The 7 Virtues for The Post-Modern World - Temperance!

Christ in the Wilderness by Stanley Spencer

Starting with this post, I will start a series on the 7 virtues! Exciting huh?

The seven virtues are hardly spoken of outside the walls of catechism. Perhaps they elicit in us horrid memories of old school nuns beating these virtues onto our bodies with human sized rulers. Perhaps they remind us of medieval, ascetical, and rigid spirituality.

But virtues matter. We shouldn't keep them in "medieval consciousness" boxes stored in our cultural attics. They should be unboxed, discovered, and be given a place in our 21st century homes.

As I will explore in these upcoming posts, these virtues are immensely necessary to our 21st century society. The postmodern world needs them more than ever. I will also offer practical ways to practice them in an urban context.

For today's post we will start with Temperance!

What is Temperance?
Temperance can be described as self-restraint or self control. It is connected with discipline. It evokes images of a moderate person who is not overrun by emotions and passions. Negatively, it can bring up images of a stoic individual who seems dry, joyless and lacking in emotional expressions.

True temperance, however, should bring joy. This negative aspect of the virtue is more connected with someone who practices temperance for temperance's sake, while forgetting the end goal of practicing virtues in general: theosis, or union with God.

Interestingly enough, temperance (and the practice of it) has a wide range of applications. We can practice temperance not only with material goods, but also with our emotions. We practice temperance, for example, when in anger we decide not to engage in violence but instead we practice non-violence and forgiveness.

With this example, we start seeing how temperance is hugely important in our modern world and its struggles towards social justice.

Temperance & The Holy Spirit
Temperance is also connected with the self-control, which is the last  fruit of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:22-23.) I believe this list of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is hierarchical, meaning that each fruit builds on top each other.

The apostle Paul lists self control at the bottom of the list, since it is not only the one we should start practicing with, but also the base where the Holy Spirit can build up the other gifts. It is for this reason that I wanted to start this series of the 7 virtues with Temperance.

The Virtue of Temperance for a Post-Modern World
There are many ways we can practice temperance in our urbanized world.

First, the practice of temperance encourages us to lead a simple life and to fight our senseless materialism that is sucking the precious resources of our earth. A study suggested that, if the rest of the world were to consume like Americans, we would need 4 planet earths!

Temperance, or self-control in materialism will help offset this senseless consumption of resources. It will teach us that we are not more entitled to these goods than people in other developing nations.

Secondly, temperance will help us in our struggle towards environmental justice. We practice self-control by making the sacrifices needed to reduce our carbon footprint. Like I've written in the past, the problem is not just the government, but we also bear a personal responsibility in destroying the environment.

Thirdly, temperance will also give us self-restrain in the things we do buy. We can practice it by paying attention to how our purchases affect the world around us and by showing self-restrain from buying goods that are probably cheaper, but they are built on maquilas or factories that are abusive to its workers, and even have child labor.

Since buying fair-trade goods is probably more expensive, this will require that we consume at a lower rate than we currently do. We will buy less things, but the ones we do will probably be of better quality. Sometimes less is more.

All of this, of course, require discipline. It is easier to go with the flow and simply buy what is convenient. It is easier to not think of what we are consuming instead of showing self-control by restraining our over-consumption.

In what other ways is temperance relevant in our post-modern world?

The Gift of Not Belonging

I know the feeling of not belonging.

As an immigrant from Nicaragua, I feel like I don't fully belong to this place I call home. Through the 13 years I've been in this country, however, I have adopted some of its values and cultures, while at the same time not abandoning fully my own Nicaraguan values and culture.

Because of this, I feel like I don't fully belong in Nicaragua anymore. My Spanish accent has changed and it is no longer fully Nicaraguan, for example. My newly adopted western values are sometimes in conflict with my Nicaraguan ones.

I am stuck in the middle of two cultures.

A Progressive, But Not A Liberal
But the feeling of not belonging doesn't stop there.

Politically, I feel I don't belong to any of the polarized political positions in this country. I don't feel fully comfortable belonging to either the Republican or Democratic party. I have strong disagreements with both.

