Author: Paul Louis Metzger

This piece was originally published at The Christian Post on June 18, 2012.

A tax exempt gospel does not mean we are offering the gospel free of charge.

I have heard Christians speak about the possibility of churches losing their tax exempt status if they do not comply with this or that social policy put in place by the U. S. federal government. I spoke recently about this concern with several friends who are Christian leaders. Their responses gave me much to ponder.

One pastor friend said, “American society has become increasingly vigilant regarding the separation of church and state. How much longer can the faith community expect to receive special tax treatment?” He and fellow leaders at his mega church have pondered that they might lose their buildings and have to become a network of house churches if they lose their tax exempt status, since they could not afford to pay the taxes on their buildings. They are not operating out of fear, but are simply seeking to prepare for this possibility.

Another pastor friend remarked that churches may have come to rely too much on their tax-exempt status and in the recent political trends have become “partners” with the government in delivering services (and sometimes messages). So, what happens if churches lose their tax exempt status? What kind of public witness will they have?

Another friend is a lawyer (this is beginning to sound like a bar joke: Two pastors, a lawyer, and a theologian walk into a bar…). He told me that there is a very slim chance that churches would ever lose their tax-exempt status. He added that it is not impossible for churches to lose their tax exempt status, supposing that the First Amendment could be overturned or radically reinterpreted by the Supreme Court (of course not by this court, nor any Supreme Court America has ever had). Unlike other non-profits, churches are protected constitutionally from being taxed by the federal government. The government would first have to take away all other non-profits’ tax exempt status (such as Mercy Corps and Art Museums), if they were to remove the constitutionally protected tax-exempt status of the church. He didn’t think there was any chance that this action would occur. As he sees it, the rich and powerful decision makers profit greatly from tax exempt organizations (such as The Gates Foundation); there is no way they would let that happen.

Whether or not the fear or concern or consideration that churches could ever lose their tax exempt status is based in reality, I still think the subject raises important questions that reflect a larger concern out of which people live. Do we seek to protect the freedom of the gospel through certain political freedoms? If churches lose their tax exempt status, or religious freedoms in various contexts, and gain instead imprisonment for disturbing the peace through civil disobedience, would it mean that we could no longer deliver the gospel free of charge? Would the gospel no longer be free, if the gospel is taxed, or if Christian leaders are imprisoned for Christian ethical stances?

I certainly champion the freedom of religious expression for all in America. Nonetheless, if for whatever reason, the church were to lose its tax exempt status, it would not mean that the church would no longer be free to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. We would be free to preach the gospel, no matter what the situation or consequences. The Apostle Paul was imprisoned for preaching the gospel in various settings. Paul was placed in chains, but the Gospel was not in chains, and Paul’s heart was free. As Paul says during his second Roman imprisonment in his swan song letter, “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained.” (2 Timothy 2:8-9) Such freedom!

Paul wrote several of his epistles from prison cells. But even when he was in chains, the gospel still went forward free of charge, and the gospel was unleashed through his imprisonment. In fact, based on what Paul writes in his letter to the church of Philippi from his prison cell during his first Roman imprisonment, it is quite possible that members of Caesar’s household came to faith through Paul’s imprisonment in Rome! (Phil. 1:12-18; 4:22) Paul’s freedom went far beyond whether or not he was in chains. His freedom also extended to finances. Paul chose not to ask for or accept money from the church in Corinth, even though it was his right to do so. He did not want anything to stand in the way of the gospel going forward unhindered (1 Corinthians 9:12). What was Paul’s payment or reward then? He tells us himself: “What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it.” (1 Corinthians 9:18)

Perhaps our tax exempt status in America has actually hurt the American church in some ways. Perhaps we have been enslaved to thinking that we need freedoms from outside to have freedoms within. But the freedom that God offers us is never dependent on whether or not this or that state grants us religious liberty. Otherwise, the church in countries that oppress the faith would always see fewer conversions. But this is not always or often the case. Many times, the gospel has spread and the church has grown most in countries where the faith has the least amount of official freedom and sanction.

