Culture Watch

I woke up this morning to my hometown being splattered all over the national news. Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, CA, which is less than two miles from my home, is now the scene of America’s latest mass shooting. Last week it was a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, before that a seemingly endless list of schools, nightclubs, churches, concerts, and workplaces. All of them are so horrible and so senseless—lives cut short because of the anger, “cause” or brokenness of an individual human being who somehow thought carnage was the only way to address his pain.

I watch my city grieve today and my heart and prayers go out for all the victims—the family of the sheriff’s deputy who was shot, the 13 murdered and the 22 wounded, those traumatized from the event, even for the family of the shooter who are living their own worst nightmare. What started as a college night of celebration ended in untold pain that will last a lifetime for many.

What a world we live in—one broken life in a fit of rage, narcissism, or vengeance can do so much damage to the lives of others they don’t even know. And it just keeps happening week after week as we re-hash the same old debate over gun control and nothing will change. It will happen again, unfortunately. Somewhere.

I was reminded of this exchange in THE SHACK movie between Wisdom and Mack as he deals with his own tragedy of an abducted and murdered daughter:

WISDOM: This was not God’s doing.

MACK: He didn’t stop it.

WISDOM: He doesn’t stop a lot of things that cause him pain. What happened to Missy was the work of evil. And no one in your world is immune from it. You want the promise of a pain-free life… There isn’t one. As long as there is another will in this universe, free not to follow God, evil can find a way in.

MACK: There’s gotta be a better way.

WISDOM: And there is. But the better way involves trust.

And there Mack was confronted with a choice, to give into his fear, blame and anger, most of it directed at God, or to embrace the love of God that would absorb all his pain in a growing trust in Father’s goodness. Untangling the senselessness of evil won’t come out of our fear but in our engagement with a Father worth trusting, who is not the cause of pain in our culture, but the cure for it.

Evil has such amazing power, to hurt, harm and destroy. And how someone’s unaddressed personal pain can morph into acts of such incredible evil is so hard to understand.

But as horrible as that is, Love is more powerful still. Humanity does not only have the capacity to do great evil, but also the opportunity to put love and light in the world. That, too, happens every day, and even in the midst of tragedies just like this, as a sheriff’s deputy rushes in to confront the shooter, and as people pour their lives out to help those impacted by this tragedy.

My next blog was going to be about our ongoing work in Kenya, and how many lives have been saved by the generosity of strangers. Not only does free will allow evil to be in the world, that same free will every day brings incredible love, life, and healing into the world. At times like this, I want to not only pause and pray for the victims of this tragedy, but I also become even more determined to pour more love and light into the world. We don’t have enough it, not anywhere!

Good will overcome evil. Love will win over hate. Life can feed into the most broken places and bring joy and goodness again. God’s love is certainly more powerful than anything evil can do. Free will allows for that, too.

How can I be even more a conduit for that to the people I know and the situations I am in today?  And tomorrow? And for all the days of my sojourn here on this planet?

Are you as tired of all the rancor in our national dialog as I am? Do you know most of it is contrived to fan the flames of fear or advance someone’s agenda? We can’t seem to simply disagree anymore; we have to vilify our opponents in the hope of garnering enough support to force our desires on the other half of the citizenry. And many Christian groups just play along, fomenting the hostility they hope will give them an advantage in forcing their way of life on others. Is this what our founders foresaw when they spoke of, “a more perfect union”?

Of course not! Maybe if we just stopped and listened long enough to those who disagree with us we would see them as fellow-citizens with similar hopes and fears to our own. Then we might actually respect each other in spite of our differences and together seek the kinds of solutions that would be in the best interests of all of us, not just a few of us.

No, that isn’t possible with every issue, but I promise you we could find a lot more common ground than our current process allows.  It can be done. I’ve helped people do exactly that across some of our major cultural controversies and explain how on this video taken from a TEDx presentation from last March in Abilene, Texas. It finally dropped this weekend and is now available.  You can view the embedded version below or if you have trouble with it, view the video here.

Finding common ground with people who have different worldviews than ours, is really a matter of applying the so-called Golden Rule to our relationships:  “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”  Who to you want to exclude as an “other”?  Liberals? Conservatives? The GLBTQ community? The poor? The undocumented immigrant? When Jesus said “other”, didn’t he mean all others? If we will respect the freedom of others as much as we want them to respect ours, we will find our way into more graceful conversations, and the chance to work together toward more enduring solutions to the problems our society faces.

More than ever we need a courageous group of people willing to turn the tide of our national animosity and lead the way into those conversations that heal our divide and offer respect to our fellow human beings. If you find yourself in agreement with what I say here, please help me get the word out. I’m not selling anything here, just hopeful that there is a more excellent way than the one we’ve chosen. If you want more resources, please see my BridgeBuilders website.

Share it however you can with whomever you can and see if we can’t have an impact on turning the tide of animosity in our country (and I suspect in others as well). Starting in our own relationships of family and friends as well as in your social media feeds. Encourage people turn down the anger and really listen to others.  You’ll find there are more of us who want fairness and compassion in our society, rather than animosity and arrogance. The future of our republic just might be at stake.

Last November I was in Belgium amidst the cemeteries of the fallen in World War I. They were everywhere, in the middle of farms, along riverbanks. These men, mostly from England and Canada, were buried on the battlefields where their young lives ended. It was especially touching to me because my own father fought and was wounded in Europe, but in the Second World War, where so many of his friends died.

