Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Response to Prior Blog on Just War

I’m finalizing to leave tomorrow for NAC, but I keep thinking about responses to my reasons for supporting “just war.” After blogging it, I emailed copies of it to several in my address book, most of whom ignored it as the ravings of an anti-Bush voter (smile). My emails included this subject line: “Would you support this?”


One response I’ll refer to again, complimented my reasoning (as satire), but then asked what I meant by my subject question: Would you support this? Frankly, I wanted to know myself. I see a majority of Christians nominally opposing war, but ignoring becoming proactive about peace and non-violence. They vote for political positions and politicians that support war; they hype a patriotism that supports the present war of “preemptive strike,” and by their general lifestyle, they do in fact support “just war.”



I like Helen’s indignant reply from OK City: “Of course I don’t support war even if it brings riches to some people…and more_I could keep going. . .” Bill asked me what I meant by that question. Well: the truth is, I see people saying one thing but acting another way. I see people theorizing against war but approving of war by their voting record, their political persuasions, their lifestyle, and sometimes by their passivity and unwillingness to “talk politics.” Or religion.


Now, let me get on with Bro. Bill’s response, which I quote here rather than injecting it into my prior blog: Bill K’s response concludes:


There is not such a thing as a "just war" even though depending on human conditions war is inevitable at times. A Godless society is not governed by the Prince of peace, therefore war is a way of life for them. How could a Christian justify war, killing those whom he should love and whom he should be winning to Christ? Freedom is a God given right, but it is not a God given right to impose our way of life by force on other people. Could a Christian be justified to kill some one before he kills him? I know what the Christians in our culture would say, but what Jesus would say? What does He teaches us (emphasis added)?


Bill’s comments are especially pertinent: How do we kill those we are supposed to be winning to Christ? Helen injected a further thought here when suggesting our war efforts are confusing to Muslims, Jews, et al. Frankly, I believe we confused the whole world, but evangelism is part of the church’s “calling.” Christian love and non-violence are part and parcel of “following Jesus” and the two are incompatible.


Even now, the Church of God sees itself gearing up in its quest for holiness and unity on a global scale (evangelism). To do that, we must take up our cross of servanthood, Christian love and non-violence. This is something we either do or don’t do; there is no middle ground. As we face our current global context, we are better equipped as a church to go after the good life (with the benefits of just war) than we are to win the world to the “neighborhood family” that Jesus taught.



Now that I have that off my chest, let me quote Rusty: young, vigorous, confronting but thoughtful and wanting to be proactive: he challenged my assertions that we are doing well economically with the war. He reasons this way:


is our economy really flourishing? if so, why the need for "stimulus checks" under the current administration? why is the federal minimum wage no longer sufficient to live off of? why are the gas prices here in California steadily approaching $5 a gallon for unleaded? to me it seems like we are pretending everything is fine and as a nation are willing to "stay the course" in Iraq regardless of the ramifications back at home. why doesn't the younger generation rise up and protest this ridiculous war like our parents did in the vietnam era? what happened to the constitutional right to protest? nothing is more american that exercising constitutional freedoms. yet we continue our oil addiction and view thousands of fallen soldiers as collateral damage. enough is enough. i have been following politics and the war for years now and i can't even tell you what our primary objective is over there. why? because we don't have one (emphasis added).


I remind Rusty that General Ike warned us about building up the military establishment (Pentagon et al). He has been widely quoted for pointing out that all of that expensive hi-tech military hardware (that puts blood money in someone’s pocket) all comes out of social programs and infrastructure et al at home.


And yes Rusty, although there are financial trade-offs for some few, for the majority war brings an economic spiral downward. And morally, war is a failed policy with a downward deviation, to borrow from Patrick Moynihan. You are perfectly just in challenging my assumptions about our good times.


Where does all of this discussion lead us? I believe we are about to turn a political corner; if not, America will continue its downward spiral in every way. As Christians, however, and as global citizens, we need to harmonize our beliefs and our behaviors, our creeds and our characters, our professed beliefs with our everyday behavior (including our voting records.


