I am Outraged about the Number of People that are Outraged by People being more Outraged about a Lion being Killed than by this [More Important Thing]

(Or Abortion vs. Cecil the Lion)

Jesus literally lived life between two worlds.

He lived life between two kingdoms.

And he lived life between two cultures.

If you’re at all familiar with the way he drifted between these kingdoms and cultures, you’ll know that he often simultaneously upset both sides.  He challenged cultural standards (ex: his interaction with women, tax-gatherers, and drunkards); he challenged humanity’s standards (ex: the Sermon on the Mount); he simultaneously fulfilled the law and ended it.  I could go on, but let’s just agree that he was counterculture, and he was a revolutionary.  Neither of which tend to please the mainstream, and historically, neither of whose stories tended to end well.

I say this because before I share my thoughts I want to draw our attention back to the foundational principle that as Christians we are to be imitators of Christ.  The political climate of Jesus’ day was vastly different from our own.  To apply modern labels such as “conservative” or “liberal” to a person living in the Ancient Near East 2000 years ago is misguided to say the least.  Christ never took the hardline conservative approach of the presiding Jewish elite, in fact to them he would have been perceived as a lefty, socialist.  Neither was he ambivalent toward the subjects of holiness and morality, whilst emphasising a call for justice to the poor, the oppressed, and the immigrant.

Jesus modeled a third way; an alternative to picking and choosing between the left and right.

And this meant that he rarely pleased anyone.

Today’s Christians are not especially known for imitating this particular Way of Christ.  Judging from what’s trending on Facebook & Twitter, Christians on the right and the left have their feet firmly planted in those respective camps.  Indeed, Christians on both sides tend to use rhetoric that pleases their side and enrages the opposition.  I wonder… if we’re imitating Christ, where are we planting our feet?  Or maybe a more pointed question: what version of Christ are we imitating?

It’s a tricky thing to try and discern where Jesus - whose historical accounts in the Bible are cast against the backdrop of a 1st-century Jewish culture - would’ve stood on issues like abortion, same-sex marriage, watching TV, driving cars, listening to rock music, contraception, genetic engineering or Cecil the Lion.  All of these modern realities lack explicit biblical commands, and therefore require us to make reasoned, moral judgements based on the ethical principles Jesus taught.

I won’t say that this is the first of a series of blogs on some of the social and political issues that fill our social media feeds, but it might be.

Cecil the lion has obviously been at the forefront of everyone’s agenda recently...and not principally for the protection of animals.  The callous circumstances surrounding his murder have been exploited in order to shame those crying out for justice so that they will see how much greater other injustices around us are...the injustices that no one seems to be flooding social media about.   

Abortion has been the vanguard of this alleged imbalance of values and ethics.  The cry that human life matters more than a lion’s is the platform on which pro-life advocates are restating their positions on the value of human life.  And for the record, I agree that the life of a person, born or unborn, is more valuable than that of a lion.

But we’ve been having the ‘abortion’ conversation for more than 30 years now, and very little has changed in the arguments or positions on either side, and if we’re honest, there’s been precious little progress in either direction.

One of the primary problems that both sides are guilty of is that, like most things that we advocate for or condemn, we have dehumanised what we’re talking about and reduced it to an issue; a black or white, right or wrong, moral or immoral issue that can be contained, quantified and legislated.

The mission of God has a church (that’s us!).  We’re called to advance the kingdom in every way we possibly can, and that often means thinking outside the box… thinking counter-culturally… thinking like a revolutionary.  (Uh-oh)

When we dehumanise the topics that we’re discussing, and reduce them to issues - issues of right & wrong, black & white, moral & immoral - we often jettison the very values and ethics that Jesus emphasised and modeled for us to imitate.

Making abortion illegal and claiming that as a victory is not only an incredibly hollow achievement, it’s an impractical solution.  It’s short-sighted and woefully naive as well.  Surely no one really believes that outlawing the legal practice of abortion means the end of abortion, do they?  And isn’t that the point; to preserve unborn lives?  Would pro-life advocates sleep better at night because legal abortions were no longer happening, even though illegal ones still were?  If the U.S. government were to make owning guns illegal, would that solve the problem of gun violence?  The rhetoric by supporters of the 2nd Amendment suggests that gun violence would continue.  

