Outrage for Outrage's Sake

The presidential election season hasn't quite begun in earnest, but I am getting prepared for it now the way the May 21sters were preparing for, you know, May 21st...only I'm not going to collect $18 million dollars a year from the people who are foolish enough to read or listen to me.

I am warning now, however, that the presidential political season will be particularly difficult to watch for people who hate ugliness and mudslinging.  This presidential season will be the most nasty, mean-spirited campaign seasons of all time.  There will be name calling.  There will be finger pointing.  There will be accusations of scandals, and the over-used anything "gate" attached to those scandals.  Strippers, illegitimate children, and black preachers with sermons taken out of context, will fall out of the woodwork.  And there will be race bating.

Some of you who have been around for a few years and have seen Willie Horton, seen what happened to the president in the last election--Hilliary essentially calling the president a coon because he actually won the South Carolina Primary, or GOP rank and file using "community organizing" and the president's middle name as code words for "really black"-- and ask how could an election season get much worse.

Yea, well, it already has.  A group called Turn Right USA has published an Internet ad (shown above simply because I can't describe in any manner that would do it any justice)  that essentially accuses Janice Hahn, a Democrat running for a California Congressional seat in an upcoming special election, of being in the pocket of street gangs.  The ad is so vile its funny.

And as of about 10 minutes ago the group has refused to apologize for the ad.  "We decided we would launch with a controversial ad that would piss a lot of people off," says Ladd Ehlinger, Jr., the creator of the ad, "If I get dinged a little, then so be it."
Fair enough.  I expect that.  I can't be outraged at people who reduce entire races of people to caricatures.  There will always be people to do that and that's obviously what the group was attempting to do.  But can we at least get an apology from the fellows who acted like the gang members in the ad?   There has to be better work out there for actors somewhere.

When the election season begins in earnest, don't say I didn't warn you.  Turn Right USA has just made the first move.

That's Me in the Corner, That's Me in the Spotlight...

I'm not a fan of either the Dallas Mavericks nor the Miami Heat for that matter, so I didn't have a horse in the race for the NBA Championships.

Last night, of course, in stunning fashion the Dallas Mavericks went on to win the championship.  As always, there will be plenty of talk about who the real stars of the championship series were and were not, who surprised and who disappointed their respective fans.

Lebron, Wade and Bosh have been ravaged by sports writers today.  The three have been called unready for the spotlight, unable to handle the pressure of a big game, and generally players with big salaries that are not commensurate with their talent. 

Dirk Nowitzki has made his way into the spotlight and is largely seen as a clutch player by those same writers.

I'm not sure about all of that.  Lebron, Wade and Bosh are all good players to be sure.  There are many players who didn't get the opportunity to play in the finals this year at all.  And while Dirk Nowitzki held it down for Dallas in the championship series, he has been an inconsistent player over the years by most accounts.

But all of this talk about "real stars" today and that we will no doubt hear and read all week, make me long for the days of my favorite basketball player, Kurt Rambis. 

Remember him?  He was a power forward who most notably played for the Los Angeles Lakers for about 10 seasons in the 1980s and 1990s.  The consummate underdog on the grind, Rambis played excellent defense, was an adept rebounder, had a field goal percentage of almost 60 percent and was considered an all-around team player.  He hustled and set up shots for Magic and James Worthy almost every night he played.  He was willing to box out, grind out, foul out and do the dirty work for his team that other players were not willing or unable to do.  It was a thankless role on a team full of big stars who history will remember.  But he won championships.

And he was a real star.

"God is Dead" and Other Cool Stuff Hipsters Say...

Some time ago I was eating dinner with friends in a diner in the city in which I live.  It is a small neighborhood diner with both traditional greasy spoon and vegan options, so the people who frequent this diner are as  diverse any place I have seen.

My friends and I order food and it comes rather quickly.  We offer blessings over the food and begin eating and building when we hear a group of young hipsters building in the booth adjacent to us.

One of the young men in the group was waxing pompous and confident (God bless him, but is there any other way to wax?) about Nietzsche.  Rather, he was spouting off well-known, often-used Nietzsche quotes perhaps in an attempt to sound appropriately, but effortlessly well-read.  "Nietzsche said 'that which does not  kill us'..." and "Nietzsche said that 'all great things must first wear'..."  I gave him snaps for knowing that it was Nietzsche who actually said those things.  I have heard those quotes attributed to many, many other authors.

This scene was almost so ironic, it wasn't.

I love hipsters.  And its not just because of their skinny jeans, their retro gear, or their really cool lingo.  I mean really, if it were not for hipsters and their lingo ("dope," "fresh," and "I'm going to get my *insert any verb like run, or freak, or eat made to sound like an adjective here* on), how else would people of color know when their slang is outdated?

I love them because of their ability to make almost everything passe and uncool simply by saying that it is.  Even the sublime.   Even the things the rest of us degenerates think are kind of cool.  Like integration, gentrification, some jazz music, chastity and integrity.  Ask Coldplay, The Black Eyed Peas or Matt Lauer who are all victims of hipsters and their wrath about how this all works. 

In several of his writings and texts, Nietzsche made his now famous utterance, "God is Dead."  Of course, Nietzsche did not make this utterance because he believed in a God and that he killed that God.  We know that Nietzsche was a steadfast atheist.  Rather, Nietzsche meant that God as Christians understood the concept (as well as the God's underlying ethical system of virtue) was passe, out of style and "unworkable".

