February 6, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

This caught my eye in the e-mail box recently. I was tempted to scoff at their efforts but at the same time wanted to understand more of why they are profoundly skeptical about matters of faith.

“Sometimes, if you’re trying to find an answer to a problem, finding the edges, and working in from there works quite well — it’s known as approximation. Military gunnery works in the same way, overshoot, undershoot and bingo! In some topics this can be done through opposing statements. Here’s what I and my youngest son came up with—a doubters creed.

“A dubious Credo

“I do not fear God;
I fear mankind.
I do not fear my death;
I fear for my posterity.

I do not believe in Heaven or Hell;
I believe that all sentient life has a spiritual element.
I do not believe in the concept of sin;
I believe that love, in all its forms, is the most vital part of human experience.

I do not know if any religion is “true” or “false”;
I do know that there is a greater presence outside ourselves.
I do not know if God still exists;
I do know that once I did not exist, now I do, and soon I won’t.

I must not harm anyone else;
I must live every minute as if it is my last.
I must not allow the past to cripple the future;
I must make the day of everyone I encounter better.

Amen”

For openers, these Doubters appear to think of a Credo (”I believe”) as a statement of what they observe, rather than what they put their trust in—what they believe about, not what they believe in. For them a “greater presence” is something they are “approximating”—working in from the edges of what they observe, supposing something must be there and letting that suffice.

This view of reality is an inch or two over from the man I met at a New Year’s Eve Party a few weeks ago who thinks that all spirituality is simply “brain chemicals.” He told me he is a practicing Quaker. But he is also a Doubter of one of the higher orders.

Spirituality is something that even doubters, skeptics and secular philosophers acknowledge; yet their rejection or suspicion of religious doctrines really eviscerates human spirituality: it cuts the guts out of it.

With very little effort, as on that proverbial “slippery slope,” spirituality devolves to mere sentiment, limited by consciousness—for example: your trying to live each day “as if it were your last.” (Maybe I should go see The Bucket List while it’s still around.) But I suspect that a lot of loud, young, male, speeding pickup-drivers would be even more self-absorbed and rude and violent if they really believed that today was their “last day.” If you don’t fear death or God, Heaven or Hell, then why not just do whatever brings me instant gratification because, after all, this might be my last day on earth!?

Spiritual uncertainty, or a lack of spiritual consciousness, is clearly expressed here over and over: “I do not know . . .” Perhaps that phrase is offered as a mark of spiritual humility. But it doesn’t nearly approximate human experience. It lets humanity off the hook quite easily. It misses the moral mark by a mile. I do not always know, for example, if my actions today are in fact hurting someone else, rather than making other people’s day “better.” And if I do not know, then I am not responsible, right? Think of the long-term effects of greed, waste, and environmental damage of which generations of moral people were completely unaware while they sentimentalized the act of making somebody’s day better.

The most troubling and naive part of this dubious Credo, in my opinion, is the line “I do not believe in the concept of sin.” Do you really think “sin” does not exist? Or that the “concept” as you understand it is something you can’t subscribe to? If there is no God, then sin defined as an offense against God would not exist. That’s clever! But sin has been understood for thousands of years as also an offense against my neighbor. Most of the Ten Commandments are guidelines to keep us from sinning against—harming or exploiting—other people. The Old Testament is a confusing and quirky collection of moral commands, of actions and consequences (karma), but the majority of its moral wisdom falls in the column of justice, not merely religion.

Or is the “concept of sin” one these writers just associate with a penalty phase? (”Hell”?) In other words, can I simply adopt a personal ethic not to harm my neighbor without having to admit my failure to live up to my own ethic a lot of the time? Or attempt to make amends for the things I inadvertently do which harm others? Or to accept the consequences of my failures?

Someone wise remarked that “Sin is the one Christian doctrine which is empirically verifiable.” You can see it and document it, even if some doubter simply says “I do not believe in the concept of sin.” Was the Nazi extermination of six million Jews and unnumbered homosexuals and gypsies not sin? Or does the Doubter have a different term for it if the word sin isn’t used? Is “I do not believe” the escape line for the men who gutted the assets of Enron, including the retirement savings of thousands of their own employees? For the sub-prime lenders who have manipulated millions into Option-ARM loans no one could possibly afford, and has now left them homeless, bankrupted and with terrible credit scores? For Iraq war independent contractors who are bleeding the American government and therefore the American people for billions of dollars? For mass-murderers in our malls and schools? For men who mercilessly kill their wives and children before turning the gun on themselves? For drive-by shooters? For those who write computer viruses, or devise Ponzi and pyramid schemes, who defraud gullible senior citizens through phoney “investments”? All of those obvious examples are not “sin”? Then what are they? If there is no “sin” then what is it these Doubters fear in mankind?

