An observation about social media comment sections in light of the Witch Walk furor

Let's be honest, the uproar that ensued after this week's post on the St. Patrick Parish FB page about the Witch Walk brought out the worst in a whole lot of people.  Like many of you, I read a good number of the comments (before they were all restricted somewhere north of the 3k comment mark), and the vast majority of them revealed a level of anger, pettiness, and judgmentalism that we sadly have come to expect from the worst aspects of social media.

My follow-up post on the subject: What the furor over the Witch Walk in Franklin can teach us about Christian cultural engagement was received with much less rancor and positive interaction than the original St. Patrick post was written in response to, thank you to everyone for that.  Much of the difference can be attributed to the nature of the posts themselves, one inflamed passions and the other was trying to calm them, but I've notice a significant difference when comparing the comments that have since occurred about my post on my personal page vs. on 1st Baptist's page.

What's the difference?  For those who know me, at least well enough to be FB friends, the comments have been almost universally polite, even kind.  But on the 1st Baptist's FB page, where those commenting have been much less connected to myself personally (and my comments appear as the institution speaking, not a specific person), the comments have been significantly less gracious, with several veering off into being argumentative, even mean.  This same phenomenon held true when I posted the link to my blog post on someone else's thread, with those responding not being my own FB friends, but friends of that person instead, the end result was less civility, less grace.

{FYI, I've noticed this for years, as a person who maintains a blog, I share posts in relevant threads online from time-to-time, the reception of them there is almost always worse than when sharing the same content on my own feed only.  The level of misunderstanding increases, especially when it comes to people assuming that I have horrible motives behind my words.}

It is as if (and this is no novel observation), that lack of human relationship between people, even one as tenuous as a FB friendship can be, acts as a permission to be the worst jerky versions of ourselves.

As a Christian, this says something to me about fallen human nature, it echoes the lesson of William Goldin's Lord of the Flies that, "the beast is us," and it only takes the addition of a little bit of anonymity to unleash it.  It is a reminder of our universal need for a Redeemer.

When it is Christians, or at least those claiming to be Christians, who are using anonymity to behave in this reprehensible manner, it tells me something deeply sad about the health of the Church in America today.

But it also reminds me of something I've always known, something that buoys my optimism about the future: Relationships matter.  No matter how much of our daily lives gets sucked into our phones, social media apps, and anonymous interactions online, we crave real genuine face-to-face contact with people who know us and care about us.  We can't help it, our Creator made us as relational beings.  For this reason, I'm not putting stock in the future of online churches.  You can't get a warm handshake, even a hug, see someone else's smile, hear their laugh, when you're interaction is through a screen.  If your church, like my church, actually welcomes new people with kindness and genuine acceptance, you have something that people in this world need, and something that our society is leaving them more and more desperate for.

Long story short, we shouldn't be surprised that after the St. Patrick Parish's Witch Walk post went viral, and the majority of those commenting had no idea where Franklin is, what St. Patrick Parish is like (ie. that they run a food pantry that helps people in our community every month), or even the name of its priest, that the commentary became meaner, darker, and uglier by the minute.

Do yourself a favor, spend less time in front of a screen interacting with people you don't really know, and more time in the same room as people who know you, can grow to like you, and by the grace of God love you too.

Life expectancy dropped in the U.S. last year; despair is blamed, hope is the answer, and we have it to share.

Life expectancy in the United States dropped last year, and not from disease, war, or natural disasters, but due primarily to increases in both suicides and drug overdose deaths.  The statistics can be read in this article: Fortune: Here's Why Life Expectancy in the U.S. Dropped Again This Year  The associate professor who co-authored the report for the CDC, Steven Woolf, said "We are seeing an alarming increase in deaths from substance abuse and despair."  On average, 115 people die in America each day from a drug overdose, six per day from alcohol abuse, and the suicide rate has increased 24% between 1999 and 2014.  As a nation, we are losing young people at an alarming rate from causes whose root is despair/hopelessness.

There are public policy answers that might help stem the tide, there are things that can be done in the arena of public health to mitigate the worst aspects of this crisis and save lives, but these are not solutions to the question of why so many people in America are hopeless.  Our ancestors had less food, less comfortable and secure shelter and clothing, more fear of lawlessness and violent deaths, lived in a less free society with more injustice, worked longer and harder, were more subject to sudden death by disease, lost more of their children to scourges we have cured, had less education, less recreation, and less opportunity to change their lives for the better.  And yet it is here in modernity, with our unparalleled access to recreation and entertainment that despair and hopelessness have taken hold.  Material prosperity is not alleviating emotional poverty, why?

