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I’m quick to admit my foreseer is on again/off again, and regularly needs a swift kick to work at all. But I did foresee this outcome; it drives much of the deep grief I felt and feel …

The Religious Right’s embrace of its current worldview and consequent behaviors is starting to [measurably] bear its bitter fruit, as identified by The Barna Group in a new study, A New Generation Expresses its Skepticism and Frustration with Christianity:

As the nation’s culture changes in diverse ways, one of the most significant shifts is the declining reputation of Christianity, especially among young Americans. A new study by The Barna Group conducted among 16- to 29-year-olds shows that a new generation is more skeptical of and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago.

The specific stats identified are very interesting even though (IMO) all the more grievous because the wounds are self-inflicted by people who name themselves Christian. If you’re short of time, I’d summarize the mass of data presented with this quote:

When young people were asked to identify their impressions of Christianity, one of the common themes was “Christianity is changed from what it used to be” and “Christianity in today’s society no longer looks like Jesus.”

As a former “insider” (Barna’s term), I hope one day to be part of a [hope-filled, life-affirming] solution [that is, toward a Christianity that does look like Jesus]. But for now, and likely for a long time to come, I remain part of the diaspora.

[via Sara’s excellent post]

2007-10-28 update: Traces of hope — maybe more than traces — in today’s thorough (and thoroughly blogged) New York Times Magazine story by David Kirkpatrick, The Evangelical Crackup.

By traces of hope, of course I mean that (according to Kirkpatrick) signs of life are starting to appear in the cracks in the bleak and barren landscape of conservative Christianity: renewed commitments to love, to peace, to spiritual formation, to social justice, to stewardship, to community. I see these Jesus-like directions nurturing the kingdom of God, not poisoning it, as much recent conservative theology has done (whatever the motives of its adherents — see Barna results above).

The nation would be better served if President Bush instead accepted, at last, the truth about Abu Ghraib.

“This [Iraq] war is a strategic mistake. We have made enemies for life. There will be revenge against us for life.”

I am temporarily shorn of hope; hence this lamentation.

The reason this U.S. presidential election is much, much bigger than a win/lose contest is that it is, at its heart, a spiritual issue with global consequences.

Here’s what I think today [the day after the 2004 U.S. presidential election]:

Because we in the U.S. have embraced the ways of the Enemy [by approving our government’s use of deception/fear/violence], we have become the enemy of the world.

We have chosen not to excise the cancer of fear afflicting us, and by this choice we have exchanged <bubble-headed?>the godly ideals we once held as Americans </bubble-headed?> for the Enemy’s secrecy and deception, anger and retribution, hate and oppression.

All our choices have consequences, individual and national, and because we the people are responsible this time for this outcome, the consequences will soon roll. Here begins the tribulation (in the very real literal sense: a time of “great affliction, trial, or distress; suffering,” “an experience that tests one’s endurance, patience, or faith”).

Earlier this week a friend reminded me of Jesus’ imagery in Matthew as he charges the teachers of the law and Pharisees:

You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Those in the Church who are dwelling on, and enraged by, individual issues like abortion, homosexuality, evolution, and “liberals” (as if liberal is a bad thing), with all due respect I say to you that you, too, are straining for gnats while swallowing a camel: the Religious Right worldview. For years to come you’ll be passing fœtid camel chunks while the gnats swarm.

The Church in America has failed her Lord because she has not taught her members to recognize counterfeit spirituality.

What is counterfeit spirituality? It’s spirituality that sounds good but leads to results that oppose God’s will.

