Ten Commandments of Talking (or blogging) Politics

Marcus here. For just a minute, I’m going to adopt the role of pastor here. So file in. Take a pew. Sing a song by yourself. Say a prayer. Is your mind in the right place? Good.

Let’s talk about politics.

It’s that time. Now that both parties have had their convention, things could get heated. Here’s a reminder to folks to behave appropriately. In fact, let’s hold each other accountable in this network to a higher level of discourse for the next few months with these Ten Commandments of Talking (or blogging) Politics.

1. Do not worship political theories or parties. (You shall have no other gods before me.)
Do not worship ideas or theories instead of God. Not your stance on global warming or Capitalism or deregulation or education or abortion or gay marriage or health care or international trade or war. Do not put your hopes in a political stance or party line or economic theory. Those things are important, but they should not distract us from our unity in Christ Jesus.

2. Do not worship political figures or images. (You shall not make for yourself an idol.)
Obama is not the savior. Neither is McCain. Neither is the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. Do not bow to Elephants or Donkeys. Good leadership is important. Political pep rallys and mascots are fun, but they should not distract us from our unity in Christ Jesus.

3. God is not divinely endorsing your political opinion. (You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God.)
This is slippery. But it is important. We can’t answer the question Who Would Jesus Vote For? except in the privacy of our own hearts. I’m serious. This doesn’t mean Christians can’t express political opinions if they are so inclined. But it does mean we must humbly represent our opinions as our own personal opinions, not God’s opinion. Neither party is God’s party. And in a sense, both candidates already belong to God because they both acknowledge him publicly. (And of course, we don’t judge hearts.)

4. Do not use God to prop up your politics. (Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.)
OK, people. Both sides fail at this too. Corporate worship is not the place for political messages. Period. This is a fine line to walk. It doesn’t mean politics can’t come to church at all. Rick Warren did a fair job at Saddleback recently. But it wasn’t under the guise of worship. In your blogs, do not use the Word of God to prop up your political hopes. Don’t.

5. Honor your father and mother. (Honor your father and mother.)
Election season is probably not the time to try to convert your parents to your political viewpoint. Here’s my suggestion. If they start ranting and raving against your candidate, respect them by keeping your mouth shut. Don’t take the bait. And certainly don’t bait your parents! This doesn’t mean all political discourse is off limits—but remember that elections aren’t sporting events. Do not let abstractions become a wedge between you and your family. It’s not worth it.

6. Don’t be cruel. (You shall not murder.)
Elvis may have said it best, but Jesus had some good words on this too. He said, “Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment… anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (Matt 5:21-22). If another blogger slanders you, talk to him or her privately first (Matt 18:15-16). Don’t air ugly conversations in your comment sections. Don’t attack people or ideas in public posts. This doesn’t mean you have to be silent. Respond to comments with an email. Engage them as Jesus says. And remember that it isn’t a sin for two Christians to disagree about politics.

7. Be pure. (You shall not commit adultery.)
I’m not sure how this applies to politics except as a reminder that we need to be examples of purity. Before you post a comment for or against someone, ask yourself if you are going to sully yourself or discredit yourself as a Christian. And don’t forget the comparison between idolatry and adultery. Don’t get so excited about politics that every conversation and post and comment reveals which side you are “in bed with.”

8. Be honest. (You shall not steal.)
Be honest when you vote. Stolen elections won’t help anyone. For some people, this may be a call to volunteer to work the polls on Election Day! A friend of mine volunteers for every election. Of course, every state is different, but she recommends contacting your local democratic or republican headquarters. Tell the party chairman for your party that you want to volunteer on Election Day. (You will need to be trained before you can work the polls.) The phone book should list contact information for both parties under “Associations” or “Political Organizations.”

9. Defend the truth and the facts. (You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.)
And who is your neighbor? Barack Obama. John McCain. Joe Biden. Sarah Palin. But also the Democrat next door and the Republican across the street. Here’s my practical suggestion. Refrain from sending asinine email forwards. But let’s take it one step further. If you receive a slanderous email, check the Snopes page on McCain or the Snopes page on Obama. Then send a kind response to the person who forwarded the email (NOT the whole list) explaining the error as gently as possible.

