"Top ten things I hate about election time," revisited four years later

Four years ago, I generated a pretty feisty discussion with a Facebook note, "Top ten things I hate about election time - #1". This note was the culmination of a series of notes decrying the unfortunate aspects of national elections in the USA. Some items on my list were funny, some were serious, some were simply gripes. But each was born out of my genuinely held feelings, opinions, and experiences.

The final item on the list, "Christians telling other Christians how they have to vote," generated the most controversy among my friends and family, even garnering comments from people I had never met. (Apparently, notes defaulted to "global" sharing back then.) To summarize the arguments of those I had offended, I had to make the abortion issue my number one political priority, as a Christian.

This argument took me by surprise. I had not mentioned abortion (in any light or from any perspective), nor did I even refer to any particular candidate who was up for election (such as, I don't know, the big one). Regardless, though, everyone assumed I was referring to the Christian right's then-ubiquitous campaign against abortion in the context of choosing a President.

I actually had in mind the now-all-but-forgotten Florida Marriage Amendment, which was being supported vocally on Sunday morning by the leaders of the church of which I was a member at the time.

Much has changed in the last four years:

1. I am no longer a member of that church (their attempt at polarizing their congregants' votes that year being one of the reasons that ultimately culminated in my departure in late 2010), though I have cautiously attended services there the last few weeks.
2. I have since then become much more educated on the history of the Christian right, and now see where many of the excesses that I wrote about stem from.
3. I hear significantly fewer references to Romans 13 made in church.
4. Despite the protests that were offered on my 2008 note, I hear much less about abortion in presidential debates, campaign ads, and even in church on Sunday morning.
5. Instead, I hear much more about the economy and the government's relationship to the poor---now finally being given some explicit argumentation from Christian principles (if not Scripture). (Not surprisingly, there is equal Christian argumentation on both sides.)
6. And, perhaps most important (and the reason I'm writing this post), the Christian right may now be forced to reexamine their unquestioning support of Republican candidates.

This reexamination comes from the choice they now have to make---in some small sense---between their political agenda and their convictions about the gospel laid out in Scripture. I'm referring (as you might have guessed) to the evangelical conviction that believing a false gospel is a serious problem. Evangelicals---especially the more fiery ones, who are usually also fiery on political issues---rely on texts like Galatians 1:6-9 and 1 John 1:18-27 as a litmus test to distinguish genuine Christianity from heresies the way Archimedes relied on his principle of displacement to distinguish authentic gold from a forgery. And these evangelicals believe the warnings in these texts are dire:

"But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!"

"Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ... is the antichrist... No one who denies the Son has the Father."

Many evangelicals---including these fiery, Republican evangelicals---believe that Mormonism falls under this category of "another gospel" that "denies that Jesus is the Christ." These evangelicals take the deity of Jesus very seriously---as they should, if they believe it to be true---and reject any gospel---like that of Mormonism---that denies it.

So, they have some distress as November approaches: Do they stay true to their social and political convictions, and vote for someone whom they believe (based on such a dire, central conviction in their religion) is in this heretical hotseat? Do they stay true to their evangelical profession that "the gospel is central" and vote for the other candidate who at least claims to believe the same gospel they do? Or do they wander in a political wilderness, wishing they were back in the Egypt of the 2008 election? (It's strikingly similar to the Jeroboam vs. Rehoboam "election.")

I suspect that most will take the first route. Their priority in elections, after all, has been to oppose the social and political evils that they perceive to be so great. "The gospel is the church's responsibility," I suspect they might say, "not the President's."

I could not be happier with this answer.

Because really, evangelical Republicans' rationalization for sticking with the Republican candidate simply goes to demonstrate what I wrote four years ago: We have to not only cultivate our beliefs, but also cultivate the priorities we place on those beliefs, in the contexts in which we live them out. These evangelical Republicans are willing to favor their stance on political and social issues over their commitment to a pure gospel in the context of this election. That cannot possibly be an easy decision to make, but in the end, it is certainly a reasonable one.

