Exercising freedom eliminates freedom?

Perhaps you have seen the Associated Press report about official "morality police" that have been sent through West Bank towns to enforce adherence to rituals associated with the month-log feast of Ramadan.

Muslims observe Ramadan by refraining from eating or sexual pursuits between dawn and sunset, though feasting often begins shortly thereafter.

I've been in a Muslim country during Ramadan, and it was impressive to see how respectful most people were of those who observed the feast -- and how respectful our hosts were of our desire to eat as we normally did.

Respect is apparently not good enough for some people, however. Mahmoud Abbas' government, the article suggests, appears to be trying to one-up rival Hamas' emphasis on righteous ritual, lest it appear that the fundamentalist faction is more religious than the official government.

I found a comment by police spokesman Adnan al-Damari particularly interesting. "The duty of the morality police is to preserve public manners in public places and to preserve the feelings of the people who are fasting," he said. "Violating the holiness of Ramadan is a violation of people's freedom."

Did you get that? One person's exercise of the freedom to be different violates the "freedom" of others to live in a society where no one is different.

I'd say officer al-Damari, like too many others in our world, could use a lesson in the meaning of the word "freedom."

Meanwhile, emergent church leader Doug Pagitt, pastor of Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis and author of several books that challenge traditional thinking, has been dis-invited from speaking at the annual Wired2Grow event sponsored by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. The event, designed for innovative church leaders, has drawn speakers related to the emergent movement in the past, including Brian McLaren.

Pagitt was criticized by Acts 29 Network leader Mark Driscoll during a recent conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Driscoll, whose church network mixes innovation with fundamentalism, said Pagitt holds "heretical" views and expressed surprise that the BSC had invited him.

That same week, the Biblical Recorder reported that Pagitt's invitation to speak at Wired2Grow had been withdrawn.

The BSC isn't commenting, but I'm digging. Watch for more in the next post.

Same question, different answers

Have you ever sat in worship, "up close and personal," with people who are very different than you -- at least in the obvious ways? Try it, and you'll discover that it adds a totally different dynamic to being church.

My wife Jan (who writes a seriously inviting blog, by the way) is pastor of a small, inner city church that we helped to start several years ago. With several friends of similar mind, we set out to experiment with non-traditional ways of being a faith community, and expressed a common desire to live out the presence of Christ in downtown Raleigh.

For a couple of years we met regularly and talked a lot about our concern for the downtrodden, and our desire to welcome all who sought the love of Christ.

Our conversations, however inspired and intriguing to us, had little impact on the community.

This past summer, we decided to take a different approach. Along with two student interns, Jan started spending time down in Moore Square, a popular hangout for homeless people in Raleigh. They volunteered at a women's shelter, a soup kitchen, and an organization that serves AIDS patients.

Before long, philosophy turned to faces, needs took on names, and our congregation began to change.

When we met last Sunday, our gathering included not just the white, well-educated, middle class folk we started with, but people who sleep in corners and carry their worldly goods in a sack. There were worshipers who suffer from AIDS and/or Hepatitis C. There were people of differing ethnic backgrounds and gender preferences, men who've spent time in gangs and in prison, some who can barely read.

Most of our new friends participate eagerly in our communal worship and study activities, adding a dynamic that rarely surfaces in traditional churches. For example, Jan recently led a study of John 5:1-18, the story of a crippled man who had spent 38 years by a healing pool without being healed.

In the story, Jesus bluntly asked the man, "Do you want to be made well?"

Jan asked the group to reflect on reasons why some people might not want to be healed. We expected sophisticated observations like "they might get less attention," "they might lose an emotional crutch," or "they might be afraid of change."

But that's not what we heard. A man showing the physical effects of Hep-C said "I just found a place to stay. If I go to the hospital, it might not be there when I get back." In his case, "a place to stay" might be a covered alcove behind a building where no one else is sleeping, but he doesn't want to lose it.

