OBSCURING THE ISSUES

As I travel around the country, invariably when I tell people I'm from Philadelphia they say, "I heard your mayor is being investigated by the FBI." What's gone national has also taken our city by storm. In an unanticipated turn of events, the wire-tapping of the office of incumbent John Street has shot him into a commanding lead over challenger Sam Katz.

How can this be? Two reasons, one political and one racial. The D's have brought out their heavy hitters in defense of Street; most prominently former mayor and now Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, although even Clinton and Gore have been spotted stumping in Philly. Meanwhile, Katz is not a Bush Republican so he's gotten no love from the White House.

Racially, it seems the black vote has galvanized around Street, suspicious that the FBI investigation is racially motivated and that somehow the Republicans are involved in instigating all of this. It seems the mayor's "street cred" (no pun intended) is at an all-time high.

To be sure, politicking and race are two important issues in this campaign. After all, we're talking about a black Democrat facing off against a white Republican, in a city that is mostly black and Democrat ringed by suburbs that are mostly white and Republican. To think we could or should be oblivious to such dynamics is naive and shallow.

Nevertheless, I regret that issues aren't being talked about, at least not nearly as much as when these same two candidates faced off in 1999. That campaign was relatively smear-free and issues-oriented, with Street, the overwhelming favorite, barely edging out Katz, 49-47.

This time around, both candidates have had to fend off allegations of corruption, both have played the race card, and both are paying for their share of negative ads. Which is a shame because the issues this time around are, in my opinion, even more interesting than four years ago.

Amidst a slumping economy, Street has boldly invested in stabilizing the neighborhoods, a welcome follow-through on Rendell's focus on downtown Philadelphia. He realizes the wage tax is crippling economic development, but argues for a more gradual reduction so he can continue to fund his neighborhood initiatives. You would expect nothing less from a consummate politician and Democrat.

Katz, on the other hand, a consummate businessperson and Republican, believes that if we don't cut the wage tax severely, we will slowly kill our city; but if we are aggressive in lowering the wage tax, we can bring in the businesses, jobs, and commercial activity that Philadelphia so desperately needs for future prosperity and growth.

It is, indeed, a fascinating contrast in messages. Too bad the general public is missing out, lost as such messages are in political stargazing, federal investigations, and racially charged talk. When the winner is crowned in four days, will he even know whether he has been given a popular mandate to carry out his plans?

ASSUMING GROWTH

The speaker at our church retreat this past weekend was to help us through Rick Warren’s “Purpose-Driven Church,” as we continue to develop a ministry plan for our future and for our pastoral search. One of Warren’s key beliefs is that healthy churches, like all organisms, grow; thus, a church that isn’t growing isn’t healthy, and a church that strives to be healthy will inevitably grow.

Our speaker added another dynamic: the church, by definition, is unique among all institutions in that it exists for its non-members. To be more specific, the purpose of the church in this planet and in this time is to serve those outside its walls, in ministries of mercy and evangelism.

Most people would agree with the paragraph above. Bible-believing Christians would also agree that the goals stated above are penultimate, with the ultimate goal being to glorify and exalt God. And indeed, it does speak well of a great God that a human institution would so humble itself in service to the world around it. And it speaks well of a great God that a human institution would submit itself to obedience to such a God and His words.

Here’s where I get a little uncomfortable with all the talk about growth. I wonder sometimes if we assume that growth is the ultimate goal, and then we back into the Bible passages and spiritual principles that will help us achieve that goal. In other words, we take growth as a given desirable end, and use God and His word as a means to that end.

Should we not instead take glorifying and enjoying God as the ultimate end, and seek to commit ourselves as an institution to obedience to His word? And if that means growth, we praise Him and ask for help to be obedient to the responsibilities that growth brings to a church. And if that means stagnancy or loss in membership, we praise Him and ask for help to be obedient in such a situation.

It seems to me that we are ever in jeopardy of co-opting worldly values, and placing them higher in our hierarchy of priorities than obedience to and enjoyment of God. I believe this is the very essence of faith and sin. As John Piper, author of “Desiring God” and several other books espousing a concept called “Christian hedonism,” puts it, no one sins out of duty; they sin because they erroneously believe the sin holds some hope of higher pleasure than faith.

