Metric Maladies: The Disease of elevating Quantity over Quality

As Jerry Z. Muller notes in his book "The Tyranny of Metrics", we live in an age of "metric fixation". We use quantitative data to give us the assurance of success (or failure) because it simplifies what can be a bewildering sea of qualitative information and experience. But as helpful as some quantitative data can be at some times, it also can be deceptive. Over-reliance on quantitative data can become a poor replacement for the inherently messy, multi-causal process of discernment. Quantities can be mis-attributed, mis-assigned, and mis-counted to give decision makers a false assurance.

The Body of Christ needs a Left and a Right

This was written in 2007 for a class I was taking on the Church and Social Change. I have never posted it online because I received negative feedback on the thesis because it did not adhere closely enough to established political options available in our society (the subtext seemed to be that I failed to “take a side” in the way my professor wanted me to). Re-reading it in light of what has happened in our country in the last 15 years, it seems to me that this holds insights I would like to share. Most importantly the core theme and metaphor of the paper: We are the Body of Christ, and all functioning bodies have a right and a left side. And in the Church and the Body Politic of Society, we need to realize that we need each other from all sides, and we need to stop demonizing those who are not in “our” side of the Body. As the original subtitle of this paper stated: "Why the Church needs to get beyond Polemics to resist the rise of Global Corporate Consumerism".

The Politics of God’s Kingdom

For a long time I have said: Wherever there are people, there are politics. Politics are the distinctive ways of organizing a community, ensuring justice and fair treatment for all members, and creating social structures to make it possible to live into those supreme values which the community serves. And make no mistake: Every community has its supreme values, its gods and masters, which it sacrifices for and serves. It may be power or profit or praise or pride or possessions or position. It may be God or gods or kings or supreme rulers or parties or free markets or liberty or control or ideology. But every community serves some set of supreme values. And every community creates structures and strictures and sanctions and stimulus packages to enact those values. 

So, unless we are going to live alone on a desert island, we will have politics because we will live with people. We were made for community. So it isn’t a question of IF we will be political, but HOW we will be political. And this is where I think the Way of Jesus offers a different kind of politics: A Way of Love. Not a way of imposing politics on others by force, but a way of inviting people into a politics of full human flourishing. Not a way of violence and exclusion and coercion. But a Way of healing and inclusion and persuasion. Not join us “or else death!” but join us “because of life!”

The Politics of the Kingdom of God is wholly different from the politics of the world and its crumbling fiefdoms. It calls God’s people out of partisan politics and into a deeper walk with Jesus; Out of step with the world and into step with Christ’s Spirit; Out of faith in parties and politicians and into faithfulness to the Father. Where each decision is not made to advance an ideological platform, but to love our neighbor in concrete ways; To judge situation by situation, and person by person, so we choose the most good and the least evil; The most life and the least death; The most love and the least hate; The most compassion and the least apathy. Because, as Saint Irenaeus reminds us, “the  glory of God is humanity fully alive”, but the death and destruction and degradation of any of God’s children dishonors the One who made them. So vote with ballots as a necessary evil when you must. But vote with Christlike words and deeds every day in every situation with every person God brings into your life. 

A Prayer for Juneteenth

I wrote this as a private devotion as I reflected on Juneteenth. Perhaps it might help you or your faith community. 

Where should we pray?

With all the troubling news that happens on a regular basis, we are inundated with people telling us they are offering their “thoughts and prayers” for these situations. And we are also asked to pray for these events and the people involved in them. But where exactly should we offer these prayers?

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Scripture

At the school I serve as chaplain, I was recently asked to provide some Scriptural reflections on our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Earlier, I did an essay for my previous school on how these values are rooted in Episcopal Identity and the foundational beliefs and prayers of the Episcopal Church. Not only that, but the Christian vision of God leads us to these values, because the very idea of God as the Trinity leads us to embrace diversity, and the Incarnation of God in Christ leads us to embrace inclusion. These ideas of God are, in turn, rooted in the self-revelation of God which is recorded in Scripture. So now it is time to dig into the foundational texts of the whole Christian Faith, and the founding stories of Jesus and his Apostles, to understand how they inspire us to create communities of diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice. 

Resurrecting the Matrix: An Ideological Review

I just saw Matrix Resurrections. Here are my responses in no particular order:

Stupidity as a gateway to Fascism

These excerpts on stupidity as a gateway to fascism are taken from a circular letter, addressing many topics, which was written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to three friends and co-workers in the conspiracy against Hitler, on the tenth anniversary of Hitler’s accession to the chancellorship of Germany:

The Way of Christ is Progress

Recently, as people on social media are wont to do, a long time friend of mine posted a really reductionistic meme about the "unchanging" nature of the Way of Christ. It said: 

"Christianity does not 'progress' with the times. If it did, it would be a false religion. Do not be deceived into thinking there is a progressive form of Christianity. It doesn't exist because the truth never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever. Amen"

I used to fear change and progress, and I was also committed to a really simplistic and reductive understanding of the Church as "the pillar and foundation of the truth" (cf. 1Timothy 3.15).

Living Vine, Dead Trellis

A poetic reflection on John 15.5 and institutional religion.

Is a Politics of Life possible in a culture of death?