Jesus said, let your yes be yes and your no be no. I suggest that in ping pong lingo we cannot look in one direction and serve the ball in the opposite corner. If we follow Jesus, and want to witness for him, we must follow his commandment to “love” as "I have loved you."


His love is filled with grace and mercy (non-violent), his love is 70 x 7, his love includes our enemies, his love is self-sacrificing.
Wayne

Sunday, June 15, 2008

The Worth of War


A few weeks after Journalist Bob Woodruff received his co-anchorship on ABC Nightly News, an IED (Iraqi bomb) blasted him down, near Taji, Iraq. The military returned the comatose reporter stateside within hours--a modern miracle despite his shrapnel-shredded brain.

Asleep for 36 days, Woodruff finally came awake and 2 ½ years later he is back reporting--minus his anchor job. His journey led him through lengthy rehab that would have proved fatal prior to the Iraq War. It was a little tough on his family, but Medical Science has grown by miracle-miles, especially with new developments continually expanding under military emergencies.

This latest war has brought us a long ways! It has dramatically improved our ability to treat, amputees and debilitating physical injuries. It has especially improved our skills in treating traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Chalk up another military conquest!

Some years ago, a family member sent me a book for a Christmas gift. That book amazed me with its wealth of scientific information, especially as related to World War Two and Space Development. One of the dramatic improvements that we now take for granted, came from the development of radar during the war (as I remember)--developed under war conditions but what a huge benefit to society and warning of tornadoes.

Many such improvements have enriched and improved our lives, in all areas. These are direct and indirect benefits from times of war. The Iraq War not only contributed to improving our prosthestheses and TBI, but military contractors have benefited from huge profits that trickle down from the top, in some way helping everyone better achieve our American dream.

Add multitudes of military contractors, soldiers for sale, and numerous other defense jobs and you see how much war really stimulates the national economy and raises the standard of living. You readily see how the Cold War helped protect peaceful conditions and allowed us to live from the fat of decades of Defense Contracts and a huge military establishment--great economic stimulus package!

Now, we have finely-tuned our military system, made war a science. We have a highly skilled, technically trained fighting force that is able to make precision strikes, assisted by sophisticated technology that prevents the slaughter of hand-to-hand combat. As it now stands, American highway accidents kill more travelers in one year than we lost in more than 5 ½ years of occupying Iraq.

Most of all, many of our religious community--the moral conscience of our nation--have resolved the centuries-old ethical problem of war by developing the “just war” theory. We can now be faithful to our religious community, be patriotic, and put our lapel flags back on. All we have to do is believe in “just war.”

With our dilemma now resolved, no one need be called unpatriotic for dissenting with our international diplomacy. For these several reasons, we can throw away our guilty feelings, questions, and other conscience constrictors and heartily endorse war. We can now view war as necessary to our economy, highly profitable for some, and justifiable under any circumstance.
Wayne

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Faith, A Wellspring of Joy

Barney left his father’s homestead in the late 1800s. Fifty years later, I arrived in the neighborhood mid-1927. I never met Barney, but I learned about him. I sang his odes of joy while growing up.

Barney met D. S. Warner and became a teenaged Christian. He left home to join Warner’s Evangelistic Singers. They toured the Midwest and Southland with Barney being the group‘s bass singer-composer. Later, Barney ministered around Springfield, Ohio. To my knowledge, he never returned.

In 2005, Dale Stultz came to our area, showing his pictorial history.. He and Doug Welch were assembling a unique publishing history of Grand Junction, Moundsville, Anderson. They planned to publish a coffee table volume, co-published by the Historical Society. It will be available for sale at the 2008 North American Convention.

One day, I accompanied Dale to our County Court House, where we found plat records for the unknown site of Barney Warren’s family home--just outside of South Haven. I spent my first 18 years there, but never knew the site identity or anyone who did.

Dale and I now know that it is the 40 acre site on the NE corner of 64th Street and CR384 (Section 20). The old house has been torn down, but Dale met the gentleman who bought the site and he personally identified it, as well as the house he tore down.

