Gerry Charlotte Phelps

Restructuring the Methodist Church for Survival

                      (Image from ariustile.com)                     

Organization and structure is not all there is to a church or denomination. Far from it! Nonetheless, it is crucial.

The Methodist Church in particular had an organizational genius in its founder, John Wesley.  His carefully structured roots-up organization (based on rapidly proliferating "classes" of 12 people plus one leader each) did much to enable the speedy yet solidly-grounded growth of the Methodists in England in the 18th century.

Today, because of great changes in technology, we are better able to "flatten" organizational structures.  This has caused an explosive release of individual talent and incentive, fueling the unprecedented inventiveness and prosperity of our time.  It has also made organizational decision-making enormously more effective by decentralizing it, moving it further "down the line" to those closer to the action.   Centralized "command and control" is less effective than more dispersed decision making.  Now, thanks to high tech communication abilities, more dispersed decision making has become both possible and practical.

Yet while "flatter" organizations are much more possible now, most mainline denominations are "steep" in structure.  The UMC is top-heavy.  Too much responsibility is given to the bloated, ineffective agencies.  Too much decision-making is loaded onto the Bishops.

Further, there is also far too little accountability at the top for the UMC to flourish.  The resulting superstructure is so insulated from penalty that it functions all too often by relying on being overbearing rather than on persuasion.  Such an over-protected "center" can be more comfortable in its isolation at the top.  But it cannot effectively lead its congregations or mobilize its resources.  If the UMC were an army, battlefield losses would impel accountability.  The structure would get flattened and win more battles, or stay the same and lose them.  If the UMC were a business, losing money would impel accountability.  The structure would flatten and gain in effectiveness, or stay the same and the business would vanish.

Accountability for the UMC agencies quite likely simply is not possible.*  After all, they are gigantic bureaucracies.  Bureaucracies always spend too much and produce too little.  Holding them accountable is an unending, exhausting, yet ultimately impossible task.  Most of them could be effectively replaced by outsourcing their functions to independent ministries (who are more effective simply because they go out of business if they are not.)  Few UMC agencies would be missed at the congregational level.  In fact, their absence might not even be noticed, so small is their effect on the needs of the congregations..

Further, such independent replacement-ministries could be paid on a voluntary basis by congregations rather than having an unearned income from compulsory appropriations.  Earning their income would incentivize them further to produce good results, more in line with the perceived needs of the congregations.

Accountability for the Bishops could be improved by ending life-time tenures, and by excluding retired bishops from the Council of Bishops.  Bishops would be much more accountable - that is, more responsive to the church at large - if they had to be re-elected every eight years or so.  Or if they were term-limited to eight years, closer to the six-year term-limits of District Superintendents.  That way, the body of the church would have a greater impact on the actions of its Bishop-leaders.

Would that affect the "prophetic function" of the Bishops?  One would hope not.  It would merely subject Bishops to penalties for being prophetic, just like everyone else.  That should not stop anyone with integrity from being prophetic, regardless of the consequences.  Being cost-free is not a requirement for prophetic ministry.  Just ask some of your pastors who have suffered such penalties, and have not given up prophetic ministry on that account.

Finally, the property deed-requirement should be abandoned.  The threat hanging over each congregations that, if all their efforts at local decision-making are thwarted by the hierarchy, they cannot resort to the ultimate recourse of leaving the denomination without losing their property, is effective but counter-productive.  Let them have their ultimate recourse.  It will make their ruling hierarchy more responsive to their needs. 

Any organization that relies on such a drastic penalty from the top to keep its constituents at the bottom in line is fated to be tremendously ineffective, so great will its unresponsiveness and unaccountability become.  Methodists should let it go.  It helps keep them in decline. 

As a result, a few congregations might leave initially.  But if they also saw other accountability-enhancing measures being enacted at the same time, most would be willing to stay awhile longer, to see what develops.  After all, hundreds of UMC congregations die every year already, due to abandonment by their members.  Many such congregations might survive if there were a more accountable, responsive super-structure.

Such basic ideas as these are only preliminary.  The General Conference needs to task itself with enabling the UMC to grow.by flattening its structure and increasing its built-in accountability, while at the same time continuing to actively promote such activities as planting churches. 

The more flattened structure has become absolutely necessary.  Without it, what the UMC does for growth with one hand will be thwarted by the other.

If the UMC will evangelize its members, disciple them and encourage them, the members can be trusted to hold the church accountable.  Further, there are many, many more members than Bishops, District Superintendents or even pastors.  If we want the UMC to grow explosively, just equip the pastors and the members and turn them loose.  And stand back.  Stop hoarding so much decision-making at the top.  If we dare to trust more and more of it to our District Superintendents, pastors and lay people - those closest to the front lines - the growth will not stop this time around. 

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* For more on UMC bureaucracies, see the post below here.

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* For more on UMC bureaucracies, see the post below here.

Methodist-Endorsed Coalition Defends Partial-Birth Abortion

                       (Image from ariustile.com)

The United Methodist Church officially opposes partial-birth abortion.  In fact, delegates to the 2004 UM General Conference voted overwhelmingly to include such opposition in the UM Social Principles. 

Yet two UM agencies - the UM Women's Division and the UM Board of Church and Society - both belong to a group which supports partial-birth abortion.  That is the Washington-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), which has denounced the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the U.S. law that prohibits this gruesome procedure. 

How is it that any UM agencies whatsoever feel free to publicly defy positions taken by the UM General Conference - the one and only law-making body in the UMC?  That is possible because of their being largely independent of what anyone in the UMC thinks or votes - even free from rulings of the General Conference, in effect.  They simply go their own way.  Regardless.