In many ways I am a progressive. I feel my calling as a Christian is to see the perspective of the poor first, not because they are somehow more "deserving" (how can we talk of someone being deserving or not in a religion that stands on Grace?), but because the world puts them last.

Jesus hanged out with sinners and tax collectors. He hanged out with the poor. In my imitation of Christ, I want to do likewise. This is what makes me a progressive, even if I don't fully buy into the liberal agenda.

It is for this reason that I support raising the minimum wage to a livable minimum wage. This aligns with my conviction that people are more than what they do, and that in an economy that needs the janitor as much as they need the CEO, they should both be afforded a wage that can sustain them and their families with dignity.

It is for this reason that I want to call this nation to show more hospitality to immigrants. When Paul proclaims that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek (one of the racial and spiritual divisions of the time) he is leaving issues of nationalistic values as secondary to our call of seeing the other as our brother and sister.

The way the world mistreats the "other," the foreigner around the world, is heartbreaking. It seems to me that we value more our nationalistic identity than our call to love our neighbor. When Jesus responded to the Pharisees' question of, "who is my neighbor?" He responded with a parable that highlighted a Samaritan, the hated 'other' in that context.

Our neighbors are not only people of our own kind but the "other" our culture fears and despises. Even if we are disposed to not include the foreigner as our neighbor but more as our enemy, the command from Jesus to love our enemies still applies and calls us to love.

Love, for the Christian, is inescapable.

It is for this reason that I feel uncomfortable supporting most Republican candidates, because they (at the current choices) don't strike me as being welcoming to the immigrant. In fact, many of them want to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country whom they see as not belonging here.

Not Pro-Choice and yet Not Pro-Life
Let my clarify this. Ethically speaking, I am Pro-Life in the fullest sense of the word, but I can't join the Pro-Life movement as it currently is, with all the political entanglement of a particular party. This is what I mean by not being Pro-Life. I don't wish to be identified with the Pro-Life movement in the US.

I see being Pro-Life as a holistic call against a culture of death. For this reason, I can in no good conscience get behind pro-gun rights (I don't see an issue in using guns for hunting, but open carry? I have an issue with that).

I can't get behind a Pro-Life movement so entangled with a particular party that encourages cuts in the budget towards health and education but never speaks of cutting the budget towards the military and security.

If we are truly Pro-Life, then the fact that as a nation we engage in wars every 30 years or so should be disturbing. If we are truly Pro-Life, we should by definition abolish the death penalty. A political platform that condemns abortion but upholds other forms of 'righteous' killing may be more accurately described as Pro-Birth, but never Pro-Life.

This doesn't mean I am Pro-Choice. Better said, I am not Pro-Abortion. I can't deny that abortion deals with the ending of a life. This alone disturbs me. We can argue all we want whether a fetus is a human being or not, but it would be disingenuous to deny that the fetus is alive.

I know that as a man, my opinions on this subject necessarily take the backseat. I recognize that I will never have to go through the excruciating experience of deciding whether to have an abortion or not. I want to acknowledge that my perspective is severely limited because of this, and I truly don't know fully what I'm talking about, nor will I ever.

At the same time, one forms opinions on matters whether one wants to or not, and my value of life prevents me from fully supporting abortion. I understand it is not always a black-and-white issue. I understand that in many situations there are subtleties that deserve our attention. But at the end of the day, after an abortion is performed, a life is lost.

Any loss of life should always grieve us.

As you can see, for these and many other reasons, I cannot fit into any particular conservative or liberal box. I don't belong to any of them.

The Gift of Not Belonging
I can take these realities and declare "woe is me!" but I won't. I want to embrace this reality as a gift from God.

This gift of perspective allows me to see blind spots that are ubiquitous in any given culture. It allows me to see from two different cultural lenses, and acknowledge the pros and cons of each position while not fully fitting into those boxes myself.

Not only that, but maybe this sensation of not belonging is the call of the Christian. Jesus declares that we are in the world and yet not of the world. He also proclaims that His Kingdom is not of this world, and yet the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, present in this world.