Unable to make positive identification initially, Dale returned that evening and found a 90 year old neighbor. He identified himself as the current owner--since 1928--having torn down the old house himself. Ultimately, he came up with the original Abstract, which he presented to Dale. It originated with government ownership in 1843. Tom Warren became the 20th owner of record, purchasing it in 1881.

Dale has become acquainted with Warren family members and they were excited about the church’s interest in their family history. Barney’s family helped the Historical Society relocate Barney’s Springfield campground cottage to East 5th Street, adjacent to Church of God Ministries--Anderson.

Barney never received a Gold for his music, He did become a minister-musician and songwriter. More than 2,000 compositions earned him the title of the Church of God’s “Chief Singer” (cf. To The Chief Singer/Bolitho).

Throughout his life he inspired faith through his message and his music. One of his heritage hymns declares,

I will sing hallelujah, for there’s joy in the Lord,
And He fills my heart with rapture as I rest on His Word;
I will trust in His promise, I will shout I am free;
In my blessed loving Savior I have sweet victory.2

Joy has long characterized Christianity. Early Christians, tho few in number, increased dramatically as people like Stephen modeled the yardstick by which people measured Jesus. Peter experienced the joy of deliverance from a lifelong racial prejudice and it empowered him to share his joy with a Roman soldier--enemy.

Paul endured lashings, shipwrecks, and stoning for the sheer joy of following Christ. Hunger, thirst, cold and nakedness only encouraged Paul to “Rejoice in the Lord.” “Again,” he wrote, “I will say rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4, NASV).

I never forgot the joy I saw in Madge. Now deceased, I met Madge as a very young man. I still remember her radiant joy--even when circumstances knocked her to the floor. As her Pastor, it fell my task to inform her of her eldest son’s death. I found her at home, on her 50th birth, waiting for his arrival.

A beer-drinking truck driver lost control of his Tanker Truck on a West Texas mud-slick. The tanker climbed the Buick carrying four young oil-fielders home from work. Buck--asleep in the back seat--never knew what hit him!

At Buck’s Memorial Service, Madge requested Frank Couvisier--minister-friend of the family--to sing a family favorite that agreed,

Some-day beyond the reach of mortal ken;
Some day God only knows just where and when-
The wheels of mortal life shall all stand still
And I shall go to dwell on Zion’s Hill.1

The Funeral packed that Ballenger, TX church. Following Frank’s moving solo, we all heard Madge’s barely audible “Amen.” It reverberated in the silence and we all knew the inner source of her “Joy Unspeakable.”

No one present that sizzling July afternoon ever doubted Madge’s grief--or her faith. Amid emotions, tears, and one word, arose an artesian well of joy flowing straight from God’s heart to hers.

I watched Madge carry heavy burdens, with quiet dignity. At one of life’s most impossible moments, I saw--first hand--deep abiding joy--“joy unspeakable and full of glory, and that is no soft soap.

Madge made people forget the ravages of alcohol and gambling she patiently endured. Later, she saw sons Marvin and Paul enter church ministry, and grandsons Cliff and Mike. Other children served equally well, and I am confidant that her joy in them sometimes spilled over.

I was very young then--fifty five years ago. Now in my sunset years, I believe Barney got it right when he wrote, “There Is Joy in the Lord” (Warren/Worship the Lord. Anderson: Warner Press, Inc., 1989, p. 616).
Joy-fully, Wayne

Government Of, For, By the People


I care deeply about our world; I care what the world thinks about America. This lengthy Presidential Campaign leaves room for lots of processing. Voting for our next president is a privilege--seriously taken--not easily made.
My family thought Democrats corrupt, liberal tools of big city political machines--mostly liberal, whatever that implied. My father detested FDR, although I now know he had a job because of FDR. One of our state’s finest tourist attractions--Hartwig Pines--resulted, I now know, from one of FDR’s “welfare” reforestation programs.


