Spectrum Collegiate Blog

Building Blocks of Community: Forgiveness

Raymond Thompson — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:50:07 -0700

This past week, I had the privilege to speak at SDA Kinship’s Kampmeeting in Reston, Virginia. My message was titled, “Building Blocks of Community: Forgiveness” and touched on my personal experience with community and forgiveness as a homosexual male within the Adventist Church. The text of the message is reproduced here, without alteration, for the benefit of the online Adventist community.

Please, if you would, join me in bowing your heads as I offer a prayer:

Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily glorify your name, through loving one another as you have first loved us.

Merciful and loving God, grant that your holy and life-giving Spirit may move every human heart, that the barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease, and that, with our divisions healed, we might live in justice and peace, firmly establishing our communities; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“Building our community.”

This is the theme of our gathering here this week. As we define what community is, together at this Kinship Kampmeeting, we are also grateful and aware of the blessings of being able to join in fellowship. After all, it is not often that this large a group, of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Adventists gather; especially when one considers the realities that confront all of us as members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, whether we find ourselves to be homosexual, bisexual, transgender, or are those that support and love us.

As an active member of the Spectrum online blogging community I have been involved with helping to “build our online community” and part of that process involved expanding the reach of Adventist Forums. While I was a student at Southern Adventist University I helped with organizing a chapter of Adventist Forums which helped to foster many conversations among college students about what “our community” (as young Adventists) entailed. I remember one individual who, after reading my blog post titled “Gay Theology Without Apology” and in the middle of another conversation turned to me and poignantly asked me, (with some frustration,) why those who share my feelings that homosexuals should be in included in the life of the Adventist Church, would not simply create our own church, and leave him and those who feel the way he does alone. This was a question that brought mixed feelings. On one hand I thought to myself, “Why not join another church that accepts me fully as the person God had created me to be?” But on the other hand I wondered “Why should I leave the church I first experienced God, and into which I was brought into the experience of the saving grace of a life devoted to the gospel message of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?”

When I was asked that question I had not idea how to respond. As I recall that moment, I remember that I ignored the question, (reasoning that it was better not to dignify the premise with a response,) but to be honest it hurt, and I didn’t really have a definitive answer. The message I am sharing today is, in part, my answer to that question. It is part of the narrative of my personal growth within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as an individual called by God to serve in ministry, yet unable to be ordained, (in good conscience,) as a minister in this, the church of my childhood, teenage years, and now young adult life.

How we approach anything from relationships, (cuisine, travel, and even theology,) is affected by our life experience. Professor Alden Thompson once told me, “All theology is autobiography.” It is through our experiences that we can begin to relate to one another on a common level. Once we can realize that all of us have more in common than that which separates us, then we can begin to experience genuine “community.” For me, experiencing community within our denomination has been a difficult, (at times even painful process,) however, it has been—through the trying and joyful times—both worthwhile and a blessing. God has taught me, through my struggles, to learn patience and tolerance, even of those whose views with which I might vehemently disagree. It has been, above all else, a process of forgiveness. Of reconciliation between me and my chosen community of faith; I write “chosen” because I choose to be a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, like many of you here today. And it is precisely out of that choice that we gather here to harness the power of growth that can come from the pain of our experience—to experience the power of forgiveness.

What, then, does it mean to build our community? To begin addressing that question we must first define what community means. It is only after coming to an appreciation of what community IS that we can understand what the building blocks of community are, and how forgiveness can aide us. Think about it for a moment. Imagine what your ideal community would entail. Now, juxtapose that to the experience of community which most of us experience. For some, “community” is thought to be a glorified utopia, free from disagreements, diversity, and divergence. Others project their own world-view and prejudices as the guiding force by which community is understood. These are common misconceptions of what genuine “community” entails. An individual who has provided me with some direction in understanding community is Quaker author and teacher Parker Palmer. In his book "The Promise of Paradox" he shares these thoughts, “In a true community, we will not choose our companions, for our choices are always limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace, and often they will be persons who will upset our view of self and world. In fact, we might define true community as that place where the person you least want to live with always lives! In true community, there will be enough diversity to shake loose our need to make the world in our own image. Community will teach us the true meaning of the prayer “Thy will, not mine, be done.”

In establishing our community as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Christians along with those that love and support us, we must be careful to build upon a firm a foundation—a foundation centered on love; love that, as our collective experience as homosexual Christians within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, has often been missing from our church pulpits, university classrooms, and local as well as general conferences, unions, and division leadership. For community can only be established where love abounds and “love” is the only foundation upon which we are instructed by God to engage in our human relationships. As Adventist Christians our own relationships, in our faith community, have often been tainted by the homophobia present within our denomination.

All too often, we have had to bear the walls of separation that the elected leadership of our beloved church has constructed, between us and our church, our fellow members, and our God. We have had to bear these divisions and know intimately the suspicions and hatred that have threatened our families, partners, and our own self-image. We seek justice and peace for all those who have been wronged, those who have come before us, those present before us today, and all those who are unable to be here. We pray that these barriers which divide us will crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease, and that with our divisions within the Adventist Family of Faith, healed, we might strive to live in genuine Christian community.

We can begin to see these barriers crumbling with the publication of Homosexuality: Some Seventh-day Adventist Perspectives and the many conversations it has begun in our homes, churches, university classrooms, and within the pages of our denomination’s periodicals. Even with all of the progress that has been made within our Adventist Faith Community there is still much work yet to be done. For GLBT Adventists, our community must be a “community WITHIN a community.” Such a community much like the concept of “community,” in general does not come about as something we simply choose; instead it comes as a by-product of commitment and struggle. It comes when we decidedly step forward to right some wrong, to heal some hurt, or to give some service.

It is precisely because of our past and present experiences that our building blocks of community must center on “love.” And yet that love may be difficult to experience and claim. For some of us it may be easier, yet still an emotional affair, to forgive the shortcomings of members of our families, our friends, our church, and society in failing to fully honor our human rights and dignity. This process of healing will take time, but the promise of community is that this will no longer be a solitary task. As we come together in community with one another we also celebrate our individual identities in the fullness of our humanity as individuals redeemed and made loveable by a God who has first chosen us and made us worthy, reconciling us unto him through Jesus Christ. Paul puts it succinctly in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Knowing this, the fact that God has chosen to redeem us is something worth celebrating. It is with this knowledge and experience of “saving grace” that we are called into community with one another and, in so doing, we magnify the name of the One who sent a Savior, who by loving “selflessly, has set an example of loving one another as we have first been loved. It is in response to God’s love for us, individually, that we seek to love one another communally.

