The Word of the Lord – for Us All
I received a word from the Lord the week before last. It came in the snail mail – specifically, in a Christmas card. One of the benefits of my work with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is that I regularly get cards from groups of people I’ve never met. In this case, it was from a children’s class at a church in North Carolina. Most of the time the cards contain lists of signatures. Sometimes there’s a brief note added. This time there was more. One child clearly wrote, “Do not Be AfrAiD or DiscouRAGD.”
I knew this was a word from the Lord for two reasons. First, because I was at that moment teetering on the edge of a pool of fear and insecurity and had already dipped my toes in a couple of times. A new job opportunity had presented itself without warning. I’d had to make a very quick decision and was beginning to be alarmed with the thought that I might have made a mistake.
The second reason I knew this was a word from the Lord is that it wasn’t just a word for me. It was Faith 101, one of the underlying themes of scripture from Genesis on. In the Christmas story alone, Zachariah, Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds are all given this word of comfort and instruction. (And they all had much more reason to fear than I do.)
I might have missed this message completely except that it reminded me of what I have long known to be true, but somehow often forget to apply. The spiritual stories, poems, and letters I’ve heard and read since childhood provide not the disjointed directions of spiritual fortune cookies, but a context for seeing my story against the backdrop of the Greatest Story. In that Story the smallest acts of faithfulness upstage fear and illuminate the darkness. “Do not Be AfrAiD or DiscouRAGD.” This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
No Gifts at the Manger
Of Jesus birth, Paul wrote, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5 ESV).
He must have lived in another time zone! The time might have been full but it was not good. Mary was young. Surely God knew that as her time to give birth neared that Joseph, by decree of law, would be bouncing her along uneven roads on the back of a donkey in order to get to Jerusalem to pay taxes. Surely, a God who could enter the world as a baby also knew there would be no room in the inn. NO ROOM ANYWHERE. What a mess! A pregnant girl far from home in the midst of city so full of people that the only place for her to give birth was a barn!
I would not have done it that way! I would have found a better time. Being God, if I couldn’t have found a better time, I would have made a better time. The world was messy and cruel. It was a world in which death followed birth—even the birth of the Son of God. There’s bound to have been a better way and a better time.
You would think that there had to be a better way . . . better time; but when subsequent times are considered, it appears there was no good time or way. In spite of those who in every era cry, “The end is near . . . the sky is falling,” the world hasn’t changed all that much through the centuries. Oh, it’s gotten more crowded and we’ve developed more sophisticated weapons by which to intimidate our enemies and by which to kill them even as we mortally wound ourselves; but in spite of this, it’s still a messed up world in which death follows birth—even the birth of the Son of God.
I wouldn’t have done it as God did it; but alas, I am not God, though on occasion I do play the usurper. Through the passing of time and the school of experience I am learning to trust God. In becoming more trusting, I have become surer about a few things. I do believe that Jesus was born and that his birth took place pretty much as described by Matthew and Luke. I do believe it was a God-thing; and so, even though I would have done it differently, I bow to the wisdom of God who chose that time—and this time—to enter our world.
. . . But Herod is just outside the door breathing death. Herod is timeless. He was then and he is now. Was the angel correct: “. . . thou shalt call his name jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins”? Oh, YES! This was not just any child born in Bethlehem. This is the Son of God; and therefore, Herod is outnumbered.
In the midst of my wondering about the timeliness of Jesus’ arrival, I received a copy of a Christmas letter written by Neil Boggan who is currently serving as a guest lecturer at the Philippine Baptist Theological Seminary in Baguio City. He quoted Brennan Manning, noting that those who come to the manger are the “shipwrecked.” Manning, through the Neil’s voice, reminded me of Christmas’ true meaning and of the error of my timing. According to Neil, Manning wrote:
“Do you hear what the shipwrecked are saying? Let go of your paltry desires and expand your expectations. Christmas means that God has given us nothing less than himself and his name is Jesus Christ…Don’t come with a thimble when God has nothing less to give you than the ocean of himself…You could more easily catch a hurricane in a shrimp net than you can understand the wild, relentless, passionate, uncompromising, pursuing love of God made present in the manger.”
