The Manse Menagerie

Danielle and I have always been what you might call "animal people."  That doesn't mean that we act like animals (any more than anyone else) but that we see the value of having animals as a part of our daily lives. Danielle grew up with cats and I grew up with cats, dogs, and an occasional guinea pig and fish. We knew we wanted animals to be a part of our family as well, so just a couple of days after we returned from our honeymoon we went to the local Humane Society and adopted two cats.  We only went in for one but she and I fell in love with two different felines and they made us a "two-for-one" deal.  Those cats were Romy (an orange tabby) and Jackson (a brown longhair).  They lived with us in our tiny apartment in Stillwater, Oklahoma and then in our duplex in Guthrie and then in our minuscule apartment in Austin, Texas.  

While we were in Austin we brought in a testy little seven-year-old dog one step away from being euthanized, a terrier mix named Luke.  Then we had a baby (Wyatt) just before we moved to Newkirk, Oklahoma. All three animals (and the kid) did quite well with us there and then made the next move to Norman, Oklahoma.  Then we had Josselyn.  So we had two kids and three animals in our 1,000 square foot house and we did just fine. The dog was a bit of a wildcard, but the cats pretty much kept to themselves (what I like about cats).  This is the family that moved into the manse here in Washington Court House, Ohio.

As I have written about previously and feel no need to dwell on again, two days after we moved here just after Christmas, 2011, I had to put Luke to sleep.  He was old, pretty much blind and deaf, having hip problems, and pretty much incontinent.  Later that same year Danielle had to put her cat Jackson to sleep. He'd been with us for eleven years.  He had diabetes and he wasn't responding to insulin.  He had become incontinent as well.  That was a rough year.  But Romy (my orange tabby) is still with us.  We have had him for almost fourteen years, which makes him about fifteen years old.  He seems perfectly healthy and sleeps pretty much every night in bed with Josselyn.  The other day, Josselyn woke up with Romy next to her and said, "Daddy, Romy is soft like a koala bear."  He is a good cat and as many of you know he is my sidekick when it comes to battling bats.  Much to Romy's chagrin, however, over the past couple of years we have filled the vacancies left by Luke and Jackson instead of just eliminating those positions.

Eli, our huge yellow lab, came in February, 2012.  He is a great dog.  Many of you know him personally. He comes to work with me a lot of days and sleeps on the couch in my office.  A couple of years ago we got Wyatt a beta fish because we heard they were almost impossible to kill.  Well, we specialize in making the impossible possible so somehow we ended up having to flush it down the toilet.  We replaced it with several "molly" fish, most of which died fairly quickly.  One, named OJ, survived for almost a year and then got a swim bladder infection, which means he couldn't stay afloat anymore, so we had to put him out of his misery as well.  

A couple of months ago a really friendly cat started hanging out on our porch.  Of course, I ended up feeding him (Josselyn and I are the softies in our house) and he won us over so much that I gave him the name Juniper (after one of St. Francis's most beloved friars) and I took him to the vet to be vaccinated and de-flead.  We brought him into the house in hopes of incorporating him into the family.  Romy will love him just like he loved Jackson!  Not so much.  Romy had no interest in sharing his cat kingdom and Juniper started to spray in hopes of carving out some territory for himself.  Eventually we decided that Juniper was going to be our porch cat instead of an inside cat.  He stuck around for two days and then another cat chased him off.  We haven't seen Juniper in more than a month.  Hopefully he's okay.

Well, you would think that we would just leave well enough alone but then we ended up meeting a little Lab/corgi puppy that won us over with her cuteness.  We adopted her from the Humane Society via a friend and named her Daisy.  She is three months old and absolutely loves her big brother Eli (she looks like a miniature version of him) and even gets along with Romy, although Eli and Romy have never made peace. As a puppy she is a lot of fun but a lot of work too.  She's a real hoot.

