Here We Go Again

Well, the Anglicans among you already know what happened on Saturday. Or, if you just read a Newspaper. Or Twitter. Or breathe. The Diocese of Los Angeles has elected The Rev. Mary Douglas Glasspool to be its suffragen bishop. Mary is a partnered lesbian, in case you missed it.

I've only met her once and don't really have a position. Personally, I think they should have elected my friend Zelda Kennedy (she ran a distant third), but what do I know? I can say Mary ran ahead of her opponent, a Latino male, but it was a horse race. From what I can tell, Mary also speaks Spanish, though, as her name suggests, she is not herself a Latina.

I should also add that the diocese actually elected two people to fill two Episcopal positions. The Rev. Diane Jardine Bruce was elected bishop on Friday (She speaks Spanish and Cantonese). So if things go as planned, the diocese will have two female bishops. And just in case the language confuses you, a suffragen bishop is an assistant bishop who does not automatically become the diocesan (head) bishop of the diocese in the event of the death, resignation, or retirement of the current diocesan bishop. Last, you need to know that this election is only part of the process. Mother Glasspool must now be approved by a majority of the sitting diocesan bishops and of the Standing Committees of the 110 dioceses of the Episcopal Church. That will take a few months, and in this case, several will say no on the path to making that happen. She most likely will be approved, but it will take more time than is typical.

Whew! That's just the preliminaries. Officially, the Episcopal Church is under a moratorium from any more gay or lesbian bishop ordinations. However, at last summer's General Convention, we also said that we would not stop the ordination of someone who was duly elected through our exhaustive (my word) process, regardless of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, etc.

Well, ++Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was not pleased, and it did not take long for him to say so. "The election of Mary Glasspool by the Diocese of Los Angeles as suffragan bishop-elect raises very serious questions not just for the Episcopal Church and its place in the Anglican Communion, but for the Communion as a whole.... The bishops of the Communion have collectively acknowledged that a period of gracious restraint in respect of actions which are contrary to the mind of the Communion is necessary if our bonds of mutual affection are to hold."

It would be easy to take him seriously if not for one little thing. As fast as he was able to get this to the press, that's how slow he has been in responding to the Rt. Rev. Joseph Abura of Karamoja Diocese, Province of the Anglican Church of Uganda, who wrote an op ed piece for Spero News to show his support for a new bill in Uganda to allow the death penalty for homosexuality.

Let me say that again, just in case you missed it: ++Rowan Williams has said not a word about a bishop advocating death for gay people, but has the time to comment on an election that he admits is not even finished. Is there something wrong here?

You bet there is. And right now, Anglicans all over the world are starting to say to hell with you ++. Throw us out. See if we care. But that's the only way you're getting rid of us, because you are in serious need of reform and repentance, not us. You've missed the big picture here.

Yes, this is something new. But so was worshiping in English. And abolishing slavery. And allowing remarriage. And ordaining women (Britain was slow to move on that one too). And maybe, just maybe, if you'd get quiet when we talk for a change, you could hear the Holy Spirit blowing through, upsetting a few money tables, and creating something new.

But, in the meantime, don't go looking for our money. Or Canada's. We'll just find local partners who have some sanity in their thinking to work through. We're not going away buddy, but we'll be damned if we're going to sit around and support such hypocrisy through non-action. Are we all of one mind on this? Of course not. But, as an African American, I am glad we did not wait until we were of one mind on that slavery issue.

And those ACNA people? They'll be gone soon too. There really are not that many of them, and one of you bishops who have accepted them will soon find out you do not have the stamina to keep supporting this group of dissidents. After all, if they cannot find a suitable home in the Episcopal Church--about the biggest tent out there--what makes you think they will be happy when you decide to issue an order or two and expect them to obey it?

The bottom line is this ++Rowan: if you have nothing to say to Joseph Abura, then you have nothing to say to us either. Go away and pray for awhile. Then try to come back and actually be a leader instead of a piss poor reactionary. For now, though, we don't trust you.

Fruitcake and Other Deep Thoughts

Been a little busy lately, but I will soon get back to blogging. In the meantime, just a few unrelated thoughts. If you are looking for something vaguely religious here, don't bother:

1) The world's best fruitcake recipe.