Another man, one who has endured the harsh drugs that fight HIV/AIDS for more than a decade, quietly observed "The side effects of some drugs are so painful that some people would rather die than endure them."

Someone said, matter-of-factly, "If you get well, you might lose your disability check, and not have any income."

A former drug addict mumbled an answer that no one understood. His pregnant girlfriend, happy to be in a safe place, slept soundly on the floor, responding to the question with loud snores.

It was not your typical set of responses, nor the typical crowd you'd expect to find in church.

I suspect, however, it is exactly the sort of crowd that Jesus would attract if he came walking through Raleigh.

Following him can be quite an adventure.

Sponsor switch sparks stress

Oh, the pain of it all. Could I find myself pulling for Junior?

Some readers will immediately recognize my dilemma as NASCAR related. Others might need a bit of interpretation.

I'm a so-so fan of the so-called "stock car" racing series, in which race teams pretend that their virtually identical cars are Fords, Chevys, Dodges or Toyotas while chasing each other around an assortment of tracks scattered across the country.

I used to cheer for Bill Elliott, mainly because he was from Georgia. I didn't like it that he was twice sponsored by beer companies (Coors, when he drove the 09 for his own team, and Budweiser when he drove the number 11 car for Junior Johnson).

When I wrote him once to express concern, he wrote back and said he wasn't excited about it, either, but business was business, and that he often spoke out against drunken driving. Later he switched to McDonald's as his primary sponsor, driving the number 94 car for several years of immense popularity before going to work for Evernham motorsports and driving the number 9 "Dodge Dealers" car. It was easier to cheer for him then.

When Elliott retired from full-time racing and handed the keys to young Kasey Kahne, I started pulling for him to win, though he wrecked so often that I sometimes called him "Krashy Kayne."

After our daughter was killed (in 1994) by a man who was stoned on Bud Ice, I declared I'd never again cheer for anyone sponsored by a beer or liquor company, which put me solidly in the "anti-Junior" camp. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (commonly known as "Junior") is far-and-away the most popular driver in NASCAR. But, for years he's driven a fire-engine red car emblazoned with the Budweiser logo, which only enhanced his youthful reputation as a hard-drinking party boy.

Junior announced earlier this year that he was leaving his late father's race team to drive for Rick Hendrick's super-successful stable. It soon became evident that neither the number 8 nor the Budweiser sponsorship would follow him.

During the past week it was announced that Junior's new sponsor would be the National Guard and Pepsi, which will use his new number 88 car to promote its Mountain Dew "Amp" energy drink.

Meanwhile (ouch!) it was announced that Budweiser would shift its sponsorship to Kasey Kayne's car in 2008.

No more cheers for you, Kasey.

I don't do "energy drinks," but I down a lot of Diet Mountain Dew and Diet Pepsi (preferably, with lime), and I appreciate the National Guard.

All of which means that in 2008, I could find myself in the really stressful situation of cheering for Junior to win instead of lose.

Then again, this may be the boost I need to let NASCAR go the way of professional football, baseball, and basketball -- and just stop caring about the sport at all.

Time (and sponsors) will tell.

Clean hands and a pure heart?

The next time you're in a public restroom, look around -- someone may be watching, and not just for foot tapping in the stalls.

A recent study reports something we instinctively know: women are more likely than men to wash their hands before leaving the bathroom.

I became very conscious of that a few years back when I overheard two women discussing the subject, and one said "Trust me, men never wash their hands." I privately determined to prove her wrong.

The toilet spies reported that most men do wash their hands, at least when using public bathrooms, but less faithfully than the cleaner sex. On average, a third of men left the public bathrooms studied without washing their hands, while only 12 percent of women did so.

You'll want to avoid handshaking at Turner Field in Atlanta, where the greatest disparity was observed. Only 57 percent of the men washed up in the Braves' bathrooms, compared to 95 percent of female fans.