Why am I sharing this?  Well, I'm sharing it because with the addition of Daisy, life with animals is on my mind.  There are advantages and disadvantages to it.  The disadvantages I have experienced are that pets are expensive (food and vet bills), they make it difficult for us to go away on vacation (who's going to watch two dogs and a cat for ten days?), and they are constantly shedding and occasionally barfing on the floor.  I understand why some people just choose not to have pets.  However, we as a family have decided that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.  Having pets allows us to give homes to animals in need (if not us, who?), to teach our kids responsibility (did you feed the dog?), and more than anything to experience the unique love that animals offer to us and receive from us.  In addition, having pets gives kids practice in grieving.  My kids grieved for Luke and Jackson.  Josselyn grieved that Juniper disappeared.  They need that practice.  You don't want a human's death to be your kid's first experience of grief.  That can be overwhelming if they've never had a taste of it before.  Overall, we feel that we are a more complete family with pets and that we are raising more responsible and more compassionate children because we have pets. I believe that caring about animals helps us to care more about human beings as well.  I really think there is a connection between the two.

No matter what you believe about the mechanics of how the world was created and whether or not it (and we) have evolved, the meaning of the Genesis accounts are the same.  God didn't have to create, but God did.  It wasn't an accident of the gods as other nations were saying.  God created everything good, not evil as other cultures were telling the Israelites.    And that God put us in charge of creation (to a certain extent) and we, of course, messed the whole thing up.  What doesn't change, however, is that we are still supposed to be stewards or caretakers of creation rather than exploiting and dominating it.  I recognize that my having two dogs and a cat is not going to save the tigers, rhinos, or polar bears.  What it does do, however, is remind me that creation includes more than just me and more than just human beings.  I am reminded everyday that God can be experienced in a purring cat and a fetching dog in addition to being experienced in a worship service (notice that I said in addition to worship rather than instead of).  My experience has been that usually (not always) animal people tend to be kinder and more generous folks in general.  They have been taught that by God's other creatures.

If you don't have pets and you can't for some reason or another and you want a little taste every now and then of life with critters, come by the manse and my pets will teach you some things.  There is no better way to learn to quit being so full of yourself than to scoop poop or clean out a cat box.  A puppy lying with her belly face up will make you stop for a second to experience love instead of busyness.  Walking a 105 pound dog who has never been trained is a stellar cardiovascular workout.  And hearing the purring of a cat in your ear on a cold, snowy morning is like a winter lullaby, singing to you, "Don't get out of bed yet.  School is closed anyway.  Just stay here."

I hope you have a great week.  Pet your furry friends for me.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Everett

Pirates and Christian Realism Part 5

If all of this makes you uncomfortable because you are uncomfortable with situational ethics, I remind you that nearly every choice we make is dependent upon context. Wisdom is not about adhering to a set of rules no matter what. Wisdom is about knowing what is appropriate at the appropriate times.  We can say that it seems wishy-washy and at risk of falling down a slippery slope, but the reality of life is that context matters.

In regard to violence, Tim Larkin, the founder of Target Focus Training (a form of self-defense that teaches you where/how to hit someone in specific places to injure someone who is trying to kill you) gives the following example of how context changes whether or not violence is evil or good (again, I'm paraphrasing). He says that if he walked up to someone at the grocery store and punched them in the liver and then stomped on their groin incapacitating them, Tim Larkin would be a violent sociopath.  Everyone agrees that would be evil.  He then says that if someone at the bar spilled beer on him and called him and his wife a bunch of expletives and then he punched that guy in the liver and then stomped on his groin incapacitating him, Tim Larkin would be a dangerous hothead and rightly incarcerated.  I think everyone still agrees that this horrible overreaction would be evil.  He then says that if Tim Larkin was in the building during the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre and had a chance to punch the murderer in the liver and then stomp on his groin, saving the lives of many more children and teachers, then what he had done would be appropriate to the situation and completely warranted. Everyone (except the murderer) would be glad that he'd done it. In the first two instances, violence was evil.  In the third instance, violence was at the very least necessary, and possibly even good in that particular situation.  I agree with Tim Larkin on that one. If--God forbid--something like that ever happens at one of our schools I pray to God there's someone in there (even a Christian!) who knows how to and is willing to use force to save my kids' lives.