• Is killing 10,000s of innocent men, women, and children God’s will?
• Is accusing an entire people of being an imminent threat when they aren’t, also known as “bearing false witness,” God’s will?
• Is favoring the wealthy at the expense of the poor God’s will?
• Is igniting war in the name of the Prince of Peace God’s will?
• Is plundering God’s good creation God’s will?
• Is blaming others for one’s own mistakes God’s will?
• Is being arrogant and haughty, either personally or nationally, God’s will?
• Is being spendthrift and reckless God’s will?
• Is loading our children and grandchildren with an unpayable debt, for all intents and purposes a generational curse, God’s will?
• Is forcing millions into poverty and hopelessness God’s will?
• Is living in fear God’s will, when God’s representives throughout scripture are constantly saying “fear not”? When John asserts that “perfect love casts out fear”?
• Is mocking study, learning, thinking, planning (in short, wisdom) God’s will?
• Is lauding any man and his ways over the Lord and his ways God’s will?
• Is divisiveness instead of unity God’s will?

We have a responsibility to recognize counterfeit spirituality, then to (1) not fall for it and (2) not propagate it.

Counterfeit spirituality is worse than no particular spirituality at all, I think, as evidenced by Jesus condemning the Pharisees while hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors.

The Pharisees were sincere, but they were sincerely wrong. They were resolute — according to scripture, clear through to killing him — but their resolution scored them no points with Jesus.

I think endorsing counterfeit spirituality [as the Christian Right has] damages the kingdom of God because presenting as truthful and good that which God opposes is misrepresenting God. The consequence is millions turn away in disgust, some forever, thinking our misrepresentation presents God as God is.

If “by their fruit you will recognize them,” what does our fruit — America’s results in the world — say about us? What are we being recognized as? Ambassadors of godly virtue or unthinking, arrogant warmongers?

Morally, how can anyone say ends justify means when the means are repugnant and the ends are catastrophes?

I’m left to infer that God, in his wisdom, recognizes that to bring us to repentance, we’re going to have to be allowed to suffer, else we will keep ignoring him, keep disobeying him, keep misrepresenting his son — by those of us called Christian — as Lord of War instead of Prince of Peace. I think we may be therefore entering our exile to Babylon, not just our children [being sent to die in Iraq], but all of us.

Don McLean’s lovely version of Babylon, based on Psalm 137, keeps looping in my brain (listen, and weep):

By the waters, the waters of Babylon
We lay down and wept, and wept, for thee, Zion
We remember thee, remember thee, remember thee, Zion

Ah, ah, America, land that I love, I’m sorry we have forsaken you.

I’m probably about to go silent for a while. Peace to you.

[2004-11-04: edited to add section on counterfeit spirituality that came to me in a dream]

2004-12-03 update:
QotD: Can an Ichthus symbol and a W sticker coexist on a car bumper without tearing the fabric of the universe? (I think not.)

Here’s what I think is the simplest basis on which to decide one’s upcoming vote (or nonvote) for U.S. president.

Observed sequence of events:

1. Command given to invade Iraq for a stated reason ¹

2. As a direct result, so far

• 1,067 Americans dead
• 7,531 Americans wounded
• ~15,000 Iraqi men, women, and children dead
  100,000 Iraqi dead according to study published in British medical journal The Lancet (approximately zero of whom had anything to do with 9/11)
• Iraqis wounded “too high to count” in April 2003 (Red Cross).
  How many more 10,000s since then?
• $140B spent in Iraq, $200B committed
  (Note that given 280M Americans, $200B -> $700/person.)

3. Stated reason proves to be wrong ²

¹ Primary stated reason: “Iraq has WMD including nuclear and biological weapons, and intent to use them, and is therefore an imminent threat to the United States” (paraphrased) (more info).

² Actual outcome: Iraq had no weapons and posed no threat to the U.S. (Duelfer report, Oct. 7, 2004: WaPo summary, actual report).

Time’s up, game over, no do-overs.

No one in any field keeps their job after a mistake of this magnitude. It’s nothing personal; prudence and public safety demands leave, demotion, or outright firing of the person or persons involved in massively deadly mistakes like this. Always.

Further, just as in the corporate world, we the people who exercise oversight over the position of U.S. president will be held accountable if we don’t demote or fire the person or persons involved.