The troubling thing about the study -- which was reported to a group of infectious disease scientists -- is that cleanliness (like godliness?) is declining, at least among men. Ten years ago, a similar report from the hand-washing police observed just 25% of men leaving the toilet with unwashed hands.

We are often reminded that frequent hand washing is the single best thing we can do to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, so there are important reasons beyond the "gross factor" for hitting the soap dispenser and hot water before leaving the restroom.

To be really careful, you have to hold on to the paper towel and use it to open the door on the way out, lest you pick up germs from previous visitors who may not have been so fastidious.

At Campbell University, most bathrooms I've visited are plastered with insurance company posters advising bathroom patrons to sing the "Happy Birthday" song twice while washing their hands with soap and water.

Perhaps we should add a second poster to the men's rooms, one that features a proverb that was already old when Job quoted it: "The righteous man holds to his way, and the one with clean hands grows stronger" (Job 17:9).

The Invisible Blog returns

After weeks of functioning beautifully, my blog disappeared from cyberspace last Friday. It was still there, but invisible, caught between servers in some sort of redirect loop that I (obviously) don't fully understand.

Fortunately, my friend George Frink does understand these things: he's been contributing to the Internet's inner workings since it was in cyberdiapers, and is so fluent in Geekspeak that he sometimes has to translate himself before I can understand.

George developed the first website for the Biblical Recorder, getting it online at the very front edge of the curve, and he continues to develop and host the Recorder site through his consulting company, Southern Connections.

With his prodding a few years back, I became the second full-time editor in the nation to establish a regular blog: if I'd listened to him earlier, I would have been the first.

In any case, George was kind enough to reach into the netherworld of floating ones and zeros, ferret out some incorrect settings relative to my domain name, and get www.tonycartledge.com (a.k.a. www.homilygrits.blogspot.com) back online by Sunday evening.

He did so out of friendship and an honest belief that what I have to say is worth reading, not for "filthy lucre," and I am immensely grateful.

A number of readers had noticed that the blog had disappeared, and I wanted to post a word of thanks to George before going on to other things.

WMU-NC updates

An online brief on the Biblical Recorder website says that East Taylorsville Baptist Church will host a meeting on Tuesday night, Sept. 18, where "at least one representative of the Baptist State Convention (BSC) will explain the issues around Woman's Missionary Union's decision to relinquish its position as a BSC auxiliary."

WMU-NC representatives were not invited to the meeting, which should say all you need to know about why WMU-NC has sought to re-establish its historic autonomy and right of self-determination.

The meeting was apparently sparked by Yadkin Baptist pastor Tim Rogers, who organized a smaller meeting at the Box Car Grill in Statesville Sept. 3, and who has criticized WMU-NC's decision on his personal blog, "Southern Baptist in NC".

"We want to hear from the Baptist State Convention what's going on," Rogers told the Recorder. "We have to be able to explain things to our own WMUs."

Do you notice the disconnect in that statement? There are pastors who want the Baptist State Convention to explain what's happening, so they can "explain things" to "our WMU's." In other words, they apparently believe WMU-NC is incapable of explaining its actions to its own members, and are interested only in the BSC's perspective.

Although uninvited, it is my earnest hope that some WMU-NC representatives will attend the meeting, and that the hosts will be gracious enough to allow them equal time to speak for themselves.

Much of the conflict grows from a misunderstanding of Baptist polity and WMU history. WMU does not now, and has never belonged to the Baptist State Convention. WMU-NC was started by women who wanted to assist with the indivisible causes of missions and ministry. Many men felt threatened enough to oppose their involvement in the early days, and many men continue to feel threatened by the existence of an influential woman's group that is free from denominational control.

A great deal of unfortunate information is being disseminated about WMU-NC. One erroneous statement, to which BSC officials have contributed, is the idea that WMU-NC is "leaving" or "resigning" from the BSC. WMU-NC has made it very clear that they do not wish to pull back in any way from the organization's commitment to assisting BSC churches in doing missions and ministry. The felt need to re-assert the group's historic autonomy in no way diminishes its desire to be a supportive partner.