Examples? We desire to be faithful witnesses of the reality and claims of Jesus to a lost world, and yet our verbal broadcast of the gospel message is all too often trumped by a greater desire to not be seen as Christian and therefore close-minded. We read of the many commands and invitations in the Bible to serve the poor among us, but spend a shockingly low proportion of our time doing that, preferring personal comfort to radical obedience. We circle the wagons in tending to the needs of our spouses and children, conveniently forgetting that Jesus Himself told us we must hate our families in order to follow Him.

(Please don’t misconstrue that last statement to suggest that we ought to neglect our responsibilities to our loved ones. It is probably a more apt word to many Christians to love their families more, not less. And it honors no one, least of all God, to serve the purposes of the Kingdom at the expense of a broken and divided family. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note how much of a sacred cow family can be in Christian circles, as if there is no possible way a healthy Christian would ever make a conscious choice to follow Jesus at the expense of his or her family. Clearly, we do not fully comprehend just how radical of a call Jesus is making to us, or just how radical of a response saints have made to that call over the years. While it would be ideal for discipleship to Jesus and devotion to family to be in sync, certainly being a Christian has meant, does mean, and will continue to mean that people pay dear costs, up to and including their own lives and their own families.)

And we seek strategies to achieve church growth, assuming that is what God would want us to strive for and pray about, never stopping to think that what He really wants is our faithful obedience, whether or not that leads to a bump up in membership numbers. I’m not saying the opposite, then, is true: that growth and strategy are inherently evil. But I am realizing that I personally, and humans in groups by nature, can subtly prioritize things above obedience to God that can long very pious and seem very well-intentioned but may not be at all what God would have us to be about. I pray that we as a church will be humble enough to discern the difference, and that our plans and prayers would bring honor to our God.

OUT OF CONTROL BODY

I just came back from our church’s retreat, and I’m sure I’ll have some more blogging to do re: the theological insights I gleaned from the time I got to spend with my fellow congregants. But for now, I’d like to talk about my out of control body.

It’s been a long time since I’ve played team sports. I’ve stuck mostly to running, mountain biking, and weight training for the past few years. I couldn’t even tell you when was the last time I played soccer and/or basketball before today. But today I played both.

In sports, the body and the mind must work closely together. The mind my itself is too slow to process all of the information and decisions thrown its way in the course of a simple sports-related task, whether it be a soccer ball flying towards your head or a split-second opening in the defense for a bullet pass. If you were to use just your mind, by the time you’d analyzed the situation and determined what to do, the situation wouldn’t exist anymore.

That’s where the body comes in. Where the mind by itself is too slow, the body compensates. And over the course of playing a game over and over again, mind and body come together to react quickly and instinctively, so that the ball is properly headed or zipped to an open teammate under the basket.

Except my body. It seems my mind is just as sharp as when I last regularly played team sports. I can still visualize where a ball should be kicked or passed to hit an open teammate in stride. I can still keep track of everyone on my team and on the other team, and anticipate what people on both sides will do once I take my next action to kick the ball forward or pass-fake it to the left. I was pleasantly surprised that my mind wasn’t too terribly foggy from months and years of inaction in this particular set of skills and experiences.

I can’t say the same about my body. It isn’t just that I can’t kick as hard or jump as high. More sobering, when my mind has determined a course of action, my body doesn’t seem to cooperate as smoothly or quickly. I felt awkward at times, arms and legs flailing about as if disconnected from the proper movements I’d orchestrated in my head just a split-second ago. Other times, I mistrusted that same body, knowing in my mind what would be advantageous to do (trapping the ball and quickly redirecting it to a teammate on the opposite side, or using my dribble to get myself into the lane to shoot or dish) but feeling hesitant in my body’s ability to carry out that plan of attack.

So my body, sad to say, is caked in rust. I feel uncomfortably detached from it, for I am no longer able to fully control it in the heat of sports competition. Yet another indication that the age of 30 is in the rear view mirror.

THE UNPOPULAR ABSOLUTENESS OF CHRISTIANITY

The unpopular absoluteness of Christianity is back in the news, with Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin's comments that Muslims worship an idol and not a "real God." President Bush quickly distanced himself from such an incendiary comment, saying it didn't reflect his personal opinion or that of the US government. Closer to home for me, I co-led a workshop in which a newcomer to South Carolina lamented that his new neighbors were so close-minded as to think that Christianity is the only true religion and that all other religions are false.

