ken wilson online

It’s as simple as that.  We can’t afford to put so much of our energy into the culture war.  We’re in a global economic meltdown.  People are losing their jobs.  We’re in this thing together with our neighbors around the world.  Oh yes, they are our neighbors, inasmuch as our fortunes are linked.  We can’t afford the polemics that culture wars generate.  We can’t afford to believe the worst about our neighbors.  We have to look for common ground in order to serve the common good, or else we’re going to pay a heavy price.
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Our brains manage meaning by the use of metaphor, comparing one thing to another so as to illuminate the other. Jesus did the same with his parables: revealing the unknown kingdom by the known mustard seed, sower, pearl of great price, daft woman who lost a coin, grieving father.  We are ruled by the metaphors we embrace.  Jesus said, “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross daily, and follow me.”  Carrying a cross, a beam of wood used to execute criminals, is the metaphor he chose to illuminate what it means to be his disciple.  To be his disciple is to accept this metaphor.  It is time for us to critically examine a metaphor offered to us in recent years to illuminate what it means for Christians to engage the surrounding culture: the metaphor of war, and it’s application by the Religious Right, that to be a faithful disciple of Jesus is to be a culture warrior.

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Because we need to work together to solve problems that cannot be solved without our working together.  It’s a simple as that.  During the era of culture war (the 1980’s through the beginning of the new millenium), the basic structures of society were functioning.  We had a highway system, a phone system, an energy system, a political system, an economic system, that more or less worked for the majority of people.  We had the luxury of being sharply divided.  People could gain power by highlighting our divisions, rather than focusing on what we had in common.

Sadly, many religious people fell for this power grab, listening to voices of paranoia and fear. (Did anyone see the letter from James Dobson imagining 2012 if the hated liberals took over?  As paranoid as the anti-religion zealots who see faith as the root of all evil.)
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Got your attention, didn’t I?  Yes, I’m going to post on abortion and birth control.  Because we have to start talking to each other across the culture war divide.

But first: pause for a moment, lower your hackles, and consider the term, “war.”  What does it evoke?  A battle unto death.  Prepare to kill, prepare to die, that’s what war is about.  And there are times, perhaps, for war. But the followers of Jesus who care about the teachings of Jesus are not to be war enthusiasts. The war that counts, we’re told, is the one that is NOT waged against flesh and blood.  Can we agree on that?  So when we are talking with another human being, when we are struggling with other human beings over issues, war may be the LAST metaphor we should rely on to frame our discussion.   If the teachings of Jesus matter to us, that is.
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Man, do I feel optimistic lately.  Why?  Because of my kids.  They have a different take on the world, and it’s a take the world is due.  We baby boomers have taken things as far as we can with our current Oldsmobile. Our battles lines are firmly fixed, but from their perspective, wearing thin.  Now it’s time for us to listen to their take on the world as much as we’ve been yammering on about ours.  Then, having listened and learned, we’ll be able to see what we’ve been through in a new light and offer, not more information (they can get it faster than we can generate it)  but what they actually crave from us: wisdom, the one thing it takes time and experience and trial and error to gain.

The culture wars are boomer wars.  We inherited them from our fathers who lived in a binary world of good and evil neatly separated by geographic boundaries.  The evil empire was over there, far away from our fields of presumed good. I actually played cowboys and Indians assuming the cowboys were the good guys.  Pick up sides and duke it out; we boomers did it every day all summer long playing baseball in the streets.  May the best side win.  One side fits all.  Side in. Side out.  Are you on our side or the side of our enemies?  Neither, says this newer take on the world before us.  Maybe it’s time for us boomers to sit down, shut up,  and take off our shoes.
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I’ve got some thoughtful responders to this blog and it’s one of the real benefits of a blog. You toss your thoughts out there and people respond. You rethink or you go a little deeper in your thoughts, maybe you revise, maybe you come away even more convinced having heard the responses of others. One of my thoughtful responders is Clif and I want to continue from a thought Clif laid down in a comment about the Rush Limbaugh post. Clif indicated that he thinks Christians who listen to Rush regularly do a pretty good job separating the wheat from the chaff. If Clif is right, then I’m probably a little overwrought in my previous post. But I wonder about that. Because there’s a Christian I know pretty well who used to listen more than he does now to Rush, and at least in one case, he didn’t do a very good job separating the wheat from the chaff. And I have a very high regard for the perspectives and discernment of this particular Christian, him being myself.
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Been doing little print and radio interviews related to the release of Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back. It’s a good exercise because both print and radio are looking for colorful and concise little expressions of things that pop up in the book. Like the idea that we need to dig extra hard for Jesus as the treasure buried in the field of religion, owing to the current “trademark infringement on the Jesus brand”–meaning the negative public perception of Christianity among those on the outside of faith looking in. I find myself illustrating this with the popularity of Rush Limbaugh among many Christians in the United States.
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So I need to explain something. I’ve been to the same place for vacation for the past 28 years. I know, boring as the post office. Which is exactly the way I like vacation. Maybe as a result, vacation clears space in my head. Maybe for God to speak. Several years ago, I’m guessing now but 1998 or 1999, I’m praying on vacation and a voice gets through saying, “Pay attention to what I’m doing among liberals.”
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I’ve had helpful conversations lately with some people pushing back on me for various things. Man, can you learn a lot from these conversations, especially when the people in question are mature, thoughtful, and friends. The kind of people you know are fundamentally for you. It’s what I love about being part of a church. A church is such a diverse place when it’s being true to its founder, so you find yourself loving, admiring, respecting people who have a very different take on the world regarding many different issues. So these conversations have helped me to zero in on the critique I have of the religious right. Sometimes in a sermon, I’ll make a passing comment, a sideways reference that impugns the religious right, and for those who identify with the religious right it can be quite annoying. So I’ve been challenged to state more clearly my concern. This post is one such attempt.
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Frederick Buechner has a little devotional reading do-jobby titled, Listening to Your Life. As though your life is telling a story, and you’re both a participant in the story and audience to it. So while you’re in the middle of living your life, listen to it as well. Because maybe God is in there playing hide and seek.
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