An Adventist Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day in the US, and Boy Twin is asking for war stories. Jim has a handful of those he likes to tell. Of course, Desmond Doss tops the list, along with the Christmas truce on the German front in WWI. It's nice to have a few stories of making peace or saving lives in the middle of the carnage. But those run out pretty quickly, and we're on to Big Moments--D-day, the Doolittle raid. He tells them carefully. There are so many ways to tell war stories, and as parents, we walk the line between glorifying human courage, and highlighting our ability to hurt each other.

Memorial day is complicated, for everyone, not just Christians. We want to honor people who died doing what they believed was right. But we also want to admit we'd rather still have them with us. Why can't we have both?

Of course there is a reason why. Because human beings are evil. Because we are constantly disagreeing on whose evil is greater. Because, try as we might, we can't find a perfect way to stop evil deeds without committing more in the process. Slavery, abuse, and tyranny have to be stopped, and few tools are effective but force. But force always comes with a price.

And that doesn't work well for us. We want simple choices, a clear right to pursue. So for the sake of the children, we invent the convenient fiction of "bad guys"--the enemy one can kill with impunity. But we are not fooled. At any moment, we know, those demons on the other side might come out of their trenches and share their cigars and whisky on a Christmas Eve. War never comes without monsters. We must either make others into monsters, or become them ourselves.

Christians have the extra burden of knowing that both are true--that we are all bad guys. We are all the same image of God corrupted by a brutal world, capable of our own brutality. And when you let human beings loose to commit violence, we have a hard time stopping, and a hard time living with ourselves after the fact.

Over the centuries since the church began, it has struggled over how to relate to violence. For every believer that goes to war for their faith, there's another that refuses for the same reason.  For every Crusader, battling his way to Jerusalem, there is an Anabaptist, refusing to take up arms against the invading Turks.

War is a moral wilderness. In our day, the modern version of the Crusader risks turning patriotism into a tenant of Christianity. The modern Anabaptist has to rely on an unconverted government to deal with violence and keep the peace.

This is the sad reality--heroism is beautiful, war is hell, and we have to live somewhere between these two truths. There is no perfect answer except the Second Coming.

So for this holiday weekend, I wish you peace. Celebrate the heroes, dead on beaches. Or mourn them, and the evil that took them away from us. Celebrate the day off, and the camping or shopping or outdoor grilling. It's not wrong. But above all remember this--that Jesus made the only sacrifice that can give us freedom and safety. Remember the Great Controversy is the only war that can "end all wars."

Love one another, and hold on to the hope of real peace.

Unto Us a Contradiction is Born

[This blog was originally published in the Pacific Union Recorder, December 2018.]


The trouble with Christmas is that it’s about a baby. It might been simpler if God-with-us had shown up as a lion, ala CS Lewis, or a lamb. Instead, the lights and carols and presents of Christmas revolve around one of the most complicated creatures in our world.





There is no contradiction so poignant as a baby. As humans go, they’re small and powerless. And yet bringing home a baby, especially a first baby, is akin to dropping a bomb on one’s house and life. I remember it well. I remember how my sleep-deprived brain struggled to accept a job without even 8-hour shift breaks for sleep. I remember the whirlwind of baby things scattered through the house. I remember the nearly metaphysical change in my reality.

Babies are small, and wonderful, and terrifying, all wrapped into one. They’re fragile enough to slip away in the night, and powerful enough to turn the world upside down. Why did God-with-us come as a baby? Probably because a baby is the perfect image of faith, and therefore of Christmas.

Christmas is a contradiction. In a manger, in the cloth strips in which his impoverished parents wrapped him, is the answer to every human need. He is salvation, the extinguishing of all of our pain. And yet his infant cries are swallowed in the vast night around him. The world hasn’t changed. His parents are still poor, and Rome is crushing his people every moment that he sleeps. The kingdom of God has come to earth, but the earth looks the same.

This is Emmanuel, God with us. The baby is both the promise and the fulfillment. He is the whole picture, and yet it can’t be seen. His miracles are only a shadow, his crucifixion and resurrection a microcosm, and his newborn church is a poor reflection of it. The world is redeemed, and yet it’s still burning.

This is Christmas. The people who live in darkness have seen a great light. But the darkness is still here. We wander in the smoke of our suffering, and clutch this faith to our chests. It’s a little thing--as small as a baby--but it’s tangible. It’s God with us. God came into our world to die for our sins. But he also came to hold our hands in the darkness, to tell us we don’t have to face it alone.





