Table Blessings

Everything God has created is good, and no food is to be rejected, provided grace is said for it: the word of God and the prayer make it holy [I Tim. 4:4-5].

In the past three years I have made a number of road trips between Denver and New Jersey, traversing terrain that has a reassuring persistence. From Kansas City to Reading, Pennsylvania, the land is planted in corn -- 1,500 miles and hundred of thousands of acres of corn, interrupted only occasionally by a city like St. Louis or Indianapolis with their suburbs and industrial belts.,

I asked a friend from Illinois what was done with all that corn. "It takes a lot of it to keep the world in cornflakes," he said. He had made a good point. We in North America are big cornflake eaters -- not to mention our appetite for other forms of processed corn, such as Fritos, Doritos. Captain Crunch and numerous other variations on nature’s bounty. All of those acres of corn are annually converted into a thousand different products intended to stimulate our jaded tastebuds. All that corn is picked, husked and processed in ingenious ways and made ready to eat from the box.

It has to be that way. We do not have time for slow food; our schedules cannot accommodate it. One of the advantages of the 20th century is our liberation from the slow drudgery of plowing, sowing, harvesting, milling and cooking from scratch. Factory food frees us from all that bother. It is easy to buy, easy to unpackage, easy to warm up, easy to look at and easy to eat. It fuels our pursuits without wasting our time.

All of which raises an interesting question. Since North Americans place such a high premium on gastronomic convenience, why do some people still insist on praying over the food they are about to consume? Even people who seldom if ever go to church often pause for a blessing before supper. Perhaps the custom reflects the remnants of a religious upbringing -- the vestiges of some vague consciousness of God that food can provoke in us. Maybe a bowl of cornflakes represents to us a certain providence in the universe, and in its presence a reverent pause is almost a reflex action; food, ready to be eaten, triggers in us something like an unavoidable, ontological religiousness. Then again, perhaps there are more functional explanations, such as that saying a prayer is an indirect way of complimenting the cook or calming the kids.

For whatever reason a table blessing is remembered, however, it provides a thoughtful gap in our tight schedules where God can conceivably intrude. We refer to it as table "grace," after all. And saying grace strikes me as one of those irrational instances in which ritual triumphs over convenience, in which our consumption of fast food throttles down long enough for God to be acknowledged.

Martin Buber tells the story of an old Hasidic master who asked a rabbi what puzzled him most about his neighbor. "I heard him say," said the Hasid, "that he was surprised that merely saying grace is not enough to make men God-fearing and good."

"I think differently." the Hasid reflected. "I am surprised that merely eating is not enough to make men God-fearing and good. For it is written. ‘The ox knows its owner and the don ke.y its master’s trough."’

The kitchen table, heaped with food, is our trough. Most of us, if we pray at all, become God-fearing enough at that trough just long enough to manage a cursory, "Thank you, God, for this day and for this food. Amen." Then we pile the foodstuff onto our plates, gobble it down, excuse ourselves and resume our schedules refueled. Fast prayers for fast food. We don’t linger long enough truly to acknowledge God’s generosity in our bounty.

During the summer months my grandmother always saw to it that some produce from my grandfathers garden graced the table. His carefully cultivated tomatoes, bell peppers, chiote squash, string beans or peaches were his contribution to the ceremony of mealtime. When we sat down to eat, I was prepared to be refreshed, not merely refueled. All of my senses were assaulted -- with color, aroma, flavor, texture and sound. I recall my grandfather’s prayer, a formula that always began: "Our most gracious and loving Father, we praise and thank thee for the gift of thy son Jesus and for life eternal through him. We thank thee for guidance and for strength and for blessing us with this food . . . ." Table grace for my grandfather was a confession of faith, of ultimate loyalties. Food reminded him of his dependence on God. Food reinvigorated his faith and prompted him to confess it. Before he ate, he acknowledged his life as a gift from God.

In his letter to Timothy, Paul suggested that prayer makes food holy. The saying of grace sacralizes the food. That is what "blessing" is, after all. To bless food is to make it sacred

First, according to the Treatise, the family and guests gathered around the table. A clay pitcher full of water was carried in from the back room. The father, or host, waited for silence, then declared, "Blessed art thou who has given us command concerning the washing of the hands" -- whereupon each person in the group stretched out his or her hands to receive water poured from the pitcher. After drying their hands, they sat down. The prayer was resumed with a confession of their loyalty to God and to God’s kingdom. Included in the prayer was a reminder that the seasonal rains necessary for the growth of corn, grapes and olives were contingent on human service and love for God -- no devotion, no rain. The earth yields fruit at God’s command, the prayer affirmed, and fertile land is a gift. That is essentially the content of the prayer that preceded the actual blessing of the food.

Next, the food was brought in and set down on the table. The host studied each dish because there was a special blessing to be applied to each category of food. He commenced the blessing: "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe. . ."; Then, with his mind’s eye first on the loaf of bread baked from barley flour, he said, "who brought forth bread from the earth . . . ; then for the pot of lentils he prayed, "who created different kinds of seeds . . . ," and for the plate of onions and radishes, "who created different kinds of herbs. . . ." For the locusts fried in a batter of honey and flour, he continued, "by whose word all things exist . . ."; for the bowl of figs, "who created the fruit of the tree. . ."; for the wine, "who created the fruit of the vine . . ." And for the baked fish, he exclaimed, "Blessed be the One who created this baked fish; how beautiful it is!" Each item of food and drink appropriately blessed, according to the formula recalling the unique means through which God provided that item, the host concluded, "For all came into existence by God’s word. Amen." The host then raised his head, broke a loaf of bread and distributed portions of food to each person at the table. Finally, everyone ate.

After the meal, spices were sprinkled on hot coals to produce a fragrant incense. The host proceeded with a benediction which was either spoken or sung as a hymn. The content of the benediction was essentially a thanksgiving for the food, for the gift of good land, and for the Temple. It was often concluded with the host testifying, "I have never seen the righteous forsaken. Amen."

What is striking about these Jewish table blessings is the reverent care given to such a common activity. Hands were washed not only for sanitary reasons, but in order to make them ritually pure for handling food, which was understood to be a gift from God. As a gift, food was holy, and to avoid desecrating it the people washed. Eating was a sacred ritual. So that the vastness of God’s gift of good land and the food harvested from it could be more fully appreciated, the one saying the blessing paused over each dish. The individual blessings recognized the magnitude of the gift by elaborating its variety: the fruit of the vine, the fruit of the tree, the different kinds of seeds, the herbs -- each focused on the origin of the table’s bounty in a way that praised God for the earth’s glorious fertility. And its words of appreciation outstripped any cursory "Thank you, God, for this food."

Buber has recorded one Hasid’s story of Abraham’s reply to a guest who had eaten at Sarah and Abraham’s table. When the guest had finished and wiped his chin, he rose to thank Abraham. Abraham asked the man, "Was the food that you have eaten mine? You have partaken of the bounty of the God of the universe. Now praise, glorify, and bless the One who spoke and the world was.

The Hasid went on to comment, "Whoever enjoys any worldly pleasure without benediction commits a theft against God."

It is not easy to picture food as holy. And the way we treat all those cornfields is anything but holy; the unnatural forms we force the corn to take are an insult to the good land on which it is grown. The fast factory food liberates us to live in the jet age, but it does not teach us that food is holy. Fast food teaches us that food is fuel; consequently, we are much better at cursing food than at blessing it.

Buber recounts the tale of an old rabbi, Abraham Yehoshua Heshel, who was considering the prospect of his death. Pushing back from the table after the noon meal, he recited the benediction, then stood up and began to pace slowly. Alone in the room, he pondered with knitted brow what God’s verdict would be on his accomplishments. Suddenly his face glowed. Abraham stopped by the table covered with crumbs, reached out and gently stroked it with his hand. "Table, good table," he said, "you will testify on my behalf that I have properly eaten and properly prayed at your board."

That evening, Abraham Yehoshua Heshel instructed his son that when the time came he desired to be buried in a coffin built from the boards of his dismantled table.

The food we eat, and the way we handle it, may tell God a good deal. The table blessing is not simply a nice custom. It is a sacramental litany. Food and nourishment are made holy when received with a blessing.

Remembering King Through His Ideals

On January 20, America officially celebrated for the first time the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., as a national holiday. The occasion was unique because King is the first clergyman and the first Afro-American to be so honored. It is unique also because it comes so soon after King’s assassination in 1968 and at a time when the policy decisions made during his leadership of the civil rights movement are still being disputed. This was evident two years ago when President Reagan, whose policies are reversing that era’s civil rights gains, reluctantly signed the legislation that created the holiday. Many liberation theologians and democratic socialists damn King with faint praise as they continue to pursue those goals for which he gave his life: peace, the empowerment of the poor and the Third World, and the elimination of racism. As in life, so in death King still proves worrisome to many and now, as the nation’s celebration of his birthday passes, we should consider why this is so.

The reasons are clear why the Reagan administration and the neoconservatives oppose a holiday that recognizes King’s accomplishments. They see King as one who contributed significantly to the destruction of legal segregation and to the mortal wounding of America’s racial caste system. As supporters and defenders of the old order, they are willing to watch some of its racist elements die, but they will not acknowledge the great evil it brought to the nation. Moreover, they reject King’s vision of a peaceful global society characterized by economic, political and social justice and instead hold a Rambo-like vision of peace and how to attain it. King’s opposition to the Vietnam war, apartheid in South Africa and oppression in Asia and Latin America as well as his desire for justice for America’s poor frightens those who seek a return to the "normalcy" of the ‘20s and the international hegemony of America from 1945 to 1968. Although King’s hope for a new age seems now to have been mistaken and almost forgotten, the conservatives and neoconservatives still vigorously oppose it and work diligently to prevent it. Their unease with a King holiday is patent.

But what of the liberationist, the democratic socialist and the other progressives who perceive King’s accomplishments as small compared to their own achievements, and negligible in the light of America’s need? They see King as one who faced the right direction but whose dreams and methods, even in the ‘60s, were obsolete. Why do these people want to distance themselves from King’s program and methods even as they seek to appropriate his mandate? Some of these progressives would have us believe that the conservatives will manipulate the King legacy so as to halt its slight tendency to reform. Others assert that King’s accomplishments are so fully imprinted on American hearts and institutions that we needn’t dwell on them and open old wounds; we should assume them and move on. Still others desire to have the nation turn itself away from King’s particular agenda and toward the single momentous issue of possible total annihilation by nuclear war. The explanations are many, but they have not blunted the nation’s conservative mood or persuaded many outside their own circles. However, the progressives’ frenetic pursuit of new causes does suggest that they believe that King, at the time of his death, was beginning to understand America’s evils and Americans’ hardheartedness. I submit that their concern is not so much with the conservatives’ possible manipulation of King’s dream as with the difficulties that dream creates for the aspirations of the liberationists, democratic socialists and progressives.

The first King national holiday was celebrated with little enthusiasm for the ideas that were central to the civil rights leader’s thought and action. Conservatives and liberals whose sense of guilt contributed to the creation of the national holiday seem to share little of the theological foundation or ultimate vision which motivated King’s desire to transform America’s soul. In a sense this is right and proper. Individuals and institutions from various periods will differ in their perceptions and responses to truth -- especially, from period to period. It would be unwise, however, if we were to let this season pass without emphasizing several fundamental ideas which remain relevant in spite of the many radical changes that have taken place since 1968.