I’m wrong! The time was . . . is full, right, and ripe. REJOICE! REJOICE! Come to manger. You need not bring gifts. The Gift is there.
Resolutions Revisited
I don’t remember my last New Year’s resolutions. Do you? Since it’s that time of year again, I have resolved to make a series of resolutions and publicly announce them, thus inspiring others to follow suit and inspiring me to follow through. If you’re reading this, it means that I made good on at least one of them, anyway.
For my second one, I resolve to turn 50 this year. Not only does that set the bar low, but it also looks like one that has, so far, worked out for the other guys I have known who have done the same thing over the past six months. I’ll let you know if I have problems achieving this goal, but remember that you need to start all your resolutions lists with things that are highly likely to happen whether or not you list them. This not only can help you garner a sense of accomplishment, but it also helps build momentum for all the hard stuff you want to resolve to do.
Another common New Year’s resolution involves your weight and general fitness. We’ve just finishing up on Christmastide, and there are still cakes, cookies, fudge, and other goodies waiting to be consumed, not to mention the New Year’s Party snacks. In my case, I want the scale at my gym to show me as weighing no more than 175 pounds at least once this year. I’m not gonna bore you with stories about what I might have to go through in order to achieve this, but it strikes me as an ambitious, but doable, number that I want to make sure I have firmly in mind while there’s still some of that tempting peanut butter fudge laying around the house..
Once you’ve cleared out the usual stuff, a lot of people like to look back on their past and try to find a way to relive their glory years in ways that might not involve losing weight. Toward that end, I resolve to host a quarterly fantasy role-playing game session at my house this year. I plan to build a core group of eight, with spots for up to four guests, so if you’re in the area, you might want to talk. We’ll dig up a game that I used to play every weekend in college and play through some classic scenarios that I remember form the era. Not only is it a chance for me to get in touch with some of the small group skills that helped me in the early years, but it’s also a chance to introduce the next generation of my family into some of the things that were once an integral part of my life and an ever-flowing wellspring of nerdiness. Is there anything fun that you used to do all the time, but have gotten too busy to pursue lately? That’s a good resolution waiting to happen!.
When you have all that out of the way, start getting serious. For me, I resolve to finish writing at least one book this year, but I’d like for there to be two. Incidentally, if there are more than one, at least one of them will likely be available at this web site, so please stay tuned! Got something you’ve been putting off? Make a resolution!.
Staying serious again, I resolve to join a new church this year. You might already be in a good church, but since we moved to The Land That Time Forgot, it has been very hard for my family to find one. They can’t all be as good as this one, so I need to settle down and find something that I can grow into. I’m putting this particular one in here because it shows something else you might want to resolve: leadership. My family is not likely to officially unite with a church unless I provide some leadership, and I have a teenager who craves an active role in a local church, so I owe this to them as well as myself. I’d really like to get out and preach more this year, too, but this is the year that I resolve to take a role in getting my family back into the faith patterns we’ve known for so long and miss so deeply. If you’re looking to make some good resolutions, don’t forget to put a leadership one in there. There’s no better time than now to go on record as committing yourself to such things..
Finally, and this is a no-brainer for all of us, I resolve this year to spend more time with my family. We’re together all the time, but we’re not often doing things together, and Face-booking my own child hardly counts! Remember the “teenager” part? I’m running out of time. How are you doing for time in your relationships? Make your resolution now!.
Those are mine for this year. I hope that they inspire you in some way to make some good resolutions of your own, and if you really want to make them solid, you might want to share them here, too, so we can all hold you to them. Whatever you choose to do, resolve to do something. It may be the best thing you do this year!.
Merry Christmas!
Photo by David Cassady, FaithLabMerry Christmas! May you have a wonderful and restful time of love, peace, hope and joy.
“It’s Advent Again, So Where Did We put Those Banners?”
Lately, a lot of my thoughts have turned to what’s going on with Christianity these days. It seems like the faith I knew as a child is pretty much over, and many of the people who are still willing to claim the name “Christian” are doing so in a very different way than they used to. It’s pretty easy to come up with an explanation why this has happened, or, more specifically, “where we went wrong.”