So we put up lights in the face of winter. We hold candles and sing songs. We push cheer into the dark spaces, and dare to gather our relatives into the same room. It’s a contradiction, which is what every act of faith amounts to.

I believe in Christmas. Not because a Christmas movie tossed a dusting of snow over life’s problems, but because God is with us. And I’m glad he chose to come as a baby, because there is no better expression of what it means to have someone, and also be waiting for them.

I don’t know what’s in your holiday season, and I don’t know you’ve had to carry this year. Maybe you’re hanging the mistletoe, and maybe you’re still trying to see through the smoke. But I know the answer is Emmanuel. The gift is small enough to hold in your arms, and big enough to save you. Whatever your circumstance, I pray you will celebrate this season as an act of faith. Because the good news is better than it looks. Because small things grow. Because God is with us.

Merry Christmas.

If the church disappointed you today . . .

I watched the live stream of Annual Council today. Sometimes I wanted to cheer, and sometimes I wanted to chuck the TV into the next state. But most of all, I wanted to do something. All afternoon I watched my church teetering on the edge of an abyss, wishing I could yank it back. And finally I could only look away while it jumped.

I think the vote was wrong. I think we are now that much further from the church Jesus founded on his own passion for lost human beings, his overwhelming burden of love for a lost world. We have one more callus of bureaucracy, hierarchy, and institutionalism to strip away before we can feel as he feels, serve as he served. And we continue to insult millions of women who serve the church worldwide, both professionally and as volunteers.

So what can we do? What do we do now?

Since this is, in fact, the other shoe I expected to fall last year, it's only fair to revisit the bold vows I made then, in anticipation. It's time to see if I can keep them.

This is what I wrote last year. And once I get through the frustration of today, I'm going to take a deep breath, and do as I said I would:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(from October 6, 2017)

I'm going to stay here. Right here.

This is why:

1. This is my faith.-- I may not agree with church leadership--hey, I might not even follow. But it was never about policy.  I'm not here for the organization, I'm here because of the faith.  The ideas I value most are at core of Adventist doctrine--loyalty to Scripture over creeds, the God who loves us, and saves us based on his own merit, not ours. A God who offers rest (Sabbath), who values our free will enough to die for it, who has the answer to all our pain (Second Coming).

2. These are my people.-- I belong to a local community, and they are my church. In fact, I've been to a number of local communities where I have belonged.  I know there are local churches where I might not fit in. It's okay. There is no one person, not even a committee, who gets to determine what Adventists must be. The body is bigger than those voices. I won't give up a real, living community because of a committee of people I've never met.

3. This is not the end of the story--Churches change.  This one has been worse in the past, and it will be better in the future. I don't know how long it will take or how hard it will be to pick ourselves up off our faces from this crisis. It will depend on other people's choices how far in the hole we get. But we've dug ourselves out as a denomination before. We'll do it again. There are better days, and more benevolent leaders, ahead.

So I have a plan for what happens after Annual Council. This is what I'm going to do:

1. I'm going to recover.  I don't know how long it will take.  I don't know how I'll feel. Luckily,I know at least that I can recover from a bullet-wound to my church loyalty. Time helps.  So do walks outdoors, a blanket and a tea-mug, music, and time with friends.

2. I'm going to worship. My faith isn't built on the work of committees of (mostly) men in suits. It rests on the generous and profound grace of God. It's about this Jesus who loves me personally, and who's promised to come back and fix the messes. The equality of men and women is only an outworking of the gospel. I plan to spend time submerged in that gospel, to remember why it matters, as well as what matters most.

3. I'm going to love my church. It's been a stressful ride for all of us. It's now when the church family needs one another most. So I'm going to stay engaged, nurture friendships, listen, and pray. I'm going to remember that my "church" is not out there somewhere, it's right here.

4. I'm going to keep working for what I believe. This isn't the end of the story. I think the church's rosy future is still a long way out, but I can work toward it. I'm going to preach when asked (and I might go and offer). I'm going to write and speak what I believe.  The idea of equality is getting stronger, in the world as well as the church. I'm not going to give up on it.

This is my plan. I don't know the future, but I've decided to be in it. I'm choosing to control the one thing I can--my own actions. Maybe I'm a lightweight, but I'm going to swing that weight toward the better elements of my church.

That's my nuclear apocalypse--I mean, Annual Council--survival plan.  I plan to survive (and get to better days somewhere--perhaps far--on the other side).

I hope you will, too. I could use the company.