Within this construct for our love-response relationship to one another we can begin to understand how our individual and collective pain (from family, institutional, and theological rejection) can lead us to a better appreciation for what the prophet Micah writes in response to how God calls us to action in a world of suffering, “to do justice, to love mercy.” Allowing God to demonstrate his divine love for us, through the message of the prophets, and ultimately, by humbling himself to become the God incarnate, “Emmanuel.” It is here, where we encounter God, prostrate on the Cross before all creation in Jesus Christ, claiming the promise of that love, that we can allow Christ to free us from the bonds of theological homophobia, painfully pervasive throughout much of so-called “Christian” theologies and church policies. No longer will our sexuality prevent our inclusion in the Body of Christ.

Approaching our theological understanding of God and ourselves in this manner enables us to experience the joy of belonging to the corporate Body of Christ. It allows us to integrate those feelings into a theological concept of genuine community. The Rev. John Shelby Spong, of the Episcopal Church, articulates this well when he explains that we must come to an appreciation for, “the God who is not simply knowledge but experience. A God who is experienced as the source of life who calls each of us to live fully. A God who is the source of love, who calls each of us to love wastefully. A God who’s experienced as the ground of all being and calls each of us to have the courage to be all that we can be. It’s a life-centered, a humanity-centered God that calls us out of our prejudices. God calls us to be fully human, to live, to love, to be. To build a world where everyone has a better opportunity to live fully in response to the God of life. To love wastefully as a response to the God of love. And to be what each of us is in the infinite variety of our humanity, whether we are white or black or green, whether we are gay or straight or bisexual or transgender, whether we are left-handed or right-handed, to be all that we can be in the fullness of our humanity. That’s what it means to follow the Christ who said, “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”

By expanding upon what Christ taught as “having life more abundantly,” we can come to a more complete notion of what genuine “community” means. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are confronted with the biblical record that recounts how Christ actively widened the circle of inclusion to embrace those who were outcasts of the community. Jesus, essentially, established a “community within a community.” In this example, Christ teaches us that it is in embracing one another, in our humanity, and celebrating our individuality, that community is established. It is in turning to each other that we turn to God. This construct presents community as a context for conversation; conversation that reminds us that we are called to love, … love for community is a product of love in action and not simple self-interest. Palmer writes, “Community can break our egos open to the experience of a God who cannot be contained by our conceptions. Community can teach us that our grip on truth is fragile and incomplete, that we need many ears to hear the fullness of God’s word for our lives.”

And so it shall be within our communities that we shall have those “many ears to hear the fullness of God’s word.” Celebrating our individual identities and the God-given diversity present in humanity we have laid a framework by which to approach one another. If we have been made loveable and deemed lovable by God, then it is as a response to God that we love one another and establish community. By appreciating God as the “God of life and love” we can more closely portray the divine model that Christ taught and which has been consistently portrayed through the biblical tradition.

Having discussed the theological connotations of community and addressing some of our assumptions about what community is and what it is not, we can now progress into expounding upon the building blocks of community and how forgiveness contributes to our formation, or “building,” of that community.

These building blocks are “fellowship,” “tolerance,” “compassion,” “support,” and “mutual benefit.” In fellowship we experience one another in our individual humanity, allowing for the other to compliment, enhance, challenge, frustrate, teach, and learn with us. Fellowship provides each of us with a bonding relationship that teaches us the importance of companionship. Tolerance permits us to be ourselves within our various relationships. It allows all those who practice it to be genuine to the person whom God has created them, individually, to be and it fosters respect toward others. Compassion establishes that our fellowship with one another is genuine. Living compassionately toward one another enables us to love more completely within our community, knowing that no matter what trials we might face individually, the community will provide us with the strength and assurance of knowing that we are not alone. Support for one another helps to disseminate “compassion” as genuine and not merely contrived. Mutual benefit is simply the sum total of being in a community-based relationship. Each individual contributes to their relationships in the community and the community is better off, corporately and individually, and members of the community receive immeasurable blessings. Each of these blocks of community, much like the bricks of a building, is dependant upon the structural integrity of their foundation as well as the strength of the mortar. That mortar can be understood as the essence of forgiveness.

An understanding of forgiveness must begin with an appreciation for the forgiveness we all have through Jesus Christ. An appreciation and understanding of our own forgiveness by God will allow us to better understand forgiveness. For the forgiveness of sins through the grace of God and the finished work of Jesus lies at the heart of the gospel. It is precisely this marvelous wonder—that of our forgiveness by God—that should clasp the heart of every Christ-follower. We have been forgiven at an enormous cost, - the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. As Christians, we are forgiven people, who have been brought into the family of God through the grace and mercy of a loving and forgiving God. It is therefore proper that the place to begin any understanding of “forgiveness” is with a careful consideration of God’s glorious forgiveness, while standing, looking upward, at the foot of Christ’s cross.

With forgiveness there are always two constants. One is that we all will need to forgive or to be forgiven, because we all both sin and are sinned against. The second is that we also both struggle with “forgiveness,” because it always begins with pain. For my own spiritual journey, coming to terms with the reality of not being able to answer the call into ordained ministry in the Seventh-day Adventist Church has been a painful experience. Many of us here have faced similar realities. It might be having to resign as a church board member, being barred from giving communion, being asked to not serve as the children’s Sabbath school teacher, being alone at potluck, or experiencing the pain of being the person God created you to be. Nevertheless, in the end, it is always about living each day in the assurance that we are God’s “forgiven” people, … freed to fully be the people we were intentionally created by our Creator, to be!

Let us pray in confidence the words our Lord has taught us:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever. Amen.

Gracious Heavenly Father, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son. Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred with infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and through our struggle and confusion, work to accomplish your purposes on earth; that in your good time, all may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Poetry - Harken To Me, O Shepherd

Raymond Thompson — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:05:33 -0700

Over the Meadow of Life hath the sun awaken
greeting the morrow’s grand splendor.
Around the earth Thy wondrous creation captivateth.

My heart yearns to know this Creator of majesty.
For Thou art the Ruler of the universe without Whom all things cease.
Flowers bloom to praise Thy glory and birds sing of Thy enduring love.

Israel sought to surrender to Thy will,
through bondage and enslavement
and into the Wilderness of Despair.

Like sheep gone astray along the Meadow of Life.
Like Israel of yore, we are bound to our own ways, O Lord.
Enslaved by the doubt of unbelief, completely lost in the Meadow.

Help us now in our Wilderness of Despair.
For whilst Christ hath died for me, I know Him not as my Savior.
Without Him, I cannot desire to know You, O Lord, my God.

