Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Monday, February 6, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Dr. King's Economic Justice: OUR UNFINISHED WORK
For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who
have no one to help. He will take pity
on the poor and the needy, and save the weak from death (Psalm 72:12-13).
Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are
poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith, and to inherit the kingdom
he promised those who love him (James 2:5)?”
You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain . .
. . You oppress the righteous and take
bribes, and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts (Amos 5:11-12).
* * *
On a Thursday evening, the 10th of November last
year, a 37-year old man, a Christian, and an active member of his church was
arrested and charged with bank robbery and the murder of a police officer. After allegedly robbing the Bank of America
in Vallejo, California, he fled the pursuit of a 45-year-old, 19-year veteran
of the police department there-also a Christian. Both men were married, fathers of
children. The 37-year-old suspect was
out of work. He had been convicted of
crimes before, but had stayed out of trouble for more than 11 years, and had
seemingly turned his life around, becoming a responsible member of the
community.
The alleged assailant had been unemployed for more than a
year and the family home was about to be foreclosed on. It is speculated that his financial troubles
may have been behind his seeming spiral into violence.
The officer was not only a 19-year veteran patrolman with a
spotless record, but he was a pillar of the community. He was committed in word and deed to
improving the quality of life for at-risk urban youth in Vallejo, California. He volunteered as a basketball coach for the
local high school, a community center, and in fact had served as a role model
for one of the associate pastors of his alleged slayer’s church. The community was hit hard, grieving both for
the slain officer and the family of the alleged slayer. It appears that though devout and sincere in
his faith and his personal transformation, the alleged assailant was unable to
hold it together against the economic strain his family faced. His church’s general negation of the social
crises around them in favor of preparing members for prosperity on earth, and
encouraging them in their individual spiritual growth and authority as they
await heaven, was unable to stem his penchant for criminal activity and his
return to the same when he found the promised prosperity disappearing around him.
The so-called issues of the Social Gospel are the issues of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The exploitation, abuse and injustice leveled by
the rich and powerful against the poor are themes in the burden of the
Prophets, the Law of Moses, the compassion of Siddhartha, and several Surahs of
the Qur’an.
The church can spiritualize and ignore the real problems of
real human beings all it wants, or like some mainline communions, it can cater to the
middle and upper classes and get amnesia about the very people that John Wesley
dedicated himself to in England, and Richard Allen in America: The poor, the
marginalized, the outcast, and those who were being used as human machines for
plantations and the new industrial revolution.
Yet these issues do not go away and will continue to have an adverse
effect on our people. Furthermore God
will judge us for this neglect, this apathy, this rush to comfort,
acceptability and popularity that we seem so compelled to pursue.
* * *
On November 27, 1967, Dr Martin
Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized a
Poor People's Campaign to address issues of economic justice and housing for
the poor in the United States, aiming itself at rebuilding America's cities . .
. . Martin Luther King Jr. labeled the Poor People's Campaign the "second
phase," of the civil rights struggle - setting goals such as
gathering activists to lobby Congress for an "Economic Bill of
Rights," Dr. King also saw a crying need to confront a Congress that
demonstrated its "hostility to the poor " - appropriating
"military funds with alacrity and generosity," but providing
"poverty funds with miserliness."
Under the "economic bill of
rights" the Poor People's Campaign asked for the federal government to
prioritize helping the poor with an antipoverty package that included housing
and a guaranteed annual income for all Americans. Dr. King pointed out that "the wealthy who own securities have always had a guaranteed income, and the relief client, has been guaranteed an income, however miniscule, through welfare benefits." For this reason he argued that the guaranteed income should be "progressive, set at the median income of society rather than at the bottom," and that it should "automatically increase with inflation."
Dr. King had recently published, Where Do we Go
from Here: Chaos of Community (1967). In
that book, Dr. King called for the complete economic redistribution of wealth
in America. He wrote further:
Up
to recently, we have proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils: lack of education restricting
job opportunities; poor housing which stultified home
life and suppressed initiative, and fragile family relationships, which distorted personality development.
