Theological Education

UnFlagging Jesus

~ philipamerson

UnFLAGging Jesus

I once was joined for lunch by two friends. One was head of a theological school. Our conversation was amicable enough. Although the seminary president took up much of our visit promoting a wide array of initiatives focused on leadership. Future pastors, chaplains, counselors and social service providers were being trained to be leaders! It appeared an effort to impress the other friend at the table — John McKnight. 

John is one of the founders of the Asset Based Community Development approach to community organizing, (often abbreviated as ABCD).  A primary assumption of ABCD is that good leaders start by listening to others and discovering gifts, passions, assumptions and assets. After lunch as we were saying our “good-byes,” John took the hand of the seminary president and kindly offered, “Maybe we should focus a little more on connector-ship and a little less on leadership.” 

Connector-ship! That’s a missing ingredient in so much of human exchange. Universities, businesses, denominations and governments spend tens of millions of dollars and valuable personnel time training for leadership. This is not without merit and benefit. Still if one begins with a belief that energy and initiatives all flow from a top-down direction, a needed element for change is missing. Too often, there is the assumption that if the leader just has the right idea, program, language, skill set or practices, success will inevitably follow. McKnight, understands and teaches that human connection is a critical initial step in developing effective institutions and civil communities.

Don’t start identifying the needs of others you plan to fix without listening. First, listen to find the gifts, the capacities, the assets that folks already possess. Secondly, find that inner moral compass that must continually be developed throughout life by study, seeking fact-based reality, and interacting responsibly with others. This is a more enduring pathway forward.  

I know a remarkable corporate leader who upon arriving at a troubled firm, went to folks on the picket line, the hourly workers, not just upper management and he listened. A follower of Jesus, he continued in prayer, study and worship. Leadership meant connector-ship, listening, learning and finding a moral compass. Shortly thereafter, he gathered the employees in the parking lot. Taking a copy of the company’s unfair policies and procedures manual, he dropped it into the flames of a barrel used those standing in the cold. It was not a concession; it was a modeling of connection. Hard work followed.  He was saying, “We are listening, let’s talk.”

Recently I wrote a piece titled “Jesus Wrapped in a Flag.” Today’s Christian Nationalism promotes a fraudulent version of Christianity, and profoundly flawed revision of American History.  Lovett Weems offered a set of counter recommendations titled Leading Amidst Christian Nationalism.  While helpful, these are overly cautious words and appeared to assume there is only one paradigm for congregational life. It is a soft version of the very American Civil Religion that the author critiques. It is more of a starting point than a guide.

I thought of all the congregations and courageous religious leaders who are doing much more. They listen and share the hard truths discovered in their study and prayers about our responsibilities as Christians. They offer a more robust response to the profound dangers and misinformation widely dispensed by White Christian Nationalism and American Catholic Integralism.

The American church, Protestant and Catholic, needs to remove the American Flag from the shoulders of Jesus. It doesn’t belong there; never has. If U.S. policies and practices aren’t held under the judgement of the Gospel, why be a Christian at all?  Why not just pledge primary allegiance to anything our nation does and forget Jesus?  Just diminish our discipleship. 

Some U.S. “leaders” have done just that. Congresswoman Laureen Boebert said, “Jesus didn’t have enough AR-15 rifles to keep the government from killing him.”  What? Jesus is remolded into a grievance filled, revenge seeking and bully. What does the congresswoman do with the Sermon on the Mount, the words, “Love your enemies” or in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Nevertheless, thy will be done”?  The paradox, of course, as Reinhold Niebuhr argued, while international ethics are messy, they begin with morality in human expression.

The witness of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ, isn’t limited to the foolish, mean-spirited and ill-informed theologies of some in congress these days. Jesus of scripture says “Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.[iv]” 

The witness of Jesus is UnFlagging!  It is persistent – enduring. It calls leaders to leave their C-Suite offices and learn from the folks in the parking lot.  It calls on congregations to speak with and learn from folks not in the pews on Sunday.