I am disturbed, therefore, at seeing the Church in the US being so shaped by culture wars and ideologies of our society. I see a church that conforms more and more with the polarizing views of our national politics, whether they be conservative or liberal.

I see a Church that mirrors the political polarization of this nation, instead of the unity we are called to in Christ. If the Church is so divided not only theologically, but also culturally and politically, can we truly say that it is living fully in Christ?

When we choose a side and defend it against the other side, we enter into a cultural bubble. Ideas formed in these bubbles will slowly develop apart from the perspective of the other. As time passes in this polarized nature and ideas on both sides continue to develop independently from each other, we are driven further and further apart.

Divisions are so aggravated that when the two opposing groups get to share their ideas with each other they are both met with disgust and disbelief. Polarization is a vicious cycle that feeds on itself. The two bubbles will grow in substantial size, and when they make contact with each other, they will burst into chaos.

Here is the thing: the Church is not called to be conservative or liberal. The Church is called to be Christ to the world. Christ did not belong to any particular party of His time. He was not a Pharisee. He was not a Sadducee. He was not a Zealot. He was not a Hellenistic Jew. Christ simply was and is.

I'm not saying that a Christian shouldn't belong to any particular party. What I am saying is that this belonging is only secondary to the call to belong to Christ. Belonging to a particular political party should never be seen as a prerequisite to belonging to Christ. To consider it otherwise would be pure idolatry. When we have denominations that identify first as either "traditional" or "affirming," and only secondly as Christ-centered, we have indeed allowed our faith to be shaped by our politics instead of the cross.

I believe that our root sin as a Church is nothing other than the idolatry of culture. Our call then, is not to be a conservative or a liberal Christ to the world. Our call is simply to be Christ to the world.

Looking for the Wilderness in an Age of Productivity

[Luke 5:15-16 ESV] 15 But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

One of the greatest dangers for those of us who are in ministry and/or non-profit work is burning out. This is especially troublesome if you are doing this kind of work while raising a family.

Members of the clergy suffer higher rates of obesity and hypertension than the rest of Americans.

Working for non-profits over the past 5 years, I have personally experienced burnout. I have never been as tired in my life as when doing this work. I have noticed anger and resentment grow in me as I go through a grueling day of work and ministry, even as my body is asking me for rest.

Why is This?
I think there are two reasons for our tendency to overwork in ministry.

First, our obsession with productivity in our culture. We value 'doing' more than 'being.' We are what we do. Whatever value you give to the world through your work is the value you receive from this world. Our identity, confidence, and self-esteem is contingent on what we do and accomplish.

With this philosophy, or work ethic, if you want to be better, you have to do better.

Second, ministry and non-profit work are often fueled by our passions. We dedicate ourselves to a good cause, to changing unjust systems so that it benefits the greater number of people. Clergy and ministers are fueled by a passion to serve God and people. We may feel duty-bound to spend ourselves for a cause.

In an age where productivity and hard work are rewarded, and when our passion to serve God and others is fueling us, the result is a perfect storm for burnout.

What Can We Do?
In the reading from Luke, we see that as Jesus' ministry grows, He found more opportunities to withdraw to the wilderness.

For many of us, witnessing our work and ministry grow and attract more people can be an exhilarating experience. We can easily get caught up in the excitement of our work. We may experience a new high that can easily become obsessive. We may plunge even deeper into our work.

Jesus doesn't seem preoccupied about that. His joy and excitement seem unaffected by His popularity. In fact, in chapter 5 of Luke, after healing a man with leprosy, Jesus instructs him not to tell anyone. Jesus seems not in the least concerned with growing His popularity and thus growing His ministry.

As His ministry grew, Jesus began to withdraw to desolate places. His initial reaction, unlike many of ours, is not to plunge deeper into His work. His initial reaction is to withdraw. How radical this is! How contrary to our own logic of productivity! Imagine if, when things get busier in your work, instead of working more you looked for opportunities to withdraw. I'm sure many of us would get fired if we did this!