Flowers may bloom and the birds sing, but these are only for a time.
While the flower’s bloom doth bring forth splendor,
even the petals of the rose falter upon Winters’ arrival.

For vibrant beauty doth succumb to the desolation of Winter.
Such is the nature of the songs of the birds, it is for a time
that their melodious songs bring forth praises of Thy Name.

Their songs too shall come to pass.
And in their absence shall be a thundering silence.
Thus must it be with Christ, O God.

His blooming radiance and majestic songs –
giveth way to the barren Winter of Disbelief, the grand pondering of mankind.
Whilst once Comforter and Savior, He hath become despised as oppressor.

Yet this Winter of Doubt must come to pass once more,
like Israel of yonder Thou must guide us through the weather.
For the beauty dormant must bust forth in resurrecting splendor.

The flower’s bloom soon returns in triumph upon the end of Winter.
Likewise shall the silence of the days be filled with the songs of the birds.
Christ shall once again reclaim glory in full splendor and beauty.

Without Him, Thy love is but a promise yet fulfilled.
Without the Cross of Divine Grace, Thou might have well left us sheep to wander.
For on that Cross laid God Himself, prostrate to the universe.

Upon the Cross is exemplified the very character of He Who sent a Shepherd.
“God is Love” – that Hymn of Endless Hope – forever defines Thy existence,
through Christ is sung a song of boundless Love ever blooming in our hearts.

Long hath the Winter plagued my existence,
yet I knoweth her season hath an end in sight.
For I hear the Shepard singing Thy glorious Hymn of Love.

Joyfully and excitedly do I welcome the melting away of her dominion
over my soul – looking to that morning sun once again
shall I exclaim, “Great is Thy faithfulness! Trustworthy and true is our God!”

For I have a risen Lord that brings forth a New Season for my soul,
bursting in abundance of love and mercy.
Grant us able to embrace Thy Son, in Whom beginning and end are complete.

O Lord, my God and King, hearken unto me Thy grace and comfort.
Shepard of the Fields, bring those lost sheep home once again
to flock in your pastures and be guided by your staff.

For the Meadow of Life hath its allure,
and troubling as the Winters of Despair may be,
I will forever belong to the flock and field of the Shepherd.

Engaging our Doctrines: Becoming Actively Involved in the Sabbath

Raymond Thompson — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:55:01 -0700

The fourth commandment of God’s unchangeable law requires the observance of this seventh-day Sabbath as the day of rest, worship, and ministry in harmony with the teaching and practice of Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a day of delightful communion with God and one another. It is a symbol of our redemption in Christ, a sign of our sanctification, a token of our allegiance, and a foretaste of our eternal future in God’s kingdom.

Doctrine of the Sabbath, Fundamental Beliefs

“On the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.” “The seventh day is a place in time which we build. It is made of soul, of joy and reticence.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote these words in his timeless book The Sabbath. His book is of special importance and inspiration to those who cherish the divine gift of the Sabbath. As Adventist Christians living in the twenty-first century we have come to appreciate the Sabbath as “a sanctuary in time” from the secular occupations of the six days of the week. Within this sanctuary we come together in community “to rest, worship, and minister in harmony with the teaching and practice of Jesus [Christ].” For the past some hundred and fifty years, members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church have debated over what constitutes appropriate activities for the Sabbath hours. At times and in some places more restrictive observances have been advocated while in others more flexible observances have guided communities of believers. That is a discussion that will undoubtedly continue well within this current century, for, as each Adventist is well aware of, the fact that Sabbath observances remain corporately similar while various individual and community interpretations abound. The focus of this article is whether the Sabbath is simply a day of worship that God calls us to attend church and only bear his light onto ourselves or whether it is a day that He has biblically instructed us to minister unto the world in divine service?

The question of whether the Sabbath should only be a day of worship and introspection for the individual believer is an honest place to begin. On Sabbath mornings Adventists gather together for Sabbath school and worship services and (depending on the church schedule) gather for fellowship and potluck after the close of services. This has become one of the cherished rituals of Adventism. And to be frank, there is nothing wrong with this model so long as believers do not go home and neglect our call to serve one another. This sacred place in time is one that we can utilize to build a more equitable community and improve our local church’s relationship with our neighbors.

If our teaching of the biblical Sabbath could expand to include a vision of Adventists as a people who observe but also who are actively involved in Sabbath, the opportunities for ministry are substantial. Our witness as a church that worships on Saturday and which emphasizes local and global community service would serve to better present our faith community to those who are less familiar with our denomination. Transforming the Sabbath from a simple day of worship to a day of acting out worship through ministering unto all the children of God may be precisely where the Spirit is leading our church. Such acting out of worship would meet people of this generation where they are at.

Facing cultures affected by postmodern philosophies and the common “how-does- this-affect-me” attitude would be a more successful task for our churches if each community, town, or city that has a Seventh-day Adventist Church were affected by community service outreach, every Sabbath. As Adventists we should not be content in simply attending church on Sabbath—for that limits the reach of our Sabbath blessing. If we could extend those sacred hours to serving others and bringing them into the blessings that celebrating Sabbath and experiencing community entails, the pews of our churches would buckle. Part of the blessing of worshiping on the Sabbath is acting out service for our neighbors. It is precisely in the act of serving others that the Holy Spirit inspires us, providing both spiritual challenges and blessings in our walk with God.

In cherishing our walk with the Lord, Adventists must not make the same mistake of religious communities of the past; it is not only about us—our community of faith. It is about how God uses us to bless others and ourselves. Too often some of us can only look inwardly and in so doing we risk putting the light God has given us under a bushel. What we should be eager to accomplish within our churches is fostering an environment that looks forward with anticipation to a Sabbath that makes a difference for us and for our communities. Such a Sabbath is a genuine sanctuary in time in which Adventists declare in words and actions that this is the Lord’s Day—a day devoted to worship and service. Evangelism and spreading the love of God’s kingdom on this earth and in this present age would become more efficient if we were to simply begin transforming our communities through actively involved Sabbath ministries.

These ministries will embrace members of our community and express to them (and also to some of us) that God has given all of humanity a Sabbath to offer rest from the difficulties of this earth and present the foundation of our fellowship as a community of faith. Churches could sponsor local community “outreach potlucks”—feeding those in need of food, providing fellowship to those broken by failed human relationships, and expressing the love of God to someone sick or homeless. Or maybe for your church it is children’s day camp near a burdened community where members of your church can express the love of God to children and parents in struggling economic situations. It could be a nursing home that your church adopts to commit some hours of the Sabbath spending time with a lonely child of God, aged and forgotten by society but eternally precious in God’s eyes. Our understanding of Sabbath should encompass this and so much more for a church seeking relevance and community in the twenty-first century. When we come together and partner with God, boldly claiming the promises of our Lord, our possibilities are endless!

