Any Jackass Can Burn Down a Barn

When I was in high school, our communications teacher attempted to introduce a film class.  It was the first time one had ever been offered in our school district and outside of NYC or LA there were very few in any public schools.  The result was a pretty free and open environment for us to create the class.  We watched and critiqued great films, learned about some filming techniques and, using the second hand VHS hand held camera the budget would allow, we made our own films.   

Compared to the footage available online of the now infamous film “The Innocence of Muslims,” our 7 minute zero-dollar budget high school production is “Citizen Kane” or Hitchcock’s “Rope.”  If the rest of the film is even close to as bad as the trailer footage, it ranks among the worst films ever made.  (Think Ed Wood makes the “10 Commandments.”)  Yet despite its lacking of any narrative or artistic merit, this little film has sparked a tragic string of circumstances.

On Tuesday, protestors fueled by anger and lacking any sense of moral restraint, attacked the United States embassy in Cairo breaching the walls and desecrating the American flag.  In a related event, attacks on the United States consulate in Benghazi, Lybia left the US Ambassador and two other embassy staff dead and several others injured.  These attacks certainly did not materialize simply because the trailer for this film was released, but there is little question that the film was one precipitating issue.

As someone who makes his living getting up in front of a room (partially) full of people and who leans heavily on both an ethic of professional freedom and the benefit of political freedom, I have an acute appreciation and love for our nearly absolute freedom of speech.  I like that I can get in the pulpit and condemn my government without fear of reprisal and praise it without fear of becoming its puppet.  The freedom of expression we enjoy as nation is perhaps our greatest blessing and the greatest gift to the world that American constitutional democracy has given.

With that great freedom, however, comes even greater responsibility.  As a pastor, I am also acutely aware that just because I may say something does not always mean that I should say it or that it is wise to say it.  That is a lesson lost on too many in our culture today.

The makers of this movie have every right to make a bad film.  A right they have availed themselves of spectacularly.  I for one make no claim that what they have done should somehow be outlawed or banned.   Free speech that is wise and helpful depends on the freedom of speech that is insipid and stupid.  Still, I think the filmmakers deserve a heavy dose of criticism for choosing to make a film that has the obvious purpose of making fun of and inciting anger from a group they do not like.  The only reason the film has not been more roundly condemned is that its subject matter involves a politically and socially unpopular group- the Islamic community.  A similar film that made fun of African-Americans, women, Christians or Jews would not be tolerated.  So taking advantage of the political environment, the filmmakers offer their warped perspective on 1/5 of the world’s population.

The problem with this film is not that it is bad.  It is not that it was not their right to make it.  The problem is that the film represents one of the most reprehensible and craven characteristics of our contemporary culture-“no one matters but me.” 

According to this radical individualism and radical libertarianism, my right to say whatever the hell I want trumps any consequence of my words.

• My vitriol and bigotry leads a classmate to take his or her own life?  Tough, free speech.

• My political rhetoric demeans a whole group of people and incites others to do violence to them?  Tough, free speech.

• My film defames and ridicules another’s religion and risks reprisals in the midst of a tense and polarized global political culture?  Tough, free speech.

Free speech is a blessing and a right of every person who lives in this nation and, God willing, will one day be a basic human right enjoyed by every one of God’s children.  That right is diminished and demeaned when it is used by fools in their folly and when speech is not accompanied by wisdom and humanity.  But wisdom and humanity take work. 

Any jackass can burn down a barn.  And the world never has a shortage of jackasses willing to do just that.  It takes wisdom to build up rather than tear down.  As with so many things, the role the church has to play in this whole political mess is the enduring word of love and universal human dignity.  Central to the gospel of Jesus Christ is the dignity of all people.  Not Christian people.  Not American people.  Not people I like or approve of but ALL people.  ALL of God's children. 

Free speech falls rapidly from blessing to curse when it is used to diminish rather than celebrate the place of a brother or sister as a child of God. 

There is no excuse for the violence in Cairo or Benghazi.  There is also no excuse for the abuse and misuse of a blessed right like the freedom to speak.  Hopefully, “The Innocence of Muslims” will fade rapidly from our collective memory.  With any luck, the lessons we learn from its narcissistic misuse of a cherished right and its foolish attempt to dehumanize a whole religion will not.