And we are told in the Scriptures that Jesus withdraws to desolate places. Desolate places in the New Testament can be synonymous with deserts, places with few people and resources. These are places where there seems to be little life. He withdraws from places that are full of worldly life to find a Greater Life.

Jesus does more than just withdraw. He doesn't withdraw simply to have a nap or a cup of tea while enjoying the sunlight (not that there is anything wrong with that). But the Scriptures tells us that He withdraws to pray.

While physical rest is good and necessary, spiritual rest is even better and more necessary. Hebrews 4:10-11a describes entering God's presence as entering into His rest: "for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his work as God did from His. Therefore, let us strive to enter that rest."

The Greek word for strive in verse eleven is spoudazo. This word can be translated as diligence, eagerness, and even labor.  In its counter-intuitive and paradoxical way, the Scriptures uses a word related to hard work and productivity to call us to rest!

Striving for God's Rest
I am not trying to discount hard work. It seems to me there are many instances where Jesus works hard for His ministry. But Jesus is also diligent in returning to the wilderness. When Jesus started His ministry, the Holy Spirit guided Him to 40 days and nights in the wilderness.

As His ministry grows, He strives to return to that wilderness in the presence of God. Jesus returns to the place where He found His calling. He returns to that place of intimacy where He found His name of Beloved.

During Lent, we are called to follow Jesus in the wilderness. During our hard labor, our ceaseless ministry, it is most necessary to respond to the call of the wilderness.

We are called to withdraw from the crowds, the merciless goals and checklists, and return to that place of intimacy. Many of us get inspired to start our work of ministry after a powerful, transformative, and personal encounter with God. His love propels us to do our work.

As the years pass by and our ministry grows, we may forget that experience of intimacy in the wilderness, where God came and gave us the name of Beloved.

Let us labor then to enter into that rest, to return to that place of intimacy and experience once again the depth of God's rest.

Why Living in The City has Not Made Me Happier

I grew up loving the city.

Being born and raised in Managua, Nicaragua, meant living in an unusual city. Managua has been called "the city of trees". My neighborhood, while not quite suburban, was very quiet. There was a strong community feel to it.

Managua, a city filled with trees

My street doubled as a soccer or baseball field. We knew everybody in our block and they knew us. There was no downtown, with all the buzz of masses of people trading, thanks to the 1972 earthquake that leveled it. There is instead El Mercado Oriental, a massive outdoor maze-like market that is often dirty, filled with people, and stocked with every imaginable item you'd want to buy.

Managua, being the unusual city that it is, left a thirst in me for dense, booming cities. I wanted to be in a city full of skyscrapers, of people living on top of each other, of countless restaurants going wild with chit chat and endless clinking of dishes and glasses. Museums, theaters, and street performances...I wanted it all.

I wanted to live in the big city.

And then I Moved to The Big City: San Francisco

I moved to the U.S. in 2003. I didn't immediately move to San Francisco, but lived in the suburbs for 6 years before I had a chance to move to the city. I entered as a candidate to the Augustinian religious order, and I moved in with them in San Francisco to study and go through my pre-novitiate.

My first week in the city was one of quiet and enchantment. We had a small but beautiful garden in the back (quite a luxury in that city) where I spent hours reading and contemplating. Classes hadn't started yet, so I had plenty of time to accommodate myself and relax.

Classes started soon, and the hectic-ness of city life caught up to me. I started to notice a strange development: my heart started beating faster. I was more anxious. It was hard to sit still.

Lack of Community
In a city of almost a million, it was easy for me to get lost, unrecognized by the surrounding mass of people and things. It was difficult to make friends. For one, I was more busy than I ever had been in my life. Other people seemed to be busy and uninterested.

Why is this? Why is it that in a place full of people, there is so little community?

According to German sociologist Georg Simmel, in an attempt to protect ourselves from the overwhelming flood of city stimuli, city dwellers develop an indifferent attitude towards our surroundings.

In order to protect ourselves from the massive number of people, noise, billboards and advertisements, all demanding our attention, we have to ignore and turn off most of it in order to be able to function as normal human beings.