We’ve allowed the Church to become a political pawn. We’ve become hidebound and increasingly irrelevant to the “real” world. We’ve adopted and displayed a talent for hatred, prejudice, and exclusion that would make even Satan blush. We’ve made elaborate promises for all the things that God is going to do for people, and they didn’t pan out to those people’s satisfaction. We’ve fought among ourselves to the point where no one wants to be around us any more. You can choose from any of these, and more, but I want to add another “symptom” to the list: We have lost sight of many of the things that churches are supposed to be doing in the first place, and, in the process, have lost touch with many of the more meaningful aspects of the heritage that we were given (warts and all) from the people who came before us.
Look at Advent, for instance. This is a season that is extremely rich with symbols and rituals from thousands of years of our Christian heritage, yet it’s often neglected as “those last few weeks before Christmas,” as opposed to a time to participate in the grand pageant and anticipation of a celebration of Christ’s birth. I love the description on the old “Rugrats” cartoon, where they say “It’s that season between Christmas and misgiving….” At least they sort of know the time of year, and that’s a lot more than most people seem to know. A lot of churches still put up a Christmas (and sometimes even a Chrismon) tree and other festive greenery. Some of them even hang banners, light the proper candles on the Wreath, and talk openly about the meaning of the season and its capacity to increase the depth of our Christmas experience. Unfortunately, churches that do that kind of thing seem few and far between. Growing up a Southern Baptist, I hadn’t even heard of most of that stuff until after seminary.
And Christmastide? Fuggedaboudit! If more than one in 4 people in most congregations knows what the 12 days of Christmas are, or even know the word “Epiphany,” I’d be shocked. I’d even be pretty surprised if many of the folks reading this know what the term “guadete” means (hint: it has something to do with the candle we’re going to light this weekend). I admit hat I’m picky about these kinds of tings. Now that I’ve been exposed to the fact that Christians have a heritage that goes back more than 200 years, I often worry about seasonal symbols and colors, and i feel like my church seasons are somewhat diminished when we get them wrong. Yes, I still suspect that they once wore red stoles on Easter just to get on my nerves, but the point in all this is that there is often a lot more to church and the experience of Christian community than we’ve been letting on, and we’re all the worse for it.
So, we are a people wandering int he wilderness. We had some guideposts, but we’ve accepted some cheap substitutes in their place. As a Baptist, I’ve seen firsthand Horace Bushnell’s observation that we’re all about getting people to that moment when they come down the aisle, but put precious little about what they’re supposed to do after they have done so. I think we have done the same with Christmas, as if the days leading up to it no longer matter, and after it’s over, it’s time to take down the tree and wait until next year. It’s like all our spiritual “chips” are placed on number 25 on the calendar, and it’s become an “all or nothing” date for us.
So if we are shorting ourselves in this way, I have to wonder what we’re doing for everyone else? How do we, with integrity, invite people to a Christian community that doesn’t even recognize its own heritage? How do we invite people to participate in a story that we ourselves neither know nor truly embrace? This year, if we’re still so jaded as think that the rest of the world owes it to us to celebrate Christmas, might we at least stop and ask ourselves how much Christmas we really want to have?
Light Dawns
In 2007, 4-year-old Ivan Aguilar-Cano disappeared while playing outside his house near Churchill Downs, in Louisville, Kentucky. On Friday, December 17, 2010, Cecil New, who had pled guilty to abducting Ivan, plying him with alcohol, and sexually abusing him before killing him and putting his body in a dumpster, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In passing sentence, Judge Judith McDonald-Burkman stated, “Death is undoubtedly justified for you. . . . There’s not one cell in your body, Cecil New, that can be rehabilitated, not one. But is a death sentence justice?” She added that she hoped, “This sentence pales in comparison to what you will receive ultimately from up above” (Quotes from the Courier-Journal, December 17, 2010). Given the heinous nature of Mr. New’s crime, such comments are understandable; but they ought not to come from the bench; and they certainly fly in the face of all that the Christ whose birth is celebrated at Christmas teaches us.