Dr. King went on to explain in that
same chapter of the book:
I
am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective—the solution to poverty
is to abolish it directly by a now
widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income. . . . We are likely to find that the attempt to eliminate the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished....
The
curse of poverty has no justification in our age . . . . The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by
the total, direct and immediate
abolition of poverty.
We have now gone full circle. While King’s birthday celebration approaches
the vulgar corporate secularism of Christmas, or of a pre-convention political
rump session, where the most opportunistic of people with money and power
dominate the platforms proclaiming their allegiance to something nebulously
referred to as King’s Dream, most fail to remember his speech of December 24, 1967, in which he stated,
"In 1963...in Washington, D.C....I Tried
to talk to the nation about a dream that I had had, and I must confess...that
not long after talking about that dream I started seeing it turn into a
nightmare.”
In an interview with NPR regarding
the Poor Peoples’ Campaign on Dr. King’s birthday, 2008, the Reverend Joseph
Lowery stated:
"The nation became conscious of the fact
that it has an expanding poor population," says Lowery, who co-founded the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King. "It's one thing to
have the right to check into the Hiltons and the Marriotts, it's another thing
to have the means to check out."
For many of America's poor, there hasn't been
much progress in the 40 years since the Poor People's Campaign. In 1968, 25
million people — nearly 13 percent of the population — were living below the
poverty level, according to the Census Bureau. In 2006, 36 million people or
more than 12 percent of the population were living below the poverty level.
Poverty has been rapidly rising for some time. The black middle class, in fact the entire American middle class in a recent report from NewsMax, is disappearing all
over the country. Opportunities for
higher education are evaporating, even for those who would attend public
colleges and universities. The dropout
rate, murder rate and the incarceration rates for black and brown boys and men
is outrageous, and growing for black and brown women.
The ranks of jobless and homeless people are growing exponentially while the gap between rich and poor accelerates. Wealth is more concentrated in the hands of the few. “Pew reported last week that there is a growing rift and resentment between rich and poor in America, due in part to “the underlying shifts in the distribution of wealth in American society.” Pew also reported, “According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, the proportion of overall wealth — a measure that includes home equity, stocks and bonds, and the value of jewelry, furniture and other possessions — held by the top 10 percent of the population increased from 49 percent in 2005 to 56 percent in 2009.” Democracy itself has vanished or is vanishing as corporate lobbyists exercise almost complete control over the U. S. House of Representative and the Senate.
The ranks of jobless and homeless people are growing exponentially while the gap between rich and poor accelerates. Wealth is more concentrated in the hands of the few. “Pew reported last week that there is a growing rift and resentment between rich and poor in America, due in part to “the underlying shifts in the distribution of wealth in American society.” Pew also reported, “According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, the proportion of overall wealth — a measure that includes home equity, stocks and bonds, and the value of jewelry, furniture and other possessions — held by the top 10 percent of the population increased from 49 percent in 2005 to 56 percent in 2009.” Democracy itself has vanished or is vanishing as corporate lobbyists exercise almost complete control over the U. S. House of Representative and the Senate.
* * *
So where are the organizations that are addressing King’s
economic vision for America? Where are
the progressive economists, business people, educators, clergy and laity who
will collectively lift up his vision for economic democracy in America in
2012? I’m not simply talking about
giving speeches like this one, even though more are certainly needed from our
too heavenly-spiritually preoccupied churches, mosques, and synagogues.
One sign of hope has been the Occupy-Move On Movements. Yet I have heard so much criticism from
clergy and other leaders regarding these movements. I would challenge those critics, put up or
shut up. It is black people and then
brown people in America who are disproportionately losing their homes, unable
to send qualified children to college, and lacking the funds and resources to
keep our children out of the “cradle to the grave prison pipeline.” The prison industrial complex is growing
rapidly. Many young lawyers are eager to
become ADAs so that they can incarcerate more black and brown, men women and
children by any means necessary, using this as a stepping-stone to corporate
and political careers.
