If you’ve been living under a rock this week and have not been paying attention to the news, I’m referring to this segment of an interview televised last Wednesday:

Now, I am not so dull as to assume that when President Obama expresses an opinion, it carries no greater weight than when I express my own. Certainly, the President’s position on gay marriage, whether he qualifies it as strictly “personal” or not, is of major significance. The leader of our country has now officially come out in support of a particular side of a debate that has raged for decades and has only become more of a hot button issue in the last few years. Many critics have accused the President of using the issue solely for political maneuvering; to such people, whatever the President says in an interview is all about his re-election campaign. National news pundits continue to debate the release of such statements as if they are moves on a chessboard. Will coming out in favor of gay marriage garner more support for the President, or will he lose support? How will the LGBT community respond on election day? How will the African-American community respond? What will leading ministers say? How will this issue play on the wider stage – will it overshadow other important issues?

Knight has taken Rook, but has it left itself exposed to the Bishop?

But beneath all the talking points and the opinions of “analysts,” there are other conversations raging. In the comment section of blogs, on various Facebook walls, and even face-to-face. Whether or not the issue seems elementary to you, we can no longer deny that the issue of gay marriage, and that of homosexuality in general, has indeed become a lightning rod topic, and will certainly be one of the defining moments of this generation. The most frightening thing to me, however, is that it seems so few us are prepared to address the issue. On both sides of the fence and on the fence itself, many are nervous, others are incensed, and still others are righteously indignant.

Some Christians I’ve met are woefully unprepared for any form of civilized discourse. Not only have many of them not carefully studied the passages of Scripture they cite as authoritative proof of their position, but often they refuse to even listen to any viewpoint that doesn’t mirror their own. In the past, I’ve encountered some ministers who actually believe engaging in a discussion on issues like homosexuality can be a corrupting activity – a person runs the risk of falling away because even to have a conversation about the issue is to toy with sin! And if you try to point out that the Pharisees took a similar stance when they assumed Jesus was unclean because he had dinner with sinners, they’re already shaking their heads and claiming that is the devil’s argument. If I, a fellow minister, cannot get around these walls, how on earth will a parishioner in search of genuine discourse receive anything in return but cold, dogmatic rhetoric?

It goes both ways, too. Some people I know – self-proclaimed “progressives” – are so irritated by others’ positions that they can no longer keep their patience in check. Their attitudes have crumpled into angry, derisive stones that they hurl into the midst of the debate. They are called names by others, and they’ve come up with plenty of their own to toss, sometimes preemptively. They believe every objection is based in old-fashioned, irrelevant superstition – that the only logical position a person can have is the one they have found and subscribed to.

Very, very few of us are ready for this conversation. Forget trying to determine what side you’re on. If we are unable or unwilling to engage each other hospitably and courteously on the issue, what does it matter what any of us actually believe? Yours may be a position steeped in conviction and long-suffering scholarship. However, if you refuse to give equal time and patience to another’s ideas or arguments, what more have you done but encased yourself in a prison of your own construction?

“Thank you, God, that in here I’m safe from other people.”

What has happened to civilized public discourse? What have we done with it? Did we ever have it to begin with? In his Facebook status, a friend of mine recently lamented the insincerity of Christians in such forms of public debate:

We use “sanctity of life” language to oppose one killing but refuse to use it on another. We use “rights” language but become angry when it is used differently … We say humans bear the image of God and thus are worthy of dignified treatment but refuse to treat those whom we disagree with as worthy of our dignity…

And then there is our President. One side sees the words of his interview answer as a milestone announcement strategically intended to open a door to greater freedom for humanity. They celebrate that he has finally accepted the true and just view. The other side relentlessly accuses him of seizing the moment for his own political gain, and in so doing lifting up his heel against their political ideals and religious convictions. They don’t believe for one second that the President might have actually experienced a change in his personal beliefs.

Can the President of the United States not change his mind? And if indeed he can, should we not celebrate the freedom to do so? Can we not appreciate that, in describing his “evolution” on this issue, he in no way belittled the viewpoints of others, including those with whom he now finds himself disagreeing? Can those who do not hold his view accept, without restless resentment, that people can change their minds, even Presidents? Can we celebrate that we live in a country in which we have the freedom to not only change our minds, but to freely express our thoughts? After all, what possible alternative could we desire? The complete and utter silence of all who see things differently than us? What kind of society is that?