I'm vehemently opposed to enflaming the war on terror with religious overgeneralizations -- America is not a Christian nation, Islam in the Middle East is much too complex to turn into an archetype, and those that are doing the best to dress the conflict in religious terms are the terrorists themselves. And I believe it is the responsibility of the enlightened Christian to be as open-minded, gracious, and humble as possible when it comes to the deeply-held beliefs of other people.

That being said, we who sign on to the Christian faith follow a savior who was so divisive that he roused an entire religious establishment to condemn and kill him. Jesus Himself said "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me." We must either take Him at His word, fall at His feet and call Him Lord, and then live according to such a radical statement. Or we must dismiss him as a liar (he knew he wasn't the only way to God, but deceived others into thinking so) or a lunatic (he deluded himself into thinking he was the only way to God).

It is C.S. Lewis' classic "lord, liar, or lunatic" argument. The central figure in the faith of the Christian person is not a sterile, non-threatening moral man who would be aghast at division and absolutism. No, Jesus Himself knew that His message and His very existence would be a stumbling block for many, including and especially the religious establishment of the day. He was so counter-cultural that while the pious people of the day practically tripped over themselves in an attempt to condemn him, the outcasted sinners of the day practically tripped over themselves in an attempt to be near him.

It is easy to practice the aspects of Christianity that will win you popularity -- loving your neighbor, advocating for the poor, living a good moral life -- and conveniently skirt those aspects that will win you condemnation -- taking Jesus at His word when He said He was the only way to God, believing that man is inherently sinful and that sin grieves a holy God, and arguing that there is an absolute moral code than men will be judged by.

And yet, clearly, for Boykin to say what he said was not helpful to the cause of foreign relations or the war on terror. So do I regret what he said? Painfully so. But do I disagree with what he said? Absolutely not. And if that puts me in a vilified minority, that people scorn for being so close-minded as to think we have the one true religion, then that is a consequence to my faith journey.

It is a challenge, indeed, to know how to hold true to certain beliefs that are societally unpopular while at the same time fighting vigorously for cultural sensitivity, repentance for prideful manifestations of religious colonialism, and respect for people of differing religious beliefs. But ultimately, whether or not society agrees, the Christian believes that there is a Higher Judge whose opinion matters most. May we who associate with Jesus represent Him appropriately, as He Himself represented God the Father when He was on this earth: with humility, purpose, love, and single-minded obedience.

TAKING THE INITIATIVE

One of the things I love about teaching entrepreneurship is that it is self-initiative incarnate. Teens becoming adults, and inner-city kids disenfranchised from mainstream society, don’t gain when people think and decide for them; they gain when they exercise their decision-making muscle and stimulate their internal motivations. Learning entrepreneurship not only gives them a tangible set of skills that are useful for competing in a dog-eat-dog world; it is also a process or a way of thinking that demands ingenuity and stick-to-it-iveness.

And yet I have been concerned about the advanced students in my after-school youth entrepreneurship program. These are the ten students who we poked and prodded for most of the past year to complete their business plans and prepare for their business presentations, who impressed our panel of judges at our business plan competition and who impressed us over the course of the year with their ideas and their work ethic, enough that we invited them back for a second year and gave them money and office space to run their new ventures.

So whereas the first year is about them attending the classes and learning the materials, this second year is to be about them growing their businesses and making their money. I have purposely not hounded anyone about assignments I pass out, all of which are designed to help the students organize themselves around starting, running, and/or growing their businesses. I have consistently told them instead that the motivation must come from within, that them putting in the time on their businesses wasn’t for me to be happy that they were doing their homework but for them to be happy that they were achieving their entrepreneurial goals.

But these are teens used to a stale educational model that force-feeds them information and asks them to regurgitate it at the end of the week, and that teaches to a standardized test and then hands out that test. Creativity and self-starting have been pounded out of them, replaced by a mechanical approach to teaching and learning. It’s like how sports coaches now dictate everything the players on the field do – swing away, bunt, even throw over to first – rather than letting the players act on instinct.