The element that will typically be left unaddressed in the debate that will follow this alarming report is spiritual health.  Hope is not solely a factor of economic or political situations, well off people in free societies (i.e. America) do not automatically have it, and those living in crushing poverty under repressive regimes do not automatically lack it.  Hope is a quality that mankind can possess, which all other forms of life on this planet are unconcerned with.  Hope is a difficult to define state of mind, but one we recognize when it is present or missing.  Hope is built upon things greater than ourselves, it thrives in community and wilts in isolation, and it hinges upon our expectations of the future.

We are less connected to our community than our ancestors, that much is certain.  We may see far more people in a given day than they could have dreamed of, but we interact on a genuine human level with few of them, and our technology has consistently striven to eliminate the need for true human to human interaction.  This is a part of the problem, but not its root, for that we must go deeper.

When Job lost nearly everything of value in his life: his business, his children, and his health, his wife despaired; who can blame a mother for doing so after enduring such pain?  Job chose not to despair, not because he was a unique human being, but because he understood something fundamental about human existence: it belongs to God.  Job responded to his wife by saying, "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" (Job 2:10)  Later, in response to his friends' attempts to understand his tragedy, Job said, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him" (Job 13:15).  Job did not understand why he had suffered, he didn't see a purpose or a reason for it, but he did not give in to despair, he did not rage at God or take his own life, because even at the lowest point imaginable in his life he still knew who his Creator was, knew that God's love transcended the circumstances of life, and knew that one day he would stand before God in judgment.  Even when life told him otherwise, Job had hope because he was adamant in his belief in the goodness of God.

Hope is not our own creation, we cannot socially engineer it, we cannot package and sell it, it is a gift from God, a gift for those in relationship with the one who created them, sustains them, and will one day live with them.  As a runner, I can't help but like Isaiah 40:31

Isaiah 40:31 New International Version
but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

To live without hope is to live as a shell of what you were intended to be.  The Church of Jesus Christ is the caretaker of the hope that was given to humanity in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  When he ascended into heaven, having completed the Father's mission by securing the ultimate victory over sin and death, Jesus entrusted the sharing of that Good News (i.e. The Gospel) to his followers.  Since that day, nearly 2,000 years ago, the Church has attempted to share the news that God is willing to forgive those who repent, is willing to save them from the fallen state of humanity if they believe in his Son, and is willing to transform them, by the Holy Spirit, into the likeness of Jesus.  This news is hope beyond our imagination, it is light shining in the darkness, water to those dying of thirst, and it is free.  Freely given, freely received.  It is also available to all, men and women, young and old, of any race or nation, all are eligible, all are invited to join those who have found hope in what God has done for us through Jesus.

Paul wrote in his letter to the church at Ephesus about the transition from hopelessness to hope:  "remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ." - Ephesians 2:12-13

Living life while ignoring our spiritual need, a need all human beings share, is the path to despair.  Faith in Jesus is not a magic elixir, it doesn't take away all our troubles, or make us immune to pain and sorrow, but it does provide a foundation upon which we can stand, a shelter in times of storm.  As the writer of Hebrews put it: "we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.  We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." Hebrews 6:18b-19

The local church is a community, a group of people who have acknowledged their own shortcoming and have chosen to put their faith and hope in the sinless person of Jesus instead of themselves.  They are not perfect, but they are will one day be perfected by God.  They are not free from difficulty in this life, but they know that in the next they will see the face of God and all sorrow will be no more.  They worship, pray, and serve those in need, together, because God created us to be social, because we can shoulder each others burdens, and because there is great joy in being a part of the family of God.

Despair has lowered the life expectancy of the average American, but it doesn't have to be this way.  The problem derives from the spiritual barrenness that afflicts so many, and the solution addresses that very problem.  Belief in the saving power of Jesus Christ is faith, and faith belongs to a powerful trio: faith, hope, and love.

Sermon Video: Our Obligation to family and in the workplace - Colossians 3:18-4:1

Having written concerning our obligations to the God who made us and redeemed us, Paul also expresses our obligations within our family structures (wives, husbands, children, parents) and within society as a whole focusing on the slave/master relationship (not of course equivalent to employee/employer, but with principles that can be applied to that modern relationship).  In each case, Paul emphasizes that how we act and interact in our relationships is a form of submission to the will of God, thus if we obey the Word of God in these areas we will do what is fitting/pleasing to the Lord.  There is also an emphasis on the need to be upright in our relationships at all times, not just when it is noticeable, knowing that God will later judge our actions.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

We're not broken just bent: wisdom in a song

Wisdom and Truth are ultimately all derived from God, and are powerfully manifested in his revealed Word, but they can also be found in unlikely or unexpected places.  As I was driving the other day a song came on the radio that I had heard before but whose lyrics really struck me this particular time.  The song was "Just Give Me A Reason" by P!nk, and it contains this chorus:

Just give me a reason, just a little bit's enough,
Just a second, we're not broken just bent,
And we can learn to love again.
I never stopped, you're still written in the scars on my heart,
You're not broken just bent,
And we can learn to love again!