I'm actually one of those people who likes good fruitcake. Unfortunately, that is pretty much impossible to buy. You have to make it. I have a chocolate fruitcake recipe that takes a month and a half to fix that starts with "soak the fruit in a bottle of whiskey for a week." How could you go wrong after that?

But for the rest of you, here's a recipe you definitely want to try. Well, at least you definitely want to read it. I am not the origin of this one:

Classic Fruit Cake Recipe
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ingredients:
- One cup of water
- One cup of sugar
- four large brown eggs
- Two cups of mixed dried fruit
- One teaspoon salt
- One cup brown sugar
- Juice of one lemon
- One cup of coarsely chopped nuts
- One bottle of whiskey

Instructions:

Sample the whiskey to check for quality.

Take a large bowl. Check whiskey again. To be sure it's the highest
quality, pour one level cup and drink. Repeat.

Turn on the electric mixer, beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar and beat again.

Make sure the whiskey is still okay. Cry another tup. Turn off the mixer.
Beat two leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit. Mix
on the tuner. If the fired druit gets stuck in the beaterers, pry it loose
with a drewscriver.

Sample the whiskey to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift two cups of salt. Or something. Who cares? Check the whiskey, darn good whiskey. Now sift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Spoon. Of sugar or something. Whatever you can find.

Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin to 350 degrees. Don't forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out of the window. Whew, check that whiskey again and go to bed.

Who the hell likes fruitcake anyway?

2)Whatever happened to quality control?

The SIMS 3: World Adventures is an expansion pack to one of the best selling PC video games of all times. It came out this week. Word has it that the program freezes up on Windows 7 computers.

My question is,"How could anyone make such a big cluster**** as to release a game without testing it on Windows 7? I have to admit to being a SIMS fan (yes, I know that sounds bizaare) but even I have to jump ship on this!

3) H1N1 Redux

What else is there to say? The swine flu is apparently waning--though I would not be surprised if next week they told us it was coming back--and life goes on. Some people died, just as they do with the flue every year. A whole bunch of people were afraid of the vaccine. Congress bitched in August because they did not think the vaccine was getting properly tested, that it was being rushed. Congress bitched when it did not come out as fast as it was supposed to. Congress blamed the president for not being in the lab every day testing the vaccine. The liars bitched because Obama was not vaccinating his kids (A lie. They had already gotten shots before the rumor was even started). And now it's waning before millions could even get the shots.

I hope somebody is studying why this went the way it did. A milder than normal flu that was off season got more attention than the seasonal one that will probably kill more people world wide. At every step we second guessed ourselves. And still virtually nothing went right. There has to be a lesson here.

In the meantime, can we please put clergy on the list with health care professionals for people to get these vaccines in the future (and Mall Santas too). We work with sick people, and, let's face it, between the peace and communion, we are on the front lines.

Not that it matters if you are on the list. My doctors are still waiting for their shots, and I got one by being on a college campus. Hmmm....what's wrong with this picture?

4)Aren't we lucky?

My local newspaper has just informed us that we will be getting the Thanksgiving edition of the paper even if we do not normally get the weekday edition. As they put it, it is one of their largest editions of the year, with some carriers delivering it in two installments on Wednesday and Thursday.

Wrong. This is not a newspaper, but a circular. The paper is crammed with black Friday ads. The actual news is, as you would expect, almost non-existent (the normal state of my local paper lately). If you, like me, have no intention of entering a mall on Friday, this is nothing more than the most colossal waste of paper for the year. And you have to call them to let them know you do not wish to receive it. And we wonder why the newspaper business is dying....

5) The chief theologian in my house, my dog Andy, is lying on the sofa with the sun beaming down on him. At least one of us knows how to take sabbath time....

Heretics Here, Heretics There, Heretics Everywhere

I just had another conversation with one of my heretical college students. At least he thinks he's a heretic. I'm not so sure. In fact, I would definitely say that what he is is a thinking person who looks at some of the most outrageous claims of Christianity with more than a bit of skepticism. In other words, he's a young man who is realizing that he is allowed to think about religion, not just accept it.