On this Memorial Day I am reminded of so many feelings I had standing in those cemeteries and looking at the thousands of graves of so many men whose lives ended at an all-too-early age. It was eerie and sobering.

hold in my heart great honor for those who have gone to war to protect the freedom of others. While our military has not always been used for just and moral purposes, that does not diminish in my heart the service of those who have risked their lives or lost them in the service to country. War has taken way too many young people, often because of some pathological despot, who wants to dominate the world or at least protect their own authority. And I count among them too the innocents who’ve been slaughtered in those conflicts, even today. I think of the children dying in Syria, who will never grow up and have a chance to know love, marriage, friendships, and creativity in God’s world.

I’m am frustrated at the political leaders who sacrificed young men and women merely to protect their political careers. As the The Vietnam Series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novice revealed how Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all knew that war was unjust and unwinnable but continued to send young men from my generation into its caldron because they didn’t want to be the first American President to lose a war. They lied to the American people every day about it.

While the US still does much good in the world, I am still gravely aware of the moral authority our country has lost in the world over my lifetime. Yes, the world is more complicated, but it doesn’t help that we have used our might, not always to help others, but to further our own interests.  Our foreign policy has the stench of arrogance, and it has cost us severely. We force our will on others, instead of engaging with allies in genuine coalitions. I travel enough to know that our reputation in the world has suffered and few look on us now as a beacon of morality, generosity, and humility.

And I’m completely dismayed that so many have fallen for the drumbbeat of “America First,” failing to see how it only angers other nations. Yes, our government needs to look out for our best interests, but one of those interests has to be our generosity to the “least of these.” How can we who have so much be otherwise in the world?

I grew up a Christian nationalist, my passion for America tightly tied to my perception of the kingdom. It isn’t anymore. I’m not sure when or how it changed. I’m sure in part it came from having my illusion unmasked that our country is no longer a “beacon on the hill” of morality and hope. It is woefully corrupt and paralyzed by selfish interest rather than fighting for a common good. But I also hope it is also from the love of an expanding heart that no longer stops at the contrived borders humanity has drawn. I know there’s no way to erase them, but we can look beyond them. I wasn’t born here because I was special or deserving, and those born in more desperate cultures are no less humanity than me.

The children of war-torn Syria, cartel-infested regions of Mexico, or the drought-riddled plains of West Pokot, hold no less value than my own grandchildren. Those of us who live in the  affluence and relative safety of the West, are invested with a greater responsibility to find ways to share it with those who lack.

So while I honor today the memory of those who gave their lives in service to their country, I’m aware that honoring their memory is more than pausing by a flag or a parade, but working for a better country and a better world where despots have no opportunity to subdue people under them.

Oh, and here’s the famous poem written in those Flanders fields I was walked in a few months ago.  It’s why poppies are such a poignant symbol on this day. It is also an appeal to the living, to ensure that their lives were not given in vain.

In Flanders Fields
John McCrae, 1872 – 1918

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Many of you know I spent twenty-five years as a consultant and mediator in helping groups at odds with each other to stake out the common ground. What began in public education with conflicts over issues of religious liberty, expanded into some wide-ranging areas where I found ways to help people with differing agendas work together beyond their deepest differences. I started a service called BridgeBuilders to help make myself available. What started out as a passion, turned into a tent-making opportunity as I left pastoring, and then into a peacemaking vocation as I worked across the U.S. and even on some issues in Washington, DC.

I was fully unqualified to do it. I got involved simply as a parent volunteer in my own child’s public school. Serving there, I was referred to other committees in the district dealing with complicated issues and discovered I could help people find mutually-satisfying resolutions. My district began to invite me to help in difficult arenas helping resolve the concerns of religious parents in an increasingly diverse school environment.  Then, they began to refer me to other districts, then to education groups, finally I found myself speaking at education conventions and helping resolve tensions in Washington, DC.  God not only gave me favor with people I worked with, but he also provided a wealth of resources and connections to help people find a common good greater than their own agenda.

This was not about helping people compromise, but to create an environment where a consensus could emerge that diverse parties could embrace wholeheartedly. I came to appreciate the civic value of embracing other people’s stories, even when their conclusions didn’t fit my own. I discovered it fit theirs, and I became a richer person for understanding their point of view. And I got to be in numerous rooms where angry, polarized people began to discover a way to listen to each other and craft policies that were fair to each other, not use government power to get their way at the expense of others. Peacemaking is nothing more than giving other peoples’ consciences the same respect we want for our own

In the aftermath of all things related to The Shack, however, I no longer had time to keep up with BridgeBuilders and let it go. Over those years, however, I have been deeply troubled by the growing animosity and fear in our national dialog. It seemed everyone profited more by tearing our social fabric apart rather than working for a greater common good and that our political parties lost the will to seek national good above party interests.  In 2014, the well-known Pew Research Center released a report called Political Polarization in the American Republic that documents the growing discord in our nation. It concluded that “Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines – and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive – than at any point in the last two decades. These trends manifest themselves in myriad ways, both in politics and in everyday life.” This was before the 2016 election and the attempts of the Russians to further polarize us. Today 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican. Pew further found that, “partisan animosity has increased substantially over the same period. In each party, the share with a highly negative view of the opposing party has more than doubled since 1994. Most of these intense partisans believe the opposing party’s policies “are so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being.”