A sizable number of this army of attorneys are busy working with banks and mortgage companies, helping them to find legal loopholes whereby they can further exploit and suck dollars away from we who are still managing to hold on to our businesses, jobs and homes.
A sizable number of this army of attorneys are busy working with banks and mortgage companies, helping them to find legal loopholes whereby they can further exploit and suck dollars away from we who are still managing to hold on to our businesses, jobs and homes.
* * * *
Poverty and Faith
Over the past few years, mega-churches have
become more popular in black communities, just as they have in white
communities. These mega-churches have amassed influence and wealth partly
because of their sheer number of parishioners. Some have created satellite
churches and broadcast their gospel on television.
On April 3, 1968, in his famous “Promised
Land” sermon, Dr. King said, “It's all right to talk
about ‘long white robes over yonder,’ in all of its symbolism. But ultimately
people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's all right to talk about ‘streets flowing
with milk and honey,’ but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums
down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's all right
to talk about the New Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must talk about
the new New York, the new Atlanta, the New Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles,
and the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.”
This having been said, I would challenge us to adhere to,
trust in, reverence, and rely on God. We need to
turn to the pages of the Bible in order to get ourselves back into focus. We need to recommit ourselves to our first
love. I have no problem in proclaiming
that Jesus Christ is both Lord and Deliverer, the savior, the one that God has
chosen to bring light and love and truth and hope to the world. In one of his 1934 readings, the late Prophet Edgar Cayce spoke of the Christ, "Not as only one, but the only one."
We need people who are unapologetically Christian, instead of this wishy-washy “everything is everything” rhetoric that is driving our children elsewhere. It is God who advocates for us, who has already commissioned Jesus to lead the hosts of heaven in winning every political and economic battle for us, and who is outraged at the state of our planet, but especially at the state of ease, comfort, entertainment, lazy thinking and the absence of thinking and doing and loving in the church.
We need people who are unapologetically Christian, instead of this wishy-washy “everything is everything” rhetoric that is driving our children elsewhere. It is God who advocates for us, who has already commissioned Jesus to lead the hosts of heaven in winning every political and economic battle for us, and who is outraged at the state of our planet, but especially at the state of ease, comfort, entertainment, lazy thinking and the absence of thinking and doing and loving in the church.
One of the hard lessons I have learned is that those who
ignore and minimize the sacred texts do so, not because they consider the words
archaic or anachronistic or erroneous, but rather because they would rather not
be confronted with the expectations God places on us in the scriptures. It is easy to criticize fundamentalists and
evangelicals for having otherworldly views, but I frankly see no strong
commitment to economic justice coming from much of the liberal wing of the
church. Our seminaries are in full
retreat, having students focus on something nebulous that the majority culture
calls “spirituality.” I grew up in a
church where spirituality meant, “Let
justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a flowing stream.”
In fact people like Jim Wallace of Sojourners
and Dr. Herbert Daughtry of the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church, Brooklyn,
N. Y., are some of the strongest advocates for economic justice for the poor in
America. Rev. Daughtry is no stranger to
us, having worked closely with Rev, Jesse Jackson and the Reverend Al Sharpton
and having founded in 1982, the African People's Christian
Organization.
The liberal church of which Dr. King was certainly
representative and which nurtured him in his ideological understanding of what
God requires, is now marching in lock-step with the rich and powerful under the
banner of “neo-liberalism.” The name of its game is accommodation-ism, and it
will bend over backwards and bow down to Hell rather than offend its rich
classist, heterosexist, racist donors and benefactors and its upper middle
class and upper class constituencies.