In this particular case, the issue was the divinity of Jesus. Right now, his working ideas are that there was nothing more divine about Jesus than the rest of us, but Jesus lived it more perfectly than we do. If you applied Occam's Razor to the question of Jesus' divinity, this is probably the answer you should get. Or maybe that the story has been written leaving out the parts that show Jesus was just another schmo. After all, how many people do you know who have trouble with the idea that Jesus pooped?

I pointed out to him that the problem with a statement like "fully God and fully human" is that anything that follows it will almost inevitably err by emphasizing one over the other. Before that, though, I asked about his understanding of the Trinity, since, without a divine Christ, that scheme rather falls apart.

It was a great conversation that took detours through the creeds, the Holy Spirit and ended up in the power of story telling (It all made sense. You had to be there.), which included a discussion of sacraments as essentially story telling events. If we had had time, I would have suggested that Christianity is essentially a life story that Christians are called to align their own stories with. There are, in fact, other life stories (e.g., other religious traditions, the American story, etc.) that people do the same thing with. What makes us Christians is that we believe Christ's story is one we should align our lives with. And obviously, other people have some thoughts about this too.

It was one of those wonderful conversations that inspire people to become college chaplains. So why am I pissed off?

Well, largely it has to do with the fact that this bright, clever student who is working with issues I never began to think about when I was his age is having to fight against everything he has been raised with just to say these things. And he was brought up in the Episcopal Church no less, a church that prides itself on offering space to explore what you believe. So instead of learning that it is perfectly okay to wrestle with these questions--that this is a part of developing a mature faith--he has learned that he has to declare himself a heretic to think these things. And instead of spending our time together with me helping him to look at his beliefs, I had to spend half the time giving him permission to believe these things.

I don't know what this student will end up believing about Christ's divinity. If I were forced to bet on it, I'd guess he will be fairly orthodox in his beliefs before it is all over. But that's not really all that important. The Christian faith can only be faith if we are allowed to hold it, mold it, question it, turn it inside out, and even spit on it now and then as we continually try to grasp it (which is, in itself, an impossible task). But we're too afraid to let that happen. So instead, we make the creeds into the door keepers of theology rather than the open doors that take us a whole myriad of places. And we scare our kids against exploration of anything that might mean they occasionally step off the narrow path.

Except the narrow path thus defined is actually reduced to the dividing line on a super highway. And it you step off the line, you will get hit by a speed demon ready to destroy your life. Sorry, but there should be a lot more wiggle room out there than that.

Why am I so angry about this? Because this is not the only student I have who thinks he's a heretic. And I have one who is afraid to read the Bible because of the problems she has with the things other people have told her it says.

What they are all saying is that they want a place where they can explore what they believe without getting beat up for believing the wrong things. Where I come from, that is what a church is supposed to be. But, oops, these folks all come out of churches and are seeing that they have to leave, at least for awhile, if they want the chance to explore.

These should be the leaders of my ministry. But only one of them is even coming. They will talk to me, but they have been too burned to be able to take leadership in a church where they think they are only recognized as believing or unbelieving. And that is just too sad for words.

Sad too is the fact the the above named 'heretic' is simultaneously wrestling with whether or not he is called to ordination. Talk about a straitjacket! How can he even begin to approach that issue when he is still looking to be accepted as is, questions and all? And, yes, for the record, I realize that some of the roadblocks might be self imposed as his unrecognized way of avoiding the call to ordination. Except he's not the only one, just the one I had lunch with today.

So why do so many young people leave the Church during college? We think it has to do with churches not knowing how to provide activities for them. But I think it is much deeper than that. We lose them because, at this time when they are questioning, there is no theological place for them. We can stop worrying about the young singles events; make space for a little heterodoxical thought. You know, it might just challenge the way we think too. But that's what we are really afraid of, isn't it?

Desperate Churchwives

Okay, besides reading it in this morning's paper, I have now seen three Facebook links in reference to the statement by the Roman Catholic Church about their now having a regularized process for accepting Anglicans who wish to transfer their membership. First, a few facts:

1) No one leaving us and going to Rome is converting. Both groups claim to be Christians, so any transfers are just that, not conversions to another religion. Want proof? They will not be re-baptized. You see, the funny thing is, Romans, like Anglicans, believe that God baptizes people, and we both assume he does not occasionally just screw it up. Nor does he have two different bodies to be baptized into. There are a few fundys out there who need to get a coherent theology on this one.

