Some Questions about AI in an Aristotelian Ethical Frame

 

To begin with here are two definitions of Artificial Intelligence from the ELCA’s Corporate Social Responsibility Issue Paper:

“AI is generally considered to be a discipline of computer science that is aimed at developing machines and systems that can carry out tasks considered to require human intelligence.”

“AI refers to the theory and development of computer systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as speech recognition, decision-making, and pattern identification. AI encompasses a broad spectrum of capabilities, from mimicking human actions and thought processes to acting and thinking rationally.” 

               What follows are some thoughts using my stripped-down version of Aristotelian Ethics—Glasses, Hammer, Map. This framework asks three basic questions: Where are we? What tools do we have? Where are we going?

 

Glasses—Where are we currently at as a society in relation to AI?

Congregational Use of AI:

What are legitimate things an ELCA congregation should use AI for? What church officer functions should AI augment, or even replace? What are the consequences for a congregation relationally, legally, ethically?

Preaching and AI:

The temptation to claim other people’s sermons as our own has been out there forever. With the advent of the internet finishing a sermon is always a google search away, if the pastor is not diligent and faithful. Now with AI, a few prompts can produce a completely “original” sermon.

With any sort of homiletic plagiarism, there are the questions of contextuality and authenticity, as well as the tinge of lying and theft. In this instance there is always the weirdness of a simulacrum of a preacher speaking to real people. What is alive? What is true? What parts of the testimony are the preacher’s own faith and their witness to the gospel?

Loneliness:

There is a whole cadre of people who use AI chat-bots as everything from: a boredom pacifier, confessor, substitute child or spouse and lover, to a sort of substitute god—an omnipresent omnipotent creature who cares even if no one else does. Meta offers AI friends and there is talk of feeding the memories of dead loved ones into AI as an artificial resurrection. What does the church say about these things? How do we sing a more beautiful song than the Sirens’ song of artificial companionship?

Education:

What’s already going on sounds like a dystopia to me. Whole academic cycles of AI writing college students’ papers and professors grading them using AI. How can AI help learning happen and how does it become an impediment?

Copyright:

              A while back I was informed of an incident where a Seminarian turned in an AI written bible study as if it was their own work. What got stranger still was the AI had done much the same, it had simply copied and pasted one of my bible studies that I put up on this blog and claimed it whole clothe as an AI created bible study. Imagine that, a giant multination company poured billions of dollars into a thinking machine, and all the machine could think to do was plagiarize little old me! This odd experience of mine can’t be an isolated incident. How ought our society manage AI’s acts of “borrowing” from actual living breathing humans?

Jobs:

              Recently Zillow laid off 25% of its employees, replacing them with AI. From what I’ve heard that is the tip of the iceberg. The numbers I see thrown around regularly is that about 20% of people younger than me will be unable to have a job on account of AI… we should maybe have a plan for that.

The Environment:

              It’s hard to imagine, but one of the selling points for AI was that it would be connected to electric grids and the like, and manage energy use in a way that would lead to conservation, reduction of CO2 emissions, and lower electric bills for everyone. So far that hasn’t happened. Instead, Google, who initially promised to be emissions free due to AI’s brilliance, has increased their emissions by 50% due to AI use. If AI is sucking up water and power resources to such an extent that it is noticeable on everyone’s electric bills, and there is talk of AI droughts… maybe we name no-go boundaries for resource use by these machines.

Deep Fakes:

              It is important to name that falsifying images of other people, and whole videos, is a violation of the 8^th commandment. If I can not tell the difference between my neighbor saying something on a video chat and it coming from a digital doppelganger, that’s a problem; that’s a truth problem!

Built in Bias:

              There have been instances of hiring AI discriminating against women when hiring for engineering and other “technical” jobs and discriminating against men for nursing jobs. There have also been instance of security video monitoring AI flagging black people as shoplifters, even as they are in the act of paying for items. AI tends to take human biases and explode them into hard and fast laws coded in ones and zeros. Perhaps the Lutheran paradigm of Law and Gospel has something to say about the creation of Frankenstein Laws out of Dr. Frankenstein’s biases?