10. Be prepared to accept the results. (You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.)
In November one party will win control of the executive branch. The other will lose. When the time comes, do not covet your neighbor’s political victory if your side loses. If your side wins, do not gloat.

With God’s grace, we can all get along for the next few months regardless of who we will support at the polls on November 4, 2008.

NOTE: For the sake of simplicity and familiarity, I’ve used the protestant version of the Ten Commandments from Adam Clarke’s commentary. However, there are other ways to splice and dice Exodus. Wikipedia has a simple chart to show other views.

And just in case you are still confused about Commandment #6:

A Hard Look at Forgiveness

Blake Coffee - The Church Whisperer - tells us a difficult story from a church he worked with. A member had done something terrible, and the question was, “what does it mean to forgive him?” Does forgiving mean forgetting? Does forgiving mean refusing to press charges or testify in court? Does forgiving him mean he can come back to church again and serve?

What does forgiveness mean? Blake takes a serious look at this issue.

I once consulted with a church where a deacon was caught sexually molesting a little girl in the children’s department. He was the only adult (1st mistake) in a children’s Sunday School room with no windows (2nd mistake) and the church had never run any kind of background check on him (or any of their other volunteer workers…3rd mistake). The man fully confessed to the authorities and to the parents of the little girl, and then even more fully confessed to both a problem and a history in this area. He stood before his church and confessed as well. There was actually reconciliation between him and the injured family and there was spiritual restoration of this brother. It was a pretty extraordinary situation in that regard. All of this happened before the church ended up calling me for mediation.…Read More

Beijing and Worship

The video to the right is a slideshow of images from the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Sadly, China seems to be censoring the video images of the opening ceremony itself, which is a shame because it was so beautiful. So many people worked for years to perform such a stunning feat of coordinated movement, music, and art. It will hard for any nation to top it.

Getting a group of humans together to do anything in unison of spirit is a challenge. High Calling blogger Blake Coffee has noted the beauty of the ceremony and compared it to worship. His post is worth a read.

If you watched the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics last Friday, you saw a breathtaking and beautiful display of performance and pageantry filled with Chinese drummers, fireworks, acrobats, musicians and dancers. For me, one of the truly amazing moments was the 2,008 Tai Chi masters perfectly synchronized and presenting a stunning visual across the floor of the stadium. As I was preparing for this week’s lesson on worship, it occurred to me (actually, it occurred to Kappie, from whom I have shamelessly stolen this metaphor) that this gathered Tai Chi performance gives us a nearly perfect metaphor for gathered worship. Here’s how:…Read More

Do You Have Cause Fatigue?

Marcus here. Over at New Breed of Advertisers, Sam Van Eman has confessed “I think I can’t, I think I can’t.”

Ouch, Sam. That’s bleak, man. That’s Cormac McCarthy bleak. I know what Sam means, though, and I appreciate his bold, if slightly shocking honesty.

Sam explores the idea in much greater depth in his MUST READ article at Catapult Magazine called Melinda Mae Missiology. The title of his article refers to a Shel Silverstein poem. (Click here and listen to Shel’s crazy reading.)

I’m no Melinda Mae. I lack focus. I lack patience. I lack perseverance. To be honest, I’m flat-out tired. In fact, I have had “cause fatigue” for sometime now. You know cause fatigue, right? Ten Facebook “friends” everyday tell me I should support their causes: “Spay Your Dog” and “Recycle Your Cans” and “Change the World This” and “Change the World That.”

Oh yeah. And this one. Join our Facebook Blog Network. (Actually, that’s not a cause. It’s a cool Facebook plugin that looks like it will aggregate all of our content on Facebook. Or else it will just be a fancy Facebook blog roll. I’m not sure.)

Even with the apologetic parentheses there, I feel bad about even asking people to join something else, click on one more link, stand up and digg or favorite or tag or participate in one more networking possibility or world improvement campaign.

There are just so many options that we start to shut down.

What else can we do except focus on the world in front of us? I don’t know where else to work on building the kingdom of God–whatever that means exactly. I’m still thinking about Sam’s article at Catapult when I make comments like that.

