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I remember participating in a community Lenten service at Holy Spirit Lutheran Church in West Bloomfield, Michigan on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  Many of us at the service, especially the clergy, shared a conviction that our nation was about to embark upon a huge humanitarian mistake.  Our grief was exacerbated by our collective realization that this was happening during the holiest season of the Christian calendar, and we were deeply offended.

I must confess that I have harbored resentment against certain members of the United States Senate who, in my view, capitulated and voted to authorize the invasion in the face of specious  evidence that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction.”  We now know that some of that evidence was manufactured to fit the designs of those who wanted to invade Iraq and simply needed an excuse.  Seven years later, the ensuing war leaves in its wake at least 4,700 coalition military casualties and as many as 106,000 dead civilians.  Some estimates are much higher.

In addition, the monetary costs of Operation Iraqi Freedom now top 742 billion dollars.  According to the National Priorities Project (http://nationalpriorities.org), citizens of my state (Michigan) will shell out 4.5 billion dollars for both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in fiscal 2011.  For that same money, we could pay 63, 387 elementary school teachers, 70,707 police officers, or 86,276 firefighters for one year.

I am incensed that the rush to war in 2003 was never effectively challenged by those who should have known better.  I have always said that I do not receive daily national security briefings, but even I suspected that the rationale being offered by the Bush Administration was hogwash.  I suspect that Gen. Colin Powell now knows that, too.

As of today, American troops are coming home, leaving a nation that did not attack us and did not pose a credible threat to American security in shambles.  This operation was based on outright lies for which those responsible will never be held accountable.  Please don’t tell me that the destruction of Saddam Hussein was worth it.

I am gratified that President Obama has at last made good on his promise to withdraw American troops from Iraq.   I am deeply ashamed that this “war” was ever undertaken in my name and that I helped pay for it.  The true cost in human lives and in dollars may never be fully known.  Consider all of the PTSD and brain-injured veterans as just one indication of the hidden costs that will haunt us for many years to come.

I remember a television interview with President Bush shortly after it became apparent that no WMD were to be discovered in Iraq. The President made light of it all by looking under tables and desks in the White House and comically shrugging his shoulders when nothing was found.  It was and is not funny to those who have lost husbands, sons, daughters, and mothers serving their country during a trumped-up war.  We should all be very ashamed.

Years back, when I was still a young lay preacher, I preached a sermon with the title, “If You Think You’re In, Better Think Again.”  The text was Philippians 2:12, and the gist of the message was the import of Paul’s admonition to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” My point then–I still think it essentially valid–was to get my hearers thinking about the arrogance of salvation certainty.  The notion is uncomfortable to most everybody.

After nearly fifty years as a disciple, I sometimes think that otherwise well-meaning folks fall into a mindset that emphasizes the assurance of salvation over what I have come to refer to as “kingdom awareness.”  I said in my first first post that I believe the religion of Jesus–not necessarily his latter day followers–is all about this kingdom awareness, and not about personal salvation.  Even if we accept the notion that the historical Jesus was himself an adherent to apocalyptic theology, there is still little evidence that he dwelt on personal salvation.  On the contrary, he always emphasized the idea of the Kingdom as a communal reality. Much of this has to do with the divergent worldviews of Eastern versus Western theology in the centuries following the Council of Nicaea  (325 C.E) and later, i.e. after the Great Schism of the 11th century.  That is a whole other discussion.

This Western tendency to think of salvation primarily in terms of justification may be a serious fallacy.  I struggle to reconcile the parts of Western theology I do not like or which I find offensive.  And here I am a Calvinist of all things!  I am much more comfortable with Eastern Orthodoxy in its thematic emphasis on restoration and the healing of creation, vis-a-vis the substitutionary atonement thinking of Augustine and his progeny.  Nonetheless, I try to remember that this salvation business is complex and that there is value in the many and varied ways of thinking about it.

So what is salvation anyway?  I suggest that it is a blessed awareness of–and respect for– the inter-connectedness of all of creation, which plays out in the reverential way we live our lives.  It is an understanding that God loves all of the Universe, including those parts we may disavow or find troublesome.  And though I certainly believe salvation is free, it is not without a price. Perhaps that is where the working-it-out part comes into play.  Perhaps we come to a gradual realization (or not) that God desires better for us than what we are willing to settle for as we willingly and far too easily accept lies as truth, both individually and collectively.  The latter acquiescence is what makes structural sinfulness so easy to accept.