The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms defines situational ethics as

the view that the rightness or wrongness of an action must be judged in relation to the particular situation or context in which it occurs.  The stress is on relationships and character rather than universal rules.  Love is primary.

A lot of Christians are uncomfortable with this, and understandably so.  After all, God's Word is eternal.  We can't just change it when we want to, when it fits our particular desires.  I wholeheartedly agree with that criticism.  Purely situational ethics would say that there is no moral absolute that we must follow.  What is moral and immoral is completely dependent upon the situation.  Judging from some of your comments to me, this is what some of you think I am assenting to.  That is not the case.  I do not think that we can follow God's Word sometimes and not at other times.  If you think that's what I'm saying, either I'm not writing it correctly or you're not reading it correctly.  What I am saying is that God's Word/Will has two layers: the Law and the ultimate higher purpose behind the Law.  Most of the times the Law adequately leads to fulfillment of the higher purpose, but in rare situations (generally life or death situations) the Law does not adequately lead to fulfillment of the higher purpose.  What I am saying is that in those very rare situations when we must choose between following the Law or fulfilling the higher purpose behind the Law, we (like Jesus) must choose the higher purpose.  So I am not saying that there is no absolute morality.  What I am saying is that the Law itself is not the absolute morality.  The Law points toward the absolute morality.  The higher purpose behind the Law is the absolute morality.  Where did I get this?  Well, from Jesus, of course.

Here is just one of many examples that show that this is how Jesus operated: the expert in the Law that approached Jesus wanted to know which of the commandments--which part of the Law--was the most important.  Jesus, however, thought differently about it.  Jesus did not respond by picking a Law but rather choosing the higher purpose to which all of the Law must point.  Here is how it reads in The Message:

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

That's a good way of putting it: pegs.  So what I am saying is that the "pegs" are absolute and never change regardless of the situation.  How we live out those "pegs" can change in different situations.  The Apostle Paul says something similar in Galatians 5.  This does not say that the Law is obsolete or unimportant.  All it says it that the Law is subservient to the higher purpose behind the Law: love God and love neighbor.  In very, very rare occasions we may have to put that which hangs on the "peg" aside in order to fulfill the purpose of the "peg" itself.

Jesus was much more interested in the "pegs" or the higher purpose (higher moral law) than in the Law.  He loved and followed the Law, but when he had to, he set particular laws aside in order to fulfill the purpose behind the Law.  The Law listed out those foods which the people of God could not eat.  Following these "kosher" laws showed that God's people were obedient to God.  However, Jesus said that it isn't what people eat that defiles a person, but what they say and do.  That is an example of Jesus caring more about the higher purpose behind the Law than the Law itself.  Paul followed suit whenever there were some who were saying that it is always absolutely wrong to eat meat that was used in the sacrifices to pagan gods.  Paul says that it depends on the situation.  As long as you understand who the one true God is and it won't bother anyone with whom you're eating then go for it.  Steak is just steak.  It is right for you to eat that meat.  It proves that you give no respect at all to pagan beliefs.  But if you're in a situation where you're eating with someone who is extremely offended by this and doesn't think Christians should ever do this then, out of respect and in hopes of keeping the peace, you should save those particular steaks for another time.  It would be wrong to eat that meat.  It shows that you don't care about the feelings of your guests.  So is it right or wrong to eat meat sacrificed to pagan gods?  Well, that depends on the situation.  What is always right is loving God and your neighbor.

When a group of men bring to Jesus the woman caught in adultery, the mob is right that the Law prescribes stoning her to death as the punishment.  That's the Law.  You can read it in Leviticus 20.  The Law is absolute and must be followed to the "T" every time, right?  Well, in this particular situation Jesus feels that mercy toward the woman, although it circumvents the Law, will better fulfill the "pegs" on which the Law hangs, will better fulfill the higher purpose behind the Law.  Jesus doesn't say the Law is bad or obsolete. He does not dismiss it, but he does set it aside in this particular situation so as to better fulfill the purpose behind the Law.  Of course, Jesus, being Savior and Lord, knows better than we do when a situation warrants that, but there are those very, very rare lifesaving times when we must discern whether it is better to follow the Law or to fulfill the higher purpose behind the Law.