Continuing with this theme of claiming the promises of God through engaging our doctrines, the next installment of this series will re-envision our concept of the Spirit of Prophecy. It will be a discussion of how the church can adopt Ellen White’s mission as our own and individually become messengers of the Lord.

Who Wants Diversity in Evangelism?

Travis Walker — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 11:56:22 -0700

The Bible is the word of God. In it we discover the answers to all the “big” questions of life: who we are; where we come from; why we’re so messed up; who God is; what He’s done for us; what happens after death; etc. Yet instead of giving us the this revelation through one prophet such as Buddha, Mohammad, or Joseph Smith, God chose to use approximately forty different writers, each with their unique perspectives, temperaments, culture, experiences, education, and writing style to give us the revelation of our true history and His divine will. And yet they all together form a harmonious whole that is the Bible. Different writers teach the same truth in different ways that appeal to different people’s mind and experience.

Yet when it comes to the church, we have taken the approach more or less of one size fits all. For some reason we have believed that one church is capable of meeting all the diverse needs of the people living in its community simply because it is teaching the truth. But the truth is only taught in that church in one particular way and with one particular style. It appeals to one particular age group and to one particular level of education and economic status level.

I am convinced that the reason that the Adventist Church is struggling so much in North America is because we have a one-size-fits-all mentality, generally speaking. Idealistic authors and professors insist that we can transform our local churches into evangelism mega-centers which will reach out to the whole community with our message. Just follow steps A, B, and C they tell us and voila - instant success. This is a pipe dream my friends. One church can never, and should not be expected to, appeal to and meet the needs of the whole community in which it belongs.

Our churches have been lulled to sleep in no small part because of the big money that is thrown towards evangelism each year by our conferences. Millions of dollars are spent, handbills and advertising go out, tremendous results are promised, hired guns come in who can never be questioned, and all the members have to do is come. But when everything else is done for them it is not surprise that most can’t even do that. And the result: nine times out ten these meetings end in relative disappointment. People blame the evangelist, the evangelist blames the people, and the cycle goes on and on.

Instead of conferences spending in upwards of $5,000.00 or more per convert (not including all those who afterward leave through the back door of the church), they should be investing this money into planting new churches. The more churches we have the more diversity we have, and the better chance that the people we are trying to reach with our unique message will find a home. We have sacrificed Christ's method of evangelism at the altar of convenience. We have sacrificed diversity at the altar of conformity. We have sacrificed creativity at the altar of tradition. We have sacrificed mission on the altar of maintenance.

The church understands that it needs churches that speak another language to reach the immigrants and other diverse groups that pour into this country. Is it a little wonder that those churches are primarily the only ones growing? We need churches the will speak the language of the emerging generations in this country. The Bible gives us the blueprint: revelation through diversity. This should be the blueprint for our church organization as well.

A student at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Berrien Springs, MI, Travis Walker blogs at Emerging Adventist.

Adventists & Independence Day

Raymond Thompson — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:02:51 -0700

To describe the experience in a word would best be articulated by “anticipation.” That is precisely what earlier religious settlers to the New World were experiencing with every crashing sound of the Atlantic against the hull of their ship and their dreams—dreams that were embodied in a hope to live their lives and practice their religion as they pleased. As their ships progressed further out to sea and land became a distant memory, they had only the warmth of their dreams to brave the cold of fear all around them.

And so it has progressed onward in the hearts of all those who have sought to establish their lives in this land we call America. The dream to live out one’s life and practice one’s religion (or personal life philosophy) has lead many to the coastline of the United States. America’s revolution would begin from that same dream—it would kindle hope and foster dreams that would brave the most serious of uncertainties and fears. Our Founding Mothers and Fathers of this country were inspired by personal freedom and what Thomas Jefferson wrote as, “the pursuit of happiness” when they braved the cold fear of confronting the British Empire with the anticipation of independence.

Decades after America’s declaration to the world of her independence, Italian, Polish, and Irish immigrants would embark on a journey analogous to that of the Puritans and Quakers before them. These ethnic groups (among others) were motivated by joy and anticipation of the hope of living a life of “better tomorrows.” For some making the decision to leave their homeland for America, it might have been the Torch of Liberty that kindled the flame of hope in their hearts and gave them a glimpse of promise. That Torch would soon emblazon their dreams of prosperity in the land that lay before them, their convictions would be tested by trials and disappointment. Promise would come generations later, built from the sacrifice of those who confronted fears and disappointment with optimism and perseverance.

As Adventist Christians, hoping for a better tomorrow is not uncommon in our Adventist experience. To some degree our founders shared much of the same feelings of hope and desires for a better tomorrow. Their hope was not in temporal geography, but that of Heaven itself. Their better tomorrow involved the Messiah Jesus returning in triumphant glory bringing liberty and prosperity to all for all of eternity. Much like the religious settlers of early American history, the Founders of America, the immigrants that continue to “brave the storm of fears” to come to this land of promise, our Adventist pioneers faced disappointment, indeed a Great Disappointment.

When one reflects upon our common past we are confronted with disappointment at what might have been. For those religious settlers of the 1600s might have come to the New World to find religious tolerance they would sadly project the same intolerance they experienced toward those who would settle after them and those already living in Mesoamerica. Our nation’s Founders might have fought for ideals of freedom and liberty for white, Protestant, males, yet for Catholics, women, Native Americans, and black slaves those ideals would take some time to be actualized. Immigrants to America hoped for a better tomorrow, and for some their social standing was improved, however for the overwhelming majority the stark reality of prejudice and social stratification was all too real a reminder of the walls of separation that needed to be overcome.

Similarly for early Advent believers, there was a palpable sense of having been fooled by their hopes and lead astray by their dreams. Such an experience is common when hopes and dreams confront a challenging reality of fears and disappointments. However, rather than allow these fears to silence our hopes or permit disappointments to squelch our dreams the history of humanity has demonstrated that the human spirit strives to persevere. It is in that sense of perseverance, of dreaming of a better tomorrow, that the Society of Friends established Pennsylvania, the early Revolutionary leaders choose to unite thirteen colonies of the British Empire and proclaim their independence, immigrants concurred their worries and made the decision to come to America, and it is that same sense of perseverance in the face of disappointment that guided saddened members of the Advent movement to establish the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

It is upon the sacrifices and accomplishments of those that have come before us that we, too, declare our independence from fear and disappointment—together we celebrate all those individual “founding mothers and fathers” in our own lives and families that have sacrificed to lead us where we are today. On this Independence Day we celebrate not only the birth of a nation as Americans but also as Adventist Christians, the freedom and independence we have from sin and the snares of Satan. As chosen, loved, and redeemed Children of God we proclaim our independence as our declaration unto the whole world until the return of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

May the grace of our God be with us on this Independence Day. God bless.