Dr. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, the father of American
sociology, was often criticized for being a tad bit elitist and detached. In 1899, while he was working on his great
study, The
Philadelphia Negro as a faculty member of Atlanta University, the
Wilmington Massacre occurred. As many as
a hundred lives were lost. Much of the
black community in Wilmington, North Carolina known as Brooklyn, had been
burned to the ground, and thousands of black residents fled for their lives.
The city had been a bastion of the black middle and upper
classes in the south, with a population of 11,324 African Americans and 8,731
whites. All this was to change
overnight. The Democrats were determined
to remove all of the black political appointees that President McKinley had
made, in gratitude for the role that African Americans had played in the
Spanish-American war. The Democrats
recruited farmers in the outlying areas, whites whose wives were forced to find
jobs and work for blacks in the state’s cotton mills in the city.
Their strategy was to shame whites, just as the Republicans are now doing, into voting for "white economic interests" using racial code language. With the help of right-wing fringe groups and respectable church liberals like Rebecca Felton of the WCTU, they enflamed the white people of the city and surrounding communities. Felton quoted her mentor, the vitriolic white supremacist WCTU founder Frances Willard, who had stated publicly that "white women needed to be protected from marauding, inebriated black men," who Williard had also characterized as "fierce beasts." This led to the lynching and mutilation of Samuel Wilkes, which was the catalyst to the massacre. He was cut, mutilated and parts of his charred remains sold all over the south.
Their strategy was to shame whites, just as the Republicans are now doing, into voting for "white economic interests" using racial code language. With the help of right-wing fringe groups and respectable church liberals like Rebecca Felton of the WCTU, they enflamed the white people of the city and surrounding communities. Felton quoted her mentor, the vitriolic white supremacist WCTU founder Frances Willard, who had stated publicly that "white women needed to be protected from marauding, inebriated black men," who Williard had also characterized as "fierce beasts." This led to the lynching and mutilation of Samuel Wilkes, which was the catalyst to the massacre. He was cut, mutilated and parts of his charred remains sold all over the south.
Du Bois, who was startled by the gruesome murder, had
written a sober anti-lynching editorial that he was going to give to Atlanta
Constitution’s editor Joel Chandler Harris.
With his walking cane and gloves, Du Bois made his way to the newspaper
office, but was stopped short when he passed by a shop on Mitchell Street, where
Wilke’s charred knuckles were on display.
It was then that Du Bois realized as he wrote later: “One could not be a
calm, cool, and detached scientist while Negroes were lynched, murdered, and
starved.
I would challenge all who hear and read these words to
consider the state of our race, of our nation, and really ask whether or not we
can continue to delay or ignore Dr. King’s challenge of economic justice for
America. I would ask us to consider
whether or not the time for detachment and sensible responses is over. Perhaps
the Occupy Movement is a cue for us to develop a serious program that continues
Dr. King’s work for economic justice in America. I would challenge us to consider those who
are starved, excluded, incarcerated, exploited, and have their dreams dashed by
those who are interested in quick profits that leave the people hopeless and
powerless. We cannot keep men, women and
children out of the criminal justice system with just good
intentions.
I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and
upholds the cause of the needy (Psalm 140:12).
Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain, to set his
nest on high, to escape the clutches of ruin!
You have plotted the ruin of many peoples, shaming your own house and
forfeiting your life (Habakkuk 2:9).
So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against . . .
those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the
fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me (Malachi 3:5).
What will we do with Dr. King’s call for economic justice in
2012?
Don Guest
Monday, January 9, 2012
Proper Charitable Giving
“The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in
times of trouble. Those who know your
name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you
(Psalm 9:9-10)."
Spike Lee’s classic “Do the Right Thing” presents a picture
of the world as too many of us know it.
Those who have power abuse it and live with arrogant disdain for the
poor. Some of us who live with the
privilege of power, who claim to be guided by moral and religious principles or our own “sense of right and wrong” too often are paternalistic social
“do-gooders” who “want to do good” as long as we don’t have to make any real
sacrifices. We are the most vocal
supporters of charity as long as our own comfortable lifestyle with its innate cultural
and social boundaries is not put at risk.