Like many today, King felt that the conception of God needed correction, but for him that task required one humbly to permit God to more fully reveal himself -- for behind the symbol is the friendly force that guides the universe and works for good. God is not only symbol but a reality that informs and molds those who open themselves to him. King motivated individuals to discover the revelation of this love in their lives and in human activity. He saw power involved in all life’s arenas -- personal, economic and political -- because contests are never simply between force and force or authority and authority. Force and authority could always be brute or legitimate, oppressive or liberating, unjust or just. Because the ultimate power is that of love, one is drawn to work for righteousness and to temper with love one’s understanding of justice.

Since King’s death several seminal works on justice have appeared and many crusades fired by righteous moral indignation have begun, but few have acknowledged, as did King, the necessity of love. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that if one sought only to establish justice one would produce something less than justice. This has surely been true since King’s death. Equal rights for men and women and ever-more radical approaches to justice have been pursued without King’s moderation and restraint. His stress upon love may have led to a type of conservatism, but it also prepared the ground for reconciliation. Something very important died when, social critics and reformers ceased trying to make love an important ingredient in social policy. Social Darwinism has returned to the strategies and programs of both conservatives and liberals: the desire now is to have winners and losers. Some are to die because there are no rules, others are to die because the rules demand that they die. The strategy may incite the losers to fight more, but this is not often the case. It is true, however, that the rich, the powerful and the whites usually win, and the minorities and the Third World usually lose. The gap between rich and poor has increased, the number of homeless is growing, the nation has come to accept 7 per cent unemployment as economic success, and the existence of a trapped underclass is perceived as normal.

Moreover, there is no political will to fight poverty or other domestic injustices that are not prevalent among the middle class. The main concerns are cutting the budget and our taxes, enlarging the private sector through either deregulation or public-private partnership, and encouraging greed, on the belief that if all persons are sufficiently greedy there will be no poor. Our land is fast becoming insensitive to the losers because we are told that their fate is the result of the operation of the market, the absence of talents and abilities, or the failure of character. Conservatives and liberals tell us that the solution is toughness -- a code word, it seems, for Social Darwinism. The goals of both conservatives and liberals would be greatly advanced if they, like King, were to recognize that love is necessary for social cohesion, especially in a nationally, racially and religiously plural state. Niebuhr was correct in insight and King in insight and practice: without love every endeavor toward justice can only produce something less than justice. If we could incorporate this insight into our present approaches to social justice or even social stability, we could take a positive step toward improving our society.

A significantly more just society will acknowledge King’s insistence that love entails a concern for good means as well as a good will. King sought always to inculcate this in his followers and to carry it out in his campaigns. His efforts led many blacks and a few whites to endure suffering and death in the face of white violence. Eventually some activists rejected this idea and adopted some questionable tactics and strategies to fight injustice. Admittedly, leaders cannot completely control their followers, yet few who advocated nonviolence were as scrupulous about it as was King. Those blacks and whites who rejected his teaching regarding the coherence of the means and ends also frequently adopted attitudes of hatred, blame and desire for victory over those they believed to be the oppressors. King sought to exclude these attitudes by understanding God and the universe in terms of love and power and by insisting that means and ends cohere.

The consequences of King’s convictions are momentous. South Africa daily reminds us that love and nonviolent action frequently entail suffering and death with little or no increase in justice. The oppressor’s good conscience may be awakened if at all, only after numerous persons are murdered with impunity and some dismayed third parties threaten the oppressor. It is difficult to know how best to work toward justice and reconciliation in these situations. I cannot recommend King’s position with his absolute conviction. I am persuaded. however, that his concern for the coherence of means and ends is necessary for achieving justice and breaking the cycle of violence. I am also persuaded that in the United States in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s it is the proper strategy, even if not in South Africa, Latin America or the Middle East. King sought to practice it everywhere; I recommend it now only in respect to America’s domestic and international responsibilities. Our means must cohere with our ends.

Certainly the policies of the Reagan administration, whether one agrees with their results or not, are undermined by their means. Examples found in its policies on civil and human rights, national health care, church-state issues and judicial appointments lead me to conclude that the administration uses any means necessary to gain the desired ends. The strategy is working and may determine national policy for at least a generation. Yet like many short-term-oriented business decisions, the immediate profits are secured at the risk of the corporation or the entire industry. A day of reckoning will come and delayed justice will prevail.

If God is love and power and his concern is justice, then, as King stated, unjust means will finally ensure only an unjust and fractious society. Some advocates of black power, liberation theology and more radical approaches to social change would also use any means necessary. The rightness of King’s position to approach our present serious social problems is clear compared to the relative and morally ambiguous nature of these alternatives. Not sharing King’s concern for just means has not enabled us to avoid suffering. Rather, we have only imposed more suffering upon the oppressed and poor, and for a longer period of time and with a diminished possibility for redemption. "By any means necessary" may appeal to some because it promises full exploitation of every avenue to liberation, but its failure to use only just means results ultimately in creating more suffering and evil. The children of light should be as wise as or wiser than the children of darkness, but should not mistake cleverness or dirty tricks for God’s wisdom. For God’s wisdom, like King’s teaching, often appears to both religious and worldly persons as foolishness and weakness.

This year has provided us with a new national symbol: Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. It is also the year in which we will celebrate the centennial of another national symbol: the Statue of Liberty. Both symbols point to America as a land of liberty, or at least the promise of liberty. Both also suggest that liberty cannot be gained without a struggle. Those who came freely -- the immigrants -- and those who came in chains -- the black slaves -- had to endure great privations before they could achieve full citizenship. It may be propitious that King Day has come first. It can remind us that those who so cherished liberty for themselves were willing to enslave and exploit others; that a civil war and long years of struggle were required before the nation legally ended slavery, segregation and discrimination and attempted to redress the harm done to the conquered native people.

Even now we have not achieved full equality between the white European immigrants, the native Americans, the children of black slaves from Africa and the newer immigrants from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. All these people must struggle if they are to gain the liberty promised. Yet if the land is to be good and the nation is to love unity, we must emphasize, even more than we did on the first King Day, his conviction that only love can truly unite men and women of diverse cultures, religions, races and classes, for we all possess equally the dignity and respect that the God of love and power conferred upon us. In light of that conviction, conservatives and liberals could repossess the love that makes possible justice, social policies and practices in which just means and ends cohere.

Taxing Church Property: An Imminent Possibility?

In 1977 the chief counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, the late John Baker, warned of a coming crisis for the church over the issue of property taxation. Because a growing population was placing increasing demands on the government for public services, Baker was convinced that government would begin to look for additional sources of revenue, and that church property would be a prime target for taxation.

What was clear to Baker in 1977 is even more obvious in 1986. Government obligations and deficits have continued to escalate, pushing the federal debt ceiling higher and higher. The Reagan administration has responded to the crisis by trying to shift many social programs down to the state level. The result has been -- and will continue to be -- an enormous burden on states’ already strained budgets.

The potential impact of this shift on churches becomes apparent when one realizes that the average local government receives 64 per cent of its general revenue from property taxes and that churches own a vast amount of untaxed property. In 1976, one study estimated that church property was worth at least $118 billion (Martin A. Larson and C. Stanley Lowell, Praise the Lord for Tax Exemption [Robert B. Luce, 1969]) In times of budget difficulty, it is only natural that churches will be considered for taxation.

To be sure, state and local government budgets have been strained before with little threat to churches’ tax-exempt status. This time, however, courts have made it possible to remove the property tax exemption currently enjoyed by the churches. To understand the courts’ dramatic shift it is necessary to understand the history of the exemption.

The notion of tax exemption for church property is an old one. Genesis 47:26 records Pharaoh exempting the priests’ land from taxation, and Ezra 7:14 indicates that none of the priests, Levites, singers, porters or ministers of the house of God were to be charged tax, toll or custom. In the days of Roman Emperor Constantine, church buildings and the land surrounding them were exempt. Centuries later, European countries continued the tradition of exemption, albeit because the church frequently controlled the state.

In the U.S., property tax exemption for churches began in colonial days and continued with the birth of the new nation. In 1802, for instance, the Seventh Congress specifically exempted religious bodies from real estate taxes. On the state level, specific exemptions from property taxes for churches were established in Virginia in 1777, New York in 1799, and the city of Washington in 1802. "The exemptions [for churches have continued uninterrupted to the present day," Justice William 3. Brennan has said. ‘They are in force in all 50 states" (quoted by Leo Pfeffer in "The Special Constitutional Status of Religion," Taxation and the Free Exercise of Religion, edited by John Baker [Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, 1978], p. 711).

The Supreme Court’s shift away from the time-honored position of tax exemption first became apparent in 1970 when the court handed down its opinion in Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York. Walz had sued to enjoin the New York City Tax Commission from granting property tax exemption to religious organizations for properties used solely for religious worship. He argued that the exemptions indirectly required him to make a contribution to religious bodies and thereby violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. In a close 5-4 decision, the court held that exempting church property was permissible, but not constitutionally required.

Many church groups filed amicus curiae briefs urging that the court declare a constitutional requirement of property tax exemption for churches. However, the court sidestepped this question, preferring to focus instead on the establishment clause. The court reasoned that property tax exemption differed from a tax subsidy -- which would be impermissible under the entanglement principle of the free-exercise clause -- because:

the government does not transfer part of its revenue to churches but simply abstains from demanding that the church support the state. . . . There is no genuine nexus between tax exemption and establishment of religion.

Had the court ruled that the tax exemption was a subsidy, there is little doubt that the 5-4 decision would have been reversed and the exemption declared unconstitutional.

In 1972 the federal courts began making the same shift. In Christian Echoes National Ministry, Inc. v. U.S., the Tenth Circuit Court addressed what the Walz decision had sidestepped, and held that "tax exemption is a privilege, a matter of grace rather than a right."

The major shift of the Supreme Court came in 1983 when, in Regan v. Taxation with Representation, the court held 8-3 that tax exemption was equivalent to a tax subsidy. The question before the court involved tax exemption for nonprofit organizations -- religious, charitable, scientific, public-safety-oriented, literary or educational. Justice William H. Rehnquist spoke for the court:

Both tax exemptions and tax deductibility are a form of subsidy that is administered through the tax system. A tax exemption has much the same effect as a cash grant to the organization of the amount of tax it would have to pay on its income.

The significance of this decision is often overlooked. If tax exemption is a form of subsidy, then church property tax exemption is a clear violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. All that is necessary to make church property tax exemption a thing of the past is for an irate taxpayer who is tired of high taxes to file suit to force churches to pay their "fair share." With the Regan v. Taxation precedent in effect, the court could easily slip from the 5-4 Walz v. Tax Commission position and rule property tax exemption for religious institutions to be unconstitutional.

Another omen of the impending ill is found in the Bob Jones University v. U.S. decision, which was issued the day after Regan v. Taxation. In Bob Jones, the court declared that religious schools that are tax-exempt or that receive tax-deductible contributions must comply with government policy or lose their tax-deductible status. Bob Jones University had been following religiously motivated practices that had the effect of discriminating against blacks. The court upheld the Internal Revenue Service’s decision to withdraw the university’s right to receive tax-deductible contributions because discrimination was contrary to public policy.

The danger of the Bob Jones decision is that if the university can be forced to comply with public policy in order to retain its tax status, then all other nonprofit institutions -- with churches listed first in the tax regulation -- can be forced to do likewise. The logical end of the Bob Jones decision would be to take away the tax-exempt status of churches that actively oppose U.S. military involvement in Central America, that speak out against current policy on nuclear weapons, or that provide sanctuary to aliens in violation of Immigration and Naturalization Service policy.