Skeletons in the Closet: Reflections on Rites and Community

Peter Katz — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:46:57 -0700

Before I begin on this erratic and perhaps erroneous venture, I feel it necessary to explain a bit of background, firstly, by apologizing to the illustrious Jonathan Pichot. The poor man has been trying to pry this article from me since its original publication in the Pacific Union College Campus Chronicle in the fall of 2007. But I would not, could not, give it to him, for reasons which I will make clear below.

In the meantime, here, in its original, unedited form, is an article published in the 2nd issue of the Campus Chronicle’s 84th volume.

*****
A Change of Clothes: Reflections on Week of Prayer

The speaker paces back and forth erratically, his voice crescendoing and falling, a constant rhythm like the incessant waves on an uninterested beach. There is the rustle of a thousand notes being passed, the gentle breeze of five hundred whisperers as five hundred heads incline to hear. Silence for a moment as the speaker reaches a climax point; he winds back down in preparation to gear up once more, and disinterest returns to the inattentive audience.

This is last week. This is last quarter. This is last year. This is every year.

We’ve heard it all before. And we’re bored. We’ve been bored.

I am an Adventist. Had you asked me this question last quarter, even three months ago, I would have given you a different answer. Of course, I am a sixth generation Adventist by ‘blood.’ My great-great-grandfather graduated from Healdsburg, and every generation since has been a PUC grad. Nevertheless, I went through that time of the Everlasting No that we all will someday encounter; simply put, I put my beliefs in the blast furnace of doubt and cranked up the knob, not just to see what would happen, but because I needed new clothes. Now begins the explanation.

Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle formed a metaphor in Sartor Resartus comparing religion to clothes. We cannot fully understand God (or whatever you’d like to call your transcendental signified), and so we must put on the clothes of religion to try to make Him (or Her/It/Them) more understandable. We know it’s not the best way, but we make the clothes fit our idea of God. When that idea changes, grows, evolves, we clearly need to try on new clothes. I’m six and a half feet tall—it would be ridiculous for me to still wear the clothes that I did in eighth grade, when I was 5’ 8”. The point can be made that religion is divine, above change; pause a moment and consider the following:

We, as humans, are beings of lack and desire. This is always, always, evident, in everything we do. We have gaps, we strive to fill them with what we know will turn out to be what we need, and once we get there … it’s not so great anymore. So, we need something new. This, despite what one may wish to believe, is healthy; it’s what keeps us moving as a species, as a people, a society. We lack fulfillment, be it in terms of our major, our *cough* cafeteria food, our boyfriend or girlfriend (or lack thereof), so we desire and seek. We try on new clothes, we take them off, we move on.

And there’s our problem. This is why, when a passionate, if sometimes immature, speaker like —— —— screams out his point into the church, the echoes of his point are smothered in the whispers of the audience (myself included, trust me): our clothes are old. Perhaps to grandpa Carel, way back in Healdsburg, Week of Prayer was a highlight, a time to engage in monologue about God. But we, in our postmodernist bubble, need more than that.

How many times have we heard a sermon about David? Too many. And how many times has the moral of the story been that everyone can be a hero? Every time. Spice it up with surfer lingo and pop-culture references, throw in the occasional sexual allusion, and what do you have? The same story, the same clothes, with ugly patches sewn on. I’m sick of it. And most of you are, too.

Before you start heaping kindling on the stake and sent out the villagers to drag me from Stauffer, please keep in mind these two words: praise music. Hymns, which were songs of devotion to our parents’ generation, don’t cut it for most of us. So what do we do? We throw away the old clothes of the hymnal (mostly), and try on the new clothes of modified rock music. It’s a perfectly acceptable thing to do; obviously, not everyone is going to be thrilled, but that’s the price we pay for progress.

Way back in the 90’s, the Sabbath school David was great. It met us where we were, with absolute truths and clear-cut morals. But, as we are plunged into this mess that is postmodernism, absolutes are outdated. Society evolves, ideology changes, people change – but religion insists that it doesn’t need to. We get the same David story, the same take on the same parables of Jesus, the same “You’ll never walk alone” mantra that we’ve been fed since Kindergarten at ____ Adventist Academy. Week of Prayer has become Week of Bordem, Colloquy has become Hear-basically-the-same-story-oquy.

We are continually told to be “in the world, but not of it,” but there is a problem with that idea, other than the fact that it is a Sufi saying applied to a Christian Bible text: we too often forget that we are “in the world,” and the world is changing. As we consider our plans for how our generation will define worship, starting here, at PUC, it’s time to face the facts: the clothes are old, they don’t fit, and they’re starting to smell bad.

So what are we going to do about it?

*****

Initial reactions to this piece were, to put it mildly, rather hostile in nature. And with valid reason, I suppose. One of the major criticisms voiced was that I posed questions without answering them, poked holes where they did not belong without filling them, and fired bullets unabashedly without bothering to clean up the mess. For this reason, and this reason alone (other than time constraints), I held back this article from publication with Spectrum.

With delusions fitting to an idealist of my age, I felt that I would not republish this article until I had answers to my questions. Now, ten months older, and of course, much wiser, I see the folly in that desire, but I do feel that I have dug deeper and unearthed … more questions. Which, let the reader understand, is not a negative occurrence in the slightest.

The question I posed, as I would learn in Dr. Greg Schneider’s Honors class, was one of rites. My article called into question the perceived time-transcendent nature of rites, specifically rites of worship, which, naturally, upsets those who feel that the rites of Adventism are proper in all circumstances. According to Emile Durkheim (and forgive me, o ye masters of sociology, for this abhorrent summarization), religious sentiment is a result of a sense of community. Would it not then naturally follow that rites of worship are those which evoke that communal effervescence, those comings-together from which emanate a feeling of belonging, and of something greater?

It was unknowingly on this basis, therefore, that I posed my question: Do our rites fulfill their function? Does Week of Prayer still evoke a sense of community between students, between Adventists, between us and God?

My answer, obviously, was an everlasting no. But before I could settle with that answer, because God or whatever force is in charge has a sense of humor, I posed another question to myself: Does Adventism—or Christianity, for that matter—serve its function? Do the rites of Adventism, the nature of Christianity, the essence of institutionalized religion, still serve their purpose?