Moving the Pillar of Cloud and Smoke: A 9/11 Anniversary Sermon

It Took Its Place Behind Them

Exodus 14:19-31

A Service of Prayer and Remembrance

Commemorating the 10^th Anniversary of the September 11, 2011 Terrorist Attacks

A Joint Service of Worship of

 St. Paul Episcopal Church and First Presbyterian Church of Batesville, AR

 

September 11, 2011

The Rev. Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

                Let me begin this evening by thanking Fr. John and the congregation of St. Paul for the opportunity to be with you tonight and for your hospitality.  To paraphrase the Psalmist, how good and now pleasant it is when friends dwell together in unity.  This continues a good friendship between our two congregations and that truly is a good and holy thing.

            I take as my text this evening a portion of the reading from Exodus we heard just moments ago. 

            The people of Israel are fleeing from the hand of pharaoh through the Egyptian wilderness.  The Lord commands Moses to raise up his staff and extend his and over the waters of the sea so that they may part.  He follows God’s command, and as the waters part, in the words of the writer of Exodus,

            “ the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them.”

            Let us pray.

            Almighty God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing to you our rock and our redeemer.  Should it please you to speak through the words of this unworthy servant, then speak.  And in this and all times, speak to us as only you can, in the silence of our hearts.  Amen.

            The pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them.

            Imagine what it must have been like.

            I guess in truth, we don’t actually have to imagine.  In his final monumental undertaking, legendary filmmaker Cecil B. deMille paints a vivid, if not entirely accurate, picture of the exodus from Egypt.  Whenever I read or hear this text, that image is my mental picture. 

            The great cloud that looms above the people moves so that it is stationed firmly between the people of Charlton Heston and Yul Brenner’s army.  The billowing smoke, the occasional glimpses of fire, the flashing lightening all combine to make Hollywood magic.

            At the moment these events were unfolding for the people of Israel, I doubt it was quite the popcorn moment.  I imagine it what must have been an awesome almost terrifying sight.

            In that moment, the pillar of fire and smoke that led them through the Egyptian desert gives way to the corridor of dry land bordered by the two great walls of water inviting the people to cross the sea and enter into the Promised Land.

            It is an epic, emotional, dramatic scene.  In all it’s 1950’s technicolory Hollywood majesty, the climactic scene of one of the climactic movies of the last century invites us to know what it was to stand there that day in the shadow of the pillar of cloud and smoke and fire.

            In the end of course, the people escape, Pharoah’s army is engulfed by the sea, God’s promise is fulfilled and all Pharoah can do… is go home to Anne Baxter.

            The story of the people of Israel crossing from slavery in Egypt into the freedom of God’s Promised Land is one of the great narratives in human history and one of the pivotal ones in the greater story of the people of God.   When the people first set foot on the bed of the sea, a new day dawned. 

            And the turning point was when the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them.

            I am hardly the first preacher to draw a parallel between the pillar of cloud in the book of Exodus and the pillar of fire and smoke that erupted on lower Manhattan a decade ago this morning.

            What began as a beautiful autumn morning with a big blue sky and perfect fall weather quickly became a picture of darkness and destruction and death.  The misguided and misdirected anger and hate of 18 young men would ignite a fire that would burn even when the flames were put down and the rubble carted off.

            I recalled in my sermon this morning the landing in Newark Airport on September 13 the day air traffic resumed.  When the airplane banked over northern New Jersey and began to fly down the Hudson toward Newark’s runway, I had a clear view of lower Manhattan out my window.  I remember the skyline of lower Manhattan with a void where two great towers of concrete and steel had stood just three days before.  I remember the plumes of smoke and steam that, though of a lesser magnitude than they had been days before, still billowed into the sky like the exhalations of some great beast dwelling beneath the streets and struggling to be let loose on the world.

            That pillar of fire and smoke would remain firmly fixed in our minds eye long after it disappeared from our view.  I would wager to say that for many of us it would be easy to conjure up a vision of it right now.

            It remains fixed before us defining everything else in our line of sight.  It has become the measuring stick by which world events are now measured.