Nietzsche was perhaps the first hipster.  So, he may not have had the throw back Brewers' jersey and the slightly-bent trucker cap--the uniform of his hipster brethren, but he was able to make God--his arch enemy uncool, simply by saying that God was.

Wouldn't that be cool to banish things like poverty and oppression from our reality, simply by saying they are passe?  But, you know, if it were cool, then it would be uncool.

  

God and the Obese...

So, a friend sent me an article that cites a study, that in turn claims that almost fifty percent of children who attend religious services regularly, are obese.  Not just overweight, but obese.  The study also adds that a majority of adults who attend worship services regularly are in the same boat.

I had actually heard much of this study when it was published earlier this year.  The religious people I am close to, as well as many that I respect in theological circles, quickly dismissed the study.  And naturally, those folks who have had long-standing issues with organized religion, used the study as further indicia of the ills of worship.

At the outset, I acknowledge that the study is irresponsible.  Simply linking obesity with worship attendance frequency, is like linking strip club attendance with being an elected official.  I could have used a better comparison, but you get the point.  (I miss the days where our elected officials just had a few mistresses and womanized at strip clubs like everybody else, instead of sending pictures of their genitals over the Internet.  I digress.) 

It is irresponsible to say the least.  Without controlling for socioeconomic, educational, and other factors, the study does seem to be an attention grab by those who have a bone to pick with organized religion.

However, the church would be most wise to be pensive about the health of the pew.  Not for the study's sake, but for the future of the church.  In an age where a vast majority of African-American clergy die of heart disease or stroke or complications from diabetes by age 60, we know that while the study and its proponents have an agenda, there may be some truth in the findings somewhere.

Attending worship service certainly is refreshing for the mind and spirit, but it does less for the body.  A thoughtful spiritual plan pays attention to all three in a holistic sense.

If the Apostle Paul is right in his pronouncement to the church in Corinth that "we are the body of Christ," then "we" as individuals, and "we" as a church, the collective "we," should work to make healthier eating acceptable discourse in theology.

Mid Week Meditation: Talents and Such

Every clergy who uses the preached word in their ministry, has a homily or sermon about Matthew 25:14-30.  

Of course, Matthew 25:14-30 is the well-known parable story of the talents.  Jesus tells the parable to His disciples on the Mount of Olives. In the biblical passage that precedes the talents parable, Christ has just compared the kingdom of heaven with ten virgins who went out to meet a bridegroom.


Jesus goes on in this parable to compare the Kingdom to a man who gave his servants talents. Talents are a unit of money roughly equal to a year’s wages of an average, on-the-grind blue-collar person. Jesus says that the Kingdom is like a man who leaves and gives three servants, five, two, and one talent respectively.

They all put their money to work and double it, except for the third one who buried his talent.

When the man returns, everybody settles their accounts with the man.  Servants one and two return the man’s talents with interest. He tells them “well, done good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things, I will put you in charge over many.”

But the third servant, returned the one talent and tells the man why he does so. “You’re a hard man who reaps what he doesn’t sow. Here’s your talent.” The man of course calls the servant lazy and kicks him out into the darkness.

Now most clergy, particularly the "prosperity" gospel set, exeget the passage and make the first two servants the protagonists of the parable.  And, at first glance, it's not an unwise hermeneutic as a general proposition.  The first two servants did what they were asked, presumably, and returned the master's money with interest.  Sounds good, right?

I’m not saying that that interpretation of the Scripture is wrong, but what if the hero of the story is not the first servant or the second servant who doubled the talents, but what if the third servant was the hero?


Indulge me for a minute. To understand how and why Jesus wanted the third servant to be the hero of the parable, we have to understand a bit about the culture in first century Roman Empire.

There was an economic system in place that was very much like share cropping, slavery, payday loans or rent-to-own stores. Rich landlords owned thousands of acres of land and had a chosen few servants from the masses of people to work the land.

These servants would get land from the landlord and resources with steep interest rates (60% to 200%).  To turn a profit, the servants had to exploit their fellow poor brethren to do so and pass goods off at higher rates.

The people hearing Jesus’ parable would have run into people like the three servants everyday and would not have liked them very much.

We also know that the man—the rich man was not a parallel to God at all, he was a wicked man. He divided the servants mentally from the outset. First, simply by choosing them from the gentry created a distinction between them and the people not chosen to work the land. The land owner then gave them talents according to their abilities. That, is a further division. Jesus was one who believed in equality and giving equal shares to everybody.

Next, in order for the servants to double their money they would have had to put it in the same economic system that exploited the same people they loved and cared about. The first two servants do  do in fact carry out this system of usury, however the third servant does the admirable thing and takes the money out of circulation from the system. The scriptures certainly speaks against the kind of usury.

The rich man comes back and he collects his money with interest. “Well done, good and faithful servant…” this he says to create further separation and division between them and between them and the rest of the citizens.

And when the third servant talks, it is an indictment on and for the land owner.  The third servant is in essence, a whistle blower. He calls the land owner greedy for taking things he hasn’t worked for. The third servant even calls him hard and harsh.  He calls out the corrupt system knowing what the consequences might be for doing so.  The third servant would have been seen as the sober prudent individual, the one that stay the course and was the protagonist. He shames the land owner and the land owner, acknowledging all of his own bad traits, banishes the servant.

Perhaps we can use our talents to call out oppression and marginalization as well.