The city is a factory of indifference.

What Have I Gained from Living in The City?
One thing that I still enjoy of city living is the culture you can experience in it.

There are endless small coffee shops filled with beard-wielding young adults. There are the indie musicians showing off their unconventional feats and unusual performances in city bars. There are museums, galleries, and symphony halls.

I have gained a lot of what we call "culture." This is, I believe, the main attraction of city life.

But what what I have lost is also monumental. I have become more indifferent to people around me. I have less peace of mind. I have become more angry. I have a lot of anger, for example, for bad drivers, for people bumping into me, for noise in the middle of the night, and more and more I crave alone time in my home with my own entertainment. My home has become the bubble in which I seek refuge from the city.

I also notice how much of an elitist spirit has invaded my heart. I look with disdain at cheap coffee and look with horror at people enjoying a cup of Folgers. I almost hate Starbucks, which seems the coffee of choice of suburbans who lack the knowledge of truly good coffee. I look with disgust at Budweiser while I hold in my hand a local IPA from a micro-brewery.

Whenever I go to the suburbs to visit my family, I notice a slight sense of snobbery in me. I become judgmental of people driving their SUVs everywhere, at how they watch cable TV (don't they know that being cord-cutters is cool now?!), and instead of going to some local, small, cramped Italian bistro, they drive to The Olive Garden and consider it a treat.

The Idolatry of Culture
What city life has given me is the idolatry of culture. It has allowed me to look down on those who don't live in it with disdain and disbelief.  I put culture at such a high level in my life that I am willing to give up all peace of mind, and to fill myself with indifference, anger, and snobbery...as long as I have culture.

Whenever I go to the suburbs, however, I feel my heartbeat slow and relax. I don't feel as restless. I am able to rest more. I am beginning to crave more time in the suburbs because of it, despite what I see as a lack of culture. I crave it, even though I judge it.

I realize now that city life has not made me a holier person. It has not made me happier. It has given me culture, but I am not a more 'complete' person because of it.

Mathew 25 and Indifference
Reading Mathew 25, I realize that the most heinous sin is not what we do, but what we don't do. The goats were condemned not for the things they did. Jesus didn't say depart from me because you killed, fornicated, stole, etc...

No. The goats were condemned because they saw Jesus naked, and they didn't clothe Him, hungry and didn't feed Him, in prison and they didn't visit Him. The goats were condemned because of indifference. Maybe, as Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel said, the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

To be honest with you, I'm burned out of city life. The level of stress that it has brought me is slowly wearing me down. I need a break from the city and its demanding culture.

The city is a place of social Darwinism, where I feel I need to constantly compete in order to get ahead and simply be able to afford living in it. It is a never-ending competition, one I have no desire to partake in.

Do I really want to continue in a place that nurtures indifference? Where paying attention to my surrounding requires intentionality, and where I can't do it for long without feeling overwhelmed by stimuli?

I don't know the answer to this question. What I do know now is the existence of my current idolatry of culture, and that if I want to follow Jesus, I need to give it up.

What St. Francis Taught Me About Reforming the Church

Photo by Jim Linwood

St. Francis has been an inspiration for me since my conversion 14 years ago. Reading one of his biographies was an instrumental piece of my conversion to Christ. I recently read another biography of him, and his life is once again full inspiration and deep insights for me.

In my recent reading of his life, however, I was able to appreciate more his efforts of reforming the Church. St. Francis, in my opinion, is one of the great reformers of the Church, and those called to the business of reforming the Church should do well in studying his life.

Speak No Evil

Before I start sharing what St. Francis taught me about reforming the Church, I want to share an experience that I had last night while praying with my wife, and how this experience changed radically the direction of this blog post.

My original idea for writing this blog was to pit St. Francis' way of reformation vs. Martin Luther's. I wanted to show how much I preferred St. Francis' way over Luther's, but I do not wish to do that anymore.

As my wife and I were praying, she asked the Holy Spirit to highlight anything to me for tomorrow. Immediately I heard the words Speak no evil. As I heard those words I felt God was telling me not to pit St. Francis against Martin Luther in my blog. I was, at that moment, filled with great compassion for Martin Luther, and I desired no longer to speak evil against the man.