            It is almost as if that day was the restarting point of time.  Pre-9/11 and post-9/11 are our new cultural BC and AD.

            Late last week, a friend who is a stringer for NPR called to interview me for a piece he was working on that was broadcast on Saturday.  I’m afraid I wasn’t much help to his story.  He and several other reporters around the country were interviewing people about what they were doing on September 10, 2001.  When he asked me, I searched my memory trying to think of what it might have been.  In the end, all I could remember was that it was a sunny Monday in Shreveport and I took the dog for a walk down by the river before substitute coaching pee-wee football in the afternoon. 

            That was it. 

            Nothing else stands out. 

            It was just a plain old Monday.

            Had he asked me about the next day, I could give him moment by moment details.  It is still vivid and at times feels ever present.  As a colleague commented to me the other day, it is almost as if one September day has lasted for ten years.

            I wonder if perhaps tonight, with ten years between those tragic events and this Lord’s Day, it might not be time to let it be a new day.  Perhaps it is time that the pillar of cloud moves from in front of us and takes its place behind us.

            Like most things, that is easier said than done.

            When the Israelites stood on the banks of the Red Sea and Moses hurried them along to journey across to the Promised Land, there must have been at least a moment when the people thought better of that suggestion.  There must have been a moment when someone said, “you know that pillar of cloud back there got us this far, maybe we need to stick with it.  Maybe we should keep it out front.”

            With the unknown horizon across the sea in front of them, I imagine that it was tempting to turn around, put their backs to the unknown and set their eyes and expectations on the familiar; the pillar of cloud that had led them thus far.

            Given the option between the known and the unknown, most of us will choose the former every time. 

            The problem with sticking with the familiar for the Israelites was that the pillar had moved.  It was no longer in front of them pointing the way to freedom and the Promised Land.  Now it was behind them.  To turn and face it now meant to turn away from freedom and direct themselves, once again, toward Egypt; toward Pharaoh; toward captivity.

            The pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them.

             None of us will forget the events of that September morning. 

            Nor should we.  It will rightly remain a part of our collective memory and shade our perspective of the world for generations to come. 

            The image of that pillar of fire and smoke that came from lower Manhattan, from the outer ring of the Pentagon and from a lonely field in rural Pennsylvania will remain ever present in the narrative of our nation and our world.

            Nonetheless, it is, perhaps, time that we posed a question to ourselves.  Where does that pillar of fire and smoke belong?  Shall it remain in front of us, continuing to give direction and shape to our lives; shall that pillar of fire and smoke remain our true north or shall it take its place behind us?  Not as a forgotten chapter but as a reminder of where we have been and where, in the mercy and grace of God, we hope to never return. 

            Today we remember the lives not only of the nearly 3000 who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, but also the more than 4000 who, since that day lost their lives in Iraq and the more than 1800 who lost their lives in Afghanistan, 80 as recently as this morning, along with countless civilians caught in the middle of a war of other’s making.

            As we look back in mourning on those who are lost, we must have the courage to also look forward in hope to the tomorrow that God has promised.   If we linger too long on the past, if we allow our world to be measured not by the promise of God’s tomorrow but by yesterday’s tragedies, we fail to do honor to their memories by wasting the future of which they have been deprived. 

            If we do indeed have that courage to look into the horizon of tomorrow, we will never forget what came before nor will we enslave ourselves to it as we cross over into God’s promise.

            The pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them. 

            May it be so for us and for our world.

            Sola Deo Gloria!  To God alone be the Glory.  Amen.

             

Child of God, Child of God, Child of God

As we enter the fools carnival that masquerades as presidential politics in this country, the rhetoric about parties, personalities and platforms (and other things that do not start with "p") will heat up beyond the usual levels.  The scorched earth politics of 21st century America will leave few unscathed.  As things progress, it gets tempting for people of deep belief and passion to join in the mud and word slinging.  When those moments come and that temptation is upon us, I hope that we can all take a moment and do one thing.  Look across the political landscape at your "target" and remember that that person (or that whole group of people) is a child of God.

One of the lessons I have learned in my ministry is to respond in frustration or anger only after looking at the person with whom I am angry and saying to myself a few times "child of God, child of God, child of God."  It helps to put things into perspective.  I wish I could say that it has saved me from ever uttering words I would later regret.  Unfortunately, this little trick is not quite that effective.  But it does remind me that the object of my anger or frustration is also the object of the love and care of God.