I managed to marry a Democrat, but I remain a registered Republican. Change slowly evolved and eventually I voted democratic--a born again Christian. I follow Jimmy Carter’s career to this day and deeply admire his servant ministry. In time, I became so angry with the irrationality and lack of charity, not to mention Pharisaiseeism of the “Hate-Clinton Industry”, that I became politically defensive of the “man of sin.”

Throughout the 50s and 60s, I served segregated churches and lived with the negative effects of racism. In the 80s, I served a state Division of Social Concerns and there I became increasingly convicted of our institutional racism, as experienced. Wide reading, and conferences on social awareness broadened my horizons.

Returning to Seminary in the 60s, a socially conservative seminary taught me the Bible’s concern for the poor and the unprotected. I viewed racism, economics, and environment through new lenses, biblically oriented lenses.

While I watched my father lead a Pulpit Committee and refuse to interview a female candidate, I felt compelled to be the point man for my wife’s ordination. I studied my Wesleyan roots and learned of the social currents in the early Holiness Movement. Slowly, I reached beyond my strong commitment to our “Reformation Movement”, left the shelter of my don’t-rock-the-boat safety-zone, raised my head out of the sand, and spoke out on social issues mostly ignored by the status quo.

Today, I could no longer serve some of my earlier pastoral charges--as I once did. As a Christian, I could no longer “not see” the ethical demands for social change. Since retirement, I have read extensively--Native American life, slavery, black history, significant biographies and books of political analysis. Doris Kerns Goodwin, Joseph Elli, and others, captivate me. American Sphinx offers revealing insight into Thomas Jefferson.
I can no longer vote Republican. I am conservative by nature--a fiscal tightwad. Government and taxation once frustrated me. Sometimes indecisive, I avoid snap decisions. I dislike labeling--liberal, conservative (according to who?), the whole schmear!! It merely justifies dividing and conquering--putting down people that are different.
“Republicanism” hangs on as a throwback to the Confederacy--no longer all that useful. That literal interpretation of our Constitution "allowed" slavery to remain where already established; it practiced States Rights that protected slave states from federal interference with slavery, and it caused Henry Clay all manner of problem.
Jefferson-Madison opposed Federalism; Jefferson really wanted no government. He believed (laizzez faire) in just letting everybody get along, thinking they would if they had the chance). Sounds great, but it allows the financial lions to gobble up the financial lambs. Rational people know you need more than two teams, two coaches, and a referee, to have a good basketball game.
Government still functions best when of the people, by the people and for the people, contrary to today’s Republicans! Lincoln was a political “liberal”--first Republican president. He had been a long time Whig--social progressive of that era. They opposed slavery, supported working people and economic issues, built infrastructure in a country that had little.
The Civil War saw Federalism destroy slavery and support a true Bill of Rights. That required a “broader interpretation” of the Bill of Rights than the “literal” interpretation then in vogue. The “literalist” interpretation protected only white male voters, whereas the Bill of Rights said “ALL” hold certain inalienable rights of self-determination of faith, morals etc.
Black people were property, without civil rights. Valued at 60% of 1 vote, they only strengthened the Confederate slave states. It took many more decades for women to vote, and 214 years before civil rights passage. Most Republicans remain “strict constructionists” (constitutional “literalists“), sustaining government control by the wealthy, economic trickle-down from the top, and patriotism that supports a Hawkish military.
Such political maneuvering justified preemptive war in Iraq. This façade of “lean government” mixes moral issues with political "hot button" issues, and muddies the water with issues of abortion and sexuality--they divide and conquer. They promote “less” government but “practice” record (military) deficit spending and increased corporate welfare, while slicing spending for infrastructure, education, and protective social safety nets.

