? No, not entirely. Did he hold evil views that were morally repugnant and broke God’s heart? Yes, he did. And he, just like the rest of us, will always stand in the need of the grace and mercy given us by Jesus Christ.

+Scott

The eCrozier is taking its regularly scheduled summer holiday. While on holiday, it will travel with me to two bishop consecrations, the first this weekend in North Carolina, and then next weekend in Puerto Rico. It will then join me and Kelly on a brief holiday in Dublin (Ireland, not Georgia, although I enjoy visiting Dublin, Georgia as well!). It will resume its regular publication later this summer when it starts making sense again. Just like us all, it really needs a holiday.

Until then, I leave you with the wisdom of John Prine in his song, “Some Humans Ain’t Human.” Mr. Prine is a keen observer of the human condition. He’s also baptized and confirmed in The Episcopal Church, though it might have been awhile since he’s been in church! You can hear and see his humorous account of how he was baptized and confirmed by going to this link

It’ll be worth the brief four minutes of your time.

Let’s all pray to God that our humanity will show itself humanely in this world.

+Scott

Some humans ain’t human, Some people ain’t kind
You open up their hearts, And here’s what you’ll find
A few frozen pizzas, Some ice cubes with hair
A broken Popsicle, You don’t want to go there

Some humans ain’t human, Though they walk like we do
They live and they breathe, Just to turn the old screw
They screw you when you’re sleeping, They try to screw you blind
Some humans ain’t human, Some people ain’t kind 

You might go to church, And sit down in a pew
Those humans who ain’t human, Could be sittin’ right next to you
They talk about your family, They talk about your clothes
When they don’t know their own ass, From their own elbows

Some humans ain’t human, Some people ain’t kind
They lie through their teeth, With their head up their behind
You open up their hearts, And here’s what you’ll find
Some humans ain’t human, Some people ain’t kind

For my money, comedian Louis C.K. is the second greatest public theologian of this generation (Singer/Songwriter John Prine is the greatest). His comedic insights into the human condition on his TV shows and in his stand-up comedy unmasks much of the posing we do. He can be harsh in that unmasking, but he can also be vulnerable and remarkably insightful. In 2006-2007, he had a short-lived (unfortunately), 13-episode show called Lucky Louie. The conceit of the show was how he and his wife, Kim (played wonderfully by Pamela Adlon), navigated (or didn’t) their working-class jobs, their marriage, and parenting their young daughter. In an episode called Flowers for Kim, Louie and Kim arrange for their daughter to stay with friends for the weekend so they can rekindle their lost romance. With their daughter away, Louie comes home and bursts into the kitchen ready for romance. He tells Kim he has a present for her. She beams and then he unveils a bunch of red roses. Her face falls and the viewer can see her heart drop. She calmly reminds him that she’s never liked red roses, as she’s told him so many times before. And yet, he persists in getting her red roses. His mood now changes and he says: “Well, you can still thank me for giving you the roses. Why won’t you even thank me?” Her reply is “why should I thank you for giving me a gift you know I don’t like?” He feels he should be rewarded for having been gracious in giving her a gift. She contends he doesn’t listen to her or care about her feelings, what she likes and doesn’t like. Surely, all married persons can relate to this scene, painfully so.

The Rule of Reciprocity is a social norm we share. It basically says that when someone does something nice for us, we feel a social obligation to return the favor. Business marketers understand this social norm. They use it to convince potential customers to make purchases by offering them gifts or incentives to entice such purchases. We feel this norm on birthdays. If someone gives us a birthday gift, then we feel obligated to give them a gift on their birthday. But this Rule of Reciprocity causes havoc when we feel the other isn’t responding reciprocally. When we’re “tracking” on one another, we stay balanced emotionally in reciprocity. But when that goes awry and we “switch-track,” where we switch down a new track (“I expect to be thanked for giving you the red roses”) and the other person switches to an even newer and different track (“You don’t care about my feelings, what I like or don’t like”), then we experience a profound relationship disequilibrium. There’s a lack of reciprocity on a deep, subconscious level and a powerful, in-grained social norm is violated inside of us.

