bo.white

Can a Christian vote for Barack Obama?

bo.white — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 20:15:48 -0700

I voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 election instead of voting for the ticket of McCain and Palin.

At the time, I did not understand the division and caustic nature of the upcoming 2012 election. My guess is that neither did you. The economic disaster that was 2007-2008 had not yet been thoroughly investigated and the nation had not seen the gridlock of partisan politics to the degree that the early 2010 deficit talks and subsequent supercommittee debacle produced. I was also particularly unprepared for the rather pointed, sometimes hateful, rhetoric that would flow from the more conservative ranks about the President of the United States. Let’s, though, move closer to home.

I have had relatives, Christian co-workers, and social conservatives question my faith, question whether I believe the Bible to be relevant, and question my intellect for the past few years. I have been told that I could not call myself a Christian and vote for Obama. I have been called a socialist, a liberal, and a host of other more colorful things, all by professing Christians. With another election coming up in 2012 and with President Obama again on the ticket, I am struck with this thought: now what happens if I vote for Obama again?

I have watched many of the Republican debates and the party itself is divided over many conservative issues, but united on its desire to blame Obama, label Obama, and distance themselves from Obama. To some, he’s a socialist, to others, he’s too friendly to Muslims. To some, he’s the reason for the economic decline, to others, he’s the reason we have higher than expected unemployment. For the Christian, though, can we embrace the fact that Obama too shares many Christian values that need promotion and preservation? These values include compassion for the poor and marginalized, hospitality for the immigrant, and promotion of public service and volunteerism.

With that said, Obama has been upsetting to Catholics, evangelicals, and a host of Christian groups for the same reason he’s been upsetting to his own party and to the left—people are simply unsure where he stands on some things. He has disappointed virtually every segment of the population at some point. But, is this really new to politics or the Presidency? Mitt Romney claims to be a lifelong businessman, but has been running for President for the entire 21^st century. Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann were hopefuls at one time and now, even Rick Santorum can articulate some consistently Christian views, but they have proven to be poor politicians on the national stage and have great difficulty rallying support that isn’t ‘preaching to the proverbial choir,’. And we’re voting for a national leader, not simply an ideological champion, right?

Frankly, the Congress itself has the lowest approval rating in modern history and no one who votes regularly and follows the news shows signs of admiration for either group of senators or representatives. In fact, some of the incompetency is simply surprising and mind-boggling.

And perhaps, this is the true dilemma of the upcoming election. What can a President do with such an incompetent Congress? That’s a lengthy discussion for another day.

Let’s return to this simple question: Can a Christian vote for Barack Obama in 2012? Must a Christian voter only support a vocally pro-life ticket even if that ticket does nothing to reverse abortion on demand? Republicans have had majorities more than once since Roe v. Wade and have collectively done nothing to repeal the law, but when given the chance to weigh in on health care legislation every candidate promises to repeal ‘Obamacare’ on day one of their administration. Isn’t this inconsistent?

Let me put the question differently. Why is the party that supports the NRA, increased military spending, decreased economic regulation, and harsher immigration policy still the party most publicly associated with Christians? Have we reduced the Christian vote down to simply views on homosexual marriage and abortion only? Can we at least insert the Biblical command to ‘welcome the stranger,’ and the call to be peacemakers and peaceful people who ‘turn the other cheek’ in to the discussion?

Don’t misunderstand me, I am not a Democrat either. I am a person who has voted for leaders of both parties. I voted for George W. Bush to defeat Al Gore, but I have also attended a fundraiser for Bill Clinton’s Foundation in San Francisco (and that last part of the sentence really drove my evangelical friends whacky—you try throwing ‘support, Bill Clinton, and San Francisco’ in the same sentence at a dinner party with lifelong Republicans, who attend church, sometime and see what happens).

Maybe the answer lies somewhere deeper. After all, Christians are ‘citizens of heaven’ and are considered members of a Kingdom, that is ushering in a new way of doing life. Maybe both parties are wrong and the question isn’t whether a Christian can vote for Obama, but the question is more this one: can a Christian put grace above religion; peace above war; Kingdom of God over democracy of man?

