Now that the nominations have been made (mostly), things are heating up. Unfortunately, the heat is on the wrong burner. As a born-and-bread Republican turned Democrat (thanks to W.) What seemed to be an election year about the fate of America’s future has been rapidly degenerating.

If its not the lunacy of conservatives who want to brand Obama as a co-conspirator with Islamic fundamentalists, its a shameless media who is now voyeuristicly obsessed with Sarah Palin…specifically her 4 month-old, and her 17 yr. old daughter.

And dare I mention the loss of one of the most passionate voices for the poor in recent decades…John Edwards. And why? Because Democrats want to run as far away from infidelity as possible thanks to Clinton.

So in a America we abandon real issues if the public voice is somehow flawed or given over to being…HUMAN! Sweet lord! Who do we think we [the public] are? Do we expect politicians to somehow meet a moral standard that we normally shrug off when its Johnny/Jenny Q. Public?

With the help of a media who salivates over juicy dirt-ridden stories, we wallow in the slop of public figures in order to stay distracted from the stinky pile of poo in our own closet. I long for a day when Americans will say enough is enough. We are neck-deep in global conflict, an energy crisis, a floundering economy, and a national loss of confidence, yet somehow we end up talking about a 17 yr. old who got pregnant out of wedlock, a man’s momentary lack of judgment, or a candidate’s non-western name!

Let me just say in defense of Sarah Palin that if she were a dude, no one would raise questions about her competency as a parent. Just as racism is still alive as regards Obama, so too is sexism as regards Palin. As technologically advanced as we are, America’s conscience is still largely dominated by a repressive, almost Medieval grasp of reality.  That is what I am sick of as a member of the voting public.

It would be nice to have an adult discourse on the issues and accept the fact that no one comes to the conversation having won the moral high-ground with an impeccable record. We all have a wealth of flaws and indiscretions, and the sooner we confess that, the sooner we can begin working on the solutions to our biggest problems.

Obama just wrapped up his speech in Denver. Here are some quotes that really struck me.

“We are better than these last eight years.”

“It’s time for them [Washington] to own their failure.”

“Our government should work for us and not against us.”

“I am my brother’s keeper, and my sister’s keeper — that’s the promise we should keep.”

“Now is the time…”

“We cannot meet 21st century challenges with a 20th century bureaucracy.”

“Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility, that’s the essence of America’s promise.”

“John McCain says he will follow Bin Laden to the gates of hell, but he won’t even follow him to the cave he’s living in.”

“The Bush White House has destroyed a legacy that Democrats and Republicans have worked to build.”

“Let us agree that patriotism has no party.”

“They [soldiers] have not served a red America or a blue America, but the United States of America.”

“What has also been lost is sense of common purpose.”

“If you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you rely on stale tactics to scare voters.”

“This election has never been about me; its about you.”

“Change does not come from Washington, it comes to Washington.”

“America, we cannot turn back.

NPR ran a story yesterday on the recent phenomenon of “crowd sourcing.” Also known as “consumer-based design.” You can, and should, read about it here.

Crowd sourcing is a new way in which businesses are cutting costs related to research and design and marketing surveys. They are giving those responsibilities to the consumer. This shift of responsibility from paid professional marketers to the general public speaks volumes about what is taking place within the culture. Two essential realities come to mind that I find fascinating as a minister.

1. People want to participate in creating something. There could be no greater news to the church than that. What this means is that the problem churches face in getting people to commit to leadership and responsibility has everything to do with what the church is asking them to do. The church’s struggle to cultivate new leadership is a result of her asking new leaders to affirm and maintain old and out-of-touch systems and structures instead of giving them the space and permission to create.

2. Leaders and communities should focus on granting permission and creating space. I have listened to many a discussion where perplexed church leaders agonize over the decline of church leadership and traditional vocational ministers. While many of them try to figure out what the problem is with young leaders, few recognize that the real issue is their own leadership along with the communal construct of leadership held by the church. Young leaders who expect to have room to participate and create most often find little to no space to do so in a traditional church system. This expectation of room or space comes by virtue of their having grown up largely in an open source world.

This notion of crowd-sourcing as it relates to communities of faith can provide some vital insight into what church leaders should consider as we experience current transitions and an emergence into a new future. Current leadership in the church, both professional and non, must first realize how it has, and is, inhibiting the emergence of new leaders by closing up creative space and withholding permission. Churches as a collective whole must recognize how they are fostering closed-communities. This involves an essential shift away from trying to place the locus of the problem on young emerging leaders. Instead, the church should be looking at the current systems in place to which young leaders are saying, “no thanks!” In a biblical sense, this involves a communal practice of confession and penitence, i.e. “a broken and contrite heart.” What the church is not realizing is that while it offers very little room or permission to young leaders, it also blames them for the church’s current leadership crisis and decline.

I need to point out as well that when I speak of permission, I am not talking about permission to serve, but permission to chose how and when to serve in a creative capacity. Churches bombard young and old leaders alike with demands to prop-up and maintain programs and structures that offer no creative space. Then when they refuse, they get self-righteously condemned for being non-commital or un-spiritual according to the given leader’s criteria. Who in their right mind wants to be hassled and then bad-mouthed? Do we really think people want to be a part of this kind of relational system?