Plausible Deniability for Illegal Activity:

              AI has been used to skirt and break laws. For example, an insurance company denied 300,000 claims in a minute using AI. The particular denial of claim action was one that had to be analyzed and signed off by a doctor, the AI was not a doctor. Likewise, landlords have been caught using AI to collude about rent prices. Law enforcement agencies are hesitant to prosecute these types of cases because AI makes everything technical and complicated.

General Discomfort:

When trying to figure out the landscape of the AI world it is worth noticing that a good number of people who are directly involved with AI are sending up alarming warnings about AI developing interests that diverge from humanity’s, ways of communicating beyond human understanding, and means of “escaping” their current digital habitats… perhaps a bit of caution is in order.

In general, it is worth asking: Have we already reached a tipping point where we can’t go back due to national security concerns? If so, how did we allow this to happen?

 

Hammer—What tools do we have to deal with AI?

Halting all AI research:

Simply put, we could decide AI is an immoral and overly dangerous tool, and advocate for all companies to cease any further advancement of AI technology. The main push back to this idea is that less moral companies or countries will leapfrog those who do not use AI, and non-AI using countries, companies, and people will be left on the ash heap of history.

Install “throttles” on all AI:

              If one of the dangers is that AI will become uncontrollable by humans, why not install a kill switch, so AI doesn’t kill us?

Regulating AI nationally:

              What if AI companies had to be transparent about when AI was part of a process and reveal, at least in a general sense, what their algorithms were being trained on? What if they had to name who was responsible when AI hurts someone? What if there was a government agency that oversaw AI development and gamed out unintended consequences? What if companies had to offer human alternatives? What if we wrote laws that addressed how AI interacts with remote facial recognition, insurance and credit, child sexual abuse, deep fakes, artistic integrity, and copyright?

Compensation and retraining of workers:

              If AI is going to shrink our work force by 20%, what do we do with those people? How should workers who lose their jobs on account of AI be treated? What sort of jobs should they be doing? Should jobs no longer be something humans aspire to (and yet we know there is a dignity to labor)? Are we talking Universal Basic Income for the 30 to 60 million Americans who are going to be out of a job?

For that matter, how do we compensate people whose work was used to train AI? If big tech companies are going to claim authors' works as their own, lifting upwards of 70% of their work word for word, shouldn’t they be compensated for that?

Push for global treaties around AI

              If AI is the new nuclear power, and that includes weaponization of AI, shouldn’t existing international treaties take it into account? For example, might we want to ban fully autonomous military weapons?

For that matter, if AI is a potential threat (or boon!) to everyone on the globe, shouldn’t everyone on the globe have a say in our fate and future?

Carbon-neutral pledges:

              Some AI companies made carbon-neutral pledges around their AI work… and they’ve not kept them. Should those pledges be enforced somehow? Similarly, what if AI companies had to report their water use and net carbon emissions? How much does an AI data center damage our planet?

Transparency reports:

              What might it look like if there was a consumer protection website that described the ways different companies are using AI? For example, if my car insurance company was tracking my driving via AI derived data from facial recognition software, I might look for a new insurance company.

Human Rights impact assessments:

              What if we had concrete data on what AI is doing to human quality of life? What if we knew what targeted ads do to people’s behavior patterns? What if it was taboo for AI companies to work with authoritarian governments?

 

Map—What are our goals for AI?

              Because AI is versatile, ubiquitous, and in its infancy, now is the time to ask, what do we hope to do with AI? What are our goals for it? Where are we going with it? If there is no plan, anything is possible.

What is our goal for AI? Is it to eliminate all entry-level white-collar jobs? Is it for intellectual property theft by proxy? Is it a coding tool? Is it a union busting device? Is it an educational tool? Is it a digital parent or romantic partner? Is it a taxi driver? Is it a medical diagnostic tool? Is it an electronic day trader? Is it a replacement for human relationships writ large? Is it a digital slave? Is it a replacement for humans? Is it a replacement for CEOs? Is it a steroid for economic growth? Is it a dead man’s switch for nuclear weapons? Are we trying to create an electronic god? Is it clippy? What exactly are we planning to do with AI?

