Fleeting Expletives

Late last month, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that TV networks are responsible for “fleeting expletives”—coarse, offensive language that briefly, often inadvertently, slips into their broadcasts, typically during interviews.

I am not a legal scholar and please don’t stop reading because you aren’t either. My interest is less in the law and the Federal Communications Commission, and more in what makes language offensive and how Christians might think about all this.

The Supreme Court decision dealt primarily with the so-called “F-word” which celebrities occasionally let fly during award show presentations. As I understand it, the dissenting justices argued that “offensive language” is such a fluid, arbitrary and capricious category as to make prohibiting it nearly impossible. Again, I’m no lawyer, no expert, but I think I tend to agree with the dissenting justices.

I remember when I was young and someone told me that to raise the middle finger was bad. My young mind just couldn’t figure out how one raised digit could possibly have the power to be bad. I concluded that the middle finger must have some sort of magical power, like the ability to cast spells. It is this memory that makes me sympathetic to justices who argued that offensive language is an arbitrary, contrived category. Why one finger but not another? Why this word but not another? Strangely the F-word has morphed into an almost ubiquitous term, the Swiss-army knife of modern English, able to be used in nearly any sentence, to convey both positive and negative sentiment. Its original and offensive sexual connotation seems far in the past.

I have long wondered why in the “hierarchy of swearing,” it is the "offensive language"--terms from the bedroom, bathroom and barnyard that have been considered “worse” than the theological, religious words—words that Christians might claim are irreverent, even blasphemous—hell, damn, Christ, etc. Eight-year-olds on family hour sitcoms routinely blurt out “Oh my god...” Yet the world and the FCC seem far more concerned about words that may be crude and boorish, but hardly sacrilegious.

I am afraid that this will all be misunderstood as championing coarse language. Instead, I am trying to point out that it is simply coarse, perhaps offensive, but not blasphemous. As a Christian, blasphemy, taking the Lord’s name in vain, are my concern and what I am more concerned to avoid.

I’ll let someone else tackle the issue of “swearing-lite”—gosh, heck, darn. I’m pretty sure it won’t be the FCC or the Supreme Court.

Yes to Motherhood & Baseball, not so much to Apple Pie & Hot Dogs

I am for motherhood, but not so much apple pie. I like baseball, but not hotdogs. Similarly, yes to Reformed, no to missional.

How can anyone be opposed to the missional church? Who isn’t for the church that looks outward, that realizes our cultural context has changed? Who isn’t also for the hospitable church, the Christ-centered church, the praying church, the sharing church, the joyful church? But aren’t all those adjectives, like missional, just implied in the word church?

Once upon a time, probably about 10-15 years ago, missional was a term associated with the followers of Leslie Newbigin who emphasized that for the Euro-American churches Christendom was certainly crumbling, probably over. Okay.

These days, however, missional seems to be stretched every which way so that the term can be slapped on to any half-baked plan in order to make it more palatable.

Two words that I’ve come to associate with missional (at least how I've observed it being used in the RCA) are “desperation” and “disdain.”  Desperate in an obsessive, off-putting way. Desperation that seems so untrusting, unaware of God’s providence over long arcs of history, unaware that “from the beginning of the world to its end,” Christ “gathers, protects and preserves for himself” the church (Heidelberg Catechism Q. 54), untrusting in Christ’s promise that “the gates of hell will not overcome” the church (Matthew 16:18).

Disdain of any idea more than five years old, usually disdainful—sometimes implicitly and sometimes overtly—for all things Reformed. Don’t misunderstand me. The Reformed tradition in general and the Reformed Church in America in particular are definitely not beyond critique, challenge and change. We need to ask ourselves hard questions and be aware of the ever-changing cultural contexts. But just for example, our understanding of baptism, our accepting of women in ordained office, our forms of worshipping, our way of ordering our life together and our practices of mutual accountability, are all these things simply relics of an outdated cultural context, artifacts to be tossed on the trash heap of history? Or are they good gifts that the Holy Spirit has given us, the wise fruit of mutual discernment that has emerged over many centuries. Beyond all critique? No. But good gifts of the Spirit? Certainly.

In 100 years (maybe only 25-50, actually) historians will be amused and bemused while writing dissertations on the missional church. Meanwhile, I’m quite certain the Kyrie Eleison and Nicene Creed will still be with us.

Confessions of a C-SPAN Watcher

Kevin De Young’s recent blog entry “WWJD and Interfaith Services” has generated a lot of discussion. He fears that his comments will cement his reputation as the resident “conservative gadfly.” Confessing that I actually watched the much-discussed Presidential Prayer Service on C-SPAN, may cement my image as a boring person who needs to get out more. To my credit, I did doze through parts of the service.

I share some of Kevin’s concerns. Interfaith services are always weird and dicey things. At the very least they tend to be boring. Praying to “Thou great generic One” doesn’t get anyone too excited. Lowest common denominator theology tends to offend and tire everyone. As I watched I wondered if it might not be better to let Hindus be overt as Hindus and let Christians be Trinitarian christocentric Christians. Let them each stand side by side, rather than feigning or wondering “is there something in common here?” or “might these words be potentially divisive?” Was the prayer service “common worship”? Or was it just patriotic American Muslims wanting to bless and pray for their new president, standing next to patriotic American Jews who likewise seek their God’s blessing on our new national leader? If the former is problematic, the latter seems genuine and understandable.

