Chief Chaska and the Multicultural Church




Chaska and Little Crow

  An article in today's New York Times reminded me of how the church interacts with its culture.  It told of renewed efforts to have Chief Chaska pardoned. Minnesotans know the story of the Dakota revolt that led to capture and conviction of over 300 Dakota men for the violence.  Lincoln Pardoned most of them and 38 of them were hanged in a mass execution in Mankato MN December 26,1862. Chaska (his nickname--and a town near Minneapolis carries that name) had been pardoned but was slipped into the execution group, perhaps because he had been defended by a European-American woman. 

The combination of racism and sexism with the overarching narrative of manifest destiny (by which the European Americans assumed their absolute privilege to take over all of North America and eradicate any "dusky" people who got in their way) was much a part of the culture and also the faith of the church on the 19th century frontier. 

Yet there is another side of the story in church history.  Presbyterians were part of the effort to befriend the Dakota people, many of whom became Christians.  The Pond brothers were missionaries from the revival movements on the East Coast who moved to Minnesota out of their concern for the well-being of the Native Americans there.  I served for two years as interim pastor of one of the churches they founded, Oak Grove Presbyterian in Bloomington MN.  The story of the Mankato executions and echoes of the Presbyterian mission to the Dakota people are still alive there.

The church is usually multi-cultural.  It absorbs and lives out many of the values of its context, and it also makes a prophetic stance against many of those values.  It cannot be completely completely counter-cultural as some would wish because we are always people of our time and place.  But the church's finest hours have always been those moments when it attracted lots of people of many cultures to its message and its practices and still found ways to encourage some critiques of cultures as well--including the dominant cultures and its oppressive ways.

In the story of the last moments of Chaska and 37 others, a hymn now in The Presbyterian Hymnal (Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990, # 271)  plays an important role.  It has been told that on their walk from their cells to the scaffold, the condemned sang "Many and great, O God, Are Thy Things." It is a Dakota tune, titled "Lacquiparle" for the site of the mission where it was written. The words were adapted by missionary Joseph Renville who along with the Pond Brothers developed the alphabet and writing of the Dakota language there in southern Minnesota.  On their way to die for the crime of protecting their land and their livelihood, Dakota men expressed their multi-cultural heritage with these words, translated, of course, into English:

"Many and great, O God, are thy things,
Maker of earth and sky;
Thy hands have set the heavens with stars,
Thy fingers spread the mountains and plains.
Lo at Thy word the waters were formed,
Deep seas obeyed Thy voice.

"Grant unto us communion with Thee,
Thou star abiding One;
Come unto us and dwell with us;
With Thee are found the gifts of life.
Bless us with life that has not end,
Eternal life with Thee."

A Plea for Diplomacy and Leadership in Politics

My "senator of origin" is Everett McKinley Dirksen, Republican of Illinois.  He was the Republican Leader of the senate when Republicans were chronically in the minority.  I long for his stately manner, shock of white hair, mellifluous voice, poetic rhetoric, and willingness to sit down and talk to anybody about how to get something done for the good of the country, whether or not it was in the Republican Party's best interests.  Here's quote from the Senate's obituary when he died in 1969, that catches the spirit I'm remembering:

"There are 100 diverse personalities in the U.S. Senate.  Oh Great God.  What an amazing and dissonant 100 personalities they are!  What an amazing thing it is to harmonize them."  

The people running for Senate today seem to me to be lacking in any sense of the "amazing."  They're angry, pitifully immature, and reactive.  I can't believe I'm longing for a this Republican throwback! 

Of course living in Kentucky is especially hard for this kind of sensitivity.  I know Illinois may not be that much better than Kentucky in its narrowness and racism, but I have a high view of my home state because of the politicians of my youth like Dirksen, Adlai Stevenson and Paul Simon.

Don't even get me started on another positive icon:  Paul Wellstone of Minnesota!