Every other voting consideration in this election, while many are important, factors out of this particular equation.

I think the bottom-line decision really is this simple.

Bonus upside:
The field of rehires looks really good. Great resumes, fine presentation.

NOTE: Making up alternative reasons for invading after the fact is not allowed. (For example, say your kid wrecks the car. If he keeps making up reasons why he did it, will he eventually hit on a reason you’ll buy? Of course not. Reasons aren’t retroactive.)

In These Times: Garrison Keillor: ‘Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party.’

Mark Kleiman: ‘Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what sort of deity or demon the political leaders of the Red States bow down to.’

WaPo: Robin Wright quoting Ted Galen Carpenter: ‘It’s a lesson in hubris. The administration thought it had all the answers, but it found out through painful experience that it did not.’

I hold this truth to be self-evident:

Bush's "war on terror" is an incomprehensible exercise in increasing the likelihood that high radicalized, highly motivated terrorists will again strike on American soil. A serious war on terror would begin from a recognition of the nature of the threat, with a considered response that's both flexible and comprehensive. Bush's Iraq war is none of these.

(This clean wording, however, wasn't as self-evident to my self; David crafted it.)

I expect that history will record much of what we've done so far under "What Not To Do To Fight Terrorism." I predict the perception will be almost unanimous within 20 years, "How could we have been so foolish?"

Will a succeeding Kerry Administration effect a considered, flexible, and comprehensive response that defuses rather than inflames terrorism? I'm convinced it's possible, maybe even likely, though not certain. I see no chance for a turnaround under Bush: Seeing the world in black and white means being blind to the complexities of people and therefore, to the root causes of terrorism. Being unable to remember or admit mistakes means no chance of ever correcting them.

And -- this is my theological opinion as a Christian -- swimming in hubris means being cut off from the Spirit of Life, the source of any lasting solution.

A terror-free world -- it's a destination I believe we can get to, despite present appearances. But only by turning, not by accelerating in the wrong direction.

New Yorker: Seymour Hersh: ‘Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world.’

On April 7, Tami Silicio, a civilian contract worker, captured a somber-yet-tasteful photograph of an aircraft cargo hold full of U.S. flag-draped coffins of soldiers being returned from Iraq via Kuwait (similar to the photo shown here — see update at end of this entry).

The Seattle Times published Silicio’s photo on April 19 in article The somber task of honoring the fallen (alternate photo location) —

On the April day depicted in the photograph that accompanies this story, more than 20 coffins went into a cargo plane bound for Germany [from Kuwait]. Silicio says those who lost loved ones in Iraq should understand the care and devotion that civilians and military crews dedicate to the task of returning the soldiers home.

Two days later on April 21, Tami’s employer, U.S. military contractor Maytag Aircraft Corp. fires her and her husband, as reported in the Boston Globe, Woman fired by military contractor for published photograph of flag-draped U.S. coffins.

This really bugs me. I understand (but don’t accept) the point that Maytag Aircraft Corp. is within rights firing an employee if that employee breaks a no-photos policy. And I understand the point that some families of the dead may not want media publicity, although I don’t see how the anonymity of flag-draped coffins invades anyone’s privacy. I see it more as honoring their sacrifice. (See Seattle Times, Images of war dead a sensitive subject.)

But I’m calling a spade a spade: This no-photos policy is government censorship, a hiding of the harsh realities of war from the U.S. populace, exposure to which might give the most gung-ho warhawks pause, during which pause the realization might dawn that it is failed U.S. policy that is killing these troops.

If we can’t state clearly why these sons and daughters and friends and relatives are dying and why “it’s worth it,” then we need to move heaven and earth to stop the dying. Now.

Every day we are silent means new cargo holds full of coffins, just like the one Tami photographed, returning home in secret, day after day after day.