We often have more sympathy for our dogs and cats and “free range green
farm chickens” than we do for the outcast, feared and despised poor of our
world.
In the 10th chapter of the Gospel of Mark, the writer
conveys this story: As Jesus started in
his way a man ran up to him and fell on his feet before him, “Good Rabbi,” he
asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered, “No
one is good—except God alone.
You know the commandments, ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do
not steal, do not give false testimony in court, do not cheat the poor, honor
your father and mother.’” “Teacher,” he
declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said, “Go sell
everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in
heaven. Then come follow me.” At this
the man’s face fell. He went away sad
because he had great wealth (Mark 10:17-22).”
Jesus was not trying to make it impossible for this man to
become one of his followers. On the
other hand, Jesus was far more sophisticated in his thinking and understanding
about charity than some churches and Christian leaders would have us believe. He warned the man that God was not looking
for “good people” but for people who would allow God’s agenda to transform
their own conceptualization of themselves.
He did not want to mislead people about what God required of them.
Jesus wanted us to understand the nature of what God wanted for the world. It would not be achieved by soliciting donations from the disposable incomes of middle and upper class persons for soup kitchens or the other worthwhile social causes that churches and charitable organizations engaged in. Something more intense, yet simple was required.
Jesus wanted us to understand the nature of what God wanted for the world. It would not be achieved by soliciting donations from the disposable incomes of middle and upper class persons for soup kitchens or the other worthwhile social causes that churches and charitable organizations engaged in. Something more intense, yet simple was required.
Jesus knew that these acts in and of themselves had nothing
to do with making life any better for the recipients, nor for the ones who were
the benefactors. Too often our
“goodness” is based on our own social class position, which affords us “the
choice” of “helping” the poor. For Jesus
it was not a matter of charity but of lifestyle choice. To live in accordance with God’s plan meant
that self
and all that made one feel important and powerful enough to “help” others, must
be abandoned. Only relying on the goodness of God (no strings attached LOVE) and not the
goodness of human beings changes the world. One theologian wrote of God's motive as "total disinterestedness."
In the January 7th One-Year Bible reading we read
in the Gospel of Matthew: “Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness
before men, to be seen by them. If you
do you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy do not announce
it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to
be honored by men. I tell you the truth;
they have received their reward in full.
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your
right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in
secret will reward you (Wow! Seems like we have institutionalized in our faith
communities the very thing that Jesus warned us NOT TO DO—advertising, honoring
and reporting on those who give for our good work—Matthew 6:1-4).”
The poor are more suspect of the latter than they are of
brutal police, overt white supremacists, the “cradle to the grave
prison-pipeline of the criminal ‘just-us’ system, and right wing ideologues. It appears to the poor, marginalized of society that us “do-gooders” do not really “see them” or really ‘regard them”
as the same human beings that we are. They do not sense that we understand them to have the same needs, the same
aspirations, the same blood that bleeds when cut, the same bodies that die when
they don’t receive adequate health care, the same minds that are wasted without
quality education, and the same psyches and souls that are wounded, often
beyond repair, by the abject poverty and lack of resources they must contend
with in the ghettos (worn out used “flat-lands” housing, playgrounds--when they do exist, schools, stores and
infrastructures) they are consigned to live in.
We never seem to connect the massive profits our businesses
or our stocks, IRAs, pensions and capital investments are making with the
growing rampant joblessness, homelessness, drop-out rates and incarcerations
that so tragically characterize ever-growing segments of the American
population.