At one time, the Bishops had more responsibility for what the UM agencies did.  But I think I remember that at some point they gave up most of their authority over the agencies.  Since then, the UM agencies have been largely unaccountable to the UMC.  They have done mostly whatever they want, regardless of the official positions of the UMC.  They frequently make public statements supporting exactly the opposite of UMC official positions.  And obviously, they give many the impression that they are speaking for the UMC in such statements.

Even more strange, these largely-autonomous, unrepresentative agencies are given their own delegates to the quadrennial UM General Conference, along with the elected clergy and lay delegates.  This adds to their power.

Two more things can be said about the UM agencies. 

First, the UMC agencies are distressingly unproductive and incompetent. They are huge, swollen, ineffectual bureaucracies.  They accomplish little that is actually helpful to UM congregations or their pastors.  Instead of helping the church to grow, they have presided over its decline.  What they are tasked to produce - help for the church in fulfilling its mission - is of poor quality, largely inferior to what could be obtained by outsourcing with various excellent, more expert para-church ministries from outside the UMC.

Examples?  Sunday school materials, for one.  Pastors have complained for years, or suffered in silence, because the UMC-produced materials are so inadequate.  Much better material can easily be obtained from outside the UMC.

Missions, for another. The General Board of Global Missions (GBGM), on an operating budget of $67 million, fields only 127 missionaries.who are commissioned as salaried, career missionaries overseas.  Even then, most of these are not actually traditional missionaries - evangelists and church planters that is - but teachers of English, etc.  Then there are also hundreds of non-missionary staff.  Yet over 100 years ago, when the Methodist church was a fourth of its present size, it sent around 3000 domestic missionaries, just within the U.S. alone.* 

Today, the Mission Society for United Methodists (MSUM) presently fields 210 missionaries on a budget of only $8 million, with a support staff of only 33   This tiny independent Mission Society, with money voluntarily given, without compulsion, by Methodist individuals and congregations, outstrips the performance of the bloated and far richer GBGM, with 1/8 of the budget and a fraction of the staff.**

Second, the UMC agencies are prohibitively expensive.  Even after successive budget cuts because the denomination is shrinking, these agencies still spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year.  Further, these funds are forced giving through the compulsory "apportionments" required of all UMC churches.  Methodists are given no choice about such giving.  Yet, what they get in return for such compulsory giving is getting it spent lavishly on atrociously low productivity. 

The UMC agencies are certainly not the sole reason the UMC continues to decline even while the population grows.  But they are a huge part of the institutional "brake" impeding the forward motion of the UMC.  In addition, their continual defiance of the rulings of the General Conference, with public pronouncements so contrary to the beliefs of a great majority of the UMC, do in fact have a negative effect on many congregations, tending to increase the further decline of the UMC.

Can Methodists not manage to do something about their out-of-control agencies? 

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* See http://www.ird-renew.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=fvKVLfMVIsG&b=391221&ct=4075395

** For more detail, see their website, www.themissionarysociety.org  .

There Is Only One Political Issue

              What Happens When the Taliban Visit an Art Gallery

      (Image from static.flickr.com/83/279634632_70798c4a12.jpg)

Writing in the American Thinker today, Joseph Rosenburger says:

The current political squabbles in America between the liberal, socialist left and the moral capitalist conservative right are merely a skirmish line on the edge of two colliding civilizations.  The combatants are not the free market, individual-centric conservatives and libertarians vs. the Nanny State, socialist plantation liberal straw bosses.  Not at all!

The elephant in the room is Islamofacism - and President Bush and his brilliant General Patraeus, at the head of the greatest Army of our lifetime, are decisively engaged.  What is at stake dwarfs the '08 elections topics of single-payer medical care, unfunded social security, or our billions of dollare held by China and Saudi Arabia, for economic blackmail.

(Or, he might have added, immigration.)

Life as we know it - the profound blessings of the Age of Enlightenment and the spectacular technological progress in the arts and sciences that resulted -- is, absent a courageous defense, doomed to be devoured in the maws of a barbarian Islamofacism if President Bush's war leadership fails. 

Militant Islam means to convert, enslave or exterminate the infidel non-Muslim world, depending on the amount of resistance encountered.  The Koran demands it, and militant Islamists are implementing it wherever they have the critical mass to enforce it.  Secular pluralism and a democratically-established Rule of Law will not survive, absent protectors that exercise lethal force to defend it. 

This should be the litmus test of who our next president should be, and no other.

That is the only policy in this election that matters.  If we fail on this one, no other policy questions will be left even to be considered.  There is one, and only one, political issue now.

Rosenburg continues:

...Islamofacism or Western Civilizatin...will prevail depending on who imposes its will on its neighbors sufficient to expand its borders, increase its population, and accumulate treasure...The rise and fall of one society or another reflects the simple equation of warfare, biology and technology development.

For example, Islamofascists, reproducing rapidly, brainwashing young boys...raising battalions of Kamikazi homicide bombers, cutting off hands and heads to maintain discipline and tribal cohesion, are overcoming a complacent West, spoiled, secular and imploding with declining birth rates.  In fact, Islamists are reaching a tipping point in Europe, for example, nearing a critical mass in Spain, France and Great Britain.

We'll know for sure the game's over when they burn down the idolatrous art museums in Paris.

That Islam condemns half its population (females) to abject servitude and shows profoundly little ability to advance the frontiers of science and technology, suggests an approaching dark age if left unchecked.

The alternative, brighter future depends on supplying General Patraeus with what he needs, funding the Surge all the way.

Of course he is not the first so to define this choice.  But he does it well, cutting through the political distractions.

We can use the reminder!

Men and Women: Vive La Difference

                               (Video from ymarsakar.wordpress.com)

Are man and women different?  Oh yes!  Although feminists have insisted for decades that there is no difference, or that any differences are culturally learned, not inborn, science is re-acknowledging that male/female differences are hard-wired.