Then last summer I sensed a change in the wind. A year ago I was approached about doing something on BridgeBuilders for a TEDx talk at Abilene Christian University. In November I was contacted about helping write a book tentatively titled, The Language of Healing, to help people discover a different way of communicating, especially with people who don’t share their point of view. We had a third person involved, a former mayor of a large California city, but in the end she had to bow out. We asked God for another person who could offer a woman’s perspective as well as one from a different ethnic group. Two weeks ago while I was in Dallas, just such a person walked into one of our conversations. I loved how she talked about God, the struggles in our culture to truly understand each other, and how she handled some of the conversation about the racial divide in America. That has started a conversation to explore adding her to our team and this week we are flying out to Dallas to see if we can find a way to write this book together.

In the meantime my TEDx talk, Differences Don’t Make Us Enemies, was well-received and even motivated two students to approach me afterwards about an internship with BridgeBuilders. I explained to them that BridgeBuilders is nothing more than me, but that I appreciated their enthusiasm. I was also approached by a university executive that wanted to talk to me and pursue the possibility about helping their staff navigate a controversial issue, which I will also be doing next week.

I have no idea where any of this will lead. I do however feel led once again to follow the rabbit trail and see if it leads anywhere.  I’ve resurrected and updated our BridgeBuilders website. You’re invited to come take a look, and pass it on if you feel others you know might benefit from the information there. Helping our culture re-discover the common ground is more of an uphill climb than it was 25 years ago when God first nudged me this direction. The animosity is much greater in our culture and there are so many who profit from stoking the fires of animosity.  Our politicians have no interest in solving our problems, only enhancing their party’s power. The media know that conflict sells far better than reasonable people struggling for broad-based solutions. Advocacy groups raise funds by raising fears that anyone who disagrees with them is out to destroy the America they hold dear. From the halls of Congress, the offices of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, and the studios of newsrooms our political rhetoric has sunk to all-time lows.

But I also sense that a significant number of Americans are tired of the polarization and paralysis of our leaders. My observation is that 10-12% on either end of the political spectrum value the animosity and conflict but that the vast majority of Americans are sick and tired of it. Unfortunately our culture does not yet provide a venue for reasonable people to come together and find the common ground solutions that can ensure progress on immigration, black lives matter, the deficit, health care, or school safety. We can’t even mention them in social media without unleashing a torrent of angry opinions on both sides of those issues.

To find the common ground we don’t have to change the way people think about the issues, we only have to change the conversation. Instead of seeking the government’s power to take my side over my neighbor’s, we instead look for government to be an honest broker of a common good. We can show respect to those who disagree with us, listen carefully to their concerns and ideas, and look for policies that not only address my concerns, but theirs as well. To me that’s the hard work of a democratic republic and one desperately needed in our time.

I have no illusions that this conversation will begin in the halls of Washington, DC or in our statehouses. They will begin in our families and among our friends. If we can talk to each other more open-heartedly, there’s no telling how we can change the course of America and help advance the ideal of a “more perfect union,” at least more perfect than it has been in previous generations.

During Sara’s recovery, which is going fantastically by the way, we found ourselves watching two different TV series. The first was Turn, the true story of spies for General George Washington during the Revolutionary War. I’ll warn you it is a bit risqué in places, but we loved this series with an engaging story based in actual events, beautiful cinematography and wonderful actors. We were drawn into the story and marveled at the risk people had to take if this country was going to find it’s way to freedom from the Crown in England and have a chance to be it’s own country. And the conflict those suffered who were in America but didn’t want to forsake England. Who then is really the patriot, and who is committing treason? When you see the mistakes that were made on both sides,  you realize wars like this often turn on seemingly very small events.

Then we got hooked on The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. This is our war. Sara and I were in high school and college during these times and it was our classmates that fought and died in Vietnam. The soundtrack contains the songs we grew up on. Forty-five years later looking back at this powerful documentary we are having a very different perspective and set of emotions than we had living through them.  Of course this documentary has its own bias that some will disagree with, but it does bring out facts that are unmistakable. It caused me look back at events I lived through with a very different perspective and a unfamiliar set of emotions.

Being children of the World War II generation my family was full on for God and country. The U.S. could do no wrong and of course the President of the United States would not go on TV and tell baldfaced lies to the American people. The kids in Vietnam were standing against the rising tide of communism in Southeast Asia, and the protestors were cowards who wouldn’t go to war. All that gets blown up in this ten-part series.  I’ll warn you this one is hard to watch. Sara and I watch it in small bits until we get overwhelmed with the lies and the bloodshed. But in watching it we found out how John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon lied repeatedly to the American public about the war. Knowing it was unwinable they continued to trade our blood and treasure simply to keep their political aspirations on track.  Can you imagine how bankrupt you have to be to send eighteen year-olds to their death and dismemberment just so you have a chance for re-election? And you hear this stuff in their own words on recordings they made in the White House. I’ll never look at these presidents the same way again. They betrayed the people of my generation.

And nothing about this diminishes my respect for those young men and women who were in the service at that time. As one officer said in the documentary, these young men and women were doing the same thing on behalf of their country that what has been called the Greatest Generation did for theirs. Only World War II was a more just cause and they came back heroes, whereas many Vietnam vets came back conflicted about their involvement and then despised by their country. I still stand with all Vietnam Vets who were extraordinarily courageous in the face of a political-military establishment that used them in the wrong war for the wrong reasons to support increasingly corrupt regimes in South Vietnam. But that does not take away from their bravery and service to go when called upon and risk themselves for the good of others.