My questions and amusement at the service had more to do with seeing Jim Wallis of Sojourners participate. Of course our own General Secretary, Wes Granberg-Michaelson, was also active with Sojourners as a young man. I just had my 50^th birthday. As we mature, we do a lot of things we said we would never do. I wondered what the 25 year old Jim Wallis would have thought about religious leaders (Christian or otherwise) participating in a prayer service for Richard Nixon? Thankfully, Obama is not Nixon. But the position of President and its trappings remain. A whiff of civil-religion, of the bejeweled priests of Babylon taking part in the coronation of Nebuchadnezzar, comes too easily to mind. While interfaith services are complicated, the slick and craven efforts of American Evangelicals in recent years to declare America and our (conservative) political leaders as “God’s anointed” are probably the greater danger and more damaging to Christ and the Church.

Spreading the Wealth

In the January issue of The Church Herald, Jackie Smallbones and Jack Cherry tackle the question “As a Christian, should I be fearful about a government 'spreading the wealth'?” in their monthly column, Question of Faith (page 11). Who knew Joe-the-Plumber (remember him and his ten-minutes of fame?) was a subscriber to The Church Herald?

I appreciate and affirm Jack’s and Jackie’s responses. I can almost predict the nay-sayers’ comebacks to Jack and Jackie.

The government is not the church or the Kingdom.

 Taking care of the poor and needy is the church’s task.

 Big government will ... (insert some scary boogie-man threat here, preferably connecting bar codes and the mark of the beast.)

 We must be careful not to interfere with laws of economics and the free market.

I completely agree that the government is not the church, not the Kingdom. That doesn’t mean Christians cannot or should not use their civic voices to be advocates for the poor and marginalized, that we shouldn’t insist our government do a better job of “spreading the wealth.”

I too can be fearful of government overreaching its authority. However my fears have much less to do with “spreading the wealth” and much more to do with things like the government wanting me to call my nation “the homeland,” or any country asking me to pledge allegiance to it. I know my citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20) and I am “seeking a homeland...a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:14-15). For too long Americans, especially evangelical Christians, have seen government only in negative terms, less is always better. True, government is not the place to seek love, purpose, identity, security or a savior. But I am hopeful that the recent elections reveal a turning tide, a realization that government can play a role as a tool for good, for justice, to defend widows and orphans.

Of course, the church has a vital role to play in caring for the poor. And if truth be told, all the little mustard-seed efforts done in Christ’s name—soup kitchens, shelters, Habitat for Humanity projects, rent assistance—are greater than anyone knows. Still it is unrealistic and frankly a callous shunning of the poor to say “If the church did its task, the government wouldn’t have to.”

Governments are always “spreading the wealth” around. For the last 30 years, we have followed economic policies that have spread the wealth to richest and taken from the poorest. But instead of acknowledging these are our choices and government actions, we have been told “we are simply letting the free-market follow its natural course.” It is as if the economy follows the laws of physics, when actually the economy is always being tweaked and manipulated to favor certain outcomes. Spreading the wealth to those on the bottom of the economic ladder is not asking water to run uphill or the moon to be blue cheese. Our current economic meltdown might just reveal how misguided and dangerous it is to believe that economics is about unalterable principles, rather than willful choices and policies. As Christians, we choose to lean toward the “least of these.”

Hope & Sorrow in Christmas

I am a collector of postcards and I often tape my favorites on my study door. This Advent I’ve put up a postcard from Chenonceau, a chateau in France’s Loire River valley. The postcard is of a painting by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) the Flemish artist. The painting shows two young babies playing together. Since this is a Rubens painting, the two boys are predictably plump and fleshy. (In the newspaper’s personal ads, if you’re a little overweight, you describe yourself as having a “Rubenesque figure”!)

One boy is blond and wearing a diaper. The other is brunette wrapped in an animal skin. Can you guess who they are? The two little boys are Jesus and John the Baptizer. The Bible tells us that Jesus and John are “kin” of some sort, shirttail cousins perhaps. That they ever saw or knew each other as young boys is a speculation at best, poetic license. In snooping around, however, I’ve discovered that paintings depicting Jesus and John together as young boys were once very common. Look at this year’s Christmas postage stamp. It is a painting by Botticelli with Jesus, Mary and a young John the Baptizer.

I am no expert, but I know these sorts of paintings are loaded with symbolism and “secret messages.” Although the diaper of Jesus is white, he is seated on a large red cloth, probably signifying blood and his death. The two little boys are playing with and petting a sheep. “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Once again, sacrifice and death are foreshadowed. Yet in the background, right between the two boys is a white flower that looks like a lily. Resurrection, perhaps?

Why was I so taken by this painting? Babies always evoke feelings of innocence and hope for the future. What will these little babes see in their lifetime? How will the world change? Will they play a part in bettering the world? What will become of them? Yet these very same questions can provoke a shadow of fear. Tragedy, disappointment and brokenness emerge in every life.

Seeing the infants Jesus and John the Baptizer depicted together powerfully combines the tender hope of infanthood with a solemn sense of what lies ahead for these rotund babes. The painting conveys a sense of destiny, both of a better future and its terrible toll. For me Rubens somehow holds together both the deep hope that even tragedy cannot erase along with the heartbreaking realities of life that are silently present in even the brightest moments.

In the joy of Christmas, sorrow is always lurking. That is true for many who will be lonely, grieving and missing loved ones this Christmas. For others it will be the sad realization that all the gifts and tinsel do not fill their deepest needs. It is also true for the future of Jesus and John. Ruben’s painting makes me think of the words of old man Simeon when he blessed the eight-day-old Jesus and his parents in the temple. Simeon told Mary, “This child is destined to bring the destruction and the salvation of many, to be a sign that will be misunderstood and opposed. And, sorrow, like a sword, will break your heart too.”

When I look at the painting, in my imagination I ask the two little babes, “What if you knew then what we know now...?” And I believe their response would be “Nevertheless—yes. It is worth it!” Love still takes the risk of birth.