How can the difference be demonstrated? Ymarsakar brilliantly uses ballet and ice skating to illustrate how men and women rely on, and play to, each other's strengths.   Their different strengths are, in countless ways, a good fit.  She says:

The ice dance seems rather a fitting analogy...since the man is the base and foundation, using his strength to lift up the woman, holding her and more or less protecting her with his strength..  She could not, after all, do what her partner does for her, yet it doesn't need to be exactly the same.  A woman on the ice contributes grace, beauty and perfection of form and motion.  Different from what the man contributes, which is a foundation, strength, endurance, and so forth.

Watch the video and just listen and see.

But neoneocon, a former ballet dancer, speaks not only of the grace of the woman, but also of her tremendous strength.

Back when I was dancing, my personal experience with partnering surprised me.  What is required of the woman is what you don't see -- what is hidden by the impression of tremendous grace -- and that is a tremendous and steely strength. 

Not upper-body strength to lift: that's what the man must have, who must also take care to hide the effort involved and not telegraph it or make it look any way but easy.

And it's not too hard for an onlooker to imagine how difficult it must be to lift a woman...even a 100 pound woman is harder to lift than a bag of groceries.  It's much harder to imagine the strength a woman needs to hold her pose in the air, even upside down at times, and to conquer her fear and trust a partner who quite literally holds her fate in his hands.

Trusting a partner who holds her fate in his hands?  Yes, literally.  See this video of ice-skating champions from Russia, where the man, holding the woman high above his head, loses footing and she crashes down from that height, with such force that it knocks her out.

The sad part of that story was not what happened to her, but to him.  She was OK, and quickly regained her willingness to trust him on the ice again.  But he was not able to bring himself to risk lifting her again, and left ice skating.

Which perhaps brings us to the crux of the relations between men and women.  That is, the courage to trust.  It has to be there.  If lost, it has to be regained.  Then paired men and women can often move, function and live almost as one - united in body, heart and mind, despite their tremendous differences.  That very real possibility keeps us pursuing the dream of men who complement women, and women who complement men.  Who become more, together, than each could be separately. 

Perhaps ballet and ice dancing move us so because they lift up the dream before us again.  And la difference?  Vive!

How Much of a Lame Duck Is Bush?

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Dr. George Friedman, founder of Stratfor, the "private CIA," writes that all U.S. Presidents eventually become lame ducks.  But that does not apply to his military power.   Internationally, Friedman writes,...

The power of a lame duck president depends on the options he has militarily.  Foreign powers do not mess with American Presidents, no matter how lame one might be, as long as the president retains military options.

It is in his role as Commander in Chief that the President has almost autonomous powers.  There is little Congress can do to stop him, except withholding money after the fact. 

Many have speculated that in his last days in office, if Iran has become too serious a threat, Bush will order Iran bombed, perhaps with nukes, to eliminate Iran's nuclear blackmail on his way out of office.  Not so, says Freidman.  Bush's military options have become too restricted for that.  U.S. ground forces are almost completely used up in the wars in Iraq and Afganistan.  They are either on duty, rotating out or being trained for deployment.  There is little to no chance that the U.S. will deploy ground forces anywhere else.

The U.S. Navy and Air Force are still mostly held in reserve.  But once they are committed, the U.S. has no more reserves. They are standing guard over Iran at present.   So U.S. military options are limited.

Meanwhile, second-tier powers like Russia are using this situation to probe our defenses and to stake new claims of their own.  How can Russia do this?

Russia is not the country it was 10 years ago.  Its economy, fueled by rising energy and mineral prices, is financially solvent...becoming a more traditional Russian state: authoritarian, repressive, accepting private property but only under terms it finds acceptable.  It also is redefining its sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union and reviving its military.

The Russian airforce has been harassing Georgia.  It is making claims to the North Pole, after Canada began opening up its North West Passage.  They have announced a new air defense by 2015 - not very long as those things go.  They have announced they will create a new command-and-control system at the same time.

Russian long-range aircraft recently flew to Guam,..causing the U.S. to scramble fighter jets.  They also flew into what used to be called the GIUK gap (Greenland-Iceland-UK), probing air defenses along the Norweigan coast and in Scotland. 

Most interestingly, they announced the resumption of patrols in the Atlantic, along the U.S. coast...During the Cold War, patrols such as these were designed to carry out electronic and signal intelligence...designed to map out U.S. facilities along the Eastern seaboard and observe response time and procedures.

The Russians are using the window of opportunity to redefine, in a modest way, the global balance and gain some room to manuever in their region...The more the Russians manuever, the more the United States must hold what forces it has left - the Navy and Air Force - in reserve.  Launching an Iranian adventure becomes that much more risky.  If it is launched, Russia has an even greater window of opportunity.  Every further involvement in the region makes the United States that much less of a factor in the immediate global equation...

The Russians are...dealing with a lame duck president with fewer options than most lame ducks.    Before there is a new president, and before the war in Iraq ends, the Russians want to redefine the situation a bit.

Remember that Russia and China have just held joint military exercises, attended by Iranian President Admadinijad.  Consider also that our current lack of options is the result of our drastic reductions in military spending - now at a new low, as a percentage of the Gross National Product.  We did that at the end of the Cold War, when we imagined there would be a "peace dividend."  When many of us managed to believe there would be no more wars.

We need to hurry and increase our investment in our military to a much greater level, very soon.  Americans need their president to have greater military options than now.  After all the post-cold-war wistful thinkng, the world is still a very dangerous place.

(Friedman's whole article may be read at www.stratfor.com.)       