Perhaps we feel as the church that we need to cultivate connections with this or that political party to advance the good news as we see it. Christian conservatives and liberals alike have been guilty of so aligning themselves with this or that candidate and party to gain influence only to end up losing influence where it mattered most. The power of the gospel is not dependent on how much favor we have with the political powers. Contrary to popular opinion in many circles, the orthodox community of the early church father Athanasius did not seek the approval of the emperor Constantine to gain influence for its theological positions over against its opponents. As one online article states, “Athanasius writes concerning this in ‘The Monks’ History of Arian Impiety’ (AD 358) saying, ‘When did a decision of the Church receive its authority from the emperor?’ and ‘never did the fathers seek the consent of the emperor for them [councilar decrees of the Church], nor did the emperor busy himself in the Church.’ He goes on to say that the heretics banded with the emperor. (See Faith of the Early Fathers, Volume I, by William Jurgens).”

Karl Barth wrote that a church that demands rights in the sphere of the state is a spiritually unfree church: “Whenever the Church has entered the political arena to fight for its claim to be given public recognition, it has always been a Church which has failed to understand the special purpose of the State, an impenitent, spiritually unfree Church.” (Karl Barth, “The Christian Community and the Civil Community,” in Against the Stream: Shorter Post-War Writings,1946-1952, ed. R. G. Smith, trans. E.M. Delecour and S. Godman {London: SCM Press, Ltd., 1954, p. 31}).

Beyond Athanasius and Barth, Jesus said we can gain the whole world and yet lose our souls: “ What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.” (Matt. 16:26-27). Jesus makes this claim to his disciples in the context of talking of his approaching passion and death in Jerusalem at the hands of the rulers. Jesus has a very clear sense that they are not in control. His Father is in control, and so he is free, even when he is bound and nailed to the cross, for he will rise again!

How does the church offer the gospel free of charge if we need to promote or protect our religious freedom and status with the powers that be? While I would hate to see churches and Christian organizations lose their tax exempt status or equivalent freedom for whatever reason, I can think of worse things, such as being spiritually imprisoned based on fears of losing political or economic influence with the fallen powers.

If our hope is in gaining power and influence in the world, we lose sight of our true hope and power and wealth in Christ. If we set our minds and hearts on gaining freedom in the political sphere, no matter how God-ordained such freedom is, we lose sight of where true freedom lies. The result is that people are not converted to freedom in Christ, but converted to a life of entitlements. We end up becoming spoiled brats and suckling babes who look to Washington or another power base to care for us, rather than the Lord. So, we may come away with a tax exempt gospel, but at what cost to our souls? A tax exempt gospel that taxes our souls and keeps us from being free to speak God’s truth in love is too great a price to pay.

I often feel a bit like Boromir in The Lord of the Rings: give me the ring of power and I will use it to bring about good. How foolish. The good will succumb to power, when power is our chief means to accomplish good. In the end, the end goal will justify any means, any use of power.

The Dark Lord forged this ring of power in secret in the fires of Mount Doom. His own identity was bound up with this ring. It controlled all other rings he forged and gave to the various races of Middle Earth. The race of men was most susceptible to his scheme, since it above all other races longed for power (it still does). Boromir belonged to men.

Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is more than a myth. Indeed, it is a myth, but not like a fairy tale. This kind of myth addresses the depths of the human situation and ultimate reality in ways that our normal and even scientific uses of language do not. Tolkien’s tale of Middle Earth is our depth-dimension story in so many ways.

The love of power always wages war with the power of love in human hearts in great myths and in real life. The good will succumb to power, when power is what drives us, even in our effort to accomplish good. What started out as a good thing—the pursuit of justice, righting wrongs, freeing Middle Earth—became a very bad thing, when in the end Boromir (and I) tried to force Frodo to give him the ring so that he could use it for good.

Boromir did not want to share life with Frodo. The fellowship of the ring existed for accomplishing the mission for Boromir, whereas for Frodo, his hobbit friends and others in the band, the mission flowed from their fellowship. Before his death at the hands of the orcs, Boromir repented of his foolishness and hardness of heart. What about you and me?

It gets so overwhelming. Large voices. Large personalities. Large platforms and campaigns. Large hurts imposed on others as the machine marches on. These orcs are breathing down our necks. What will we do? Respond in kind?