Let it not be thought for a moment that I feel original in the ‘discovery’ of this question (as a student of Literature and History, I know that none of my thoughts are ever original), but I do feel that time is cyclic, and that these cycles are eternal and valid. This question is, obviously, still as relevant now as it was when Luther pounded his theses into the door. We find ourselves drifting in the wake of modernism and postmodernism, floundering in the sea of plurality, torn between the lands of intellectual atheism or agnosticism and emotional, faith-based theism.

Increasingly, there are those of us who, as another Spectrum writer stated, declare ourselves ‘cultural Adventists.’ Adventism itself is a community, an enveloping bubble, and one in which we feel safe. The question with which we must wrestle, however, is whether or not it is acceptable to be a cultural Adventist without being a religious Adventist. This is a problem which has plagued me way back since Winter Quarter this last year.

And, surprisingly, I bring an answer. It may not be a right answer, certainly not the answer, but definitely an answer.

If rites and religion stem from a desire for and a sense of community, so long as Adventism will take us sans seven-day creation, sans sanctuary doctrine, sans whatever dogma we choose to reject, so long as the bifurcation between fundamental and progressive Adventism (or Christianity in general) remains one of theory only, perhaps there is no difference between being a religious Adventist and a cultural Adventist. If religion is community, and we find our Adventism in our community, is there, in fact, any difference?

If there exists no difference, if we really can find our communion with God through our brethren and sistren, then I say Amen to Adventism (but I won’t clap). However, I fear, rites all-too-often develop into traditions which take precedence over the participants. Irrelevant rites, forced on individuals or groups resistant to those rites—be it the actions or the theoretical reasons behind them—break up community.

In the end, appropriately, we come full circle. If we are to retain community, we must ensure that our rites do, in fact, create that effervescent bond. And I will take a stand on something (which is quite un-postmodernist of me) and say that we, Adventism, as a whole—fundamental, conservative, liberal, progressive, radical, even Southern Californian—need to take a good, hard look at our rites, and decide how many of them are worth losing community.

Of course, we must not forget our history. Transient community, the kind which dies every generation, cannot provide that effervescence with the same power. It is for this reason that institutionalized religion is so attractive; the rites and dogma we hold our not just ours, they have been ours for centuries, millennia, and will continue to be. Even if this sort of attitude is a bit narrow-minded, it is a valid point: rites which connect only to the present are, in reality, not much of anything. The line we walk, then, is the tremulous line between the fixed system and the deviation (tip of the hat to Edmund Burke). We must keep our rites relevant, yet reiterate their retention of past community.

To keep community, rites must be relevant, and secondary to the communal spirit itself. To maintain their validity and potency, rites must connect us with the past. One could hammer out a list of any number (say, 28?) of criteria by which these two factors could be judged, but I will leave that to another individual and/or article. I will say that it is only by fulfilling both of these principles that we will retain both our rites, and our community. Week of Prayer, whatever its original intent, is but a metaphysical drop in the cosmic, transcendent pool of Adventism, Christianity, religion. It no longer signifies, it no longer connects, no longer invigorates, no longer ties. It is, to put it bluntly, dead.

The reason that I find it necessary to describe the death of this rite in more than two-thousand words can be put just as bluntly: we must make Adventism signify for all Adventists, cultural, religious, whomever. Without signification, rites will die, and without rites, there will be no community. And I want to believe we can all agree that we would much rather deconstruct and reconstruct our rites, and thereby keep our community, than let Adventism molder with the old clothes.

------

Peter Katz is a third-year student at Pacific Union College, where he is majoring in British and American Literature (BA), European History (BA), and Music (AS), as well as studying in the Honors Program. Peter hopes to go on to a PhD in 19th Century British Literature, become a published essayist and poet, and teach English at the college level (possibly at PUC, if they would take him back).

Heresy or Critical Thinking: Beliefs and Classroom Discussion

Eric Scott — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:35:35 -0700

This afternoon I received an article from the Center For Inquiry ("CFI"), a secular humanist organization who's mailing list I somehow ended up on last year, that discussed a case of alleged anti-religious discrimination at Suffolk County Community College (New York) that the American Center for Law and Justic ("ACLJ") is involved in. "Religious Right Organization Tries to Intimidate Professor," screamed the title, "Shamelessly Misleads Its Own Supporters." While the headline sounded biased and anti-religious of itself, I was rather impressed by the article, which unvelied the professor's (Dr. Phillip Pecorino) self-defense.

"I would not be doing my job as a philosophy professor," explained Pecorino, "if I did not require students to think about their beliefs and provide reasons in support of their beliefs— not my beliefs or anyone else's beliefs. Critical examination of beliefs, including one's own beliefs, and training in reasoning are among the primary objectives of a philosophy course, and of a liberal education in general. Only professors who are negligent or indifferent allow students to earn good grades simply by providing as a reason for an assertion 'well, this is what I believe'."

This statement resonated strongly with "Dr. A," who reproduced the CFI article on his blog "The Phytophactor" and further comments that:

"We’ve all had students like this. Only a couple of years ago I had a student in a senior seminar class, a 'capstone experience' for biology majors who refused to discuss or even justify their positions or opinions. I had 'no right to pass judgment'. Of course I wasn’t passing judgment, I was trying to get students to think and support their positions in a manner scientific."

As with all issues that people are emotionally involved in, there are several different perspectives floating around. This Xanga user wrote a reactive email arguing with Dr. Pecroino, and posted it on their blog (Scroll to the bottom of the page to turn off their music :-P -- followup post here). The post(s) solicited quite a few comments from the right, such as...

WiLD4SURFiNG: "GeeZ Louise... Liberal Stupidity never ends. I love Jay Sekulow and the ACLJ. I will be praying Gina up!"

followfreedom: "This isn't teaching, it's indoctrinating."

Anonymous: "Yes, he did demand that people change the way they think and conform to his way of thinking. His goal was to 'move students to Plato's level 3 and 4' and remove them from levels one and two. How else can you do that if someone refuses to change their way of thinking and is content at level one or two? Well in this case, he bullies or intimidates, or demeans. That isn't teaching, teaching is allowing someone to gain knowledge and the rest is up to them."

...as well as comments challenging the conservative assertions:

Zeus4Life: "Sure, you have the right to believe that this beautiful planet was created 6000 years ago by the all-powerful, celestial dictator (although EVIDENCE suggests otherwise)who personally had a hand in the creation of this world and the universe. But such illogically incoherent beliefs should be left at the door of any learning institution (College and University) upon entry. Religious beliefs/dogmas should not be conveyed from the pulpit to the grandeur of an American educational institution, for it will stain the educational process, but they should be sequestered and set aside for their own seekers at their own established venues... Since so many people on this blog seem to subjectively critique this professor, I ask you all to answer a few objective questions: How long has this professor been teaching? How long has this professor been teaching this course? Is this the first encounter the fore mentioned professor has had with a Christian student concerning their religious beliefs? What are his credentials? What have other students said about his courses and teaching style?"

