aldenswan.com

Last Sunday morning I was sitting in church contemplating how we often spin our wheels trying to achieve something that we already have, when I realized that a prime example was presenting itself in the sermon. The pastor was teaching on community, which has been a common topic in the Western evangelical church. As I’ve said before, I think one of the reasons community needs to be talked about so much, is because the Western evangelical church fails to recognize the community that exists in the Spirit, and actually undermines the functioning of community.

“Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them,” said Jesus. This should give us a clue as to the reality of community and the nature of the Church. While the “One Holy and Apostolic Church” includes all Christians worldwide (no longer practical to meet in one place), an expression of the Church - and a very real expression of community - exists wherever 2 or more gather “in Jesus’ name.” Church and community, then, are not dependent upon having a pastor, a building, a worship team, or an organizational structure. It is solely dependent upon meeting “in Jesus’ name.”

I contend that very real and tangible community (and “church”) happens daily across the globe in homes, coffeehouses, backyards and places of work, wherever people get together with a Kingdom purpose, whether to pray, serve, or merely encourage and relate to one another. These “2 or 3″ could be from different church families, different countries, or different theological positions; it doesn’t matter, as long as they meet “in Jesus’ name.”

I also contend that pastors are trained not to see or recognize this, for it often undermines the agenda of the “para-church” organizations that we call churches. In an age where a city boasts dozens and even hundreds of churches - often who recognize and respect each other - no one church can claim to be a church modality, or the only local representation of the universal Church. However, there is still a whole lot of kingdom-building (in the organizational rather than spiritual sense) going on, with many pastors jealous of any activity outside of their little organization in which their members may be involved. There is a definite tension between these church organizations (in my opinion, sodalities) and “The Church That Is,” that exists wherever 2 or more are gathered.

Take, for example, this sermon snippet:

There is no place for unholy individualism in this church. There is no place for just doin’ our own thing. If this is the place God has called you to… what it means is we begin to let go of our own of our individual stuff and doing our own thing … and we begin to ask … ‘how does what I do fit in with [this church]’”

You can feel the tension here, can’t you? It’s one thing to say, “stop following the wide path and get on the straight and narrow.” It’s another thing to say “this church’s way or the highway.” Could it be that the needs of the church organization are not in line - and even in opposition - with the purposes of The Church That Is?

The problem, as I perceive it, is the proverbial failure to see the forest for the trees, or in our case, the failure to see community and church for the people. One pastor may look out on a church and see people off in many directions, with little or no energy to maintain the processes of the church organization. Another may look out and see wonderful examples of community and the Kingdom in action. One builds a structure and tries to make his people fit; another sees the people and tried to create a structure to support them. I think you can tell which viewpoint I prefer.

I feel compelled to offer a short commentary on the state of the union; not the President’s speech, but rather the media’s response to the speech, the day after. In my opinion, what I see in the media this morning is itself a sad commentary on the state of the media, which unfortunately is all many ever get to see of the union itself. If perception is reality, our reality is what shows up on our TV and computer screens.

It seems to me that either no one was listening, or if the media was listening, it appears that they would rather have you listen to them than to the President. For one thing, it was clear to me that having just presented his Iraq plan a few days ago, he didn’t need to address it again last night. However, apparently that’s all anyone wants to talk about, as the vast majority of the reporting focused only on Iraq. Bush had a lot to say on a number of other topics, which were only given perfunctory attention.

Then, of course, you balance the space given to the President’s 50-minute speech with that given to a 7-minute response by a fledgling Senator (interesting choice by the Democrats), which again focused almost totally on Iraq. I have to say that the initial responses by the TV media was fairly even-handed; that is, until Jim Webb spoke, and then they all seemed to develop memory lapses.

In case anyone is confused, the state of the union is that there are issues other than Iraq. That’s not to say we ignore Iraq (in fact, no one could make the claim that Iraq is being ignored); however, the State of the Union address is the place to discuss those other issues.

I also noted that within 1/2 hour of the Address, the Democratic Presidential hopefuls were taking pot-shots at each other, trying to establish why their opposition to the President’s Iraq policy is better than the other’s opposition. Give me a break, people. This does nothing to increase my faith in the state of politics.