When Regan v. Taxation is linked with Bob Jones, the court’s direction on the question of tax exemption for churches is clear: the foundation has been laid for taxing church property and perhaps even church income.

First, tax exemption for churches has helped a pluralistic society in which a broad spectrum of religious perspectives -- including irreligion -- can flourish. Such pluralism safeguards against extremism and should be maintained.

Second, taxing church property and income would destroy the free exercise of religion that the Bill of Rights seeks to protect. The old principle that the power to tax is the power to destroy is still valid. In regard to taxing door-to-door religious solicitation, the court held in Murdock v. Pennsylvania in 1943:

The power to tax the exercise of a privilege is the power to control or suppress its enjoyment. . . . Those who can tax the exercise of this religious practice can make its exercise so costly as to deprive it of the resources necessary for its maintenance.

The power to tax religious institutions must be construed as the power to limit the free exercise of religion. Levying property taxes upon churches would have the effect of closing the doors of thousands of small congregations that operate on a shoestring. Many downtown churches would be forced out by the property taxes on their valuable land, and their buildings would be replaced by high-rise office complexes.

A third reason for not taxing church property is the excessive government entanglement that such taxation would bring. What agency would be responsible for assessing the value of the property, and how would the value be calculated? To what extent will the government require inspection of church property and, in the process, its records? These are but a few areas of church-state entanglement that would come with church property taxes. Of course, with government intervention comes government regulation, which could extend into many aspects of church life. Such entanglement must be viewed as unconstitutional.

As the budget deficits of the federal, state and local governments increase, the possibility of taxing church property also rises -- despite the long history of tax exemption. To help avert such an occurrence, religious groups must become alert to court actions on church-state issues, and they must become more vocal in asserting the constitutionality of church property tax exemption.

Confidentiality and Child Abuse: Church and State Collide

In 1984, John Mellish, pastor of the Margate Church of the Nazarene, was sentenced to 60 days in a Florida jail for refusing to reveal the substance of a penitential conversation with a parishioner who had admitted to sexual abuse of a child. After a night in jail, he was released on bail pending appeal. Some time later, Florida law changed and his sentence was overturned.

The Mellish case highlights a growing concern that clergy confidentiality may be in danger as the nation’s concern over child abuse increases. Although this issue has received little attention, it seems inevitable that mandatory reporting laws will become a battleground for the conflicting interests of church and state. Approximately 35 states have statutes requiring clergy to report even the suspicion of child abuse or neglect regardless of the ramifications. Failing to do so subjects clergy to civil or criminal penalties. The Family Code of Texas is typical of these state statutes. "A person commits an offense," the code reads, "if the person has cause to believe that a child’s welfare has been or may be further adversely affected by abuse or neglect and knowingly fails to report in accordance with Section 34.02 of this Code" (Section 34.04) This is augmented by another section that describes who is exempt from the provisions:

In any proceeding regarding the abuse or neglect of a child or the cause of any abuse or neglect, evidence may not be excluded on the ground of privileged communication except in the case of communications between attorney and client [Sec. 34.07].

Several phrases in these sections merit careful scrutiny. The first passage requires a person not only to report child abuse, but also to report child neglect. Thus, if a single mother works to support her family and must leave her children unattended for a few hours after school, it could be construed as neglect and must be reported. Similarly, welfare mothers who habitually run low on food during the last week of the month would have to be reported to the authorities for child neglect. If the law were strictly followed, the amount of reporting that would be required of a minister in a poor congregation would be staggering.

Second, the statute requires anyone with "cause to believe" that neglect or abuse has occurred or may occur to make a report. Thus, even if a minister is not positive that abuse or neglect has occurred, he or she must report a suspicion.

Notice also that only the attorney-client relationship is exempt. Husbands and wives are required to turn each other in; doctors must report on their patients; and ministers are required to report on their parishioners, even if the information was learned in counseling or confession.

Finally, notice that the code requires the minister to disclose any information on suspected child abuse or neglect in "any proceeding." It follows that the minister may be forced to violate the sanctity of the confessional by testifying at the police station, in a pretrial hearing, in court, before a grand jury or even before the legislature.

The effect of Texas’s typical law is clear. The minister must not only testify about suspected or actual child abuse or neglect, but he or she must take the initiative in reporting those suspicions. Thus ministers are being asked to violate a sacred and moral trust to volunteer information about people who have come to them in confidence for help.

One must also understand the potential for backlash from the betrayed party. The suspected abuser -- who was reported by his or her minister -- may well take out his or her anger on the innocent child. If the state’s investigation does not turn up enough evidence to make a case, the suspected abuser may retaliate by causing further injury to the child. Any help and protection the minister could have offered has been greatly undermined by such codes.

Besides the practical objections to mandatory child abuse reporting laws, there is a constitutional objection. Mandatory reporting laws forcing the disclosure of confidential penitential information must be seen as a violation of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. In 1972, the Supreme Court declared in Wisconsin v. Yoder that the state violates free-exercise rights if it infringes upon a sincerely held religious practice in such a way as to affect its exercise. Such an infringement is permissible only when the state has compelling public interest, and even then the state must act in the least intrusive manner. Mandatory reporting laws clearly fail all three tests.

First, spiritual counseling and confession clearly are sincerely held religious practices and are integral to the church’s ministry. As early as 554 A.D., priests who disclosed confessions were severely punished (William Harold Tiemann and John C. Bush, The Right to Silence: Privileged Communications and the Law [Abingdon, 1983], p. 35) By the close of the ninth century, priests revealing the matter of a confession were deposed and exiled for life (p. 36) In the Catholic tradition, confession is seen as a sacrament that conveys grace.

Second, the mandatory child abuse reporting statutes also fail the Wisconsin v. Yoder tests because they affect religious practice. If clergy are forced to reveal a confession, people will refrain from penance or counseling. This effect was noticed as early as the ninth century by the archbishop of Reims, who said, "There is nobody who would not hesitate to utter his sins to his prelate if he feared that he would be shamed or exposed" (John T. McNeill and Helena M. Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance [Columbia University Press, 1938]. p. 409) Knowing that his or her confession of child abuse or neglect will be reported, the offending party will not make confession or seek counseling. Thus the law prevents some people from getting needed help, and this neglect may be damaging both to the child and to society as a whole. If confession and guidance are seen as sacraments, then the state’s action in keeping people from making a free confession actually keeps them from receiving grace, and could arguably affect their very salvation.

Wisconsin v. Yoder does allow the state to affect the free exercise of religion if there is a compelling state interest. Even then, however, the state must act in the least restrictive manner. There is no doubt that the state has a legitimate place in ensuring the safety of children. That legitimate interest does not, however, necessitate broadly altering the free exercise of religion. Surely other ways exist to detect and curb child abuse and neglect without violating religious freedom. The state could obtain the information it needs from sources other than the minister, and these sources could be tapped without violating religious freedom. Teachers, day-care operators and film developers are much better sources for such information (see Susan A. Collier, "Reporting Child Abuse: When Moral Obligations Fail," Pacific Law Journal [October 1983], p. 182) Until these mandatory child-abuse disclosure laws are removed from the books or modified to exclude the clergy-penitent relationship, there is no reason why more ministers could not be imprisoned. Indeed, the Texas attorney general handed down a legal opinion last summer stating that state law required him to prosecute clergy and church workers who failed to report suspicion of child abuse or neglect.

If the state is allowed to insert itself into the confessional in order to gain information on child abuse, then how can the state be prevented from also demanding information from clergy on other crimes such as murder or conspiracy? These offenses are equally harmful to human life and society in general. Opening the door of the confessional to the state only invites further abuses of religious liberty.

For the sake of the children and for the protection of religious liberty, the church must make every effort to amend the current mandatory child-abuse disclosure laws. Until such changes are achieved, clergy should make every effort to maintain the therapeutic relationship with the suspected abuser, while working to ensure the child’s safety. All means of counseling and spiritual guidance should be used to help the offender, and he or she may even be encouraged to seek other professional help. But clergy should not violate their sacred and moral trust by reporting the suspected offender.

The Bible and Public Policy

Several months ago a friend visited Nicaragua under the auspices of the "Witness for Peace" program. His first sermon upon returning challenged the congregation to write to the president and congressional representatives in protest of the U.S. effort to overthrow the Nicaraguan government and the U.S. support for the oppressive government in El Salvador. The text for his sermon was the story of Naboth’s vineyard in I Kings 21. He drew analogies between Ahab and the U.S. on the one hand, and Naboth and Nicaragua on the other. As one would expect, his sermon drew a lot of criticism from members of the congregation, most of whom are probably staunch Republicans. But the sermon also bothered me -- a liberal Democrat. After church I told him I had problems with his use of the Bible. "Do you mean to imply that there’s a foreign policy for the U.S. in the Bible?" I asked. "Yes!" he answered. And the debate began.

Ever since that conversation I have been increasingly wary of any appeal to the Bible as an authority for constructing public policy, foreign or domestic. To explore further the relationship between the Bible and public policy, I intend to describe how the Bible has been used in recent public-policy statements, provide a critique of that use, and finally offer some remarks about the appropriate relationship between the Bible and discussions of public policy.

The speeches of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan provide an instructive contrast regarding the relationship between the Bible and public policy, especially since both presidents have been closely associated with Christian groups. For all the hoopla about President Carter’s "born-again" Christianity and his regular attendance at Sunday school (where he taught the Bible) , he rarely referred to the Bible in public. Perhaps his most celebrated use of Scripture was at the signing of the Camp David accords, where in reference to Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt he cited the famous beatitude from Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." In his other speeches, he almost never referred to the Bible, even in emphasizing human rights. Thus, though Carter was as well versed in the Bible as any president in history, Scripture had very little public role in his administration.

An indication of why the Bible played so little a part in Carter’s public discussion may be detected in the text he chose to have the Bible opened to for his swearing-in ceremony. The passage was Micah 6:8: "He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" This passage reflects Carter’s way of relating his personal faith to his role as president. It seems to point especially to the private arena of his faith. No doubt he felt guided by that faith as president, but it was not something that he sought to inject into the realm of policy debates.

This approach contrasts sharply with President Reagan’s use of the Bible. To what passage was the Bible opened for the swearing-in ceremony at his inaugurals? It was II Chronicles 7:14: "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." This passage suggests a public, not a private, vision. It makes a public charge to the nation as God’s people, "my people who are called by my name.

In 1984 President Reagan again spoke at the National Association of Religious Broadcasters convention, where he stated: "1983 was the year more of us read the Good Book. Can we make a resolution here today: that 1984 will be the year we put its great truths into action?" Again he affirmed: "Within the covers of that single Book are all the answers to all the problems that face us today -- if only we’d read and believe" (Christianity Today, March 2, 1984, p. 38). What does it mean to put the Bible’s "great truths" into action? What are the problems for which it provides answers? Reagan went on to assert his opposition to abortion and his support of school prayer (tuition tax credits were also mentioned in his 1983 speech) He ended by quoting John 3:16, after which he received a standing ovation. In this context, then, he used the Bible to secure the support of conservative evangelicals and to link the Bible to their social-policy goals.

President Reagan has also appealed to the Bible to support fiscal and military policy. In 1985, before a group of business and trade representatives, and then before the NARB annual convention (which he hasn’t missed in three years) , he used Jesus’ parable about counting the cost of discipleship (Luke 14:31-32) to support his proposed increases in the military budget. He introduced the biblical passage by saying, "The Scriptures are on our side on this." Thus, for President Reagan, the Bible can serve as an appropriate authority for a specific policy.