One of his students did indeed comment potently:

Rain05x: "its difficult for me to believe that prof. pecorino has 'punished' anyone for believing in God. our class spends hours debating on various aspects of religion, including the existence of God. so before you crucify him for the alleged crime he has done against gina, maybe we should investigate the source of blame... is it not the job of a professor to make his student think? is it not a teacher's job to challenge each student's ideas and beliefs?"

Do you have any thoughts on the matter? Where is the line between encouraging critical thinking and arrogantly discouraging someone else's way of viewing the world?

Searching for Our Postmodern Roots

Travis Walker — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:11:56 -0700

I remember when I was a teenager going through my fathers closet and all of a sudden I saw it, a striped navy blue and green neck tie. This tie which had been out of style for 25 years was all of a sudden back in style. Suddenly my Dad's closet became a treasure chest of wardrobe additions that I quickly began sporting to school. Suddenly everything that was old and boring was new and trendy.

As I have recently been observing the new trends in the Christian world, at least in the postmodern West, everything old in Christianity is all of a sudden new and trendy again. The emerging generations are, instead of rejecting Christianity as many predicted, rejecting their parents brand of Christianity. As part of this generation, although I can't pretend to speak for everyone, I like many have grown up witnessing the imbalance in Christian practice, the infighting over interpretation of certain doctrines, the church politics, and the racism within the church that calls itself remnant. I like many in my generation rejected it and we said to ourselves if this is Christianity than I want nothing of it. And so we all went through our rebellious late teen and early twenty years. But then something curious happened. We also began to get sick of what the world had to offer us. It too was a lie and its promises empty. Materialism and Hedonism were not giving us peace and so now what? So we began a search for God and many of us came back to the same church we rejected only to be disappointed to see that nothing had really changed since we had left. So what do we do now? I say that we reject the wrong and affirm the right. We should not throw out the baby with the bath water, but it is time for the emerging generation to take ownership of this church and stop blaming our parents, teachers, and pastors for what is wrong and start igniting the changes on our own. Do you really want to wait another ten to twenty years for them to retire?

When I said everything that is old is trendy again this is fantastic news for a church who has usually been the tail and not the head when it comes to methodologies in reaching the communities we live in. Well I have good news for you. Since everything old is new again, guess what, spiritual discipline, self denial, humility, serving the poor and needy, veganism, and dare I say charity, are all back in style. This generation has seen the lie that the “American Dream” is. How all it has done is made people work harder to by things that they can't afford, to impress people that don't know, and have created a debt which they cannot pay. This life has resulted in the consumer driven society in the history of the world. Well it is time to rebel against it. It is time to point out that “the emperor has no clothes.” That no one is really happy and no one is really content because our focus has been primarily inward. Like Jesus Said, "where your treasure is there will your heart be also," and "he who seeks to save his life will lose it."

It is time to admit that the way that we have been doing church has been misguided by the notion that quantity is more important than quality. Thus we have been emphasizing church growth through strategic planning and target marketing instead of emphasizing spiritual growth and friendship evangelism, spending thousands of dollars on advertising evangelistic meetings at the expense of spending almost nothing on spiritual retreats and discipleship resources, baptizing people before there is evidence of conversion, giving up church discipline and essentially lying about our churches membership by keeping inactives on the roll for years instead making church membership a privilege and holding those baptized to high standards. Who are we trying to fool by doing that anyway? Our true numbers in this country are probably 50 - 60% of what the books say. It is time to admit that the church is dying in North America and if we don't change what were doing we are going to die.

Well the answer to our dilemma is in our roots. The Adventist Lifestyle. Yes, the very thing that I dismissed as outdated and out of touch I now see as the answer. if you don't believe me I will try to present convincing evidence through this blog that it can only be through our lifestyle as Christians that we can make any kind of impact in the world today. We have moved past rationalism as a society - Adventism needs to move past it in our outreach as well as inreach. Rationalism does not make Christianity Truth to this generation, but living Christianity the way Jesus taught it will! We need now more than ever a church who embodies the life of Christ in its action, in its deeds, not just its words. As they Apostle James said, “show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” (James 2:18; 1:27)

Travis Walker is a M.Div student at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI. He blogs at Emergent Adventist.

Big Brother or Little Advisor: Freedom and Personal Morality

Eric Scott — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:00:21 -0700

Having been born and raised in the United States, I and most of my peers take the idea of freedom pretty much for granted. We come to adopt the cultural belief that "liberty and justice for all" is an exceedingly good thing, without necessarily gaining an appreciation for what that means in the greater international and historical context. Just what is freedom? More importantly, what should it mean when applied to modern issues? Where is the line between something being a matter of personal choice vs. a matter of public interest, or otherwise something the the government should be involved in?

As a foot in the door to the debate, here's a recent quote from a friend of mine:

"Many people (myself included) feel that it is perfectly fine to incorporate any aspect of your belief into practice, voting included, as long as that it doesn't infringe on the "rights" of other people... It could be argued that we really shouldn't passing judgment on others decision if those decisions harm no one else (abortion being a unique case, as it can be argued that abortion does indeed harm someone). But such topics as gay marriage really shouldn't be legislated, as gay marriage harms no one."

I grew up feeling like the repeal of prohibition by the 21st amendment was a sad thing. Smoking, too, being clearly a destructive practice, seemed ridiculous to be allowed. But is it the government's place to enforce moral pressures, even if they are clearly positive? And where is the line that designates what should and should not be a controlled substance?

I'm now willing to accept that just because something is unhealthy, wrong, destructive, or otherwise sub-optimal does not mean it should be legislated (Especially not federally). Or, to word it in a slightly more political correct manner, just because I believe something is unhealthy, wrong, destructive, or otherwise sub-optimal does not mean that I should vote to have it legislated. The government need not be the arbiter of moral guidance for our culture. The individual should be free to make his own moral decisions, as long as it hurts no one else. What the government can do is provide education to help individuals make informed and well reasoned personal decisions.

For example, most health problems in the west, from obesity to diabetes and cancer, are caused by our diet and lifestyle. It's pretty clear that quality of life can be improved by adopting a more healthy lifestyle. It is not the government's place to force us to eat healthy. The government might help, however, by making sure that the proper information conduits are in place so that people are aware of the details of the issue and its solution.