So what’s happening in our program is that we’ve ramped up the expectations, and at the same time taken away many of the external carrots and sticks. I haven’t chased anyone around to do their work, and a lot of work isn’t getting done.

Fortunately, some of that internal motivation is starting to kick in. We’re showcasing our youth-run businesses in three weeks, and I have stressed that this networking event is for them to make contacts and do business, not for us to look good. So again, I’m not chasing anyone down to get their act together, lest we look bad in front of our sponsors and partners. Instead, the youth themselves are starting to hustle to get ready. They’re using their own carrots and sticks now; the carrot of looking good to their peers and to strangers, and the stick of not wanting to look bad.

So hopefully, this will springboard them to continue to look to a growing internal motivation to put the work in on their business, rather than looking externally for someone to offer them a carrot or prod them with a stick. And maybe, that will mean that they will be becoming more effective entrepreneurs.

MY BRETHREN AROUND THE WORLD

I just got back from an amazing gathering of Christian missionaries at a conference in Niagara Falls. Christian Aid Mission is an agency I’ve supported financially for almost ten years. Rather than sending Western missionaries to Third World countries, they find legitimate missions agencies started and staffed by people in those countries, and serve as a conduit of money (from the West to the Third World) and information (from the Third World to the West).

My head is spinning from all the stories I heard, and my heart is full with joy at the depth of partnership I felt with these missionaries, who, unlike missionaries from the West, need no language acquisition, cultural adaptation, or furlough, and who can penetrate unreached areas and people much more effectively and at a fraction of the cost. (Not to mention the fact that their witness invalidates some peoples’ misconception that Christianity is a Western religion.) Here were people who were not the prettiest or most eloquent (or maybe they are eloquent in their native tongues, but most gave their seminars in English, their second or even third or fourth language), but they more than made up for it with their pure enthusiasm and unwavering commitment for loving people in the name of Jesus.

I left with a soaring view of God, who works in plain vessels in awful conditions with miniscule resources to do great acts of mercy, compassion, and salvation. I felt sorry for myself and my Western brethren, who busy ourselves with such trivialities as sports, property maintenance, and religious ceremony while my Christian brothers and sisters in the Third World are rescuing prostitutes, feeding street kids, and preaching the gospel. We are not the rich ones; they in their sold-out lifestyles and sacrificial ministries are the ones overflowing in wealth.

Some snippets from the speakers whose sessions I attended; all in all, I heard from citizens of Puerto Rico, Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal, Nepal, India, Kenya, Ukraine, Pakistan, Thailand, and Laos:

* My Christian brothers in the middle third of Africa are in the throes of a heated war for souls, as Muslim influence from the north converges with Christian influence from the south. Islam is winning so far, as the rich Muslim countries pour money into Africa to build schools and hospitals well ahead of any conversions (i.e. in villages that don’t yet have Muslim believers), while rich Christian countries fail to do the same.

* Those Christian agencies who buy enslaved Sudanese women widowed by the long-standing civil war are actually creating a market for more slaves and therefore increasing the incentive for people to capture and sell women.

* The “one child” policy in China means that kids are spoiled silly, as they have the affection of six adults (two parents and two sets of grandparents); a ministry there has targeted the children, then, for they know that one child coming to their service means six adults will follow.

* The Chinese government finally allowed a playing of Handel’s Messiah by a Chinese orchestra, after fifty-plus years of eradicating religion; I wept as I heard the Amen Chorus on a videotape of the concert, as I looked ahead to a final victory God will have over the nations that plot and scheme to silence His voice on the earth.

* Incidentally, when Western missionaries were booted from China fifty-plus years ago, their work in planting seeds was effective: the Chinese underground church flourished, from 1 million believers in 1950 to 100 million in 2000.

* A woman who wanted to reach out to teen prostitutes in India befriended the pimps, who told her if she tried to free the girls she would be killed; so instead she continued to visit the red-light districts to tell the girls of Jesus’ love for them and to encourage them to pray for God’s deliverance in the midst of their enslaved situation; miraculously, many girls experienced a drastic decrease in business, causing the pimps to tell the woman to just take the girls away, since they were no longer making them money.

* With practically no resources, faithful brothers and sisters opened their doors to orphanages in Nepal, Kenya, and India, and so cared for the multitude of children that came through that their respective governments are now giving almost all abandoned children to them to minister to; while in Ukraine, children’s ministries have been so effective that the government is asking the Christians to consult with them on how to best provides services to abused and abandoned children.