The president is by no means alone in appealing to the Bible as an authority for public policy. Indeed, opponents of Reagan’s policies also appeal to Scripture. This is especially the case in liberal Christian circles, where the Bible is appealed to in support of the sanctuary movement and nuclear arms reduction, and in attacking the role of the U.S. in Central America. President Reagan’s appeals are made publicly, whereas liberal Christian appeals are usually made within the church, especially in the mainline Protestant denominations. But conservative and liberal Christians alike use the Bible in support of specific policy positions.

The overarching problem with the use of the Bible in public-policy debates is the implicit assumption by both conservative and liberal Christians that the Bible somehow addresses the U.S. as a nation. But to assume so is to misconstrue the nature of the Bible, the character of the people of God and the proper basis for public-policy discussion in a democratic society.

To use the Bible in public-policy discussion is to take for granted that somehow it is the nation’s book, that it has a legitimate claim in the public arena. While this may be an accurate account of the relationship between the Hebrew Scriptures and ancient Israel, it is not true of the relationship between the Christian Bible and the United States. When my friend preached his sermon equating Ahab with the U.S. and Naboth with Nicaragua, his critique implied that the U.S. is like ancient Israel in its covenant responsibilities to God. In doing so, he was in principle no different from Jerry Falwell, who seeks to "turn America back to God." Though his conclusions about what the U.S. should do differ from those Falwell reaches, both assume that the Bible does address U.S. policy.

And so the question must be raised: Whom does the Scripture address? Who is the intended audience? It must be stated clearly that the Bible does not address the public at large, let alone public-policy issues. Rather, it speaks to the people of God, the community of faith. It is the church’s book, the synagogue’s book, which bears witness to God’s redemptive activity in the past, present and future. As a witness to God’s activity and presence, it issues a call to faith, a call to repentance, a call to commitment and a call to be in the world but not of it.

This does not mean that the Bible provides no guidance to Christians as individuals or as a community regarding how to live in the world. It does mean that attempts to legislate public policy on the basis of Christian ethics found in the Bible are illegitimate. Attempts to do so approach idolatry by turning Christian ethics into that which it simply cannot be -- of the world. For the internal life of Christian community the Bible indeed may play a constructive role for social ethics -- bearing witness to the variety of shapes and expressions of faith among the earliest Christians. But to press the Bible beyond the bounds of Christian community is to forget that the world is not the same as the community of faith.

Those who use the Bible in public-policy discussion must implicitly assume in some way that a particular society can or should be identified with the covenant community of God. Clearly this is President Reagan’s assumption, or perhaps his hope, regarding America. This assumption clearly runs counter to the Christian understanding, expressed in the New Testament, that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female -- and, we should add, neither black nor white, Republican nor Democrat, Russian nor American -- for all believers are one in Christ. Christian community transcends the national and social barriers we have erected. By so doing it anticipates and points to the Kingdom of God, though it does not presume to establish that kingdom in God’s stead.

Again, it must be stressed that conservative Christians are not alone in claiming that the Bible addresses public policy. Liberal Christians make the same mistake. The only difference between conservative and liberal Christian use of the Bible in public-policy discussion is the social policies they advocate and the biblical proof texts they manipulate. In neither case is the Bible used solely to encourage, challenge and edify the community of faith as it struggles to discern what it means to be the eschatological people of God who are in but not of the world.

Furthermore, to use the Bible in public-policy discussion violates the proper basis of discussion in a democratic society. Those who appeal to the "founding fathers" to justify such use need to look more carefully at those figures. Scholar Mark Noll, who has carefully examined the place of the Bible in American history and culture, concludes that "the political figures who read the Bible in private rarely, if ever, betrayed that acquaintance in public" ("The Bible in Revolutionary America," The Bible in American Law, Politics, and Political Rhetoric, edited by I. T. Johnson [Fortress, 1985], p. 43) Certainly there were devout Christians among the founding fathers and mothers of our nation, but there were probably more who would be considered "secular humanists" by the contemporary Christian right. Indeed, the individual most responsible for guaranteeing religious freedom in the U.S., Thomas Jefferson, was an avowed deist. In a 1779 preamble to a bill on religious freedom introduced in the Virginia legislature, Jefferson wrote:

Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics and geometry; therefore the proscribing of any citizen as unworthy of the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to office of public trust . . . unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which he has a natural right.

Christianity may be the tacit religion of the U.S., but it is not the "official" religion of the country. Those who would use Scriptures in public-policy discussion forget this, and improperly assume that the Bible can be used legitimately to address the nation. They forget that the Bible is neither the preamble to the U.S. Constitution nor an amendment to it.

When individuals do use the Bible to provide proof texts for public policy, they must be declared out of bounds by those who uphold the Constitution and by the church. Indeed, the church should stand aghast at any co-opting of its Scriptures in the realm of public-policy debate, for that is not the realm in which Scripture functions authoritatively. As Richard John Neuhaus appropriately commented regarding President Reagan’s use of Luke 14: "I think the President would be well-advised to make the argument for his military budget and strategies on the basis of public reasoning rather than invoking dubious biblical authority" (New York Times, February 6, 1985, section 4, p. 14). Public reasoning should always be the basis for public policy -- reasoning which does not find its ground in Christian or biblical positions.

It might be objected that the approach I’ve outlined leans toward a sectarian understanding of the church. To an extent this is true. The Bible could be seen as something that separates the church from society at large rather than as that which impels the church to be engaged in public-policy discussion. However, the Bible may still impel the church to be engaged in fighting for justice in the world without being appealed to in debates on public policy. Why? Because seeking justice is not an exclusively Christian position. Being a Christian does not mean that one cannot argue for justice on the basis of public reasoning.

A second objection, related to the first, is that the position advocated here might seem to bifurcate the individual into a public secular half and a private Christian half, each operating independently of the other. This is not what I am suggesting. Rather, I am proposing that it is possible for a Christian to claim the lordship of Christ over the whole of her or his life and at the same time respect another who does not make that claim. Furthermore, I suggest that one way to demonstrate this respect is by agreeing to discuss public policy on common grounds.

As Christians, we are in the world, and must act responsibly. As American Christians, we are privileged to participate in a government of, by and for the people. We must not abuse this privilege by either ignoring our responsibility or by thinking we can and should use it as an opportunity to establish God’s kingdom here and now. Rather, as Christians we too must appeal to public reason when debating public policy.

The Bible neither has nor makes any claims over public reason. It is the book of the eschatological people of God, the community of faith. In the church it plays a crucial role as a testimony to God’s presence and actions and to the human struggle to live faithfully in Christian community. But in the realm of public-policy discussion, the Bible has no place.

Theologizing in a Win/Lose Culture

Ours is a win/lose culture: the ethos of our society invites, motivates and encourages us -- especially if we are middle-class -- to be winners in life. We live in an age of executive game-players, superstars, Nobel prizewinners, bionic celebrities and successful entrepreneurs who have captured our imagination and attention. We all seem to feel the pressure to win at something, sometime, somewhere. In such a culture, there seems to be no room for anyone who fails -- whether in sports, at the office, in the classroom or at home. A businessman expressed the prevalent mood succinctly: “I win in everything I set out to do. That’s why I’m successful. I hate to lose.” This comment was made during a discussion of the sport of racquetball. “I know I can’t win at racquetball,” he said. “Losing is too depressing for me; that’s why I don’t play.” If this is the prevailing attitude of our culture, some questions need to be raised: (1) Is winning really everything? (2) Is there a positive or redemptive side to failure? (3) What does the cross offer, to a win/lose culture?

What else is there in life but winning? We might not ask such a crass question of one another directly, but the presence and pressure of winning are felt whether we are trying to succeed for ourselves or for our institutions and organizations. We may employ pious clichés to cover up our naked drive to control, influence or persuade, but our intentions cannot be disguised. From “winning souls for Christ” to using self-actualizing techniques, our intention is to win in any situation. Survival in a win/lose culture dictates that we battle for our lives individually and collectively. Our larger self-interest encompasses the concern that our children and grandchildren be winners as well.

The impetus for winning is demonstrated in the numerous self-help books that are best sellers, from Dale Carnegie’s durable How to Win Friends and Influence People (over 7 million copies sold) to Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking (5.2 million copies sold) to the current favorites -- Robert Ringer’s Winning Through Intimidation and Looking Out for Number One and Michael Korda’s Power How to Get It, How to Use It and Success! The vast appeal of these books suggests that Americans are disenchanted with who they are. We strive restlessly to be more than we are; many of us see ourselves as losers to some degree and thus we are motivated to study these self-help books in order to enhance our potential for winning.

I

The hope for success and the fear of failure are perhaps the two greatest burdens middle-class Americans carry on their shoulders. We seem to be looking for some formula that will usher us into the winner’s circle on a permanent basis. Who is really beyond the magnetism of winning? Even monks wish to succeed in their acts of contemplation, charitable organizations in their goodwill efforts, and churches in their growth.

The more successes one achieves, the greater the addiction to success may be. A winning streak can become a diabolical chain that nurtures and contributes to our anxieties, anguish, restlessness and sense of incompleteness. In short, too much success may be dangerous to health and the sense of wholeness.

The person who lacks the courage to admit imperfection is forced to deal in appearances. To maintain a pretense of winning” is a façade, a false front. This mask contributes to the identity crisis of individuals who appear to be winners, but who are actually losers in their search to find authentic selfhood.

The confession of sins in the church’s liturgy is not a pro forma exercise. It is a confession of human failings, helping us to maintain our perspective. God does not expect perfection, nor does he demand winners. When sin is taken seriously, the burden of perfectionism is removed. God knows that we are not perfect; everyone’s life is tainted with failure.

This human propensity toward failure or incompleteness informs the traditional concept of original sin. Incompleteness, imperfection and pride characterize our human situation. Belief in original sin indicates that perfection is beyond reach; the salvatory process yielding wholeness of life is a gift, not an achievement. To seek to achieve something noble on self-merit is to deceive oneself. From God’s vantage point, human history is essentially a track of broken relationships; this is the recurring theme of the biblical narratives.

Original sin informs us that there are no absolute victories. Every win is tainted by failure. Self-respect and self-esteem from a Christian perspective are not based on successes in society. Our worth is measured by the quality of our relationships with God and each other. From the biblical perspective, any victory at the price of a broken relationship is really a loss. To understand this concept is to be liberated from the win/lose structures of our culture. Life is more than an enlarged scoreboard to record wins and losses. Life does not require us to win; it asks us instead to grow. We can do this from our losses as well as from our successes. God invites us to be pilgrims and stewards of our lives, to see life as a gift which grows in meaning with experience. Growth is nurtured through our relationships. Theologically and biblically there are no winners, only redeemed sinners. Unlike our secular culture, which rushes to anoint its winners during their lifetime, the church declares its saints posthumously, many years later. The church is aware that its saints are simply sinners revised and edited.

No one (other than a masochist) likes to lose. Losing isn’t fun, and we shouldn’t pretend that it is. One of the most tragic stories of losing is the biblical struggle between King David and Absalom, his son (II Sam. 13-19). When the announcement finally reaches David that Absalom is dead, having lost the battle to dethrone his father and rule over Israel, one of the most emotionally charged and pathetic scenes in the Bible is described (II Sam. 18:24 -- 19:4). What a tragedy for David to learn that his rebellious son, Absalom, has been killed in battle trying to defeat his father’s army!