My whole life I’ve wondered how so many German Christians in the 1930s could stand by as Nazi fascism rose to power. Now I think I know: being silent, being passive, giving tacit approval, enabled its rise. We’re enabling its rise again. If I sound like I’m overstating, see if the dictionary definition isn’t sounding eerily familiar:

fas·cism. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

Our U.S. “belligerent nationalism” is, sad to say, obvious to the whole world. As to the racism, it’s visible in our having killed an estimated 10,000+ Iraqi civilians, whom we’re not even bothering to count accurately. Many of these were innocents, and nearly all of them have families now bearing all the reason anyone needs to seek revenge, retaliation, retribution. Just as we’re doing, some of these victims’ friends and families will act to effect retribution. Liberation my ass. Liberating people from their bodies is not liberation. We are making the world’s terror situation incomparably worse:

“When the fighting is over in Fallujah, I will sell everything I have, even my home,” said a resistance fighter who gave his name as Abu Taif Mashhadani. He wept as he recalled his 8-year-old daughter, who he said was killed by a U.S. sniper in Fallujah a week ago. “I will send my brothers north to kill the Kurds, and I will go to America and target the civilians. Only the civilians. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. And the one who started it will be the one to be blamed.”
—Revolts in Iraq Deepen Crisis In Occupation (via Billmon)

If there’s hopeful news whispering within this deadly cacophony, I think it’s this: we’re only three requirements short of getting back on track. We need to —

Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly.
(Now this is anti-terrorism!)

A detailed plan? No — this is a new direction that affects all plans and likely leads to altogether different ends. Can we do these things? To my surprise, I believe we can. One at a time, each of us learns, each of us chooses. And I have a hunch I’m Monkey #94.

[story links via Daily Kos and The Village Gate]

2004-04-23 update: And the wall comes a-tumblin’ down? Even if in slo-mo overall, this came quickly: The New York Times runs story today, Pentagon Ban on Pictures of Dead Troops Is Broken. Bill Kick, operator of The Memory Hole, filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year asking for photos of coffins arriving from Iraq at Dover AFB in Delaware:

The Pentagon yesterday labeled the Air Force Air Mobility Command’s decision to grant the request a mistake, but news organizations quickly used a selection of the 361 images taken by Defense Department photographers.

The release of the photographs came one day after a contractor working for the Pentagon fired a woman who had taken photographs of coffins being loaded onto a transport plane in Kuwait. …

The firing underscored the strictness with which the Pentagon and the Bush administration have pursued a policy of forbidding news organizations to showing images of the homecomings of the war dead at military bases. …

A New York Times/CBS News poll taken in December found that 62 percent of Americans said the public should be allowed to see pictures of the military honor guard receiving the coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq as they are returned to the United States. Twenty-seven percent said the public should not be.

I am speechless over this:

US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops. …

Asked how much his lost orchard was worth, Nusayef Jassim said in a distraught voice: “It is as if someone cut off my hands and you asked me how much my hands were worth.”

River of Baghdad Burning hints at the cultural significance:

The death of a palm tree is taken very seriously. Farmers consider it devastating and take the loss very personally. Each tree is so unique, it feels like a member of the family …

Historically, palm trees … are a reminder that no matter how difficult the circumstances, there is hope for life and productivity. The palm trees in the orchards have always stood lofty and resolute — oblivious of heat, political strife or war … until today.

There are very few things in life that could move me to violence, but destroying my family’s orchard would likely be one of them.

Just as sudden as my anger is my sadness; my eyes well up.

[by way of Body and Soul]

In today’s Washington Post article The war after the war:

Twice a week, transport planes land at Andrews Air Force Base, bringing fresh casualties. Accidents, ambushes, pockets of resistance. Nearly 650 soldiers have passed through Walter Reed [Army Medical Center] during Operation Iraqi Freedom, more than half of them since the conflict was officially declared over.

On TV, the war was a rout, with infrared tanks rolling toward Baghdad on a desert soundstage. But the permanent realities unfold more quietly on Georgia Avenue NW, behind the black iron gates of the nation’s largest military hospital.