John McCain is a legitimate war hero with tainted party politics. Barak Obama is audaciously hopeful. The Hate Clinton industry defeated Hillary, so we search for direction. It is time for a black president--that appeals … but so does a woman president.
I am convinced--at this late stage of my life--that America cannot long survive many years like the last eight. It is past time for people to stand up, vote, and be a government of, by, and for - the people.
Wayne

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Warner's World: Camp Meeting / NAC

Warner's World: Camp Meeting / NAC

Camp Meeting / NAC


I’m going to our “NAC” in a few days--umpteenth time since my first one. I was 16 and had never been anywhere. Convention and Youth Convention combined in Anderson that year--1944; I went to hear Dr. E. Stanley Jones. I grew up attending Grand Junction from a babe in arms in 1927 or 1928. Rich Willowby said it right when he wrote, “Nothing is more Church of God than camp meeting!”


In 1947, I listened to Spanish preaching for the first time, hearing Brother Toyfolla at Sumerset, TX Mexican CM. It was 1951, I believe, when I visited Hope, AR and Earl Gladney hosted several of us. In 1952, my family and I found ourselves at Eastland, TX, where we examined the remnants of J. T. Wilson’s Eastland Bible Training School. I have now lived long enough to see that property sold to the city of Eastland for city development and the Texas Camp Meeting is anybody’s guess.


In the early 70’s, I hard Willard Wiilcox describe the N CA Diamond Arrow camp the Cathedral of the Pines. The name stuck. Since then, I have visited other camp sites like the Ontario fellowship that meets on the Free Methodist grounds at Thames. In the meantime, my wife and I have been on our Anderson grounds and heard public announcements of “between 38,000-42,000 present.


That very first national encampment met in 1883--Bangor, MI. Willowby described that meeting on the Harris Farm, two miles north of Bangor. Sebastian Michels handled dining details. They offered free meals, everyone contributed, and Sebastian handled the tab.


The following year of 1884, a few dozen turned into a few hundred. One man walked 170 miles, from Ohio I believe. In 1885 200-300 people met; they erected 19 tents. They experienced 230 consecrations and 200 claimed sanctification. By 1890, thousands were driving in, requiring a large tabernacle, a large tent, two other locations, with accommodations for simultaneous services.


In 1992, they relocated to Grand Junction. This July, I will attend the 116th annual CM at Grand Junction, still working in the Dining Hall, working with historian Dale Stultz, and promoting the new Old Main coffee table volume of our early history.


The grounds have changed dramatically since I ate Sunday dinner picnic style on the grounds back by the cemetery where D. S. Warner is buried. I remember our area leaders like Joe Cironi, L. S. Shaw, “Dad” Hartman (the unofficial Bishop), O. L. Yerty, noted for his healing practices.


I thought Hershel Rice was the greatest I ever heard, when he came as a young graduate on his honeymoon--early 30s--until I hard Boyce Blackwelder, the NC firebrand. I have other memories, such as my “first love” at twelve, and the year the “Storey Brothers” joined me in lugging a watermelon from South Haven to Grand Junction, hitch-hiking the 11 ½ miles both ways.


This was what all people of the Wesleyan and Holiness heritage did quite naturally; it was not a Church of God phenomenon (as Wallace Thornton reminds us, Radical Righteousness, Schmul, 1998,39ff).


Francis Asbury pioneered Methodism in America, riding horseback 45 years, traveling 270,000 miles, preaching 16,500 sermons, and presiding over 240 annual conferences and ordaining 4,000 preachers. At his death, he left 2000 ministers, 200,000 Methodists, and several thousand Canadian Methodists, plus a whole string of us non-Methodist cousins.


It seems Presbyterians promoted and led the earliest camp meetings, men like James McGready and Barton Stone. Without doubt, the most famous camp meeting was that 1801 meeting at Cane Ridge, KY. That in 2001 celebrated its second centennial with “The Great Gathering 2001” (Restoration Movement history).


Those people were self-reliant frontiersmen that seated their families in wagons, loaded their bedrolls, gathered available flour, meal, meat and vegetables, and headed for Cane Ridge (near Paris, KY north of Winchester-Lexington). They cooked on open fires and slept in their blankets beneath their wagons, beginning the 19th century phenomenon called frontier camp meeting.


