Wall Street Journal vs. Protestant Churches

John M. Buchanan, the editor of Christian Century pointed out in this months issue that the Wall Street Journal never misses an opportunity to malign mainline protestant churches. Seems an odd thing doesn’t it, and something few of the country are aware of or care.

They are particularly abusive of the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches (along with Reader’s Digest for reasons I cannot fathom.)

Why? Buchanan explains it clearly in that mainline protestant churches have a long history of promoting the idea that the gospel of Jesus has much to say about social, economic and political conditions. And, His sayings are often in opposition to the individualistic ideology of the Journal.

The Wall Street Journal now may have to broaden its attack to include the evangelical churches. Those churches in recent years have been more open to the ideas that Jesus talked more about poverty than he did sex. In other words, the Evangelicals have become more open and more progressive when it comes to social issues. See the articles I have written about Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis (editor of Sojourners). Other noteables in this category include, Tony Campolo, Philip Yancy and President Carter.

I am glad to see this new coalition of mainline protestants and progressive Evangelicals uniting in efforts to work for the common good of our society. The Wall Street Journal, while a revered magazine with excellent writing, also stands behind the policies of the three plus decades of individualism at the expense of the common good that has led to the improper distribution of wealth in this country and the lack of concern for the middle and lower classes.

Barton Swain of the Wall Street Journal reviewed Elesha J. Coffman’s book The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline. It is a harsh review indicting folk like Harry Emerson Fosdick who Swain calls an “anti-fundamentalist preacher.” Swain demeans that idea of the best minds in the church in their efforts to influence the laity. That is a bad idea? That was my calling for my entire career and I fail to see it as evil. Swain also condemns Martin Marty for “dirty tricks” with Billy Graham. Swain further condemns the mainline churches for denying the authority of scripture and telling people they cannot know that God exists. This seems simplistic and just plain stupid and fails to understand the humility theologians need in knowing that all our understanding of God is limited and should be understood as such. It is just conceit to proclaim to know fully the mind of God.

In my humble opinion Americans would understand the world better by reading the Christian Century that the Wall Street Journal and when it comes to authoritative knowledge of religion the seems clearly more reliable.

Christianity has the right and the responsibility to apply the teachings of Jesus to economic, social and political issues. If that makes them a pain to elitist capitalists, so much the better, they are doing their job.

One Nation Under God indivisible, with liberty and justice for all

We continue to hear great debate on whether to include the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag over and over again ad nauseum. One wonders where we would be had those two words not have been added in 1954.

Frankly, it seems to me unnecessary as the nation is under God from my biblical and religious perspective no matter what our pledge to the flag is or is not.

It also does not reflect our nation true beliefs. Yes, the majority of the nation claims religious affiliations but they don’t attend those religious institutions. Over a quarter of our citizens have left their faith of origin, many not just switching horses but have just quit the horse. From personal observation those who attend Christians churches are basically biblically illiterate and are hard pressed to know the basic teachings of their faith let alone apply those beliefs in the daily lives.

The United States is following in the footsteps of Europe where churches are mainly historical relics of the past. This has rightly been called the post-Christian age.

There is also a great deal of unseemly competition between various Christian denominations that I think would make Christ cringe. Even the new pope, as gracious and as open as he has been bringing some fresh air into Roman Catholicism, made his trip to South America primarily to keep people from leaving the Roman Catholic Church to their evangelical counterparts.

And though I have spent a life of service to the Christian Church I’m not all sure how bothered I am by the decreasing numbers of those affiliated with religious institutions. I believe in evangelism as far as sharing one’s faith with others, but I dislike competition and growth by any means. It seems to me that Jesus’ call to his followers was basically to be faithful, faithful to his teachings and recognizing his messiahship.

In all of scripture there is an emphasis on the faithful remnant not just propagation of believers. Yes, I would like to see the church grow but only if it is faithful. The vast majority of today’s Christian churches are under 150 members. While many of those churches have vital and important work, I believe the vast majority just wants to survive and have lost sight of why they are a church as disciples of Christ. A telltale remark is how they refer to the church as “my church” or “our church” referring to their primacy of their membership and perhaps their families membership rather than seeing their congregation as “Christ’s body” a visible representation of the invisible body of Christ. When that happens, the church is just another social institution or a “country club on its knees” as we used to refer to this phenomenon.

The church is visible when, despite the lack of media coverage, it is feeding the poor, comforting the ill, visiting the disenfranchised of society, of showing Christ’s care and compassion for all people.