Someone recently said to me how much he longed for a Christian leader of high rank and influence to confront the fallen powers of Christian celebrity and dismantle their linguistic weapons filled with bravado and that so demeaned and destroyed men and women. When he was told to stay in close proximity to a community of hobbits and haggard wizards and warriors, he did not respond. No doubt despondent. Inefficient and ineffective and pointless, no doubt, were his silent thoughts. What good would such communion do? What was needed was power, and a lot of it. What was needed was the celebrity with the large platform, not a bunch of little people who advance through table fellowship.

But table fellowship is what is most necessary. Table fellowship centered in Christ’s sacrifice is the most impactful platform of all, in part because it is the anti-platform. The platform is often if not always ideological.

Ideology is bound up with the love of an ideal, not persons in communion sharing ideas and life together. Ideology is skinless. Ideology as mere word stands in stark contrast to the incarnate Word who puts all his skin in the game. Jesus as the Word of incarnate love risks his own life for relationship with us because of his Father’s eternal embrace and eternal sharing in the Spirit’s ring (bond) of love.

Not only must I talk this way of the fellowship of the ring, but also I must live this way. This is the way of incarnate love, not ideology. Jesus’ incarnation moves us beyond ideology. Ideology is only words, words used to “win.” It is competitive and easily threatened. The ideologue is threatened by the possibility of others’ (“untrustworthy”) ideals, and like Boromir, this mistrust inevitably leads to schism and alienation from the community. The telltale sign of ideological “blindness” is the inability to accept a loving critique from those closest to you who share your values, and who challenge you in view of your shared values. Such engagement often backfires, for the ideologue is convinced that “everything you say is wrong because I am right.”

We too often make the mistake of fighting “ideology with ideology.” In the gospel of John, we discover a new kind of engagement. Although it is as old as the incarnation itself, it is always new because we continue to need to repent and enter anew into Jesus’ life: “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14). This Word calls us to share his life with him and abide in him (John 15:4, 7). God’s Word is not ideological, but incarnational; in “becoming flesh,” the Word enters into shared existence with humanity, and thereby, into the pain of relationship. In contrast, the Saurons of this world operate only in secret and become formless.

In keeping with what was said above, ideology is ultimately fleshless—there’s no skin in the game. The ideologue will not risk shedding his own blood, sweat and tears for others, only for his ideals. He is also more than willing to sacrifice others at the altar of his ideals. In contrast, the Word made flesh lays down his own life for his friends. Love is more than an ideal; it is his life in sacrificial relation to and for the ones he loves—and even those who hate him (Romans 5:8-10).

Ideology is detached speculation that is one-sided and opaque. Ideology permits immunity for TV and YouTube personalities, videographers and bloggers, and anonymity for those who want to “snipe” away at a safe distance without risking personal engagement. Ideology also says that anyone who does not say what I want said is out to get me, not out to love me. And while consumed with larger-than-life personalities, it refuses to engage personally and vulnerably.

Those who forge rings of power (or love?) in secrecy, immunity and anonymity rather than in community are to be feared. They believe their own press, and their ideology leads to paranoia and propaganda. However, rings forged in the fires of sacrificial and loving concrete community are rings worth wearing.

Whenever, and I mean whenever, movements are no longer grounded in concrete communities centered in Christ’s sacrificial love of transparency and vulnerability, they become ideological. They become consumed by power. They will still talk a good talk. They may even believe nothing’s changed. But everything’s changed.

Mind you, not all small groups and monastic communities are shaped by love. Love is never conditional, but unconditional. It always involves give and take and open and honest sharing with loved ones who have also put all their skin in the game. As described in these terms, love is communal. It is also always missional. Love is always directed toward the other. Whether or not you agree with me, such leaders of such communities will say, “I will love you still; I will win you over to the cause which is love by the power of love, not the love of power.” This all-powerful love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres,” just like 1 Corinthians 13:7 says. It always reaches out beyond its bounds, always breaking out to include others in its community’s embrace. The fellowship of the ring went forward with the destiny of Middle Earth on hobbit-like shoulders and in their hearts and minds, even as they shared life with one another, caring sacrificially for one another. How they treated one another in their fellowship dictated how they would treat others everywhere.