In the mid-1980s my family lived in a low-wealth neighborhood in Evansville, Indiana. One fall, fear gripped neighbors as vicious rapes were reported. The assailant was said to be African American in our multiracial community. Soon we learned the Ku Klux Klan was sending patrols to protect our white citizens, especially the women.  What should our small core-city ministry do? How might we offer a safe alternative to this violation and the hate-based response?

Someone suggested we talk with Will Campbell. Mississippi born, Baptist minister, graduate of Yale Divinity School, author, and Civil Rights advocate, Will was known for friendships with a wide range of people, including members of the Ku Klux Klan. Will took this dwelling together stuff seriously!

I called and left phone messages for Will. It took a few days, and he returned my call. Hearing of our situation, he said, “First thing you need to say to the Klan is “no, your activities are not welcome.'” That sounded good to me — We had already done that. Then, Will, stumped me, surprised me. He asked, “What are their names?” 

NAMES?  “What do you mean?” I responded, “Whose names? Our neighbors?”  “No.” Will said, thinking I would already know the Klansmen. Their names.  I confessed that I didn’t know any of those folks.  He said, “Well, then, what the hell you been doing?  Who are they?”  Interesting, our need to limit where repentance, reconciliation and renewal might occur. Perhaps some changes, some weaving of new relationships could happen in my own life, not only in the lives of Klan members. Might there be a bridging to new relationship, even there? A renewal larger than my imagining?

South African Methodist Bishop Peter Story noted that “America’s preachers have a task more difficult, perhaps, than those faced byus under apartheid. We had obvious evils to engage; you [on the other hand] have to unwrap your culture from years of red, white and blue myth, You have to expose and confront the great disconnect between the kindness, compassion and caring of most Americans and the ruthless way American power is experienced, directly and indirectly, by the poor of the earth. You have to help people see how they have let their institutions do their sinning for them.“
























@font-face
{font-family:”Cambria Math”;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face
{font-family:Aptos;
panose-1:2 11 0 4 2 2 2 2 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:536871559 3 0 0 415 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
margin-top:0in;
margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:0in;
margin-left:.5in;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:”Aptos”,sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Aptos;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Aptos;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Aptos;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-font-kerning:1.0pt;
mso-ligatures:standardcontextual;}.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
mso-ascii-font-family:Aptos;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Aptos;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Aptos;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}

[i] Weems, Lovett H. Jr. Leading Amidst Christian Nationalism, LEADING IDEAS, Lewis Center for Church Leadership, June 25, 2024).

[ii] Matthew 5:43-48.

[iii] Luke 22:42

[iv] Matthew 11:28-30.

[v] Storey, Peter, Sojourners Magazine, Oct. 18, 2006.

Christmas Emptiness

~ philipamerson ~ 2 Comments

Christmas Emptiness

Emptiness. Manger Square, Bethlehem, December 23, 2023, is abandoned.  Most years, every square meter of the space would be filled, maneuvering among the crowd, difficult. Christian Palestinians in Bethlehem, in solidarity with those in Gaza, have canceled Christmas. The Lutheran pastor says, “if Jesus were born today, it would be under the rubble of Gaza.”  And nearby, among Israelis, the horror and grief of October 6 when families were ripped apart, children murdered, women raped, and hostages taken, and who even now are being tortured persists and widens.

Israelis and Palestinians deserve better. Still, decades long pent-up anger and distrust has erupted in an unimagined violence. Slow boiling political chicanery, terrorism, and bigotries mostly built on lies and prejudices now rob the people on all sides of options. Emptiness. No room left for rational thought or basic humanity.

No room left for recognition of another as a human being. Robbed by millions of deceits, papercuts on the soul, there is no space for mutuality, companionship, or love. The prefrontal cortex is severed from the reptilian parts of the brain. A single option appears the only one — revenge, revenge, revenge.  Empty of alternatives, life on all sides is reduced to terror. 

For those of us, observers with broken hearts and conflicted loves, there is another kind of emptiness. Those who know, respect, and love both Jews and Palestinians, live in a wasteland of uninhabited hope. Our carefully crafted dreams and visions for humanity are shattered. And what of our own bigotries and behaviors? What of the ways we discount and exclude those we fear? What of our treatment of those without shelter, who struggle with addictions or who come to us as immigrant?