Our political vocabulary has been hijacked by the vocabulary of division.  The other side of the aisle has become the enemy of all that is good and right.  It is not enough to oppose a candidate, you have to hate him or despise her in order to show your own loyalty to party and country.  In a culture that defines those with whom we disagree as quite nearly less than human, it is no wonder that we use the sort of language that we use.

As a Christian, I am called to remember that we are all part of the family of God.  In our vocabulary of faith, we are brothers and sisters united by God's love for us.  So to demean or dehumanize someone with whom I have a political disagreement is to demean or dehumanize my brother or sister in Christ. 

There are certainly times when we need to speak up against a position a particular person takes or take a stand against a policy or ideal that tends to diminish or dehumanize a person or group of people.  Those prophetic moments are important to our growth as a community striving for greater and wider justice for all.  But when we do that, perhaps we can do it without casting aspersions on the motives of our political opponents.  It is one thing to oppose abortion, another to call those who support choice "baby-killers."  It is one thing to oppose cuts in social programs , another to call those who propose those cuts "uncaring" or "unChristian." 

There are very real issues and very real problems that we need to address as a nation in this election year.   Perhaps we need to remind ourselves that disagreement on policy is not the same as disqualification from the human race.  Perhaps we need to remember that reasonable people can and do disagree and that even in the midst of our passionate disagreements, we need to disagree reasonably.

When in doubt, just remember...child of God, child of God, child of God.

Let's Stop the Linguistic Gymnastics: Rape is Rape

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The Real Trouble with Mormon Jokes

One of the more popular punch lines in religious jokes is the Mormon’s “magic underwear.”  From stand-up comedy to South Park to jokes between friends, the undergarments of Mormon adults make an easy target for humor.  I have to confess to having made a few less than generous remarks about them, much to my personal shame.  Mormons are one of the few groups it is still acceptable to make fun of in public and that is a matter of real shame.

The “magic underwear” is neither magic nor underwear.  Referred to as “the garments,” the two pieces resembling an undershirt and a pair of extra-long boxer briefs are a symbol for devout Mormons of their inclusion in a community.  One commentator compared it to a yarmulke or nun’s habit.  The garment marks a Mormon’s inclusion in the community following the endowment ceremony in the temple.

One day Mormons too will be off limits to “acceptable” humor. For my part, whenever I feel like making a “magic underwear” crack, I will ask myself if I would make the same crack about a yarmulke.  I cannot think of a circumstance when I would. 

Beyond the purely insensitive and tasteless nature of “Mormon jokes,” there is a larger theological question lingering.  What is it about us that needs to have a ready butt for jokes?  Since my childhood, I remember when it was considered socially acceptable to make jokes about African-Americans, Jews, GLBTQ people and, yes, Mormons in polite company.  In hindsight, I wonder just how polite that company could possibly have been.  The question maintains; what is it about us that needs to have a ready butt for jokes?

Let me start by acknowledging that not everyone makes off color jokes.  This is not meant to point fingers at any particular person or people.  Rather it is an observation about how we work as a culture.  There seems to be an unwritten rule that at least one group needs to be available to be the punch line at all times; some group has to be an outlier. 

It is important to belong to some community.  Even people who disdain community belong to the community of disdain.  But unless the community is popular, powerful or influential enough not to give a damn, there is an assumed social convention that we keep our membership in those communities to ourselves.  In a way, the garments of the Mormon tradition respect that convention.  They are worn under the clothes and do not come with a nametag that says, “I have on my endowment garments under my clothes.”  They are a very personal expression of devotion.  But their ubiquity makes them an assumed part of every Mormon adult’s life and an easy target for mockery.

There is a measure of “chicken and egg” to this pattern of humor at the expense of others as well.  Is this a symptom of our culture or is our culture a symptom of this tendency?

Whatever the answer to that question, one thing is certain.  Humor at the expense of a community of our neighbors coarsens and diminshes us as a culture. 

There is no easy answer.  Few things that matter have one.  But it is a question worth asking ourselves when we offer up a supercilious joke or make off the cuff remarks at the expense of a group or community.