Associated WaPo photo gallery The Soldiers of Ward 57 is required viewing for every American IMO.

If I or anyone I know has to sacrifice a limb or a life for this country as these guys have, it had damn well better be for an unshakeably sound reason. If there’s any doubt as to why we’re doing it, any doubt whatsoever, then the cost is unthinkable.

In this conflict, not only is there some doubt as to why we’re doing it, it’s essentially all doubt; there’s hardly a trace of evidence to support our having launched a preemptive war against Iraq.

This situation goes far beyond politics: As one of my theological heroes Jim Wallis said of this conflict back in May, “America is making not only a political mistake, not only a theological mistake; we are making a spiritual mistake.”

I am ferociously angry at the men and spiritual powers in the White House that are doing this. And I am simultanously overcome with compassion for our longsuffering men and women in uniform who are bearing the consequences.

One powerful way to honor and give meaning to our soldiers’ sacrifices is to let their sacrifices motivate us to forcible action that stops further sacrifice in this unjust, unnecessary, unwinnable, ungodly, unending war.

For me this means, Bring them home. Initiate regime change here.

[thoughts initiated by Daily Kos entries The men of Ward 57 and How to volunteer at military and veterans hospitals]

The Bush Administration’s house of cards, built lie upon lie upon lie, is finally starting to fall. I thought I’d be happy when this finally came to pass, but now that it’s begun, I just feel grief at how far we’ve missed the mark as a people.

Why do different ones of us come to see things at different rates?

I foresaw the buildup to this present situation months ago, years ago. Why me? I don’t know.

It’s December 2000: I close my eyes and see this unfolding of events — it looks like a hurricane seen from a weather satellite. And not a satellite loop on a video screen, either, but a live, continent-spanning hurricane I’m seeing as I literally cling to the in-orbit satellite with cold numb hands, looking down at the earth, trying not to fall. I can’t see the storm’s details or the full extent of its destruction, but its trajectory across the face of the earth is clear.

I’ve been compelled since then to “bear witness to the truth,” as Jesus said the stones would do if the disciples didn’t.

Sometimes the truth borne witness to is positive, as was the disciples’ — “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Mine has been a “fire in the bones” variety I can’t get rid of, a warning more along the lines of Isaiah 30:

“Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the Lord,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;

who go down to Egypt without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection [Might],
to Egypt’s shade for refuge.

But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame,
Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace. …

Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression and depended on deceit,
this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant. …

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.”

—Isaiah 30, Woe to the Obstinate Nation

Now, though, I’m stuck in a quagmire of my own, profoundly disillusioned that so many of us, even very bright ones of us, were so easily duped and so defiant about staying that way.

What disillusioned me most was seeing some of my Christian brothers and sisters who not only didn’t denounce this god-awful national leadership debacle early on but instead actively embraced it.

Now I’m disconnected from participation in my church community for a reason I can’t get past: if persons there are sufficiently undiscerning as to praise the Bush team’s godliness, how can I trust their discernment in other areas? I can’t bring myself to worship in an environment where I cannot trust.

It’s like I finally ran outside the grace that kept me connected.

I recognize this is my problem, but it’s no less a problem to me.

Where I am reminds me of what I wrote to a friend back in March,

If you try to support war in Iraq and confess faith in Jesus, your integrity is breached, because, God knows, the two are mutually exclusive. If you try to do both, you become a stumbling block to Christians and non-Christians alike.

Defending the faith while promoting aggressive war is playing “soul jeopardy” in the gravest way, for who can say how many turn away from the Lord in grief or revulsion as a result?

I just didn’t foresee being so tripped up by the stumbling blocks myself.

[I’m recording this here in hopes I can look back from a near-future vantage point, whole and reconnected, and rejoice at how far we’ve come. Meanwhile, maybe I’m providing a point of identification for anyone else in the same boat.]