As sad as this series made me, I’m grateful to look back at it all very differently, even to see the protestors and those who leaked top secret documents to show the deceit of the U.S. Government on its citizenry. They, too, risked so much to expose the lies and end the war. And I’m just shocked that I could live through such a time as a young man and been so completely blind to what was really going on. I would have shouted, “America, love it or leave it,” to the anti-war demonstrators. I would have blindly backed the President, confident none would stay in this war only for their own political gain.

Arrogance blinds us, and the problem with arrogance no one actually knows they are afflicted with it. At the time, being arrogant feels like being right. One of the quote from this documentary that really stood out to me was this:

“We are prisoners of our own experience. Many of the things we learned that worked in WWIII were not applicable in Vietnam.  Combined with our over-confidence that caused us to be arrogant. It is very difficult to dispel ignorance if you retain arrogance.”  –Sam Wilson, Army officer

That last sentence can apply to almost every arena of your life. There’s an ungodly symbiosis between ignorance and arrogance, each feeding the other. Few of us would claim to know everything, but when we’re blindly confident that our own experience has given us all the information we need to determine what’s true around us, we have fallen into the trap. That’s applicable not just to this war, but almost anything else in our life—our thoughts about church, politics, morality, We are all ignorant of so much. I guess the best we can do is try not to mix it with arrogance, stay open to the fact that I may be wrong even about things in which I’m extremely confident, and keep looking for information that’s true, not just that which supports my preconceptions.

As Jesus said, to the Pharisees, “If the light that is in you (is really) darkness, how great is that darkness?”

How great indeed! When we call what’s dark, light we are truly lost. Humility and truth-hunting go hand-in-hand, and it would lead to better conversations with each other if we didn’t act like we already have the only facts that matter.

A few of weeks ago I posted a blog about The Nashville Statement, and got a host of feedback from people, both those who loved what I wrote and those who thought I’d committed the unpardonable sin. It sad how angry Christians can get just by reading a different point of view. Here’s some of what I learned in the ensuing conversation on that blog, by email and on my Facebook Page:

1. Most people really get it, at least those on my blog and Facebook feeds. There’s a growing number of people who are accepting the fact that we are living in a post-Christian culture and we will not impact it by trying to force our morality on people who don’t know the God we know. Attempting to do so in a pluralistic society only makes you look arrogant and weakens your voice. This is why even people who agree with your moral stands grow weary of your need to tell everyone else how to live their lives. We are looking for better language and approaches to help people discover who God is so that they will want to follow his ways.

2. Those who put morals first have little appreciation how arrogant their tactics appear and how that destroys any opportunity to impact the culture. Most of them think as long as you’re speaking truth you cannot be guilty of arrogance. However, Merriam Webster defines arrogance as, “an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner.” I don’t know a better definition of what I read in The Statement and what I hear from many of the so-called Bible teachers behind it. Their air of superiority makes me cringe, even though I’m in agreement with much of what they believe.

Truth can be spoken with gentleness and humility that opens doors, or with superiority that closes them. That’s why the more truth you think you know, the more humility you will need to let Jesus cultivate in your heart. There is more written in Scripture against arrogance than there are sexual sins, and that arrogance is a major deterrent to effective communication. Though Jesus had all truth he was never accused of arrogance, because humility and compassion set his course as he engaged people. And it probably helped that he didn’t write columns for the Jerusalem Post or Lifestream for that matter.

3. There is a great divide in evangelicalism between those who think we need more Law to bring people to repentance, and those think Jesus superseded that approach in his Incarnation. Is it by guilt or by goodness that the Spirit leads the lost to repentance? The problem is so many of them were won by guilt, but that only worked because they had a religious upbringing. Those without it won’t find guilt a helpful course to finding God.

They are also divided on whether human effort can conform to God’s standards, or whether God does the transforming as we invite him to live in us. I know those behind the Nashville Statement would claim only God has the power to change hearts, but their demands for other people’s compliance with their morality would suggest otherwise.

4. People really hate being within 500 feet of the ‘P’ word. And yet so much of the public perception of Christianity is more analogous to how Jesus saw the Pharisees rather than how the crowds saw Jesus. I see much of that in me in my first forty years and have even joked about needing a Pharisectomy because I was more concerned about people following the rules than knowing him.

Some even accused me of name-calling those they consider to be great theologians. I wrote (very carefully I might add) that “it seems that the Pharisees met….” I admit it’s a small distinction but nonetheless a critical one. I don’t know how these people treat others around them, but many are known beyond their borders as those who care more about rules than people. Being a Pharisee in the first century wasn’t a pejorative, except to Jesus. They were the best-read theologians of the day, the rule makers and the busybodies who made sure others followed them as well under penalty of death. They were proud of their station and even young Saul aspired to be a “Pharisee of Pharisees.” What I meant by correlating their actions to those of the Pharisees was that they seem to demonstrate more concern for sexual rules than they do for love and compassion of those Jesus saw as “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

5. For too many the Statement has already become what I said it would—a litmus test. If you’re not wearing the “Nashville” pin on your lapel, some will accuse you of being soft on morality. They seem incapable of understanding that you can be committed to the moral claims of Scripture and at the same time not want to use civic law to discriminate against those who do not yet know the God we know.

6. People who categorically state the Bible teaches anything about being transgendered aren’t being honest with the fact that it never mentions it. There’s one verse about not wearing clothing of the opposite gender in Deuteronomy, but that is a very different application and one that is alongside other instructions God gave Israel that we don’t follow today. I realize many prefer a simpler world where everyone falls in line with what makes them comfortable, but it ignores the deep struggle and suffering that goes on in the transgendered soul. The conclusions made in The Statement are at best an extrapolation of Scripture and must be held suspect while showing compassion for those who for whatever reason in deep conflict with their anatomical gender.