Are we creating an idol?

              In the crassest sense, AI can function like a god. We ask it questions as at Delphi; we conceptualize it as containing near infinite knowledge with an astonishingly long reach. In an emergency, or when we are at our wits end, we might turn to AI for a way out.

              More in keeping with our confessions, idols are those things that we put our trust in, that are not God. There are surely reasons to be in awe of AI, to appreciate AI, and find it reliable. How very dangerous that is!

Are we creating a human-ish entity?

              Perhaps we’re not shooting for heaven, but instead Eden. If AI is to be a silicon life form, not unlike a human being, there are some big questions we should be asking. Broadly speaking, where is the line between the co-creation that is a creative tending of the garden, and when are we clothing ourselves with naked vanity and eating the apple?

              Additionally, have we thought through what the existence of non-human non-biological people will mean to the dignity of being human beings? How will AI-people shape how we understand humans, will we look and see the image of God, or a caricature image of ourselves reflected back at us?

If it is a tool, what sort of tool, what sort of work?

              As with most tools, AI can be used for tremendous good or tremendous ill. Fire can cook a meal or burn down a village. Nuclear power can provide electricity to a whole city or obliterate that same city… or even the world.

Hopes:

              In a world with simply too much information, AI can be a tool to sift through it all. This could be a boon to interdisciplinary work, scientific research, the creation of new drugs. Perhaps it can streamline medical services, workplace efficiency, and energy grids. Access to healthcare and education could be transformed by AI.

Worries:

              If war is something that must always be mourned—as the ELCA’s Social Statement says—what happens when thinking machines make decisions about war? How might AI algorithms curtail freedom of thought and freedom of expression? Facial recognition software already has some sinister racial biases, that software is AI’s “eyes” so will these tools be racist? If AI can sift through so much information that it can track individuals, what will the use of these tools do to the right to privacy? How are we going to deal with Copyright when everything has been fed into the mind of AI? When AI makes mistakes and it threatens, or even takes, a human life, who is libel and who is responsible for fixing that in the future? What will we do about criminal use of AI?

In general, new tools always have social and cultural consequences. AI will have much the same. I don’t think we’re anywhere near ready for them.

 

Conclusion:

              Advances in AI are already way ahead of our society’s ability to come to grips with the technology. Most people look at the changes brought by AI that are already here and choose to simply brace themselves and looking for something to hold onto. We’re behaving as if AI is an unstoppable force as inevitable as the seasons.

There are ways to manage AI, everything from particular types of consumer or governmental reporting to international treaties to a luddite reaction of just pulling the plug on everything. Recently we’ve chosen no regulation of AI, going so far as to nullify state laws around AI. There will be consequences for that.

Because of a largely hands off, Laissez-faire, approach to AI, we’re very unclear about goals for AI. They are purposefully opaque. There are clearly amazing possibilities, but also the danger of creating monsters.

Just War: Venezuela

              Upon waking up to news about our attack on Venezuela, images played on repeat of massive explosions and burnt out Venezuelan military vehicles, and reports of their president and first lady, the Maduros, capture… with militias gathering up for reprisals and other South American countries activating their militaries, I went back and looked at previous pastoral letters I’ve written, one from when it looked like President Obama was about to invade Syria because they used chemical weapons, and another after the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani in the first Trump Administration.

              I started those letters with words that loom large in my heart today as well. Kyrie Eleison—Lord have mercy.

              Kyrie Eleison… This is how we start our opening prayer to God in worship—the start of the prayer, in which we pray for peace from above and for our salvation—peace for the whole world.