Does Obama hold some views and practice some things that are upsetting to Biblically astute Christians? The answer is undoubtedly yes. Does Obama hold some views and practice some things that are obviously Christian and friendly to Biblically astute people? Again, the answer is yes.

So, can a Christian vote for Obama? I will answer a resounding—sure, maybe, it’s possible. Just be careful about how you articulate such a vote in the fellowship hall over coffee.

So, who will I vote for in 2012? I don’t know yet, there’s still some time yet to decide.

-bo

Under the Mistletoe

bo.white — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Ever caught yourself saying these words: “this holiday is going to be different,” OR “this year, we’ll really celebrate?” Then, after putting your best foot forward, you simply fell into what you always do. You respond partly out of nostalgia, partly out of tradition, but also partly out of fear.

It’s like every holiday is in some way, lived under the mistletoe. Instead of kissing someone with passion and with the energy that says, ‘I love this and I love you,’ you find yourself looking up to see if you’re really standing there and then you look over and see that someone else is also there and now what? Awkward….

Mary Oliver writes in her poem entitled “The Place I Want to Get Back To” these words:

“I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.”

She captures, I think, for me anyway, the holiday spirit that so eludes most people. She listens, she lingers, and in the end, there’s an invitation to prolong the visit. For some people, every holiday is the same old thing, year after year, and it’s not filled with awe nor is it inspiring or life-giving. It’s either there like the paint on the wall or it’s hanging over your head, like the mistletoe, but instead of capturing the moment, leaning forward, and surprising yourself and someone else, you simply stand still and wait for the flowers to walk in to your house and sit there and wait and wait for your next move.

Let me suggest that you get up and walk outside and lean forward in to the crisp winter air, taste the snow on your tongue, and linger a bit in front of the lights downtown or the manger scene or maybe you lie down in the snow, close your eyes, make an angel with your arms and legs and then stand up, turn around, and kneel in prayer until you see the angel come to life. Don’t move until you hear the angels sing and ignore everyone else who tells you that you’re just playing in the snow. If you want to talk about this, let’s meet in a house near yours, which is named Grace. And it’s the only house I have been in where I can dance without being made fun of and it’s the only house I have been in, where I didn’t care if someone heard me sing. And the gifts you receive in this house? They’ll blow your mind and the funny thing—they’re not wrapped up and under the tree, no, they seem to be out in the open and under the mistletoe. It’s kind of an odd house, but worth checking out.

-bo

Why the Journey is still important

bo.white — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:55:23 -0800

Now, I must preface this with a notation. I sometimes cry at movies. This isn’t a confession, rather it’s a fact, kind of like saying that I have greenish eyes and am right handed. When the writing, acting, cinematography, story, and score all come together in the right way, at the right time, I cry. But, I can’t remember being emotionally moved at the beginning, middle, and end of a film, until recently.

Recently, I sat in a giant, stadium seat theatre and watched The Way. There was only me and one other couple at the screening on a Wednesday night, so right away you’ll note that it’s not a summer blockbuster type or Disney flick. The Way, though, struck me on several different emotional levels all at once and for that reason, it’s one of the more emotionally moving and satisfying films I have seen in a long time.

The storyline is rather straight forward—a father and son, who are estranged and don’t understand each other that well, are heading in different directions, until the father learns of his son’s death. The death, though, happens while the son is on pilgrimage, hiking the El Camino de Santiago from France in to Spain. The father, played by Martin Sheen, takes the pilgrimage himself and the film takes us with him. But, there are other film reviews to read online, this isn’t meant to be a review. So, let me focus on two points that kept me emotionally invested in the film and now, a while after seeing it, these thoughts still invite me to new conversations.

First, the film is the story of a journey and it’s done in such a way that the audience also goes on the journey, and that’s no small point. We’re all on a journey and we’re pilgrims with a destination. Vincent Van Gogh once said that we are strangers on the earth as he preached from Psalm 119 in the 19^th century. The most popular story, next to the Bible, in English, is Pilgrim’s Progress. Perhaps, we miss the point that the journey we’re on is not only not an accident or anecdotal, but it’s truly a pilgrimage toward something new. The Bible says that we are new creations and that one day, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Until then, the pilgrimage we’re on, if we truly embrace it, allows us to explore things and experience things with purpose, pleasure, and passion. We fall down, mess up, get lost, or turned around, but we still walk, press on, and take in the one life we’ve been given. The journey doesn’t just point us in a certain direction, but the journey actually shapes our life in various ways as well. We shape the journey and the journey also shapes us.