Conflict Workshop in Cincinnati October 30

Deborah and I are leading a one day workshop on "Hope in Conflict" for the Presbytery of Cincinnati, Saturday, October 30, 9-3:30, at Lakeside Presbyterian Church, 2690 Dixie Highway, Lakeside Park, KY 41017 (in northern Kentucky, suburb of Cincinnati).  Church phone 859-341-1963.  Directions to Lakeside are on the Presbytery and Church websites.

Registration:  $10.00 per person /maximum $25 per church. Registration fee includes lunch. Checks payable to Presbytery of Cincinnati

Register through the Presbytery Office:  Speak to Marian at 513-221-4850  OR Register through Lakeside Presbyterian Church:  by e-mail to lakeside@lakesidechurch.org.

e-mail me for more information:  dsawyer@lpts.edu.  See our website at http://www.flourishingchurch.com/

Objectives for the Workshop

1. Establish in the Presbytery an ongoing learning environment about congregational conflict using the book as a learning tool.
2. Encourage a shift in perception that conflict is expected and potentially lifegiving for a congregation.
3. Learn tools of conflict utilization that can be used by any church leader to interpret conflict and learn from it.

Festival of Faiths and The Seminary Luncheon

Two events directly related to Louisville Seminary are on tap for the 2010 Festival of Faiths with the theme of "Sacred Soil."  This is an exciting way for LPTS to connect with the interfaith leaders of the community and commit to our Doors to Dialogue Initiative.

Monday, November 8, 2010, 7:30 am to 3 pm. Kentuckiana Interfaith Community Faith Leader’s Forum ”Why Being an Environmentalist of Faith is so Hard ... and Worth It: A Morning of Prayer, Meditation, Lecture, and Discussion”

Faith leaders are invited to enjoy a complimentary breakfast, interfaith panel discussion, scholarly lecture and open discussion. The morning will be led by Dr. Roger S. Gottlieb, professor of philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a well-known scholar and author on faith and environmental issues. The afternoon will be led by Mitch Hescox, CEO of the Evangelical Environment Network, speaking about “The Creation Care Challenge.” Other visiting scholars participating in the forum will be Dr. Larry Rasmussen, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, and Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, author of Green Deen: What Islam Teaches about Protecting the Planet.

7:30 am – Faith Leader Breakfast and Conversation
9:00 am – Dr. Roger Gottlieb: Why Being an Environmentalist of Faith is so Hard: And Worth It
10 am – An Interfaith Panel Discussion on being a Religious Environmentalist
11 am – Group Discussion, Questions and Answers
12:30 – The Annual LPTS Luncheon, “Doors to Dialog”
2 pm – Mitch Hescox: The Creation Care Challeng

You are invited to participate in all or any of the events of the day. The event is free, but reservations are required for breakfast attendance.
 
 Monday, November 8, 2010, 12:30 to 2 pm. Annual Louisville Presbyterian Seminary Luncheon: "Setting the Seeds for Dialogue"

A seminary is a seedbed for cultivating knowledge about ultimate concerns. As LPTS announces a major commitment to interfaith cooperation with its “Doors to Dialogue” initiative, faith leaders will be invited to find common ground in specific ways to become partners in the initiative. Doors to Dialogue (D2D) is a new approach to seminary education at Louisville Seminary to enhance students’ learning to prepare them better to provide religious leadership in contexts of religious difference. At this lunch you will learn more of this initiative and of ways you can partner in it.

Bring your own lunch or order a box lunch from Miss Cs', a deli located in the Henry Clay.

Upcoming Fall Lectures at LPTS

The Church’s vital ministries of evangelism and justice will be the focus of the 2010 Edwards-Presler Lectures at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, October 21, 2010, as two church scholars and leaders present their ideas at the intersection of faith and the transformation of the world. 

This year's lectures will be especially poignant with the recent death of George Riley Edwards, long-time Professor of New Testament at the seminary in whose honor, along with his wife Jean, the lectureship was established 24 years ago.  George was a fearless and tireless advocate of peace and racial justice. 