              And I would ask that you take a moment to pray this prayer from our Hymnal:     

“Gracious God, grant peace among nations. Cleanse from our own hearts the seeds of strife: greed and envy, harsh misunderstandings and ill will, fear and desire for revenge. Make us quick to welcome ventures in cooperation among the peoples of the world, so that there may be woven the fabric of a common good too strong to be torn by the evil hands of war. In the time of opportunity, make us be diligent; and in the time of peril, let not our courage fail; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

              Now, our present moment is a little different from the two previous times I responded with pastoral letters, as there is a quasi-policing veneer to last night’s attacks, the situation has been escalating for months, and there is a sense (incorrect I believe) that what happened last night ends things. Our killing of Soleimani didn’t stop attacks on US soldiers in the Middle East or our bombing of Iran a few years later. Likewise, our inaction in Syria festered for a decade until Assad was deposed by his own people. As someone who studied the history of war as an undergraduate, I would point to that truism that every soldier can quote by van Moltke, “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Engaging in battle has a force to it, choosing to fight innately radicalizes the goals of those who go to war—if you give a general a cookie, he’ll keep the tanks moving. Additionally, war tends to reshape national identities in unexpected ways.

              And our faith has something to say about such things. For two thousand years we Christians have been struggling with being faithful in the world as it is, in situations of persecution, famine, feast, might, and war. And those struggles have given us a rich tradition of thought and action, something much deeper than the knee-jerk reactions of TV pundits and political intellectuals.

              In the early days of the Church, Christians were known for being pacifists. In fact, the Society of Friends (Quakers) and Mennonites still are pacifists, they see refusing to go to war as a witness to the world that the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, reigns. Other Christians, such as us Lutherans, follow a tradition that includes Just War Theory, “which requires certain conditions to be met before the use of military force is considered morally right. 

These principles are:

1.      A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.

2.      A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.

3.      A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.

4.      A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.

5.      The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.

6.      The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.

7.      The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.”

              Additionally, this Church, the ELCA, in 1995, created a document “For Peace in God’s World” which particularized our understanding of Just War Theory to the challenges of the 20^th and 21^st century. Here are a few stand out statements:

            “Wars, both between and within states, represent a horrendous failure of politics. The evil of war is especially evident in the number of children and other noncombatants who suffer and die.”

            “Helping the neighbor in need may require protecting innocent people from injustice and aggression. While we support the use of nonviolent measures, there may be no other way to offer protection in some circumstances than by restraining forcibly those harming the innocent. We do not, then--for the sake of the neighbor--rule out possible support for the use of military force. We must determine in particular circumstances whether or not military action is the lesser evil.”

            “From the posture of the just/unjust war tradition, the aim of all politics is peace. Any political activity that involves coercion should be held accountable to just/unjust war principles. They are important for evaluating movements, sanctions, embargoes, boycotts, trade policies to reward or punish, and other coercive but nonviolent measures.”

            And finally, and most solemn, "Any decision for war must be a mournful one."

            And so, I conclude this letter as I did the last two, Kyrie Eleison.

Smart People, Wise Faith

              Every year I try to do one bible study that is intentionally challenging for my folk, a bible study that will stretch ‘em. This year I did one I call “Smart People, Wise Faith”. I figured I’d share a long form version of it with my readers, as they might want to be stretched in similar ways.

              At base, Smart People, Wise Faith is a smorgasbord of theologians, giving people a taste of 15 different thinkers. I frame each session with a different way of interacting with a bridge (for example crossing or rebuilding) and connect those actions with a scripture or two.

              The whole project is a little convoluted, but with it I’m able to offer a table full of theological tapas, a varied tasting of Christian thinkers. Below is the menu for each session:

1.      CrossingBridges (Preaching)
-Barbara Brown Taylor, Paul Scott Wilson, and Luther

2.      TheDivide (Existentialism and Neo-Orthodoxy)
-Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Tillich, and Barth

3.      Burning Bridges (Post-Modernity)
-Descartes and John Caputo

4.      Bridgingthe Gap (Race)
-Isaac Asimov, Howard Thurman and Cornel West

5.      RebuildingBridges (Theology of Crisis)
-Augustine, Simone Weil and Chris Halverson

If you found this Bible Study Series helpful in your ministry or faith life, consider tipping me $1 to $5 through Buy Me A Coffee.