But in making that decision, in assigning those weightings, they must be willing to respectfully allow other Christians to assign their weightings differently---in this decision, and in the myriad others that we face in this world of issues and questions that cannot be resolved to a one-dimensional spectrum, or a single choice between two equally nuanced options. We need to acknowledge that these determinations are not easy, that there is a struggle involved. We should never present the end result as the only logical outcome that we arrived at in a straightforward and nearly instantaneous manner.

I therefore propose two considerations for the next six months.

1. Let's adopt an attitude of sharing in the struggle, instead of arguing over the answer. It is not a straightforward manner to decide whom to vote for, what party to align oneself with (or declare independence from parties), what stance to take on a political issue, what stance to take on a theological issue, what career to choose, where to attend church, etc.
2. If you feel uncomfortable voting for someone, then don't. If you feel uncomfortable voting for either presidential candidate, then don't vote for either. Still vote---for whatever you feel comfortable---but leave that line blank. The Republican party has long relied on the support of much of the Christian church, and their drift away from the abortion issue (which the Christian right said was so important to them four years ago) indicates that now they're assuming that support. But what if some Christians voted for every issue/candidate with whom they felt comfortable, but left the presidential line blank? What if the number of abstentions on the presidential selection on ballots became a statistic referred to on the news? What if it became a concern, to both parties?

Handling controversy in our fields as Christian scholars

With the close of the recent faster-than-light neutrino debacle, I find myself contemplating how Christian scholars can responsibly respond to other Christians' questions about controversial events/findings in our fields. In particular...

1. When other Christians ask us questions about these controversies, how can we tell if they are genuinely interested, or simply tapping us for information?
2. How do we caringly but fairly defend our field if other Christians seek to use these controversies in attacks against the mainstream incarnations of our fields?
3. How do we explain our qualifications to judge these controversies?

For example, in response to the claims of faster-than-light neutrinos, I as a physicist faced the following issues:

1. Should I attempt to re-explain the findings in response to questions, or simply point the askers to the already-existing (and very well-written) popular documentation of the claims?
2. If a young-earth creationist sees this as a "failure" of physics that would justify his challenge to the estimated 13.7-billion-year age of the universe, how do I lovingly put the claims---and the likelihood of their accuracy---into perspective?
3. In such conversations, how do I humbly but accurately describe my experience with related matters, and mark out the boundaries my understanding of a sub-field of physics that I'm not terribly familiar with?

The one who gets the learning

A theme in studies of student learning in higher education is that the one who does the work is the one who gets the learning. This is the main impetus behind the push away from lectures and toward interactive engagement: If the professor is the one who creates the outline, completes the sample problem, and derives the important conclusions, then the professor gets the learning, and the students get to watch. If the students are to learn, they must be the ones to do the work that leads to understanding.

I am convinced that the same is true in the setting of Sunday morning at church. If the pastor spends all week outlining and cross-referencing the text, examining applications, and drawing the important conclusions, then the pastor has received the learning, not the congregation.

This is not to say there is no place for lectures. Lectures can (and I emphasize "can") be motivating and can lead to initiative on the learners' part. But to have lecture be the only mode of learning that takes place is to fall short of setting up the learners for success.

Two of my favorite movies are Ever After and The Dark Knight, and for the same reason: At some point during each movie, I say, "Oh, yeah; this is a {Cinderalla|Batman} movie." I honestly forget that each film is based on a modern-day mythological figure/story.

The interesting thing is that I don't forget what each movie is based on because they stray from their inspirations, but because they take a familiar story (a wicked step-family, a fairy godmother, a criminal clown, and a criminal hero) but because they take those elements and make them so compelling (an overlooked stepsister, Leonardo DaVinci, an ameture anarchist, and two vigilantes) that I feel like I'm seeing them for the first time. My "Oh, yeah" moment is filled with a new appreciation for a story that has grown familiar and commonplace in my mind.

I wonder if Christians' lives are supposed to be the same way. Perhaps it's a good thing when our coworkers & friends say, "Oh, yeah; [s]he's a Christian," not because we've strayed from Jesus's calling but because we've lived out that calling in a way that hasn't been seen before, and that brings a new sense of wonder.