President Bush's Speech Today

                Image from cnn.com)

Here is the transcript of what many are already calling Bush's best speech.  It is about changing our strategy for the war in Iraq.  It also evaluates all our wars, and how the way we handled them still affects us today.  Outstanding. 

A pity it did not run in prime time.

China May Be New Center of Christianity

                                          (Image from lancs.ac.uk)

Ten thousand Chinese a day become Christians.  Currently there are as many as 111 million Christians in China (of whom 90% are Protestants.) 

Many are severely persecuted by the Chinese government.  But they also are zealous missionaries and evangelists.   Two Protestant seminaries in China are secretly training missionaries to the Muslims.

By 2050, there are expected to be some 200 million Christians in China.  That would make China the second nation in Christianity, behind only the United States.  (Brazil would be the third.)

So writes "Spengler," the pen-name of the esteemed journalist and thinker who writes anonymously at the Asian Times.  He suspects that:

...Christianity will have become a Sino-centric religion two generations from now.  China may be for the 21st century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and what America has been for the last 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelism.  If this occurs, the world will change beyond our capacity to recognize it.  Islam might defeat the Western Europeans, simply by replacing their diminishing numbers with immigrants, but it will crumble beneath the challenge from the East. 

People do not live in a spiritual vacuum, Spengler continues.

...where a spiritual vacuum exists, as in western Europe and the former Soviet Union, people simply die or fail to breed...When war or economics tear people away from their roots in traditional life, what once appeared constant is now shown to be ephemeral.  Christianity is the great liquidator of traditional society, calling individuals out of their tribes and nations to join the ekklesia (church), which transcends race and nation.

The movement of the Chinese into Christianity is their greatest hope for democracy, writes Spengler.

China's network of house churches may turn out to be the leaven of democracy, like the radical Puritans of England who became the Congregationists of New England.  Freedom of worship is the first pre-condition of democracy, for it makes possible freedom of conscience.  The fearless evangelists at the grassroots of China will, in the fullness of time, do more to bring U.S.-style democracy to the world than all the blustering nation-building of President George W. Bush and his advisors.   

(For the effects of migration on the spread of Christianity, and more, read the whole fascinating article.)

Little Girl Recites 23rd Psalm

You gotta see this.  Lovely, lovely.  Click here.

(Hat Tip to Fred and Gene Hannah) 

Fred Thompson - Laws on Gay Marriage, Abortion

(Click here http://www.blogsforfredthompson.com/fred-thompson-would-support-constitutional-amendment-banning-gay-marriage-and-supports-overturning-r to play the video pictured above.)

In it, Fred Thompson states that he would support a constitutional amendment ruling out gay marriage, and that he thinks Roe v. Wade, the court decision legalizing abortion, should be overturned.

Update: Fred Thompson does NOT support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.  He supports the right of each state to make its own laws concerning marriage, but does not believe states should have to accept the marriage laws of other states.  If necessary, he would support a constitutional amendment to prohibit that.

Methodists Can Be Encouraged

      (Image from ariustile.com)

James Heidinger has long been president of the evangelical Good News caucus of the United Methodist Church.  In his August 2007 newsletter, he was optimistic about the future of the UMC. 

More than 15 years ago he wrote that the UMC is

...basically a conservative denomination being controlled, if not dominated, by a liberal minority.

This was supported by an official study done by one of our church agencies.  It showed clearly that 70% of United Methodist laity hold to conservative/orthodox beliefs on moral and theological issues.  In fact, in the Southeastern Jurisdiction, more than 76% of the laity embraced conservative beliefs. 

I wrote at the time that "a small, efficient, liberal bureaucracy is adept at maintaining control by working the system and controlling the debate."  We asked in Good News magazine, "Will lay people become more assertive in demanding that their convictions be represented in the official decisions and policies of the church?

We said at the time, "Yes, it has already begun to happen."  (Emphasis added.)

Now he writes that it continues to happen. 

...the church looks and acts much more orthodox and evangelical.  Theologian Tom Oden has written that United Methodism is centering itself around the Apostolic Faith.  While such change happens slowly, I believe he is right.  We are slowly recovering our Weslayan heritage!  (Emphasis in the original.)

Further, for the first time ever, two bishops attended the Good News summer board meeting.  Jim writes:

...we engaged in very candid, cordial and honest conversation about the needs of our denomination and our concerns about issues facing the church.

Later, at the banquet, Bishops Scott Jones and Sally Dyck...

...shared with us the vision of the Council of Bishops for renewal and revitalization of the denomination through their Seven Vision Pathways, which has been condensed into four Action Goals.

Their first goal, "To Live the United Methodist Way," is simply Wesley's vision of being a real Christian, and that is an evangelical and orthodox vision.  The other three goals evangelicals can endorse wholeheartedly: Starting New Churches (which evangelicals are already doing), Reaching out to children, and Working to help stamp out malaria and HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Finally, Jim writes more about the factual evidence supporting his optimism:

Well, the results of the recent elections for the 2008 Central and Jurisdictional Conference delegates are in.  We've had the chance to look at the make-up of the delegations.  What we can say is this: the delegations to both bodies next year are significantly more orthodox/evangelical than even in 2004.

So, the trend toward a more evangelical United Methodist Church continues.  This trend is exceedingly good news, and many of us expect it to continue.  (Emphasis in the original.)

This is tremendously encouraging news.  Getting this far has been a decades-long, rough, often discouraging road.  Many pastors have lost appointments and damaged their future in the UMC because of their support for this evangelical movement.  Many of us have stayed in the UMC when we have longed to leave, because we felt that staying was God's will for us. 

Now we are finally beginning to see some of the fruits of so many sacrifices.  The outcome is by no means guaranteed.  Despite these many gains, we still face an enormous struggle ahead within the UMC. 

Yet, with Jim Heidinger today, we can cautiously begin to say, "I confess that I am encouraged."  While still keeping our wits about us, that is. 