This leads me to a second point. We don’t take our respective journeys alone. Other people are on the path and they too intersect with us and they too are being shaped and they too are shaping us. And soon their smiles cause us to smile, their eyes help us see, their pain hurts us, and their tears also run down our own face.

And pushing these points further in to my own day, I have been reading Jean Vanier recently and he writes on one occasion that “Our humanity is so beautiful, but it needs to be transformed”. And once again, I am invited to a new place where beauty can still be transformed into something even more stunning. A kiss can be transformed into being truly present. A hug becomes a retreat. And on goes this journey, with others, where beauty can both move us deeply, but also leave us in a place of contented anticipation. We’re stirred to the core, but anticipate something great is coming. And this is the invitation of the film, The Way. Dostoyevsky was right, when he wrote, ‘Beauty will save the world.’ In fact, I think it just may be our only hope.

-bo

An Examined Life over Morning Coffee

bo.white — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:15:56 -0800

I am sitting alone, in the morning with my Starbucks instant coffee (Via) brewed and properly laced with skim milk, no sugar. I am wearing a sweater and jeans, both from second hand shops (which is where most all my clothing comes from nowadays). No radio is on, no stereo, and no television. It’s quiet. The violent noise of the modern world is just not there. I can hear myself sip my drink and I can hear the chair creak when I shift to turn the page in my book.

I can’t decide if I want to read Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot or Henri Nouwen’s Can You Drink the Cup? Both books are on my ‘to read’ list. Yet, I may finish an escape novel (lately it’s Bruce DeSilva’s Rogue Island) and give my brain a bit of a rest. But, the rest doesn’t come.

Instead, I feel a sense of loss that surprises me and frankly it hurts a bit. The loss begins with the retiring of the band, REM. They have been my favorite rock band for more than two decades. I have listened to all sorts of music, but I have lived with REM. I don’t know exactly why, but their retirement hurts a bit. It reveals not simply my love for certain music, but also my own identification with what REM stands for and has artistically produced. And I am driving quite a bit lately for work splitting my time between two cities, so I decide to spend some time creating a post-REM playlist that will both accompany me on the road, but will also describe where I am at in life. An hour later, my playlist is done and ready to be unleashed on the open road. For the record, here’s the playlist, in order:

1. Lake Michigan—Rogue Wave
2. Losing You—Boxer Rebellion
3. Semi -Automatic—Boxer Rebellion
4. Cities of Night—Blaqk Audio
5. Blinding—Florence and the Machine
6. Hurricane Drunk---Florence and the Machine
7. Princess of China--Coldplay
8. Amor Fati—Washed Out
9. Where Once I Feared to Walk—Jason Clark
10. Run in the Night—Jars of Clay
11. If You Run—Boxer Rebellion
12. Broken Glass—Boxer Rebellion
13. Open Your Arms—The Editors

I think to myself that thirteen is a good number and strangely, I am now looking forward to sitting in the car alone. This is a bit weird because I am already alone and suddenly my thoughts are back to feeling loss. I decide to check email, partly out of habit, partly because I really want connection. I like solitude, don’t get me wrong, but I also want to share things and explore ideas, maybe pour someone else a coffee, and sit, listening not to his or her voice, but heart. So, I open up my inbox and see several updates from the Washington Post and New York Times. I sometimes forget what I have subscribed to in my inbox, so I am surprised at the headlines about Iran and the threat of nuclear war.

I also see a note about a kidnapping in Latin America, a suicide blast in the Middle East, and borderline panic about the global economy. When did the international landscape become part of my morning coffee? Who dumped all of this news in to my inbox? Then, it hits me.