On Thursday evenin g, October 21, at 7 p.m. in the seminary chapel, the Edwards Lecture will be given by Dr. Milburn Thompson of Bellarmine University, a self-professed admirer and supporter of Dr. Edwards' activist ministry.  Thompson will address the Church’s response to faithful stewardship and care of the earth and creation from a Roman Catholic perspective. Initiated in part by Pope Benedict XVI's 2010 World Day of Peace message on this topic, the Bellarmine University professor will explore the Church’s environmental ethic to be peacemakers with Earth.

 The Presler Lecture will be given at 11:30 on Thursday morning, October 21, by a son of the honorees of the lectureship, Canon Titus Presler. In his lecture, Presler will focus on the shadow cast by 9/11 on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Muslim-Christian relations and how competing claims such as secularization and religious extremism affect a theology of mission. He cites the Taliban’s massacre of Christian missionaries in Afghanistan and the debate about the “ground zero mosque” as the most recent “signs of hardening stances amid many calls for respectful dialogue.”

Church as a Creative and Life-Giving Institution



Image of trash compateer rom: letsgetgreen.files/wordpress.com

 I've been reflecting on the lives of several friends who have been part of the church, mostly at the denominational level whose lives have been crushed by the organizational/personnel machine-like culture of their denomination.  Many of them (not all, of course) are still un-employed or under-employed and operating at a kind of "post traumatic stress" level as a result of the way they have been "handled" by the church's power structures. 

When we treat the human resources of the church like so many machine parts that can be removed and thrown away, the church loses its soul.

Reflecting on my own vocation, my own "quest print" I realized that my life question is How can I help the church be organized in ways that are creative and life-giving. 

Join me in committing to making whatever level of the church as an organization you have some influence over more creative and life-giving for its members and staff.  Help hold leaders accountable for policies about hiring, recognition, motivation, pay-scales that are equitable, and termination policies that are just and humane. 

Fall Bible Study--Lay Institute of Theology

Rev. John Gulden, Fall Bible Study Leader

Now is the time to sign up for Fall Bible Study which begins next Wednesday. 

“The Reign of God”



Much of the Bible pertains to the establishment of nations and governance by rulers. In fact, the one topic that is addressed by Jesus more than any other is the Roman Empire and competing claims for our allegiance. Our objectives will be to explore the story of Israelite kings, the nature of empires and their rulers, and the competing claims presented by "the reign of God", known also by many other names throughout the Bible. We will also dare to wrestle with contemporary issues of Church and State and their spiritual implications, and to grow in faith as we consider once again our citizenship in this mysterious and radical "reign of God".



DATES: Wednesday Mornings September 22, & 29, October 6, 13, 20, Nov 3;


TIME: 10:30 to 12:00 a.m.


FACULTY: John Gulden


Pastor-scholar John Gulden served as Pastor of Briargate Presbyterian Church and is currently serving as at “at home father” for his two children in Old Louisville. A member at large of Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, he also is a member of the Presbyterian Church (U. S. A.) General Assembly Committee on Representation. Other interests include baseball reading on the front porch, grilling out, attending farmers markets, and eating Graeter’s ice cream.


PLACE: Laws Lodge


COST: $40 Register online or at first class

Dates for Next Year's EQ-HR Seminar at LPTS

2010 Emotional Intelligence and Human Relations Lab (LPTS Photo)

SAVE THE DATE FOR NEXT YEAR!
Louisville Seminary's Emotional Intelligence and Human Relations Seminar
August 23-27.



Among this year's participants pictured above were ten master's level students, four Doctor of Ministry Students and ten ministers/church leaders taking the seminar as a Lifelong Learning experience.  Many of them told us what a transforming experience it was.  Rev. Steve Huston from New York said: "I'm thankful that I was able to spend a week with you at the EQ-HR workshop in Louisville." 

We've heard from others who could not make it this year but are looking forward to next year.  Thus we're announcing the date far in advance.

Tuition is not finalized for next year.  This year it was $775 for Lifelong Learning participants. 

Go to the website for the EQ-HR Center for more information:  eqhrcenter.org/

Call me for more information:  800-264-1839, ext 372.

We'll open registration next April.