Here’s what I see in my life. I can be a good dad–and do things like watch a pickup softball game with my four-year-old son in the evenings. (We watched warm-up and ten minutes of the first inning last night.) I can be a good husband–and do things like encourage my wife after she has a tough rehearsal for Willy Wonka. (She’s Mrs. Gloop.) I can work hard at my job–connecting people online, editing articles, and doing my best to pay writers on time.

And I can write poetry. Which has no value in the free market sense, but it brings me joy. And for me, it is a kind of prayer.

Sure I do church and charity stuff too, but the real mission of my life is what I spend the bulk of my time on. Work and Family seamlessly (hopefully) integrated with my Faith in God.

None of those are very earth shattering causes. In fact, they seem almost cowardly in their simplicity. But they are what I do. Should I do more? I don’t know.

What do you do?

I’ve never seen that before

The video I’ve posted on the homepage today is a funny one. A group of “performance artists” froze in place in Grand Central Station for 5 minutes. The people walking around were stunned. One reached out and touched a woman to see if she was real. They had no way of explaining what they were seeing. Nothing in their experience had prepared them for this.

Some laughed. Some looked a little scared. Some walked a little faster, hoping to escape and not have to figure out what they were seeing.

The unexpected and surprising can make us a little uncomfortable.

Years ago I kicked a little metal ring in the parking lot of a local grocery story. I must have hit it just right because it flew much farther than I intended. It rolled a long way right into the center of the parking lot, where there were no cars and only one woman walking to the store. The ring rolled right in front of her. From her perspective, it looked as though the ring dropped out of heaven. There was no one around her and no explanation for this ring that was suddenly rolling across the ground. She was so scared and befuddled that she almost ran into the store.

And I don’t blame her. It would have scared me too. Sometimes I wonder if she is still telling the story to her friends just like I’m telling it to you.

We expect the world to be just the way we, well, expect it to be. Day after day, things are always the same. And when things don’t look as they should, we are stopped dead in our tracks, stunned and immobile.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Annie Dillard wonders why we aren’t just as shocked and surprised when we read the gospels. If we really read the scriptures, she says, we’d have to wear crash helmets in church because we would constantly be falling out of the chairs in stunned amazement.

(You can view the video here after we take it down from the homepage.)

How Then Shall We Worship?

Perhaps you’ve noticed that churches all around our nation are splitting over the issue of music in worship. This is a simple explanation, but it’s basically the classic hymn lovers vs. those who enjoy more modern praise and worship songs. I’m a hymn man myself, but I’ve watched the people in our church sing modern songs, and they truly love them. And they are truly led to worship God by singing them.

The problem isn’t that we have different opinions. The problem is our willingness to fight over what kind of music is better, more “worshipful,” or more theologically correct. A pastor friend of mine likened this to children fighting over whose Father’s Day card is better. “What do you suppose the father would say,” he asks.

So what should we do?

Blake Coffee, otherwise known as The Church Whisperer, suggests that the answer comes in putting your brother or sister in Christ’s needs above your own.

Gathered worship is about approaching the throne of grace together. That’s what makes it a very different experience from personal worship. In gathered worship, the Spirit of the very God I come to worship lives in my co-worshiper. That makes relationships critical to gathered worship. When I look across the congregation and see my dear friend profoundly expressing his love for the Lord, it doesn’t matter so much whether I’m loving the music, because my dear friend clearly is. I worship because he is worshiping. All that matters at that point in time is how I feel about God and how I feel about my friend. That is enough.… Read More.

It’s all about the size of your steeple

There are many challenges to doing church in the 21st century. One of the hardest is learning to recognize the influence of our culture. We do things in American churches in certain ways, which is fine as long as we don’t start thinking that our culture is the gospel. For example, most churches feel that a church building is essential. Having a church without a building is unthinkable. And yet, none of the earliest Christian churches had buildings. One wonders what we have lost by tying ourselves to expensive structures.

High Calling Blogger “A Casual Observer” points out this weakness in a very interesting piece called, “It’s all relative to the size of your steeple.”

Most contemporary Christians mistakenly view the church building as a necessary part of worship. Therefore, they never question the need to financially support a building and its maintenance.