I am more connected than I often think and I don’t mean the plugged in version. I am part of an international community, a global economy, and a worldwide humanity. Not to mention the fact that this is just the visible world. I am also part of an invisible, spiritual world, a supernatural world, and an emotional world. The loss I feel turns in to all sorts of things as I think about friends in Africa searching for food, friends in Asia searching for dignity, and friends in Latin America searching for their parents.

Forget email. So, I shut down and go back to my cup of coffee and my books. I refill my mug, relocate my page, but I can’t recapture solitude. A new day has already run me over and I didn’t see it coming.

Tonight, I’ll vow to be better prepared for tomorrow. I’ll go to bed on time and fight the urge to watch any of the late night monologues or news updates or that one last, quick, ‘it’ll only take a second,’ glance at email or goodreads or linked in or any of those sites. I will simply try to rest, then get up, have my morning coffee and seek to make a difference in the world, unless, of course, I get distracted.

Then, what happens? What if I do get distracted again? What if I feel this aching loss about wanting to see her or talk to him? What if I don’t sleep well and my pillow doesn’t hug me back? What if I wake up on the wrong side of the bed and hurt the world before I even have my coffee?

“Relax,” I finally say to myself, “Quit over thinking things.” I agree with my inner voice of reason, but want to qualify it. So, I begin to argue with myself, finally ending it with these words: ‘we’ll deal with this tomorrow.’ Finally, I am back to silence. I can hear the chair creak again as I turn another page.

-bo

A Good Reminder from Emergency Sex

bo.white — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:30:39 -0800

So much of the media centers around gloom and doom and economic woes, corruption, war, and scores of problems that plague our world. I fear that our 24/7 news outlets resemble more the voyeurism we find on the freeway, where traffic gets backed up due to people not being in a car wreck, rather lines of cars queue up to simply get a look at someone else’s misfortune.

We’re in danger of becoming a cynical culture that peddles more pessimism than hope and now with the latest and greatest technology, this fascination that pockets of humanity has with the fall of other people, can now go viral. My hope is that with all of the current protests going on, whether it’s Wall Street or Greece, whether it’s in the West or the Majority World, people don’t forget to hope, to point to something better, to say at least a few things that remind us of something beautiful.

In the book, Emergency Sex, humanitarian workers seeking to make a difference in the world fight against the hopelessness that can so easily settle in to our lives, like a wretched fog that simply lingers throughout the day. This particular part of the book is a good reminder and worth a second look:

“I'm not ready to let the youthful part of myself go yet. If maturity means becoming a cynic, if you have to kill the part of yourself that is naive and romantic and idealistic - the part of you that you treasure most - to claim maturity, is it not better to die young but with your humanity intact?”

-bo

Book Review: The King Jesus Gospel

bo.white — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:03:49 -0700

At times, I fear the evangelical world acts like the U.S. Congress where party lines are drawn up and there’s much preaching to already-convinced choirs. And rarely do people seem to be able to cross the proverbial aisle with any credibility or at least enough to be heard on their own merit. Are you in the restless/reformed camp or the emergent one? Are you traditional or postmodern or some of both? Are you for or against denominations? If we can take a break with the labels a moment, there are some people whose works are getting a hearing (or should) across denominational lines. Tim Keller’s A Reason for God, N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian, and Dallas Willard’s Divine Conspiracy come to mind in the past decade, as books that have been able to gain some appreciation inside and outside their ‘normal’ audiences.

A new book, entitled The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight will admittedly not please everyone, but it should be read across many traditional lines. The thesis and exploration done within the book could foster truly robust discussions that could not only enlarge one’s view of the gospel, but also drive people back to their Bibles for the discussion which isn’t a bad thing at all. First, I must confess that I have been blessed by McKnight’s work in the past. His books Jesus Creed and One.Life were helpful to me in practical ways. Secondly, I must also confess that I think it’s important to read widely and to appreciate the fact that denominationalism and divisiveness common in some areas of the blogosphere is often a luxury found in the West, not necessarily as prevalent in the global south or what Philip Jenkins has called The Next Christendom. I don’t have the space to expand on this latter point here, so I will simply leave it as an observation for now.