7. Where is the compassion among evangelicals for people who, through no fault of their own, struggle with affections and desires outside of Scripture’s moral window. If the New Testament is true, none of us have the power to change ourselves without the redemptive power of Jesus at work in us. It’s the love and goodness of God that begins to make inroads into our hearts so that we begin to care about his will and his power to change our rebel hearts. People will beat a path to your door when you show them you care. If you treat people with contempt you become an impediment to the Gospel finding its way to them.

8. The best comment I received about this wondered if the reason conservative Protestants are so enamored with civic law, is because they refused to write a book of common order to spell out their view of morality as previous groups had done. Instead, they substituted civic law as their vehicle of morality and have had a painful time adjusting to their loss of influence as societies became more secular. They see civic law as their moral code and are frustrated when it no longer reflects their preferences in matters of sexuality and gender identity. They seem unable to understand that when you enforce theological views with the penalty of the state you become an oppressor and an advocate for discrimination.

That’s how Christianity lost its hold on the public debate as the wider culture concluded that freedom of conscience took precedence over theological demands, especially if those violating those demands weren’t a detriment to society and weren’t otherwise infringing on the rights of others. Thus, gay marriage and transgendered issues are being resolved as a freedom of conscience issue by the culture rather than a theological one, as they should by a secular state. Christianity always loses its vitality when it is enforced under the penalty of law. The life of God is freely given and can only be freely received.

9. Some have suggested that The Nashville Statement was not intended as a volley in the culture wars, but to draw a line of theological purity to exclude those pastors, authors, and denominations that advocate for the theological acceptance of homosexuality. That may be true, but the way they released it in the secular press would argue otherwise, and the fact that they did not host a wider conversation but stuck to a very narrow segment of evangelicalism would undermine that hope. The controversy it caused, as much by its process as its conclusions, shows that no one can in selective isolation compose an edict and have any hope that it will clear the air or bring the church together. The age of presumed gatekeepers has long since vanished.

10. As a culture we are losing our appreciation for nuance and assume that people can fit into one of two pre-determined camps. In our last election, we could either vote for the party who wanted to give amnesty to all undocumented aliens, or to the one who wanted to deport them all. No one was willing to negotiate the difficult space between those two extremes and find a more nuanced and just solution tailored to the circumstances of different people. The same is true of sexuality. You have to push biblical morality on everyone or the authenticity of your faith is suspect. Conversely people think your fidelity to Scripture will make it impossible for you to love those who don’t believe it. I reject both extremes. It is possible to disagree on moral issues and still be able to treat each other with compassion and respect, by protect the freedom of everyone’s right of conscience.

I hope we find a different conversation, both within Christianity about matters of morality and with the world in a way that opens the door for people to discover the Gospel, not slams it shut in their face before they ever have a chance to know how deeply loved they are by God.

I wonder how it feels to have your protest stolen.

To be honest, I’ve never been a 49er or a Colin Kaepernick fan. When he sat down for the national anthem to draw attention to the inequities that still exists in our culture for people of color, I thought him disrespectful of our country.

But then he, and others, decided to kneel instead, not wanting people to mistake their protest as disrespect for flag, country, or its men and women in uniform. They just wanted our society to confront the fact that racial inequality still exists in our society. It does you know. You’d be a fool to think otherwise.

But most white people it seems would rather ignore that fact, thinking it was fixed fifty years ago when we passed civil rights legislation. While we do have equality under the law, we don’t yet have an equitable society given the great economic disadvantages that hold over from slavery and segregation. The escalating fear between police and the black community has led at times to innocent people being shot, and white America for the most part ignores it. It’s a problem for the ‘hood, or so they want to think.

What these athletes were hoping is that the majority white audience of the NFL would be confronted with a problem that is as yet unresolved in our culture and stand the powerless who live in neighborhoods most people wouldn’t choose to live in, who are incarcerated at disproportionate rates with disproportionate terms, and who lack the opportunities to better their lives that others have.

Why are we in white America so uncomfortable that we don’t want to take a look at the problem? Yes, it’s huge. No we don’t have enough governmental funds to throw at it, but the first step to change isn’t a new program, but compassion for people who weren’t born with the same advantages you were. You don’t have to be a racist to ignore it; you just have to be uncaring for humanity and too content with your own advantage.

To ignore the deeper issue others twisted it to make it about patriotism, the very thing these athletes were bending over backward to make sure we couldn’t do. Even President Trump has decided that to make America great again we have to despise those people who want to confront us with the truth that the ideals of this great nation don’t yet apply to all of us. I’m weary of those who want to defend his denigration of fellow American citizens expressing free speech as “sons of b*****s” and demand they be fired rather than take their concerns seriously. His actions simply underscore what began the protest in the first place and it is disappointing that he doesn’t see it as his responsibility as President to bring us together on these issues, rather than polarize us for the popularity he craves with his base.

Even the NFL teams who are linking arms, or staying in locker rooms are subverting the original issue by making it about free speech or team unity, rather then the inequities of race still inherent in our culture.

I wonder how it feels to have your protest stolen, to watch people care more about a flag than they do the lives of those living under it. Our soldiers fight for freedom overseas, but their work is not done if we’re not willing to fight for it at home—-for every American. Black lives suffering under oppression, fear and poverty do matter and their plight needs to move us all.

