CLIMBING THE WALLS

Oily politicians are always harping on about “kitchen table” issues and the alleged conversations that take place around them, mostly as a sop to those they have little to do with and even less knowledge of, but whose vote they covet.

Then again, I have my own kitchen table story to tell. And it has the added advantage of actually being real. It happened years ago while having lunch in the kitchen of a college friend’s parents in suburban Chicago.

As it was, his parents were dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalists who insisted on a literal interpretation of the Bible. The problem, at the time, was that I was a student at Yale Divinity School, a known liberal bastion. I might as well have had the mark of the beast imprinted on my forehead.

Continue reading “Confessions of a Recovering Apostate”

I think it was C.S. Lewis who tells of the time he was approached by a woman complaining about a church member who, in her mind, was unpleasant, uncouth, and just plain disagreeable.

Lewis’ shrewd response nails it. “Yes,” he advised, “but you should have seen him before he became a Christian.”

In my last post, https://climbingthewalls.org/sermon-christianity-a-well-known-stranger/, I pointed out that sin, contrary to common thought, actually means “the state of being separated from God,” sin being a relational term.

I also pointed out that the mythological story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall in the first three chapters of Genesis marks the symbolic movement from a once perfect relationship with our Creator to the alienated one we now experience here East of Eden.

But does this fall from grace constitute the final word? Are we destined, in other words, to live in a desacralized world devoid of hope or promise?

Continue reading “Then What?”

Six months after I retired, we moved from Harwich to Chatham. After the closing, Linda and I walked through our new home. One of the things I noticed was the beautiful Leyland cypress trees lining the edge of the property – all the way around.

But just as I was luxuriating in their splendor, I had a sudden start. Uh oh, I thought, I’m going to have to maintain all these trees! Dollar signs flashed before my eyes. For, in truth, I’m not the world’s most capable, much less dedicated, handyman. Just ask Linda. As a result, we had to hire a young man to trim our trees twice a year.

As it happens, he’s a very intelligent and thoughtful person and we frequently get to talking about politics, philosophy and, God forbid, religion. I might add, he’s not a Christian.

Continue reading “Sermon: “Christianity: A Well-Known Stranger””

“Well, the ‘Social Gospel’ is part of my tradition,” explained the United Church of Christ (UCC) pastor a bit defensively, before adding, “I seek to follow the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”

This muddled word salad was gamely imparted in response to concerns raised about the frequency of woke politics woven into her sermons.

How so muddled? Well, while it’s true that the “tradition” embodied within the UCC does indeed claim the “Social Gospel,” a movement begun roughly 100 years ago, it is a bit of a stretch to assume either Bonhoeffer or King would recognize, much less support, what passes for it today.  

Continue reading “How the Mighty Have Fallen”

I learned a great deal from this well-written book about the history of lobbying and the pernicious influence of money in politics. One often hears of its dangers but the authors, Brody and Luke Mullins, help put flesh on the bones. They offer an inside baseball look at the personal lives of several of the most influential lobbyists while helping us to understand the broader implications of their efforts.

Unfortunately, I’m unable to give this a five-star rating. The reason has to do with the authors’ obvious political and social biases, though the book presents as an otherwise objective account of the history of money in U.S. politics.

And while I share the authors’ disdain for the outsized infusion of corporate/Big Business/millionaire-billionaire money into modern-day politics, they seem to go out of their way to take sides. One wonders if this reflects an unconscious “media bubble” mindset or simply their need to maintain street cred among fellow elitist journalists in Manhattan and inside the Beltway.

Continue reading “A ‘Climbing’ Book Review”

In one of the more meaningful and oft-quoted phrases in the Declaration of Independence it reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”

So, it may surprise you to learn that I don’t believe this. Oh, I absolutely defend the idea that “all men are created equal.” Without question.  I just don’t believe it’s “self-evident.” After all, there are many cultures, both past and present, that have rejected this idea out of hand.

Which is to say I agree with Benjamin Franklin who argued against this terminology. His suggestion? “We hold these truths to be sacred and un-deniable…,” wording that properly argues that all men and women are created equal not because it is in any way “self-evident,” but because our Christian faith teaches us it’s so.

Continue reading “Sermon: “Babies and Bathwater””

“When I was a boy of fourteen,” Mark Twain once famously wrote, “my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”

To be honest, it took me a little longer to figure this out. I was probably about 25 or so.

You see, I thought all the problems of the world, and there were many – the Vietnam War, the assassinations, the race riots and, a bit later, Watergate – were caused solely by my parents’ generation and their ill-management of the world. I, on the other hand, was as pure as the wind-driven snow. I had it all together, so why didn’t the older generations? How could they not see what I saw? How could they have allowed things to get so out of hand? It was inexcusable.

Some years later I read the life story of Thomas Merton, the cloistered monk and renowned Christian author, who had been a brilliant, academically high-achieving young man living a kind of jaundiced, profligate lifestyle. He was cool, detached, worldly, and fashionably cynical – a real sophisticate. He valued aesthetics and big thoughts. And his highly refined critique of society was downright scathing.

Continue reading “Sermon: “Wherefore Art Thou, Utopia?””

Perhaps the New Year is a good time to talk about all things new. Then again, you really don’t have to wait until the beginning of the year to bring it up. In fact, it’s all the rage these days. New! New! New! Change! Change! Change! It just may be the preeminent, culturally approved mantra of our age.

This was made painfully clear to me this past June while attending our younger granddaughter’s high school graduation. With the young “scholars” in robes seated by rows and sporting various messages and images on their caps, every single speaker, be they faculty member or student, focused on just one word: change.

Repeatedly the principal and selected teachers advised the students to be ready for change, to expect change, to thrive in the midst of change. Not to be outdone, each student, including the valedictorian, also droned on and on about…change.

Continue reading “New and Improved”

One sunny day in January of 1999, Mary Neal died. As she tells it, she was kayaking down the Fuy River in a remote region in southern Chile when her kayak veered off course and she and it were plunged down a steep waterfall.

Worse still, she got wedged under a rock. This combined with the tremendous force of the waterfall rendered her helpless. For a whole 30 minutes she was submerged in 8-10 feet of water. Once her companions finally were able to extricate her, she was long gone.

As you may have guessed, Neal is among the millions of individuals worldwide who claim to have undergone “near-death” or “after-death” experiences.

Curiously, Neal describes her experience underwater as remarkably peaceful, unlike what she had always imagined drowning would be like. There was no room for fear, she says. There she found herself uttering the simple phrase, “Lord, thy will be done,” words she had said many times before, only now she really meant it. Whatever God had in store for her, she was completely open to. Then, she says, her spirit was released to the heavens.

Continue reading “A Sermon: “An Absolute State of Gratitude””

Years ago, while serving my first church, I took part in two “missionary” trips to the Dominican Republic. A local church there had embarked upon a highly ambitious plan to build a hospital for Haitian immigrants working as virtual slaves in the surrounding sugar cane fields. At that time at least, Dominican society discriminated against these workers (many of whom had been brought to the DR against their will) and wouldn’t treat them in their hospitals.

A week or two before the second trip a meeting was arranged for those scheduled to make the trip. It was led by a group of pastors who, being pastors, separated us into small groups to “share” our hopes and expectations for the trip.

At one point we were asked to discuss what we hoped to accomplish. The answers amazed me, though probably shouldn’t have. The sentiments expressed struck me as utterly grandiose, as if this small American church group alone was going to save the world.

Continue reading “Cosmic Justice and Other Heresies”