"Patriotism and the Pulpit" by Rev. Jack Copas

My friend Jack has put together a very helpful response to the Rev. Wright flap being used to counter Senator Obama's presidential campaign. Jack doesn't take sides, unless one thinks that challenging someone's thinking is partisan. Here are his thoughts:

The latest news these days about our Presidential election comes from a most unlikely arena. Barack Obama has been roundly criticized for sermons his pastor, The Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, preached in the pulpit of the Trinity United Church of Christ. This really intrigued me because I have been criticized a time or two for preaching sermons people strongly disagreed with. Yet to the best of my knowledge no one in any church I have ever served has ever been held accountable for words I said. Some reporters even asked Senator Obama why he still attends that church since he repudiated what his pastor said. Some said he waited too long to distance himself from Dr. Wright. The reason people were so angry about what Dr. Wright said was his words were perceived to be a direct assault on The United States of America. Our traditional definition of patriotism was being challenged and folks get mighty testy over that subject.

When I first heard about this story I thought it was amazing the media was so focused on some minister’s sermon and whether what he said could have some reflection on Senator Obama’s candidacy. This sounded like lunacy to me because Dr. Wright’s statements had nothing to do with Barack Obama. I felt the same way about this controversy as I did when two other prominent ministers endorsed John McCain for President. One of them said the Roman Catholic Church was a “whore” religion and the other pastor said as Christians we must kill all Muslims. Astoundingly that minister even gave some Scriptural references to make his points. My point here is that neither John McCain nor Barack Obama should be held accountable for the statements of preachers who support them no matter what comes out of their pulpits. Why? Because as United Methodists we believe in two things. One is called “free will”. You have the freedom to decide in your own mind and heart how much (if any) of the pastor’s sermon is something you believe in or agree with. Your faith journey is yours alone to walk. The other is freedom of the pulpit which means pastors are free to make prophetic pronouncements at their own peril without requiring the congregation to go along with them.

How you would feel if people asked you why you still attend this church because of words I may have happened to preach in our pulpit? Is the church all about the minister? What about other reasons you belong to church? What about your church family and the nurture you give to each other? If you were married in this sanctuary and if your children were baptized here would you simply walk out if the current minister preached what you felt was an inflammatory sermon?

One thing is for sure after all is said and done - nobody can ever accuse Barack Obama of being a Muslim anymore. He has been a member of that United Church of Chist congregation for more than twenty years.

The reason I feel this controversy is important is because of the way we define the role of “religion” in politics. Let’s face it, we won’t dare elect an atheist to the Presidency and we have equal intolerance of anyone who asks God to “damn America”. We tend to gravitate to preachers who fuse together our national pride with our faith in God. There are no politicians worth their soul who do not usually end their speeches with the phrase “God Bless America." Yet I recall Sinclair Lewis predicting this jolting forecast: “When fascism comes to this country it will be wrapped in a flag carrying a cross!”

I suppose we would all agree that patriotism in and of itself is a good thing and we should encourage people to take pride in this country, right? Of course it is except when our love of this nation blinds us from self-reflection. As Christians we are not called to merely praise our country and reap the harvest of our national bounty. If that were true then we could say “lucky us being born into wealth and privilege and too bad for those unlucky Mexicans or Cubans or Haitians trying to get here. But if they get here we will hire them off the books."

There is a danger in believing that we are entitled to living lives people all over the world can only dream of living. And there is an even greater danger of practicing historical amnesia when we have to answer for how we attained all these things. I read an article that said the United States is on the verge of economic collapse and Godless China is poised to become the new superpower of the world. How would that sit with you?

So what exactly is the role of “religion” in our nation? Well one thing I know is that the Church gives up its authority when it only blesses the established order. Many ministers who have chosen to cozy up to power lose their ability to remain objective. Pulpits all across America are supposed to critique our government leaders and the Gospel requires us to speak truth to power. The Church is not some social organization that has gone mainstream. We must confront powerful sources that cause powerlessness and remind America of what real patriotism is and, more importantly, what it is not!

Personally I grieve over the shallowness of our national pride. The selfish rhetoric about the greatness of our country pales in comparison to the atrocities we have committed throughout the world. Instead of trying to live up to what we stand for as a nation we defend our torturing and we never admit when we are wrong. I doubt I would ask God to “damn America” but I am asking God to “help America” recognize its own arrogance. We have been guilty as a nation of the very things we claim to oppose. Claiming to defend liberty, we have trampled on innocent people trying to enhance our prosperity. We can’t stand for high moral ethics when our national behavior contradicts our words. People all over the world hate America not because they are jealous of our freedoms or what we value. They hate us because we hurt them. I am anxious when the world views my country as an imperial bully whose foreign policy is designed to taunt its enemies.

Few people want to hear sermons that challenge us to live up to the true meaning of our creeds. On the other hand, we all want our country to stand for nobility and honor. We want our leaders to find new peace initiatives to work with hated neighbors and we demand that our leaders stop lying to us. We want our country to actually be the land of the free and the home of the brave. And when our country displays itself to be less than that we must call it to account and make the necessary changes for it to be so. Real patriotism settles for nothing less. It takes a lot of courage to preach a sermon like that.