To borrow a phrase from a well-known bumper sticker, “If you don’t believe that sin is real, you haven’t been paying attention.” If you can’t “buy into” a lot of religious talk, well okay. But the “spiritual element” of human life includes a sense of personal responsibility, self-examination, self-discipline, consciousness, humility, and an openness to change oneself and one’s life when confronted with the error of one’s ways. See, for example, the accusation of the prophet Nathan against King David, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7)

Ash Wednesday is the Christian acknowledgment not only of our sinful predicament—our sinful nature—but also our finite nature. As the liturgical phrase has it, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Or as the Doubter puts it, “I do know that once I did not exist, now I do, and soon I won’t.”

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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February 4, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

I’m not sure I have the best term for this, since I just discovered the thoughts of Peter Russell, but perhaps “pop philosopher” will serve for now. Russell is a scientist/writer/futurist/mystic. His views and wisdom can be found on his web site, www.peterrussell.com, along with intriguing devices.

Sample his World Clock for example, that rolls through the number of counters, including the rate of abortions, deaths from cardiovascular disease, world population etc., how fast cars and bicycles are being produced, and forests denuded, all  on one screen. Or his Life Expectancy Calculator which, in a series of 34 questions, will tell you how long you will live. You may be amazed at what counts as a debit and what counts as a credit in this accounting.

Looking beyond the so-called “Information Age,” I am intrigued by his suggestion that evolution itself is speeding up like global warming, that the universe’s intelligence is expanding exponentially (intelligence being sharply distinguished from wisdom—both terms are adequately defined—which is still in its infancy), and that change itself may reach a maximum point or a leveling-off. Russell presents ideas such as “singularity”, the ingression of novelty, and how human beings see our real selves apart from our external circumstances. We are a “Half-Awake Species,” he suggests with good reason (from “A Singularity in Time“):

In addition, we are only half-awake to our deeper needs and how to attain them. Most of us would like to avoid pain and suffering, and find greater peace and happiness, but we believe that how we feel inside depends on external circumstances. This is true in some cases, for example. if we are suffering because we are cold or hungry. In the modern world, most of us can fulfill these demands very easily. The flick of a switch or a trip to the store usually suffices. But we apply the same thinking to everything else in life. We believe that if we could just get enough of the right things or experiences we would finally be happy. This is the root of human greed, our love of money, our need to control events (and other people); it is the cause of much of our fear and anxiety, we worry whether events are going to be the way we think they should be if we are to be happy. This thinking is also at the heart of the many ways we mistreat, and often abuse, our planetary home.

The global crisis we are now facing is, at its root, a crisis of consciousness—a crisis born of the fact that we have prodigious technological powers, but still remain half-awake. We need to awaken to who we are and what we really want.

Needless to say, Russell’s consciousness steps into the spiritual. I am usually cautious and skeptical about such ideas, until I begin to realize that spirituality is found widely in the Judeo-Christian heritage, and not always cloaked in or tied to specific religious or dogmatic language. If sectarian Christians are unwilling to explore this, we should at least note that the pioneers of the “emergent church” are doing it with or without our blessing.  Much more on that later.

As I have noted, I’ve just discovered this pop philosopher. But I expect to spend some time reading what he has written and, at least, exploring his prodigious web site.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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January 5, 2008 by Pastor Dan.

This past week I’ve been having a little fun wearing my other hat as an amateur webmaster.

Yesterday I launched a new web site as a birthday gift to Carl, www.ijustlovemychickens.info. The phrase comes from his videography — he’s been featured on four television shows with his now-celebrity chickens. (How many chicken web sites have you seen with a videography list?) On a segment taped for “Beverly Hills Vet” for the Discovery Channel’s Animal Planet, Carl is captured saying very sincerely, “I just love my chickens!”

Doing the site was totally fun and frivolous because his hobby of raising free-range chickens brings him a lot of pleasure, and brings a smile to everyone else’s face. I hope this site will help Carl connect with a lot of people who are interested in raising chickens, and other birds, in an urban setting.

Carol, a Japanese Silkie hen, says hello to some admirers.

I’ve also included a link to our church for a good reason. Carl’s generous plan for the use of the extra eggs he receives from his hens (in good weather, he can get nearly a dozen per day) is to donate them as a fund-raiser. Eggs are “auctioned off” at Hollywood Lutheran Church in half-dozen cartons. The winners of the eggs make a cash donation to the church’s Food Pantry fund, so that the Pantry can afford to buy less-exotic necessities and fresh foods for distribution to the poor and hungry in Hollywood.

Of course, Carl is doing all the work, and paying for the food to keep the chickens producing all those extra eggs. But he would say the cost is negligible – it’s “chicken feed.” (There’s a whole page of chicken clichés and trivia, including a Bible study on the question, “Which came first …?”)

Such “chicken feed” projects remind us that generosity is not expensive. Ordinary people can do a lot to help others without costing them as much as a latte per week.

The Food Pantry is one of the Community Services we try to maintain at our church. Another one that I hope will take off as spring draws near is our Community Garden. Neighbors who sign up to till some of the soil and grow vegetables or flowers promise to share a tithe of the land’s produce with the Food Pantry. Our merciful God, and the Department of Water and Power, provide the water. Generosity does the rest.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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September 15, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

In order to write for a blog, you also have to read blogs. I have found a number of theological blogs (more about which later). Some have very thoughtful people writing them. Others are scarey. It set me thinking about the geographic spectrum of thought in the U.S. of A.