The song is about a couple trying to work through a difficult patch in the relationship and rekindle their love, the imagery of a bent, but not broken, flower pops into my head, something that has been battered by a storm but will stand back up afterwards.  These words also remind me of the traditional vows that I've often utilized when performing a wedding, "for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health..."  Marriage is a long-term, a life-long commitment, one that will have difficult days and seasons, but also one that can bloom again, that can be brought back from life-support and made whole again.
There are a variety of things wrong with relationships between men and women in our culture today, including the confusion of sex and love and the willingness of many to start with sex, hope for love, and some day look for a commitment.  This backwards attitude, for commitment (i.e. marriage) is the only sure foundation upon which love and sex can truly be built, has led our culture to a place where relationships, like so much else in society, have become disposable.  Why work through a difficult phase in a relationship, why learn and grow as a person, why sacrifice for someone else, when you can just ditch the relationship and move on.  Relationships are abandoned when sexual desire fades, relationships are given up on when feelings of love subside, yet these were never meant to be the building blocks of the union between one man and one woman, for they cannot stand the test of time.  There is a reason that a marriage ceremony includes vows and promises, and when these are not taken seriously, or when a relationship is attempted without them, the end result will far too often be to give up when things are bent, to not try to learn to love again, but instead to walk away.
Relationships are disposable in our society, love is just an emotion, and sex just a self-fulfillment.  The answer to these shallow and ultimately damaging attitudes (just ask the kids left holding the bag) has been with us all along, it was the plan of God for us from the beginning: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.  So they are no longer two, but one.  Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (Mark 10:7-9)  If you are bent, you don't need to break, you can learn to love again.

How can we really make a difference?

One of the discussions that Mustard Seed Missions is about to undertake focuses on the number of people/families we can expect to help in the upcoming year.  This past year, our first, saw 100 referrals (and counting) from county caseworkers to our fledgling non-denominational ministry.  That number staggers me, it is far higher than I would have expected.  We've helped about 65 of them thus far, by God's grace and the generosity of individuals and churches in Venango County, and that number staggers me as well.  God has been good to us, we've worked hard in his harvest field, but as Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few." (Matthew 9:37)  This past year, the workers have been dedicated, but the harvest has been still greater than we imagined.  So, what are we supposed to do?  Help as many people as we can, as fast as we can, or help a smaller number of people as much as we can?  Which method holds out more hope for breaking the cycles of material and spiritual poverty that surround us?  Jesus was the Son of God, but even he was exhausted by the press of the crowds hoping to find physical healing, and even he was worn out trying to extend to them spiritual healing as well.
The answer is certainly connected to long-term solutions, and this is something that every aid agency and charity struggles with.  How do you meet today's needs and at the same time help prevent them from being tomorrow's needs as well?  The wisdom of Ed Dobson in his Ed's Story film series about dealing with his ALS is relevant here.  Ed was a successful pastors, his congregation was many thousands, but when ALS started to take away his ability to do his job he had to quit.  He lost the ability to reach thousands, and was left with only the ability to reach one at a time.  Beyond being an inspirational story of faith, Ed's shift to working with people one-on-one is also a cautionary tale to the rest of us about trying to make spiritual guidance into a fast food industry.  The meal that God offers, the Bread of Life, is not to be gulped down on the road.  We need to make a difference in the lives of the Lost, we need to care for their needs and introduce them to Jesus; that's a process we can't rush.  As I said, we're trying to figure this out, your prayers are appreciated.

Missing Fathers lead to trouble

I was reading the paper the other day and came across and essay that talked about all of the social ills that are tied to absent fathers.  From poverty to criminal activity, a host of social ills can be easily tied through statistics to men who create children but don't father them.  My first thought upon seeing the title of the article was, "Well, duh, tell me something I don't know."  Anyone who works in the social sciences in any way, interacting with humanity on a daily basis, should be able to see that absent fathers is the biggest problem in our society today.  What drives moral scourge of our society, abortion, if not women left in the lurch by men acting like boys.  What causes promiscuity among young women if not the need for love that their father's did not give them?  What leads boys to try to act tough without any understanding of knowing when to walk away if not the lack of a father who demonstrated how to know the difference?
When I worked for ten years as an alternative education teacher I faced the results of absent fatherhood each and every day.  The vast majority of our students had little or no relationship with their father.  He had either walked away from the family, was in jail, or was never in the picture in the first place.  Was it any wonder that these young boys had aggression issues, or that these young girls felt desperate for male acceptance?  It wasn't their fault that adults had chosen to put their mistakes on their shoulders, but they were the ones having to try to pick up the pieces.  In the end, the ones that stuck with it, that earned their diplomas, made all of their teachers proud because they overcame a burden that society should not be placing upon children.
No society can long endure without two parent homes.  We may tell ourselves that single parents can do just fine; and some are certainly doing heroic things on their own, but the merciless statistics bear out that missing fathers are the harbinger of societal woe.  When will men in this nation begin to act like men?  When will women say "enough is enough" and stop accepting boys when they need men? 
Nobody needs to tell me what is wrong with America, I see it in each broken heart, in each life gone wrong, in each tale of sorrow which confronts my ministry.  Where is dad?  Where are the fathers?