Pitting St, Francis against Martin Luther after all, as I shall explain later, would contradict the spirit of St. Francis.

The Way of St. Francis

St. Francis didn't set out to reform the Catholic Church. When he heard Christ's call to repair His church at San Damiano, Francis undertook this calling quite literally and started repairing the crumbling small chapel.

Photo by Michael 1952.

St. Francis started restoring other crumbling small churches around the area as well. Slowly, other people, moved by his radical simplicity and humility, joined him in his efforts. The little brothers, as they were called, not only joined him in restoring these little churches, but also in imitating the way of St. Francis. They forsook material possessions, they practiced humility and obedience.

St. Francis' call to obedience is an essential part of his way of life. We can romanticize St. Francis as a humble lover of nature and poverty and ignore other characteristics that were integral part of him: his call to obedience to the Church.

He spoke no evil of the Church in a time where evil abounded in the Church. He remained obedient to the Church until his death. In an age where aversion to authority is common, this is indeed a hard pill to swallow.

The Way of Holiness

Ultimately, St. Francis' call to obedience is linked with his call to humility, and ultimately, his call to holiness. His love for the Church restrained him from speaking evil to a Church that probably deserved it, and instead he chose to give his life in service for the Church. St. Francis did not come to condemn the Church, but to give his life for her.

This way of holiness is deeply connected with the way of Christ, who, in like manner, didn't come to condemn the world but to save it. This is not to say that St. Francis (or Jesus, for that matter) didn't speak against evil. The way he did so, however, was from his personal example and his persistent call to penance. It is interesting to note that the word "penance" meant more a call to conversion or metanoia, which is a radical new way of thinking, than simple medieval self-flagellation. 

St. Francis, instead of condemning the Church, became a great example for the Church. He denounced greed in his preaching, while at the same time showing the way by being the way. Criticizing evil is easy. Becoming holy not so much.

St. Francis is Still Reforming the Church

The spirit of St. Francis is still reforming the Church. 

It is amazing to witness the incredible patience of God. When we want change, we want it now. There is nothing wrong with desiring change now. The problem is our propensity to force immediate change with violence, condemnation and divisions.

I believe God desires change now, but the way He chooses to deal with it is not always immediate. Sometimes we cannot make changes and reforms immediately without creating violence, hurt and divisions.

I have no doubts that God chose St. Francis to reform the Church. This reform, however, was not and it is not immediate. It is still happening, and God is still using St. Francis to reform the Church. 

Pope Francis, in choosing St. Francis as his namesake, is calling the Church to reform. You can clearly see how the example of St. Francis is still reforming the church, 800 years later.

And we have a part to play. During this season of Lent, we are called to reform ourselves, and by doing so, reform the Church. What the Church needs more of is not people who are condemning and pointing constantly to the need of reform verbally. Of those we have abundantly. What the Church needs more are examples of holy living and for us to lead the way of Christ, by not coming to the Church to condemn it, but to save it.

What Walking in The Rain Taught Me About Entitlements

This past Wednesday it rained heavily. It didn't rain for most of the day, despite what the weather forecast told us. No, it started raining just as soon as I left the office to head to my evening appointment.

To make matters worse, I hadn't driven my car to work and to get to my appointment, I had to walk 40 minutes between transit stations. Not only that, but the heavy winds made it impossible for me not to get soaking wet, despite my sizable umbrella.

As I walked, I started to get understandably upset. After I got upset, I started to feel sorry for myself. I'm fighting a cold, and now I'm walking in the rain I thought. After feeling sorry for myself, I felt that an injustice was being done to me. I grew bitter, looking for someone to blame.

And then, I remembered to give thanks for the rain.

My Comfort is Important!
We live in a place where most of us are accustomed to certain comforts that we take for granted. Most of us have a place to take shelter from the elements. Most of us can take a hot shower when we need it. Most of us have a warm bed waiting for us at night.

Most us are used to these comforts.