We must continue to be in fervent prayer for guidance and help.

(The Good News Magazine's website is www.goodnewsmag.org.)

We Have More Influence Than We Know - IV

       Trenton, Tennessee

(Image from images.medhunter.com)

This is from the free newsletter of Mac Anderson, head of Simple Truths.  He wrote this:

I grew up in Trenton, a west Tennessee town of five thousand people.  I have wonderful memories of those first 18 years, and many people in Trenton influenced my life in very positive ways.  My football coach, Walter Kitzer, taught me the importance of hard work, discipline and believing in myself.  My history teacher, Fred Culp, is still the funniest person I've ever met.  He taught me that a sense of humor, and especially laughing at yourself, can be one of life's greatest blessings.

But my father was my hero.  He taught me many things, but at the top of the list, he taught me to treat people with respect...to live the Golden Rule.  I remember one particular instance of his teaching this "life lesson" as if it were yesterday.  Dad owned a furniture store and I used to dust the furniture every Wednesday after school to earn my allowance.  One day I observed my Dad as he talked to all the customers as they came in...the hardward store owner, the banker, a farmer, a doctor.  At the end of the day, just as Dad was closing, the garbage collector came in.

I was ready to go home and I thought surely Dad wouldn't spend too much time with him.  But I was wrong.  Dad greeted him at the door with a big hug and talked with him about his wife and son who had been in a car accident the month before.  He empathized, he asked questions, he listened, and he listened some more.  I kept looking at the clock, and when the man finally left I asked, "Dad, why did you spend so much time with him?  He's just the garbage collector."  Dad then looked at me, locked the front door and said, "Son, let's talk."

He said, "I'm your father, and I tell you lots of things, as all fathers should, but if you remember nothing else I ever tell you, remember this...treat every human being just the way you want to be treated."  He said, "I know this is not the first time you've heard it, but I want to make sure this is the first time you truly understand it, because if you had understood, you never would have said what you did."  We sat there and talked another hour about the meaning of the Golden Rule.  Dad said, "If you live the Golden Rule everything else in life will usually work itself out, but if you don't, your life will probably be very unhappy and without meaning."

I recently heard someone say, "If you teach your child the Golden Rule, you will have left them an estate of inestimable value."  Truer words were never spoken.

Lutherans Indirectly OK Actively-Gay Clergy

                          (Image from ulcsc.org)

The 4.8 million member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ECLA) has just loosened its standards prohibiting gay clergy again. 

At its weeklong assembly that ended Saturday, delegates voted down a measure that would have ended the church's requirement for celibacy for gay clergy.

But then they countered that by voting for another measure that nullified the first, by encouraging church leaders to "exercise restraint" when it came to enforcing the first measure by disciplining gay clergy who are in committed relationsips.

What that means, of course, is that bishops can do whatever they please about gay clergy.  They are expected to  continue to be permissive with them rather than disciplining them.  (As is true in other "mainline" denominations, clergy and bishops are much more liberal than most church members, often acting against rules passed by the church as a whole.)

So what the Lutherans did with one hand, they took away with the other.  Clearly, they hoped to disguise what they were doing.  That will work.  Most Lutherans may not notice for awhile.  But eventually they will.  When they do, they can be expected to continue leaving the church in even-greater numbers, in a church already suffering from long-term membership decline.  They can also be expected to increase efforts to split the Lutheran church - again.  (It already split in the 70s and 80s, over the related issue of Bible inerrancy.)

Either way, the decline of the Lutherans will speed up, just as happened when Episcopalians took the same "gradualist" path toward approving actively-homosexual clergy, and eventually, actively-homosexual bishops.

Der Spiegel Says Iraq Going Well

                                  (Image from windsofchange.net)

Der Spiegel, the big German newspaper, has long been a harsh critic of the U.S. war in Iraq.  So it was quite a surprise when it published an article Friday praising the U.S. effort in Iraq, saying it was going very well.  Here is an exerpt.

Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq--it is proof that the U.S. military is more successful than the world wants to believe.  Ramadi illustrates that large parts of Iraq--not just Anbar province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers--are essentially pacified today.   This is news the world doesn't hear:  Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious "Sunni Triangle," is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction....

Something is happenng in Iraq that is consistently concealed behind images of bombings.  The situation that the White House and its deceptive advisors had erroneously predicted before their invasion--that the troops would be greeted with candy and flowers--could in fact still come true.  That's already the case in many places.

Not only is "late better than never," but such an honest and speedy turn-around sets a good example for other media of how it should be done.  Kudos to Der Spiegel.

We Have More Influence Than We Know - III

                         (Image from beachmauiweddings.com)

We have more influence than we know, or may ever know.  How?

There is almost always someone watching.  They may imitate what they see us doing, or learn something from it, good or bad.

Rubel Shelly's story, in the post below, made me think of something I saw at a wedding reception years ago.  My then-16-year-old cousin, Warren Yowell, was at a wedding reception.  He was there representing his entire family, who were out of town and could not come. 

Warren was behaving with the kind of dignity and grace that would have been impressive in a much older and more sophisticated man.  He visited with all the older people present as well as those near his own age.  Sometimes he just stood quietly to the side.  He was warm, pleasant, gracious and considerate.  All in all, it was quite impressive.

As the reception was winding down, I went to Warren and told him how I marveled at his behavior.  "How did you ever learn to do that?" I asked.

Warren said, "I didn't.  I just tried to think what my Dad would have done, and do that."

We Have More Influence Than We Know - II

                        (Image from newfreedownloads.com)

We have more influence than we know, or may ever know.  How?