2) Rome has been accepting married male Anglican clergy since shortly after we began ordaining women. Funny thing is that they do re-ordain. That alone would be enough of an insult to my orders that I would have to decline.

3) Laypeople wanting to join the Roman Church have been able to approach a parish and ask to do so for centuries. Basically ever since there was an Anglican Church, we could join. The Roman Catholic Church has never been a closed system, despite the peculiar ways people write about this so-called new event.

4) What is new is that these folks will be able to retain some pieces of liturgical life from Anglicanism. I have not seen exactly what the guidelines are, but this seems an odd capitulation to me. Just how many exceptions is Rome going to offer to Anglicans to (apparently) entice us? Me, I want a better paycheck before we can even begin the negotiations.

5) Most people who leave the Anglican communion would be hard pressed to join a denomination that demands obedience to many more doctrinal statements than Anglicanism ever gave them. After all, they are leaving us because they feel they are being forced to accept things they don't like. We'll see how much they are ready to practice the rhythm method of birth control.

6) If a congregation votes to leave the Episcopal Church and join Rome, they will have to do it without their property, which belongs to the diocese. With the current exception of Virginia (stay tuned) every time the taking of property has been sought in courts, eventually the courts have said the property belongs to us. So do not look for that beautiful Gothic Episcopal Church downtown to be flying a Roman flag too quickly, unless we choose to sell it to them.

7. All of the dioceses (4 at last count) that have voted to leave the Episcopal Church have chosen to go join other parts of the Anglican Communion. On a large scale, people are not interested in leaving Anglicanism, just a couple of things they disagree with in the American Church (which isn't entirely American--even in the broad sense--but we will leave that for another day).

8. The Episcopal Church did not actually say anything different last summer at its General Convention. We said we would follow our previously written rules about ordinations and we said we would study same-sex marriages, unions, etc. Oh, and we would allow for generous pastoral latitude around the marriage issue (including allowing more conservative bishops to do parish visitations if wanted). I have read several times how we are developing liturgies for same sex marriages; it simply is not true. If you want to complain, go read what the Lutherans did!

9. And by the way, the doors swing in both directions. Lots of folk coming our way because of our stances on women and gays, on divorce, and because we took steps two decades ago to stem the tide of child abuse and sexual predators.

So what did Rome actually do? They wrote a policy manual, apparently. Before, Anglicans who wanted to transfer were treated individually, so what one was required to do in Richmond could be completely different from what they had to do in Baltimore. Now, the bureaucracy has taken over. One small step for a (Ro)man, one giant leap for paperwork.

Do we like it? no, of course not, if for no other reason than the glee with which it sometimes seems a few Roman Catholic officials are doing these things. But will I lose much sleep over it? Not a chance. The reality is that we are both Christian denominations who happen to disagree on a few things, perhaps most importantly on how one offers dissent from official doctrine. And every person who leaves us for Rome makes it easier for us to go forward with the Gospel as we have received it.

But God bless those who stick around. The worst thing that could happen to us would be if we had no dissent. That is the easiest way to get off track. Differing understandings of God's Word demand that everyone become sharper theologically because we have to justify our stances. If we should ever lose that, it will be a sad day.

For Anglicans, worship is theology and vice versa. As long as we can come to the table together, we can co-exist. It is sad that is not to be for some right now, but one day, we will bring the kingdom fully into being through the grace of God, and all this foolishness will be over. And we will really come to understand that God loves all of us.

On Evangelism, U2 Style

Okay, I went to the U2 concert Saturday night. I was a newbie, and now I am writing the required blog to gush about it. If you don't believe it is required, just go the Sojourners website and catch Jim Wallis' blog about taking his son. Of course, I did not have the lighting manager hear about me being there and seeking me out in the crowd. Ah well.... Oh, and good luck getting off of the Sojourners email list once you sign up.