In my opinion, the state of Union seems pretty sound, and our future looks hopeful. The state of the media is at best questionable. My assessment of the state of National politics is that it pretty well sucks. On the bright side, by 8 p.m. most people had turned off CNN and were watching American Idol.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
- Lewis Carroll

This post continues the topic & discussion began in the prior post, War and rumors of windmills. In a comment to that post, Quixote raises an interesting point: based on the premise that the U.S. can’t afford to lose (that is, losing is not an option), winning (however that is to be defined) is the only remaining option. For many of the plan’s supporters, such as John McCain & Joe Lieberman, this appears to be the logic.

Lewis Carroll’s seemingly nonsensical work Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There demonstrates an important point. While the book is indeed incredulous, its internal logic is quite sound; Carroll was, among other things, a skilled logician. The point, as Quixote states, is that “an argument based upon a fallacy may be internally consistent, but cannot be meaningful.”

We have long since left the point where it is useful to argue whether the decision to enter Iraq was valid. As they say, that ship has sailed. The question now must be, “Is winning really our only option?”

The statement, “winning is our only option” is, of course, a false monochotomy and illogical. Winning can never be the only option, unless we have absolute control over the outcome. Ruling out the option that God has mandated this war (perhaps Pat Robertson knows something we don’t?), failing to win (i.e. losing) is always an option.

Even to say that our only options are either to win or to lose is to express a false dichotomy, unless either “winning” or “losing” is defined over-broadly. Without clearly defined goals, we’ll never know. However, we must consider the distinct possibility that - as illustrated in the movie War Games - this war may be as unwinnable as a game of tic-tac-toe. As I said in closing in the aforementioned post,

I think Bush’s plan to send 21,000 more troops to Iraq is like going “all in” after the turn on a pair of twos. Certainly, as John McCain has said, it could work… But, I wouldn’t bet my money (or my life) on it.

There are many, many reasons why you probably wouldn’t go all-in on a pair of twos, even though there’s always a chance it’s the winning hand. It is possible to win even a game of tic-tac-toe, if you are playing someone who doesn’t understand the concept. In the case of Iraq, I think everyone understands, at least well enough to not let the other side get three in a row. We must consider, then, that logical predictions based on the situation as we know it must include the option that this war is not winnable.

One of the main reasons why this outcome is possible, if not probable, is that Iraq simply doesn’t get it. There is no sense of nationalism among the majority of the people; they are still primarily Sunnis, Shiites or Kurds, and their only real interest is in furthering their own group’s agenda; they are all like the white supremacists of the old South - equality is not a high value to them. We’ve led the proverbial horse to water; I suspect that is really all that we can do.

To use a Biblical metaphor, a house divided against itself cannot stand. Perhaps a year ago, we could have had hope that a unity could develop among the Iraqis. It seemed to be so - the elections were, in my opinion, a marked success. However, the voices from Baghdad are telling us that the Iraqis are still just not getting it. So, to use another Biblical metaphor, what’s happening is that we took out the one evil strong dude, and now there’s a line up of seven worse strong dudes wanting to take over. So, if we aren’t planning on taking over, and the Iraqis aren’t willing to take over for themselves, then what’s the point?

I remember hearing stories about how untrained farmers and ranchers fought off the British in the late 1700’s - you might remember them as our founding fathers. They won, because they wanted to. We need to let the Iraqis see if they can make it happen, and it won’t happen if we do it for them.

In a nutshell, what I’m saying is that it is not us who needs to win, it is the Iraqis. In fact, we cannot win for them. It is simply not about us.

There are some other reasons why I can’t support Bush’s new plan, including:

• Where have all the coalition members gone? They’re slowly disappearing, and now it’s really just us. You don’t hear any of our mighty partners signing on to add troops. You don’t even hear the word “coalition” anymore. In my opinion, it’s time to humble ourselves and beg the U.N. to step in and take over. Not that I have any faith in the U.N., it is just that the Middle East is - or will be - a world problem, so let them have at it now.
• We will never solve the Middle East situation. We don’t understand them. Unlike the various empires that once ruled that area, we can’t even dominate them if we wanted to, because it’s full of crazies who believe that killing us with suicide bombings is equivalent to running a spiritual touchdown. Anyone who’s that willing to die will always hold the upper hand - you can only negotiate with someone who actually wants something, like to live.
• We’ll never get the Islamic factions to tolerate each other, and certainly they’ll never tolerate anyone else. Iran and Iraq have been problems for years, and it turns out Iran is now a bigger problem than Iraq ever was. Maybe we should just them fight it out between themselves - it doesn’t look like we can stop them.

Well, the story is back in the news as one more Republican Senator has signed the resolution against the plan, not that it matters - the first “surge” troops have already arrived. We’ll just have to see how this story plays out.