Matthew’s gospel proclaims the child born in Bethlehem to be Emmanuel—“which, being interpreted, is God with us” (1:23 KJV). The grown-up Jesus called on us to love our enemies (5:43ff) . . . he bade all who were burdened to come unto him and there find rest (11:28-30). The God revealed in Jesus the Christ is a God who believes that redemption is in reach of all people and who desires that none should perish.
Isaiah wrote, “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined” (Isaiah 9:2 KJV). Christians have long seen in Isaiah’s word a foreshadowing, if not a foretelling, of the Messiah’s birth. Christmas is the story of the Light having dawned, of God having come to be with us. Crimes, heinous ones like that committed by Mr. New and the less heinous committed by many others, should not and do not go unpunished. Wherever the Light shines, crimes great and small cannot stay hidden. I wonder sometimes if our harsh punishment of the crimes of others is in part an effort to hide our own crimes. We do well to remember that in God’s economy, punishment’s aim is redemption and rehabilitation. Whatever punishment society may choose to inflict on those judged guilty should never preclude the possibility of redemption and rehabilitation.
I am not soft on crime; but neither am I soft on the sin, the perpetrator’s or mine, that often lies beneath the surface of crimes committed. What, I wonder, is there in society and in the hearts of men and women that leads to the sexual abuse and killing of children? I confess to having no clue beyond sin. I don’t understand it . . . cannot fathom it.
The heinous nature of Mr. New’s crime, the understandable but most unchristian response of the judge, and my inability to understand how we as God’s creation can fall to such depths would leave me in despair were it not for the Light that has dawned.
Christmas brings the good news that sinners like Cecil New and like you and me can be redeemed . . . are in fact being redeemed. The Bread and the Cup of Communion, so often received in the Christmas season, are reminders of redemption’s price. We who have such a priceless gift ought never to deny it to others.
Halleluiah! A Child is born and He is Emmanuel.
Files, Files and more Files
Files multiply like rabbits. We create them daily, whether they are word processing docs, PDFs, photos, videos or music files. We make notes to ourselves, store our logins to websites, wifi hotspots and more. Over time, these files just pile up, and they may even become hard to find — or worse, at risk of loss.
I’m writing this near the end of the year, a great time to do some annual clean-up of your file storage, to make sure your back-up strategy is working, and to do better file sharing. This article offers tips for each of these.
Storing and Finding
Disk drives are larger and less expensive than ever before, and truthfully, unless you are shooting a lot of videos, your files take up a very small amount of space. More important is the ability to find what you need.
One time-honored approach is to keep files neatly stored in their appropriate folders. And if you are the neat and organized sort of person, you’re likely already doing this.
However, it still can be hard to find a file (perhaps you look for a file that is over a year old), because you aren’t sure into which folder you placed it. What seemed like an obvious spot a year ago, is now a mystery.
Or, you may be the messy type. Moving fast, you drop files on your desktop with abandon, and then, when the clutter becomes overwhelming, you shove the pile of files into a folder and promise to go look through them later (which seldom comes).
The good news is that search tech has gotten really good, and really fast. Whether you are the organized or the messy sort, powerful file search tools are really handy.
If you are on Mac OS X or Windows 7, you have access to the built-in search tools. (In OS X It’s the little Spotlight magnifying glass in the upper right corner of your screen. In Windows 7, just use the search box in the Start menu). Whatever you type in the box is searched across all file types, and not just the file names, but what’s inside the files too. So if you can’t remember a file name or where you placed it, you can just search for a word (or set of words) that you know are in that file, and boom… it’s found. These work on connected external drives too.
Storing Other Data
All of us generate a ton of login data across time. Logins for websites, licenses for software, logins for wifi hotspots, and on and on. Keeping up with these can be a real chore. Rather than seeing each item of data as an opportunity for a new file, I recommend using a program that’s designed as a catch-all for these bits of info.
There are a lot of good programs out there to help with this task, and most allow you to not only store login and license data, but also webpage content, screenshots, URLs, graphics, recipes, how-to steps, model numbers and pretty much anything else you can think of.