Anyway, the really frustrating thing about writing about U2 concerts is that everything that all those other people have written about them is true. Yes, it is a fantastic concert. Yes, the sound system is amazing (for $25 million, it should be. And there are 3 of them floating around the country because they take so long to put up and take down.). Yes the visuals were spectacular. Yes, the political message was well handled; as an Episcopalian, I loved seeing Desmond Tutu talking about the One Campaign. Yes, I was moved when Bono brought the young boy up on the stage and ran around the outer circle before giving him his sunglasses (I admit, I would have been happy to be that boy, and even happier to be going to school on Monday wearing the glasses!).

And yes, without calling it this, they created church. Thousands of people all tuned to one wavelength and feeling both transformed and transformational. Not bad, especially since half of them don't even realize that that was what they were doing.

So what do I write, other than I get why people are willing to pay for the tickets and know I will do it again? Heck, I seriously toyed with cutting out of work and driving to Atlanta to see them tonight!

How about this? Can the rest of you so-called evangelists hitting us over the head with Jesus and the Bible take a cue from these guys? No, you don't have to be incredibly talented and the biggest band in the world to spread the gospel. But you also don't have to guilt people, shame them, or bore them to death to make your point. What might help is if you showed some genuine joy and enthusiasm about how your relationship with Jesus is changing your life rather than just telling us about it with stern or angry looks on your face.

I know Bono and friends are Christians. Only an idiot has missed that piece of information by now. I can read their lyrics or hear Bono's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. I recognize biblical quotes in the lyrics that show they really have read more of the Bible than a few pithy lines lifted from the Gospels. See where their money is going (e.g., carbon offsets for the eco-damage of the set). The thing that oozes out of them though is that there actually is some attempt to live as Christians going on here.

Are they perfect at it? Of course not. Could one argue that the extravagance of the rock star life is goes against the very idea? You could make that case, arguably. But then they have never set themselves up as model Christians. In fact, they do one of the evangelical no nos, which is to admit to their imperfections--without getting caught. (Have you listened to "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"? A great song about being believers but still struggling with what that means.)

More than anything, they present themselves as works in progress. They never claim to be saved; their salvation is being worked out, through the grace of God, every day in their lives; it's not some sort of static event.

Oddly enough a whole lot of people who will never enter our Churches are finding a lot in this that attracts them. If they got this same attitude from the Christians they meet, maybe they would be ready to explore faith with you. Too often, we ask, no, demand vulnerability from people joining the church ("Confess your sins!"), but show none of it in return, wearing the armor of salvation against the seekers as if they are the enemy.

Three years into this campus ministry business, I keep finding myself in a recurring conversation with students. It starts with a sentence like "I think I am called to ordination except I don't think the Church will accept some of my views. I think I am a heretic." What this usually means is that someone in their local parish (that is, some clergy or church school teacher) has manages to create a wonderful box for Jesus, and now the student is starting to see God outside of that box and getting afraid of the implicactions about what they thought they knew.

Now, if that is the message we are spreading to people feeling a spiritual pull towards God, what are the others getting? For the record, I have heard a few challenging statements, but only one that might even remotely qualify as heretical. You would be surprised at the relief these conversations offer to the students. People what are we doing??!!! No excommunications so far, much less burnings at the stake.

So, yes, I paid out my $100 for the show, and got no promises that my wealth would increase, my arthritis would be healed, or my soul mate would come to church next week and we would start a spiritually deep but chaste relationship. And for that money, I got a great musical show. And I also got an invitation to join something wonderful. For a couple of hours, I was able to go into my spiritual self, not pushed but given permission in the form of a very attractive invitation. And I did not have to pass the tests, learn the order of service, juggle the hymnals, or put fake contact information in the visitors book. Can your last visitors say the same thing?

And, yes, I'll do it again. And the left side of my brain will probably try to look at how they do it. But I'll bet the right side will take over and just let me experience the moment, rather than analyze it. Hope to see you there. And you will just have to live with the cheesy U2 quotes as updates on my Facebook page for awhile.

Why Civility Matters

Well, by now a thousand pundits have weighed in on the apparent loss of manners in our nation; their discussions go all the way back to the beginning of August with the shouting matches at town hall meetings on health care. It's good to know just how civil we were being up until that point.

