... and Who is my Neighbor? - A Thought on Immigration

It seems to me that Jesus always encourages us to look beyond the routines and boundaries of our lives.  I am often challenged by what I see.

My wife and I went to the mall a few days ago.  Perhaps I should start by saying, I really don't enjoy going to the mall.  So, to say that my wife and I went to the mall is a significant event.  Even more, we went to the mall on a Sunday.  That is an especially odd event.  Ordinarily Sunday afternoons are an attempt to follow up on some pastoral care and take some needed Sabbath respite from a long day of preaching and worship leadership.

By going to the mall on Sunday, I saw a different clientele than I see on the other occasions I am at the mall - normally my one day off, Thursdays.  What I saw were whole families enjoying the circus of activities, sights, sounds, and smells that fill the mall.

It was also clear that I was seeing people who may work six days a week and only have Sunday for their whole family together.  It was also possible that many of the people I saw were first generation residents of our nation - some may even have arrived in our land without proper documentation.

When you see children holding the hands of their parents, you see people in a different light.

Our nation is embarking afresh on a debate about immigration.  The blogosphere and airwaves are being flooded by statistics and speeches on the dynamics of immigration.  In all of this debate, I find myself considering the challenge Jesus presents.

Jesus is confronted by a clever lawyer who is seeking to justify himself in a story told by one of the gospels, Luke 10:25-27.  Jesus helps the man articulate the fact that our destiny is framed by love: the love of God and the love of neighbor.  In response, the lawyer asks a lawyerly question - "and who is my neighbor?"

In typical fashion, Jesus responds with a story.  The key to the story is found in the eyes of compassion that motivate an outsider to risk caring for a man that others neglected.

Jesus does not say at the end of the story, "the outsider is your neighbor."  Instead, Jesus asks, "who was a neighbor?"  Jesus takes the outsider - the neighbor - and makes us the outsider - a neighbor who acts with mercy.

This morning I heard a fragment of a news story while driving to work.  The subject matter was immigration. Frankly, I was tired of hearing the politicians debate and I turned off the radio before the story got very far.  But one phrase stuck with me, the policy wonk said, "we believe we should send a message," by preventing a path to citizenship.

I think I understood what he meant:  We don't want to make crime pay.  It is a crime to enter our nation without documentation.  We should not reward people who break the law.  Such people should be prosecuted and sent back across our borders.

But after my eyes saw parent and child at the mall on Sunday, I found myself pondering.  Why do people want to come to America?  How hard is it to come to our nation?  As a descendant of Norwegian immigrants, I wondered why we would want to restrict immigration.

Then I wondered, what would cause a person to risk prosecution, hardship, and the loneliness of leaving everything familiar in their family of origin for the opportunity to work 6 or 7 days a week in America?

What kind of message would realistically prevent such a person from taking the risks they currently endure in order to come to our land?

This question caused me to turn the question - not unlike the way that Jesus turned the question about neighbors.

Here is what I wondered next.  How am I called to be a neighbor for people in lands far away from mine?  How can my nation send a message of support that strengthens the health and well being of people who live in far distant lands?

The answer to both of those questions is not easy.  If it was easy, it would have been accomplished long ago.

However I believe the better answer to immigration lies not in messages of prosecution that make our nation seem smaller than we truly are.  I believe that we are required to recognize our global village is closer than ever before.  Every act we undertake to make the world more safe, healthy, transparent, and hospitable is a blessing that fulfills our destiny.

This morning I said a prayer for the families I saw at the mall.  I said a prayer for our leaders who are faced with challenging choices.  Then I said a prayer for myself, asking that God might make me a better neighbor.

... and who is my neighbor? ... Well, ... better for me to be a neighbor.

Leading as an Artisan of Time

One of the most profound dynamics of ministry lies within our structures and shaping of
time.  Read an article I wrote in 2007 for a group of colleagues reflecting on a pastor's life as measured in unites of time: Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, Years, Decades, Centuries, and Millennia.  The article is posted on my WorshipLife.Net site.  You can link to that particular article here: Leading as an Artisan of Time.

Not Only "Evangelical" or "Progressive Christian"

In the continuing taxonomy of the Church, it is a challenge to discover that the nouveau electronic council of believers - patheos.com - sticks non-Catholic Christians into one of two pots:  "Evangelical," or "Progressive Christian." How disappointing.

I suppose it makes sense according to the logic of the blogosphere, but it is a disappointing reduction for  those of us who prefer to avoid bi-polarity and seek to creatively integrate the faith from the center.  There are a growing number of us within the Church that resist the push to choose sides.

It is not easy to stand with an open hand, heart, and mind at the center when the margins increasingly push and shift the character of Christian discourse.  Not easy, because I would have to affirm the insight of Google chairman Eric Schmidt (when speaking of the Khan Academy) that the most creative ideas do not come from the center, but rather are found on the margins.  However, I think a creative challenge can be taken up by the center in the way it is attentive to the margins and sifts new insights in order to accumulate a stronger center of gravity for the faith.