We suffer with a similar, yet a differing void.  For so many Christians, the mangers of our souls will seem vacant, emptied places this Christmas.

Saving Our Institutional Souls

~ philipamerson ~ 2 Comments

Saving our Institutional Souls

A familiar folk axiom is as follows, “institutions are designed to serve the needs of people, but before long those people serve the needs of the institution.”  In my experience, this truism is evident in a variety of settings and across every organizational type. 

Let me affectionately pick on a category of institutions I value and have come to know rather well – theological schools. Seminaries are established by religious denominations to teach, prepare leaders, develop resources, and do research. A midwestern seminary, with which I am very familiar, recently invited me to join a “video conversation” scheduled for the evening of February 22, 2023.  A “select group” of us were asked to learn about exciting initiatives of the field education program.  I opened my calendar to add the date, stopped, double checked, and laughed out loud. 

The event was scheduled for Ash Wednesday evening, when most congregations I know will be holding a worship service. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent leading up to Easter.  In many Christian traditions it is among the more significant days in the liturgical calendar. The scheduling of this event was an unforced error; more, it was a sign of disconnection.  Since then, the date of this seminary’s video conference was rescheduled.  To repeat, seminaries were begun to serve congregations and denominations, but… well, the seasons and gifts of congregational ministry, are sometimes missed in the planning.  This was a failure in awareness as to who was serving whom.

At another seminary where I was in leadership, I visited a gathering of interfaith congregations in Tucson Arizona. It included a wide range of faith traditions who engaged in regular, innovative joint gatherings. A young faculty member was with me on this visit.  A few days later, back on campus, a faculty committee shared their plans to “teach congregations how to do interfaith work.” Sadly, this committee had failed to explore what was already taking place among congregations in places like Tucson. I waited before speaking, expecting my young professor friend to share her experience. Later she confessed she didn’t want to challenge the plans of more senior professors. Instead of discovering the gifts already evident in the ecology of existing congregations like those in Tucson these well-meaning faculty folks had seen their role as being the producers of knowledge, the source of innovation. Sadly, the connective tissue, the patterns of reciprocity and mutuality were missing.

I could write of dozens of other examples where institutional expectations and design missed the mark. Denominations often exhibit this blindness as to gifts already present at their own seminaries or their own congregations.  I think of denominational efforts to establish in house “leadership training” or “research programs” when the very schools they started and support, offer some of the best resources in the nation.  To be fair, we shouldn’t miss the reality that congregations themselves are too often quick to start projects without knowing the gifts in the neighborhoods or cities where they are located. 

A very different example is evident as a “new denomination” is being formed among dissidents from the United Methodist Church. Who is serving whom?  Are some seminaries and powerful caucus groups misrepresenting the denomination’s institutional practices for their own purposes?  Have congregations been being encouraged to disaffiliate based on the needs of institutions who have little or no awareness of the context and neighborhoods where the congregations are in ministry?

At the outset I suggested our world is full of similar examples of this disconnection. In government, health care, education, law, agriculture, economics and on and on we see it.  The Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams was built around such institutional blind spots.  I have no sympathy for anarchy; I do not suggest all institutions inevitably fail and should be abandoned. To the contrary we have seen the tragic results of the “deep state” myth and conspiracy nonsense in our local, state, and national governmental institutions. I am arguing that sometimes basic linkages and necessary relationships are lost.  Not all institutions should be saved.  Slavery is an example. Institutions designed to exclude other humans of basic rights should be ended.  

I am suggesting that the connective tissue allowing for mutuality and dialogue needs to be exercised, like the muscles of a human body. Our human institutions need to be continually, evaluated, strengthened, and open to democratic reform. In the process, a complex web of reciprocal teaching and learning is essential. All healthy institutions will seek democratic renewal and will be attentive to what can be learned from the gifts and assets of those at the grass roots of society.