One example comes to mind as I think about crowd sourcing and the church. The term “worship” means “the work of the people.” In most churches, however, worship is the work of paid professionals all the way from planning to performance. In this way, many a staff have closed the creative and participatory space that many young people find exciting and crucial to their involvement. Crowd sourcing seems like a new way of honoring the communal nature of worship.

I plan to spend some time imagining how the concept of crowd-sourcing would work when applied to spiritual formation within the church. Feel free to post some ideas below.

From the Sayings of the Fathers…

“There came certain folk to an old man in the Thebaid bringing with them on vexed by a devil, that the old man might heal him. And after much pleading, the old man said to the devil, ‘Go out from this that God made.’ And the devil made answer: ‘I go, but I ask thee one question, and do thou answer me: who be the goats and who the lambs?’ And the old man said, ‘The goats be such as I: but who the lambs may be, God knows.’ And hearing it, the devil cried out with a great voice, ‘Behold, because of such humbleness of thine, I go.’ And he went out that same hour.”

Reflecting on this story, this thought came to mind. The church will rid the world of devils, not in the hubris that presumes to possess God, but in the humility that confesses its true poverty.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” -Matthew 5:3

I am back from vacation and working on some sessions I have been asked to lead at St. Francis Springs here in Stoneville, NC. This week a group of clergy are there on sabbatical, and the Friar who directs the center has asked me to lead some session on “Openness to Mystery.” As I have spent some time reflecting on the topic this phrase came to mind.

“In a world being ripped apart by violent fundamentalism, the most salvific element of faith in God may very well be mystery.”

Post 9/11 America has been an age of increased fundamentalism. Fear does that to a people. It is interesting as well when you consider that fundamentalism created that fear. Its a vicious cycle. The word fundamentalism gets tossed around a lot today, often unfairly. I think Pete Rollins describes it best when he says that, “fundamentalism can be understood as a particular way of believing one’s beliefs rather referring to the actual content of one’s beliefs.” Fundamentalism describes someones posture regarding their relationship to their beliefs.

This is true all over the globe. It is why people are [and have been for centuries] willing to kill others over their beliefs. This has been a long held criticism of religion by atheists and agnostics alike…and a legitimate one at that. As a follower of Jesus, I have shared that critique. But where most look for answers and a definitive solution, I have found “answerlessness” to be the greatest weapon against fundamentalism and its corollary; violence. Let me explain.

Fundamentalism as a posture is the problem I want to address. Not the beliefs to which such a posture relates. As a Christian, I have witnessed how fundamentalism has misrepresented and sullied the reputation of my own faith. A faith whose narrative consists of the in-breaking of a kingdom of peace, reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, emancipation, and friendship. A faith whose central actor, author, architect, artist, and articulator was a man of suffering, humility, compassion, peace, and nonviolence. Fundamentalism can take something beautiful and destroy it.

I believe fundamentalism is able to creep in and take root because of the absence of mystery. Mystery loses its place as a harmonizing force within the life of faith in the presence of fear. Fear demands answers, guarantees, and precision. When we are afraid our trust wavers and we grasp at perceived securities to shore it up. In this way, fundamentalism is a willful blindness to the necessary unknowns of the life of faith. More specifically, its a willful blindness to what is necessarily mysterious about God. Consequently fundamentalism creates a false confidence based on the assumption that it possesses the truth, or possesses God. As a result, all competing truth claims become enemies and the battle lines get drawn

Mystery tells us that we cannot posses all there is concerning God. That God is so much more than religion can conceive, define, and articulate. And rightly so. If we could capture God with our concepts, God would cease to be God. Fundamentalism does not want God to be more than what it conceives and sets down by decree. In this way, fundamentalists take God captive, making God a slave to its concepts. In the same way the concepts themselves, believed to possess God, become gods…used to exact obedience, and enforce control of its subjects.

Religions becomes sick and deadly without mystery. They become drunk with their own hubris and wreak havoc upon the earth. The acute reaction against religion that seems to permeate much of postmodern culture is a protest against a way of viewing the world that arrogantly presumes to have eradicated all mystery. Most realistic people understand that no individual nor group possesses all the answers. Yet fundamentalist expressions of faith operate under such a notion.

As one who works in the context of spiritual formation, I recognize that one of our greatest protections and attractions within the life of faith is mystery. Mystery protects us from ourselves and what we will do with the power of religious narrative. It allows us to be humble and hospitable to the other who is not like us. It invites awe and wonder at something that transcends us. Mystery invites pursuit and creates a necessary insatiability for what is of God. Most of all, mystery prevents the object of our desire from being possessed, dominated, and exploited. In that way, mystery is the birthplace of right relationship to that which we long for.

Far from being a cop-out for that which we cannot explain, mystery is a catalytic element built into the fabric of the cosmos that moves image-bearing creatures forward in their evolution as co-creators, life-givers, stewards, and blessings.