I scoured my hard drive to find these maps again.

First, look carefully at the states that went Democratic or Republican in the last presidential election. Then look carefully at the states (or territories) that were free or slave before the Civil War.

(By the way, I did not verify this information, but who would attempt to falsify what could be verified from public records? I received it in an e-mail three years ago. The e-mail source at lower right of the slavery map is not really legible, so I’m passing it along with all the usual disclaimers.)

By and large the correlation of Red States = Slave States and Blue States = Free States is astonishing. The only significant variation from 1860 to 2004 are Indiana and Ohio.

I do not pass judgment on anybody. But I cannot help feeling as if there are two (or more) United States of Americas. These two entities seem to be vastly different from one another, not only in culture but in attitudes, not only experience but persuasions. The languages, the cuisine, the demographics are hugely different. I am sure a competent analyst of census data would find hundreds of interesting differences between the Mountain/Southern states and the Northern/Coastal states.  In terms of understanding and applying the Christian faith, I am repeatedly amazed how different we are, especially in that the Mountain/Southern states still seem to have, hold and reinforce an explicit Christian culture (however they see it).  But many of the blue states, especially the coastal ones, live in a much more heterodox world milieu that would not even dream of maintaining or enforcing a Christian culture.

Several years ago I was chatting with a church friend, an actress (well, wouldn’t you know). She said she and her husband had lived in Florida before coming to California.  I commented respectfully that Florida has many beautiful places. “Yes,” she said, “but I’ve met more interesting people in an elevator in California than any of my friends in Florida.”

One of these days, I will devise a rating system for the blogs I encounter, from radical left to looney right. Then as far as possible I will try to locate them geographically on either of the above maps. It should be revealing.

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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August 31, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

The heat these August days has been oppressive in Los Angeles.  I suppose they would seem normal in St. Louis or New Orleans, but not here.  It is someone else’s weather delivered here by accident.

Or, it is the “new normal”, or global warming, present indicative?  The only ones who are still in denial about global warming seem to be the president’s men–the ones who ignore the signs of the times and change the subject:  the Kyoto accord would cost American jobs; there are terrorists out there; the scientific evidence is not all in; etc.

The evidence, however, keeps coming in, day after week after month after year.  At what point does one deem it to be a preponderance of evidence sufficient to convict us.  We are destroying our planet without pause.  We are harvesting it, killing it, exterminating it, clearing it, burning it, strip-mining it, paving over it as if we have a spare planet in the trunk.

And we are destructive seemingly without a thought.  Increasingly, the United States stands alone on every environmental issue you could name.  We are the last to teach ourselves efficiency, restraint, or innovation on things that would preserve life, spare the planet, and have our generation leave a much small footprint on the sacred wilderness.

I still think it was President Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, who set the theological tone for interior policy.  I could be wrong, of course. A couple of years ago, conservative blog Power Line took commentator Bill Moyers to task for reminding us of what James Watt  thought.  Moyers summarized:

Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan’s first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, “after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.”  Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn’t know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious.

Power Line goes on to document that Moyers and Grist misinterpreted or distorted Watt’s views.  Yet I remember these views being talked about 20 years ago in connection with Watt.  If he indeed was a closet environmentalist, that slipped by many of us in Reagan’s first term.  I don’t keep a news clipping file on every fool we have suffered in high places, so I could be wrong.  But I clearly remember feeling a sense of outrage about Watt over and over and over from reading the daily news.

Even if Watt was never so irresponsible, the view is emblematic of a Christian faith which cherry-picks the issues it thinks are vitally important for public policy.  Conservative in my bedroom, prodigal in my national parks.

Let’s suppose that no Christian actually holds the view, that we are free to “use up” the earth in this generation and not be stewardship of creation for the future because Jesus will be returning soon anyway.  Even if that were true, where do legislators–who are clearly and verifiably backed by conservative religious money– get their values?

Could it be the same place the rest of us get our shoddy values?  The values that value my own life at the expense of others, and my generation at the expense of future generations?  The values that put my pleasures, my prosperities, my comforts, my titillations ahead of the survival and security and safety of others on this planet? What were we thinking when we allowed our country to become so polarized about issues with obvious moral content?  Is it completely impossible to suppose that Christians of all slants, and people of all faith traditions could agree that this planet needs tender loving care?

And that even if the evidence isn’t final on whether humans are causing global warming and destroying life forms left and right, we already know without a doubt that there is too much filth in our air, our water, our land fills  and toxic waste dumps; that we Americans use up 100 times as many natural resources per person than our neighbors on this planet; that there is no god out there who is pleased by our wasteful and destructive ways.

Whether global warming is ready for the concluding arguments leading to conviction, many people are ready to believe that it is a fitting karma that this generation of Americans is beginning to suffer for its destructive ways.  For those of you who are still in your 20s, it is entirely possible that the American way of life will have completely crashed and burned before you attempt to draw your first retirement check.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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