There was no forging of rings in secrecy, only forged relationships in intimacy, transparency and humility honed by sacrificial love. The Dark Lord saw right through them, but couldn’t see them. He looked past them and over them over and over again. He could not imagine that the providential path chosen for the fellowship to drop the ring of power in Mordor’s flames was to be traversed by hobbit feet. Hobbit-like leaders are the only leaders who succeed Jesus’ way in the end.

What kind of leader are you? What kind of leader am I? What kind of community do you belong to? Are we forging rings of power in secrecy in the fires of (private ambition) hatred, or are we forging rings of love visible to all in the flames of intimacy? What drives you and me?

Theopolitical platforms in arenas and coliseums, viral web campaigns and other weapon systems of mass destruction aimed at the enemy can never replace warfare waged in concrete community of fiery and sacrificial love. In fact, they can never equal their import as they continue to export good will here and abroad. They may even destroy the communities from which they emerged and those which they seek to help. They don’t listen. They just speak. They don’t sit down for dinner to dialogue with those they serve. They go to fix problems, not share life with those they serve, failing to be healed relationally in the process. They grab dinner on the run and run over people in the process—here and abroad. Eventually, they spin out, crash, and burn, just like the colonies they created.

No wonder Boromir died. While Gandalf died before him, he died for his friends, whereas Boromir died for a distant and possibly faceless cause and ideal. I am not sure what ultimately made possible Gandalf’s rising again: maybe it’s because he laid down his life for his friends.

If we are to take the ring to Mordor and drop it in the fires of Mount Doom, we will need to move beyond nameless fears and faceless loves to loving faces with names, fearing anything that would stand in the way, even a noble and good cause.

I am thankful to the New Wine, New Wineskins community. This community of friends hold me accountable—otherwise, I would give in to my Boromir ways even more than I already do! New Wine wizards, warriors and hobbits (including Chris Laird who offered invaluable input in the writing of this piece in between various drafts and first and second breakfasts), are wonderful fellow travelers. Thank you, New Wine!

 

Cross-posted on Consuming Jesus.

 

There is a great deal of talk about production and consumption in American society today. Such talk is found inside the American church as well. In fact, a noted pastor has called on men to be real men by moving from being consumers to being producers. Whether we are talking about men or women, we need to move beyond thinking of humans as mere producers and consumers and approach human identity and the church in communal terms. So, instead of separating people into classes such as producers and consumers, we must encourage everyone to move toward being “communers.”

 

Of course, we consume even as we produce, and everyone produces and consumes in some manner. However, we must never reduce our communal identity as humans and as the church to acts of production and consumption. Why? I maintain that the Bible teaches that we are created in the image of the triune God who creates us as an overflow of holy, loving communion; God’s purpose is to create and, after the fall, to transform us so that we can share in the glory of this loving, holy communion in the divine life for all eternity (Gen. 1:26-27; Jn. 17). Creation and production are not the ultimate categories. They point beyond themselves to something even more profound—communion with God and one another.

 

Another reason why we must speak in more communal terms rather than reductionistic terms involving mere production and consumption is that the latter categorization scheme leads to a bifurcation of humanity. When we move from communer categories to producer and consumer divisions we destroy the possibility of experiencing profound relationality. Relationality always involves reciprocity and mutuality. It is never unidirectional.

 

I will offer three examples of how this bifurcation affects us. If, for example, we define noble people as those who produce, it leads to a devaluing of those who consume their products. Related to this point, don’t producers need consumers to consume what they produce? Does that not entail the need for fostering at least two classes of people? The producers—the elect or naturally selected by their own survival instincts—will “enslave” or at least corral others to be consumers so that they can make their own election or natural selection sure. In the church culture today, there is at times a tendency to identify entrepreneurial creativity with a greater sense of personal worth and identity. Many Evangelicals rightly challenge consumerist tendencies and greed, but our production proclivities can still enforce an “us” and “them” mindset: those who produce the best justice packages for those in need of food and other necessities should not be seen as having the most worth; as important as these justice entrepreneurs are, we all have worth as we share life and resources with one another. We all have something to offer when we view matters relationally. Those who have the least “stuff” often have the most to teach us relationally, for they have learned the secret of the meaning to life: the fullness of life is experienced not in the abundance of possessions, but in the abundance of communal presence.