In order to end a practice, one cannot simply make the practice illegal - one must go deeper into the fractured system - where it’s messy and complex - and deal with the all encompassing breadth of the matter.  This is typically where people don’t want to go.  It’s dirty and sweaty and it smells… b/c there are people there.  Real people.  Sure, it would be easier just to pass legislation, never engage the humanity of a problem, and call it a day, “We sure showed those pagans!”  

But God’s church is called to something more.

And there’s a whole world that needs to see more from us.

Because we are so polarised on this issue, any chance of open, civil discourse has been lost.  It is a conversation that rapidly disintegrates into judgement and shouting and personal attack (on both sides).  One side is imposing a moral ethic that the other does not share, and the other has dehumanised the topic altogether so it has been reduced to a matter of rights and entitlement.  As the church - the third Way - we can uphold the morality and value of human life, while at the same time challenging that ‘life’ extends beyond the womb.

Are pro-life advocates prepared to adopt or foster children that otherwise would have been aborted?

There are currently 397,000 children in the foster care system in the U.S.  According to the most recent data, 20% of children in the U.S. had no breakfast this morning, and will go to bed without dinner.  Theses are not fetuses.  These are living breathing children, and they are malnourished.

We’re not dealing with a simple issue of right and wrong here.  We’re dealing with systemic evil; a broken system that no legal victory is going to change.  

If the pro-life movement really wants to end abortion they need to be willing to look at hard things like poverty, access to affordable healthcare, reasonable living wages, etc.  

This is what the world sees as the pro-life agenda: They want women to be forced to give birth to a child, but are completely unwilling to make sure that child and the mother have the things they need to survive.  In the current discussion, if one defends the pre-born they’re “pro-life” but if one defends the post-born, they’re a socialist.

As Christians we’re sending mixed-messages… messages that aren’t compatible with the teachings of Jesus.  We seem to care more about the pre-born than the post-born, and this makes us pro-birth, not pro-life.  Millions of Americans are stuck in an inescapable life of poverty because their living wages are insufficient to provide basic needs such as food and affordable housing.

I recently read that according to the Low Income Housing Coalition, the best case scenario for minimum wage workers can be found in Arkansas and West Virginia, where one would only need to work 63 hours a week at minimum wage in order to rent a two bedroom apartment at fair market value. Live in New York? You're looking at working 136 hours a week in order to pay just for housing. It's impossible to say that we are legitimately in favour of "LIFE" when millions of people are unable to afford basic housing regardless of how hard they work.

We must be honest about what we mean when we say ‘pro-life.’  

If you’re saying, “I care about you when you’re in the womb, but the moment you’re outside the womb you’re on your own!”  

If you’re saying, “I value pre-born life, but once you’re post-born I don’t want my taxes paying for your food, housing or healthcare.”

If you’re saying, “It’s my theological mandate to ensure that you are protected in the womb and brought into this world, but I’m not concerned about whether or not your mother is able to provide food and a home for you; I’m not concerned whether or not you end up in the foster care system because your mother was unable to care for you.”

If these are true about your current position on the abortion issue, then you are not pro-life - you’re pro-birth… or at least only pro-one stage of life.  

You’re not wholly and completely pro-life.

You’re not ‘pro’ the life that Jesus said he came to bring - “abundant life.”

If we really want to see progress on the abortion front, then we must reframe the discussion entirely.  

We must restore the humanity to what we’re referring to as “life.”  

We must begin to value the life of the post-born as much as we value the life of the unborn.

And as imitators of Christ this actually makes our job easier.  The only model we have to imitate is how he cared for the post-born: the widow, the orphan, the leper, the immigrant, the oppressed, the marginalised, the blind, the afflicted, and the poor.

If we fail to engage the abortion crisis from a holistic human level, then we will find ourselves in the same place that we’ve been for 30 years.

The conservative, religious right doesn’t have the answer - despite their theological death grip on traditional family values.

The liberal, progressive left doesn’t have the answer - despite their commitments to personal freedoms and social justice.

The answer lies in a third Way: Christ’s Way - Christ’s Truth - Christ’s LIFE.