“You can safely assume that you have created God in your own image,” writes Anne Lamott, “when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.”

So, no matter what you believe, may you come to the table of discussion with an open heart and a sound mind. May you reflect upon your beliefs not as if you are sharpening arrows or loading guns, but so that you might determine how to express personal opinions with the fullness of kindness, patience, and abiding peace. May we not perpetuate a fear of what is to come by fearing one another.

What is The Gandhi Problem, you might ask. It is the unexamined assumption that pervades much of Christendom today, especially in the West. It concerns the abiding belief by the vast majority of Christians – especially evangelical Christians – that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is, or is going to, burn in hell for all eternity.

Yes, this post is going to wade into seemingly heretical waters. But do me the honor of wading in with me. I promise we’ll hop back out before our skin gets too wrinkly and we no longer recognize who we are.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: 1869-1948

Gandhi is also commonly referred to as Mahatma, a term out of Sanskrit that means “Great Soul,” applied to him long before he died in 1948. For those Westerners of a younger generation (like my own) who might be unfamiliar with the Mahatma’s pursuits and endeavors, you can either go on Netflix and add Richard Attenborough’s award-winning biopic to your cue (that’s the easier way to learn that involves less reading), or you can get a basic gist by clicking here. For the sake of space, I won’t go into detail here. Suffice it to say that through an astonishing commitment to non-violence and passive resistance, Gandhi revolutionized India (as well as, through his example, many other nations including the U.S.), leading out in such arenas as poverty care, women’s rights, economic independence and religious tolerance.

Gandhi taught radical lessons on self-sacrifice, including repeated encouragements toward complete physical submission to enemies. It doesn’t take long, in any biography, for a Christian to recognize that what many of us wrestle with regarding the literal nature of Jesus’s famous Sermon on the Mount, Gandhi took absolutely literally with no equivocations. In that way, his life and lifestyle point more to the principles of the kingdom of God than most Christians’ lives.

But here’s the dilemma. Gandhi never accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. He never had a personal relationship with Jesus. He never invited Jesus into his heart. He never admitted, believed, and confessed – at least in the manner and formula we Christians are accustomed to organizing conversion. So, self-sacrifice or not, martyrdom or not, radical submission to peace and social justice and love or not, Gandhi is going to burn.

So, um, what’s the Problem?

“A disciple is not above the teacher,” says Jesus in Luke 6, “but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own?” A few sentences later, the Savior continues, “The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of the evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them.”

And, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus asks the following question: “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” His audience answered that this was the first son, to which Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors (traitors) and the prostitutes (unclean sinners) are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you” (parentheses and italics, mine).

Gandhi’s life more closely resembles the kind of followers Jesus was asking for than my own. Not only this, Gandhi was persecuted throughout his life for his commitment to civil disobedience and for his insistence on equality, justice and liberation. Jesus addressed that, too: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven…” (Matt. 5:11-12). Now, you might argue those three little words, “on my account,” but is not almost everything Gandhi did in keeping with what Jesus was doing, and the ushering in of the very things on which his kingdom is built? How did Gandhi not live on Jesus’ account, or for his sake? Just because he didn’t end his own prayers with the standard, “in Jesus’ name”?

So what do we do with Gandhi, Christians? Are we so bold to claim that Gandhi is damned while we – we who squirm in our pews during the Sunday morning invitation, we who strive not to make eye contact with the ushers passing the offering plates, we who would rather send our checkbook onto the mission fields of the world rather than ourselves – waltz into heaven to hear our Savior say, “Well done”?

Is this how it breaks down, this salvation thing? Is this the way it works? Do our deeds really count for nothing? If so, why does Jesus repeatedly call his true disciples to good deeds? Perhaps it’s time we read again those verses on which we bank so much of our view of salvation, of who “gets in” and who is “left behind.” Let me be clear, this is not an argument for universalism. It’s an argument on the nature of true obedience and true submission. It’s an examination of what holds more weight: the words of my mouth, or the inclination of my heart? It’s an investigation of just how a person “comes to Father” through Jesus (John 14:6). And even if you’re reading this and thinking, “Hmm, this still sounds a lot like universalism to me,” my question to you is, what if it does? After all, if you’re a Christian and you’re not a universalist, I understand completely. But if you’re a Christian and you’re not a wannabe universalist, I don’t know what to do with you.

We’re getting all wrinkly. Time to step out and towel off, at least for now.