We need a better conversation about race in our culture and finding ways to nurture greater opportunities for those who are disadvantaged, not by our intent perhaps but by ignoring a history that didn’t treat us all fairly. We need reasonable men and women to come to the table and take up the task of making our society safer, fairer, and more equitable for all.

Nelson Mandela fought against bitterness for peace in post-apartheid South Africa by believing none of us are free until we all are free.

He was right. It’s not the symbol of liberty that’s at risk here, but liberty itself!

It seems the Pharisees gathered in Nashville last week and carved out a stand on morality, marriage, and sexuality that they say is “essential” to the faith. It’s called The Nashville Statement and is the work of 150 conservative religious leaders convened by The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. As soon as I saw the headlines and those involved, my heart sank.

Why in this day of growing national animosity would so many religious figures publish yet another proclamation against the sins they most detest? There’s nothing new here. Their positions are already well known, but society continues to move away from them. Not surprisingly the list of signatories were mostly white and mostly male representing those groups that tend to focus on morality more than Christ. I can’t imagine anyone could sign this document who understands the heartbeat of our Father for the brokenness of the world. Certainly some had to ignore that inner sense that this was a bad idea. Perhaps they felt pressured to sign or others would accuse them of compromise.

While I agree with much of what it says about morality and seek to live my life accordingly, that is only true because of the grace God has given me. As a whole, this exercise represents the wrong message, time, and means to share God’s light with the world. It may give the home team something to cheer about, but at what cost to the Gospel? Moralists always go large on sex and remain strangely silent about religious arrogance, gossip, the excesses of capitalism, and ignoring the log in your own eye while you try to rip the sawdust out of someone else’s.

This statement re-draws the same lines of exclusion that has plunged evangelicalism into irrelevance over the past half century and does nothing to invite people into God’s reality. This is a statement the Pharisees might have generated when Jesus was spending too much of his time with those they regarded as sinners. It has more in common with their agenda for the culture, than it did for Jesus, who was bent on winning people into Father’s love as the conduit into a transformed life, rather than laying out the rules and compelling people to follow.

Now we have a new statement to wave around as a litmus test of Biblical morality that Christians will have to pledge allegiance to or be judged as soft on sin. Well, as a passionate follower of Jesus Christ and one that embraces the moral safety of Scripture, I reject this Statement on the following grounds:

• It packages God’s desire for humanity as Law to obey instead of a Loving Father to embrace. As such it repudiates the Incarnation of Christ to win by love and affection what law and obedience could never win. Left to itself, this Statement distorts how God rescues people from their own brokenness and restores them through love and transformation.

• As a political statement it confuses the differing role of government and the faith community in matters of marriage and sexuality.

• It smacks of religious arrogance by calling its conclusions “essential” for faith, and attacking those who see it differently as “foolish” and “bent on ruin.” It overstates the conclusion of Scriptures to support their own prejudices and fears and there is no humility that admits even those who believe these things have a difficult time living true to them. Shouldn’t we clean our own house before telling others how to clean theirs?

• It assumes that Christianity has a handle on masculinity and femininity when religious environments are notorious for stereotyping those distinctions to selectively distribute power rather than embracing the revelation of God.

• It offers no compassion, kindness, or hope for people who do not conform to their view of morality. Instead it will embolden those whose animosity and fear seeks to hurt those who disagree with them and it will  add further condemnation and despair to those who do not yet know God’s love for them.

If moral statements such as this one is the best hope Christianity brings to the world, we have missed the most endearing realities of the Gospel. If Jesus had offered a Statement of Morality to the woman who had been caught in adultery, would it have given her any hope that she could approach the Father Jesus wanted her to know?

Religious leaders and secular advocates want to force us into one of two camps: I must force biblical morality on those who do not see it to the despair of those who cannot live it. Or, I can be compassionate by abandoning my convictions about morality. I refuse to accept this false dichotomy. It is possible to hold my moral convictions while at the same time loving and caring deeply for those who don’t. This is better communicated in conversations with people you know and care about, rather than making public proclamations.

We need a different conversation with our culture, one steeped in kindness and respect across our deepest differences. We don’t have to compromise our morality to love others who may not have the same anchor we do. We don’t have to pound them over the head with our moral views when they don’t yet know the God we know. What we can champion together is the freedom of each person’s conscience that allows them to see these things differently without either side employing the power of the state to force their preferences on others. There has never been a time when followers of Christ need to learn how to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” The Nashville Statement does neither.

Perhaps they could learn something from my wife. Our backyard is filled with an English garden that blooms profusely year-round. People come to marvel at what my wife, Sara, has created here and only I know the hours she invests every week to keep it so beautiful. A while ago we got a new puppy and one day when I went into the garden to talk to her, I saw the puppy digging a large hole in one corner of the garden on the opposite side where Sara was working. Seeing the plants strewn about, I assumed the new pup was in big trouble.

“Sara, do you know what’s going on over here behind your back,” I called to her.

“With Zoey?” she replied never turning around. “I do,” and I could hear the smile in her voice.

Uncertain she knew the gravity of the situation I asked her if she know how big it was. ”You could bury a small cadaver in there,” I chuckled as I approached her.

“It doesn’t matter. I just want her to enjoy being in the garden with me every time I’m here and if I’m always yelling at her she won’t. So, she can do whatever she wants this year. Next year we’re going to learn how to be in the garden without destroying it.”

Until people are endeared to God because of how wonderful he is they won’t care about the things he says, especially if they think he hates and rejects them. We would do better investing our time and resources in helping them discover a God worth loving for himself.