McKnight’s book aims to rearticulate the gospel for people who have reduced the good news of Jesus to ‘personal salvation’ bullet points. The first two chapters introduce McKnight’s line of thinking, setting up the discussion concerning the gospel itself in chapters three and following. I found the second chapter and parts of the third chapter a bit confusing at times due to the fact that McKnight introduces labels and phrases that are key to his book, but that are not necessarily common to the everyday lexicon of evangelicals sitting in the pew. The ordo salutis (order of salvation) which McKnight also calls the ‘Plan of Salvation’ is not a common phrase to laypeople, but seminarians and pastors will recognize it. I, for one, recalled B.B. Warfield’s The Plan of Salvation often as the phrase came up. I would be interested in McKnight’s thoughts on Warfield, since he uses the exact phrase.

A key line for the book comes on page 39, where we read: “this Plan of Salvation is not the gospel. The Plan of Salvation emerges from the Story of Israel/Bible and from the Story of Jesus, but the plan and gospel are not the same big idea.” A few lines later, we read “what I hope to show is that the ‘gospel’ of the New Testament cannot be reduced to the Plan of Salvation”. McKnight goes on to make the solid observation that many believers today act like they don’t need their Old Testament to articulate the gospel story. Since about 70% of the Bible is the Old Testament (not counting the OT quotes in the NT), it is a good reminder that we take the context of the world and story of Jesus seriously.

I was surprised at the attention given to 1 Corinthians 15, by McKnight, as I felt set up for a robust discussion of Genesis 3:15 or Genesis 12 before jumping to Paul (we get to Genesis 1-3 on pg. 137). With that said, I benefited from the time McKnight spends in explaining the context of 1 Corinthians 15 followed by the evangelistic sermons in Acts. On page 93, McKnight summarizes “the gospel is to declare something about a Person, about God in his revelation in Jesus Christ and about what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.” McKnight affirms justification by faith and then lays out these points beginning on page 153.

First, “we have to become People of the Story” (p. 153). In other words, read the whole Bible and not just certain colored letters or summaries of the Bible. This is timely counsel in a world of sound bytes.

Secondly, “we need to immerse ourselves even more into the Story of Jesus,”(p. 153) which means truly soaking in the texts and teachings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Again, this is a good word. My own pastor is teaching through Luke’s gospel as I write this and I have been invigorated again at how Jesus is coming alive in his person and passion. Thirdly, “we need to see how the apostle’s writings take the Story of Israel and the Story of Jesus into the next generation and into a different culture, and how this generation led all the way to our generation,” (p. 155). Again, it’s a good word to not only know your Bible, but know your history. I have often wondered if some evangelicals would be helped by doing a sort of ‘family tree,’ or ancestry.com version of their own faith journey.

Fourthly, “we need to counter the stories that bracket our story and that reframe our story,” (p. 157). The brief discussion on hidden worldviews in this section (pg. 157-159) was particularly helpful to me. Finally, McKnight advocates that “we need to embrace this story so that we are saved and can be transformed by the gospel story, (p. 158).

There is much to agree with, though McKnight claims to reframe a discussion and drive the discussion about the gospel to a wider lens view of Scripture. His final point of embracing the story will take time as people come to understand and read the whole story and this counters much of the ‘hurry up and get saved’ language common to some wings of evangelicalism. With that said, there’s some controversial elements in the book and McKnight understands this.

This is by no means a flawless book. Sometimes the writing is cluttered (see the first part of chapter four where we read these words: “a dad of a friend of a friend of my son….”), but the thesis is clear and the affirmations are noteworthy. More importantly, the application is rather practical and a welcome challenge.

I hope McKnight gets a fair hearing with groups like the Gospel Coalition and I hope that McKnight continues to reach across ‘party lines’. I am reminded of the beauty of the gospel in diamond terms sometimes. A diamond is judged on clarity, cut, and color, we’d do well to see the gospel clarity in association, not separate from, its historical layers and multi-faceted wonder. At the end of the day, a robust gospel discussion is always worth our effort as Christ followers and for that reason alone, it’s worth picking up the book.