It’s kind of like what I wrote about in a previous post regarding Chevron Oil. Chevron’s giving
3.7 million dollars to social service agencies in Richmond, and then
simultaneously seeking to take back $60 million from the taxes they paid to the
county—after having already sued and gotten $120 million in taxes back from the county for
previous years, is the worst kind of cynical greed and disregard for the well-being of American citizens. Add this to their
hundreds of billions of dollars of profits each year, their charitable giving
amounts to a heinous joke—a pittance “in the name of” offering remedy for the
social conditions that their refusal to pay a fair share of taxes has helped to
create and exacerbate in that same city. Those who scramble for these dollars miss the larger picture of how their "gratitude" and "competition" feeds the misery of the very people they believe they are helping.
It's like Jewish guards in the Warsaw Ghetto believing that they were helping Jews by carrying out the orders of the Germans to keep order there. In reality, such social service agencies become the de facto agents of those who would inflict misery and suffering on the poor in favor or more profits. Those who ignore the Bible’s clear teaching in favor of their own contemporary religious-ethical spin on charity do the same thing.
It's like Jewish guards in the Warsaw Ghetto believing that they were helping Jews by carrying out the orders of the Germans to keep order there. In reality, such social service agencies become the de facto agents of those who would inflict misery and suffering on the poor in favor or more profits. Those who ignore the Bible’s clear teaching in favor of their own contemporary religious-ethical spin on charity do the same thing.
But in this song from the Hebrew Psalter (9:9-10), it is clear that the poor are not to seek out the assistance of “good
human beings” or “progressive human beings.”
Neither are the poor to put their trust in pastors or politicians or corporate leaders.
The poor are to put their trust, to put their hope in, and to rely upon God (no strings attached LOVE). The oppressed are told that the LORD (YHWH) Adonai, or Jehovah--the God of "WHAT WILL BE" is their refuge. The almighty sovereign Creator is the Fortress, the Strong Shield “in times of trouble,” and the One who ultimately brings a new reality for all.
Neither are the poor to put their trust in pastors or politicians or corporate leaders.
The poor are to put their trust, to put their hope in, and to rely upon God (no strings attached LOVE). The oppressed are told that the LORD (YHWH) Adonai, or Jehovah--the God of "WHAT WILL BE" is their refuge. The almighty sovereign Creator is the Fortress, the Strong Shield “in times of trouble,” and the One who ultimately brings a new reality for all.
You want to help the poor? Then teach the poor God’s name--after you have learned to call on that name for your own very breath and life and health. You want to assist the poor? Teach the poor to trust, to have hope in the
One who loves them even as you trust and hope and embrace that same love. Admit to the poor that too often they suffer because too often we too often fear and despise them. Teach the poor that we cannot save them or
even ourselves, but that God rescues them and will rescue us all who live by faith in God's unconditional love. God does and will do this not
because of what we do or have done, not because we are better or smarter than
the right or the left, but because God loves all of us equally and in spite of our sins, our mistakes and our fears.
Teach the poor that they must not define themselves by the
poverty of a sub-culture of desperation, limited choices and the loathsomeness
that we transfer off to them from our own fear and false consciousness, and that they
also define themselves by. Confess to the poor that our attitudes and fears have contributed to their suffering and ask the poor for their forgiveness.
God loves all of us, but the Bible is clear that God has a preferential option for the poor (Matthew 6:19-21; Luke 1:46-55). God’s message is that the poor, like us, are fearfully and wonderfully made, and are the “apple of God’s eye.” In fact THEY are US-- if we truly understand the concept of God’s new heaven and new earth. We are all in training for another time, another place, and another world where love, mercy and truth are the order of the day.
God loves all of us, but the Bible is clear that God has a preferential option for the poor (Matthew 6:19-21; Luke 1:46-55). God’s message is that the poor, like us, are fearfully and wonderfully made, and are the “apple of God’s eye.” In fact THEY are US-- if we truly understand the concept of God’s new heaven and new earth. We are all in training for another time, another place, and another world where love, mercy and truth are the order of the day.