After so many years of living with these comforts, I must confess that I not only take them for granted, but I take them as my rights and entitlements. I have grown accustomed to expect those comforts, and when I'm deprived of them (like the day I found myself walking in the rain) I feel that an injustice has been done to me.

What's irrational about this whole situation is that I felt this way despite the fact that California is going through a drought, and we desperately need the rain! My comfort was more important than California's need for rain.

St. Francis is Wrecking My Life

I've been reading a biography of St. Francis and it has made me question how I'm living my life. When St. Francis started his order, the Little Brothers adhered quite strictly to the rule of poverty. They didn't own anything. They walked barefooted. Many times the brothers slept on the streets during winter, fighting the merciless cold weather.

And yet they were filled with joy and contentment.

Why is it that the Little Brothers, who forsook all comforts and dealt with worse circumstances than I ever have, found themselves with greater joy, while on the other hand I, when I found myself in an uncomfortable situation, was angry, filled with self-pity, and felt as if my rights were taken away?

The answer to that question is because I felt entitled. I have grown so accustomed to my comforts that they almost became an idol, and when they are taken away from me, my joy and peace lose all their bases for being.

We, The Entitled People
We are told that as Americans, we are an entitled nation. Whether this is true or not, it is undeniable that we are blessed with more comforts than many other developed nations in the world. I believe that the overabundance of these comforts breeds and feeds our sense of entitlement.

As Lent is well underway, the Church calls us to times of abstinence, penance, and almsgiving. What a perfect opportunity this is to shave away so many of the things we feel are our rights!

I invite you then, to fully go into this time of Lent and embrace all of its practices, not out of a mere sense of obligation, but out of a sense of love for God and others. Joyfully give up what you discern are entitlements, and give them to others who need it. Abstain not for the sake of abstaining, but as a spiritual practice that will chip non-essentials out of your life.

As you do this, see if you begin to shift your attitude towards those things you are abstaining from. See if you still consider them as entitlements, rights, or worse as deserved, or if instead you begin to see them as gifts of pure Grace from God.

Give abundantly and eagerly. Deny yourself and carry your cross. Give thanks to God in all things. This is our call for Lent.

The Unholy Marriage of Conservative Politics and the Church

Photo by Leland Francisco

"Jesus answered, "My Kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world" - John 18:36 ESV.

"There are two great lies that I've heard: 'The day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will surely not die,' and that Jesus was a white, middle-class republican, and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like him." - A King and a Kingdom by Derek Webb.

The marriage of the political right in the US with Christianity frightens me to no end. This scary and unholy union has brought, in my opinion, a lot of misunderstanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

As we read the history of Christianity, we see how this little movement of Christians started by being at odds with the political system of the world. Jesus suffered persecution from the authorities of His day. The early Christians were heavily persecuted as well, and their faith, in many aspects, was a counter-cultural one.

Jesus Himself, as we see in the Gospel reading above, clearly declares that His kingdom does not originate from this world.

It is important to note how He contrasts the way the world would deal with His particular situation with the way He is choosing to deal with it: "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews." Of course He doesn't call his disciples to resolve His situation as the world would because His kingdom "is not from the world."

As we see from the Scriptures then, the culture of the kingdom of God is in some ways in contrast to the kingdoms of the world. The way the world resolves issues (fighting, ruling it over others etc.) is not the way the kingdom of God resolves issues.

This contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world must be acknowledged. Although we can and should be trying to conform our worldly political systems to reflect the kingdom of Heaven, whenever a union of these two forces is attempted (as we see countless times in the history of Christianity), we instead see a heavy and unholy distortion of the message of Jesus.

The Marriage Between the Political Right & Christianity
I've spoken extensively of how liberal Christians try to marry cultural liberal values with Christianity, and how it distorts the faith. Now I want to turn my attention to how conservative Christians do the same.

It was an interesting experience to see my twitter feed explode with pro-life articles on the anniversary of Roe vs Wade. No other day exemplifies this unholy union as this day.

Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not pro-choice. I believe all life is sacred, and I agree with Pope Francis when he says in the Joy of the Gospel that "It is not progressive to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life."

But I have no desire to join the pro-life movement as it currently is. On the anniversary of Roe vs Wade, my twitter feed was crowded with articles about this or that (mostly Republican) politician being pro-life and how they deserve our support.

On this and many other issues (like gay marriage, prayer in schools etc.) the underlying message is this: if you wish to become a faithful Christian, you must be a Republican. While it is true that many Christian will not say this directly (some will!), you still get the sense that to be a Christian is to vote Republican.

Is the Kingdom of God Republican?
When a marriage of a political ideology with the kingdom of God is attempted, many aspects of that particular political ideology, which at its source is not Christian, starts to slowly seep into Christian theology and practice to the point that it is normalized. To be Christian then becomes tantamount to being part of a particular political system.

This confusion of kingdoms gives birth to many blind spots in our culture, to the point that we need an outsider's voice, or a certain distance from our cultural perspective, to really see them.

Lack of Integrity in Pro-Life Politicians
To use the pro-life movement as a case in point: many, if not most, of those Republicans who are pro-life are also pro-guns. Guns are a weapon of violence and death. Guns are a weapon for fighting. Can we claim with integrity that weapons are pro-life?

Many of these Republicans are also against many welfare programs that help the poor in our nation, including the recently born. This creates a sense of social Darwinism (social survival of the fittest) and meritocracy, where the poor are seen as unworthy of that help (it is their fault that they are poor) and that it is not fair to give something to someone who hasn't earned it.

First, isn't it ironic that the most fervent opponents of evolution also push the ideology of social Darwinism?

Secondly, the ideology of meritocracy goes against our concept of Grace. Who is good enough to receive the gifts of God? Who is good enough to earn His grace? It is true that love seeks to improve the character of individuals, but it is also the nature of love to give to those whom we deem as unworthy.

Both are not mutually exclusive. Don't buy into this false dichotomy.

Also, many of these conservative politicians support big spending on the military. We spend over 60% of our national budget on the military. Only 6% of our budget goes to education.

These politicians seem bent on presenting the US as a strong nation that will not be messed with by showing our military might to the world. They are also more likely to present the "other" as the enemy. Ted Cruz, for example, recently mentioned the need to "carpet bomb" ISIS.

If Jesus was president, would He carpet bomb His enemies? Love of one's enemy takes second place (or less) and becomes a romantic and naive idea to our real need for security. Notice how the world solves problems by fighting, and how these politicians push the US to deal with these issues by fighting.

Many of these "pro-life" politicians also refuse to let any Syrian Muslim refugees into this country, for fear that they will turn out to be terrorists. Again, our need for personal security takes priority over our call to love our "enemies."

And don't get me started on immigration. In these and in many issues, Scripture's call to treat the foreigner as our own and to show hospitality to strangers is drowned out by the world's call to protect ourselves and our way of living.

These illegals broke the law, they say, and for that reason alone they are not worthy of our welcome. It is true that many committed a civil offense when they crossed the border illegally, but I am thankful that Jesus doesn't use the same rigid prerequisites to welcome us into the Father's home as the world would! Forgiveness and other forms of retribution to repay this civil offense (outside of deportation to violent and unstable birth countries) seem oddly out of the question for many of these politicians.

The Way of the Kingdom of God: The Cross
You see, the way of the kingdom of God is risky. It is not safe. It makes no sense for politicians to adopt the way of Jesus which ultimately leads to the cross. But thank God! We are called to follow the way of the cross, and not the way of self protection! We are called to leave behind the world's call to security and to follow the call of Jesus to the cross. We are called to lose our lives in order to gain them!

No politician can preach the extremely risky way of the cross and still win votes. And this is why the union between our politics with our faith will always lead to a false Jesus: a Jesus who is of this world.

No political party will ever represent fully the kingdom of Heaven. If it did, then the kingdom of God would be of this world.

Who do you choose to follow? Who do you decide to pledge allegiance to? For me, I will pledge allegiance not to politics, but to a King and a Kingdom.