Captain Phillips only does two things in the film that could be called violent.  The first is that he makes sure his crew knows that one of the pirates is bare foot so they can put down some broken glass to hurt the pirate's feet.  The plan works.  Later in the film Captain Phillips pushes that same pirate (don't feel sorry for him; he has an AK-47 pointed at someone's head) into the ocean in the middle of the night.  Eventually it is the Navy SEALS that do the violent deed of killing the pirates, but it was, after all, Captain Phillips who alerted the military of what was going on.  Again, you can't say that killing is always an evil sin and then be okay with other people doing it on your behalf.  It's not okay to hire other people to sin for you.  Captain Phillips avoided unwarranted violence but he participated in and relied upon warranted violence.  If I had a chance to prevent the machine gun toting drugged up pirates from boarding the boat at any means I'd use any of those means, and if they made it onto the boat anyway I would have no problem taking advantage of an opportunity to take down the pirates.  Is saving my own life and the lives of others from men doing evil an evil in itself?  I really have a hard time believing it is.

Here is the rub for me: things get messy when you are responsible for the lives of other human beings.  It is easy to say that violence is never okay, even in self-defense--if you're the only one who will be harmed by that stance.  It's not as easy to say that when you have a family and someone legitimately threatens the life of your family.  Just up the road in Columbus a couple of weeks ago, a single mom heard noise in her house. She awoke to find a man wearing clown mask standing over her sleeping teenage son holding a large knife. She shot the man--who turned out to be a teenager--and he died.  Is it tragic that a young person did something so frightening and violent to another human being that he ended up getting himself killed?  Yes. Did the mother commit evil in protecting her son?  Does she need to ask forgiveness for saving her son's life?  I do not believe so.  It is also easy to say that violence is never justified when you have not been given responsibility for 300 million citizens.  Part of the reason the government exists is to protect the citizens. How can you protect the citizens under your charge if violence is completely taken off the table?  When you are responsible for other people, that responsibility may sometimes make pacifism impossible.

In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson (a Presbyterian), who had held the USA out of WWI as long as he could, spoke to a joint session of congress to ask for a declaration of war against Germany, who was sinking American ships and trying to talk Mexico into declaring war on the USA, said "It is a fearful thing to lead this peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance, but the right is more precious than peace..."  The right is more precious than peace.  Well isn't peace what is right?  Well, most of the time.  But not in all situations.  Please don't get me wrong.  I do not advocate lying or violence, but I do advocate loving God and loving your neighbors and I understand that sometimes that gets messy.  I truly believe that the peacemakers are blessed.  But sometimes as faithful and diligent as peacemakers are, peace cannot be had.  It is then that the "time for peace" becomes the "time for war" as Ecclesiastes 3 describes.  Peace cannot be had at all costs because that cost is made up of the lives of others.  Violence is over all a tragic result of our sinful and fallen world.  Yet ironically, within our sinful and fallen world, I (along with Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Calvin, and Dr. Darrell Cole) believe that in very rare situations violence is sometimes converted into a good when it resists evil and protects the innocent.  I pray that I never have to use it, but if I wake up and there's someone in my house trying to harm my family I will do what needs to be done and I won't do evil so that good may come of it.  I'll do something good to protect my family from evil.

That's just my point of view.  Take it or leave it.  I know many of you are uncomfortable with these views. None of this necessarily reflects the views of First Presbyterian Church or the Presbyterian Church (USA). If nothing else, perhaps this series of posts has made you think about something you've never thought about. Those of you who know me know that I am a very peaceful person.  The movie Captain Phillips just made me wonder where the limits of my peacefulness might be.

Thanks for reading.  We'll get into some much lighter fare next week.  Maybe I'll write about our new puppy.