* I met the woman who runs the orphanage I’ve been supporting for almost ten years now; she told me that the five children I’ve been sponsoring (all for just $15 per month each) who were once six to eight years old are now sixteen to eighteen and ready to leave the orphanage, having been trained in job skills and ready to live on their own.

Though it was a grueling 6 ½ hour drive each way to Niagara Falls, after a long work week, how I left that gathering refreshed and energized. I hugged, sat at the feet at, and took pictures with people I’ve prayed for and supported for almost a decade. I felt a sense of partnership in a great work, one that is desperately needed in our developing countries today – both the spiritual void of not knowing Jesus and the material void of children, lepers, the blind, and oppressed women.

Bob Finley, who founded Christian Aid Mission fifty years ago, wrapped up the conference with two charges: that, like Christ, we must suffer from men, and we must suffer for men. To truly follow Jesus is to fellowship in His sufferings. He suffered, not that we needn’t suffer, but that we’d have an example to follow. Many of the speakers had spent many years and even decades in prison. At least one was tortured by his own father and brothers for converting to Christianity. They have all suffered social ostracization, loneliness, and insufficient resources. And they are the most beautiful, contented, and rich group of people I have ever met.

IN MEMORY OF VINCENT CHIN

In June 1982, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, two white autoworkers who were unemployed because of the US auto industry was in the midst of a long decline in global competitiveness, walked into a bar with murder on their mind. They walked up to the first Asian-American they saw, Vincent Chin, a Chinese-American who was celebrating his upcoming wedding with a couple of friends. Calling him "Jap," Ebens and Nitz cursed at Chin: "It's because of you motherfuckers that we're out of work." A fistfight broke out, and Chin left the bar.

But Ebens and Nitz followed, and, retrieving a baseball bat from their car, chased Chin through the streets. When they finally cornered him in front of a McDonald's, Nitz held Chin while Ebens swung the bat across Chin's shins and then bludgeoned Chin to death by shattering his skull. For their crime, Ebens and Nitz did not spend one day in jail: allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter, they were sentenced to three years' probation and fined $3780 each.

I share this story (which I heavily quote from Ronald Takaki's "Strangers from a Different Shore") for two reasons this morning. First, we live in times in this country, when, like the automobile industry of the 1980's, certain key industry sectors are losing ground to competitors outside of the US. There is political frustration, as job losses are of course unpopular realities for which politicians must have some explanation. I wonder how much of this frustration will spill into vigilante behavior on the street level.

I also share this story because I believe that it is human nature to read of Ebens and Nitz and think them horrific creatures. Implicit in such a judgment is the belief that we ourselves are incapable of such horrible offenses, of such angry bigotry. And yet I must admit that I find that kind of sinfulness in my own heart. A recurring theme in my blogs is that racism is still a problem in our country because we are all still, at heart, a little racist inside. Far from simply vilifying the Ebens' and Nitz's of society, and thus allaying our own guilty consciences, I hope that blatant acts of racism can open honest thought about our own guilt, and begin free dialogue about institutional and unspoken bigotry.

Sadly, I feel that many in our country are closed off to such a discussion, and unwilling to consider the sin in their own hearts. And as a result, even as we delude ourselves into thinking we are getting closer to Martin Luther King's "dream," we as a nation move further and further away from it. May the murder of Vincent Chin remind us that all is not well on the racial front.

WHEN COMMUNION IS MORE THAN COMMUNION

We've been trying a new thing lately in our morning services with communion. Instead of having the elders go up and down the aisles to serve the wafers and cups to congregants seated in their pews, we have the congregants walk up to the front and get a piece of pita and dip it in a big goblet.

This second method is called "intinction" and has some basis in church tradition. Many in our midst find the method appealing, for it gets us out of the rut of doing something the same way over and over again, and forces us to step forward -- physically and symbolically -- to partake in the sacrement. Still others find the method a communal experience, transforming communion from a private and individual moment to a public and shared one. I myself have served and received communion both ways, and find the latter method more worshipful for all of these reasons.