-bo

Why are we at the Center of the World?

bo.white — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 09:31:23 -0700

Two weeks ago, my son and I watched the reports on CNN concerning Somalia together. Afterwards, we had dinner and my eight year old prayed for the children who don’t have food and gave thanks for his own food. This is pretty normal in our house, so that isn’t the part I remember many days later. What I remember is his question during dinner moreso than the prayer before we ate.

“Dad, why is all the news about America, when there are so many other people and so many other countries in the world?”

He’s got a point. Why are we at the center of the world? And if we’re not, then why do we act like we are? Now, don’t misunderstand me, this isn’t a rant that smacks of being unpatriotic or hyper critical of the U.S. I am the son of a Vietnam vet and the grandson of a World War II hero, who was shot in the leg during his tour of duty. I don’t take their sacrifice lightly.

With that said, even those who fought for our country know that the world is bigger than just the U.S.A., and my third grader has listened enough to his parents and to his pastors to know that America isn’t even mentioned by name in the Bible (though Israel and Egypt get a lot of attention). Now, each country may be guilty of pounding its own chest in their respective news outlets and to some degree that’s understandable. But, what should I tell my son?

My response initially was this: “I don’t know, do you have any ideas?”

To which, of course, my son has plenty of ideas. Anyone who could blur reality with the world of Pokemon, Yugi-Oh, and the Dagobah system and thinks that dad just might visit Gotham City every few weeks to apply for a job at Wayne Enterprises certainly has the ability to mix metaphors, but on this one, my son seems rather steeped in truth.

“Maybe the people on television don’t care about the children in Somalia,” he says after a while.

“Maybe,” I reply.

“Or, maybe there are too many commercials and not enough time to show everything,” he ponders.

We don’t solve this issue over dinner, though I agree that there are too many commercials on television and that it’s possible that some media outlets don’t care about the humanitarian disasters that may not boost ratings. Hurricane Irene certainly got everyone’s attention, but famines and floods elsewhere are blips on the screen. I am struck, though, with wondering if my son sees the tendency toward selfishness in me. Does he see the same thing in church? Is this tendency to put ourselves at the center of the world taught in school?

“Dad, do the people in Somalia know we are here, like we know they are there?”

I say nothing. I just pause to reflect on what they would say if those in refugee camps could see us now. Later that night, I give my son a longer hug than usual before bedtime. I tell him that I love him and that I will see him in the morning. Then, a couple hours later, I sneak in to his room and watch him sleep. He’s a growing up fast.

-bo

Saving America's Story

bo.white — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 10:26:11 -0700

Republicans seem to have no cohesive narrative and this seems obvious. Democrats are losing their cohesive narrative and again, this is almost a no-brainer. To anyone who is watching the news or paying attention to the rhetoric floating over the internet and across television screens, it’s rather difficult to understand what narrative thread will actually unify our country. Let me suggest that it’s because the new narrative thread isn’t one of unity, but one of division.

We must pause, though, prior to jumping into the 21^st century to consider the unifying narratives that have characterized our country and in fact, these narratives have come to form the core values of the United States. We pause to review the overarching stories, not for nostalgia’s sake, but because in a real sense, we’re in danger of losing them. If a country’s heritage could be on the endangered species list, maybe we’re close.

First, though, let’s celebrate the 18^th century and its focus on Declaration as the overarching story. Our founding fathers, our colonial leaders, and framers of the Constitution all made a series of declarations to set the U.S. apart from England and Europe. What was declared? Embedded in the early narrative of the United States were three primary Declarations: independence, ingenuity, and industry. In other words, our country’s earliest story included our desire for freedom, our desire for economic growth, and our desire for creative expressions of both. Our 18^th century story is one forged in two revolutions: the celebration of industrial independence. In the 18^th century, we realized the potential to manufacture our own wealth as well as mold a fragile nation around principles that were rarely seen in practice.

Like any young nation, though, rapid growth tested the narrative of Declaration. Would the young America affirm its new story or deny it in favor of class and race division? As the Civil War ended, we found that a new chapter in the American narrative added to the first. We added Emancipation to the already potent and powerful idea of Declaration. With this new chapter of our narrative unfolding, our country defined itself not only be its understanding of independence and industry, but truly saw itself in the face of its immigrants. One could quite easily say that undergirding the narratives of Declaration and Emancipation was the open arms of Immigration. The American story is firmly rooted in principles found in documents where our freedoms are declared; the American story is also firmly rooted in the practice of liberating those who have come to our shores looking for those very ideas on our streets and in our homes. The American narrative seemed to build upon each defining trait: from Declaration to Emancipation to further encourage Immigration.