There is almost always someone watching us.  They may imitate what they see us doing, or learn something from it, good or bad.  Just like in this true story from Rubel Shelly's "The Fax of Life," August 13, 2007.*

"Just Like My Dad"

Matty Lovo is only nine years old, but the story of his level-headed daring deserves to be told.  In the telling of his story, there is a line from the hero himself that should make all of us who are parents and grandparents take notice.

Matty's father drives one of those huge big-rig trucks that are part of American commerce.  Last week his semi was pulling two trailers loaded with lumber through St. Helens, Oregon.  Matty was riding in the cab with him.  He was enjoying the high-sitting ride and view.  He liked the powerful sounds of the motor.  He took pride in being with his Dad.  Then the unexpected happened. 

Matthew Lovo Sr. had a seizure of some sort.  Doctors are still trying to figure it out.  He lost consciousness at the wheel of his truck, and it veered into oncoming traffic and struck a utility pole.  Matthew Lovo Jr. didn't panic.

When he saw his father had collapsed, Matty called his name.  When there was no answer, he smacked him to try to wake him up.  Then he did what he had to do.  He climbed across his Dad and into the driver's seat.  He steered the big truck back into its lanes and had the presence of mind to get on the truck's C.B. radio to ask what he should do.  Somebody heard his plea for help and told him to turn off the ignition key.  He did that.  The rig began to slow down.

At just that moment, the semi passed Christopher Howard.  Driving the opposite direction on the highway, he saw that a child was at the wheel of the slow-moving vehicle.  He stopped his car, jumped out and chased down the truck on foot.  He jumped aboard, climbed into the cab with Matty, and applied the brakes that a nine-year-old boy's legs could not reach while steering. 

The St. Helen's Police Department didn't ticket Matty.  To the contrary, it made a public statement of support for his "cool demeanor" in an incident that could have ended tragically. 

"I just did the stuff," said an humble Matty.  "I thought, I should just do what my Dad does."  He did.  And he is a young hero for it.

Some of us Dads and Moms should think about this father-son story very deeply.  Our children watch.  They absorb.  They take their clues about how to react to crises and joys, family and friends, God and men.  You've heard all your life about how more lessons are caught than taught, haven't you?  It is true!

If it won't do to have your children do what you're doing today, maybe it isn't too late.  It's worth the effort for both of you.  Get some help to change! 

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*Rubel Shelly's weekly "The Fax of Life" is available by email for free, from www.RubelShelly.com.

Brief Absence - High Tech Got Me Again

                              (Image from cartoonstock.com)

Before, it was replacing my hard drive, with all the grief, fury and anguish of getting everything re-installed.  More than 2 weeks non-blogging, non-anything. 

Then this week, my nice broadband provider let everyone's email go down from Wednesday evening to Friday afternoon.  It was probably this area-wide crash that changed pleasant weather into heat!

Too far gone to be able to live without email, I spent a lot of time getting other email options in place.  Still, I did get up to speed on several new tech possibilities in the process.

What is it about high tech?  It's either computer-illiterate or severely addicted.  No half-way.  We're either glued to the screen when the tech behaves or catatonic when it crashes.

There must be some existential debate about this somewhere.  Theological, even.

Maybe we need to re-think our tech-dependence.  There was life before high tech.   I think.

Iran Crack-Down On Young People

                                            (Image from holycrime.com)

My friend Stef in Quebec comes up with another scoop, here. 

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, some 230 young people were arrested near Tehran last weekend at an underground rock concert. The prosecutor of the town of Karaj told Iran’s state broadcaster that the concert was satanic and decadent.

There are many underground parties going on in Iran, but  the Ministry of Vice and Virtue (boy do I detest these Orwellian-sounding names! sends shiver down my spine) recently went on a crackdown on everything considered immoral and contrary to the Islamic law (mixed genders, revealing clothing, alcohol comsumption).

A recent dossier in The Economist on Iran revealed that about 60% of Iranians are under 25 year olds; these young people never knew anything other than the current regime. Amongst the young people arrested were some dual nationals from the UK and Sweden, on vacation there.

What a sad place!

Iraqi Interpreter Talks Freely to U.S. Reporter

The excellent Belmont Club today has this story here, with comments by Wretchard.

                                     Iraqi Interpreter

                       (Image from michaeltotten.com)

Michael Totten interviews an Iraqi interpreter for US troops, here.  (Below is a much-shortened and edited version.  You have to read the whole thing to get the true flavor of it.)

An Iraqi Interpreter’s Story

By Michael J. Totten

“Please, sir, can you help me? I must work with Americans, because my psychology is demolished by Saddam Hussein. Not just me. All Iraqis. Psychological demolition.” – Iraqi woman to New Yorker reporter George Packer.

Iraqis who are not American citizens and who work as interpreters for the American military cover their faces when they work outside the wire. Mahdi Army militiamen and Al Qaeda terrorists accuse of them of collaboration with the enemy. They and their families are targetted for destruction.

Here is the story of one such interpreter who works with the 82nd Airborne Division in Baghdad. He calls himself “Hammer.”

MJT: Why do you work with Americans?

Hammer: When I was 14 years old all I liked was American cars and American movies. America was my dream. It was a dream come true when the United States Army came to Iraq. It was a nightmare in 1991 when they left again.

MJT: Why do you have to cover your face?

Hammer: To protect my family. My family lives in Iraq. If they go to the U.S. I won’t have to do it. But I don’t want anyone to know me, to follow me and see where I live and kill my wife and son.

MJT: How did you feel when the U.S. invaded Iraq?

Hammer: Happy. It was like I was living in a jail and somebody set me free. I don’t want Saddam ruling me. Never. I was just waiting and waiting for this moment.

MJT: What do you think about the possibility of Americans leaving?