My favorite tool for this is Evernote. Evernote has a free version that’s great for most people, and if you are a heavy user (or want enhanced data security), there’s a very affordable upgrade. Evernote will capture and hold files, text, images, photos, webpages, audio recordings, and more. When you name an entry, you can also tag it. Or, you can be lazy (like me) and just make sure the main words you’d use to later search for this info are somewhere in the note. When you search, Evernote searches the full contents of your notes, and not just the titles or tags. If you have multiple computers, Evernote will keep your notes synced across them. There are also mobile versions for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android and more. Check it out.
Backup. Backup. Backup.
Any hard drive can fail. Most eventually do. Even the new SSD drives can fail. The only way to prevent data loss when a drive fails, is to have a good backup handy.
Setting up an automatic backup routine is the best way to ensure your data will be protected. There are tons of programs for any OS that will allow you to schedule a regular backup to an external drive. And, external hard drives are really affordable these days.
Laptop users have a harder time with automatic backups than desktop users, since the laptop may or may not end up at the same location each day. In that case, get one of the smaller, more portable drives (some are smaller than a deck of cards) to keep in your laptop bag, and choose at least one day a week to do a backup.
Another approach to backup is to use an online backup option. If you are only wanting to backup files, DropBox is a great option. For larger backups, you can try a service such as Carbonite.
When You Want to Share
In the good old days, sharing files with others usually involved a floppy disk of some sort. Then, flash drives became popular. Or, you could email files.
I’ve become a Dropbox fanatic. That’s because I share a lot of files. Sometimes I share files with others, and sometimes it’s between my desktop, my laptop and my iPad. Dropbox is the easiest and fastest way I’ve found to share files. There’s a free version that will do what most people need, and if you want more space, it’s available for a modest fee.
Here are some ways I use Dropbox:
- I keep all of my current working project folders in Dropbox. This way, it doesn’t matter what computer I’m working on, I can get to the same files. No moving files around or worrying which is the latest version.
- I share files with others. Last week my 16 year old daughter was working on a photo slideshow for church, and she needed some photos from me. Too many to email, and (since I’m lazy) I didn’t want to get off the sofa. So I just dropped the files in a folder called “Photos for Megan,” and shared that folder with her. In minutes, the photos were in her Dropbox folder, and she just dropped them in her slideshow.
- Peace of mind. Because Dropbox keeps a copy of the files both on my computer(s) and on their server, I don’t have to worry about losing those files. If my hard drive crashes, I just pop a new drive in, and login to Dropbox. In minutes, my files are available to me again as if nothing had happened.
Files, files, files. They’re everywhere. But they don’t have to create chaos. I hope some of these tips help you tame your files!
Got your own file tricks and tips or favorite programs? Please share your thoughts in the comments area.
A Good Deal?
I have a great investment deal for all of you. I realize that we usually don’t discuss and, certainly, do not handle money on Shabbat, but I cannot contain myself. I have to tell you about this great opportunity.
Here it is: I will guarantee a 10% return on your investment. That is, if you give me $10, I will give you $1. If you give me $100, I will give you $10 and so on. Of course, if you give me $10, I will keep $9, if you give me $100, I will keep $90, and so on. But this is a great deal! I will give %10 back of every thing you give me!
OK, everyone who is going to show up at my place after Shabbat is over to take advantage of this wonderful offer, raise your hands…..I mean now….a show of hands of those who want to take advantage of this once in a life time opportunity!
Hmmmmm, not too many hands. Clearly you do not think this is a good deal, this idea that if you give me something, I give you %10 back and keep the rest. You, with your merely human minds, recognize that this is a silly offer, a scam so ridiculous it evokes laughter rather than anger.
After Jacob’s dream of the the ladder stretching from Earth to Heaven, with angels ascending and descending, he awoke and dedicated a pillar and offered G-D a deal.
Jacob then made this vow: “If G-D is with me and watches over me on this path that I am taking and gives me bread to eat and clothes to wear, and if I return safely to my father’s house, then will The Eternal be my G-D; and this stone I have set up as a monument shall be a house of G-D. And of all that you give me, I will dedicate a tenth to You.” (Gen. 28:20-22)
Perhaps there is a missing part of Jacob’s offer where he throws in some beach front property in Arizona. Does Jacob think G-D is stupid? Why in the world would G-D, as G-D apparently does, agree to this deal? What is in it for G-D?