This story picked up momentum despite internal setbacks and together we united to endure the Great Depression and two World Wars. As the American story marched into the 20^th century, our soldiers returned from fighting in Germany and Japan to usher in not only a baby boom, but to add Globalization to the American story. For the first time, our ideas or our Declarations, our ongoing testing of the ideas through Civil rights and the ongoing evolution of Emancipation, were suddenly being taken overseas to countries much older than our own. Yet, something amazing happened when the Soviet Union fell in 1989—the American story became not only prominent on the world stage, but for an unprecedented period of time, the American narrative was actually welcomed and admired on the world’s stage.

Perhaps, this culminated in a French newspaper after September 11, 2001, where the solidarity rang out with these words, “today, we’re all Americans.” And up until March 2003, the American story marched on to greater acceptance and our Declarations were admired, our Emancipations envied, our Immigration increased, and our participation in Globalization set the U.S. apart as a world power.

So, where are we now? What part of the story is unfolding before our eyes? Let me suggest that it’s also unprecedented, particularly on a grand scale. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in particular, since the economic collapse of 2007 and 2008, the United States is no longer talking about Declaration or Emancipation. The celebration of Immigration has turned into a hotly contested debate with no end in sight and Globalization now invites China and India to dream capitalist dreams. Our narrative seems to no longer be progressing at all, rather we’ve entered in to the undesirable chapter of Polarization.

We are no longer moving the story forward, rather we seem to be tearing it to pieces. The world is still watching, yes, but no longer admiring the progress of timeless principles, rather it’s the Polarization of a people who seem to be losing their way. I still believe there’s a happy ending to the American story, but only if we quickly rewrite a new chapter as quickly as we can: One that builds upon our Declaration and Emancipation and one that celebrates Immigration that participates in Globalization. If we don’t recapture our story, we may, like a bad marriage, give in to the pressures of Polarization and simply file papers with the words ‘irreconcilable differences,’ at the top.

-bo

Confessions of a Worldwide Spiritual Mutt

bo.white — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:39:41 -0700

Recently, someone asked me to outline my faith journey. In a sense, I am grateful for the question because usually it’s asked in a static manner such as ‘when did you ask Jesus in your heart?’ to which I don’t honestly remember (which disappoints those anticipating a time and date). The idea of an outline, though, smacks of highlights and turning points and those are things I do actually remember. Yet, as I reflected on my own outline, I kind of smiled at how this was also going to be a bit difficult for some to swallow. But, I took a deep breath anyway and said something akin to the following:

Growing up outside the church, I was sort of turned on to the sacred elements prior to knowing what they meant. I loved reading the Bible, but I also devoured Greek mythology, poetry, and all kinds of stories with a point. Shirley Jackson’s Lottery, for example, was haunting and I remember being really moved by Romantic (Wordsworth, Byron, Coleridge) poetry. I went to a Reformed church in high school and was baptized as a teenager. Upon entering college, though, I went to a Reformed church my Freshman year (and was mentored by a female pastor named Jill), but attended a Catholic campus ministry my first two years and met periodically with a priest. In fact, to this day, I miss the practice of sitting with a trusted advisor and practicing confession. Evangelicals stink at this.

My junior year in college, I attended an Anglican church in London, England, and it’s there where I was impacted greatly by solid Bible teaching and shaped by participation in a small group. In this group, we met weekly, but I was the only American. Our leader was English, but a transplant from the Caribbean; he was African American and brilliant. Three women were English, a young man was English, and then one man from Africa, and another from Singapore rounded out the group. So, immediately, my relatively new Christian faith was formed in a group overseas without an American at the head of the table. Since this was my first real serious run at Bible study on my own, I believe this group still influences my thinking a bit in unconscious ways. While living in England, I accepted an opportunity to teach English in China for the summer, so I attended an Anglican church in Hong Kong the rest of the summer. In China, I was able to visit Buddhist temples with new friends as well and ask all sorts of questions.

