Understanding church conflicts

The growing protests against Katherine Jefferts Schori, the new presiding bishop in the Episcopal Church, and the ongoing conflict in my own Presbyterian Church (USA) over the ordination of gays and lesbians, reminds me that we really are a nation of obligation-keepers and liberation-seekers.

My book "Balancing Acts: Obligation, Liberation, and Contemporary Christian Conflicts" defines these categories and explores these struggles. Obligation and liberation are the two major spiritual themes that animate life in America today, and most people align themselves with one of these attitudes. One group focuses on the obligations of religious life and seeks moral clarity, while the other tends to see religion as a liberation movement and stresses God's love for the oppressed.

Opponents of the new female bishop are classic obligation-keepers — traditionalists who take the Bible literally, oppose the ordination of gays and lesbians, and maintain a strong focus on moral clarity. Their approach to faith goes back to God's original covenant with Abraham, whom God promised to make fruitful if he will walk before God and be blameless (Genesis 17:1-2).

Supporters of the bishop, on the other hand, are liberation-seekers — progressives who see the language of the Bible as metaphorical, support the ordination of homosexuals, and focus on extending Christian charity to all people. Their style of religion can be traced back to Moses and the exodus from Egypt, in which God liberates his people from the oppression of Pharaoh (Exodus 3:7-8). The new bishop says "we're more interested in feeding hungry people and relieving suffering than we are in arguing about what gender someone is or what sexual orientation someone has."

My neighbor in Fairfax, Virginia, is the Rev. Martyn Minns, whose conservative Truro Episcopal Church may break away from the denomination over these issues (Minns is retiring from Truro, and has been named a bishop in the conservative Anglican Church of Nigeria). It's interesting that Minns is an obligation-keeper on sexual issues, but a liberation-seeker on issues such as homelessness -- his church founded The Lamb Center in Fairfax, which is a day center for homeless men and women. So obligation and liberation cut in interesting ways across the standard liberal and conservative categories.

I believe that obligation and liberation give us a new set of categories for discussing these issues -- one that leads to greater understanding, instead of fiercer hostility.

Post-Traumatic Growth -- FPC sermon excerpt

When the bomb went off on a road near Baghdad, Hilbert Caesar thought his life was over.

What he discovered was … it was just beginning.

According to The Washington Post (November 26, 2005), Army staff sergeant Caesar was in charge of a long-range howitzer — a self-propelled gun that resembles a tank. He was out on patrol in Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded. When the smoke cleared, Caesar looked down and saw that his right leg was severed in three places, just dangling by the skin. He tried to give his machine gun to a fellow soldier, but discovered it was bent. Then he yelled for the howitzer hatches to be closed, and thought to himself, “Oh man. This is it. My life is over.”

But he didn’t die. The insurgents responsible for the attack disappeared, and Caesar was transported to safety. At Walter Reed Hospital, his missing limb was replaced with an artificial leg of plastic and steel.

Still, he felt despair about his future. He was in pain, and was worried that he’d never be able to run again, or be attractive to women. He received word that eight men from his platoon had been killed by a car bomb in Baghdad, including one of his role models. The news was devastating.

But little by little he began to shift focus. Caesar met other injured soldiers and heard them talk about their recoveries. He began to look for the best, and realized that he was fortunate to make it back from battle with just one missing limb. “I’m grateful for that,” he told The Washington Post. “I’m thankful for just being here.”

Caesar now completes marathons in racing wheelchairs, and has found a job with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He sees the loss of his leg as a minor setback, and believes that he has come out of the war with more wisdom, compassion, and appreciation for life.

Hilbert Caesar has experienced “post-traumatic growth.”

A number of psychiatrists and psychologists are beginning to see that not all soldiers return from war with shattered spirits. A number are emerging from the experience feeling enhanced. Now this is not to say that war is desirable or healthy or good. But it can lead to personal growth.

Same thing happened to the apostle Paul after he was stabbed with a thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7). We don’t know exactly what this thorn was, although biblical scholars have suggested that it could have been anything from epilepsy to stuttering, depression to eye problems. What’s important is that Paul considered this affliction to be a painful trap or torture designed to take him out of the spiritual battle plan.

Back in the first century, sharpened wooden stakes were often placed in pits, with the hope that enemy soldiers would fall on them and be impaled. They were also used as a method of torture. Sharpened stakes were the roadside bombs of the ancient world, and they were described in Greek by the word skolops — the exact same word that Paul uses for his thorn in the flesh.

So Paul was stabbed — by a messenger of Satan, he says — “to torment me, to keep me from being too elated” (v. 7). He could have given up, assuming that his life as an apostle was over. But instead, he discovered that it was just beginning.