A Radically Moderate Stance on Guns

As I left church on Sunday morning, I was asked a question that I am still unable to fully answer.  I was asked, “If you had been in that movie theatre [Aurora, CO] and you had a firearm [he mentioned a particular model that I do not recall], would you have hesitated to pull it and shoot that guy?”  When he asked the question, I gave him the only answer I could think of at the moment, “I don’t know.”

It is a tough question for a number of reasons.  Mostly, I just have trouble imagining what would be going through my mind at that moment.  My ego wants to think that I would heroically help people get out of the theatre and to safety all the while keeping an eye on the gunman and planning how to disarm him ala the movies.  I know I am not the only person who had that thought.  It is a difficult question to answer because it assumes a hypothetical that would never take place.  There is no circumstance that would convince me to carry a firearm into a crowded theatre so I would never be face with the decision in the first place.

After some reflection on the question, I think I have put my finger on at least part of why it is so tough to answer.  I do not accept the premise that what happened is somehow normal or expected.  That seems to be an undercurrent of many comments on this shooting.  People wonder why no one fired back as though midnight at the movies is the same thing as high noon in Tombstone.  Things that we anticipate happening in the world are easy to hypothesize about, but this is way outside those bounds.   The question I think we should be asking is not what I would do in this foregone reality, but what we as a society should be doing to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

Part of the reason we avoid that last question is that it takes us into some territory that is uncomfortable.  But if we are going to talk about what happened in Aurora, CO we have to talk about guns and if we talk about guns we have to talk about how we can curtail the problem of proliferation of guns to people who have no business having them.

This is the point that most of my pro-gun friends tune me out.   But please a bear with me.  This is not a question of pro-gun or anti-gun.  The extremes on both ends of the political spectrum have worked to turn this into a zero-sum conversation in order to stop any sort of compromise from happening.  They have hijacked an important political and religious issue.  And make no mistake about it, gun-control is a religious matter (more on that below). 

Now those on the “pro-gun”side argue that any limitations on gun ownership are unconstitutional and lead us down a slippery slope toward banning all fire arms.  Reasonable gun control is neither of these things.  The Supreme Court decision that interpreted the 2^nd Amendment to mean that individuals have the right to possess just about any weapon they choose required a Cirque du Soliel worthy contortions of language and logic.  It is highly doubtful that the Founders had in mind an individual owning a small arsenal of automatic and semi-automatic weapons designed for one purpose only, to kill another human being.  The slippery slope argument does not hold water either.  There are almost as many handguns in this country as there are people.  The FBI says there are over 200 million privately owned handguns in this country.  Count in the illegal and unregistered ones and there is one gun for nearly every man, woman and child.  The idea that any gun control is going to lead us down the slippery slope to banning all guns makes about as much sense as thinking that we could ban asphalt.  Nothing this deeply entrenched in our culture is going anywhere.

Those on the “anti-gun” side offer no better arguments.  They claim that guns must be banned in order to prevent crime and to bring the United States into line with other developed countries.  The crime prevention argument does not hold water.  Availability of guns is not the root cause of crime.  To fight crime we need to deal with education, health care, housing and poverty issues that are shown to be at the root of much crime.  From a theological perspective, crime is a manifestation of human sinfulness.  We were sinners with spears and swords just as we are with guns and assault weapons.  As for the cultural argument, it fails to realize that the US is a different society than European countries.  Guns and gun ownership are in our cultural DNA whether we like it or not.   When some European countries banned handguns, there was not much there to ban.  As noted above, in the US banning handguns, let alone all guns, would be a practical impossibility.

So what do we do?  How do we address this question from a practical and theological perspective?

Practically, we need to take a step back from the zero-sum battle lines that have been drawn on this issue and recognize that unfettered access to firearms is unwise and ridding them from the nation forever impractical.

The solution to this problem is found not in a purely policy focused conversation but one of public morality.  What sort of society are we hoping to create?  What values do we want to be reflected in our laws?  On the issue of guns, these questions are more important than usual because they offer us the chance to reclaim an important national debate and take it back from the lunatic fringe. 

So what values do we want to be reflected in our gun laws?