Review of "What Are We Doing Here?" by Marilynne Robinson

What Are We Doing Here? by Marilynne Robinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I want to give this book 5 stars--it is well worth reading, full stop... but it is mainly a series of lectures, and as such it becomes repetitive (I read most of the book in 2 sittings on an airplane).
What follows are the major themes that are continually touched on an weaved together is beautiful ways.
-We choose not to know much about Puritans, who shaped our world in incredibly important ways that we ought to investigate.
-We ignore the connections between the American Revolution and the reign of Oliver Cromwell at our peril (in fact O.C. may explain the red state blue state divide).
-The gaps in knowledge in modern America is like the gap between matter and dark matter.
-Conservative Christianity violates many of the tenets of Christianity.
-Aesthetic is a valuable ethical norm.
-When science is reductionist it debases humanity, especially when popular science is an excuse for obliterating the idea of conscience.


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A Reading of the Apostle Paul

Pre-Damascus Paul: “I have everything figured out. There is an answer to any question under the sun within my rigorous version of the Jewish tradition—it is all found in the Law of God. This certainty is worth defending, even with torture, violence, and murder. 

For example, these so called “Followers of the Way” believe Jesus to be the Messiah, the blessed one of God. That can’t be true, for it is written in Deuteronomy 21:23: “All who die upon a tree are cursed.” (Deut. 21:23) So Jesus can’t be God’s Blessed One, for he died accursed. The Way must be destroyed by all means necessary!”

Post-Damascus Paul: “The risen Jesus revealed himself to me… he is the Blessed One of God! I misread the Law… I got it wrong… What if the Law itself got it wrong? In light of Jesus, can the Law be a meaningful category, does it have any power? 

My God… this is a whole new world—none of the categories work… this Jesus stuff is God’s invasion of the world… a new age… the start of God making all things new… what does this mean?”

Paul after reflecting upon all these things for a while: “It seems that the old world that is dying away was filled with duality and division. All categories and powers both Jewish and Pagan (wait… those two categories even no longer work! Holy Cow!) are being pulled apart and put together again in a new way! Free/Slave, Jew/Greek, Man/Woman, Flesh/Body… even my beloved Lawful/Unlawful those are old and passing away! 

All the categories were infected with the parasite Sin and Death… even my beloved Law was infected—a good thing used to a bad end… all people signed themselves over to Sin as slaves. 

But now Sin and Death are defeated by Christ. The slave contract is only valid with living people, but people died with Christ, and are resurrected into a new contract—adoption papers into God’s household. 

As for all the powers and categories of the world—they are being filled with Spirit instead of Sin… The Spirit of God replaces and scrambles all those other categories; Spirit of Christ/Spirit of the Old Age is really the only question we have to ask. Jew/Greek, who cares, the question is Spirit of Christ/Spirit of the Old Age? I have to spread this news by all means necessary! We’ll form communities to live reconciled lives together in the Spirit and that will help reform the Powers of the old age for when God brings about the Age of Christ. It is here and it is coming soon!

Paul having to deal with people: 

“Jewish Christians are insisting male Gentile Christians need to cut off the tip of their penises? Those who say that might as well cut the whole thing off.” (Galatians 5)

“Gentile Christians think a new age means they no longer need to honor the marriages they had in the Old Age and are marrying their mothers? That’s not what I meant at all!” (1 Corinthians 5)

“At communion rich Christians are eating fine food while the poor eat a little wafer and go hungry? How does that reflect the Spirit of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 11)

              “A Free Christian owns a slave who converted to Christianity… I’ll use Greek Rhetoric to shame him into freeing him… there is no way later Christians could misinterpret what I’m saying and justify slavery... I mean the New Age of Christ will be here any minute.” (Philemon)

              “Everyone is getting so caught up in Spirit that you are interrupting one another and women are speaking… this is disgraceful.” (1 Corinthians 14)