Hammer: It is like bad dream. Very bad dream. A nightmare. Worse than that. Like sending me back to jail. Like they set me free for four years then sent me back to jail or gave me a death sentence.

MJT: Tell us about living under Saddam Hussein.

Hammer: It was crazy life, like feeling safe inside a jail. If they sent you to an actual jail nothing changed. They arrested everyone, literally everyone, for no reason and sent them to jail for two weeks just so they could see the jail.

I went there three times. The first time because I worked for a movie company. They sent all of us to jail. It had nothing to do with me.

I was given a three year sentence. My family has money, so I paid the judge 50,000 dollars. I gave it directly to the judge, plus four new tires for his car and a satellite TV. He gave me a three month sentence instead of a three year sentence. He scratched “3 years” off my sentence and wrote “3 months” in by hand.

MJT: What’s it like out there now for the average Iraqi?

Hammer: If you give average Iraqis electricity right now it will be enough. This is the most important thing. Give them power for seven days in a row and there will be no fights.

Giving them electricity would reduce violence. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself what would happen to this Army base if the power was cut off forever and the soldiers had to spend the rest of their lives in Iraq. Do you think these soldiers would still behave normally?

TV is the most interesting thing to Iraqis. They learn everything from the TV. Right now they only have one hour of electricity every day. Do you know what they watch? Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera pushes them to fight. If they got TV the whole day they would watch many things. Their minds would be influenced by something other than terrorist propaganda.

Right now they have no electricity. They have no dreams. Nothing. And Saddam messed with their minds. For more than 30 years he poisoned their minds.

MJT: Why is Iraq such a mess? Is it the Americans’ fault?

Hammer: No. You can’t blame it on the Americans. Iraqis are number one at fault for this mess.

MJT: Is there a solution to the problem in this country?

Hammer:   Ok, if you want a serious solution try this:

Charge money to the families of insurgents. Fine them huge amounts of money if anyone in their family is captured or killed and identified as an insurgent. Make them pay. You can put it into law. Within one week they won’t do anything wrong because they want money. Their familes will make them stop.

The militias pay them 100 dollars to set up IEDs. Fine them thousands of dollars if they are caught and their families will make them stop. Give them that law. Go ahead. Try it.

MJT: What will happen if the Americans leave next year?

Hammer: Rivers of blood everywhere. Syria and Iran will take pieces of Iraq. Anti-American governments will laugh. You will be a joke of a country that no one will take seriously.

I will kill myself if it happens. I am completely serious. The militias will hunt down and kill me and my family. I will beat them to it by killing myself.

I worked for the U.S. government for four years. Everyone who works as an interpreter for four years and gets a signature from a General or a Senator gets a Green Card. My hope is to get this somehow. I will do anything for this.

I am doing this for my son. Everything for my son. I don’t want my son living here getting into religion and militias and Al Qaeda. I want my son to be free, to have a girlfriend, to get married, and to be a good citizen.

MJT: How often do you get to see him?

Hammer: Two days a month. Sometimes two days every two months. I leave this base without my uniform and dress like them, wearing filthy jeans and a t-shirt, so they don’t know I work here. Then drive to my house and hug my wife and son.

MJT: Do you ever get death threats?

Hammer: Seven times. Once I had to sell my car because of it. Some come from Shia militias, others from Al Qaeda. I had two IEDs in front of my car and was shot at with an RPG when I was working in Kirkuk for Bechtel at an oil plant.

MJT: What is the worst thing you have ever seen in this country.

Hammer: 60 guys from Al Qaeda kidnapped an interpreter’s sister. She had a baby boy, six months old. They raped her, all 60 guys. Then they cut her to pieces and threw her in the river. They left the six month baby boy to sleep in her blood.

We found him on a big farm south of Baghdad. All that was left was his legs and his shoes. The dogs ate him.

I don’t want this for my family.

These people (Al Queda) are like animals who came from another planet.

MJT: What is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen in this country?

Hammer: In all my life? When I was seven years old I heard the sound of wild pigeons every morning. Then something happened and I never heard them again.

Then, on the morning of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I heard the pigeons again.

Really, I am not joking. I can see you don’t believe me, but I am not faking it.

MJT: What is the most important thing about Iraq that the Americans don’t understand?

Hammer: Don’t just open the jail after 25 years. Let people out step by step. Iraqis need rehab. Give them instant direct freedom and they are going to go crazy. That’s what the U.S. did.

MJT: Will the Americans win this war?

Hammer: I hope it’s going to happen. But it’s not going to happen if the Americans keep doing what they are doing unless they are a lot more patient.

MJT: Anything you want to say that I didn’t ask you about?

Hammer: Because of the few bad Iraqis who work as interpreters for the U.S., no one trusts us. But if you give me a gun I will fight harder than the Americans. You can go home. I can’t. I have to live in this country. If the Americans don’t give a Green Card to me and my family, I have to stay in this prison.

I’ll tell you what I tell my family. If I die here, wrap me in the American flag when you bury me. I don’t want to be wrapped in the flag of Iraq.

Hammer is looking for employment in and permanent relocation to the United States for himself, his wife, and his son. If you can sponsor him for a Green Card and help save his family, email him at superlink_par@yahoo.com and superlink_70@yahoo.com.

      Michael Totten

Postscript: Please support independent journalism. Traveling to and working in Iraq is expensive. I can’t publish dispatches on this Web site for free without substantial reader donations, so I'll appreciate it if you pitch in what you can. Blog Patron allows you to make recurring monthly payments, and even small donations will be extraordinarily helpful so I can continue this project.  (Go here to support Michael) 

Korean Missionaries? In Afganistan??

Korean missionaries are in the news again today, here, because a group of them in Afganistan have been taken hostage.  The pastor and one other have been killed and left by the road.

Release of Taliban prisoners is being demanded in exchange for the other Koreans in the group.