Our humanity is complex, isn’t it? The possibilities for misunderstanding, as the Bible might say, are “legion,” as we “switch-track” in our relationships leading to hurt feelings and, possibly, estrangement. Our expectation for reciprocity is so deep inside of us and when it doesn’t occur, we feel crossed and violated. That may be why we have such a hard time accepting the gift of God’s grace. Grace is the ultimate violation of the Rule of Reciprocity. With Grace, God gives us the gift of forgiveness and mercy for which we can never possibly reciprocate. God has acted non-reciprocally, and on some level, we may even be angry with God and outraged for this gift of pre-emptive Grace. This isn’t how we believe it should be. But, thank God, it’s how it is with God.

+Scott

Like me, you may be curious about what motivates us to do good for others. We’d all like to think we do so out of the goodness of our hearts, solely for the other. Christians, in particular, would like to think that our motives for helping others are driven primarily by our faith in God’s work through Jesus’ redemption of the world on the cross. I’d like to think that Christians are more generous in doing good for others than people who don’t have such faith convictions. Except, it’s not true. There’s no reliable data supporting such a claim. There’s only our desire to believe it to be true.

In their book, The Why Axis: Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life, behavioral economists Uri Gneezy and John List delve deeply into what incentivizes our behavior. Through exhaustive field testing and research, they allow the data of human behavior to speak for itself rather than make assumptions about what should be. What they discovered makes me uncomfortable. I’d like to think that because Jesus has shown me undeserved mercy, I’d be more generous in showing mercy than others who don’t have such faith. This should also be true of my financial generosity, without having to experience some reciprocal good for myself. But it’s not true.

The subtitle of their chapter on why people give to “good causes” tells it all: “Don’t Appeal to People’s Hearts: Appeal to Their Vanity.” While they don’t reference this in their book (but it’s consistent with their findings), I noticed this spring when Georgia Public Radio (GPB) was doing its semi-annual fund drive that the recurring tag line their on-air presenters were using was “Be a Public Radio Hero!” We’d all like to think ourselves heroic. “I could be a hero if I support GPB! I want to be a hero!” GPB was just appealing to my vanity. It worked. I upped my donation this year. “I’m a hero!”

Gneezy and List consistently show that the Church or other organizations that depend on people’s generosity to support their mission need to incentivize giving. Historically, the Church must’ve known this intuitively. After all, for centuries the Church financed much of its mission through indulgences, better known as “Get Out of Hell for a Price” cards. For a sizable gift, donors could ensure that they (and their loved ones) were prayed for, thus assuring that their souls were never (for the right price) in eternal peril. Now, that’s an incentive to give! But, thank God, we don’t offer indulgences any more. So, what motivates people to support the mission of the Church today? Do we really have to appeal to vanity and self-interest? I’d like to think that we don’t, but the data, as well as my own look in the mirror, tells me there’s truth there.

What hope then is there for us? Are we all just vain and selfish creatures? Well, yes, we all are, but that’s not all we are. We’re loved, forgiven, and redeemed vain and selfish creatures. God will use even the worst about us to work his grace in the world. Isn’t that what God did on the cross, use our shameful human proclivity for scapegoating and punishing to redeem us? God isn’t stumped by our vanity or our selfishness. Even when our motives to be generous aren’t pure, God will somehow still be glorified. Meditate on all that as we look forward to our stewardship campaigns this fall.

+Scott

What the heart desires, the will chooses, and the mind justifies
– attributed to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer

Oh boy, can our minds justify what our will chooses so we can get our heart’s desire! If that’s not self-evident by observing your own life and the lives of those around you, then I humbly suggest you’re not paying attention. Sin is the only tenet of the Christian faith that’s provable through basic human observation. It’s also being increasingly verified through social science. Social Scientists, however, don’t call it sin. They’ll often refer to it as a bias we humans have. And they can’t say for sure whether such bias is innate or culturally-conditioned. Either way, such biases are present in all of us.

Take, for example, something called Social Desirability Bias. In his book, Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are, author Seth Stephens-Davidowitz uses aggregated data from Google searches to get past this bias. You see, in research done through surveys, even anonymous ones, we’ll lie when we answer questions. We’ll over-report that we engage in behavior our culture deems good and we’ll under-report our behavior that we think society frowns upon. But Google searches show what we really search for, revealing our true behavior and heart’s desire. Anglican moral theology just calls this concupiscence.

