Category: DOC Thoughts
DOC Character . . . Nailed
These careful, moderated theological approaches are increasingly important voices and advocates for Americans in times of cultural and political polarization, division and distance. Ministers graduating and serving churches across the country from Brite truly are, according to the hymn, “the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.”(1)
For the past fifteen years my denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), has been in a full-blown identity crisis. I don’t know if we are “middle-aged”, but we have certainly lived that stereotypical struggle. Many, in an attempt to woo the Church consumer, have moved away from education to edutainment and from covenant community to commercial consensus. I think of my denomination as “pragmatic dabblers” which can be deadly without a well-formed identity. A seminary professor reminded our class, Christian Theology of World Religions, that one cannot join a inter-religious dialogue without first knowing your own religious identity, heritage, and by checking your need to “convert” at the door. Pragmatic dabbling is healthy when you know who you are and religious dialogue important when you have a clear sense of self and respect for the other participants. In our world of polemics, economic, political, and religious, the Disciples identity and voice is needed more than ever before.
The quote above comes from Pearce Edwards writing for the Daily Skiff. He is covering the opening of a new building at Brite Divinity School which is on the campus of Texas Christian University. Near the end of his article, “Harrison Building Reflects Brite’s Importance”, he offers this short sentence that nails what I would call “classic” Disciples identity and work in our nation and world. Disciples theology and practice will have to evolve rather than transform, reform, or conform to current consumer or corporate preferences if we are to remain a relevant voice of Gospel in our Regions, nation, and world. The next fifteen years will define the kind of Christians and citizens of the kindom that our denomination will be.
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Reference
1. Pearce Edwards, “Harrison Building Reflects Brite’s Importance”, TCU 360, contributor to the Daily Skiff, January 19, 2012.
The Latest “Sightings”
Ministerial Exception
— Martin E. MartyThose who observe United States Supreme Court decisions on “church and state” are dealing with what many call the most important “religious liberty” case in decades, at least since the 1940s. Like so many cases, this one had a parochial start. The details are familiar, and we need not rehearse them all. Let it come to focus on the fact that a Lutheran parochial school teacher had been dealt what to her was a manifest injustice. She countered by seeking to pursue her case in court. Doing so, claimed the church, was counter to church teachings, so it fired her. Had she been a simply secular employee in a simply secular post, the usual standards for administering justice would have applied. But the church named her a “minister,” and argued for a “ministerial exception” to secular standards. The Supreme Court decision left the teacher out in the judicial cold and left many citizen justice-advocates heated up.
So we add a “ministerial exception” to a national vocabulary and code which makes another exception in religious matters, alongside “tax exemption for the churches.” Such a tax exemption practice is so widely appreciated that few think of its rationales and practices. Try getting elected to Congress on a platform which would question and even abolish such tax exemption. Is exemption just? Clearly, it is privileging religion, and many court decisions recognize and affirm this. Once again: is it just? Is it just to the significant percentage of the population which disfavors religion, ignores or disdains its institutions, yet pays higher taxes than if church properties were taxed. Never mind. Without such an exception, religious institutions would not thrive or always survive. So it is regarded, not always with clear rationales, as a public good. Does this mean that the church, which is supposed to be prophetic, has to mute critical roles and support religious institutions even when they have, in the eyes of their critics, malign purposes and malignant practices. Yes. Being uncritical is a price religious institutions pay for the goods they derive for their prosperity in a free republic and letting the institutions go free from taxing is the price it pays when it can only wink at religions damaging the public good, as many of them do.
“With liberty and justice for all . . .” is an ascription in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, one that sets up a difficult balancing act. The founders, among them James Madison and others who quoted Montesquieu, were nervous. They quoted him: granting privileges to religion, as America does, has many upsides, but it can also contribute to downsides. If you want to destroy religion, Montesquieu had advised, give it favor. By granting “tax exemption” and now “ministerial exceptions,” the citizenry and its courts (unanimously in this case of the Supreme Court) are giving favors unmatched by policies of European nations which have or until recently had “established churches.”
These years one hears from some cultural and political factions the gross generalization that religion in general and Christianity in particular are being discriminated against and are suffering from the actions, policies, and expressions of secular society. Cases like the current one counter evidences. There are many assaults on faiths, including Christianity, in the culture at large. But the generally free ride given religious institutions even in a “secular time” should inspire thought: With all its contradictions, the United States remains a wonderful place in which religions can prosper. They do well when they serve the common good freely and openly.
References
“Supreme Court Decision: Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. E.E.O.C.” New York Times, January 11, 2012.
A background item that provides some context for Sightings today on “rights” and “privileges” is this condensation of a lecture:
http://www.bjconline.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3505