This is a challenge that was named during the recent conference on history of Princeton Theological Seminary.  On the occasion of the seminary's bicentennial, leaders in the Practical Theology department wondered if the legacy of Christian leadership from a mediating center was a legacy that was faithfully worth continuing.  If it was a faithful position to continue, what would it look like?  (The legacy of Practical Theology at PTS was covered in a newly edited work by Osmer and Mikoski.)

Many in the room believed that it is a faithful effort to lead the Church from the center with an open spirit that welcomes the margins into open and discerning conversation.  This challenge at the center is complicated, however, by the fact that our world is increasingly pluralistic - and so is the nature of the Church.  (The center no longer rests - if it ever really did - between two distinct poles, but among multiple points of reference.)  It is a greater challenge to define the center of a universe that is circumscribed by a web of multiple asymmetrical points.

Yet God is good.  As complex as the world, its peoples, and the Church has become.  There still is a center to the Christian faith.  That center is rooted and grounded in Jesus Christ.

By way of example, I am grateful for those who are seeking to break down the growing dissension in the church over matters of atonement.  It seems to me that the kenosis hymn of Philippians 2 remains a helpful model.  Helpful, because it lifts up the work of Jesus Christ as an entire throughput - life, death, resurrection.  Some Christians would have us toss away the violent figure of the cross in order to focus only upon Jesus as the good teacher.  Others would leave us in a constant conversation of blood sacrifice that diminishes the wisdom of the Master.  Philippians 2 integrates the center of our faith in Jesus Christ and invites us into a new perception.

Now back to the taxonomists of the blogosphere.  It is clear that God is working a new thing in our midst.  Yet I do not believe this new thing is entirely clear for our perception.  The conversation facilitated by social media is a part of this new thing.  However, I am not convinced it is sufficiently durable to bear the weight of responsibility placed upon we who accept the charge to be the Body of Christ.

The ecumenical effort has been at work in earnest for at least three quarters of a century.  The effort was formed in an age when there were definable communities of faith marked by boundaries of tradition, practice, and belief.  In the United States we formed the National Council of Churches as one manifestation of the drive for the visible unity of the Church.  Today that manifestation of visible unity is greatly challenged by the division and confusion among established churches.

Associations of Evangelical churches (often drawn from revival practices and free church histories) have attempted to demonstrate a unity in practice and even social witness.  Yet these associations are susceptible to rapid flux due to changes in leadership and the methods of innovation they embrace.  These communities have spawned many of the young leaders creating the Emergent church movement.  This group has been innovative, insurgent, and often random in its witness.

If the formal councils of ecumenical Christianity are losing their voice (and I'm not sure that is entirely the case), then where would a seeker turn who wishes to hear a unified Christian witness?  Increasingly people find their information (and sometimes meaning) through web portals.  Thus my disappointment with the nouveau council of electronic believers.

I'm not really expecting all that much from patheos.com or other internet providers.  However, I do believe that Christian leaders need to discern a more effective means of fostering integrative, creative, holy conversations.  It may be that the National Council of Churches can reinvent itself and provide an effective forum that holds a creative center.  Quite probably God is working a new thing that we all will have to pray our way towards.

I welcome companions on the way of life at a creative and open center for the Church that is grounded in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ - the hope of the world.

New, Borrowed, or Ancient Language to share Gospel?

The book, "Unchristian" by David Kinnamon and Gabe Lyons generated a lot of conversation about why a new generation of people are not Christian.  Now Gabe Lyons has a book entitled "The Next Christians."
Take a look at the video placed onto his book promotion page and see what you think.  I wonder if he is proposing the proverbial "adaptive change" or if it is a retrenchment.  I've not read his book yet, and I'm curious to see if any of my friends have.  What do you think of the video presentation?

The How Come of Life

It would be wonderful to have some feedback about the notion I'm posting below.  I'm not owning this, but rather "tossing it out there" to see how this fits with the spiritual sensibilities of my friends.  Send me a response in an email, some social media or another, or a comment.  Thanks!

*    *    *

The great “How Come” of life is found in Jesus Christ. 

Throughout the centuries, believers have considered the cross of Christ and discovered a peace that passes understanding.  Our search for meaning in life will pass through suffering and one day we all confront our mortality.  So when a believer cries out, “how come?” it is in the "folly of the cross" that we find the wisdom of God. 

How has God come into the world?  Humbly.  Within both the essence and action of God in Jesus Christ there rests a meaning that speaks to our deepest questions about life.

How shall we come before God and others in this life?  Humbly.  Jesus humbly washed the feet of his disciples and instructed them to do the same out of love for one another.  Indeed, only through his way, his truth, and his life shall we come into the gift of eternal life. 