Thus, this post is an exploration of that deep anxiety; I am sorry to disappoint any readers who might have thought I was going to tackle one or all of the above mentioned issues and declare my own particular stance on each.

"Aw, man! I was really hoping for a clear answer on that blasphemy thing."

It is the need for a stance at all that makes the human specimen so odd. It does no good to ask why a person feels the need to take a distinct stand on particular issues. The urge to do so is deeply ingrained – so much so that I cannot confidently state that it isn’t an ineluctable facet of human nature. I’m no psychologist – I don’t know the mind well enough. I’m no scientist – I don’t know the chemistry well enough, either. What I am is a pastor, and so all I know is what I have read in the people I have encountered and talked to, and how I have read them.

You don’t have to be a psychologist to appreciate the work of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, specifically her Five Stages of Grief in which we generally recognize that the standard method (though not a formula) by which most people react to tragedy and death is 1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3) Bargaining, 4) Depression, and, eventually 5) Acceptance. Now, further research and clinical study have revealed that this five-stage model must be taken with a grain of salt – not everyone goes through these stages in a timely or orderly fashion. There is progression and regression. There is reordering and rearranging. However, the deeply rooted emotions that each of these stages describe are very real.

Here she is demonstrating Stage 2 Anger after being told to throw out her sexy horn-rimmed glasses in favor of a new lens prescription.

I submit, though, that we experience something like the Kübler-Ross model not only when a very tangible, concrete tragedy befalls us (such as the death of a loved one or a shocking natural disaster), but also when our personal reflective faculties are forced to evaluate deep-seated conceptions in the moral, ethical and/or spiritual arena. In other words, there are times when changing our minds about a particular issue can be so stressful that letting go of our old understanding and our preconceived notions is not unlike grieving the death of a friend. After all, for a person who has, for example, believed for years and years that abortion is not only a legal right but a human one, and has immersed himself in rhetoric and scholarship that supports this stance, shifting to a pro-life stance can be extraordinarily disorienting. The arguments and apologetics on which he has leaned and in which he has placed his trust are suddenly stolen away. The supportive friend is gone. No wonder so many deeply entrenched culture warriors find it difficult to genuinely and successfully change minds. No wonder the Civil Rights Movement was not a week-long struggle but a multi-generational transformation of the social mindset.

"See? I'm not the only one who thinks this movement is taking forever. That guy in Row 7 agrees."

Another example. Let’s go ahead and sample from my opening paragraph. Say a person has been raised in a predominantly conservative environment – Republican parents, orthodox evangelical church, traditional local government and conventional schooling. He is a Christian who has grown up under a host of particular conceptions, one of which is that homosexuality is immoral and most definitely a sin. No doubt the stance has been backed by direct references to the Bible, most likely some verses from Leviticus and some of Paul’s letters. The young man goes off to college and ends up meeting another young man with much the same upbringing as his own, but who claims to be gay. If our protagonist in question doesn’t immediately shun his new friend (as some, sadly, are apt to do, which already argues for a manifestation of the first two stages, a form of denial or of anger, or both), he will soon be faced with a conundrum which basically boils down to, “Do I think my friend is willfully living in sin?” To address this question, he will have already fallen headlong into the third stage, bargaining. Not so much in the form of trading reality for one that isn’t possible, as we do when we wish a friend who has died would be magically restored to life. Rather, this bargaining is identified in the way the young man finds himself pulled back and forth by competing arguments. Is what I have been taught my whole life correct, or has there always been room for error in that viewpoint? Is there some other way of seeing things that offers a valid alternative through which to view my friend?

How this man responds to the examination, and how deep that reflection goes, has a direct bearing on the fourth stage – depression. This, of course, is the lowest stage of the Kübler Ross model – the one that people have the most trouble overcoming. It is the deepest valley through which we must trek if we are to arrive at the vista of acceptance, stage five.

These paths are like Swiss Alpine trails. They always seem to go in circles.

As a Christian and a minister, if I am not sensitive to the struggle of such self-reflection and internal debate, then I am doing a disservice to every person looking to me for spiritual direction. Contrary to popular belief and practice, a pastor’s job is not to supply a particular stance on an issue, or to back up a commonly held rule with proof-texts. It is to shepherd people through the intense journey that comes when we choose self-sacrifice and commit our lives to the will of Christ and the transforming work of the kingdom of God. It is to lead by example, because none of us are immune to the grieving process that comes when we put old ideas to death in favor of what we may eventually find to be new ways of understanding and engaging an issue.