David

Thriving in the Pastorate

I just opened the invitation from the Oates Institute for the fall Gathering and was reminded of the new "Pastors Workshop" being offered this year. Richard L. Hester (pictured here, and J. Michael Hester, pastoral counselors from North Carolina, will be leading the workshop on "From Surviving to Thriving in the Pastorate." The date is September 23, 8:30 a.m. -1:30 p.m., at Deer Park Baptist Church, 1733 Bardstown Road, In Louisville. Dick Hester is also an author in the Alban Institute book Know Your Story and Lead with It: The Power of Narrative in Clergy Leadership. I'll be reviewing that book for the Oates Journal soon. But this is a worthwhile workshop for pastors. To register call 502-459-2370, or go to www.oates.org. Cost is $40 (includes lunch). Tell them I sent you!

If it weren't for the honor of it..Beck's Rally

Glen Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally was a fascinating exercise in how we deal with change in this country. We either look forward and declare our intention to "be the change we want to see' (Gandhi), or we look in the rear view mirror and declare our loyalty to what used to be. The rally was carefully managed to "avoid" political commentary, but they forgot that the language one uses conveys a great deal about one's power and privilege. The extensive use of the word "God," along with consistent identification of that word as a masculine being revealed what Sam Keen calls "the gravitational pull of the political ideologies implicit in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam" (In the Absence of God: Dwelling in the Presence of the Sacred, Harmony Books, 2010). The implied loyalty to the privilege and power of European-Americans, and their lock on the values of the past was evident. I believe we must always be cautious when someone uses the word "God" with the assumption that "everybody knows what we mean when we say that word." The mystery of God can never be fully held in a word. Even the word "honor" has ambiguities. It can refer to moral integrity, but it also can refer to power and privilege. Power and privilege that are not held accountable are not honorable. As the fellow said about his experience of being ridden out of town on a rail: "If it weren't for the honor of it, I'd just as soon have walked."

Six Places Still Open for Emotional Intelligence Lab

Roy Oswald and I invite you to register now for this summer's best leadership development opportunity anywhere. The EQ-HR workshop is an experiential laboratory for improving your emotional intelligence in a safe and supportive small group environment.

The cost is $775, which includes access to the BarOn 360 degree survey on emotional intelligence which you will use confidentially to set your own learning goals around the four areas of emotional intelligence as described by Daniel Goleman.

Most of the time of the workshop is spent in small unstructured groups of about ten with two experienced and wise group facilitators in each group.

See the Louisville Seminary Website, click on the button at the bottom of the Home Page that looks like the banner above, for more information and a link to register online:

http://www.lpts.edu/.

Call me if you want more information. 502-992-9372.

David

There is no such thing as reverse racism

Cries of "racism" against Shirley Sherrod, later proven to be based on doctored tapes, are the hateful and deceitful reactions of privileged white folks who are out to protect their cultural advantages. As a privileged and advantaged aging, straight, European-American, I want to remind us all that we have been and still are in the power position in America, and trying to blame or shame others for their attitudes, even if those attitudes are prejudicial or short-sighted, is a cover-up for our own benefit. Yes, there's plenty of fear and prejudice to go around, and bigotry comes in all colors, but "racism" is a term that only belongs to the actions of those in the cultural advantaged position to keep others from gaining any toe-hold on our privilege.

photo from elgadfly.com

Gas Stations as Signs of the Future

This past week I've passed three different gas stations that have taken down their national/international brand signs and put up family names on their stations. With all the bad publicity British Petroleum is getting it makes sense. Do I really want my customers to associate me with oil spills and irresponsible drilling?

I wonder if that's not the wave of the future of churches as well. Some folks are getting disgusted at the big-corporation model of church denominations and are not pleased with the image, either too liberal on the one hand or not liberal enough on the other. I know a lot of pastors who just "keep their heads down" and do local ministry and pay little attention to denominational realities.

Denominations that are not able to serve the needs of local "outlets" will not survive. Congregations that know how to thrive will.