The LORD of Love is the God of Life. God’s Love is shown precisely in healing broken lives, and protecting vulnerable lives, and elevating endangered lives so they find abundant life. The Glory of God is humanity fully alive, and the fullest human life is revealed in God Incarnate, Jesus Christ, who overcame death by the power of his undying Love. And it is Christ who healed and fed and taught so that all might partake in his Life. Therefore it is incumbent upon those of us who claim to serve the God of Love, revealed in the Life of Christ, to actually do what he taught, and live as he lived: By healing and feeding and teaching others his Way of Life. 

This entails a number or commitments personally, ethically, societally, and even politically...

Is Christianity Political?

As we gallop into yet another conflicted election cycle, it is inevitable that people will ask the question of whether Christianity is political. Well, if by politics we mean a cohesive vision of Society which a group of people strive to implement, then yes. Christianity is deeply political. In the synoptic Gospels the core message of Jesus was the immanent arrival of the Kingdom of God. Kingdom is a politically charged word. It is a place ruled by a King. You don't get more political than that. And the phrase "Kingdom of God" occurs 66 times in the New Testament. "Kingdom of Heaven" occurs 31 times, mostly in Matthew. And other than that, Kingdom occurs over 50 more times. If that is not political, I do not know what is. Not only that, but Jesus came to call a community of people into communion with the Living God. And wherever there are people, there are politics. It is simply unavoidable.

A Squandered Jubilee

It seems God has given us what could be a Jubilee year. But we are squandering it. 

“You will make the fiftieth year holy, proclaiming freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be a Jubilee year for you: each of you must return to your family property and to your extended family. The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee year for you. Do not plant, do not harvest the secondary growth, and do not gather from the freely growing vines... The land will give its fruit so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it... The LORD says: The land must not be permanently sold because the land is mine. You are just immigrants and foreign guests of mine.” (Leviticus 25:10–11, 19, 23) 

Privatize Racist Monuments: A Modest Proposal

In the wake of the George Floyd protests, we are seeing protesters around the world, from every tribe and tongue, rise up and dismantle monuments to human oppression. Monuments to slave holders are being defaced and beheaded, toppled onto the ground, and thrown into the water. Just as we cheered when the Berlin Wall came down, and when statues of Fascists and Dictators around the world have been torn down, so now people are cheering the forcible removal of racist monuments from public lands. What should we do about this?

The Most Damnable Reason

The most damnable reason for existing 

Is to be liked. 

Human rights or God’s rights?

We get tied up in knots about whether healthcare is a human right or an earned privilege. We argue about whether food is a human right or an earned privilege. We debate whether education is a human right or an earned privilege. For those of us who believe in God, as revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, there is a way out of this conundrum. 

On Voting for the Least Bad Candidate

A poem about our current political moment...

They say 
VOTE!
But then they
Won’t
Give us anyone
Worth voting for. 

On Dividing and Conquering

A fundamental means of controlling any population is “divide and conquer”. Identify those who are oppressed, abused, and excluded, and then get them to hate one another instead of joining together to overcome those who are oppressing, abusing, and excluding them. Teach them to exclude and diminish other powerless people on the basis of race, culture, religion, origin, citizenship, gender, and sexuality. Then all the powerless will be so busy pointing fingers at each other, they will forget all about those who control the levers of power and shape the system that keeps them in bondage. Give them a scapegoat to hate and they will forget all about those who supplied the scapegoat in the first place. “Us versus them” is the first and foremost way that the powerful keep the powerless under control. Because if the powerless realized their shared cause and common struggle together, no force on Earth could stop them from joining in solidarity to create a more just and compassionate society. United we stand, divided we fall.

Monarchic Anarchist Theocratic Pluralist Entrepreneurial Socialism

I love "world building" science fiction: The kind where a big sprawling universe is created which includes all kinds of details about the history, culture, sociology, religion, economics, and politics of future society. One frequent form of future society that particularly interests me is a kind of "technological monarchy" which you can find in works such as "The Mote in God's Eye" and Peter Hamilton's "The Night's Dawn Trilogy". This is not a Star Trek style galactic republic, nor a Star Wars style Evil Empire. Rather, it is a form of society that combines monarchy (and often a "State Church") with forms of representative government, with advanced technology, with religious and cultural pluralism, with free market economics, with various socialist policies, to create something really different. Could anything like this ever exist? Could there be a coherent ideology to hold such a system together? Let's see if we can develop a thought experiment to put together a sympathetic worldview which might make this possible.

Hard Power, Soft Power, and Christ's Kingdom

A sermon for St. Paul's Episcopal Church, based on the readings Ezekiel 2:1-5; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13

One of the great pleasures of working as a chaplain in a rigorous college prep environment is that I get to work with young leaders who really think they have a shot at changing the world. They have a kind of "childlike faith" in the possibility of making the world a better place, and a wonderful naivety about their own capacity to bring about that change. 

They have been told repeatedly that the sky is the limit, and they can do anything they put their mind to, if they will just work hard enough. And most of them have not had enough experience with the world yet, to have that beat out of them by life's hard knocks, or slowly drained out of them by life's compromises.

Do you remember what it was like to have that kind of childlike faith that you could change the world? Before you "grew up" and repeatedly failed the same failures, fought the same fights, and argued the same arguments, over and over and over again. Jesus repeatedly praised childlike faith, saying that it was necessary if we wanted to enter into the Kingdom of God.