Let's Talk About Systemic Evil

This was an annoyingly long Facebook post that I'm putting here for easier access:

The tragedy last week in Charleston, SC has naturally sparked widespread debate about “guns”, and “racism”, and “symbols of racism” (the Confederate flag), and “White people”, and “mental health/anti-social behaviour” ad infinitum.  I’ve, uncharacteristically, participated in some FB threads concerning some of these issues, and as usual, have felt it quite unsatisfying and fragmented to contribute to a malaise that is never fully unpacked or interpreted in the context of the wholeness of each contributor.

One contributor to a thread I was in said something that made me want to write my own post.  She said, “our system is broken.”  Now perhaps I should begin by stating that I am not suggesting that guns are evil, or that the owners of guns are evil.  Instead, I’m addressing systemic evil, which may also be referred to as group or institutional evil.

M. Scott Peck writes in his book, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, “Evil...is the force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness.  And goodness is its opposite.  Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.”  With this as a working definition of evil, both individuals and groups have the capacity to commit evil acts.

The first exposure I had to the concept of systemic evil was in theologian Walter Wink’s book, Powers that Be. Wink points out that “Evil is not just personal, but structural and spiritual.  It is not simply the result of human actions, but the consequence of huge systems over which no individual has full control.”  Wink explains that systems of domination are “characterised by unjust economic relations, oppressive political relations, and the use of violence to maintain them all.”

So when we see these characteristics in our societies and communities, we see systemic evil at work.  Whether it’s unjust economic relations where a CEO earns more than 300 times what the average worker earns... or we hear of voter suppression laws where oppressive political relations are at work... or we recognise evidence of biased race relations in how differently the police treat black men than they do white men... or when we see patriarchal gender relations where women are oppressed and told that they are a “lesser cut of meat” (actual words of one state congressman)… Or this latest example of repugnant excess, the torture and slaughter of thousands of alligators so the likes of Beyonce, Kim Kardasian and Victoria Beckham can have the Hermes Birkin bag that retails for more than $50,000 (Beckham has more than 100 -- that’s $5M worth of alligator skin handbags at three dead alligators per bag!!!)... and there are a slue of areas within the retail clothing industry that exploit and abuse people in their workplace… we can point to each of these examples and say that systemic evil is present there.

And so it goes.  Wherever there are systems of domination over which no single individual has control, we have systemic evil.

The two primary factors that allow systemic evil to take hold are: selfishness and ignorance.  When combined they create in us a narrow-mindedness that allows us to deny, to not see, our connection to others.  For most of us, if we’re not directly affected by systemic evil in the moment, it’s pretty easy for us to focus on our own lives and on our own individual struggles and simply ‘get on with it.’  We’re like horses wearing blinders, undistracted by the evils of the world around us.  Meanwhile, we don’t see the oppression, death, poverty, and devastation that may be happening mere feet away from us.  If we have the ‘privilege’ of wearing such blinders, we’re not outraged because we’re not even paying attention.

Oh, but if we remove those blinders we may become immediately overwhelmed with the evil that’s all around us, and that we feel powerless against.  And so we put the blinders back on, and we become immune to it.  Evil becomes normalised.  We accept that the media continually uses the wrong gender pronouns for transgender people, and may even scoff at their own gaffe after doing so.  We participate in systemic evil if we have other options, yet continue to shop at major monopolistic supermarkets, knowing that they make enormous profits, but pay their employees a pittance wage.  We do it when we buy disposable pop music because it’s catchy and has a beat you can dance to, even though it tells women “your sexuality is your power,” or “you know you want it,” indicating that consent is really just about “blurred lines.”  Or when we go about our bottomless consumption while ignoring the damage we’re doing to Creation.  These are all ways in which we participate in systemic evil on a daily basis, and continue repeating to ourselves, “I’m just one person. How big of a difference can I really make?”  You’re either squirming a bit right now, or trying to decide whether or not to ‘unfriend’ me.  I know I’d be doing one of the two if I was reading this.  

As Peck points out, whenever…”it becomes possible and easy for the individual to pass the moral buck to some other part of the group [evil occurs].  In this way, not only does the individual forsake [their] conscience, but the conscience of the group as a whole can become so fragmented and diluted as to be nonexistent… The plain fact of the matter is that any group will remain... evil until such time as each and every individual holds himself or herself directly responsible for the behaviour of the whole group.”