I love The United States of America and cherish the Constitution we uphold. But, like Dr. Wright, I must express outrage in the pulpit if my country demonstrates conduct that contradicts that very same Constitution. And all ministers must exercise their prophetic call to encourage this country to live up to its own principles. Real patriotism is much more than waving a flag and reciting the pledge of allegiance. Real patriotism for the people "of" God is when we work for justice, when we hunger for peace, when we share our blessings, when we love mercy, and when we walk humbly "with" our God. That is what I think of when I hear Kate Smith sing “God Bless America”.

Grace and peace,


The Rev. Jack M. Copas, D-Min.
Pastor

Science and the Bible

My friend handed me an article on how NASA scientists proved two miracles in the Bible. He got it on the internet. The article said one scientist who tried to calculate exactly where a space probe needed to be to go into orbit around a distant planet kept coming up with the wrong figures despite his best computer work.

“The problem,” he told a colleague, “is that when I use calculations based on time, I’m off by over a day.” Time he needed to account for went back at least eight millennia in order to establish the distance and location of the planet.

The colleague, according to the story, said the solution to the anomaly was in the Bible, two places where the sun and stars operated erratically. When those hours were entered into the calculations, the scientist was finally able to successfully conclude his calculations.

My friend was so pleased to give the story to me because it proved to him that the Bible could be taken literally, miracles included.

When I had a chance, I checked a website that researches urban legends (www.about.com) where I learned the story was a variation on one written in the 1930s about an event in 1890 where a mathematician could not solve a different problem until he took into account the two Bible stories. The scientists who had been named in each story did not happen to have any witnesses to the conversations and the respective colleagues had both died. Notes on the respective calculations had also not been kept. NASA scientists, when asked about the story, said they never needed to use past time in any of the calculations they do because they work with current speed and direction of their targets to anticipate their future locations.

My friend’s “proof” was based on stories which themselves had no corroboration.

I got the article on Monday. The Friday before, the newspaper carried a story from Associated Press in which the writer pointed out a place where science and the Bible agreed. The article opened with a paraphrase of “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” The writer then described several experiments where people were asked to rate their degree of happiness and then were asked about the use of their incomes. Those who spent about 7 percent or more of their incomes on others (gifts to family and friends plus gifts to charities) tended to be the most happy and those who spent only on their own needs and wants were the least.

I think my friend missed an opportunity to make his point in a better way, one I could agree with, and one that would not be debunked as an urban legend.

But I rarely hear from evangelical friends about how social sciences support many religious concepts in the area of compassion, forgiveness, and other matters of human relations. That kind of science doesn’t seem to carry any weight for those bent on proving the Bible is true.

When “science” is touted as proving Biblical stories that are only about events, how strange is that? But real science is ignored or, as in the issue of evolution, is condemned when it is more successful describing reality than the Bible.

What keeps me from getting all upstrung about it is this: more important than what they say or believe is how they act. And how I act as well.

It’s by our fruits that we’ll finally be judged.

"Let There Be Peace on Earth"

In this morning's paper, a local gentleman wrote in the "Letters to the Editor" section his appreciation for the opening of a new mosque in our town. He wished them well and had a couple suggestions for them. This is my response.

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Dear Editor,

I’m sorry I missed Alan Levin at the inauguration of the new mosque. We left right after the ceremony to work on our house where a water pipe broke under the slab.

I find Mr. Levin’s concept for the mosque’s members to be an opening for discussion. He suggests that they seek to end contributions to those minority groups in the Middle East that prevent freedom for women and non-Muslims and that they seek to change the educational systems in those countries to train children for productive work rather than for martyrdom.

I admire his hope that a group that small (I saw about fifty men, women, and children among their participants) could begin such a movement.

Our church has only a few more members. Our Muslim friends should call on us to cut off funding for radical Christian groups who hate Catholics, Jews, and all other people not of their persuasion and to make sure that all home schooling and Christian academies teach real politics instead of the kind that feels American militaristic imperialism is God’s will.

My church should ask Mr. Levin’s synagogue to seek to end funding to those Zionist groups that have led Israel to subject Palestinians to apartheid and that we should urge Israeli schools to teach that they are to be a blessing to the nations in order to deserve any God-given land rather than operate as the only ones with a right to the land.

Smaller groups than ours have provided the impetus to begin such movements.

We sing a song at the end of every Sunday service, “Let There Be Peace on Earth . . . And Let It Begin with Me.”

Let it begin with us all.

Favre and Moss

Word is out that Brett Favre has retired. His agent thinks Brett could have and wanted to play one more season. The timing of the announcement of his retirement was within hours of Randy Moss re-signing with the Patriots after letting out word that he was serious about playing with Brett and the Packers.

Randy Moss strikes again.

I think the man is poison. He was "flirting" with the Packers last year just enough to get Brett to take him seriously before Moss signed with the Patriots knowing he would have many more years with Tom Brady than he would with Brett Favre. The minute he got Favre to go public about his disappointment that Moss wasn't picked up by the Packers, Moss set in motion a ploy that got played out this year. By again flirting with the Packers and Favre, he got the better deal with the Patriots that he wanted. He didn't want to come to Green Bay. He knew there was maybe a year left in Brett's tank. But Moss is good for several more years.

The sad part is that Brett seemed to believe Moss. And that is such a shame.