• In Jesus Christ, God speaks to our deep “how come?” 
• "In Jesus Christ" is the how God has come into the world. 
• In humility Jesus us taught us how to come into the presence of God and the people we encounter every day.

 © Brian R. Paulson, 2012

Love in the Beloved Community Articulated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Quotes from Dr. King -


This love might well be the salvation of our civilization.... Not through violence; not through hate; no, not even through boycotts; but through love. It is true that as we struggle for freedom in America we will have to boycott at times. But we must remember as we boycott that a boycott is not an end within itself; it is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense of superiority. But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding good will that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.


As we move in this transition from the old age into the new we will have to rise up in protest. We will have to boycott at times, but let us always remember that boycotts are not ends within themselves. A boycott is just a means to an end. A boycott is merely a means to say, `I don't like it.' It is merely a means to awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor but the end is reconciliation. The end is the creation of a beloved community. The end is the creation of a society where men will live together as brothers. An end is not retaliation but redemption. That is the end we are trying to reach. That we would bring these creative forces together we would be able to live in this new age which is destined to come. The old order is dying and the new order is being born .


I must still believe that there is something within them that can cause them one day to come to themselves (That's right, Yes) and rise up walk back up the dusty road to the father's house. (Yes) And we stand there with outstretched arms. That's the meaning of the Christian faith.... I believe that the Ku Klux Klan can be transformed into a clan for God's kingdom. (Yes) I believe that the White Citizens Council can be transformed into a Right Citizens Council. (Yes) I believe that. That's the essence of the Gospel.

 "The word segregation represents a system that is prohibitive," he told a Nashville, Tennessee, church conference in 1962; it deprives the Negro of equal access to schools, parks, restaurants, libraries and the like. Desegregation is eliminative and negative, for it simply removes these legal and social prohibitions. Integration is creative, and is therefore more profound and far-reaching than desegregation. Integration is the positive acceptance of desegregation and the welcomed participation of Negroes into the total range of human activities. Integration is genuine intergroup, interpersonal doing. Desegregation then, rightly, is only a short-range goal. Integration is the ultimate goal of our national community. What was at stake, King said, was the hope for civil community itself. "At the heart of all that civilization has meant and developed," he argued, is 'community'-the mutually cooperative and voluntary venture of man to assume a semblance of responsibility for his brother. What began as the closest answer to a desperate need for survival from the beast of prey and the danger of the jungle was the basis of present day cities and nations. Man could not have survived without the impulse which makes him the societal creature he is."

Thoughts on Equipping Leaders for the Church in a Changing World.

This morning I was stimulated by a post by Cynthia Holder Rich on equipping leaders.  What follows is largely my response to her thoughts.  (Several years ago, I wrote a short thought about the life of our seminaries called A Developing Vision of the Seminary.  I am beginning to see how far my thinking has developed!)

In an interesting way I found myself pondering two books.  One that I read a long time ago - Ed Farley's "Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education" and another book that I have been reading recently by Chris Scharen and Aana Marie Vigen entitled, "Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics". In both books, there is a sense of what my pastoral theology professor, Charlie Brown, called "the Prego principle" - after the popular spaghetti sauce. The concept is that God blesses and enriches each person with insight and imagination sufficient to strengthen the witness of the church and the work of ministry. The challenge for leaders in the church is to have developed skill in "teasing out" that which already exists within each Christian and place those gifts within a framework for faithful witness that aligns with the calling of the Church. Farley approaches the question from a theologians point of view. Scharen and Vigen draw their insights from an effective method we rarely teach in a structured way to people entering the ministry - ethnography.

I have been richly blessed by exposure to the global church and international theological education. Even more, in particular while serving in Arizona, I learned much from the immigrant communities with whom we worked as new communities emerged. Yet what I have learned is that every place has a local language that is influenced by a wide range of forces that bring change to the doorstep of every Christian at a dizzying pace.

Thus, the gift of ministry and deep spiritual reflection is now, more than ever, a requirement for all dedicated disciples. Those who will be blessed by graduate training for ministry, and the academy that provides that training, must be equipped with sufficient skills to assess the wide and various contexts in which the Gospel is proclaimed - so that the message is intelligibly received in the local language. Even more, that depth level of theological training should equip future leaders with powerful skill at listening to the lives of those they serve so each localized manifestation of witness can be nurtured and offered to God's symphony of praise in every language.

Indeed I realize that the world is now demonstrating a more diverse and rich cultural and spiritual fabric that most of us have recognized in the past.  This diversity of expression in the language of faith does not necessarily mean a fracturing of the unity of the Gospel and its witness in the Church.  What it does portend is the requirement that Christians will need to be as culturally multilingual in matters of faith as they are having to be in the global village that keeps getting smaller by the day.