The Little Friar

For the early Christians the ceremony of the breaking of bread -- the Eucharist -- was intimately connected with the sharing of bread. It was not a mere formalist ceremonial.  The Eucharist signified sharing. It also brought about what it signified.  The rite and the reality were intimately linked.  The symbol was for real.  They tried to practise what they professed.  We have seen how the early Christian groups shared what they had so that there was no one in need. For Jesus too the last supper, the first and inaugural Eucharist, was closely associated with his selfgiving.  He gave bread and wine saying "this is my body"; "this is my blood".  This was not merely a symbol, rite or ceremony.  He said that he was giving himself -- his life -- for his people.  He then gave a new commandment "love one another; as I have loved you, so you are to love one another. If there is this love among you, then all will know you are my disciples ..."  ...

One of the several places at which American Christianity fails is in regard to economics and work.  The greed of capitalism has overcome a "proper desire".  According to Barth: It is here that the revolutions of empty and inordinate desire take place:  of the lust for a superabundance which is not the natural and beautiful abundance of life but the overflow of nothingness, which does not decorate anything but only pretends to do so, like a stage-prop instead of the real thing; of the lust for possessions which will not be used even perhaps for the purposes of luxury but are desires only as a security and pledge against future use, or perhaps only for the sake of the idea of possession, as if this were a guarantee of life; of the lust for an artificially extended area of power over men and things in the form of artificial instruments, as if it were not conceit or deception to regard the acquisition of the power of even the mightiest instrument as an increase o...

Each of the following quotes, drawn from a variety of essays by Ernst Käsemann, represent some initial thoughts upon capitalism, theologically understood. Why? We will no more be able to shield our eyes from class struggle, which began in the previous century within the nation and now has gripped all continents, gripped them indeed as a deadly conflict between the privileged and those who have been exploited for centuries.  What disguises itself as the free market system and which promises to enrich all, is in reality the continuation of imperialism and colonialism by means of a capitalistic system.  It survives by the third world delivering raw materials and taking back our finished goods, among which -- and this is especially abominable -- are weapons of every sort.  Thus the slums grow, which are the underside of our prosperity, and for three quarters of humanity our earth becomes a hell, in which hunger, murder, and prostitution reign and ...

Back in 2000, Barbara Ehrenreich published a book called Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America .  In it, she chronicled her year spent attempting to survive on low-wage jobs in America.  Her experiment didn't go well, but the subsequent book sold more than a million and a half copies and "fueled nationwide campaigns for a living wage".   Campaigns which, of course, worked perfectly.  Because poverty in America has been eradicated.  Obviously. I remember teaching a class in 2004 entitled "Church and Community Ministries".  Ehrenreich's book was required reading that semester.   It sparked a campus conversation on living wages at the college.  So I know how powerful this book can be. That's why I would love to make this book required reading for every high school junior/senior who's taking economics.  But that'll never happen, so instead, I want to offer an extended quote from the book. This quote is fairly important....

The "Benedict Option" is the brainchild of conservative author and journalist Rod Dreher .  To catch yourself up, read Rod's Benedict Option Frequently Asked Questions post summarizing his thoughts over the years and his responses to various questions and criticisms of the Benedict Option (or Ben Op, for short). Succinctly, the Ben Op argues that Western liberalism -- especially, I would argue, its neo-liberal economic manifestations -- has been corrosive to the Christian faith.  To survive in cultures shaped by modernity, neo-liberalism, and capitalism proponents of the Ben Op argue that Christians will need to invest in creating rich, thick and distinctive cultures that cultivate the counter-cultural virtues necessary to sustain the church and Christian spiritual formation. In his FAQ post here is how Rod describes the Ben Op: The "Benedict Option" refers to Christians in the contemporary West who cease to identify the continuation of civility an...

In the debates about pacifism within the Christian tradition, many Christians have justified the use of violence and killing by making an appeal to Jesus' temple action, the time when Jesus flipped the tables of the moneychangers and dove sellers and drove people from the temple courts with a whip. I agree with the many other Christians who think that this is a horrible argument.  It's quite a stretch to go from Jesus' temple action to killing people.  Of course if Jesus, say, stabbed somebody to death in the temple then we might have something to talk about.  But that's not what happened.  To be sure, the word "violence" could be used to describe Jesus' actions, but that's a far cry from giving us a warrant to kill. And yet, there is something much less talked about and debated regarding Jesus' temple action. One of those activist communities must be left to ask, after the recent riots in Baltimore, is if it's ever okay to bre...