Peace,
Everett

Pirates and Christian Realism Part 4

Over the years, Hank Hannegraft has become famous in the world of conservative Evangelical Christians as the "Bible Answer Man" on Christian radio stations.  Some of his words serve as a very appropriate transition from last week's exploration of lying to this week's exploration of violence:

Furthermore, while the Bible never condones lying qua lying (lying for the sake of lying), it does condone lying in order to preserve a higher moral imperative. For example, Rahab purposed to deceive (the lesser moral law) in order to preserve the lives of two Jewish spies (the higher moral law). Likewise, a Christian father today should not hesitate to lie in order to protect his wife and daughters from the imminent threat of rape or murder.                                                                                                                                                                                      Finally, there is a difference between lying and not telling the truth. This is not merely a matter of semantics; it is a matter of substance. By way of analogy, there is a difference between unjustified and justified homicide. Murder is unjustified homicide and is always wrong. Not every instance of killing a person, however, is murder. Capital punishment and self-defense occasion justified homicide. Similarly, in the case of a lie (Annanias and Sapphira, Acts 5) there is an unjustified discrepancy between what you believe and what you say, and so lying is always wrong. But not telling the truth in order to preserve a higher moral law (Rahab, Joshua 2) may well be the right thing to do and thus is not actually a lie.

If you read my blog post last week you know that I agree with the "Bible Answer Man" on this subject.  I understand that some Christians don't agree--to them all lies are wrong.  I respect their opinion, but at the same time I hope that my fate is never in the hands of those Christians who would choose their own personal piety (never lying) over my life.   The same is true when it comes to Christians who are pacifists.  Good for them for having high ideals, but I hope that the safety of my family is never dependent upon them.  If--God forbid--one of my family members was in imminent danger and someone had the opportunity to keep that from happening but chose not to intervene out of Christian conviction, I would have a very difficult time understanding how they could choose their own piety over a person in desperate need. Jesus was most certainly nonviolent, but he also had a lot of harsh words for religious people who place piety over people.  Just as I refuse to say that lying is always wrong, I also refuse to say that violence is always wrong.  You don't have to agree with me but since you're reading my blog I'll assume that you are interested in me making my case.

The use of violence in the Bible paints a varied and sometimes frightening picture.  Cain killed Abel out of jealousy and was perpetually cast out.  God commanded the Israelites to completely slaughter the people of Jericho (except for Rahab who'd lied to help them).  David killed Goliath and is still celebrated for it 3,000 years later.  Ecclesiastes says, "There is a time for war and a time for peace... a time to love and a time to hate... a time to kill and a time to die."  The kingdoms of Israel and Judah are condemned by the prophets for the use of unjust violence and are also the victims of unjust violence at the hands of one imperial oppressor after another.  Jesus says, "turn the other cheek" and "love your enemies and pray for them" and "blessed are the peacemakers" but then he tells his disciples to buy swords but then he says "all who live by the sword will die by the sword." We also cannot forget that Jesus refused to resist his accusers and executioners, yet he also never criticizes soldiers for being soldiers.  The apostles welcome Cornelius (a soldier) into the church, but we have no evidence that they thought he should quit being a soldier.  Paul says, "As much as it depends on you live at peace with everyone."  So what does the Bible say about the use of violence?  That's a really hard question to answer because the Bible says a lot of different things about violence.  That's why Christians have been disagreeing on this for centuries.

As I've mentioned before, Christian pacifists claim that although there is a great deal of violence in the Bible that when Jesus comes on the scene he commands his followers not to participate (or even resist) that violence.  A Christian pacifist author named T.C. Moore says that instead of violence "the Christian response to the threats of enemies is increased trust in God.  Prayer and righteousness seem to be the only ways to ensure the safety of God's people, not weapons of war."