My Reformed roots teach me to appreciate the absolute sovereignty of God.  It’s what keeps me continually aware that my salvation ultimately is not my call and that I rely solely on God’s grace.  Even the death of Jesus on the cross is cosmically redemptive, not so much because it is a sacrifice, but because even he could rely on nothing but God in the end!  And of course, Christians affirm that it was God who had the last word.

Most of the time, I think I’m in, but not always.  Those moments of doubt remind me of Who is really in control.

Stephen Slater, a JetBlue flight attendant until yesterday, is now a folk hero of sorts.  The 38-year-old from Queens apparently flew off the handle when an abusive passenger verbally attacked him as the aircraft they were on approached the gate at JFK in New York City.  Slater’s reaction to the abuse has become comic fodder for the late-night comedians.  He made an announcement directed at the rude passenger over the aircraft’s PA system and then deployed the emergency chute, exiting the plane in dramatic fashion, but not before grabbing a couple of beers from the galley.

I am just as amused by Slater’s antics as the next person.  Charged with some serious felonies, he now faces up to seven years imprisonment, and there is a lot of talk via various social media about organizing a defense fund for him.  But when I stopped laughing, I asked myself if the rage Slater must have felt is a symptom of something else.  With the seemingly frequent incidences of rage that we read about in the news, I wonder just what it is that we are all so angry about.

As a pastor, I have come to believe that my role is often that of an anxiety manager, both mine and the people I serve.  In his monumental work Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue, the late Rabbi Edwin Friedman provides some genuine wisdom about the complex relationships involved in the management of religious institutions.  Essentially, says Friedman, congregants who complain about the performance of their clergy person are rarely honest with themselves about the real reasons they are angry.  Worse yet, the role family processes play in such a setting allow congregants to treat their pastor or rabbi less civilly than most others with whom they come in contact.  It is an occupational hazard, I suppose.

Putting aside the unique nature of the clergy-congregant relationship, I submit there are some generalizations that also apply to social life in general.  As an observer of human activity, I have watched as some helpless public servant is brutalized by a patron over a seemingly small thing.  I have been the victim of road rage because someone cut me off in traffic and then proceeded to make an obscene gesture at me, and one time, even threatened to kick my a– if I uttered any words in my own defense.  I am always bewildered when something like that happens. What are we so angry about?

I suggest that it has to do with a feeling of impotence over our lives, and perhaps we ought to pause to recollect that such is a part of the human condition.  The truth is that ultimately we do not have control over much, and flying off the handle at those who serve us will not change that.  It’s kind of what Job discovered after he had challenged and even cursed God for the  misfortunes that befell him.

Then Job answered the Lord:  ‘I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.  “Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?”  Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:1-3, NRSV).

My personal translation of the above passage is something like this: “I have been talking without knowing what I’m talking about.” Stephen Slater’s reaction was reminiscent of that character in the film Network, who declares, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”  I am not suggesting that Slater’s troubles were Job-like, but he–like all of us–should remember that we are not in charge of much.  Anxiety is never welcome, but it is a part of life.  Its power over us stems from our existential suspicion that the future cannot be known and that we have little ability to alter it.

I am content to believe that though I cannot know–or control–the future,  God is already there.  I have to remember that when I am tempted to lash out at someone who is trying to help me.

As Muslims worldwide prepare for the holy month of Ramadan, which begins at sunset this evening, a church in Florida has announced plans to commemorate 9-11 with a ceremonial burning of the Qu’ran.  Now that’s a real loving thing to do, eh?  Actually, the church’s senior pastor says it is!

Ramadan is the ninth month in the Muslim lunar calendar.  Historically, it is the month in which the prophet Mohamed received the first verses of the Qu’ran from Allah.  Intentional and faithful prayer and fasting are required during this holy month.  The most recent estimates put the world Muslim population at about 1.7 billion out of a total population of roughly 7 billion.

The senior pastor of Dove World Outreach Center,  Dr. Terry Jones, has written a book entitled Islam is of the Devil. On the church’s website, Jones says that the book, together with the sign displaying the same sentiment and posted on the church’s property in Gainesville, is an act of love toward those whose souls are endangered by by the Muslim curse.  The website also features Jones’s personal condemnations of abortion and homosexuality.  I am sure that Dr. Jones is sincere in his convictions, but he is also naive.