Gatekeeping Presbyterian Ministers--Standard Exams

Presbyterians (PCUSA) have a way of "gatekeeping" entry into ministry called "Standard Ordination Exams." It was introduced back in the turbulent 1960's when local ecclesial bodies called presbyteries might have discriminated against some seminarians' more progressive liberal stances or against women or minorities. Over the years, the procedure has not kept up with the times and the trends. Instead it has become more restrictive and less predictable. Many, including most seminaries, have declared the process crippled if not broken.

This week the denomination's Office of Vocation announced news of changes in the system. Unfortunately the changes are minimal and problematic. Most difficult is their decision to raise the cost of the tests so that a student has to pay $500 to take all five of the tests, and $100 each time a retake is necessary. The other two changes are only minor improvements in the process, regarding the grading scale and eliminating the use of handwritten tests and handwritten grading responses. Obviously the Committee (The Presbyteries’ Cooperative Committee on Examinations for Candidates) has chosen not to address the larger issues of their processes and practices.

The fact is that these tests are not "standardized." The questions are created by committees and not tested in any scientifically defensible way. The graders are given general guidelines but have large discretion in passing or failing the exams. All of the anecdotal evidence I have from my own students' experiences suggests that the grading is random, idiosyncratic, and subjective.

My own view, that I have stated publicly before, is that the exams have outlived their usefulness. The conditions under which they were created have changed radically. Seminaries are now more responsive to the church in curriculum and standards. Presbyteries are bigger and better equipped to fairly and accurately judge the readiness of seminary graduates for ministry.

I call on the General Assembly to either abolish the exams entirely or insure that they are reformed to make them fair and effective standardized tests.

Peace Unity and Purity

Peter Smith of the Louisville Courier Journal reported on his blog, http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/faith/2010/ about the latest report from Presbyterian Research Services:
Peace or purity?

Nearly half of Presbyterians put equal importance on "peace, unity and purity" in a church. But among those who give them different weight, conservatives are far more likely to pick "purity," while liberals prefer "peace." Those results are among a raft of newly released data from the Research Services of the Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)The results date from 2006, when the church was about to vote on recommendations from a task force whose formal name included the words in question: the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity. The task force's recommendations served as part of the ongoing debate over role of gays in ministry -- a complicated story in its own right. But the name alone prompted the question of whether a church could really have all three of those qualities together.
Among the results:
•Some 29 percent of liberals chose peace, compared with 10 percent of conservatives.
•Only 6 percent of liberals chose purity, compared with 38 percent of conservatives.
Among both categories, however, the largest group put equal weight on the three values -- a majority of liberals and a plurality of conservatives.
Smaller percentages of each group chose unity.
Among moderates, exactly 50 percent put equal weight on the three values, with those preferring one of the three fairly evenly divided among the rest.
Large majorities believe there's a place for everyone in the denomination regardless of views on controversial issues.
That sounds like a vote for unity.

At the same time, large majorities believe that "a church that is not clear about what it believes is not worth belonging to."

My response to this, a long held conviction, that the constitutional ordination question in which one promises to uphold the "Peace Unity and Purity of the Church" is actually harmful to the church's ability to adapt to the 21st century.

"Peace" is actually a hold-over from old empire values--the Pax Romana—a peace enforce by hierarchical control. Instead of peace, we should encourage creative complexity and ability to create new structures to adapt to new times. Whenever a system moves through change from chaos, it always takes a more complex form, and with creativity, truth and goodness is increased.

"Unity" is also a hierarchically imposed focus on sameness, everybody has to agree on what to think. Heresy used to mean thinking new thoughts, now it means thinking thoughts that don't conform to the unity norm. Instead of unity we should vow to promote a respectful diversity.

"Purity" is a holdover from the post exilic emphasis in the Hebrew Scriptures when the community tended to think more about following the strict laws of the Torah instead of following the spirit of Torah which included major concern for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger in our midst. Instead of purity we need to promote a generous inclusivity, in which the circle of faith grows ever larger, drawing people in instead of circling them out.

I hope the Presbyterians will be able to move to adapt to the 21st century but I fear we're going to continue to push for the top-down values of peace, unity and purity.