Nonetheless, there have been some in our midst who haven't liked the new way. I must confess I jumped to the conclusion that they were resistant to change, and/or hung up on a particular tradition of man while neglecting the commandment of God.

In our leadership meeting, however, I found that many who had voiced their disapproval were struggling in their faith, and had previously found communion to be a stabilizing and consistent reminder from God. To switch things up was to add additional chaos to a life that already felt chaotic. If they couldn't count on communion being the same from month to month, why what could they count on to be the same?

I hope that we as a congregation can do communion in a way that is reverent, worshipful, and reflective of our great God and His great grace. I hope we as leaders will be attuned to the pastoral care we are responsible to provide to those in our flock who are struggling and who need to be reminded that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And I hope we as Christians, no matter what method we take communion, will appreciate and savor the partaking of the body and the blood until He returns.

JUST ANOTHER DAY IN THE LIFE

Every so often I like to document a typical day's activities, just to record for my future review what kinds of things preoccupied my time and thoughts at different points in my life. Today was a particularly fun, busy, and varied day, so why not record a running diary?

7:30am -- Wake up, 90 minutes after my two alarms went off. Though I try to get to get up at 6am or even 5am (I love getting a jump on the day), some days my body doth protesteth. Today it needed the extra hour and a half.

8:30am -- Finish my private time with God. Sometimes my prayer and Bible times are good, sometimes they're boring. But it's nice I'm in the habit of meeting with God, that there are less days that lack of sleep and poor planning squeeze this time and leave me heading into the day feeling rushed and naked.

9:00am -- Hit the showers after a few sets of pushups and situps, which I try to do two or three times a week (running on the other days, with one or two days per week of no exercise thrown in).

9:30am -- Head out the door, having showered, put on my clothes, ate breakfast, and read the paper. Usually I make lunch, but today I have a lunch appointment. Five minutes and three-and-a-half blocks later, I arrive at my office.

10:00am -- Catch up on emails and phone calls. Dial for dollars (fundraiser next week) and helpers (assembling an advisory committee for my young entrepreneurs). Get my lesson plan ready for this afternoon's class. Check in with staff members to make sure everyone's OK -- we've got a lot going on with our after-school youth program, and several of my staffers are feeling under the weather and under the gun.

11:30am -- Take the subway downtown to pick up my tux for my friend's wedding this weekend.

12:00pm -- Try on the tux -- wrong size pants! Luckily, replacements are available. I phone the groom to let him know where I am; he tells me to meet him at 69th Street Station.

12:30pm -- Emerge from the station and locate his car; we drive out to Paoli for one last counseling session, which his pastor wanted to have with him and the bride AND the best man (me) and maid of honor.

1:15pm -- Arrive in Paoli; treated to a sumptuous Kenyan feast.

2:00pm -- Abbreviated counseling session, where the pastor reinforces our (me, the maid of honor, and all of the bride and groom's close Christian friends) responsibility to support the new couple.

2:30pm -- Hit the road back to the office.

3:15pm -- Arrive to multitudes of youth already signed in and milling about. I quickly check phone and email, and make final preparations for class.

4:00pm -- Class today is actually a work session, where my ten young entrepreneurs (I teach the advanced class; there will be forty others in the regular class) are working on goal-setting sheets and one-page summaries of their businesses. There is some instruction and some announcements, but mostly work time.

5:00pm -- Class ends, and more milling around. Some students keep working, others count down the minutes until 5:30pm, when the "no games" policy lapses and they get their 30 minutes of arcade time before the lab closes.

5:30pm -- Two kids, after being talked to twice about horsing around, continue to goof off. I kick them out for the day.

6:00pm -- The last students are signed out, and I debrief the day and organization-wide issues with my staff. One of my staffers is juggling two interviews and a parent information session; two others are working on presentations for tomorrow's staff retreat.

6:45pm -- I hit the subway again for North Philadelphia, where Jonathan Kozol is speaking on the Temple campus.

7:15pm -- I arrive in North Philadelphia, and walk a few blocks to Mitten Hall, where 200+ people are already assembled and someone is introducing Mr. Kozol. He speaks passionately and soberly for the next hour.

8:15pm -- I stand with everyone else to applaud, and while Q&A begins, I head for the street and jump back on the subway. I've been on the subway a total of about 90 minutes today, just enough to catch up on last week's Economist.