Okay, maybe cynicism is not the chief stance to be taken here. Of course the crudeness in this country started way before the town hall meetings. And while there is clear evidence that some of the behavior was being pushed by people with strong interests in killing any health care reform, it must also be fairly stated that a lot of the anger is genuinely felt by people who are afraid they will lose some of what they have.

Nevertheless, we should stop and consider the consequences of all this rudeness, no matter where it comes from. What really matters is that, in almost every form of public life, we have somehow decided that this is okay. Heck, we almost expect it from our athletes instead of canceling their shoe endorsements and suspending them from play; at least Serena lost the match for her stupidity. How many stupid statements does Kanye West have to make before we stop buying his music, cancel his recording contract and tell him to go away somewhere and grow up? And when a congressman thinks that an interruption of an internationally televised speech by the head of state is only offending the president and not his colleagues (much less the American people), we should not be giving millions of dollars to his campaign; we should be ashamed.

But look, I would not be jumping on the civility bandwagon except for one thing, and sadly, it is something I predicted which has now come to pass in at least one instance. All of this indignation is coming from people who believe, on some level, that they are entitled to some privilege and that it is being disrespected or taken away from them. They are scared, and they are lashing out. I am sorry that you thought you deserved something that many in our nation were not getting in the first place. Maybe you did deserve it, but not as your exclusive right.

But back to the point. What this behavioral response to our national sense of privilege has done is to let everyone know that interruptions and verbal attacks are an okay response to anything we do not like. And the next step from that is, as I predicted, violence. There have already been reports of people being hurt at the town hall meetings (hope they already had health insurance!). But let me tell you what the next step is by mentioning a couple of incidents at Guilford College last week. This is quoted from a text sent out from the college:

On Monday, September 14 a student informed Residence Life and Public Safety that a note was left on his Bryan Hall room door the prior evening containing the following message: "Die you MF fag. Nobody wants your kind on campus.” On Thursday, September 17, at approximately 11:30 pm someone dropped a rock and a note in the same student’s open, residence hall room window. This note contained the following message: “I hope it hit you in the [f---ing] head faggot. You don’t deserve life like the rest of the world. It’s bad enough with out all the gay crap pulling people down. It’s sick, unnatural, and death is almost too good for you. Almost.”

This is what happens when we tell everyone that it is okay to say whatever you want, do whatever you want, and let everyone know how much you disagree with them in whatever fashion you deem appropriate. Needless to say, Guilford, a Quaker tradition school known for an activist student body and much tolerance and acceptance is shocked, especially given that it would have been almost impossible for an outsider to have committed these acts. But that is who we are becoming as a nation.

What is worse to me is that most of the people committing those earlier seemingly harmless verbal sparrings (unlike this particular incident, which is being treated as a criminal offense) would likely tell you they are Christian conservatives. So I have one thing to say to them. Go read the fourth and fifth chapters of the letter of James.

James has a lot to say about unbridled tongues, and it boils down to this: shut them! And then he has a lot to say about God's wisdom versus that of the world. God's wisdom is gentle and promotes unity. The world's wisdom is brutal, violent, divisive. Any of that sound familiar?

I could call the Guilford incident an unfortunate but rare occurrence, but I bet we will see a whole lot more of them around the country in the coming weeks and months. And why shouldn't we? This is exactly what we have been giving the okay to.

Right now, someone is about to go off about the first amendment and freedom of speech. Well besides the fact that there are limits even on that freedom, this is not about what is lawful, but what is right. And it is time we stopped confusing those two. An act being lawful does not equate with it being the right thing to do. There are times when shouting and interrupting is appropriate. But sorry, folks, Kanye West was not fighting Bull Connor for the right to vote; Taylor Swift was hardly denying him anything (By the way, to clear the record, Beyonce was not even nominated in the category that Swift won). And immature minds are learning from you.

Pray for our nation. Pray that we learn to bridle our tongues. And pray for the students, faculty, and staff of Guilford College, especially Wednesday night at 7:00pm, as they hold a vigil. And it you happen to live in Greensboro,....

