Matthew 22:15-22

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The Worship of Happiness

[Jesus] said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” 21They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 22When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

The Pharisees and Herodians make an unlikely coalition. The Pharisees defend the Torah, the law of God, with a radical fervor that makes it uncomfortable for them to live under the rule of the Roman government. A dictatorship is bad enough, but when a dictator mints coins with his image imprinted on it and the inscription, “The Divine Emperor,” every good Pharisee squirms a bit having to use such a coin – You shall have no other gods before me and you shall not make any graven images are, after all, number one and number two of the big ten of the Torah. Just handling a coin like that presents the faithful Pharisee with a big problem, much less using it to pay taxes to support that dictator who claims to be a god. Continue reading →

If You Don’t Click On This, You Don’t Love Jesus and You Are Insane

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Guilt_Finger

Please forgive me for that awful headline. If you can, it might improve your mental health. Here’s the real title of this article:

Does Religion Help or Hinder Mental Health?

According to two articles that showed up in my news feed last week, it depends on whether it’s good religion or bad religion. (That headline, for instance, might have cost us both a few points on the sanity scale.)

The first article describes disastrous consequences of a movement called “biblical counseling” that rejects psychotherapy and psychotropic medication in favor of counselors giving clients (or parishioners) strong moral admonitions drawn from the Bible. The second article summarizes a study that demonstrated a strong correlation between forgiveness and mental health.

For those of us who evaluate a course of therapy based on results, the “biblical counseling” that rejects both medication and psychotherapy fails miserably. The worst examples include programs to “pray away the gay,” and biblical counselors who admonish women to obey their husbands more completely in order to avoid getting physically and emotionally abused. Using the Bible as a weapon against scientific facts and the autonomy of women puts the one who wields it on the side of destruction.

At the same time, psychotherapy without values can also become destructive.

For instance, a company noticed that its sales managers, required to travel away from their families frequently and work long hours Continue reading →

Three Ways to Know When Someone has Weaponized Scripture

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September 1, 2014 Article

If you were Satan and you wanted to damn the world to hell, wouldn’t this be a great place to start, getting parents to reject their children?

I listened with sadness to this video of parents using religion as a weapon against their son as he came out to them as gay. Weaponizing Scripture saddens me for this young man and all who have been abused by Bible-wielding parents or preachers.

As a minister, I also find it sad in the same way that a chef would weep to see a beautiful meal used in a food fight.

This resource that can nourish community and family relationships has been slopped around as a crude weapon; a tool for healing has been used for physical and emotional violence. A source of ancient wisdom about God, in the hands of fools, has been turned into a weapon for evil.

And make no mistake, rejecting one’s own child because of his sexual orientation is an evil action. It’s not just “being in disagreement” or “raised in a different generation.” It is a choice.

Rejecting one’s child is not something anyone was born to do. It is a lifestyle choice.

If you were Satan and you wanted to damn the world to hell, Continue reading →

Why?

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“Why would anyone run 26.2 miles unless somebody is chasing you?”

It has something to do with love and death.

The day after running a marathon, hobbling around, draining fluid from my swollen toe, and popping naproxen to calm down all the inflammation in my knees and hips, I ask myself again, “Why am I doing this?” While friends and family members may leaf through the mental health diagnostic manual to point me toward the answer, I hand them a list of reasons. I’m too tired to recite them, so I have written them down.

It’s a good way to raise money for good causes.

There are other ways to raise money. That doesn’t really explain why someone would train for and run a 26.2 mile race.

It’s also a good outlet for my competitive instincts. There are parts of my natural personality that I have to hold in check in my role as pastor. Winning theological arguments may be a contact sport in academic circles, but in a church board meeting, throwing an opponent to the floor and doing a moonwalk victory dance, Continue reading →

What Makes For A Good Public Funeral?

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August 19, 2014

Listening to sound clips of the funerals of James Foley and Michael Brown this week, I have been thinking about the purpose of public funerals and how we who are called upon to lead them can help both the family and the wider community through liturgy and proclamation.

Is there any benefit to broadcasting the funerals of James Foley, who was executed by a terrorist, and Michael Brown, who was shot by a police officer in an incident that sparked both peaceful protests and violent riots over the past two weeks?

I believe there is a great benefit to broadcasting them when they are done well.

From a family systems perspective, we can watch or participate Continue reading →