Token Lutheran takes on theodicy

In my pastoral care class, I'm the only Lutheran.

Today's assignment was to write a difficult funeral sermon for a middle school aged boy killed by an exploding fire extinguisher his dad was working on.

My African Methodist Episcopal classmate spoke like one of the folks to the hypothetical kids in the congregation, saying, "If you're upset because you can't throw the football around with Frank Jr. anymore, I say, throw it anyway."

My Congolese classmate saw an opportunity to encourage the gathered people to accept Christ and receive salvation if they hadn't already, because the sudden nature of Frank Jr.'s passing makes everyone realize their mortality, and a funeral may be one of the few times they visit a church.

I felt the need to solve the theodicy problem -- that is, how is deadly shrapnel from a supposedly protective device compatible with a view of God as both loving and all-powerful?

My classmates thought my answer -- that Frank was only in the shop because he loved his dad, that love is stronger than physics, that love is worth the risk of living, and that God promises life abundant but not life without loss -- was very Lutheran.

Boundaries

You can't have lived in America during this millennium and not realized that church leaders are quite capable of sin. Because clergy, youth workers, counselors etc. get invited into people's lives in ways that people in other professions do not, they have to be extra careful not to abuse that access. Sexual abuse might be the version of "boundary violations" the media picks up on, but it's not the only one that exists. Hence the day-long workshop we had yesterday.

If you're thinking of going into ministry, you need to be familiar with the document that candidates for ministry (i.e. seminarians) and leaders in the church alike live by: Vision and Expectations. Among other things, it says clergy should lead "chaste lives" that are "beyond reproach."

After yesterday, I'm beginning to understand why my old testament professor says commandments phrased in the negative (like our ten "thou shalt nots") are much easier to abide by than commandments phrased in the positive. Because there's some disagreement about what chaste living means, people have had their candidacy processes (and their careers, therefore) end for such things as vacationing with a fiancee and only renting one hotel room.

So here's a negative commandment for you to try on:

If you're a member of a church, for God's sake (and I do mean that), DON'T ask your pastor out on a date! She can't be your pastor and your boyfriend and maintain professional relationships with everyone else in the congregation.


Humorous post-script:
My nomination for best boundaries workshop song ... "Dangerous" by David Wilcox

Of course we began at the beginning

In Pentateuch and Wisdom Literature, the first order of business was an introduction to the "documentary hypothesis" -- the scholarly view that four or more distinct authors/editors, each with a particular theological perspective, were involved in the creation of Genesis across a period of some four hundred years. In about thirty places throughout the story of creation, the flood, and the establishment of God's covenant with the matriarchs and patriarchs of the faith, substantial chunks are repeated, often with contradictions. Yet we view this book as authoritative, as containing truth about the human condition and out relationship to the creator.

To begin our Jesus and the Gospels course, we read a passage from the DaVinci code claiming that the powerful men of the early church systematically prevented any gospel that would hint at women's roles in the church or Jesus' humanity from becoming part of the Biblical canon. We were given a case study about a contemporary church debating whether to include noncanonical scripture like the Gospel of Mary or the Gospel of Thomas in its worship -- and one week in which to prepare a pastoral answer for this church's council. I found myself wishing it had been as systematic as Dan Brown claimed; rather, it seems that a haphazard (and, we have to hope, spirit-led) process of recognizing the authority of the gospels that were getting the most use has given us the Bible we know today.

I'm lucky to have been given a way of looking at Biblical authority that doesn't depend on its historicity. If you've taken an introductory religion course at Augustana, you might be familiar with the phrase, "Some things that never happened are nevertheless very true."

If one came to seminary with the idea that the Bible dropped down from the sky as an eyewitness account of history from the birth of stars to the death of Christ and the birth of Christian community, this first week would be faith shaking. But if you begin by assuming that the Bible came together and remained in use because in it is the authoritative, true word of God, learning about the politics and processes involved is fascinating.

Without Sanctuary

Classes still haven't begun, but the education certainly has.

Today I participated in an exploration of Chicago's diverse and segregated neighborhoods, guided by the international students who have been on campus for the last two months studying English.

The three Korean students leading the group I was assigned to had been visiting African American neighborhoods, talking with officials and people on the streets, eating soul food, and taking lots of pictures, if today was any indication.

Rather than taking us to these neighborhoods, they said they wanted us to see the most powerful thing they saw in their two months, so we found our way to the Chicago Historical Society's exhibit on the history of lynching in America, called "Without Sanctuary."

I'm sure I've seen documentaries on the Ku Klux Klan, but nothing before today has made me realize the horror of extralegal "justice" carried out by mobs as late as the 1960s. Torturing, hanging, beating, and often mutilating or burning people for such slights as whistling at a woman took place in every region of this country. It affected blacks as well as Jews, the old and the young -- like Chicago's own 14-year-old Emmett Till.

Several of the most gruesome photos were from Omaha, Nebraska, which for me is close to home. While it wasn't touched upon in this exhibit, I was reminded of another dark piece of history close to home: the site of the largest mass hanging in U.S. history, at Alexandria, MN, in 1862.

The most disturbing photos were the ones in which little white girls in white dresses had front row seats for the spectacle, and where whole crowds stood smiling proudly at the camera beyond the dangling bodies. One mob included two former Supreme Court justices, one ex-sherrif, and at least one clergyman.

A small group of African American women were shufflling through the exhibit ahead of us. I can't describe the pit in my stomach that developed when I saw one woman wave her hands in despair at the graphic images and turn away quickly. I later heard her tell a security guard that when she was growing up in the south, her dad would detour the family vacations around Mississippi because of its infamous tendency toward mob justice.

This week perhaps a million residents of the Gulf coast are famously "without sanctuary" following Hurricane Katrina. While the era of lynching may be over, that of marginalization is not.

Strange Fruit
by Abel Menopal (later sung by Billie Holiday)

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root.
Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is the fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop.
Here is a strange and bitter crop.