I have a quote on my computer I got years ago from an AIDs outreach video. “Sometimes we withhold grace until we are sure people understand their sin. But it is in the giving of grace that we remind people that they need to go to Jesus to find their own. People understand their sin without our help; it’s grace they need help understanding.”

Maybe if we truly understood grace, we would spend less effort crafting moral statements and more loving others like God loves us. That’s how Jesus said he would change the world. Let’s try that!

The above photo was taken by a friend of mine Kent Burgess, during yesterday’s eclipse from somewhere near St. Louis. You can see additional ones on his website and Facebook page from the link above.

As part of bringing my son back to Denver to begin a new job, we took the day to run up to Wyoming where we would be in the path of totality. I’ve seen lots of eclipses in my day, because God’s glory in the heavens always fascinates me whether it’s in the form of meteor showers, the Milky Way, or an eclipse. I’ve always wanted to see a total eclipse, but the time and expense of getting to Wyoming just didn’t seem worth it for a two-minute show. Since, I was already in the area, however to help Andrew and to meet with others on the journey in the Denver area, it didn’t seem like too much to make a three-hour run to Wyoming.  (Though it was a five and a half hour ride back, but that’s another story.  Still worth it!)

But I didn’t know what to expect and was not prepared for what I saw. Most of the time is spent looking at various stages of an eclipse that I’ve seen before.  20%… 35%… 62%… even 85% and I thought going to 100 would be more of the same. I’d seen lots of pictures and videos of total eclipses, including the one from yesterday, but I’m telling you none of them do it justice.  It isn’t just what you’re seeing in the sky, it’s what’s going on all around you and the ambiance of majesty at that moment was palpable. I was not prepared to be as awed by all this as I was. Even though it was a two-minute show, I will never forget it. You just had to be there.

As totality approached the sunlight visibly darkened. Stars and planets began to appear on the blue sky and that was disorienting.. and majestic!  Even at only 1% of the sun shinning and all is getting dark around you, you still can’t bear to look at the son without the eclipse glasses. And then… suddenly, that bright light finishes, and for the text two minutes it’s as if someone set off the most incredible fireworks you’ve ever seen. Totality is not like any version of partiality at all! it’s a whole different “other”. As soon as the sun disappears behind the moon everything changes!

I pulled my glasses off and there is this big black hole in the sky, with the sun’s corona shooting out from behind it in starbursts of energy shooting far from the sun and twisting against the black background of space.  In pictures it looks small, in the moment it dominated the sky with wonder. Though it didn’t get completely dark, stars appeared and the horizon for 360 degrees around was painted in the soft pastels of an almost-completed sunset.

The entire view was awe-inspiring and every glance around me alive with his glory.  My soul quivered, goose bumps shot up my neck, and my eyes moistened. I was moved at the glory of it all even though I was expecting none of that. I never even thought of taking a photo, I just stood in awe of this phenomenon, knowing I only had a few seconds to take it all in. People screamed and applauded on the hillsides around us, but I was so captured by the moment, the noise seemed an intrusion. It is truly the most amazing thing in creation I’ve ever seen and it touched me deeply, though I’m not sure how. I didn’t feel closer to God, but I was more aware of what an incredible universe he made for us. And the immensity of his power within it.

If you ever get the chance to see an eclipse take it.  There’s one coming in 2024 to the U.S. It’s worth the added time and hassle. It’s truly one of the great wonders of the Creation and to think I almost missed it. Since Sara wasn’t well enough to travel I thought I’d pass on it as I have so many others in the past, until my sons invited me to come with him to Denver and see it together. I’m so glad he did and now I want to get Sara to one in the future.

I don’t mean to lord it over those of you that weren’t in the path of totality yesterday, just letting you know that one day you will want to be there. No words or even pictures can do it justice. That’s as true of the eclipse as it is of our relationship to God. Don’t just settle for others describing it to you or reading about it in books. He wants to show each of you how to behold him as he makes his revelation known in your heart. That’s not as easy as running off to an eclipse, but what you get to experience is far better. I know people get frustrated when they feel as if it isn’t happening for them, or at least not as fast as they want, but God knows how best to pour himself into our hearts. All we can give him is a quiet, open heart willing to engage him however he desires best and watch what he does. That’s hard to describe as well.

With a fuller heart, and a quieter spirit myself, I’ll be off to Amarillo on Thursday and the next chapter in my unfolding story….

The letters come in now two or three a month. They’re all similar. In a moment of honesty an adult child has just informed their parents that they are transgendered or gay. Their question is always the same.

“What do we do now?”

Most parents are not prepared for this. Few have even thought about the possibility, especially if they raised their children in a Christian environment. This is something that happens to someone else’s children and now they have no idea how to respond, caught between the contempt they were taught to have for such claims, and the affection they have for the child they’ve loved heart and soul since birth.

It’s not an easy question to answer and I know many people will disagree with what I write here, but here is how I help parents respond to their child. I’ll admit I’m still sorting through all this in my own heart because it seems a tight-wire act to be sure. I assume people write me, however, because I embrace Biblical views of doctrine and morality. I also believe that the only hope of human transformation is through God’s kind of loving. In my view that’s what the Incarnation was all about: God winning by love and affection what fear and obedience could never untangle.

The question for us is whether we can love deeply someone who is embracing an identity or morality with which we don’t agree or approve. I used to think not. Love is the reward for conformity. If you don’t approve of what people are doing, you hold them at arm’s length hoping that shame will inspire them to repent. I never saw that work, however. Instead I kept reading about Jesus who could love people though they had not yet embraced God’s view of things. He saw the loving as opening a door to them, and the Pharisees derided him for it. But love is not about approving or rejecting, it’s about caring for people even at their most broken.