Some have criticized WMU-NC for bringing pain and confusion into BSC life, questioning whether the action is worth the trouble it has caused. One cannot put all the "pain and confusion" on WMU-NC's shoulders, however. There were and are good reasons for WMU-NC to push back from encroaching Convention control and to reaffirm its autonomy. The denominational strife that has afflicted Baptists for the past three decades contributes heavily to the situation, and certainly can't be blamed on Woman's Missionary Union.

Finally -- and most disturbingly -- some BSC Baptists are spreading vicious and unfounded rumors about WMU-NC's "true" motives for wanting to have full control in the hiring of its own staff. The rumor does not bear repeating, but if you hear a slanderous remark directed toward WMU-NC, you can be assured that it's completely bogus.

Paintballs for Jesus

A recent news article tells the tale of a church in Mariposa, California that wants to use some town-owned land for church-sponsored paintball games. Although Mariposa is highly Bible-friendly, the idea of giving both town and church sanction to a war game that involves shooting paintballs that "kill" enemies has not gone over well.

At first thought, the idea of church-sponsored shooting games doesn't sit well with me, either. When we serve a Teacher who said "I say unto you, love your enemies," it's hard to endorse a game that appears to endorse violence.

On second thought, little is said about church-sponsored Super Bowl parties -- except by the NFL, which declared them illegal (see an enlightening commentary on that super-bum decision at David's Deliberations, a new blog by a Baptist pastor that is well worth reading).

Football is about choosing up sides and hitting each other, a violent sport that many of us have personally enjoyed, and one that provides observers with vicarious thrills long after our own playing days.

In my grown-up life I have a personal aversion to guns and war games, but I remember how much fun I had as a boy, when I would run alone through the woods with my BB gun, dropping into ditches or hiding behind trees and imagining that I was engaged in mortal combat with Hitler's minions.

I'm not interested in playing paintball, but there are lots of other things church youth groups do that don't interest me, either.

Church-sponsored paintball may send a mixed message, but if it attracts young people to hear the gospel and gives them a supervised outlet for burning off some of that omnipresent adolescent angst, I say "let 'em play."

[Image from David R. Smith's fascinating page on cloaking technology, here.]

WMU-NC closer to move

Here's a newsy update on the increasingly strained relationship between Woman's Missionary Union of North Carolina (WMU-NC) and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSC), a matter that WMU supporters across the country are watching closely.

WMU-NC has historically been an autonomous body, but grew into a symbiotic relationship with the BSC that left it somewhat less than independent. That was fine during an extended period of shared goals and mutual trust. As conservative/moderate tensions grew and trust levels dropped during the past few years, however, WMU-NC leaders perceived a need for several moves designed to ensure continued autonomy in future years.

BSC officials responded by asserting that the BSC executive director has final authority over WMU-NC staff, a position that WMU-NC leaders reject. At loggerheads over the issue, WMU-NC's executive board voted Aug. 16 to relocate the organization's offices from the Baptist Building in Cary and to assume greater financial responsibility for its staff.

In a meeting with Convention officials, WMU-NC executive director Ruby Fulbright requested confirmation that WMU-NC employees who qualify for retirement under current BSC policies would be able to do so, stated WMU-NC's desire to continue as a promoter and recipient of the North Carolina Missions Offering (NCMO), and sought a nine-month transition period to make financial arrangements and complete the move.

In a called meeting of the BSC Executive Committee Sept. 10 -- a meeting to which the Biblical Recorder was not invited, by the way -- the Committee met with Fulbright for several hours and then spent more than two hours in closed session.

The Committee acknowledged that WMU-NC will receive its previously-designated share of the 2007 NCMO offering, but deferred consideration of future offerings to its Sept. 25 meeting, when the BSC budget committee is scheduled to report its recommendations for the next two-year budget cycle.