From a constitutional perspective, there is the issue of the right to “keep and bear arms.”  The 2^nd Amendment is not going anywhere so we need to take it seriously.

From a social perspective, we want a society in which individual can be (not merely feel but actually be) secure that their life and liberty will not be violated.

From a moral perspective, we need a society that puts a premium on human life over personal liberty. 

Surely we can find some common ground there?  A responsible person who wants to own a firearm should be able to do so.  But is liberty really threatened by a thorough background check?  Or a firearms safety course?  Or even a limit on how many firearms one person owns? 

Put another way, was making guns easy to buy with no questions asked worth the price that was paid last week in that movie theatre?  If steps could be taken to keep guns out of the hands of an unbalanced person, is there any legitimate reason for not doing that?

I believe that the personal liberty we enjoy as citizens is important.  It is important as a means of keeping tyranny at bay.  It is important as a means of showing political respect to the individual.  It is important for creating space in society for differing opinions and perspectives to flourish and thrive side by side.  So protecting liberty is a valid and important thing.  But it is not the only thing.  Protecting society as a whole is vitally important.  And when we balance those two, individual liberty and safety for society, we have to remember that firearms present a very different issue than speech or press or other matters of constitutional importance.  When someone hurls hateful words, they do not draw blood.  A person abusing his or her right to free speech does not usually leave a trail of bodies in their wake.  The right to keep and bear arms does.  Guns are not like speech.  The person taking advantage of free speech may make me mad, but the person abusing his right to bear arms may leave me dead. 

As a citizen, I believe that individual liberty must be preserved whenever possible but not at the expense of the safety of others.

As a Christian, I don’t give much of a damn about liberty.  It is not a theological issue.  Personally, I would like to see all guns gone from our culture.  There is no legitimate Christian value that is forwarded by the owning much less the using of a firearm.  Jesus taught peace and respect for life as the central principles of our life in the world and love of God as the central principle of our life in whole.  There is no legitimate theological argument to be made for the liberty to carry a weapon designed to kill another human being.  At the same time I cannot buy into the argument that the ownership of a firearm of any kind is in and of itself a non-Christian act. 

Please don’t get me wrong, I do not buy into the NRA myth that “guns don’t kill people, people do.”  Yes, that is true but it is also true that the gun makes it much easier for that person to kill.  So let’s not let the guns off the hook quite so easily.  Do I think the world would be better without guns?  Yes, I do.  But I also think it would be better without many things that are not going anywhere anytime soon.  And if we can’t get rid of them, we can at least curtail their misuse. 

Part of living into that Christian life is using the intelligence and creativity that God has given us to find ways to make this world a little bit better, a little bit safer and a little bit more attuned to his message of grace and love.  Surely we have an obligation to put those tools to work on such a major issue as this. 

The debate over guns is yet another place where our society has accepted the zero-sum either/or duality of the radical extremes on the left and right.   So it is up to we who inhabit the middle to put our heads together and find solutions to our common problems that are both practical and faithful to our calling as brothers and sisters in the world. 

I am convinced that there is a solution to this long standing issue and we have an obligation to work toward a system in which honest and law abiding people can exercise their rights while still allowing the system to protect the innocent. 

Would stricter gun laws have prevented this shooting?  I don’t know.  I am convinced, though, that there is a place between the extremes where efforts to prevent tragedies such as this and preserving the liberty of individuals who feel the need to own guns can co-exist.

Nonetheless, I am still not sure how to answer the question posed to me on Sunday. 

The God I Know

As news of the tragedy in Aurora, CO continues to unfold, I am gratified that so many people have spoken out in these first hours and days about the importance of not using this tragedy to forward a political agenda.  Tragedies such as this are only compounded when they are used as craven political tools.  The President and Gov. Romney both showed patriotic leadership by suspending their political activities and calling for a day of mourning and respect.  

Unfortunately one politician has already tried to make hay of these events.  An advocate for making the United States an exclusively Christian nation (and likely only his particular brand of Christianity), Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas was on the radio today and forwarded his theory that this senseless tragedy is a symptom of “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs.”  The foolishness of that statement is manifest.  What is really troubling is what Gohmert says later in the interview.  He goes on to claim that God has been pushed out of national life and ask, “what have we done with God?”