And that my friends, is sweet redemption; our salvation: taking responsibility for the behaviour and actions of the whole group.  But how do we actually do that?  How can we hold ourselves accountable to a systemic evil that I’ve only just described as something that no individual has full control?  Of course no one person can take total blame for it.  But we can hold ourselves accountable for the ways in which we perpetuate the systemic evil, and by seeking to stop contributing to it when we can.  I mean removing the blinders, and allowing our hearts to break and our spirits to become outraged at poverty, injustice and destruction that’s going on in our respective societies as well as around the world.  For example, the U.S. could hold itself accountable by doing something to curtail the amount of gun-related deaths that happen annually on its soil.  

Let’s be honest.  

We have a problem.  

I can recall two stories in the last few months where a three-year-old found their parent’s handgun and fatally shot themselves.

Last year, handguns killed 263 people collectively in Japan, Britain, Switzerland, Canada, Israel, Sweden and Germany.  They killed 10,728 in the U.S.  That’s a collective population pool of 332 million people to the U.S.’s 319 million people.

Surely steps can be taken.

In the same way that selfishness and ignorance enable systemic evil, there are a few factors that can neutralise it as we seek to hold ourselves accountable.  The first is by educating ourselves.  Peck says, “The task of preventing group evil - including war itself - is clearly the task of eradicating or, at least, significantly diminishing [intellectual] laziness and narcissism… The effort to prevent group evil… must therefore be directed at the individual.  It is, of course, a process of education.”

Educate ourselves about the history of discrimination and oppression perpetrated by the justice system against the marginalised, minorities or asylum-seekers so that when an incident of injustice or brutality occurs, we’re able to understand the event in the larger context.  Educate ourselves as to the different Muslim sects so that we’re able to affirm the peaceful while condemning fundamentalism.

But while we educate ourselves, we do not want to, at the same time, emulate those who seek to oppress or advance the systemic evil; we don’t want to contribute to the evil - no ‘eye for an eye’ mentality.  Wink says, “Evil can be opposed without being mirrored.  Oppressors can be resisted without being emulated.  Enemies can be neutralised without being destroyed.”

Which leads to the second way we can address systemic evil in our lives: to engage our sense of wonder and curiosity.  “Really,” you ask, “Engage our sense of wonder and curiosity? That’s weird.”  Wink points out that, “Provoking a sense of wonder...tends to diffuse hostility.  It seems to be nearly impossible for the human psyche to be in a state of wonder and a state of cruelty at the same time.”  We can ask questions - of ourselves and those around us.  We can ask UKBA officials (or government officials where you live) how they might feel if it were their son or daughter being turned away at the border or denied access to medical care; or being shot to death at their own school.  We can write a quick email to a columnist or TV network when they refer to a trans person with the wrong pronoun, offering insight into the issue.  We can wonder aloud to our local government officials what will happen to our children, or our grandparents if benefits are cut, or if transportation services to poorer areas are reduced.  Even if we can’t change it, we can pay attention and wonder about the ways that we benefit from unearned privilege, due to race, gender, sexual orientation, economic class, education level, etc.  In so doing we are able to take responsibility for our part in systemic evil, and decrease our unintended participation.

The most important step in reducing our participation in the systemic evil that is all around us is the most practical, and likely the most challenging for most of us.  With more and more frequency we must remove our blinders and pay attention.  Allow ourselves to see things as they really are.  As a result, our empathy will not allow us to remain unengaged, and when our empathy is engaged, we will act in ways that affirm and promote the unsurpassable worth and dignity of individuals, as a well as honouring our place in this interdependent web we share.

Most people will read these perspectives as virtuous, moral, and good, and the truth is anyone can engage these virtues to initiate change.  But as Christians, we are compelled to oppose injustice - not merely for the sake of virtue or morality, but for the sake of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom.  I find that we often lose sight of which kingdom we’re called to stand for and seek to advance; the kingdom of the world (or nation we live in), or the Kingdom of heaven.  Make no mistake - I do believe the two are mutually exclusive.  We have a holy and sacred text, and it’s not the Constitution (though it seems that it’s more vehemently defended than the messages of peace and self-denial that we find in the biblical teachings of Jesus).  Jesus never said, “Stand up for your rights; defend your rights.”  He did say, however, to stand up for the poor, the marginalised, the oppressed and the least of these.  He did say, however, to turn the other cheek.  He didn’t say, “Put away your sword...unless someone is coming after your family; then you can kill them.”  He did say, however, “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.”