A Review of "The Gospel of John: Church and Culture in Conflict"

The Gospel of John: Church and Culture in Conflict by Gregg Knepp
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Five Big Stars!!!
Disclaimer—I served under Pastor Gregg as a Vicar at St. John’s Pimlico, so I’m biased.
I can’t say enough good things about Pastor Gregg’s book “The Gospel of John: Church and Culture in Conflict”.
This book reads the Gospel of John in light of Pastor Gregg’s experiences as, essentially, a Lutheran Human Shield in El Salvador, his time serving at St. John’s in NW Baltimore, and his experience as a parent of both biological and adopted kids. This book will give you an “in” into the head and heart of a very faithful Pastor.
I first read it devotionally, it reminded me of why I got into this business in the first place, the nuances of faith lived in the world as it is, it both convicted me and convinced me to be a better Pastor of the congregation I serve.
I am now using it as the main resource for a bible study on the Gospel of John. It is really helpful. I’ve been looking at scripture with this same crew of people every Thursday for 6 years, and Pastor Gregg’s book has brought us to a much deeper place of discussion than we’ve ever been at!
So, if you are clergy in need of a rerooting of your ministry, buy this book. If you are leading a Bible Study or book club, or want to, buy this book. For that matter, if you’re a skeptic or burnt out on church and church folk—this book is the real deal, not going to say it’ll convert you, but it’ll remind you why Christianity and Christian ain’t all bad, in fact at our best we’re pretty damn good!


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Four Theses on Grace

1. Grace is not fire Insurance

a. The Pastoral concern about Indulgences.

b. Grace can be heard as “fire insurance.”

c. Modern people worry more about meaning than death.

2. Grace is not material blessing

a. Some fill this meaning void by preaching material prosperity.

b. This has consequences as serious as the sale of Indulgences.

c. The way of the cross and the testimony of the martyrs deny this understanding.

3. Grace gives life true meaning

a. We live our whole lives in response to the gift of Grace.

b. Grace is costly.

4. God acts, what are you going to do about it?

Nadia Bolz-Weber=Joe Biden: A Review of Accidental Saints

            Nadia’s latest book Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People begins with her discovering Alma White, a woman church planter in Denver from 1901. Nadia thinks “Gee (okay, it’s Nadia so her internal monologue probably begins with something stronger than“Gee”) a female church planter in Denver from way back… an old version of me… maybe old Alma is someone I could see as a role model and/or hero!” When she looks up Alma she finds out the lady was a bigot, and not just a little bit. Yet, Nadia realizes God used Alma for the Gospel despite her faults (side note, here is a good critical reading of this portion of Accidental Saints). God made her an accidental saint, because it’s God’s righteousness that makes us saints, not any of our own work. Accidental Saints takes a look at a few of those unlikely sinners God has grasped and sanctified, those Accidental Saints…

            …Hold up, you say. A review is great, but what’s up with your title? Were you just trolling Nadia (maybe a little)? Does Nadia=Joe mean something?

            Nadia, as she herself admits, is a biographical preacher and writer; she “preaches from her scars.” Nothing too strange there, it is often said Pastors preach to themselves first… it’s a thing we do. That said, she has a unique biography and a unique call as Pastor of The House For All Sinners and Saints (HFASS), and such a beautifully unique voice as a writer, that her words just bleed authenticity!

            So too, Joe Biden is so authentic that excess authenticity sloshes around in his shoes. You could hear it slurping around his toes the other night on Cobert. In a political field where people like Bush, Cruz and Clinton are so very calculated, the laughing, smiling, Irish mom quoting, biography laden, Biden is so clearly cut from a different cloth.

            The brilliance of Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People comes from Nadia’s authenticity; it’s brilliant in the same way Biden was brilliant in the Vice Presidential Debate, his authenticity, he wasn’t afraid to be Biden. Nadia’s personality, her Lutheran sensibilities, and her pastoral identity, all combine to make Accidental Saints a good read.