That has become a familiar, weary story.  Foreigners are taken hostage in a Muslim land.  Demands must be fulfilled before they can be freed.  So what else is new?

But the rest of the story seems the stuff of

     (Image from opinionjournal.com)

fantasy.  What in the world are missionaries from Korea doing in a place like Afganistan?  We picture them moving through Afganistan, and it seems unreal.  .We wonder - as many Afganis probably do - what in the world are they doing there?  (As Koreans must have wondered a century ago what all those strange-looking missionaries were doing in their country.)

That story is hard to get a handle on.  It is also something few would ever have predicted.

As Leslie Hook of the Asian Wall Street Journal writes today's U.S. Wall Street Journal,

Asian missionaries are everythere, and today they're often found in some of the world's most dangerous hotspots. 

Who knew?  And why is that?  Ms. Hook continues,

Although only about 30% of South Korea's 49 million citizens are Christian, the country is second only to the U.S. in the number of missionaries it sends abroad.  As of last year, 16,600 Korean missionaries were stationed in 173 countries."

How did this enormous change come about?  Catholic missionaries went to Korea 200 years ago, then Protestant missionaries atreamed into both Korea and China 100 years later.  Many missionaries were targeted and killed.  But they kept coming.  Now there are 350 million Asian Christians, up from about 20 million in 1900.  And more and more Asians are becoming missionaries.

Korean Christian aid workers are one example of missionaries from the "majority world" - continents other than Europe and North America.  South Korea alone has gone from 93 missionaries abroad in 1979 to over 8000 in 2000 and double that by 2006.  About half go to other East Asian countries, and others to places like Jordan, Turkey and Syria.  Missionaries from across the world are still flowing into Asia as well, like the African from Nigeria who runs an underground church in China.

Now there is a backlash in South Korea, with "vacation missionaries" being criticized for going to situations "where they are way out of their depth,"  according to Tim Peters, a Christian living in Korea.  The hostages are being criticized for being naive and the churches for competing with each other to see who can perform the most dangerous missions. 

Several churches and organizations have canceled their trips to Afganistan.  The Korean government has restricted its citizens from traveling to Afganistan without explicit government approval.

Meanwhile, family members of the victims are gathered at Saemmul Church, praying and watching newscasts.  Christians around the country are keeping vigil.  Amid the onslaught of critical voices, many in Korea's Christian community feel misunderstood.

"It's not about competition.....I think missionaries are sharing because they have boldness," says Kim Hee-chan, who works at the Middle East Team, a group that helps organize missionaries.  And, she says, "Missionaries sacrifice."  A fact the hostages in Afghanistan know only too well.

We Have More Influence Than We Know

                                Abilene High School, Abilene, Texas

                                       (Image from rootsweb.com)

Truthfully, I don't remember much about Abilene High School.  It was the 8th school I attended. .So they all sort of run together.  Though I graduated from Abilene High, I was only there 2 years.  It is pretty much a blur. 

But something does stand out.  A student there had a huge influence on me, and we didn't even know each other. 

That day, we were in the auditorium.  An assembly was about to start.  The choir was about to sing.  I was onstage with them.   I must have been, because my view of what happened was from the stage, looking down at the students as they came in.  But what got my attention was a senior leading his mother down the aisle and seating her in the middle of the very front row. 

He couldn't do enough for her.  He hovered.  Was she comfortable?  Would she prefer another seat?  I couldn't hear, but from their motions, that was what they were discussing.  He left, but came right back with some other concern. She seemed to be saying No, she was perfectly fine.

I knew who he was because he was in the choir too.  Also a football player, and a "big man on campus."  And he was unselfconsciously treating his mother with the utmost love and tenderness.  For me, it was a stunning revelation.  And a rebuke.

You see, I had been treating my own mother pretty shabbily.  Why?  I didn't really know.  My parents were outstanding parents.  I loved them and was obedient to them.  But I was resentful too.  So, without actually disobeying them, I was passive/aggressive with them.  I had this sneaky way of goading my mother, without disobeying or talking badly to her.  If I could goad her to the point that she became totally exasperated, I would get this little smile on my face. 

My resentment was about always having to go to a new school, always starting over.  New friends were hard to make. And just when I finally would get some, we would move again..  Four grade schools, two middle schools and two high schools.  I blamed my parents.  But it really wasn't their fault.

It was my dad's volunteering for the army the day after Pearl Harbor that led to most of the moves.  I went to 3 schools that one achool year.  When he came home, there were more moves as he got back into civilian life and made career changes.

That day in the auditorium, Bob Bailey was the student I was watching.  He really made me think.  It changed my mother's life.  It changed mine.  Yet Bob never had the slightest idea.  How would he have known?

The fact is, we do influence other people, more often than we think.  There is almost always someone watching.  What we do can affect them in ways we may never know, sometimes important, even life-changing ways.   My small story is surely not the only one that could be told.  Our influence is out there, like it or not..  It matters.

Bob and Marcia, now you know. 

Gerry 

Why Term Limits For Just The President?

Robert Martin thinks we should put some others under term limits too.

        (Image from demandmore.org)

Here's Bob's take:

The federal government was set up with three branches.  The executive, legislative and judicial branches were designed to form a check and balance system on each other. 

_

If each one is equally powerful why the difference in term limits?  The president can only serve 2 terms, congress has no limits and the judicial branch appoints federal judges for life.  This doesn't look like they were given equal power for the purpose of check and balance.

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There should be term limits in all three branches of government with no lifetime appointments. No term limits allows individuals in congress to have too much power. 

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What can I say about lifetime appointments?  We are appointing people and making them  millionaires with their retirement program. This needs to be changed. 

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Let's get out and start something.

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That's how I C M    Bob