...then again, maybe we are!

I got into a facebook debate last week with a friend of a friend who was offended by Protagoras' statement that "[hu]man is the measure of all things," often (as was the case that sparked this debate) used to open an introductory Humanities course. This friend-of-a-friend was consoling the mutual friend that he would just have to deal with it (presumably as part of Christian suffering).

I offered (with a glasses-smiley) that one could opt to be a Christian humanist.

The friend-of-a-friend retorted with a "challenge" for me to define "huminist" and "Christian."

I replied with the consideration (often employed by Christians in the academy) that "humanism" is simply a stance that humans are worth studying, and that Christians (of any definition) can join in this stance based on their belief that humans are created in the image of God.

The friend-of-a-friend has yet to respond.

But my answer still, of course, leaves the pesky first-day-of-the-semester quote hanging in the air. Christians have some reason to dislike it. After all, we believe that we are our favorite idols. And humanism without God (just like anything without God) can turn against God and, ultimately, against humanity. We might even be bold enough to say God sets the standards of the universe, and not humans.

Of course, I can never think of God's commandments without thinking of the two most important:

"1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

2. Love your neighbor as yourself."

Then it hit me: What is the "measure" employed in these commandments? How do you know you've kept them?

It's us. However big a human's heart, mind, soul, and strength, that is exactly how much that human is supposed to love God. However much and in whatever ways a human loves him/herself, that is how much that human is supposed to love his/her neighbor.

Are human beings the measure of all things? That might be an intractable question! Even still, it's an interesting hypothesis, and seems to be true (in some sense) when it comes to God's top two commandments.

Believe, believe, and believe

Happy 100th post!

It seems to me that Christians and scientists both become very upset around the word "believe." Here are three possible meanings that word can have:

1. "Do you believe in evolution?" In this question (presumably posed by a creationist), "believe in XYZ" means something like, "to think think idea XYZ is true." But the scientist's answer to this question is always, "No," because that's not what a scientist means when (s)he uses the word "believe." Because the scientist (typically) considers that the theoretical, observational, & experimental research that has gone into developing, confirming, and refining the evolutionary model has been sufficiently rigorous to justifiably warrant (nay, necessitate) a certainty in the model. Belief is not necessary, the scientist says (perhaps in a scoffing tone), because of sufficient supporting evidence.

2. "Do you believe in God?" In this question (presumably posed by a scientist), "believe in XYZ" means something like, "to hold idea XYZ to be true, regardless of a lack of evidence." A Christian would technically answer this question with, "yes," but this is not what Christians mean when they say they "believe in God"---or, if they're feeling specific---when they say they "have faith in God." To paraphrase James's warning, "You believe there is one God. Good for you! Of course, even the demons believe and tremble, and that faith does them no good!" Believing that God exists, Christianity says (perhaps in a chilling tone), gets you nowhere.

3. "Do you believe God?" I am eternally thankful to a good friend from summer project (hosted by what was then known as Campus Crusade for Christ) for pointing out this distinction. When Christians (usually) say that they believe in God, they mean that they "believe God"---"trust God." Far from "belief" in evolution (which is no belief at all), and from ascent to God's existence (which even the Father of Lies admits), Christian belief is an orientation of the heart, mind, and will. Christian belief is "banking our hopes" (thanks to John Piper for that one) on all that Jesus is and all that He has done for us. Trusting God, Christianity says (definitely in a hopeful and eager tone), changes everything.

So, how can we (Christians, scientists, those in the intersection of those sets, and those not in either set) be more careful with the concept of belief?

What do we need from campus ministries?

On Wednesday of this week, I had a great chat with a good friend of mine who is heading up a city-wide campus ministry under the auspices of the United Methodist Church. He asked a question I've not been asked:

How can our ministry serve the faculty at this university?

The sky's the limit! I thought in response, with a quirky smile. I told him I would dream up possibilities and let him know.

I have some ideas of how I'd like to answer this question, but I'd like to hear what others think. How do you think a campus ministry can serve the faculty of their university?