The headlines caught my eye. As I was going through the newsfeed last week, two links on the same list got me thinking. The Mother Jones writer responding to reports of abuse by the late United Farmworkers organizer, Cesar Chavez, acknowledged the accuracy of the charges, but shifted blame from Chavez to American culture that allows and even celebrates such abuse.  The same day, a New York Times opinion piece appeared under the headline “It’s Not Trump. It’s America.” Distraught over Donald Trump’s policies and personality, NYT columnist Lydia Polgreen blames our country and culture as much as the president for the emotional distress she is experiencing in “these dark times.”

Both the Mother Jones and the New York Times lean left in their perspectives, but that is not the point. I am certain I could find more right leaning perspectives likewise blaming culture and country for the woes of our time. Maybe American tolerance and generosity are our problem.

The point is that we humans like to fix blame – sometimes as a prelude to finding solutions, sometimes as a pretext for anger.

We like to fix blame. Agnostic/Atheist (his self-description) New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman blames Jesus for Judas’ betrayal. I’m pretty sure I disagree with Ehrman, but Judas as victim does fit our cultural moment. Blame culture! Blame Jesus! Blame someone!

Retired Presbyterian Church in America pastor David Bisgrove writes, “In 25 years at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, I had countless conversations with self-described atheists and agnostics whose resistance to Christianity was shaped less by indifference than by a mix of disillusionment and anger. The anger was directed less at Jesus than at parents or churches who, in their experience, had distorted or betrayed his teachings.”

We like to fix blame, and parents and churches are good targets.

Good Friday and Easter Sunday won’t allow us to fix blame “out there.” Our disillusionment and our anger, our distress in dark times, must first look inward. Not to culture and country, not to parents and church, but as with the Apostle Paul, to the “wretched people we are” (Romans 7:24). We must reckon with our own sin, our own failure and inability to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

The ancient Holy Week hymn attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux, puts it this way:

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered
was all for sinners’ gain;
mine, mine was the transgression,
but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
‘Tis I deserve Thy place;
look on me with Thy favor,
vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

We like to fix blame, but “mine, mine was the transgression.”

Paul continues in Romans 8, telling us there is now no condemnation – no blame – for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Good Friday and Easter Sunday cause us to look inward to our own neediness, and to look outward to the cross and the empty tomb. And only in the light of the cross and the empty tomb can we reckon with the sin that plagues politicians and cultural icons, parents and pastor. Ourselves.

Maybe then we can begin to solve problems – even sharing and living the Good News of Easter with those on whom we so often cast blame.

“O death, where is your victory?
                O death, where is your sting?”           
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55–57)

One of the many joys of our good life is the granola Becky bakes once a week or so and I eat almost every morning. Frankly, it is the best granola ever. Hemp seed is included on the ingredient list. We are told that hemp seed is a great source of protein, amino acids, and other healthy things. And no THC in these hemp seeds.

The other day I was looking at the cheery package in which our hemp seed is delivered from our Canadian supplier, Manitoba Harvest. The people at Manitoba Harvest say they “exist to make life super,” and they invite those of us who consume their product to join them “in making this world a super place.”

Hemp Hemp Hooray. Continue reading →

The Preacher of Ecclesiastes reminds us there is a season for everything. Well, this year’s winter season has long outlived its welcome. With spring officially set to start at 10:46 this morning (Friday, March 20), winter needs to move along. At least in northeastern Indiana, it has been a long winter. Our first flakes were seen in early November with some pretty serious snowfall by the end of the month. And, yes, as I write on Wednesday, March 18, the forecast has had snow in it. Four, going on five months of cold. Winter has taken far more than its allotted 91 days of calendar space.

There has been a dust-up or two this week among social media Christians. Typically, it is wise to ignore such dust-ups and avoid social media Christianity altogether. But fools rush in… More on foolishness below.

In one controversy a well-known evangelical pastor preached a sermon where he told the story of visiting an older and wiser pastor whose ministry had been long and faithful. The older pastor was near death, and the younger pastor asked him about his Bible reading and his prayer life in his final days, seeking an assurance that it was “well with his soul” as he approached death. “Really?” critics of the inquisitor asked. “Will the old saint be welcomed into glory based on his Bible study and prayer habits in the final days of his life?”  Too much law and too little grace, the critics argued.

In the other (of many such) online fight, the token evangelical columnist for the New York Times defended the progressive and theologically heterodox candidate for senator from Texas, arguing that he “acts” more Christian than many “MAGA Christians.”  To be sure, the candidate seems nicer and more polite than many of his adversaries. But should we really say that Gabriel’s announcement of the incarnation and Mary’s faithful response to it are a proof-text for a woman’s right to have an abortion? Continue reading →

In June of 1967 I was just finishing my sophomore year of high school and was already something of a news junkie. I remember well watching with eager fascination the news reports coming from the Middle East during what would come to be known as the Six-Day War between Israel and a consortium of Arab states. I’d read the latest stories from the front each morning in the San Diego Union and then watched each evening as Walter Cronkite moved model tanks and aircraft across a 3-D map of the region.

The war was over in six days, and we knew the good guys had won.

As we come to the sixth day of the war against Iran, we have no such sure knowledge. Some wonder who the good guys might be in this conflict, and in our wired world there is no Walter Cronkite whose reporting we believe to be implicitly true. For many of us, the conflict and our view of it have become a litmus test of other partisan sensibilities – or insensibilities.

An accurate assessment, let alone understanding, of what is happening is shrouded in the fog of war, to use an often-repeated phrase. The New York Times tells us “fog of war” has “come to be used by military experts to describe the often imperfect information that officers and troops must process in the thick of battle.”

The fog is thick today. Continue reading →