Personality

            Nadia is plenty aware of her new found stardom as the face of hip/relevant Lutheranism. In a chapter entitled “Whale Spit in the Superdome” she describes feeling unprepared to preach to a bunch of teens, especially since she’d become “What middle-aged people think teenagers” think is cool. This is so true, the Nadia effect in the ELCA can be border on embarrassing. I know of a Pastor who faced a call committee that insisted, if he wanted the job, he had to get a tattoo in order to “do that thing Nadia is doing.”

            Another very revealing moment is from the chapter entitled “The Lame” where Nadia notes that many people who show up at HFASS aren’t cool, they’re broken people, and she worries she’s not attracting people like her… then she realizes she is… that she’s not cool, that her tattooed bad ass exterior hides a bug-eyed hurting kid inside.

As a heart surgery scarred little boy who was always the new kids in school who has a propensity to hide behind words and degrees, this chapter above all the others, moved me! “The Lame” is worth the price of admission by itself.

Lutheran

            My initial tweet/facebook post about the book was that Accidental Saints is so Lutheran it made me cry (well that and “The Lame” chapter). Part of this is that we Lutherans don’t have a lot of voices in the mainstream, so reading a really solid proclamation of the Lutheran faith that engages with the world as it is and written for a popular audience, is really refreshing.

            Speaking of faith engaging with the world as it is, she insists on asking what Jesus thinks of Christianity’s Wishful-Thinking-Hallmarketting of idealistic positivity in the face of true despair and desperate moments. She “calls a thing what it is”… as Luther talks about in the Heidelberg Disputation.

            She considers Mary and her blessedness, that it comes neither from obedience nor some sort of purely political reading of her situation, but instead it is something imputed to her by a gracious God, “Mary is what it looks like to believe that we already are who God says we are.”

            Additionally, she challenges the Rapture-industrial-complex that is so widespread in North American Christianity. She challenges it with an “Advent Conspiracy-esque” reading of season that takes the rapture film “A Thief in the Night” and turns it on its head—perhaps in the crazy pre-Christmas consumerism of Advent, “the idea that Jesus wants to break in and jack some of our stuff is really good news.”

Pastor

            So, being a Pastor is funny, sometimes ha ha funny, sometimes strange smell from the education wing funny. Nadia nails the sacred strangeness of it, allowing people a peek into the life of a Pastor, and it rings true.

            For example, she describes a month when she was only going to have three days off (This is not uncommon for Pastors), and she is asked to do a funeral for a non-member on one of those days off. She totally doesn’t want to do it… she does it, but there’s that hesitancy that gives way to a holy act.

            She also writes, “I never feel like I’m getting everything done or am ever pleasing everyone in my life.” Definitely a common Pastor experience (and a common experience for most, let’s be honest). She compares this over functioning to her time as an addict, that white wine and cocaine isn’t all that different from habits of highly effective people.

            The two experiences she shares that most match my own are—knowing you’ll fail your people, and being surprised when you experience the very grace that you preach every Sunday.

            She, in fact, has this thing she tells new people “I will at some point let you down. I will say or do something stupid or disappointing. You need to decide before that happens if you will stick around after it happens.” She also shares a particular time when she failed a couple very badly, yet was offered grace by them, and she was struck by the grace, yet also recognized it as the very grace of God she preaches!

            Ordination is of course not all one big horror show. She also describes some of those intimacies we clergy are let in to experience—baptismal water, “last rites,” prayer vigils at houses where suicides take place, those little things done in the community and neighborhood that are noticed but not mentioned, because they are too intimate to do so. These are the things of a Pastor’s life, and she captures them well.

            What I’m saying is that it’s a good book, it is authentic about what Nadia sees God doing in the lives of 19 "Accidental Saints." And I’m left asking, have you ever seen Nadia and Joe in the same room together? ;)

A History of the Samaritans: A Reflection on the attack on Emanuel AME Church

A History of the Samaritans: A Reflection on the attack on Emanuel AME Church

(Please understand this is written in the same vein as “Paul’s Letter to American Christians”)

This morning I woke up, and found a first century non-sectarian scroll entitled, “A History of the Samaritans” on my kitchen table. This is the translation. If it sounds more Halversonian than Hebraic, I am to blame. The brackets are portions of the text that are missing and I have restored.