I think my friend in the above quote has expressed part of the issue very well -- the part about not messing with people's personal business. I'm incline to expound further, however, and move us out of the political arena and more into the personal.

In a classroom or work environment, pressure from "big brother" is extremely important. Students are forced to complete homework assignments they may or may not see the point of (And in fact a lot of students are quite pineful about it), and bosses hold employees to standards that always feel just out of reach. A large part of what we pay for as college students is nothing more than to have someone to hold us accountable to study hard. We work much harder under pressure, and thereby learn much more and get much more done. The self-edification process is accelerated by being forced into something that we either didn't have the motivation to actively pursue ourselves, or that we downright didn't think was worth our while at first.

It is with this in mind that I am sympathetic to, if confused about, the continued prohibition of marijuana in the U.S. Okay, maybe that's too controversial an example. What about coke? Heroin? LSD? We outlaw them for a reason, no?

I suppose it all comes down to just how debatable the destructiveness of a certain behavior is. Many people hold that eating whatever they want contributes more joy to their life than does a healthy lifestyle, and that's hard to argue with on objective terms (Though I doubt you'll hear a CHIP graduate say such a thing). I've also heard video game addicts say that they really enjoy wasting away their youth in a virtual reality -- and who am I to argue, just because I personally feel more fulfilled having broken out of such sensual endeavors? The same goes for alcohol, strip-clubs, and marijuana -- the issues become gray and diluted by debate and rationalizations.

Where is the line? How much power do we want to give big brother to watch over us? He already does his best to protect us from destroying our lives with anything from methamphetamine to Methadone, but should he inhibit us from enjoying a little weed? Or should he just offer advice, leaving the actual decision up to the individual?

Eric Scott is a Computer Science and Mathematics student at Andrews University

Faux Pas Tolerance: New Atheism Fosters Misunderstanding

Eric Scott — Thu, 29 May 2008 11:15:17 -0700

Here's a video blog a friend sent me a link to this morning, titled "More demands from Islam." On the author's site (here) is the following nice, big welcome message:

"Hi, I'm Pat Condell. I don't respect your beliefs and I don't care if you're offended."

He reminds me a lot of Dawkins/Dennet/Hitchens minus the education. As such, he says plenty that one could react to, but laying aside most the belligerent portions monologue the statement I want to focus on, coming around 3 minutes 50 seconds into the video, follows:

"My freedom is more important than your faith. Much, much more important. And besides, I just have this natural aversion to being bullied and pushed around by bigoted misogynistic ignoramuses. And I say that with all due respect."

A few moments later he generally refers to militants as stoning people for "the crime of having a private life."

I'm reminded of two quotes from books I don't currently have at my disposal, one from Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation and I think the other is from Os Guiness' Doubt. Harris speaks of liberal Christians as not understanding fundamentalism because they don't know what it's like to believe whole heartedly in a specific vision of truth. Os Guiness quotes a student speaking at his graduate school commencement, saying something to the effect that "we live in an erra where we are free to proclaim any creed, follow any world view, and hold any set of beliefs -- so long as we don't believe they are true."

There is a difficult complication here. What the "New Atheists," and indeed post modern society, put forth as "tolerance" is simply repackaged secular apathy. When we talk about being religious without "imposing" your beliefs on others, or practicing religion within the confines of one's on home, what we are in effect saying is that these beliefs are not important and, since we can't agree on what truth is, have no relevance to the grander world. Unfortunately, religion is, like politics, a branch of philosophy, which means that its entire point is to try and tackle the questions of the world at large.

"16 Percent of U.S. Science Teachers Are Creationists" says the recent headline on ABC news. This is considered a "problem." The "problem" the numbers are illustrating is that the secular, evolutionary perspective is not adequately poised to impose itself on the country's children.

Why is it that secular humanism (Which entails the feeling that the evolutionary picture has discredited conservative religion) holds a privileged place? "Because it is backed by rigorous science," the New Atheist would say, dismissing non-liberal religion as shallow dogma. Liberal religion, too, is hardly more than a lukewarm fusion of secular humanism and lip-service to belief, and as such many Christians do not see a problem: one's religious world view is simply not supposed to have impact on real life. You can believe it, so long as it doesn't govern your actions, your business decisions, your vote... the only accepted standard for action is humanism.

I don't have a solution to the issues -- such as if a religious majority should, if it believes in a specific morality, be allowed to outlaw abortion, or should "personal choice" be the buzzword -- I simply want to point out that its complicated. Dennet pines about the cultural spell that protects religion from criticism, and Condell heaps ridicule upon Muslims for holding their beliefs with such passion and confidence -- but the New Atheists forget that they too are men with beliefs and opinions, and that they too are being quite "impositional." "Ridiculous ideas should be ridiculed" Dawkins says, ironically, even as he rebukes conservatives for having the nerve to raise their children into "dogma."

Like most westerns I'm deeply infused with humanist tendencies, but frankly, I find the likes of Condell to be reacting in a very immature fashion: reducing the world to black and white only adds to the problem. Engaging in a condescending shouting match with the "other" is exactly what gets us into the situation we're trying to solve!

What we should be fostering is not a persuasionary battle of right vs. wrong, because we will never find resolution. These blatant debates are important to history -- questions such as the teaching of creationism in schools have profound impact on how our culture will develop. What I would prefer to see screaming children like Condell espouse, however, are the same tools we are forced to learn and use every day of our lives as we confront people who think differently than us.

The fact of the matter is people very rarely see eye to eye on any given issue, great or small. To learn to dialogue respectfully, to handle criticism maturely, to be aware of and curious about the myriad of different ways people might and do look at an issue -- this are skills we all must try and master in order to be successful in relationships and career. Simply putting people down for what they believe doesn't solve the problem, because that sort of arrogant closed mindedness is what caused it in the first place. The philosophical currents of the world we live in are indeed complex, and how to carry one's self among them is hardly and obvious question, but we could at least try and make sense of it together. If the long wind of the New Atheists were spent trying to convince people to look at the world in this way, to educate them in open-mindedness instead of convert them to a veritable anti-religious witch-hunt, it might actually do some good.

One final quote from Condell's video:

"In a sane society, the guy who actually stands up to make this speech would be bum-rushed out the door the moment he opened his mouth, run out of town on a rail and dumped in the river."

Now, I'm not British, and I don't know what "bum-rushed" means, but the point I'm getting at is that, as far as I'm concerned, nothing like this would happen to anyone in an ideal, "sane" society.

Eric Scott is a Computer Science and Mathematics student at Andrews University