The Committee agreed that WMU-NC staffers who already qualify for retirement under BSC policies can do so, an action that affects three WMU-NC staff members, including Fulbright. They can now officially "retire" from the BSC and work on a contract basis for WMU-NC.

The Executive Committee cut the request for a nine-month transition period in half, determining that WMU-NC should become financially self-supporting by Jan. 1, 2008. If arrangements for relocating the offices are not complete by then, WMU-NC will be allowed to remain in the Baptist Building through May 2008, at a cost of $2,000 per month in rent.

Fulbright expressed appreciation for the Executive Committee's cooperation.

For its part, the Executive Committee affirmed executive director Milton Hollifield's position that the BSC constitution allots final authority over all BSC employees to him, and charged him to stick by Convention policies.

On Sept. 11, the BSC posted a lengthy statement on the Convention website. The statement is clearly designed to present the Convention's actions in the best possible light, to portray WMU-NC in a less favorable light, and to justify the position taken by BSC officials.

WMU-NC posted a press release on its website Sept. 12. In that release, Fulbright apologizes for any grief or confusion that has emerged from the growing tension, but defends WMU-NC's actions: "Our move has been necessary for us to maintain the freedom to follow the will of God as we understand it. It is my hope that this new working relationship will allow us to return our focus to God’s purposes for us and to new joy in ministry."

We can only hope.

Baptists and booze

In a previous post, I expressed mild astonishment that some very conservative Baptists have embraced the moderate use of alcohol, at least while evangelizing in bars and taverns.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. Back in the nineteenth century, whiskey was a popular tonic among Baptists, and not just for medicinal purposes.

Indeed, while researching an article on Primitive Baptists for the next issue of Baptists Today, I learned that missions was not the only thing dividing missionary and anti-missionary Baptists. In his contribution regarding Primitive Baptists in The Baptist River: Essays on Many Tributaries of a Diverse Tradition (ed. W. Glenn Jonas, Jr., Mercer University Press, 2006), John G. Crowley noted that "the marriage of the temperance movement to the missions cause further alienated many rural and frontier Baptists" (p. 163).

Crowley, an ordained Primitive Baptist minister who teaches at Valdosta State University in southern Georgia, cited the case of Isham Peacock, a North Carolina native and Primitive Baptist pastor who despised the anti-liquor societies so greatly that he would not preach in churches that included members who had pledged abstinence from alcohol.

When he was 100 years old, Crowley writes, Peacock would drink from a hollow cane filled with whiskey while preaching, "both to recruit his flagging energy and also to demonstrate the bounds of Christian liberty in regard to the 'creature'" (p. 164).

History reports that Peacock died at age 107, when he fell from his horse (click here and scroll down to "Elder Isham Peacock").

Maybe I have less cause for embarrassment regarding my own family tree, which included several bootleggers back in prohibition days. Family lore recalls a Saturday when my paternal grandmother's brothers ran off some moonshine behind the house. They returned the portable still to its hiding place and had filled a quantity of jugs when they saw the local sheriff turning into the driveway. Thinking quickly, they poured the fresh moonshine into a tin tub of dingy water that had warmed in the sun and in which several family members had taken their weekly bath.

After "the law" left empty-handed, the brothers regretfully poured out the booze with the bathwater, much to the chagrin of an alcoholic in-law named Cliff, who moaned "I coulda drunk that!"

Milk and honey ... for real

Readers with even a passing interest in the biblical world will be interested to learn that the first archaeological evidence of bee-farming in the "land of milk and honey" has come to light through excavations at Tell Rehov, in the Beit She'an Valley.

The Jerusalem Post, Science Daily, and other sources have reported that Prof. Amihai Mazar of Hebrew University uncovered a collection of beehives there during the summer. The apiary, which was dated to the 10th to early 9th centuries BCE (near the time of Solomon), contained 30 hives arranged in three rows, stacked three high. The hives, made of unbaked clay and dry straw, were shaped like cylinders. One end of each hive was closed, with a small hole for the bees to enter. The other end was covered with a clay lid that could be removed to extract the honey (additional pictures here).