8:45pm -- I get back in cell phone range just in time for my wife to call me and ask if I'm anywhere near home -- she's been circling our house looking for parking, and wonders if I could take the car and park it for her. I tell her I'm five minutes away.

9:00pm -- After heading back into the office to pick up my stuff -- and saying hi to a staffer of mine who is still there, burning the candle at both ends -- I dash home. But my wife has already parked the car and is quickly getting into her "bum around the house" clothes. I do the same.

9:30pm -- I've cooked us some dinner -- steak fajitas -- and we catch up on the day's events, complain about our work situations, and pay half attention to a Friends rerun she's downloaded. I sort through mail and the rest of today's paper.

11:00pm -- Kiss my wife goodnight, quick check on the baseball game, start blogging.

GAY AND CHRISTIAN

An old high-school buddy of mine called me last night to tell me, among other things, that he is gay. He comes from a strict religious upbringing -- his dad's a preacher -- and hasn't told many people of his sexual orientation. So I was honored he would feel comfortable "outing" himself to me.

I immediately felt a sense of responsibility to be open-minded, slow to speak and quick to listen. I heard him tell me he had recently found a church that was open to homosexuality; that, without compromising orthodox Christianity, gave off an atmosphere that made him feel freer to be wholly himself, instead of worshipping God in a shroud of secrecy and shame.

I was also quick to feel guilty for homophobic teasing I had engaged in with him when we were in school together, and even more recently. I wondered if I had hurt his feelings all those times, and deeply regretted my insensitivity.

Is it possible to be gay and Christian? As my friend comes to grips with what it means to be both, I too am challenged to consider this possibility. He tells me he's never been attracted to women, only to men; and thus doesn't know that being gay is necessarily wrong, though he is open to God proving him otherwise.

Though I disagree with him -- after all, many of us are born with a predilection to lust, or to lie, or to hate, which does not negate these things being sin -- I appreciate his humility, and am ashamed of the amplified way in which we Christians bash on this particular sin. Truly, we have ostracized and demonized those who are homosexual, in ways we haven't done with those who are covetous of material possessions, dishonoring to their parents, or deceitful with their promises.

I am forced to think that on one level, it is not right to be gay and Christian, just as it is no right to be a liar and a Christian, or a thief and a Christian, or a closed off person to the poor and a Christian. What it means to be a Christian is to renounce all forms of sin and pursue all forms of righteousness.

But on another level, it is very possible to be gay and Christian, just as you might and will find people who are lustful and Christian, impatient and Christian, or boastful and Christian. And yet for some reason, our moral indignation shoots through the roof when we consider those who accept their homosexual tendencies and are perfectly fine allowing them to coexist with their reformed Christian ways.

Some may protest that the point is not that Christians don't sin, but that they seek to move away from sin; and thus to entrench one's deviant sexual preference is antithetical to the disciple's journey. I do not disagree. But then I also must point a finger at those who claim to be Christians but do not regard Jesus in the poor, naked, and imprisoned; those who associate themselves with Christ but do not take seriously His many commands regarding money; those who say they seek God's Kingdom but ignorantly participate in and further entrench unjust social, economic, and political systems. None of these people seems to think anything about their Christian lives needs to change.

So I am not swinging to the other end of the pendulum and saying that, because of the bashing, gays get a carte blanche to live in a way that is contrary to what is described as righteous and right in the Bible. But nor am I saying that homosexuality is any different from the myriads of ways we heterosexual Christians are living outside of God's will for our lives. If my friend is gay and Christian, I who am boastful and Christian, uncaring and Christian, stingy and Christian, am in no better moral standing.

Maybe if we all believed that, there wouldn't be any bashing, ostracizing, and vilifying. Then maybe we could all get back to the business of getting right with God and bringing glory to His name. Someday, it will be impossible to be anything sinful and Christian, for Jesus will return to claim His own, and we will be perfected so that we perfectly obey, reflect, and know God. Until that day, there will be many among us who are, among other things, deceitful and Christian, covetous and Christian, and gay and Christian.

