Why all the Pharisee hatin'?

What's so bad about Pharisaism in the first place? These men stood for a strict interpretation of the Hebrew Law. They considered themselves the moral conscience of an ethnic group of people who dealt with unimaginable religious and social pressure from the Roman Empire at its height. They thought of themselves as the prime exemplars of how to live a holy lifestyle which would please the God of their forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Yet, the Gospels are unequivocal in their treatment of this group of the socio-religious elite. Along with the even more starch-robed scribes and other religious authorities, the Pharisees are presented as self-important, condescending snobs with no real spiritual connection to the Lord they talked about so often. The Bible doesn't just present these guys as overall well-meaning men who thought the Messiah would be 1 part Plato and 2 parts George Patton--as David 2.0--but they are shown to be a group of power-hungry and egotistical elitists who wouldn't know the Messiah if he were born with a big tattoo on his chest of the first line of Psalm 110.

Think about it: Jesus never hinted at crushing Rome's hegemony in Palestine, but he was always making the devil his punching bag in both word and deed. Consider the following dialogue from my imagination:

"OK, Pharisees, so Jesus didn't raise up a revolt against Rome, but he did raise up Lazarus from the dead in front of your very eyes. He defeated death; that's still not enough for you? Is defeating death, disease--the devil!--not a bit more significant than a coup in Jerusalem?"

"Of course," a Pharisee would undoubtedly agree. "But..."

Interestingly, John places that Bethany incident directly before the passion week experiences of Jesus, because the raising of Lazarus wasn't the last sign that the Pharisees needed to truly believe, but rather the last straw in their tolerance of this blasphemous son of a carpenter from that Podunk, meaningless town in Galilee.

And yet, even with all the negativity about the Pharisees in our Bibles, we Christians actually tend to live just like them. While we love Jesus with our words, I wonder whether or not we also love our church structures which put those with some secret knowledge of God's Word on a pedestal while the rest are simply the dull sheep. Furthermore, in this politically-obsessed culture we live in, doesn't it seem that our most influential church leaders can't keep their noses out of the muck and mire of politics? A current issue in Alabama: Christians should be against electronic bingo because it is a socially unjust vice which preys upon those who can least afford it in the name of better schools (what an incredible justification!). Pharisees are against this form of gambling because the law's protection of it signals further deterioration of our Bible Belt "Christian culture" as more of the church's dwindling authority is lost.

Many of our church leaders and congregants, like Paul, have worn the Pharisee badge with pride for far too many years without even recognizing it. In this Holy Week, I am drawn to my own need to lay aside my biblical elitism and cultural Christianity and embrace anew the radical call of our radical Messiah: take up your own cross and follow me down the Via Dolorosa.

Someone call a doctor: Is there a place for theology in the healthcare debate?

In my pastoral theology class yesterday we attempted to discuss the theological dimensions of the groundbreaking healthcare legislation which has been such a point of high contention in our nation over the past nine months or so. As our professor pointed out, evangelical leaders have been remarkably silent on this issue. Certainly we would agree that items which turn into a national obsession, prompting hours of discussion around water coolers and dinner tables, are never exempt from being brought into the pulpit, and yet we are left with deafening silence from our leaders on the theological justifications or concerns of nationalized healthcare.

Perhaps one explanation for this silence is the fear of partisan backlash from congregants or admirers. After all, I can't think of a more politically polarizing week than what we just had in this country. Every single Republican in the Congress voted against the bill the president just signed into law; if a politician supported this bill, he or she was a Democrat, and most likely not a so-called Blue Dog Democrat. Pastors and denominational leaders understandably should enter this politically and philosophically fractured debate with trepidation.

But I think more is going on here. At issue for many must be the theological tension which exists in this debate due to the biblical understanding of social justice and the hard lessons of recent human history. Church leaders must be aware of the remarkable injustice of the healthcare system as we have known it. And there must be a point at which we cringe at the avarice which was displayed by all sides of this recent debate. Whether the sticking point was our national debt, my increasing taxes, or grandpa's Medicare, greed absolutely propelled a debate which should have only been about the greater good of our society.

At the same time, we Americans who took advantage of collapsing Socialist governments of the 20th century to stake our own claim to world domination are keenly aware of what happens when society depends on government structures to do our good work for us. With a population of over 300 million, the structure necessary for a complete overhaul of medicine must have the most integrity of any social structure in history if it is to stand the test of time in any positive way. A House vote which hinged on pro-life Democrats abandoning their ethical ship in the waning moments of the 11th hour already says something damning about the integrity of this particular structure.

Consider this lengthy quote from the German theologian Helmut Thielicke:

Milan Machovec has classically described the resistance to the fall in the Marxist-Leninist system (in his “A Marxist Looks at Jesus”). As he points out, Marx and his first disciples sharply criticized the social system which left the alleviation of human suffering to private initiative and therefore to chance. Three or four generations of Socialists knew very well what G.B. Shaw portrayed in his plays, namely, that “private Samaritans” do not alter the foundations of exploitive capitalist society but simply promote the allusion of the pure and the pharisaism of the rich—a double deception which has to be radically dispelled. Socialist states, then, set up a system of social security to care for the sick and handicapped and unemployed. But how could these noble 19th century Socialists foresee that in the 20th century a situation would arise in which thousands of people would believe that official institutions alone are responsible for the needy, that the state has taken over everything, that the compassionate and self-sacrificing heart has been replaced, and that at the last resort individuals would feel no discomfort for others suffering around them? Thus the ancient egoism and cowardice and pharisaism come back in new garb. The devil cannot be banished or outplayed by institutional safeguards. The fall cannot be organized away, for it transcends organizable structures. The resistance of the bad as it occurs in a new form gives the lie to the dream that love can be institutionalized and that this institutionalization will give rise to non-alienated man.

Ultimately there is an incredible tension which we believers face between all that is right about affordable healthcare and all that is wrong about the relatively short history of government-structured socialism. This is what our intellectual and theological leaders must wrestle with in the days and years to come. One thing is certain: silence won't cut it any longer.

And I Become Another Statistic

In an attempt to join the rest of the civilized world, I have decided to start a blog. Let the record show that I actually had a blog some ten years ago, long before they were about as common as Social Security cards...but then I got bored. Nevertheless, I feel a need to have some sort of place for writing my thoughts so that future generations can laugh at my expense.

But I'll be dead by then, so ha!

Enjoy.