Manti Te'o, online relationships, and real people

Having moved 400 miles away from my hometown after 37 years this past year I value online communication via Facebook and e-mail with those I left behind.  That long-distance contact helps us keep in touch and eases the pain of being away from friends and family.  There's one big difference between those online relationships and the one that Manti was a part of (whether he knew it was a hoax or not); I actually know these people.  I've had conversations with them face to face, we've built relationships over time that have included shared acts of kindness, we really do know each other.
There may be some value to having a purely online relationship with someone, but there's one important thing it will never have; human contact.  The germaphobes may not appreciate this, but handshakes, hugs, and actually talking to someone (while not checking your cell phone every two minutes) are all integral parts of genuinely meaningful relationships.
As the age of electronic communication progresses, here I am "talking" to you on a blog, this will become more and more important to the building of healthy relationships.  The value of taking the time to be with someone and investing in them will only increase as it becomes more rare in society.
This is also an incredible opportunity for the Church to minister.  There are some who worry how the Church will cope with the changes in technology that seem to make our weekly gathering seem obsolete; they're worrying over nothing.  The Church will continue to be the place where authentic relationships happen, where people care about you even before they know you, and where you can get some heart-felt human contact.  People will want to talk to you, they'll offer to pray for you, and they may even give you a hug whether you want one or not.
To a generation yearning for authenticity, needing to feel connected, and hoping to find people who are willing to put in the time to actually know them, the Church can (and should) be a haven, a place of refuge from the 24/7 hurry up world that won't slow down for anyone.  How do we reach a generation that won't respond to anything except a text message, with a warm smile and a hug.

Sex and Marriage?

The role of sexuality in the life of those who follow God is a horribly misunderstood topic.  We've twisted it around and screwed it up to no end.  That being said, such a knot cannot be unraveled all at once, let me simply pull on one strand a bit and try to help...

What's the purpose of sex?  To those who engage in sex outside of the covenant of marriage, it is an act of pleasure that often tries to be the glue holding a relationship together.  It is an act of hope that is far too often placed in the wrong person.  It becomes damaged by bad experiences and ends up being something it was never intended to be.  Sex should not be a bargaining chip, nor a tool for getting one's way, it should not be bought or sold, nor should be be withheld or forced.  We, as a society, have morphed sex almost beyond recognition.

Sex within a marriage is an entirely different thing.  It is not the glue holding the relationship together, nor is it simply for pleasure.  The bond that holds the marriage together is honor, integrity, and a promise made in love before God, family, and friends.  Now, sex is pleasurable in a marriage, it is intended to be, but it also so much more.  It is a celebration of the union that exists between two people, of the molding of two separate lives into one, of the submission of two independent wills into one common goal of being a mutually beneficially partnership.

  If all of that sounds a little too idealistic to you, good, it should be.  God created the institution of marriage, and made sexuality as a part of it, for a very good reason.  We're not complete when we're alone.  We all feel it, we all know that the joys and sorrows of this life should be shared with another who is designed to compliment you.  A marriage works best when strengths and weaknesses are balanced out by the spouse, when needs and dreams are worked at together and not in competition.

Is sex a good thing?  Absolutely, all of God's creation was good in the beginning.  Has it been wrecked by sinful man?  Without a doubt, but we can begin to reclaim sex by supporting marriage.  Those who find themselves in the midst of divorce or failed relationships can begin again; you can reclaim your honor and integrity by saving your most intimate feelings for someone who is willing to publicly commit to you.  It may be idealistic, but it's also the truth.

How Creation, the Fall, and Redemption affect human relational intimacy

The Christian Worldview has a lot to say about the world we live in including an explanation of why our relationships are so strained, and what those relationships would have looked like before the Fall, and will look like after the Redemption that God has begun through Christ finds its fulfillment. This paper is a small attempt to discuss those issues in regards to human relationships.

Relational intimacy paper