After college and after the death of my grandfathers and divorce of my parents, I ended up at a Presbyterian seminary in St. Louis, attending a Presbyterian church, but also secretly sneaking off to Evensong once a month at the Episcopal church, partly for the music, partly for the free sherry afterwards in the fellowship hall. Since then, I have served Presbyterian churches and interdenominational non-profits with trips to Sweden, Scotland, Russia, East Africa, and South America all with a variety of mission groups and ministry teams.

My father and stepmother attend a Lutheran church (Missouri-Synod), my mother attends a Reformed church, and my stepfather is Roman Catholic. I cherish my time at L’abri fellowship in England as well and have also been impacted by a prayer retreat with Episcopal Spiritual Directors at San Francisco Seminary, a class on prayer through Regent College in Vancouver, the work of TrueFaced, and mentoring relationships through World Harvest Mission.

So, no, I don’t remember the day of Jesus entering my heart, like some people do, but I remember the message of grace, a world bigger than me, and many strikingly beautiful people along the way who held me on bad days and who told me to tag along when they were handing out cups of cold water.

-bo

Forget Oprah: Some of my Favorite Things

bo.white — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 08:41:38 -0700

When Oprah Winfrey was doing her talk show, she became famous for giving scores of things away. She gave away cars, trips, trinkets, and even counseling sessions with Dr. Phil. On several shows, she highlighted her favorite things and they were all something material, something that could be given away.

Since this is a blog about ideas and how we express ideas, I thought I’d share some of my favorite things this week in no particular order. Some of them will be quotes, some references or allusions to idea-makers, but all of them will hopefully entertain, enlighten, and even brighten your day. Of course, these are my favorite things, not necessarily yours, nonetheless, welcome to a little bit of my world.

1—"In the end, coming to faith remains for all a sense of homecoming, of picking up the threads of a lost life, of responding to a bell that had long been ringing, of taking a place at a table that had long been vacant." Malcolm Muggeridge wrote the previous sentence and let me recommend his work. In many respects, the way he has articulated his faith journey, which took him around the world, is still something I return to often. He is imminently quotable and I just finished his autobiographical works entitled Chronicles of Wasted Time, which made me lose track of time, which is the sign of good writing.

2—John Lynch on Grace—I am not sure anyone articulates the message of grace better and I believe if we understood, grasped, and experienced more of the truth of this brief message, we’d all change. This idea understood and expressed effectively will change us all.

See the brief video here:

3—The Influence of Francis Schaeffer Did Francis Schaeffer get everything absolutely right? No. He’s human and he’d be the first to admit it. But, for me, his example and his legacy has been remarkably impactful. Perhaps, this is just one of the better anecdotes: A Life of Humility - Blog by Randy Alcorn. If you’re convinced after that anecdote to read more check out True Spirituality and/or No Little People (they are not the most famous of Schaeffer’s works, but again, these are my favorites).

4—‘Oh my Heart,’ by REM—My favorite band just released their best work since Automatic for the People. I have the CD virtually memorized by now and this song captures my own memory of being in New Orleans after Katrina, my love of music, and the ache in my own heart for people I want to see more than I get to. This video comes with a bonus intro from Michael Stipe about what happens when art suddenly clicks. See it here:

5—Christopher Nolan films I am a Batman fan and have been all my life. When I was very young (less than 7 years young), I went to an auto show with my uncle and sat in the Batmobile and I was hooked; so when Christopher Nolan took over the helm, it was manna from heaven (Tim Burton was great, but Joel Schumacher’s version(s) made me cringe and get angry). In addition to the Batman films, though, Nolan has also done Memento, Insomnia, and Inception. Dark Knight Rises is currently filming, they added Anne Hathaway (strike up some heavenly choir) and others to the mix. Anyone want to have a Nolan film festival? I am willing to host if you bring the snacks and drinks?

So, we’ll see how this goes. Again, these are some, not all, of my favorite things. Feel free to check them out.

-bo