However, I wonder how it is that a  presumably well-educated man has missed the  obvious historical connections between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam–all from the progeny of Abraham.  We are all diminished when naivete morphs into intolerance.

In my previous pastorate, I was fortunate to serve in a highly diverse community.  I served as president of the clergy association for three years there where I made fast friends with Jewish rabbis, at least one imam, and many Muslim lay leaders.  I recall one year, when Ramadan, Hanukkah, and Christmas all fell at about the same time, and the marvelous time we had at one of our gatherings, eating and chatting about our different observances.  My time in that community was one of the most enriching experiences of my life.  I was in that pastorate on September 11, 2001 when we all wept and prayed together as children of Abraham.

Our world is changing.  My Christian worldview is alternately challenged and enriched.  May we all strive to discover our commonality as children of God.  That seems much more genuinely loving than condemning our Muslim brothers and sisters.

A blessed Ramadan to all my Muslim friends.

The Prussian military theorist, Carl von Clausewitz, observed that war is merely the continuation of politics by other means (Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War, 2006). In other words, when diplomacy fails–or is perceived to have failed–war is the inevitable next course of action.

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the detonation of a nuclear device over the Japanese city of Nagasaki, the second of two such weapons employed at the end of World War II; the first was dropped on Hiroshima just three days earlier.  The immediate death toll from the two bombs is said to have been 200,000, with twice as many deaths occurring in the months and years following the detonations.  Most of the dead were civilians.

My friend and colleague, Dr. Charles Mabee at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit, has spent the past few years thinking and writing about the theology of the bomb.  Mabee says his father, now deceased, was a JAG lawyer in the Army Air Corps, and Mabee suspects that his dad may have had a hand in passing on the legality of the use of the then-new weapon.  The U.S. military routinely consults their legal staff with regard to campaigns where civilian deaths are likely to occur.  I doubt that they ever seek a theological opinion, but owing to our ready acceptance of the “just war,” it probably would make little difference.

My colleague says there is evidence of a back-door attempt by some Japanese leaders to surrender in the days before the two bombs were dropped.  They only wanted assurances that their emperor would not be executed for war crimes.  For years some historians have concluded that the very development of the atomic bomb essentially assured that it would be employed.  We built it.  Doggone it, we were gonna use it!

There was also the concern over the numbers of Allied causalities that likely would have been sustained in a land invasion of Japan, thus making the nuclear option more justifiable, if not attractive.  Mabee says that speeches by various personalities in the years after the war (e.g. Gen. Curtis LeMay and President Harry Truman) suggest the casualty estimate for an invasion campaign actually decreased in the minds of the speakers.  Perhaps using the bomb was not the only way to go after all.  Perhaps we will never know for certain.

Most people, myself included, would say that World War II had to be waged.  Some would argue that the civilian war deaths from 1939-1945 are but collateral damage, a term of more recent coinage.  I am prepared to declare that any civilian death is unacceptable and immoral.  The numbers of Iraqi civilian deaths since 2002 are still not accurately known.  If any war was ever un-justified, it is the one in which we are currently engaged, and this one does not even involve nuclear weapons.

To be sure, Iran’s refusal to play by the rules has made many folks nervous.  Some thoughtful people have observed that the likelihood of some sort of military confrontation with Iran is high, as would be the related prospect of civilian casualties.  I hope President Obama calls my friend Charles Mabee before he make up his mind about that.  Policymakers could use a good theological opinion.

While listening to “The Takeaway” on NPR this morning, I was impressed with the comments of co-host John Hockenberry regarding the controversy now swirling around the proposed construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan.

Hockenberry observed that a kind of “religion” has grown up around Ground Zero, which is not actually religious in nature, but rather a kind of secular devotion that maintains an odd sacredness of the environs.  While not discounting the tragic reality that there are yet human remains in various forms on that site, he points out that such veneration is unique to that particular space.  One thinks of the memorial in Oklahoma City that does not possess nearly the same sanctity.

The opponents of the Islamic structure, which is actually a community center that will include a mosque, seem to equate the evil that played out there on September 11, 2001 with the religion of the perpetrators.  In places across the country where Muslims are noticeably absent, there is a profound suspicion of adherents to that faith.  Most folks don’t stop to consider that members of the KKK are often nominal Christians.  Evil done in the name of religion is still evil.

Perhaps Hockenberry’s analysis is telling.  American Christianity often morphs into a pseudo-secular faith that equates patriotism with righteousness.   The furor over the Muslim center falls into that trap.