Absalom lost his life, David lost a son, and the nation was divided and bloodstained with the lives of many. No wonder “the people stole into the city that day as people steal in who are ashamed when they flee in battle.” No one felt like celebrating David’s victory, even though the messengers from battle tried to cheer the king. On that battle-fatigued day everyone felt like a loser, and the king’s grief in particular cast a shadow on them all.

In such struggles it is not possible to distinguish winners from losers. Actually, in many circumstances success and failure are interchangeable. Success can lead to failure, and failure can point to new ventures. While we are at times aware of the complex relationship between success and failure, a delusion persists in dividing the world into heroes and duds.

II

As we learn to accept losing as a necessary part of living, we might acquire some valuable insights. First, we need to recognize the inevitability of losing; none of us is immune to its sting. While we are not eager to fail, the unhappy reality is that we are all vulnerable and subject to experiences and feelings of failure.

Losing can be valuable because it reminds us of our finitude. We often forget that we are creatures with limitations. It almost seems that we must experience failure to be reminded of the futility of our personal striving and the frailty of our existence.

Losing also gives us the opportunity to re-examine our goals and outlooks. Perhaps our dreams have been too self-serving or too unrealistic. Perhaps, like Absalom, we have been expending energy in false battles and are endangering our lives. Perhaps, like David, we have been defending our kingdoms and have tossed aside precious relationships. Losing can be an occasion for reflection and re-evaluation.

Then, too, losing can remind us that our life is in need of redemption. It is an opportunity to renew our relationship with the living God of our faith. As we are reminded of our vulnerability, we learn once again that it is impossible to live alone with our anxieties and failures. In this moment of realization, we are liberated to renew our trust in God’s power and in his purpose for our lives. We need not take fewer risks or be overcome by fears of losing, since we have confidence in God’s power to work through us. Maintaining our trust and obedience in God implies that ultimately there is no losing without the possibility of redemption. God wants to share his kingdom with us. We are his sons and daughters; the Absaloms and Davids of the world can peacefully resolve their conflicts and renew their fellowship in the context of God’s gracious kingdom.

Moreover, we can learn from our failures something of the profundity of Christ’s cross, which has two meanings: crucifixion and resurrection. Crucifixion testifies to failure as perceived by almost all the contemporaries of Jesus, while resurrection points beyond despair and hopelessness. Christian theologizing often moves too quickly to Easter, without pausing sufficiently to contemplate the value of failure symbolized by Good Friday. From the perspective of Easter, we know that Christ’s “losing” experience was not final. Before the resurrection, Good Friday appeared to be the last word on Jesus and his movement. Our present failures (limited to a Good Friday perspective) may also seem to sound that note of finality. This experience of failure and suffering for ourselves and for Jesus is a meaningful bond that has been lost in a success worshiping society.

We need to be aware of the organic relationship between crucifixion and resurrection. We are usually more comfortable with theologies of hope, victory and glory than with theologies of failure, oppression and suffering. We want a triumphant faith. As a consequence we fail to perceive the positive or redemptive side of failure. Recent theologizing on liberation and viewing “theology from below” has sought to be a corrective on this point, but such theologizing has often taken the form of a crusade, interested more in praxis and ideological change than in the restoration of wholeness to Christian thought. This latter emphasis is my concern; any single “theology of . . .” (including a theology of failure) is too limiting to the Christian enterprise. What is needed is a Christian frame of reference that incorporates failure along with forgiveness, liberation and fulfillment.

Finally, losing puts us in touch with our humanity. Through the acceptance and admission of failure we can begin to be freed from its burden. To rationalize all the failures that surround us limits us to a self-imposed prison. On the other hand, to confess our failures enables us to recover our identity and health.

III

Death is the ultimate experience of failure, and it awaits each of us. Death is also the climactic moment in our redemptive process of being united with God: this is why Good Friday, viewed from the vantage point of Easter, is not black Friday.

Our incompleteness, when confessed openly to ourselves and to others, is the beginning of relief and redemption for the individual. Our failing experiences can unite us; we are co-sinners before God. To say otherwise is to struggle in vain and to live in pretense, entrapped by the boundaries of a culture which measures our worth by a scoreboard of successes and failures. Acknowledging our status as failures actually liberates us from playing unrealistic games. Accepting God’s evaluation of us is the beginning of our acceptance of each other; furthering the redemptive process of our own identity frees us from playing games and from the diabolic pressure of wins and losses.

Jesus was crucified with two robbers -- two “losers” (Mark 15: 16-32). The reality of this fact struck me when I taught a course on ethics and human values in a maximum-security state prison. The inmates who elected to take my course were murderers, robbers, dope pushers, rapists, forgers. Discussion of ethics and human values among these 20 inmates was a revelation to me not only of their failings but of mine as well. In reality we are all failures who have cheated in one game or another. Some of our crimes are tolerable to society, and others have yet to be discovered and codified. The inmates in prison are the ones who have been caught and are paying the price demanded of them by society.

Jesus identified with the prisoner’s lot and was crucified with robbers. How often we are tempted to rationalize and theologize ourselves away from this scene! We find ourselves building higher those illusory walls that separate us from prison inmates. Yet there is no escape from our failures.

We can, however, displace the darkness of Good Friday, the sense of abandonment, if we believe that God will accept us despite our failures. This is the message that the crucified Jesus conveyed to the two robbers; the insight was grasped by one, while the other stubbornly refused to acknowledge his own failing. But Christian theology states clearly and supportingly that God affirms us regardless of our lack of achievements.

The good news that announces God’s acceptance and affirmation of us is not based on our achievements and failures; it is a gift communicated through faith. This is the meaning behind the doctrine of justification by faith. To be justified by faith implies a new chance at life. This new chance is not predicated on the emergence of any hidden merits; it is a gift of life from God, a gift first of birth and then of rebirth. What ushers us into this process of rebirth is our willingness to confess our failures and receive God’s forgiveness. Simply put, the Christian life begins with our reception of God’s affirmation of us. We are loved and were created in his image. A confession of our failures -- our incompleteness -- recalls the image of God in each of us,

There is a sense of release and joy when we are emancipated from the win/lose syndrome. We can really begin to live, not just exist. Too often we hear of individuals waiting for early retirement from their jobs so that they can “begin to live.” What an illusion it is to postpone the celebration of life for some later date that may never arrive -- or may fall short of our expectations. We experience true freedom, says Hans Küng, when we are liberated “from dependence on and obligations to the false gods who drive [us] on mercilessly to new achievements: money or career, prestige or power, or whatever is the supreme value for [us]” (On Being a Christian, p. 589). We are freed to celebrate life because we know that we have been affirmed by God; there is no higher source of affirmation for the believer.

IV

The final consequence of our acceptance by God, the fact that we no longer need to prove ourselves, is our release to care genuinely for others. Transcending the struggle for recognition and knowing that we are recognized and loved by One who counts above all others, we are free to try to humanize life around us. Our true fulfillment comes through a sense of gratitude expressed in the rendering of service to others, by which our sense, of being is enhanced.

Theologizing in a win/lose culture is a difficult task; we all feel victimized by the criteria of our society. To say that winning is not everything doesn’t make one a “poor sport” or a masochist. Only as we acknowledge and confess our sense of incompleteness are we able to be freed from the entrapments of a win/lose culture. God accepts us despite our failings. This relationship is not earned; it is a divine gift. Accepted and forgiven, we are ‘liberated to celebrate life. Affirmed and fulfilled by God, we are released to care for others. These affirmations point to the redemptive side of failure, to the God who accepts losers.

Can We Expect Greatness from the Clergy

“Can the laity expect greatness from the clergy?” An active layperson confronted me with that question one day. A successful businessman, he had both a son and a son-in-law in the ministry. He was speaking out of genuine concern for the church and its impact on the public.

The man was not asking his question in a vacuum; he had some particular expectation of the clergy, perhaps one that was not being fulfilled. Was his idea of greatness that parish pastors be Nobel Prize winners? Did he want today’s clergy to emulate the “great pastors” of other eras, some pastoral hero of his own? Or was he simply trying to tell me, a seminary professor responsible for the training of tomorrow’s clergy, something of his dissatisfaction with the present practice of ministry? These were half-formulated thoughts and questions flashing through my mind as I listened to him.

How to discern and fulfill the expectations of the laity is a great concern for pastors and theological educators. In a decade of declining church membership, retrenchment and pastoral surpluses, it is imperative that these expectations be heard and acted upon.

The United Presbyterian Church, like other denominations, has been losing members during the past decade. The denomination wants to know why, and it wants to know the laity’s expectations of the church and the professional clergy. A denominational survey on “Church Membership Trends,” reported to the 1976 General Assembly, showed that many of the popular theories for explaining membership losses were ill founded. For instance, relating these losses to (1) increased leisure time, (2) use of and reliance on mass media, (3) influence of science, (4) standard of living, and (5) competition of secular or volunteer organizations cannot be supported since each of these factors was already present and increasing in the 1940s and 50s as well as in the ‘60s.

Instead, the survey indicated that loss of membership was more apt to be caused by the dropping birth rate and a change in values, especially among young people. Young people tend to think out religious and moral questions for themselves, with less reliance on churchly authority. The church is not in the center of their value orientation.

Another factor contributing to loss of membership is an inability to handle conflict situations within the church. Such conflicts often arise in relation to social-action issues, as seen in the disagreement over the 1971 disbursement of United Presbyterian monies for the Angela Davis defense fund. Resolving the subsequent conflict in many local situations either strengthened or defeated the leadership. It appears that church leaders have not been adequately trained to deal with conflict situations, with the result that members become disenchanted during such situations.

The fact that inflated membership rolls are being trimmed of inactive members has been another inadequate explanation for decline, as is the often heard stipulation that absence of theological conservatism and neglect of the Bible may be the reason. The surveys indication was that the rise or fall of membership apparently depends far more on the strength, clarity, warmth and enthusiasm of the local church leadership and program than on its theological viewpoint. This accent on leadership deserves further attention.

The membership report indicated strongly that churches that are growing have vital pastoral leadership. Members have expressed great satisfaction with pastors who show competence in preaching, pastoral calling, communicating warmth and sensitivity to members’ needs, offering pastoral prayers, and generating enthusiasm and spiritual authenticity. “Members of growing congregations perceive their pastors as having more responsibility for church growth and as more able to handle conflict positively and to develop a spirit of unity in the congregation.” In short, such a pastor knows how to develop teamwork within the membership of the church.

The survey bears out that the caliber of leadership is a far more determinative factor in church growth than questions of liberal-versus-conservative positions, or social action versus personal-individual religious experience and expression. This finding does not imply that the theology or conviction of the leader or congregation is of no consequence; “rather, it is to say that the conviction, enthusiasm, warmth and competence with which the Christian faith and life are shared communicate more effectively” One of the report’s conclusions is that, the dangers of “clericalism” notwithstanding, it is absolutely necessary to upgrade the quality of professional leadership if the churches are to grow and if the expectations of the laity are to be met.

To that end, the laity will expect from the ordained ministry in the future

(1) clarity, strength and persuasiveness of Christian conviction and commitment; (2) good preaching and the ability to design and lead meaningful worship; (3) conviction of and commitment to pastoral calling as integral to Christian ministry and pastoral care; (4) deep sensitivity to the needs of people individually and in groups; (5) concern for, dedication to, and skill in working for congregational development and growth as a part of faithfulness, for the nurture and retention of members who show signs of slackening commitment, for the motivation and training of lay persons to work for church growth; (6) capacity to generate enthusiasm in other people, personal warmth, competence, spiritual authenticity; (7) ability to encourage and generate a spirit of unity in a congregation; and (8) organizational development and conflict management skills.