In antiquity, the site may have included as many as 100 hives, Mazar said.

Beekeepers and scholars put their heads together and estimated that an apiary that size could have produced as much as 1,000 pounds of honey each year.

That's enough to sweeten a lot of goat milk.

The Bible contains a delightful story in which Saul's son Jonathan, tired after a day of battle, discovered a wild honeycomb and found renewed energy after indulging in a quick snack (1 Sam. 14:25-26). Samson was said to have discovered a beehive in an animal carcass (Judg. 14:8-9), while Mark's gospel says John the baptizer subsisted on "locusts and wild honey" (Mk. 6:1).

The Bible also refers to Israel no less than 16 times as "the land of milk and honey." A few scholars, perhaps due to the previous paucity of evidence for domestic honey production, have surmised that the word for "honey" also could have described a type of date with a honey-like flavor.

Mazar's discovery offers clear evidence that, when the Old Testament writers said "milk and honey," they meant milk and honey.

As Jackie Gleason would say, "How sweet it is!"

[Photo by Amihai Mazar, Hebrew University]

A fundamental love of beer?

Let me begin with a disclaimer: I despise beer, and for a number of reasons, beginning with the fact that our daughter Bethany was killed by a beer-swilling drunken driver. Other innocent people die every day from the same cause. As a boy, I saw what havoc my great uncle's alcohol abuse wrought on my great aunt's face, and I know that millions of spouses and children continue to suffer abuse from people who love alcohol but can't handle it. Some people tell me that nothing tastes better than a cold beer, but its cloying smell and urine-like appearance have no appeal to my senses. In short, my personal view is that I can find no redeeming qualities in beer or any good reason to drink it.

Given that disclaimer, I'm aware that beer has been around since Sumerian times (3rd millennium B.C.), and isn't going away anytime soon. The powerful beer industry is virtually immune from lawsuits, and will continue to recruit new drinkers (and imperil new victims) until Jesus comes.

The question is, when Jesus comes, will he be drinking a beer?

I confess to having a hard time getting comfortable with the whole idea of "theology on tap" -- the movement among many emerging churches to host discussion groups in bars where participants (including the church leaders) have a beer while engaging in conversation about God.

I have no problem with the idea of going where the people are or with hosting a discussion group in a bar or even (to a lesser degree) with participants imbibing a bit in their natural habitat.

What I can't get used to is the image of the pastor downing a Budweiser while discussing baptism.

While many emergent congregations tend to be moderate-to-liberal in theology, I find it surprising that some extremely conservative folk have endorsed the concept of beer-based evangelism, at least when so-said evangelists hold to a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible in other areas.

For example a recent news article about a non-denominational Raleigh church called Vintage 21 revealed that at least one professor from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is a great fan. Though he says the inclusion of beer drinking might not be the wisest choice, given widespread alcohol abuse, theology professor John Hammett told the News & Observer "Overall, I applaud what's going on at Vintage21," and described it as "a healthy church."

The church is acceptable, apparently, because it practices a very conservative approach to biblical interpretation on matters such as the place of women, and won't allow women to serve in the highest leadership positions.

Lucky for them the Bible doesn't mention beer by name, though it has a lot to say about the dangers of drunkenness.

Southeastern, in fact, is planning to join Vintage 21 -- part of the non-denominational Acts 29 network -- in co-sponsoring a "boot camp" for others who want to plant similar churches.

The thing I cannot fathom is the approach that a church can be so culture-friendly that its leaders will sit down with a beer to discuss theology, but won't allow women to sit at the table of church leadership.

There's something theologically cock-eyed about an approach that blithely ignores clear scriptural warnings against becoming a stumbling block to the weak, but holds fast to a few ambiguous texts that appear to limit leadership to men only.

If I could force down a few beers, maybe the conundrum would become clear. In the meantime, to this sober mind, it makes no sense at all.

(Image courtesy of PD Photo.com)