There are two graphs that have held my theological moral imagination for the past few weeks: First, a graph that documents the "Rise and Rise of the Top 0.1 Percent": Second, a graph that demonstrates income growth for the bottom 90% compared to the top 10% as each group bounced back after great US recessions.  Note how since the 1980s recoveries from recessions (bouncing back) have been disproportionately experienced by the top 10% with the bottom 90% bouncing back from recessions less and less, falling further and further behind: I'm a theologian and ethicist who takes the Old Testament prophetic tradition seriously.  So these graphs connect with my vision (and Jesus' vision!) of the Kingdom of God. But not in the way conservatives might expect. I haven't mentioned Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century .  The book is a long and detailed historical analysis of capitalism, but the overarching conclusion and implication of t...

When I use the New Testament language of "the principalities and powers", of "the spiritual forces of this world", folks immediately think of devils and demons, of spiritual forces in a way that necessarily makes them intangible.  Whereas, I don't.  The most obvious daily example of these "principalities and powers" is  money .  Let me explore a bit what this looks like.  And let me do it with a question:  "How much money is  too much ?" Seems rather odd, doesn't it?  Because the obvious answer is  murky  -- "too much" is "relative", we'll say.  "It depends on the difference between  need  and  want ". So, okay, what's that difference? And no one can really say.   That's because money does something for us that few of us ever realize:  Money hides our greed and insatiability.   When is "enough money" really enough? Why do we always want more and more? The answer to this question lies in ...

I haven't seen this movie.  What's more, I have no plans to see this movie.  It's easy to disparage movies like "God's Not Dead" from nearly any vantage point but the economic -- it's made  almost $25 million since its domestic release on March 21.  That's respectable for any independent Christian film.  So what's wrong with it?  Why would I -- a thinking Christian and a minister -- not want to see it? Here's my problem.  The movie is the s tory of a freshman college student, Josh Wheaton (Shane Harper), who, along with his fellow philosophy students, is forced by Professor Radisson (Kevin Sorbo ) to sign a statement "for the purposes of this class" that God is dead, is not good story-telling nor is it entertainment.  It's really nothing more than a scripture-based tract aimed at comforting and shoring up those who already believe.  It's a course in Scripture-based Christian apologetics with commentary by the folks from Duck ...

Hobby Lobby is one, but it's certainly not the only one.  I've seen several of these old curiosities lately:  Businesses that tout themselves as a "Christian business". Just look at their marketing pieces.  The talk about "h onoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with biblical principles", or something like it.   The reason I mention these so-called "Christian businesses" isn't to weigh in on contraception or homosexuality.  I actually am not even concerned here with that category mistake known as "corporate personhood".  Those are smoke and mirrors to the real issue that's been bugging me for the past month.   I'm out today to make a rather bold claim for a guy who lives in the Bible Belt:   There's no such thing as a "Christian business", and it's a good thing too.  Whether it's Hobby Lobby or the local used car dealer, the idea of operating a "Christian busin...

"The trouble with kids today ..."  "When I was their age, I ..."  "Remember the days when ..." You get the idea.  Old people talking about young people.  And ever has it been so between one generation and the next.  Old folk look back and see the time of their own youth if not as a golden age, then certainly as a better age than the world of today’s little creeps.  We tend to view time from the then to the now as one of decline and fall.  And young people, in turn, look at grown-ups and see people out of touch, who don't understand them, who don't understand anything .  One word sums it up:  We're " boring", and, if you're parents, you're embarrassing" too.  "The young think the old are fools, and the old know the young are fools" -- that's one George Chapman, writing four  hundred  years ago!   Plus ça change, plus la même chose.    "Whatever", teenagers would add! Me, I think this is a healthy st...

Kendra and I are soon to participate in "Marriage 101".  At school, I was trained as a facilitator, so this will be a new experience -- participating rather than facilitating.   "Marriage 101", for those of you unfamiliar with it, was developed by Greg Vaughn in the late 80s.  It features gender-specific workbooks around 8 individual topics needed for newlywed counseling.  While Vaughn teaches most of the video segment topics, Dave Ramsey is brought in to discuss newlywed finances.  Over my years as pastor, it didn't take long for me to grow uncomfortable with Ramsey's economic advice.  Not because it's bad economics.   Don't spend beyond your means is particularly important and sound advice for families.  Take manageable baby steps to get out of debt once you're in it.  That's just good business sense.  There's nothing to oppose about it, but there's nothing really earth-shattering or "biblical" about it either, despite the...