We may ask whether the fulfillment and performance of these expectations will point the clergy in the direction of greatness, whether their fulfillment is even within the realm of possibility, and to what extent they are being met in the current models of ministry.

III

At least eight distinguishable styles of ministry are in existence today. These are: (1) the servant-shepherd, (2) the political prophet, (3) the preacher-teacher, (4) the evangelist-charismatic, (5) the builder-promoter, (6) the manager-enabler, (7) the liturgical priest and (8) the specialized minister, such as hospital chaplain, marriage counselor and so on. Most other distinguishable models of ministry can, I think, be included within these categories, all of which have both positive and negative features. My just-published book Today’s Pastor in Tomorrow’s World (Hawthorn Books) discusses the merits of these styles of ministry. Here, however, I want to direct attention to a more encompassing model: the pastor as grass-roots theologian.

For the most part, clergy today have given up the strenuous task of being pastor-theologians, often in favor of organizational administration. Although that is, of course, important, is it the primary work of an ordained minister? Theological education becomes an expensive detour if administration is ones major preoccupation. Unfortunately, many ministers would be lost in the parish without administrative chores; they would not want to relinquish them. Pastors have neglected their task as the grassroots theologians within the community.

The “happy pastor,” it often appears, is the one involved in some remodeling or building program where administration and its related activities consume almost the entire time. During the building process, the minister is able to bury any lingering guilt feelings over theological responsibilities. Some pastors go so far as to consider involvement with theology too risky an affair, especially during a building program. Theology divides, doesn’t it? Thus it can quickly be dismissed as divisive, a noncontributive factor to the congregation’s life, unity and purity.” In many parishes today the relevant question centers no longer on beliefs, but rather on how the church can become a community of accepting people regardless of what beliefs are held. The heresy of the contemporary church and its ministry lies in an excessive preoccupation with busyness, public relations, and “I’m OK, you’re OK” sessions -- all without theological direction. Isn’t this an effective route to hastening the church’s death?

In our society, who makes significant and prophetic statements concerning the global events of the times? Astronauts, artists, novelists, newscasters -- but for the most part not the clergy. Pastors have undermined their vital role as opinion-makers in society. Harried, tired and ill prepared, they have become inarticulate voices in a world seeking purpose and hope. Where are the interpreters of the Word of God within the events of human life? Where is the theological leadership so clearly lacking in the life of both church and society? Without grass roots theologians, what future will the churches have?

Actually, it is incumbent on every grass-roots pastor to spell out ‘‘the gospel according to Jesus Christ” locally and globally. Unless this is done, pastors will find themselves addicted to textbooks in psychology, sociology and economics as their working frame of reference. Having once abrogated responsibility as grass-roots theologians, pastors then suffer from an identity crisis. The Eternal Contemporary no longer has a clear voice in the community. However, the pastor-theologians who understand their task and learn to think theologically and concretely in the light of new events and happenings will derive deep satisfaction from their labors.

Without such theologizing the church will always be attuned to the culture of the preceding age -- always trying to catch up, but seldom providing leadership. Busy pastors have little time to reflect and to theologize. As a result they tend to be overworked but underemployed, wondering at times whether they are making any contribution to society. Even so, most pastors continue to insist that they are not theologians! Instead, they will strive diligently to program their way out of their dilemma, rather than resort to serious thinking and theologizing within the core of their ministry. The minister is a surgeon with words; the scalpel can cut either way: to heal or to endanger the patient even more. A pastor whose scalpel is dull or rusty is guilty of theological malpractice.

Clergy seeking to become grass-roots theologians must bear in mind four primary tenets.

1. Theology that does not wrestle with life issues is not worthy of people’s attention in the marketplace. Too often theology is merely the sharing of ignorance. It must be more, must speak to and give insight into the puzzling ambiguities and ethical choices confronted each day by individuals.

In seeking relevance the great temptations to tell people only what they want to hear. Relevance in practice so often turns out to be simply the reinforcing of the prejudices and biases found among parishioners. At this level, relevance quickly becomes irrelevant, and the pastor becomes a defender or offender of the status quo -- in either case no more than a pawn among parishioners. Relating theology to life points to a deeper note of relevance; namely, relating biblical truth to the numerous gray zones in which we find ourselves. Applying the biblical truth will never be easy; trade-offs may even be necessary, but at least all parties involved should become aware of the pitfalls andrationalizing processes that dilute our commitments and convictions as believers. It is at this point that the pastor must be a clear and articulate voice, not only having something important to say at that moment, but also through experience learning how to say it.

2. Theology must be not only a matter of verbalizing our faith but also the living out of that faith. The Christian style of life is always a matter of word and deed. We may tend to forget this as we sit through committee meetings boring each other with our “orthodoxy” and busyness. Ministry in its essence is the embodiment of that old yet ever-contemporary story that God loves the world and is in the process of redeeming it. Grass-roots theologians are an extension of that redeeming process, making theological pronouncements incarnate in their locality. The doing of theology in concrete deeds will he the most eloquent testimony of its relationship to life.

Some time ago I asked a group of clergy in a continuing-education course to write a brief essay on the question “Can you picture Ralph Nader as your pastor?” The responses were interesting and thought-provoking. I presented the topic as an experiment to see whether it would be possible to grasp one’s mission as a pastor better in the light of what a well-known crusader is doing. Here is one pastors reply:

My First tendency was rather naturally to answer in the negative to this question because as far as I know Ralph Nader has no personal faith that is witnessed to publicly through his frequent pronouncements about “consumerism.” And yet his seemingly selfless concern about the consumer in relationship to society may strike some resonant chords as well, in terms of a theological concern about man in relationship to his world.

If one accepts the kind of thinking that even the practice of theology must begin at the point of meeting the needs and anxieties of man, then perhaps it could well be said that Ralph Nader could function in the context of a pastor, given that same kind of concern. In the respect that Nader is concerned as well about the basic stewardship of wealth and goods, it does not seem to me to be too far from there to a stewardship of life, which appears to be an essentially theological kind of orientation. Thus I can picture Ralph Nader as a pastor with the assumption that his practice of law would become a practice of theology.

Although I can appreciate that pastor’s attempt to view Nader through the filter of his own profession and discipline, I’m not sure how much sense it would make to Nader. Still, the important challenge to those in the clergy is Nader’s ability to translate his concerns into deeds. He makes mistakes; he has enemies. But he also has the respect of countless millions who see in him an authentic doer of what he believes. His presence challenges the grass-roots theologian to be a doer as well as a speaker of God’s involvement in human life.

3. Theology’s intimidating language must be translated -- and its style streamlined -- for the idiom of the day. It may surprise many a pastor to be told that theological jargon is intimidating to the congregation and the general public. Even the term “theology” itself presents to laypersons difficulties in expressing how they understand it. Even more astounding will be the suspicions of some that the pastor is trying to intimidate them with a “theological” solution to a contemporary issue. Every profession has its “in” language, and not all technical vocabulary should be abandoned. However, what ministers need to learn professionally is a method of translating their technical terms into everyday vocabulary.

We are all laity in regard to each other’s profession or trade, and we constantly need to remind ourselves of this. Each professional’s special vocabulary is intimidating to anyone standing outside that profession. Those who are aware of this fact and consciously work to overcome the resultant alienation are practicing the art of their profession. As the medical doctor must practice the art of medicine along with its science, so must the pastor practice both the art and the science of ministry. The grass-roots theologian is regularly called on to translate the language of theology, a task involving a creative synthesis of the art and science of theology.

When such a synthesis is consciously put into practice, the level of intimidation will be reduced and ministry can take place. Clergy will also discover a need to streamline theological doctrines so that they speak more meaningfully to the idiom of our day. In a technological world that knows no boundaries, the theological enterprise desperately needs to unload yesterday’s inventory of formulas, divisions and agenda in order to embark or, new ventures. Such ventures call for a new style of theologizing, designed for more flexibility amid our numerous revolutions -- social, technical anti informational. To date, theologians have been traveling with cumbersome trunks laden with a theological past -- a difficult position from which to meet the space age’s demands.

VII

4. Theology must seek to integrate the experiences and events of life into a meaningful framework under God. In this case, the pastor must consciously work at being a theological integrator at the grass roots. Everyone is in search of a frame of reference in which to place the events and experiences occurring throughout life. Since as a pilgrim people our theologizing will always be incomplete, the framework will also remain unfinished. In our search for meaning, we will never solve all of life’s mysteries. Finding meaning in the many tragedies of nor lives will he difficult, yet our framework must be sufficiently flexible to include such tragedies. It is incumbent on the grass-roots theologian to be a guide in helping persons build a viable frame of reference under God. The pastor as theological integrator can perform a valuable service in freeing individuals from a sense of being locked in with their past. Exciting possibilities within the grace of God will open to those escaping a narrowly conceived framework. The pastor serving as theological integrator, in fact, will undergird and shape the congregation and the community at large in once again placing trust in God in a meaningful way.

Individuals are searching for relational patterns of meaning between their concepts and their daily experiences. For life in a highly fragmented and specialized society, the pastor as theological integrator can perform a socially unique role in building provisional bridges to enable us to stay in touch with our common humanity fashioned in the image of God.

A need for integrators has been recognized among management and business personnel, and industry is actively recruiting such individuals. Effective integrators speak the language of each of the industry’s specialist groups, and thus are able to work at resolving interdepartmental conflicts. Coming from a cross-specialist perspective, the integrator’s insight enables specialists to see beyond their ghetto. The pastor as integrator can serve a useful function through working for a level of unity among the compartmentalized elements within a community. Individuals need guidance to overcome their fragmented frames of reference. At times we are blind and deaf to the marvelous ways in which God’s grace is operating in the lives of others. The pastor as integrator can provide the overview necessary to help us transcend our tendency to bury ourselves in the ghetto of our own “reality.”

VIII

Can we expect greatness from the clergy? Can the biblical standards for greatness presented in Mark 10:35-45 and Luke 9:46-48 be fulfilled? The answers rest with the entire laos. To illustrate: I recall a visit with some friends who were committed Christians active in church life. Their youngest son, Bob, was a college student. Blessed with a good mind, he was compassionate, attractive and imaginative, capable of succeeding in a number of careers. Bob found church meaningful and respected his pastors; he had on occasion considered becoming a pastor, and I believed that he could make an outstanding contribution in ministry.

Bob’s parents mentioned to me that he was still in a quandary about choosing a particular career. When I inquired, “How about the ministry? Bob would make a great pastor,” there was a long pause. The father began to explain that entering the ministry is really a private affair between God and the individual; parents shouldn’t interfere.

I continued: “If Bob were thinking of becoming a medical doctor or a physicist, how would you feel?” Replied the mother: “We would be thrilled and would encourage him. We know he has ability and we believe he would be dedicated in either field.”

So then I asked: ‘Why is it that as parents you would ‘encourage’ him to become a doctor or physicist, but won’t ‘interfere’ in a possible decision for the pastoral ministry? Becoming a pastor is neither a higher nor lower calling of service than being a doctor or physicist. Belief in the priesthood of all believers implies our universal obligation as followers to commit ourselves to God’s service whatever our choice of career goals. The call to pastoral ministry is no more a ‘private affair’ than the call to any other field of worthy endeavor.”