The church edifice demands a vast infusion of money. In the United States alone, real estate owned by institutional churches today is worth over $230 billion. Church building debt, service, and maintenance consumes about 18 percent of the $50 to $60 billion tithed to churches annually. Point: Contemporary Christians are spending astronomical amounts of money on their buildings.

All the traditional reasons put forth for “needing” a church building collapse under careful scrutiny. We so easily forget that the early Christians turned the world upside down without them (see Acts 17:6). They grew rapidly for three hundred years without the help (or hindrance) of church buildings.…Read More.

Spiritual Decompression

The modern world taxes us. Literally of course, but also emotionally and spiritually. We are far too busy, far to distracted, juggling too many tasks, keeping up with schedules that are too full. You can step out of the modern world for a time, taking a vacation. But it often takes a few days to settle into a slower pace of living.

Real Live Preacher noticed this on a recent vacation. He wrote about it in a piece called “Spiritual Decompression.”

It’s a little unnerving when you first arrive. When darkness falls and there is no television or news, you might find yourself fidgeting a bit. But Jeanene and I have learned to wait patiently until our bodies adjust to the simple sounds and the simpler pace of life. Once you emotionally let go of the modern world and the fast pace of life we’ve created for ourselves there, your body settles quite nicely into what I would say is a more natural state. Before you know it you’ll find yourself happily staring off into the distance, listening to the echoing booms of a thunderstorm, or watching a hummingbird float gently in front of a flower. You might look up to find that you’ve spent an hour trying to feed a cracker to a chipmunk.

Our daughters have not been to Creede as often as we have, and they are not used to the awkward decompression time. The first night we were here, our middle daughter finally grasped the reality of our situation. No television and no internet, which means no MySpace. She panicked.

“Dad, what are we going to do? There’s nothing to watch on TV, and I can’t get to MySpace. What are we supposed to do?”

“Well, that’s why we come here. You have to settle into a simpler kind of living.”

“Yeah, but what are we supposed to DO?”… Read More

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Listening: One of the Hardest Things You Will Ever Do

May 28, 2008

No doubt about it. Listening is one of the hardest things you will ever do.

Most people do not know how to listen. They think they do, but they don’t. Someone begins speaking and they pay attention with about 1/4 of their mind. One part of their mind is casually paying attention. Another part is listening to music, thinking about something else, or (worst of all) planning what they will say in response.

You can’t listen like that. Listening is a rich, full experience. You have to take a deep breath and watch the person who is speaking. You have to watch their body language and watch for expressions of emotion on their face. After all, body language and inflection carry most of the meaning.

New High Calling blogger Hollie Atkinson writes about the art of listening in a recent post.

“When good communication takes place, the listener listens with their whole being. Their ears are tuned in, certainly, but their eyes are focused, and their whole body says, “I am interested in what you are saying.” Good listening means letting your eyes light up - raising your eyebrows - expressing interest verbally like, “Oh, wow!” “Is that right?” “Are you serious?” “How about that!” People tend to keep talking about a subject that they think someone is interested in.

People who are skilled at listening are concerned with two tasks: 1) They must hear and understand what the speaker is saying, making sure that they are not hearing more than the speaker is saying. 2) They must encourage the speaker to continue to communicate.” … Read More

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A Listening Prayer

May 5, 2008

High Calling Bloggers have been invited to write about an experience we’ve had in a spiritual retreat. Those who do will be listed here. Check back because new essays will be appearing each day. This essay is one I wrote for Christian Century in 2005 following a retreat at Laity Lodge, one of my most favorite places on earth.
——————————-Real Live Preacher

I can’t imagine absolute silence, neither can I hear it. Even when I’m in a quiet place, my mind produces its own ghostly, seashell sound. The noise in my head is a faint but high-pitched whine accompanied by a lower rumbling that sounds like an engine pulsing away in the distance. These seem to be the default sounds of my brain. It’s what I hear when there is nothing else to hear.

About the closest you can come to silence is to become silent yourself and hope for the best. Close your eyes and forsake your vision. Let go of sight and your desperate need to see. Embrace hearing and you will begin to notice the many layers of the sounds around you…Read More.

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