We have an opportunity to live in humility instead arrogance. It is never too late for us to change our behavior and approach (repentance-metanoia). God calls us through the Hebrew Bible, The Christian Bible and the Holy Qur'an to encourage the poor and outcast to join with us, be a part of us, have the best seats in our
churches, our mosques, and our synagogues, attend our schools with our children, house themselves in our neighborhoods--our "hills," join life with our families, our social clubs, our community councils, work with us and share the fruits of labor in our businesses,
our corporations, and have a place in our future, and join with us at decision-making tables as equals in seeking
solutions that lessen the suffering of all human beings until Christ returns.
The poor will no longer be victimized by anyone on the same
day that we decide to “let the poor become a part of us.” Seems like too much, a tall order. The song of Psalm 9 concludes, “For you Lord
have never forsaken those who seek you.”
Saturday, January 7, 2012
The Challenge of Spiritual Leadership
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant names
Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go
sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram
agreed to what Sarai said (Genesis 16:1-2).
In Orlando, Florida, Riva Tims, wife of
deceased pastor Zachary Tims, has been fighting to run the church that she and
her husband founded in 1996, the New Destiny
Christian Center. But Pastor Paula White was chosen to run the
church, leading to a major divide in the church’s ranks. The church planned to announce their new
leader on January 1. It is alleged that a survey was sent out to church
members asking them if they want Paula White to be their new pastor. The
problem was that no other names were offered for consideration. Riva Tims made a strong statement about her
treatment at church this Sunday on her Facebook page accusing Ms. White of being
deceptive, a false prophet, and of sexual promiscuity to influence male church
members.
One member posted a comment on Rev. Tims’
Facebook page:
The church did not belong to Zachary
Tims, it does not belong to Paula White, it does not belong to the board of
directors, it does not belong to Riva Tims, and it does not belong to her
children. The last time I checked, the Bible says that Jesus Christ is the head
of the church (Colossians 1:18).
Genesis 16:2 ends with the comment,
“Abram agreed to what Sarai said.” I
believe that our nation is in crisis because our cultural, financial, political
and religious leadership has been in crisis.
In this election year (2012) we will see Presidential candidates, church
bishops, and business leadership, all chosen by less than democratic
means. Money, influence, back room
deals, family loyalty, bedroom politics, influence peddling, arm twisting, and
lots and lots and lots of money and dental bills to show us that gleaming white
smiles or the ability of that person to exact the same in other situations,
will determine the outcomes of most of these contests. Many religious traditions have sacred
processes or democratic processes or both for choosing their leadership. What is happening in our faith communities is
a sign of the corruption that is occurring in leadership choices in the larger
society.
As a young pastor I had friends in many
religious traditions. I remember
distinctly visiting the Metropolitan Baptist Church on the West Side of
Chicago. It was an impressive place,
every pew filled. The pastor, the
Reverend E. F. Ledbetter was a genteel soft-spoken man whose words carried
great weight with the people. His life
was one of consistent self-sacrifice, humility and strong spiritual
leadership.
He was failing in health and not long for
this world, so that this particular Sunday afternoon at a special musical, he
stated plainly regarding his successor, “We will vote until a majority decision
is made. I will not choose your new
pastor for you, nor will the deacons of the church, nor will anyone appoint
himself after my death. In the Baptist
tradition, we believe that ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God.’”
For some reason this made a great
impression. It was the clearest
statement of public religion that I had ever heard from a pulpit, and yet for a
young man raised to believe in the virtues of democracy in choosing leaders for
our Republic, it was solid stuff. This
congregational policy was new but refreshing.
I knew the discontent that often followed
when the bishop appointed pastors--even my recent appointment as pastor to a
church that had no REAL input and decision in my being there, was
difficult. Years later those members
would be just as unhappy when the bishop decided that he wanted me to serve in
a different parish. For the past 40
years my family was often uprooted. This
constant moving had a very negative impact on my children as well as the
marital relationships. So the Reverend
Ledbetter’s words were music to my ears.
Of course after his death there followed a vitriolic struggle in which
one associate pastor split off with a gaggle of members to form another Baptist
congregation, and the choice that “deacon’s board” did make was one that ended
in yet another poor choice a few years later.