Now before you read my thoughts as unpatriotic, please know that I don’t hate the USA or Great Britain anymore than Jesus hated Jerusalem (which is not at all, in case you’re wondering).  I simply pledge my allegiance to the cross and to Him who overcomes it.

  

So those are my thoughts on the “real issues” we’re dealing with when we’re dealing with gun violence or racism or the general badness that we see going on in the world around us.

IMHO: College Football Uniforms are Sacred

I guess it's only fitting that my previous entry was at the end of the last college football season, and this one is celebrating the beginning of this one.
I don't know about you, but it's the same for me every year... on opening weekend of the NCAA College Football season, I simply can't get Andy Williams' jingle, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," out of my head.

The first weekend is already behind us, so any preseason-like predictions are almost obsolete, though I will say that of the most anticipated games of the season-openers, nothing particularly surprised me as far as outcomes go.  I expected Boise State to beat Georgia.  I expected LSU to beat Oregon... yes, I did...  I just didn't expect them to do it in such dominating and emasculating fashion.  I expected Auburn to beat Utah State - a team that was 1-10 versus SEC teams and that win came in 1970 against Kentucky.  I did not, however, expect Auburn to get a come-from-behind victory in the last three minutes of the game.

But what really caught my attention was, unfortunately, some attention-grabbing uniform changes.  The Oregon Ducks have had, without a doubt, the ugliest uniform combinations for the past few years.  It's surprising, really, that NIKE was the guilty designer behind that futuristic atrocity.  This year they came out against LSU looking Darth Vader-chic - black on black with black accents and black trim uniforms (pictured left), and despite an improvement on previous years, they still looked about as un-collegiate as a college uniform could look -- ABOUT as un-collegiate.  They were trumped by the new-look Georgia Bulldogs (pictured right).  There's really no diplomatic way to put it... the Bulldogs looked ridiculous.  They weren't just ugly, they looked like soldiers from a bad sci-fi movie.  I mean really... striped face masks???

While Oregon looked kind of cool, and Georgia looked completely laughable, they both looked like fictitious professional football teams from Oliver Stone's appallingly bad critique of American football, Any Given Sunday (which incidentally is a long, loud, exhausting waste of time).

What happened to the good ol' traditional college look?  Much of college football is wrapped up in tradition, but programs are beginning to jettison tradition for more marketable fan-gear, or perhaps programs are buying into the psychology that a tougher look yields tougher play.

Whatever the case, IMHO college football uniforms are a sacred part of longstanding tradition... and shouldn't be messed with.
 
 

15 Reasons Auburn Will Rout Oregon in the BCS Championship Game

The Oregon Ducks meet the Auburn Tigers on January 10, 2011, in a highly anticipated match-up of high-octane offenses, the Ducks' ugliest uniforms in sports history, and Auburn's controversial, unstoppable Heisman-winning QB.

If history is any indication of what the outcome will be, this could be a very disappointing and lopsided championship game - not disappointing for the victor's fans, but disappointing for those hoping for a good game.

Here are 15 reasons why Auburn could very well run away with this one in a rout:

15. History Says So (as just mentioned):

The last four BCS National Championship Games were all won by SEC teams... in dominating fashion.

The four SEC victories came by a combined 67 points, which translates to an average margin of victory of 16.8 points per game. If history is any indication, then Auburn should win by double-digits.

14. Auburn Can Come from Behind:

We haven't seen the Ducks overcome much adversity this season, but the Tigers have made a living off of coming from behind.

Auburn has trailed in eight of its 13 games this season, but still managed to win those games (some in blowout fashion), including an 18-point victory over Georgia and a 22-point victory over Arkansas.

Even if Auburn stumbles early, they've proven they can rally back and score a boatload of points in the second half.

13. The SEC Championship Game:

This one is pretty simple.

Did you see the way Auburn played against South Carolina in the SEC Championship Game?

That was as impressive of a performance as any team has had all season, and the Gamecocks entered the game with the SEC's No. 1 rushing defense.