By 1805, camp meeting had become what Asbury called “Methodist’s harvest time.” He called for Methodists to conduct 600 camps by 1810. Thus, camp meeting became predominantly Methodist oriented with the Methodist Episcopal church the largest denomination in the US by 1830.


Peter Cartright experienced conversion in an 1801 camp meeting and became a leading camp meeting preacher for the next half century. Sojourner Truth, an illiterate black female slave, escaped slavery and became an exponent of holiness, abolition, and women’s rights, before retiring in Battle Creek, MI. She holds the Cereal City’s first claim to national fame for moving to the city where I currently reside.


I am blogging this became CM has fallen by the wayside--times change--and I’m sorry that so many miss so much of what was very important in our support system. Today I can email and message with people around the world, and do, but it is so important that we relate to one another. This is not a world for people to live in alone, yet many younger people fail to see how this relates to our concepts of congregationalism, family, etc.


This is not a time and place for Lone Rangers and independents. We are individuals, but we no longer live as frontier people who really needed their camp meetings. However, people fill chat rooms, they occupy bars, et al. Why? Because we still need eyeball to eyeball conversation; we still need the touch of a friendly hand; we still need to drink coffee together, or share a watermelon heart together.


We are a world neighborhood and our world will be a better place in which to live when we can get over being afraid of each other. Moreover, we can eliminate many of our enemies, one by one, by making friends with them.


North American Convention, for Tommie and me, is a place where the church checks its pulse beat and gets a health check up and a great place to meet some of our “church” friends--not our only friends by any means. . .
Peace and Grace, Wayne

Monday, June 2, 2008

Family of Faith


“You may have heard by now but I wanted you to hear from me. We have started the leadership transition process at WPC. I step down as president at the end of this week (May 31).” s/Jay Barber

Those words stirred waves of nostalgia and I remembered how Jay replaced my beloved friend and former parishioner, Marshall Christian. Marshall resigned and Jay has done a fantastic job. However, I go back a bit further--tutored by a faculty of A. F. Gray, Otto Linn, DSW Monroe, Mac/Irene Caldwell, et al. They transformed my life.

There, under the finest faculty in the church of that day, I was grounded in sound theology, a bible-based education, with cutting edge Christian Education, all wrapped up in an orientation of Christian service.

PBC/WPC was small enough that we “knew them” as sensitive, caring, competent contributors to us and to the larger church. Their names prompt recall of many more through the years (Marshall and Jay, for example).

I remember 1950 when Cal and Marty Brallier received their call from Anderson to prepare for Africa--5 years. Marty, her sister Ruth, and my wife, sewed feverishly for days, preparing and packing Cal and Marty for their 5-year stint--without return.

On occasion, my wife will yet discuss those days with me, and the urgency with which they had to prepare. And I still choke occasionally when I recall the posted notice telling us the Brallier’s buried that first-born in African soil.

These names, and many people just like them, are part of my Church of God faith family. Our congregational polity is not about a denominational hierarchy that I submit to in Anderson. Like the retiring Jay Barber, or long deceased O. F. Linn (as modest a man as I ever met), or Ron Duncan, for that matter - they are us, and we are a family of faith, united in the Body of Christ.

We stand equal at the foot of the cross, under the banner of the Lord Jesus. We are interdependent--interrelated congregations. As pastors, we may be gifted differently but we are equal by grace. As for “Anderson”, they work for us, but we also support them, just as surely as Jay Barber represents my love for Warner Pacific College in all that he does. In turn, he has certain obligations to me as an alumnus, as well as to his Board of Directors, as well as to Church of God Ministries.

I have a bad ankle from a fall during construction of a church building. I referred to it in my blog on walking. It pains me dramatically at times. Now: the broken relationships of non-accountability and self-directing independence in the church pains the Body of the Church as surely as my ankle distresses me.

Don’t talk to me about the theology of Biblical Inspiration and ignore the plain teachings of the Apostle Paul and others in the Scriptures. I don’t find a top-down polity in the Scriptures. I am not afraid of a denominational label for accepting accountability to others. Neither do I find Bible Christians running around being hands without arms and a body!
Wayne