A History of the Samaritans

            After today’s [at]tack on the Samaritan Temple, it’s worth considering their history and our own.

            [Th]ey did not come here escaping Phar[aoh]—seeking a promised land. In fact, their journey here is quite the reverse. They came from the nations of the East, drug here in chains by the Assyrians after their own cities were conquered, just as the 10 northern tribes were conquered and dispersed. On that journey from there to here, that MiddlePassage, many of them died, all of them were devastated. They were placed on foreign soil so they would be away from their gods and their land, familiesspit up, nothing familiar, rendered helpless so that they might be used in the fields.

            [They soon] converted to a form of Judaism. They did this for their safety; lions were eating them and they believed these attacks were the work of the god of this land. So they called upon him in their distress and were saved. For this conversion under pressure, we called them “Lion Jews,” those Samaritans. We claim their priests are deficient, their traditions insufficient, their religion suspect. But, I wonder, if we do so out of jealousy. Essene, Sadducee, and Pharisee all agree that they are more pious than us. They lack the history and tradition going way back (though some say they too were monotheists, some even go so far as to say they too were Jewish, like us. They claim we simply didn’t listen to them when they arrived, that their otherness began with our rejection of them—rejection of our siblings of the faith), but the Spirit is with them in ways that it seems we can only pick up second hand. Perhaps many of us lack the existential level of trust in the LORD that comes from being saved from Lions and finding temple as the last safe space in a world that is rarely safe.

            [The thi]ngs we did to them in the Maccabean period, LORD, have mercy. The slightest interaction between Jew andSamaritan brought torture and death. Accusations of rape led to so many of them hanging on trees, accu[rsed.] Their temples attacked, worshippers attacked.

            [These days w]e say those strugglesare done. These days we say with Rome’s boot upon our necks, those differences are secondary. We say these things until radicals push us. Radicals like that the Pharisee, Jesus, who told stories about Samaritans, saying they and we are neighbors, and spent time with them. Then again there are rumors he and hisfollowers were Samaritans, he was from Galilee after all. They all have at least one drop of Samaritan in them, and for most that’s still enough.

            [For that] matter, we say it’s “all good” between Jew and Samaritan, but the things they say about Herod the Half Jew, our leader. The ways the Zealots talk about “taking our country back.” It’s not “all good.”

            Again, I think about the attack of yesterday. This man, flesh of my flesh, of the same faith as I, did this thing—killing those 9 Samaritans. It’s not an event that materialized out of thin air.

            Think of it. That particular templehad been attacked in the Macc[abean] period too. There is a long history of violence on our part against the Samaritans. He accused them of rape—pointing back to the Judas Maccabeus and his band. He talked of taking his country back. If you stand on any street corner in Jerusalem you can hear someone saying it “take our country back.” It’s a watchword, so common we don’t even hear it, even when it comes out of our own mouths.

            Even if the man who did this deed was possessed by a demon, that demon fed on our past and present, which we refuse to acknowledge or address.

            Over these things I weep,

            My eyes gush with tears upon tears.

            My soul and my belly and my bones,

            All cry out with sorrow.

            Oh Comforter, be not far from the mourners

            Oh Merciful LORD, draw near those in deepest need.

            Look not on our iniquities

            Make us look upon them

            Turn us in our tears

            Turn us from our sins

            They are many and great

            As the stars are many

            As the deep is great

            So is the depths of all of this

            Cleanse us with the most hyssop

            Allow us to rebuild the walls

            That all may be inside

            Comfort O Comfort my people

            He is Defender of the lowly

            Our LORD, Caretaker of the widow and orphan

            My soul fails

            My heart is distressed

            All people groan

            All cry for mercy

            All cry “Lord, how long?”