12. The Passing Game:

Since Auburn averages 287 yards per game on the ground, it's easy to forget about the team's passing attack. But the Tigers can pass the ball.

Cam Newton throws for about 210 yards per game, and Darvin Adams has come on strong of late, catching seven passes for more than 200 yards and two touchdowns in the SEC Championship Game.

With Oregon trying to key in on the run, Newton and Adams could have a big day through the air.

11. Ball Control:

Oregon doesn't need the ball a lot to score—the Ducks lead the nation in scoring at 49.3 points per game despite having an average time of possession of less than 28 minutes.

But Auburn is one of only a few teams who can keep Oregon off the field.

Of the quality teams the Ducks have faced, only Stanford's rushing attack is comparable to Auburn's sixth-ranked rushing offense.

The Tigers can hold the ball for a big chunk of the game with that run-first mentality, which wouldn't bode well for the Ducks.

10. Oregon Has Played Weak Competition:

Outside of Stanford, Oregon has played a ridiculously weak schedule.

The Ducks have only faced two other teams who are headed to bowl games—Arizona and Tennessee—and those schools have a combined record of 13-11.

In fact, eight of the 12 teams Oregon faced in 2010 finished the regular season at or below .500.

9. 3rd-Down Conversions:

Auburn is one of the nation's best teams at converting on 3rd downs.

The Tigers have converted 77 of 145 3rd down attempts, or 53.1% of the team's tries.

Oregon has converted one more third down (78), but has had 170 chances - 45.9%.

It's a slim advantage, yes, but one that could play a huge role in determining the game's outcome.

8. Nick Fairley (Lombardi Award Winner):

With the exception of Oregon State's Stephen Paea, Oregon hasn't faced a dominant inside presence like Nick Fairley all season. He's one of the most disruptive defensive linemen in the country.

He won't make it easy for Oregon's offense when he's clogging up the middle on running plays or going after Darron Thomas on passing plays.

7. Second-Half Defense:

Auburn's season numbers on defense aren't going to "wow" very many people, but the Tigers have really stepped up on that side of the ball during their two most pivotal games.

In the regular season finale against Alabama, and the SEC Championship Game against South Carolina, Auburn allowed just two field goals in the second half.

That unit could be peaking at just the right time.

6. Auburn is Battle-Tested:

Auburn hasn't strolled its way into the national championship game. The Tigers have had one of the toughest schedules in the nation.

They've faced eight schools who were ranked at some point during the season, they've knocked off five top-20 teams, and they've beaten four top-12 teams, including last year's national champion (Alabama) and the current No. 7 team in the BCS (Arkansas).

5. Auburn's Defense:

Oregon's defense gets a lot more love because it forces turnovers, but Auburn's defense isn't far behind.

The Tigers have forced 18 turnovers and rank 34th in total defense (335.3 yards per game) while the Ducks rank 31st in total defense (331.6 yards per game).

So Auburn's "Achilles heel" may not really be one at all.

4. The Turnover Battle:

Oregon's defense may lead the nation with 36 turnovers, but the Ducks have also turned the ball over 22 times. That's eight more times than Auburn, which has just 14 turnovers in 12 games this season... and Cam Newton has thrown just one interception in the team's last seven games.

3. Auburn's Rushing Attack is not JUST Cam Newton:

Despite popular opinion, Auburn's rushing attack is more than just "let Cam Newton run and see what happens."

Michael Dyer, Onterio McCalebb and Mario Fannin have combined to rush for 2,108 yards and 19 touchdowns... and they've done that on just 310 carries, which translates to 6.8 yards per carry.

2. Auburn's Rush Defense:

Auburn's rushing offense gets a ton of publicity, so the team's rushing defense often gets overlooked, but not many teams can run on the Tigers.

Auburn boasts the nation's No. 7 rushing defense, allowing just 99.7 yards per game, and limiting its opponents to a measly 3.4 yards per carry.

1. The Heisman Winner:

You're probably getting sick of hearing about Cam Newton, but no one has been able to stop him for an entire game all season. Alabama did it for a half, but then he exploded... and not many other teams have even had a chance.

It seems next to impossible to stop this guy, as he's put up video game-like performances all season long.

Why should this game be any different?

This is all based on history, stats and analysis, but anything could happen, and... that's why they play the game.