Most especially, pray for whoever did this that they can get past their fear and learn a new way to deal with difference in their midst. Because, while I wish they would get past the homophobia, I'll settle right now for civility because those with whom we disagree still deserve to be treated like human beings.

Who Cares About Health Care?

Yeah, I know. Like you really need to read something else about health care right now. What more is there to say?

Well, how about this. There is no right to health care. That's it. Now, let me add a few things to that statement, so that you can see what I really mean.

One of the things the good Alasdair McIntyre's book After Virtue managed to instill in me while I was in graduate school was the reality that rights are arbitrary concepts, not intrinsic or even God given. We may wish they were, but the reality of our world is that most things that we call rights today were not only not rights that people had in past centuries but were in fact, explicitly not something people believed they could expect. Life belonged to the master or the Lord or the king. Liberty was something that slaves dreamed of, serfs could not imagine, and free men struggled with unless they had a trade or money. And the pursuit of happiness: forget about it. You were happy to survive.

No, most of the things we call rights only exist for us because we as a society declare them to be rights. And if we look beyond our won country, we can see that we often do not agree about what should be a right. The right to a multi-party system of voting? Ha! The right to keep property you own unless a legal process takes it for public necessity and even then pays fair market value for it? Even the citizens of Connecticut can tell you about that one. The right to an education? Ask girls in small Pakistan villages about that one (This is where I make a cheap plug for Greg Mortensen's book, Three Cups of Tea) .

So, no we do not have a right to health care. People in Canada or France or Switzerland might be able to claim they have a right to it, but we in the States do not. In fact, it is fair to say that we do not yet even believe it should be a right (though there is a growing consensus slowly starting to emerge). If we did, the only discussion we would be having is how to make it happen, not whether we should change what we have or not.

What we have now is a health care system based on capitalism, in which care is a commodity to be purchased. If you have money, you get better care than if you do not. We believe in the freedom to pursue health care, but we do believe in the right to actually have it.

So while we debate whether the Obama plan is a good one, we are missing the point. Until and unless we reach a national consensus that it is a good thing to make sure that we all have health care, we will tinker with a corrupt and over bloated system, in which your doctor has three people working to cover the insurance payment system (three people you are paying for in copayments and premiums), and enormous profits are being made by a very small group of people based on the idea that they deserve to get rich off of you being sick.

Sadly the biggest thing blocking us from doing something about all this is our own fears and selfishness. Let's face it: very few of us are holding up the torch for the insurance companies. Most of us detest these death dealers with as much passion as we love our partners or our favorite sports team. Just look at the faces of people as they go to make a co-payment and you will realize I am telling the truth. We do not go through this system willingly.

But evoke the notion of socialism and you can create hysteria on the level of McCarthyism. Why that works with Christians I do not know. Doesn't Acts describe the early Chrisitans as pooling their resources and giving to each as had need. Now that's socialism! All we want is one standard of care for everyone. Is that too much to ask?

But between the socialist bogeyman and the oft-repeated fear that somehow my personal insurance is going to get worse under health care reform, and we reject it out of hand. Throw in a few non-existent death panels, a near hysterical Sarah Palin (I can see her hospital from my back window), and a slow summer characterized mostly by Wacko Jacko's death, and you have a bit of insanity where we can't even agree in principle that some kind of health care reform is a good thing a right even.

Now, of course we need to continue crafting and refining the appropriate laws. For example, it should be clear that individuals who want to keep their current insurance should be able to. And there are certainly a hundred other things that must be tweaked in the bill. But really, folks, it is time to get this done. We blew it in 1993, and look how long it has taken to get it back on the table. We can't wait that long again.

And yes, McIntyre is right. Thank you Stanley Hauerwas for pointing that out to me. Rights, are, in fact arbitrary and can be changed at any time.

So I am declaring that I believe health care should be a right in this country and be treated as such, not as if it is a luxury, which is what we are doing now. Only when we are willing to make that bold claim will we stop being guided by the bottom line. Only then will the question be "How will we pay for it?", not "Will we pay for it?"

And it some insurance company stops making billions of profit and some other low level workers have go get new jobs (assuming we will, in fact, pull out of this recession), so be it. What we have now provides the worst care in the First World and costs twice as much. Think of how much good work for the environment that money could buy.