Then there’s Choice Supportive Bias, which I suffer from in the extreme. I’m loathe to admit I was wrong after I choose something. This bias is the tendency to justify a choice we make even after it’s patently obvious (maybe except to ourselves) that it was a poor choice. So, that shirt I bought turns out to not fit well at all and is ugly as can be. But I’m still going to wear it, downplaying its poor fit and ugliness, because I don’t want to admit I chose poorly. Over time, I’ll actually convince myself the shirt fits like a dream and is stylistically impeccable. Social Scientists call this a type of cognitive bias. The Christian tradition just calls it the sin of pride.

And then there’s Confirmation Bias where we only interpret, favor, or recall information that supports our already held conviction. Contrary to what we may think, such a bias isn’t a recent phenomenon caused by social media. We humans have suffered from this since our creation. Social Scientists have just now documented it as a universal bias we have. Our prejudices are like rats and our minds are like traps. Once they get in there, it’s hard to get them out. That’s why racism is such a powerful force. Once it becomes a mental construct, it’s continually reinforced in our racist mind. That’s why it’s rightly called “America’s Original Sin.”

Our biases simply betray the truth about ourselves. We might think our minds direct our wills, but they don’t. Our minds are captive to what our will wants, and our will itself is then held captive by what our heart desires. The spiritual medicine for this are hearts reconstructed by God’s grace where our hearts, marinated in such grace, learn to will virtues like love, compassion, and mercy. Only then do our minds begin to change.

+Scott

In London, when traveling on the Tube, a polite, recorded voice reminds people exiting to “mind the gap.” The “gap” to which the voice refers is the gap between the train and the platform. Riders are reminded to pay attention as they exit the train. These days between our Lord’s Ascension, but before the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we’re in a similar place spiritually. Jesus has “already” risen and ascended, but a profound event, the coming of the Holy Spirit, is still “yet” to happen. This “already, but not yet” time” is good spiritual preparation for facing the world as it currently is. It seems the entire world is trying to “mind the gap” between what has been and what will be. We’re going through a transition from the “modern” to the “post-modern” world. That alone should indicate why so many people are afraid, anxious, or confused. We don’t even have a name for the time we’re in. It’s not “modern.” It’s “post-modern.” That defines what it no longer is, but it tells us nothing about what the future will be. The modern world has passed away, but what’ll replace it has not yet come.

There are different ways people “mind the gap” in response to living today. Some, reacting out of their fear and anxiety, hunker down and refuse to accept that the world has changed. In religion, these are the fundamentalist groups in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. They refuse to live graciously and open-heartedly “in the gap.” Their refusal shows itself in their misplaced anger born out of their fear and anxiety. Still others, reacting to a constant need for novelty, embrace every new thing that comes their way. But they have no depth in anything. They get lost “in the gap,” steering a course with multiple navigational tools, so they unwittingly find themselves traveling in circles concluding facilely that there’s absolute truth at all. Their morality and world-view proceeds from a spirituality based on whatever feels right at the time to them.

There’s a better way and we have it in the Church. As disciples of Jesus, we’re a people equipped to live “in the gap” between the “already” and the “not yet.” We have faith that God is sovereign, steadfast, and immovable. As St. Peter says, “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.” As we “mind the gap” waiting for what will be, we trust in God’s never-failing grace. We can say with Dame Julian of Norwich that “all things shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,” only because of the merciful love of God in Jesus. Thus, we’re prepared to face the future and its uncertainty. We worship a Lord who says, “Behold, I make all things new.” St. Paul tells us: If we’re in Christ, we’re “new creations,” therefore “the old has passed away and the new has come.” We can welcome the new thing God’s doing. We’re a gap people living in a world experiencing a major shift from what’s been to what will be.

But how will we know what’s “of God” what’s not “of God” as we “mind the gap” during this time? That’ll require us to pay close attention to what God is up to. If it looks like Jesus’ mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and grace, then it’s probably “of God.” If it looks cruel, cold-hearted, unforgiving, or vengeful, then it’s almost certainly not “of God,” at least not the God who’s revealed to us in Scripture as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, if it looks like Jesus, then it’s almost certainly “of God.”

+Scott