 

Besides noting the problem of enforcing and reinforcing two classes of people by way of productivity, we can easily move in the opposite direction by promoting a state of affairs where those who consume the most win. This problem often has economic as well as ethnic dimensions. The developed world—which generally is very white—consumes an inordinate percentage of the world’s resources, while the non-white developing world with its human and natural resources is used increasingly as the field to produce the goods for these enlightened, developed world consumers.

 

Beyond considering class and race issues, we must also account for matters of gender. If women stay home, that does not mean they aren’t producing. While husbands may be the breadwinners in some homes, they are not alone in cultivating family life. To many people, housewives and househusbands do not appear to contribute to the bottom line, if we think simply in production and consumption categories. But when we think communally, we find that breadwinners in families are not the only ones producing. It is much more constructive to think in terms of sharing. From the standpoint of sharing, everyone is needed—husbands, wives, and children. Everyone matters because everyone shares in communal life together.

 

We do not exist because we think, produce, or consume. We exist ultimately because we are loved by God. God calls us to be communers—to respond to God’s love by loving God and others in return (Mk. 12:30-31). As we move toward viewing life and people in communal terms, it will have a profound bearing on how we approach a variety of subjects. Most importantly, it will help us move from treating other people as objects, and see them as human subjects who really matter.

Cross-posted on Consuming Jesus.

Back in May of this past year, I posted on Facebook and wrote, “A sobering, disturbing, significant article. While gentrification is a complex reality, we must work diligently to partner with vulnerable communities so that they are not displaced/replaced.”  The article itself begins with the words, “Portland, already the whitest major city in the country, has become whiter at its core even as surrounding areas have grown more diverse…Nearly 10,000 people of color, mostly African Americans, also moved out. They moved to the city’s eastern edges, where sidewalks, grocery stores and access to public transit is limited.”

One of my Facebook friends wrote, “Help me understand what white people are doing wrong, Paul. (I don’t like looking at things with ‘color’ in mind to begin with—isn’t this more a basic issue of economics?) If they move out to the suburbs it’s bad. If they live in the inner city it’s bad. What is the problem and what solutions do you propose?”  These are great questions.

I intended to respond in May, but then my Dad passed away.  I have not had the opportunity or emotional strength to write this piece until now.  I would like to begin with remarks made by Paul Kurth, who also wrote me in May in response to my post.  Paul is a designer at a Portland architecture firm.  Paul argued, “Architecturally, the city is an evolving organism and must change to survive—some buildings and neighborhoods get worn out and need to be fixed, but after reconstruction the neighborhood isn’t the same because it’s hard to make new buildings affordable without subsidies. Good city planning mixes uses and income levels. Affordable housing should be built alongside the more expensive homes. The segregation of higher income areas (the Pearl District) isn’t helping to ease economic tensions/imbalance. It’s up to the people who have the means and choice to make changes to integrate their own lives with people who are different than themselves and don’t have many choices.”

Sometimes we don’t determine to integrate our lives with people who are different because of lack of bandwidth and/or interest.  Sometimes we aren’t even aware of gentrification’s evolution and negative impact on some vulnerable (yet resilient) communities.  But if we are really about community, we must be diligent to diversify.  While people are often well-intentioned who claim that we should not look at things with color in mind, the lack of awareness of color is problematic for various reasons.  For one, we are not color blind; nor should we be.  Attention to color is attentiveness to the richness of cultural diversity.  Moreover, we often associate with those who are most like us.  So, if we are not intentional, we will not engage those who are of different ethnic backgrounds, especially when they belong to a different economic demographic.  And in America, race and class issues often track with one another historically and presently.  While I appreciate people’s desire to be color blind in the sense of not prejudging people, we must be intentional and see people for who they are in the fullness of their ethnic and cultural identity, including the color of their skin, though not exclusively so.  Moreover, given how racial profiling often occurs today in unimaginable ways (such as the racial profiling of a student I know in Portland by a white police officer last spring), we would be blind to injustices if we sought to be blind to matters pertaining to the color of one’s skin.