Never neutral when it comes to career goals for the children, every parent wishes the utmost well-being for them and sometimes gets too involved in interpreting what that welfare ought to be. Bob’s parents agreed, and responded frankly: “At church we have seen both the joys and frustrations of pastors. We wonder if, in the balance, it is really worth what it costs. We love the church, but the hassles our pastors have to face at times are unbelievable We would like to save our own flesh and blood from that kind of grief. Bob can serve the church, as a devoted layperson, just as we have.”

In reflecting on that conversation, I realized that the laity who are most active are the very persons who often prefer that their own sons and daughters avoid careers in the church. Among the many reasons for this trend is the fact that in recent years the church’s inner workings have been revealed; this public exposure has taken its toll, and the ministerial mystique no longer exists. One consequence is that many active laypersons have quietly begun steering their children away from careers in the church. Where, then, will the outstanding leadership and commitment for the future come from? What of the laity’s expectations of greatness from the clergy? Ultimately the answer lies as much with today’s laity as with tomorrow’s clergy. God’s call addresses laity and clergy, presenting the responsibility and the fulfillment of working together in ministry.

The Challenge of John 3:16 for Theological Education

The church stands today -- as it always has -- in a changing world. A visit to any historical museum will show that the world changes and civilizations have risen and fallen through the centuries. In the midst of this historical process, the church’s constant mission is to interpret the event of Jesus Christ and to intercede in his name to a world that is materially and spiritually in need.

As a graduate school of the church, the primary task of a theological seminary is to provide educated leadership for the church in fulfilling this mission. Its specific task is to educate astute interpreters and doers of the Word of God in a clamoring world. As Christ was sent, so too are we commissioned to go forth under the sign of his cross into the marketplaces of our contemporary society, equipped to tell the story encapsuled in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life."

Yet, quite honestly, we feel powerless when confronted by the world. The sights, sounds and smells of this world are not always pleasant; nor can they be caught accurately on our TV screens. The raw realities are intimidating -- even crushing at times -- eclipsing the tiny oasis of hope wherever two, three or more are gathered in his name.

Every day we are caught struggling with our love/hate emotions toward the world. Sometimes we are at a loss to know just how to respond as we fight for survival. Others of us are so preoccupied with skirmishes within our homes, churches or seminary communities that we do not have the energy to confront the larger issues of our society. The church’s current tendency toward spiritual inwardness may be a sign of our poor health. We are losing sight of the larger world that God loves.

During a recent speaking tour to Egypt, I walked with Emile Zaki, an Egyptian pastor and teacher, from his church in a worker’s district of Cairo to the nearby train station. Though it was only 25 minutes long, that walk took me along one of the most exotic pathways of my life. The sights, sounds and smells that surrounded me were an unbelievable mélange. While preoccupied with my own and others’ physical safety, I became momentarily "lost" in the multitude of humanity pressing in upon me, shouting and struggling for their slice of bread. How in God’s name, I thought, can anyone proclaim John 3:16 to this unruly mob and expect a hearing? The scene violated my sense of balance; this very real but foreign world upset my psychic equilibrium.

This encounter reminds me that most of our 20th-century theology originated on the cleanly swept streets of Basel, Zurich. Edinburgh, Tubingen and Marburg -- a long way, both physically and psychologically from the crowded cities and alleys of Seoul, Hong Kong, Cairo or Bombay. The question, then, is whether these theologies of the Occident really apply to the non-Western societies of the vast majority of the world’s population. Is our present understanding of God’s love culturally bound, emotionally as well as intellectually?

How can the love of God ever wrap itself around this entire globe? There is, I’m convinced, an inherent mystery to the width, length and depth of God’s love in Jesus Christ. The biblical reality is that God loves the world and all its humanity; the more difficult question is whether we do. Are we using most of our energies to protect ourselves from the real world, hiding within the sanctuaries of our middle-class homes and suburban shopping centers?

We already know that affluent Christians are a minority when compared to the world’s poor Christians and non-Christians. What we are not so willing to admit is that we are simply too frightened to venture out among the majority. Even faithful missionaries, like the rest of us, live at times by double standards, giving voice to the oppressed and poor, but requiring middle-class standards of shelter in order to maintain a sense of security. I do not intend to be judgmental toward anyone, but only to point out our dilemma: on the one hand, we are challenged to love and accept the world as God does; yet on the other hand, we are aware that oppressive conditions and dirty surroundings weaken our resolve and undermine our witness. This may be precisely why we admire Mother Teresa, Bishop Desmond Tutu and others who compensate for our limited commitment.

What can we do to raise our level of commitment? When all is said and done, this is the paramount question facing theological education. Are we willing to become church leaders who will make a difference? Are we willing to be more demanding of ourselves, working as diligently as our rhetoric claims?

There is, I’m afraid, far more complacency and laziness in our church and seminary communities than we are willing to admit. We seem to want rewards and recognition whenever we do something ‘extra" for Jesus. At times we confuse our discipleship with our compensation package. Perhaps Jurgen Moltmann is correct in suggesting that today’s Christianity demands nothing. The product of organized Christianity today is an institutionalized absence of commitment. A Christianity without demands points to a church without vitality; it suggests an irrelevant gospel that is largely ignored in the marketplaces of the world.

We ourselves must begin working to become leaders who will make a difference; we cannot stand around waiting for our neighbors to take the initiative. But does the church actually want leadership that loves the real world? Perhaps it just wants leaders who are comforting, not challenging. We obviously need both. The issue is whether the church wants to encourage challenging and creative leadership to develop and to confront the status quo. Does the church desire leadership willing to take risks for the world that God loves? Accepting the world around us is the first major hurdle for most of us.

When I was at Yonsei University in Seoul, a Korean pastor asked, "How can you come and tell us how to revitalize our churches when the churches in your own country are declining?" It was certainly a fair question. Christianity is expanding in his country and in Africa, but waning in Europe and the United States. And, frankly, I don’t have a total answer.

My partial response begins with the need for theological recovery of the power of forgiveness to humanize our global society. We are largely unforgiving and suspicious people who measure power and influence in financial and political terms. Christians must rediscover a gratitude for God’s love displayed so completely on the cross. Only when we become true practitioners of forgiveness, and understand our indebtedness to God whom we can never repay, will we recognize that God’s grace demands our highest priority and sacrificial loyalty. Actually, most of us simply do not have that level of commitment with our heads and hearts. And the curricula in our mainline seminaries certainly do not reflect the importance of forgiveness. We come before the Divine Presence with other agenda, only passively participating in our liturgical confessions of sin and pardon.

Once our theological priorities are in order, the second requirement is to do homework on the specific situations before us. No prescription is worth much without adequate diagnosis -- which requires comprehensive searching. Contemporary society has few "small and simple" problems; our concerns are interrelated through deeply buried and tangled root causes. A valid ecclesiastical diagnosis requires sufficient pooling of intellect and expertise from members of the congregation, the church-at-large and beyond. Clergy must not be shy in asking for help from the widest possible circle of people.

Third, we must be willing to commit and sacrifice ourselves whenever that price is demanded. Most of us, unfortunately, hold ourselves back with conditional commitments to mask unspoken doubts. Our willingness to risk ourselves without reservation will liberate us to be disciples unencumbered by the excess baggage of a tourist instead of the knapsack of a pilgrim.

The fourth step is to develop a dedicated group of workers within the parish who share a common direction and vision. This core of lay leaders -- along with pastoral leadership -- can set an example of commitment to the community. Acting as Jesus’ early disciples, they will work within themselves and beyond to give authentic witness through action of the love, forgiveness and care of God for all people.

These four steps, at least, are needed to elevate the church’s level of commitment in outreach to the world. But will our churches tolerate such aggressive and visionary leadership? Perhaps we would prefer a church led by housekeeping managers who only administer what our forebears created. Thus, our two basic questions arise once again: Does the church want leadership? And do seminary teachers and administrators want to be leaders?

Developing leadership in touch with the world requires modifying the traditional format of theological education. While we must maintain our commitment to the basic disciplines of the seminary curriculum, we can provide additional opportunities that an earlier generation of church leadership missed. For instance, at Pittsburgh Seminary we are now offering seven joint degree/dual competency programs in cooperation with the graduate professional schools of the three Pittsburgh universities. These academic programs enable students to complement their theological and biblical studies with secular skills in public management and policy, law, music, social work, business administration, information and library science or health-care administration. Graduates of these dual degree programs will emerge with knowledge and skills to enable them to relate more knowledgeably to complex contemporary issues.

We are also educating our seminarians to look outward by establishing the permanent presence of a Third World faculty member, inviting guest faculty from abroad and encouraging foreign students who become involved in our specially designed program in international Christian studies. Our curriculum also includes courses on comparative economic systems, the ethical implications of technology and understanding the business ethos. The seminary has sponsored various conferences for the wider public.

Selected faculty members meet regularly with attorneys, doctors and executives on concerns related to their work. Our school is contemplating the establishment of an Institute on Business, Religion and the Professions to stimulate dialogue with decision-makers in society’s public and private sectors. These activities will have an impact in shaping today’s and tomorrow’s leadership to be more outwardly motivated in listening to and relating God’s appropriate Word for the marketplace.

It should also be noted that more and more second-career students from business, education, law, engineering, architecture, etc., are entering theological education: For example, a present enrollment of 425 students includes approximately 40 per cent, second-career people. In and out of the classroom, these students are in conversation with faculty and younger students, widening our horizons to the realities of the marketplace.

Long-range plans at our institution call for establishing effective networks with Third World leadership as well as with labor, government and corporate leadership at home. This would provide seminarians with learning opportunities through summer internships, enlarging the student’s world and motivating students to find creative and collegial patterns of partnership within the global village. With such prepared leadership, local congregations may be more willing to become realistic beacons of hope, and flexible enough to bend to the leading of God’s Spirit. In short, we must shift the church’s thinking from its present defensive posture of caution to a daring outlook for sharing with a world waiting to know God’s love.

We must continually remind ourselves that the mission of the church and the seminary is to be committed always to a permanent reformation -- ecclesia reformata and semper reformanda. The church, reformed and always reforming, is the hallmark of our heritage. Without this reforming bias, we will never be able to fulfill the challenge of John 3:16 in this intimidating world.

Those in the seminaries need to wrestle vigorously with the text of John 3:16 through coursework, times of fellowship and the countless dialogues on and off campus. They must become more astute students of society -- beginning with the immediate neighborhood -- as they seek to grasp the social and economic dimensions of the community as well as competing belief systems. The calling of seminary leaders is clear: both to interpret, and to be involved in, this world. The church is the vehicle by which to carry out the mandate of John 3:16. While moving ahead in confidence, knowing that the cross of Christ has gone before us and that the strength of God’s spirit upholds us, the fundamental question remains: Are we willing to accept and love the world as God did in Jesus Christ?

A Short Guide to the Fine Art of Naysaying

Some problems that at first seem peculiar to one’s own calling, neighborhood or social circle turn out to be ubiquitous, duplicated everywhere. Such is the case with naysaying. Just as management experts employ the same principles from business to business, so naysayers practice the same art in various situations and professions.

But what is naysaying? It must be distinguished from dissent, prophecy or civil disobedience. Unlike those activities, naysaying relies on conventional wisdom -- as found, say, in vote-seekers from the courthouse, certain regulars at the men’s Bible class or readers of old essays in medical ethics. Naysaying refers not to the anguished protest of a Kierkegaard but to the habitual assertion of a vested interest.