RUSH THE VILIFIED

This whole Rush Limbaugh incident has been a telling window into mainstream America's attitude towards race. If you haven't heard, Rush made a comment on an ESPN football show about Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback Donovan McNabb to the effect that he wasn't that good, but that the liberal media desperately wanted to celebrate the success of the black quarterback, so they artificially talked him up. Since then, the media has vilified Rush, Rush has resigned from ESPN, the Eagles have stood by their QB, and McNabb has responded with class and grace.

I'd like to make three points about how this situation speaks to prevailing attitudes about race in America. Let me preface my comments by saying I am neither joining the masses to speak ill of Rush, nor am I defending his comments. Nonetheless . . .

1. Rush's observation is probably not all false. People in general, cry as they might in opposition, are not open-minded. We all have opinions and have formed our conclusions about things in life. When presented with new information to the contrary, we brush it aside; when given data that supports our conclusion, we trumpet it as gospel truth. If we think Bush is an idiot, any pro-Bush news is discounted and any anti-Bush news is held up as Exhibit A. If we think Kobe is a good guy, any Kobe-bashing is swept under our rug, and anything positive about Kobe is given credence as solid evidence. And so if we think that whites are more suited for the intellectual and managerial, blacks for the athletic and physical, we will filter information accordingly. Was all of the media in on this opinion, and pumping up Donovan as a result? Probably not. But are there people out there that believe in the physical superiority of blacks and the mental superiority of whites, for whom "smart" white quarterbacks and "athletic" black quarterbacks validates their beliefs? Undoubtedly yes. This is the point that Rush was making; that some people believe this. It is a fact in this country, a fact that naive people wish wasn't true, because they would rather believe that racism is no longer a problem in our country.

2. Rush's three co-anchors were silent during his initial comments; given a week to ponder, and to see how Rush was purloined in the media, they returned the following Sunday to issue scathing rebukes of Rush's beliefs. One wondered why we would go twenty years backwards in race relations, while another trumpeted that he never saw Donovan McNabb as "a black quarterback, merely as a good quarterback." I have three problems with the co-anchors. First, your initial reaction to someone's words is what's in your gut; your reaction a week later is what's been polished over to sound good. Second, it isn't that race relations were poor twenty years ago and solved today; maybe Rush's comments will be beneficial for race relations because they will get issues out on the table to discuss, rather than having people hide under the facade that everyone loves everyone and all is well on the race relations front. Third, Donovan McNabb is a black quarterback, and as such bears a greater burden of representation than white quarterbacks. Is it fair that as an Asian-American, I am often looked at to provide the perspective of all Asian-Americans? Yes, it is an unfair burden to bear. But it is a burden I will bear, because on one level, I do represent Asian-Americans in my conduct, just as I represent Christians, young professionals, and Philadelphians in my conduct. Is it fair for Charles Barkley to be a kid's role model? No, but he should take the responsibility, given that some kid idolizes him, to be a good role model.

3. It is so clear to me that we Americans would rather vilify the outright racist than deal with our own subtle racism. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all racist; and there is something safe about speaking ill of the KKK, Rush Limbaugh, Farrakhan, or whoever else epitomizes for us outright racism. Because in pointing that finger, we deflect attention away from our own engrained, institutionalized racism. We can forget about the stereotypes we've bought into, the subtle mistrust, the unwillingness to be associated with systemic discrimination; because all of this personal dirty laundry gets lost in the spotlight shining on the polarizing figure of the moment. How many racist beliefs do we hold in our own hearts, related to the physical and mental capabilities of African-American athletes? How uncomfortable would it be to air out those stereotypes? How much easier, then, to vilify Rush, and to take the moral high ground in condemning his words. And yet how impossible racial reconciliation will be until we are honest and public about our own racism, rather than equating racism with polarizing comments and actions.

The prevailing attitude in mainstream America, whether spoken or not, is that racial divisiveness is largely a thing of the past, and that if everyone would just get along and stop making race an issue, everything would be fine. But the opposite of racism isn't color-blindness; color-blindness merely grandfathers in an institutional racism that mainstream America doesn't realize (and/or doesn't want to believe) still exists. By bringing up race as an issue, Rush offended people who live in a make-believe world who think that race is still an issue because angry people are still making it an issue. But like it or not, race is still an issue in our country. I do not agree with Rush's commentary, either about Donovan McNabb or about the liberal media. But I do not fault him for saying that race is an issue when we think of athletes.