John Calvin, the founder of the Reformed movement that eventually spawned the Presbyterians, had a different way of looking at this, however. Whether he is right or wrong I don't know, but I think it is interesting at least to know what he had to say about it.  According to Darrell Cole, a professor at Drew University, and author of When God Says War is Right: The Christian's Perspective on When and How to Fight, 

"for Calvin, Christ's pacific nature carries little normative weight for Christians, for that pacific nature is located in Christ's priestly office of reconciliation and intercession-an office that Christians can in no way fulfill or reproduce. Christ's pacific nature-His willingness to suffer death at the hands of unjust authorities both Jewish and Roman-is inextricably tied to His role as Redeemer and is not meant to be a complete model for Christian behavior. No Christian can follow Christ as Redeemer, but all can follow Christ as One who obeys the commands of his Father."

So for Calvin, Jesus Christ had to be completely nonviolent because the role he came to play and what he came to accomplish required complete nonviolence.  After all, if we believe traditional Christian teachings, then we believe that in a very real sense Christ came to die on the cross.  Unlike your purpose and my purpose (to live to the glory of God), Jesus' purpose was to live a short life to the glory of God and then die on the cross.  His purpose required nonviolence.  According to Calvin, because--although we are his devoted followers--we do not have the same role and we cannot possibly accomplish what he did (nor do we need to since he has already done it) we are not held to the same standard of complete nonviolence. Instead we are held to the standard to live peaceful lives to the glory of God, only using violence in very rare circumstances when the good gained by that violence is worth more than the damage done.  Again, I don't know if Calvin is right or wrong, but I do know that I agree with him.

Another interesting perspective is that of Darrell Cole, whom I mentioned earlier.  I have not read his book When God Says War is Right: The Christian's Perspective on When and How to Fight yet but I plan to.   I have, however, read a lengthy article of his from the Catholic journal First Things that summarizes the thesis of his book.  I am fond of quoting Jimmy Carter in saying that war is sometimes a necessary evil, yet we must always remember that although it is sometimes necessary it is always evil.  Dr. Cole disagrees with that.  Cole says (I'm paraphrasing here) that if war (or killing) is always evil and sinful then we should never under any circumstance do it or support it being done by others.  As Paul says in Romans 3, we cannot do evil so that good may come of it and as both Paul and Peter say, "Do not return evil for evil."  So what that means is that either killing/war is always evil so we can never support it or do it or that when it absolutely must be done it is no longer evil, but in that particular rare circumstance it is a good.

Let's think about it this way: Is it evil for a police officer to shoot and kill someone carrying out a horrendous crime, let's say a school shooting?  Is it an evil for a soldier to kill a violent terrorist threatening innocent people?  If killing is always evil then it is also evil (a sin) when police officers and soldiers have to do it.  If that is the case then we are paying someone else to commit our sins/evil for us, which is not permissible for the Christian.  We cannot actively support sin/evil.  So we either need to withdraw our support from our local police force and the military or we need to recognize that sometimes (most of the time) killing is evil and sometimes (very rarely) it isn't.  Dr. Cole says (citing the just-war philosophy going back through Ambrose, Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin) that in very specific circumstance when non-violent means will not bring about the desired good, that violence (as a last resort) then becomes not a necessary evil but a necessary good.

I don't know about you (and it may not be very Christian of me), but I think it is good when a school shooter gets shot rather than him firing off another round into a five-year-old girl.  In a perfect world we wouldn't have to make that choice, but--news flash!--we don't live in a perfect world.  In that instance the school shooter's violence is evil and the SWAT team's violence is good.  Whether or not you agree with that may have to do with your Christian ideals or it may just have to do with whether or not your six-year-old son was next in line to be murdered when the SWAT team took out the murderer.  Again, I don't know what the right answer is; I just know what I think about it, which is not an anomaly within Christian thought but is based upon giants of theology such as Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin as well as my realistic projections of what I'd do in such a situation.

I'll cut this post off here and publish the rest of it next week.  Next week I'll get into the fact that although we may feel uneasy about "situational ethics" (something being good some of the time and bad some of the time) our lives are filled with situational ethics and Jesus and Paul actually practiced situational ethics at times.  It was the Pharisees (with Jesus) and the Judaizers (with Paul) who were always opposed to situational ethics, not Jesus and Paul.  Also, I promise that next week's post will actually mention Captain Phillips.