Certainly it is not the return of the 10% that G-D has given Jacob, neither can The Creator of Heaven and Earth need Jacob to commit to worship-even if one does not want to posit the self sufficiency of The Most High (which begs the question of why create the universe after all), a few impressive special effects and
G-D can have all the followers G-D may desire. Could it be G-D’s commitment to Abraham? Surely if Sarah could have a kid at 90, Rebecca could incubate a replacement for Jacob. Why?
I will suggest a few possible reasons. First, Jacob has potential. OK, he is a bit of momma’s boy, not necessarily a bad thing in modern Jewish culture, he tricked his father, and ran from his twin brother in fear because of it. Yet, he has potential. He will grow and change and become a better person. We learn here that G-D meets us where we are, not only where G-D wants us to be. In our flawed and broken state, G-D continually reaches out to us to help us grow into our potential. As I tell my students, you are in class to learn, I do not expect you to already know the material. So too, G-D helps us to grow into greater worthiness, not requiring that we be so wonderful to start with.
Jacob recognizes his dependence on G-D, from the food he eats to the clothes he wears to his very life and safety. In this recognition, Jacob already has an insight. Though he states it as a deal, he surely sees that he has been living in this dependent state his whole life. In the seeming con job that Jacob is pulling off, he explicitly acknowledges that he can not give to G-D anything that G-D has not already given to him. Thus, we are taught the lesson of our own contingency.
Finally, if we believe, as I do, that our job is the repair of our broken world and to act as co-creators of a better future, G-D must start with something, even with such imperfect and broken tools as we. We get to watch as Jacob grows into his role and, for all of his flaws, father our people as a house of servants to G-D. We learn that even the broken are beloved of G-D and can do great things in G-D’s service.
The deal is not what matters to G-D. The Eternal is already helping Jacob, materially and in laying the ground work for his future growth. G-D has already promised to help more.
We can see lots of nasty things in Jacob, but, in some ways, that is exactly the point. We learn that G-D meets us where we are at, wherever that might be, that we need to be aware of our contingency and dependence, and find that the mission of our lives is not too great for us-each of us will change and grow into our tasks and that will be good enough.
Appreciating Gratitude
I have a paying job where I help people solve their technical problems several times a day. Most of the people I work with are kind, fun, and fairly appreciative of what I do for them. Nobody in our office wants to work with the people who are demanding, rude, and take us for granted. While I don’t like to leave people hanging, I have found that I can frequently consider an issue closed when I don’t hear from the people I’m helping, since it’s very rare that people will call me to tell me that everything is great.
When I served on staff in churches, the work was often hard, the hours long, and there were times that the job was a real challenge. Sometimes, it seemed like there were whole groups of people who had nothing better to do than find ways to make my life harder, and they were really good at it. Anyhow, in the midst of all that, I kept a special file folder, where I put every piece of nice mail; every “out of season” card that wished me well; copies of every nice, unsolicited email; and every other piece of spontaneous ad unexpected gratitude and encouragement I ever received. It kept me going during the toughest times in ministry, so I carried it from church to church for almost two decades.
There seem to be a lot of people out there these days who are giving up on faith. For some, they have been hurt by other “believers” who have used God to justify any manner of behavior that would make Jesus weep with shame, and they have had enough of religion. For others they are products of an environment where faith is devalued, not encouraged, or generally not “helpful.” Still others, give up because they had some unmet expectation of something that God would do for them. “if there is a God, why did _________ happen/not happen?”
Somehow, in our efforts to live our lives and do all the things that we do, we often forget the simple fact that our world depends on gratitude. The lives of everyone who we encounter, as well as our own lives, can become dull and empty without it. More than a “social lubricant” that helps us get along with each other, gratitude is an absolute necessity that makes our entire world work. There are countless people in your life who have done many things for you that were never noticed and/or appreciated. I think that the term for this is “being taken for granted.” We’ve already passed through a season of thanksgiving, and now we’re celebrating the coming of nothing less than a light for an otherwise dark world. We’re all caught up in things like celebrating things the “right” way; attending the “right” events; giving or receiving the “right” gifts; or spending time with the “right” people.