Three times he pleaded with the Lord to remove the skolops, but God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9).

Power is made perfect in weakness. As amputee Hilbert Caesar says, “It makes me appreciate life a whole lot more.”

A call to honor the Sabbath -- USA TODAY, July 3, 2006

For all the attention paid this past year to public displays of the Ten Commandments, you'd think people would spend as much energy trying to follow them. When it comes to the Fourth Commandment — "Remember the Sabbath Day" — that's not the case. And pastors like me, far from being role models, are among the worst offenders. After all, we work every Sunday.

The problem with ignoring the Sabbath is that it hurts us as individuals, families and communities. Wayne Muller, a therapist, minister and best-selling author, is convinced that modern life has become a violent enterprise. We make war on our bodies by pushing them beyond their limits, war on our children by failing to give them our time, and war on our communities by failing to be kind and generous and connected to our neighbors. To bring an end to this destruction, we have to establish a healthier balance between work and rest.

Whether religious or not, people know that they need to take a day off in order to maintain their sanity and remain efficient and productive at work. But I'm convinced that downtime is not enough. We need a formal day of rest. A true Sabbath gives us time to refresh and renew ourselves, regain proper perspective and redirect our lives to what is good and true and worthwhile. There is something positive and even creative about allowing ourselves to take a break, as is noted in the Bible when it says God finishes the work of creation on the seventh day ... by resting (Genesis 2:2). Resting is an act of creativity.

Unfortunately, our society rewards hard-driving people who are focused on their work seven days a week, and our technology allows us to be constantly connected to the workplace through computers, cellphones and BlackBerrys.

"Modern culture's time values often seem enslaving and oppressive," says Dennis Olson, professor of Old Testament Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. "Work time seems increasingly to expand and rob us of time with family and friends. Computers and the Internet bombard us with a constant flow of data, messages and information."

And as many Americans are pulling more time at the office, they're spending less time in bed. Average amount of sleep has dropped from nine hours a night in 1910 to seven hours today. The result is that we feel harried and hurried, out of balance, out of sync.

The way it used to be

For much of this country's history, blue laws kept businesses closed on Sundays, forcing Americans to focus on church-going, rest and relaxation. Although many people resented these limitations, these laws did have the beneficial effect of creating a day of rest. But in the past century, and particularly since the 1960s, states have relaxed these rules regulating business on Sunday as our consumer-driven culture has gone into overdrive. What began as a trickle soon became a raging river: Today, almost every mall, theater and restaurant is operating seven days a week. Even in Europe, where church-going has been in decline for years, Sunday has been — until recently — a day in which most businesses were closed, allowing people to spend time with family members and friends.

Given this history, Sabbath-keeping is going to be a countercultural activity, one requiring commitment and creativity. A day of rest does not have to be a Saturday or a Sunday — impossible for pastors and many others — but it should be at least one day out of seven, and qualitatively different from the other six. The key is to break away from work patterns, whether that means hobbies, sports or artistic activities. (Sabbath is related to the Hebrew verb meaning "to cease, stop, interrupt.")

"Spend more time with people in a friendly way, with meals (and) extended conversations, but no talk related to work," advises theologian Marva Dawn, author of Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting.

New York Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez rests by engaging in gardening; for a professional gardener, though, Sabbath-keeping might involve playing baseball. My own practice on Wednesday, my substitute for Sunday, always includes a long run. My thinking becomes unstructured as I jog along a beautiful wooded trail, the stress melting away and solutions to knotty problems popping into my mind. In this activity, I feel close to God. This is my way of remembering the Sabbath day, and keeping it holy.

Perspective on life

There is a communal dimension to rest as well, one that is important for maintaining healthy relationships in our families and communities. My son, who is trying out for his high school cross-country team, often joins me on my runs. This gives us a chance to talk without time pressures or interruptions, far from the demands of work and school. At the end of life, we'll remember and cherish these times — these mini-sabbaticals, if you will — far more than those hours toiling away in the office. As the saying goes, no one ever says from his deathbed, "I wish I had spent more time at the office."

Ironically, we can actually be more productive if we take a break from time to time. Dawn is convinced that what we gain is "a greater eagerness to do our work and a better sense of what that work actually is." We can learn from men and women in the European Union, who work hard but still enjoy an average of five weeks of paid vacation per year. They often remark that they don't "live to work," as we do — instead, they "work to live."

So take a vacation this summer and a Sabbath day throughout the year — whether to honor God, your family or yourself.

Henry G. Brinton is pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Virginia and author of Balancing Acts.