Back to my Facebook friend’s concerns.  I have no problem with people of diverse ethnicities moving into or out of Portland’s heart.  What I have problems with is when it is against their will.  There used to be a thriving African American community in what is now the Rose Quarter.  Then the community was displaced to Northeast Portland as a result of city planning endeavors.  I doubt if city planners would ever restructure thriving affluent communities on the Northwest side of town for whatever the reason, if such restructuring would threaten to displace them.  Given the recent migration of young Bohemians with bistros and art studios to Northeast Portland, African Americans living there have been displaced to places like Gresham and Beaverton.

My friend Robert Wall, a former Portland government official, reflects on Portland’s patterns of gentrification: “In most of these cases the driving force is the planning process without the incentives to remain.  I find it interesting that in almost every redevelopment there are huge profits made. Most of these profits are funded by the set aside tax dollars paid by the land owners prior to the redevelopment. So, in part we have a planning problem and a greed problem that adds up to racial discrimination. It used to be called red-lining. Now it’s mainly green-lining (of someone else’s pocket).”  Mr. Wall maintains that whenever a few people benefit economically from decisions that they know negatively impact many, it is greed.  Doesn’t that sound like greed to you?

The African American church has been significantly impacted by this trend.  So, what can be done?

Sister churches of diverse ethnicity can partner with them to minister effectively in their increasingly diverse context by working with African American pastors and congregations to reach out in these increasingly diverse settings.  This may include doing service projects together in the community, or sending a team of people to the churches in the historically African American community who would become members of those African American churches.

Moreover, one can work with one’s neighbors to keep the community intact.  A friend of mine who lives in Northeast Portland worked with his neighbors to make sure that one family would not have to move when the cost of living and taxes rose.  That family switched houses with another family: the family who could no longer afford their house moved into their neighbors’ house that was more affordable, and those neighbors moved into theirs, which they were able to afford.  While this is not often possible for a variety of reasons, it became reality for this neighborhood.

It is also important to be in contact with one’s city commissioner and one’s neighborhood association, advocating for equality and diversity.  When neighbors partner together in this way, the possibility exists that unjust forms of gentrification will occur less often.

It is also critical that we make ourselves aware of past and present tensions.  One reason why Portland’s central city is so white is because it was intended to be so historically, as one African American pastor reasoned with me recently.  A friend who teaches urban studies at a local university informed me that for many African Americans urban renewal is Negro removal.  He often cites the expansion of Emmanuel Hospital in the 1970s as one such example (See discussion on this expansion and its impact).  Moreover, red lining along with city developments historically in thriving African American sections of town along with laws on the books in Oregon and Portland in days gone by certainly made it extremely difficult for African Americans to live in Portland and Oregon generally.  The impact of those decisions is still felt in the city, even though those laws are no longer in place.  With this long-standing impact in mind, we need to restructure our laws and neighborhoods so that people of diverse ethnicities will feel more welcome and their businesses can survive and thrive. (See one recent proposal).  Cities and states offer such benefits for thriving companies to move to their regions.  The same kinds of incentives should be offered to those communities and businesses that have been impacted negatively from various forms of gentrification and urban renewal.  While some might take the following statement by an African American business woman in Northeast Portland for sour grapes, I take it to be more in keeping with what occurred to the migrants in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, albeit in a less overt and more subtle manner: “A black person’s property has no value until a white person owns it.”  It’s so easy to try and deny her view when one is white.  But one cannot deny her experience, if one has not lived in her shoes.

This point on experience and interpretation of events also calls to mind the statement made at a public gathering in one Northeast Portland neighborhood a few years ago.  A group of young white business owners of cafes and bistros and other such shops were meeting to protest the impending attempt of Starbucks to enter the neighborhood.  Those gathered there were recent transplants, and they were afraid that Starbucks would hurt their businesses.  It was almost as if they were saying, “A small business owner’s property has no value until Starbucks owns it.”  One African American man standing in the back during the gathering finally spoke up and said something to the effect, “To the traditional community (African American), you are the Starbucks.”  So, it is.  I often am.  So, now that I know that I am will I become more sensitive, as Starbucks has been known to do in many cases, or will I keep on pouring lattes laced with opium for the masses?