Are we also caught up in an attitude that shows appreciation for what we are given in this season?
The Battle for Christmas
I am a Christian. And it’s Christmas time. So this time of year, my faith tradition is manifested in Advent candles, Christmas carols, and nativity scenes. While December the 25th is not necessarily the historical date of birth of the historical person named Jesus, this is the season of the year when we celebrate the coming of the incarnation of God into the world. It’s a time of year to celebrate that God became one of us.
Of course, this is also the 21st century in America. So Christmas also means long lines at the mall, huge Christmas trees covered in red and green and exorbitant amounts of glitter, and long parades during which we get to enjoy floats, bands, and lots and lots of Santas. Whether you’re sitting in the pew of your church on Christmas Eve holding a candle, or sitting in the CEO’s office of a major retail chain watching your profits skyrocket, this is definitely the most wonderful time of the year.
Being such an important and hectic time of year for so many people, it’s no wonder that arguments between secular and religious Americans have pretty much become par for the course whenever Christmas rolls around. This time, the argument is being exemplified by a pair of billboards on either side of the Lincoln Tunnel between New York and New Jersey. On the New Jersey side, American Atheists has purchased a billboard featuring a nativity scene image with the words: “You know it’s a myth. This season, celebrate reason!” On the New York side, the Catholic league has responded with a board reading, “You know it’s real. This season, celebrate Jesus.” And so another Christmas season’s worth of religious wars begin.
When I first saw this story on CNN, I was only vaguely interested as a student of religion and a practitioner of one of the traditions in question. But the more I read and saw, the more I was intrigued, and somewhat disturbed, by what I saw happening. As Jeanne Moos interviewed the leaders of both organizations, all these two men really managed to do, in my opinion, was demonstrate how little each of these warring traditions understands about the other.
David Silverman, the president of American Atheists, insisted that we all know “the magic man in the sky” is a myth. This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of not just the Christian understanding, but all Abrahamic understandings of who God is. He’s absolutely correct; God is not magic, God is not a man, God is not in the sky. He’s creating a straw man in place of addressing the things that Christians actually believe. Of course, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, isn’t doing much better. After explaining that the billboard was a necessary Christian response to avoid being a “doormat,” he starts returning the favor by attacking atheist beliefs with the same straw man strategy that Silverman uses, saying that they believe in either the Big Bang theory or the “King Kong Theory,” as he chooses to describe evolution, and calling them both fairytales. The moment in this interview when my jaw actually dropped, however, was when Donohue said of atheists, “They believe in nothing, they stand for nothing, they think they come from nothing.” If there’s anything I’ve learned as a religious studies major, it’s that there is no such thing as a person who actually believes in and stands for nothing. Just because their beliefs don’t exactly parallel our own, don’t involve worship of an ethereal other or a transcendent spirit, doesn’t mean their beliefs do not exist.
The core of this problem, however, is the claims that both billboards make. Both signs begin with the phrase “You know.” I am completely confident of what I believe as a Christian, but I would not necessarily define that as “knowing” anything. We, as Christians, have faith in the existence of God, the birth of Christ, and the guidance of the Spirit, but it wouldn’t be a very impressive show of faith if we had true “knowledge” of God. “We live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7), don’t we? Christians aren’t claiming to fully know anything about our Creator or our Savior; our choice is to believe in something greater than ourselves. The choice of atheists is to believe in themselves, and their own abilities to understand the world around them, including the belief that there is not a force behind what we see, at least not one we can understand.
Until each of these groups come to a point where they can understand where the other is coming from, until we can stop throwing misguided insults and false claims at each other and have an actual discussion, the debate will continue to be relegated to petty billboards placed in the most commercially strategic places possible. And for me, that simply will not do. No one gains anything but a tarnished reputation by yelling at one another, and neither side is being reflected well in the current situation; progress in our claimed nation of toleration will only happen if we strive for something more than who can win the most converts.
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