In the United Methodist Church where I am
a clergy member in full connection, we like Baptists, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus,
Presbyterians, and many others believe that one needs to be called by God and
have a clear sense of this call. It
means that you accept divine leadership and you don’t back away from making
decisions because you are trying to please one or more members of a
congregation, of a board, of a committee, of a council, of the larger
community, etc. Neither do your spouse,
offspring, parents, neighbors, best friends, etc. make decisions for you. It’s about leadership.
In the Roman Catholic Church the Church
Council advises the pastor, but the final decisions rest with him. In most religious communities, sermons,
matters of faith and practice, selection of other church leaders, etc. are
decided by that person called to ministry.
In Roman Catholic, Protestant Episcopal, United Methodist and similar
churches, boards, clergy committees of ordained clergy and councils examine
those who claim to be called to verify whether or not their calling squares
with what those particular communions believe.
It is then the bishops who assign or appoint pastors, after consulting
with the local parishes. In the
Presbyterian and other Reformed communities, a classis or presbytery also
approves candidates for ordination, and then the decision to accept them as
pastors is given to a board of lay elders in each local church. The United Methodists final decision is with
the annual conference to which a pastor is a member, on recommendation by the
conference’s board of ordained ministry, which until recently was exclusively a
board of ordained clergy.
Yet, none of these processes guarantees
that leaders will be effective God-directed leaders, but having a husband
decide that his wife will follow him as pastor or a pastor decide that her/his
son or daughter will succeed them leads to the kind of neo-nepotistic chaos we
are experiencing that is too evident in too many places in our world. Examples like North Korea, Chicago, Illinois,
the previous Bush Administrations readily come to mind. These are examples of
family loyalty and cronyism run amuck.
God called Abram to lead. In Genesis 15:1 he received a vision in which
God said to him, “Do not be afraid . . . I am your shield, your very great
reward.” Later in verse 15:5-6 we
read: “He took him outside and said,
‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them,’ Then
he said to him, ‘so shall your offspring be.’ Abram believed the Lord, and God
credited this faith to him as righteousness.”
Abram had proved his call, his leadership
by believing what God said. I cannot
speak for leaders of the other sectors of our reality, but in the assembly, the
church, the meeting house, the mosque, the synagogue, the temple—what defines
called leadership is the ability to put God and what God has said, promised,
commanded, and proclaimed FIRST. It is
not family first, spouse first, offspring first, friends and cronies first, big
donors first, loud critics first, old friends first, but GOD FIRST.
In all kinds of faith communities in
America today, we need God-First leaders, whether the people choose to believe
us or not. Our call was not given to us
by “the people—the board—the committee—the council—the conference—the
bishop—the deacons.” The call of
authentic, prophetic God leaders must always come from God. As the people of God, we must exercise our
God given rights to affirm that call. It
can never be delegated to a back room or a representative group, because the
buck stops somewhere.
Interestingly enough, after Abram “agreed
to what Sarai said,” and Hagar, now with child and feeling superior began to
despise her, Sarai complained to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am
suffering.” In a real sense this is
true, because he had listened to and acted in accordance with what “Sarai had
said,” instead of listening to and patiently waiting in faith for what “God has
promised.” God’s promises are clear in the Hebrew Bible for all persons who
follow in the “faith-steps” of Abraham.
Each of us as God’s people can and must
exercise spiritual leadership in 2012.
We must learn to distinguish between what those we love and care about
are encouraging us to do, advising us to think, counseling us to consider, and
turn always to what God has promised us.
Everyone who exercises faith is part of a “royal priesthood” that is
called to lead in demonstrating and witnessing to the power of God’s compassion
in the world. The promises of God are
many for we who seek to walk in the spiritual power of God’s unconditional
love. Whose advice are you following
this year? Are you going to lead, or
look for someone to pick a leader for you?
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
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