This is what transformation is all about. It is part of salvation – saving us from our own lazy acceptance of truth without reflection. A person must “suffer the death of your own misunderstandings, ignorance, and attitudes,” writes Bishop Paul Egertson. “Then you mourn the loss of a nice and tidy view of the world in which everything fits neatly into boxes of black and white, right or wrong, true or false. And, as a Christian, you mourn the loss of security provided by a few biblical passages that can tell you which is which so you don’t have to take any responsibility for making a judgment.”

"So, seriously, no straight answers in this post?"

So may you love the Lord our God with all of your mind. May you not fear the anxiety that is an inevitable side effect of self-examination. May you remember that we have all been captives of fear, especially the fear which tells us that questioning things is a symptom of rebellion rather than a thirst for righteousness. And may you come to fully trust in the Savior who, by his death and resurrection, has dissolved the crippling power of all fear.

I stopped posting to this blog back at the beginning of 2012. The reason for this hiatus was that I was deep into a long job search and my wife and I feared that certain church search committees would find my freely expressed views too controversial and toss my resume into the recycle bin. I still believe it was a good kind of caution. When you get right down to it, who would you want heading up ministries in your church (if indeed you belong to a church)? A wide-eyed contemplative with a seemingly never-ending list of questions about the very faith he professes, or a minister whose cyber footprint is more professional and whose articles adhere to a straightforward, amenable style? Let’s be honest – nine times out of ten, you’re opening door number two, and that one remaining time, you’re hoping nobody’s home behind door number one.

"Yeah, I found this guy's blog - what a nutjob! Next."

Now that I’m over a month into my new job and free to blog carte blanche again, I’m reflecting on this decision. And then, this morning, my wife gave me the standard once-over before I headed out the door and, as is sometimes necessary, commented on the outfit I had chosen to wear. It wasn’t her favorite. At the core of her displeasure was the polo shirt I was wearing, which was a recent Goodwill acquisition and one she had intended for more casual occasions. As I drove to the church, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the plan to hold off blogging during the job search stemmed from the same general issue as my lamentable cluelessness with clothing.

Comparison. Whether we mean to or not, we have all been swept up in a worldwide system of comparison. The quotation above adds more words to this system, such as domination and control. It might seem a bit drastic for me to state such a thing, but the more thought I give to the idea, the more I recognize that this is indeed the firmly fixed reality in which we operate. Especially Americans. So much of what we know about ourselves – what we would call our “identity” – comes from what/who we compare ourselves to. Physical appearance is a given, but this grand form of comparison goes much deeper than the merely cosmetic. Often even our religious convictions are born out of a desire to be right, to be in control, or at least to feel in control. Our identity rises and falls based on our sense of judgment.

This changes everything.

No wonder it is so hard to truly, authentically, unconditionally love other people. In such a cruel, status-obsessed system, I can hardly believe the notion of love still exists at all. It’s a dreadful realization, and figuring a way to escape it seems pointless. It seems to me that we will never find a way out of such a system on our own. There’s no hope for escape, really. Only rescue.

“They found the stone had been rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body” (Luke 24:2).

The world, with its system of shrewd judgment, power-grabbing, comparing, grasping, dominating and securing will always call belief in the Resurrection foolish. It’s pathetic wishful thinking. A half-baked myth. An opiate for the masses. A waste of a mind. A pipe dream. Then again, if the Resurrection is true (and I believe whole-heartedly that it is, crazy as it sounds), it makes sense that such a system would spurn it. Because the Resurrection means that all the comparing and controlling and dominating has been squelched by a God who is about the business of redemption and reconciliation and mercy. And love. Real love. Before such radical grace, even the starkest comparison or ruthless reach for control crumbles to dust.

“Thy will be done on earth at it is in heaven.” Dare we choose such a radically new way of life?

I am happy to report that headway has been made on the job search, which means I will soon (hopefully) have the opportunity to return to this blog and take up where I left off with (hopefully) more thought-provoking posts not devoid of a little humor. To celebrate, in the meantime I’m giving Wonderstuff a bit of a facelift and doing some spring cleaning in the dusty corners of the archives. That means a different look, new and streamlined post categories, and updated links and pages. (If you’ve visited lately, you may have already noticed a few odds and ends popping up.) Nothing too grandiose, but one (hopefully) fresh start deserves another. Check back soon.

Peace,