Examples of naysaying could be culled from many sources. A recent advertisement by a high-tech firm -- trying to put distance between itself and the naysayers -- made reference to some world-class foot-draggers, including the U.S. patent office director who said in 1899: "Everything that can be invented has been invented." Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society, was cited for his declaration that "heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." Grover Cleveland made the list with his observation that "sensible and responsible women do not want to vote."

1. Never do anything for the first time. Medical ethicists who started as theologians seem especially attached to this precept. Let me mention, as an example, my own reaction to the first experiments at in vitro fertilization. Yes, I was an early exponent of naysaying in this area, deploring the experiments in a Christian Century editorial. " I have the uneasy feeling," I wrote, "that the first few hundred test-tube babies should have been simians" ("Test-Tube Conception: Troubling Issues," August 16-23, 1978) I was not only overready to foresee bad news for humankind if this new technique were adopted; I was also, as current animal-rights spokespersons might point out, a humankind chauvinist. I would now be less eager to suggest that the risks be fobbed off on our fellow primates; more to the point, I’d be more willing to say that at some point risks have to be run by someone if we are to keep at our mission of moving "from leeches to lasers."

Today, in vitro conception is widely accepted. The hue and cry I predicted from pro-life groups -- since some embryos are inevitably destroyed in the fertilization process -- has not come to pass, though I’m not sure why, given those groups’ convictions. However, my concern was not with inadvertent abortion; it was with the condition, physical and psychic, of the test-tube babies. Yet Louise Brown, the first in vitro child, is healthy and well today, we are told, and so are most of her consociates.

2. If someone else is already doing it, there’s no need for us to get involved. This axiom is actually, when coupled with No. 3 below, the first half of the "gemini gambit." The art of not doing something may call for the juggling of contradictory reasons. Usually an astute group of naysayers will select one or the other to put forward, but I have seen both used almost simultaneously in what can only be admired as sleight-of-hand in service of going nowhere.

This half of the gambit is a variation on Yogi Berra’s dictum that one can observe a lot by just watching. "Too bad we didn’t get first shot at this," is a common expression of this view. "Gee, those other fellows are lucky to have a go-ahead."

There are two explanations for this form of naysaying. One is that avoiding risk is a natural tendency for institutional gatekeepers. "Let the other team take the chances and, if need be, the heat; if things work out, we can always get in on it later." The other, more interesting reason is what Stanley J. Reiser, my Houston colleague, calls "avoiding me-too-ism." Reiser, a medical ethicist who is far from being a naysayer, is almost too kind to the species. It’s both "understandable and reasonable," he says, to wish to be the first in the research competition.

And yet, Reiser points out, "me too" status is highly important in health care. Medical research, like every other branch of human activity, is tinged with frailty and fallibility. "Recent revelations about the falsification of data in medical experiments," Reiser says, "have demonstrated that the need to verify and cross-check results remains a cornerstone of scientific activity." He goes so far as to describe "me-too-ism" as the "cement of experimental structures. The best ethics boards in health-science centers concur. Experiments need to be validated, often by "multi-center" tests, as when several teams are asked simultaneously to test a new drug.

3. Unless someone else is already doing it, we shouldn’t stick our necks out. Here is the second half of the naysayer’s daily double. If saying No because someone else is already doing it doesn’t work, then one can always say No because no one else is doing it.

The reasoning behind the second half of the option is pretty straightforward: "In case you forgot, you had better get the go-ahead from the old boy network" (and as for who the old boys are, look them up under ‘peer review’ or on the list of those who have published on the subject) Naysaying here is not just a matter of going to your own board of deacons; you want to make sure somebody else’s board has already approved the idea.

As this argument indicates, naysaying of this kind is a form of regression. To fail to act autonomously, Erik Erikson says in his famous essay on the life cycle (Identity [Norton, 1968]) , is to run the risk, by default, of succumbing to shame, of offering no resistance to the condemnatory gaze of others. But for naysayers, acting autonomously has just the opposite implication: it is to court shame, to be (in Erikson’s description of shame) "completely exposed and conscious of being looked at" (p. 10) Naysaying renders autonomous people -- researchers, writers or whomever -- susceptible to shame.

4. If everyone can‘t have one, nobody should. Theologians also seem fond of this one. It was formerly used to question organ transplants; now it is turned avidly against the implantation of artificial hearts -- not on the plausible grounds that it’s a dangerous procedure inviting strokes, but because so few persons can, at this point, receive this chancy benefit. Such experiments are criticized for wasting medical resources: Why lavish funds and skills on a minuscule subject group when the needs of many others are left untended?

This strand of naysaying is based on some dubious assumptions -- that limited resources may not ethically be concentrated and that resources first earmarked for one purpose can be easily transferred, without loss, to some other, more Christian or egalitarian purpose.

Health care, including its research options, has always been a relatively scarce commodity. Indeed, all of our resources are in some degree scarce or eventually will be. Thinkers from Adam Smith to John Rawls have assumed that the basic goods of our lives aren’t sufficient to go around. We should, of course, try to redress imbalances through distributive ethics. But we must not only live in the meantime with uneven shares; we must accept that uneven shares sometimes help to foster progress.

To fault artificial-heart research because of its high cost and few recipients is roughly equivalent to saying that Columbus shouldn’t have had access to the royal purse. Would King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella have been better stewards of their funds if they had provided canoes, skiffs or punts for all of their subjects? Most of us, I think, would endorse their outfitting of the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, even at an exorbitant cost. Concentrated resources are also needed when health-care researchers undertake -- as they do in the case of heart implants -- the contemporary equivalent of Columbus’s voyage. Critics who cannot distinguish between such cases aren’t even very good at naysaying.

5. Whistleblowing is to be discredited as naysaying. A close cousin of civil disobedience, whistleblowing has emerged in our time in the institutional setting. The movement already has its heroes, such as the civilian costing expert in the Defense Department who was almost cashiered by the bureaucracy before he made himself heard. According to Judith P. Swazey and Stephen R. Scher, "The whistle-blower may be -- and within his group usually is -- perceived and treated as a Judas Iscariot who has committed a disloyal, indeed treasonable act" (Whistleblowing in Biomedical Research [1982], p. 179) The problem is frequently compounded by a sort of double-agent masquerade: some nay sayers, looking for credentials, claim to be whistleblowers. They thus join company with other ersatz dissenters within institutions who act, says Herman S. Wigodsky, "from malice, pique, discontent, revenge . . . They often seek . . . to force institutions into reacting instead of acting" (in Whistleblowing in Biomedical Research, p. 71)

But the confusion goes further. Not only do naysayers claim, when it suits them, to be whistleblowers. In a master stroke, they often try to discredit whistleblowers by labeling them obstructionists and nitpickers -- viz., naysayers. Overobservant nurses, asbestos-damaged plaintiffs and Watergate reporters have all come under this opprobrium. Whistleblowing, of course, is the polar opposite of naysaying. Its practitioners wish to get at fraud, chicanery, neglect and incompetence. Whistleblowers want fresh air, whereas naysayers are anaerobic: they prefer to keep the windows closed.

Between naysaying and true dissent lies a gulf. The Judeo-Christian commitment to a faith that does justice tells us why. Naysaying says No to change; it is dedicated to stopping time in its tracks. Dissent says No, too, but to arrangements that deny dignity, health and truth. Naysaying is ubiquitous, rooted in all our lives. Dissent, in the biblical tradition that commends fidelity to God and neighbor, is a universal alternative to it.

Uncommon Sense (Mark 8:27-38)

Often Jesus’ words seem perversely contrary to sense. Take, for example, his central bit of advice in our Gospel passage for today: "If anyone wants to follow after me, let him renounce himself and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will destroy it; but whoever will destroy his life for my sake and that of the good news will save it" (Mark 8:34-35, my translation). The New Revised Standard Version, out of a commendable desire to be gender-inclusive, transposes Jesus’ singular formulations into the plural ("If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves," etc.). But this paraphrase loses the original’s sense of immediacy, of personal address -- the impression that each and every individual is confronted by Jesus’ call and must say either yea or nay to it.

But what does this call urge its hearers to do? To die, or at least to be willing to do so. And why should anyone want to die? How can dying be the way to find life? Jesus’ advice seems to turn common sense on its head.

And yet, as often happens, Jesus’ advice is also based on common sense -- the sort of down-to-earth, practical wisdom that is dispensed today by people like Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, and that fills the Old Testament book of Proverbs. In the seventh century BC. the Greek lyric poet Tyrtaeus wrote, "The man who risks his life in battle has the best chance of saving it; the one who flees to save it is the most likely to lose it." In other words, what is most important in the heat of battle is not to lose your head (either figuratively or literally). And it is impossible to keep a cool head if you are trying in a panicky way to steer clear of danger -- the fleeing soldier is easily shot in the back. On the other hand, intrepid soldiers sometimes miraculously survive, even when their companions are falling left and right, because they act in a purposeful and deliberate fashion that unnerves the enemy.

Jesus takes this piece of secular, military wisdom and transposes it onto a different plane. The transposition is apt, because Jesus pictures himself as a general in an army, and the present situation as one of fierce baffle -- the climactic battle, in fact, between God’s army and that of the personified power of evil in the world. From the outset of his ministry he announces that God is about to invade the world and smash Satan’s strongholds; in fact, one of the commonest nuances of evangelion, the word usually translated as "gospel, "is "good news from the battlefield." Jesus, then, calls people to follow him intrepidly into the final baffle, without looking back, without hesitating, without giving a thought to the danger that such following might pose to their lives. And he promises that those who do so will, against all expectation, find life.

But wait a second! What sort of battle is going on here? And what sort of general is Jesus? Generals don’t usually end up being crucified -- unless they’re bad generals. Yet this Jesus, this would-be Messiah, ends his life nailed to a Roman cross, dying through a mode of execution so horrific that it was considered to be appropriate only for slaves. And Christian theology has always seen this terrible, degrading death as a victory, indeed the victory by which God vanquished the power of evil once and for all.

Through that victory, the church believes, a strange vitality has been released into the world, a spirit of hope that still erupts in arenas of weakness, suffering and death. Recently a friend described to me her 20-year battle with cancer, a battle which she had thought she had won ten years ago, but which she has had to begin fighting anew in recent years. There is a difference, she says, between the battle she waged 20 years ago and the one she has waged in the past five. This time she has sensed a Presence with her, one that she identifies with the suffering Christ, who assures her that everything is going to be OK. And the hard part is that she doesn’t know exactly what "OK" means in this context -- whether it means, for example, that she’s going to live, or whether it means that she’s going to die. Despite that uncertainty, she feels she can trust this "voice" she hears when it says that everything is going to be all right.

There is a price to be paid for such assurance; it involves looking death coldly in the eye. But that is a price that we will all eventually have to pay. In The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn describes how he learned to do this amid the starvation and brutality of a Soviet prison camp:

"From the moment you go to prison you must put your cozy past firmly behind you. At the very threshold, you must say to yourself, ‘My life is over, a little early, to be sure, but there’s nothing to be done about it. I shall never return to freedom. I am condemned to die -- now or a little later. . ."’ Confronted by such a prisoner, the interrogator will tremble. Only the man who has renounced everything can win that victory.

Solzhenitsyn discovered in the gulag what my friend also knows -- that there is a strength that comes from renunciation of life, a strength that triumphs even over the powers that threaten death. Death, the last enemy, has already been defeated by Jesus’ rising from the dead. That is his victory, that is how he wins the final, apocalyptic battle over the power of Satan. And that event means that death will not be allowed to speak the last word over us either -- thanks be to God!