I loved the folk hymn that came out during my early ministry, We are One in the Spirit by Peter Scholte. The chorus was:

         And they’ll know we are Christians by our love,

      By our love,

      Yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

I love it still and pray that it will continue to be practiced by the faithful remnant despite whatever the official numbers of believers of whatever denominations they are.

And yes that means working for minimum wages and all the social policies I have been writing about. They are expressions of love for for each other as found in working for the common good.

Minimum Wage Increases

President Obama has argued that we should raise the minimum wage over the next three years from $7.25 (a figure a few members of congress seem to even know) to$10.10 and hour. Andrew Tobias made a case for a $15.00 an hour minimum wage. Of course, many argue that this would just lower the number of workers because business couldn’t afford to pay such wages. [A note, if the minimum wage had kept pace with U.S. productivity since 1968 it would be currently $21.72 and hour.]

So, let’s take another look a good old Wal-Mart the mammoth seller and poor payer of wages. Thus equating low wages with low retail prices. Also note that this is 60% of what Costco pays its workers. But here is how the number work as Tobias figures them. If Wal-Mart paid all it employees $12.00 an hour, and kept it outrageous profits for it owners, this would raise Wal-Mart prices 1%.

Sure, this is only one instance. But my argument is that if a small business couldn’t afford to pay a descent minimum wage perhaps they shouldn’t be in business and more effective businesses could take their place. We find it easy to talk about inefficient lazy workers, but rarely talk about ineffectual and lazily run small businesses.

Men Are from Mars, Women are from Venus and Rep. Paul Ryan Is from Pluto

Yeah, Pluto isn’t even recognized as a planet anymore. Paul Ryan is a strange chair for the House Budget Committee as he proved during a recent hearing on “War on Poverty: A Progress Report.” As a matter of fact a lot of folk on that committee seem totally out of touch with reality.

For example Marsha Blackburn (Republican, Tennessee) used her time to attack Sister Simone Campbell the leader of Nuns on a Bus. Yep, religion was talked about in this hearing. Even Ryan thought Blackburn was out of it on this one.

Rep. Ribble (from a family of pastors) weighed in and told the sister, “Christianity is all about serving the poor. What is the Church doing wrong that it had to come to the government to get so much funding.” I think Ribble must of played far out left field in Little League. But it is part of the Republican rhetoric for some time now that the churches should step up to deal with social issues. Sr. Simone replied that a Bread for the World study shows that if the food stamps cut proposed by last years Republican budget had been implemented “every church, synagogue, mosque, and house of worship in the United stated” would have needed to raise $50,000 in additional monies every year for the next 10 years. She then said, “We have a limitation in our capacity to do that.” Rep. responded, “Your capacity is the same as our capacity.” Huh?

As the conversation continued with Ryan wanting more information of anti-poverty programs, which his budgets all want to cut substantially. Sr. Simone was ready again saying, “In 2011, government benefits lifted a total of 40 million people out of poverty, while Social security has the largest impact of any single program, means-tested programs such as SNAP, SSI and EITC lifted almost 20 million Americans, including 8.5 million children out of poverty.” If the House Republican proposal to cut $20.5 billion from SNAP (food stamps) over 10 years then about 5 million people would be eliminated from the program, which would increase federal and state health care costs by $15 million for diabetes alone over 10 years.

The weirdness continued. When will the far right ever realize that these programs save the country money rather than cost taxpayers if implemented? They reflect economic myopia and a general disregard for the common good and the plight of the poor while the increase the divide between the ultra wealthy and the rest of the country by the tax breaks.

Captain Kirk, take Paul Ryan and his unethical cronies to a galaxy long ago far far away. As they appear inhumane and perhaps inhuman.

Lamont Catstle

Doreen thinks that the cats in the Schackteau need continuous human interaction. One night she left on public radio, the TV and all the lights. Who knows what the neighbors think is going on over here. The combination of listening to PBR and TV at the same time may be intellectually stimulating them and dumbing them down. We’ll see.

The other night Doreen left the TV on TNT rather than the Animal Channel, which was running a marathon of Castle episodes. When I came in the following morning I found Lamont sauntering about the Schackteau, stopping occasionally, and saying to his sisters and eventually to me, “Me ow, meow, m e o w, me ow?” Now it is difficult to translate Catonese, but becoming an expert I eventually figured out the English equivalent of “Me ow, meow, m e o w, me ow?” Here is the translation, “I really am ruggedly handsome, aren’t I?”

For those of you who do not watch the TV show Castle or saw a particular episode or watched certain Castle commercials, this will make no sense to you. For those who do and have, you will know what I mean.

However, to the uninformed please and watch this, just click on thislink, or enter this URL  www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7lM24CkSH8‎

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