Just a few days ago, George Zimmerman, the man who has admitted to shooting teenager Treyvon Martin on February 26 of this year.  Whether or not Zimmerman bears any criminal liability remains to be determined.  In the midst of the media frenzy, Zimmerman and his attorney went on FoxNews recently for an interview with Sean Hannity.  During the interview Zimmerman was asked if he had any regrets about that night.  Zimmerman responded that he did not saying, “I feel like it was all God’s plan.”  Zimmerman did later offer his prayers for Martin’s family.

Both Gohmert and Zimmerman invoke the name of God in reference to their narratives about world events.  Gohmert fears that God has been somehow banished from public life.  Zimmerman recalls an image of God as divine puppeteer drawing and relaxing the strings as world events unfold below.  These two conflicting images of God, one of a weak deity powerless before the forces of politics and one of a controlling deity manipulating human events without regard to consequence, are the two faces of a god of convenience invented to support the civil religion of modern America.

Although Zimmerman’s evocation of God as the cause of the events of that tragic night is troubling, more troubling still is the image of God Gohmert and so many others promote.  According to this narrative, a generically Judeo-Christian God wills that this be a Christian nation, however the evil forces of secularism have sidelined all things religious and banished God from the scene. 

Is this the same God who parted the seas and let the people of Israel pass from Pharaoh’s hands?  Is this the same God who, when the people strayed, sent prophet after prophet after prophet to call them back even in the midst of captivity?  Is this the same God who, in love and devotion, sent God’s only son into the world to live and die as one of us only to defeat death and rise again on the third day? 

There is a great song in the 1970's musical "One By One" which tells the story of Noah and his family.  Noah, whose confidence in God will not be shaken, sings the song "The God I Know."  The God he knows will never abandon them.  I thought of that song when I read Gohmert's remarks.  The God I know and the one he was talking about seem like very very different things.

This image of God as victim may be politically convenient but it is hardly biblical.  God’s covenant is not negated because no one particular understanding of the divine is forced on our public life.  God is not a victim of secularism.  God is God no matter what happens or what the world may do.

One of the reasons this narrative of “God as victim of secular humanism” finds such purchase in culture is that there is not a competing narrative.  If the only flavor of ice cream you taste is vanilla, then it is easy to think that all ice cream is vanilla.  The same is true for the gospel.  If the only gospel that is publicly proclaimed is the gospel of God as victim, it is no wonder that so many people view the church as little more than a cranky old man railing against the loud music and “progress.”

In truth, the narrative of Jesus Christ is more powerful than any politically expedient pseudo-theology can ever be. 

Jesus Christ says, “I am with you always.”  In the beauty, in joy, in sorrow, in hope, in despair and, yes, in a crowded midnight movie where human brokenness takes a deadly turn.  Christ is with the victims, their families, those who care for and treat their wounds and those who are charged with bringing a measure of safety and normalcy back to the city of Aurora and to us all.  Christ promises to be with us always and Christ is as good as his word.

Jesus Christ says, “You will be with me in paradise,” to the convict on the cross next to him.  In our shining moments of faith and in our deepest prisons of sin, Christ does not abandon us.  Christ is in the prison cell with the troubled young man who did this unspeakable thing, with his family and friends who seek some measure of understanding and with all who, captive to the brokenness of this world, need him most.  He is not there because any of us deserve for him to be there.  He is there because he is the Christ and the Christ does not forsake us.

Jesus Christ says, “put your sword back in its place for those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”  It is not upon us to exact vengeance on this young man but to fervently and ceaselessly pray for him and for the victims.  To pray, like the persistent widow and the faithless judge’s door, without ceasing.  Jesus Christ calls us to live a different way to live.

The God made known in Jesus Christ is not a weak willed generic deity hoping to be found worthy of political and social acceptance.  And God is not a petulant child who storms away because we do not do just as God expects us to.  No, the God made known in Jesus Christ is a God who, when floods, commandments, exile and prophets do not work, sends his only son to live, die and rise for us all.

That is the story of Christ and the story of Christ is the story of the church.  Christ does not wait for permission to love us or give himself for us.  And nothing, Congressman Gohmert, can relegate that story to the background.