However you think of transgendered or gay issues, I hope we can agree that God’s love is the only thing that can work deeply enough in the human heart to change people. If that’s true, they have to taste of it before transformation is possible and often that love is first reflected in the actions of another who is learning to love as he loves. We all need to learn how love finds its way into relationships that view identity and morality differently than we do?

And to be honest, I’m not sure what the moral issues are with a transgendered person. Scripture doesn’t seem to address it except in one passage from Deuteronomy about clothing, but that really isn’t the same thing.  What is really going on when someone feels their anatomy is at odds with their psychological make-up? Is it a twist of darkness, or something else? Could it result from how the very distorted views we have of masculinity and femininity by the world and by religion?

My heart goes out to anyone caught in this struggle and I prefer to commend them to God to sort it out in the best way he can in each life. Most transgendered people don’t talk about it as a personal preference realizing how much it will impact others around them. For them it is a quest for survival itself. Most have contemplated suicide and too many have followed through with it rather than risk exposing their struggle to others. Is that what we want? I don’t. I have no doubt that God wants to be inside their honesty and struggle inviting them into his life and I want to be there with him.

So however these issues make you uncomfortable, it is worth sorting through them and learn how to support people in this struggle and what their parents are going through, rather than making them feel ashamed. If you don’t love someone who is transgendered, you’ve never dealt with the issue. You may think you have in Facebook postings and comments about your moral claims and the contempt you hold for those who see these things differently. That’s where political battles are fought and where judgment knows no bounds. Many would rather put these issues back in a closet never stopping to realize how oppressive that is for those who don’t fit into their preferred norms.

But when your child or a good friend lets you know that they have never felt comfortable in the body or the role society has put on them, what are you going to do? The parents writing me are often embarrassed that it’s happening to their child, worried about what family and friends might say, and scared of what the future may bring. They are also grieving the loss of long-held dreams and hopes they had for their child, and themselves. As one parent told me after their daughter announced she was transitioning to male, “I know my head was spinning for the first days… just totally spinning and bewildered.” And it’s normal to look for someone to blame for the crisis—their friends, the media, or even past discipline issues.

Fair enough. This is usually a shock to the parents and it’s not uncommon to seek a quick fix they hope will stuff it all back in the bottle. Just remember your son and daughter has been tortured with this struggle for a long time. None of this is easy for them. Before they come out to you, especially because they know how hard it would be for you, they already tried to stop it. They’ve repented and tried to pray the thoughts away, but their feelings haven’t changed.

As your head stops spinning, you’ll have a choice to make. Is your child someone you love deeply? If they are, then nothing has truly changed in your relationship with them. They are the same person they were an hour before they told you, it’s just that now you know more about what is really going on inside them. Can you imagine the courage it took for them to invite you to look deeply into their soul, especially when they know you’re not going to be blessed with the news? If you think this is coming from a broken place in their heart, wouldn’t you want all the more to be inside it with them, rather than abandoning them at so vulnerable a time?

Of course they are looking for your approval. They want nothing more than for you to embrace their newly announced identity and celebrate it with them. They too have tied love to approval. Some will even determine if you love them or not by whether you give them your blessing and may reject you if you don’t.

But most will know that they’ve just dropped a bombshell on the family and will hope that you’ll simply love them enough to work through this newfound information with them, whether you can approve or not. They will know you’ll need time to find a new footing in your relationship with them. Few people know how to love what they don’t approve. But God knows. He does it every day, with every one of us. Maybe it’s time we learn, too.

Let them know this isn’t going to be easy for you, but you want to learn how to respond in ways that are helpful to them. It will take some time for you both to learn. “You can’t expect me not to miss my little girl. I will. But I also realize you are the same person no matter how you present yourself on the outside and I want to love you no matter what, down whatever road you travel and I want to be a champion for you to find real joy and peace as you sort all this out.”

Let them know their decision will not change your love for them and your desire for them to find a life of joy and fulfillment. Even though you know that will only come in a transforming relationship with God’s love, you don’t have to push that on them.

Perhaps this is the hardest part of parenting, even in lesser ways when our children make decisions we don’t agree with in their careers or continuing to date someone we don’t like. Hopefully you’ll choose to discover the deepest realities of love and learn that being alongside your son or daughter even when they are making what you consider to be the wrong choices. Only there will you have the opportunity to share your love and your thoughts with them when they are ready for it.

If you want to be with them, put your love for them above everything else. Their choices are not your responsibility. Love doesn’t demand agreement and it doesn’t force its way on others. It will make them feel secure not threatened. Be with them and offer your thoughts only when they ask. When you learn not to manipulate their choices to do what you think best, they will want your input even if they don’t follow it right away. Remember this is all a journey and neither of you knows where it will lead in the next year, much less the next decade or two.

This is where you’ll learn each day how to listen to God and follow his lead. You cannot do this alone, but with him you’ll learn something about loving at the deepest level, when it sacrifices your hopes and dreams to support another person on their journey. You don’t have to forsake your convictions to do it. All you have to do is love like Father has loved you.

Can you love wholeheartedly in spite of the fact that someone is doing something with which we don’t approve? If so, you’ll offer a great gift to the world that will go well past your child or friend. It will be a lifeline to anyone around you lost in sin, bad theology, or hurtful behavior.

Every time you love like that you put God’s presence in the world, where he is able to do what is best to lead people to the light and to true freedom he has for them.