Obama 2012 = Bush 2004?

I read fivethirtyeight quite frequently because I’m genuinely interested in quantifying the spin we hear about polls and the economy with charts and statistics.

One of the things Nate Silver (author of fivethirtyeight) suggested is that Obama is in a similar place to where Bush was in 2004 regarding the economy. So, I measured 2 economic indicators, the stock market and unemployment rates (and number of unemployed people), from January 20, 2009-June 8, 2012 and January 20^th, 2001-June 8, 2004 in order to compare the two candidates.

So let’s take a look.

Firstly, the stock market:

It is clear that Obama is looking much better than Bush regarding the performance of the stock market. This would indicate that if Bush won re-election based on the performance of the stock market under his administration, Obama will do the same and then some.

Secondly, the unemployment rate:

This is more of a mixed picture. On one hand, unemployment actually rose more under Bush during this time period than under Obama. On the other hand, it was also considerably lower under Bush than under Obama.

Let’s look at that same chart with numbers of unemployed people instead of %, just because it feels a little different when we are talking millions of unemployed people:

I doubt that the electorate will reward Obama simply for having lost fewer jobs (600,000 vs 3,200,000) than Bush did in a similar period of time. There are 3.7 million more unemployed people today than there were 8 years ago. If Obama received the same number of votes in 2012 as Bush did in 2004, except that those 3.7 million unemployed people voted against him, then he would lose the popular vote by 700,000 votes.  (That said if the election looks more like 2008, then Obama would still win by 5.8 million votes.)

In conclusion, if the stock market is more heavily weighed by the electorate than the unemployment rate, Obama is a shoo-in for re-election. If unemployment is a better indicator, Obama will have a much tougher election and has to hope his get out the vote effort performs like it is 2008, not like Bush's did in 2004 (or that he can convince voters that those 3.7 million jobs were lost because of Bush's handling of the economy and that Romney would run the country similarly). 

Your Weekly Simul, 7

Kitty guilt:

the newest weapon in environmental ethics.

Your Weekly Simul, week 6: A Case for Libertarianism

State controlled Feline Christian interaction

Privately chosen Feline Christian interaction

John 15--The New Chris Interpretation

So, this is my take on last weeks reading, Jesus' farewell discourse.
Here is some background on how I got here.

“God loves me as a parent loves a child, and I love you in the same way. I command you, love like that, after all, we are in that kind of loving relationship together.

I abide in the Father’s love, so I love you, laying down my life for you.

You abide in that love, so you love one another, even laying down your lives for one another.

I’ve said this that my joy may abide in you, completing your joy.

My command is this that you to love one another, laying down your lives for one another.

There is no greater love than this, to lay down your life for a friend. I lay down my life for you, my friends. You are friends so you love one another, even laying down your lives for each other.

You are not servants, you are friends. I make you friends because you have heard me as I hear the Father—we are together in this conversation.

I chose you, I started this relationship, not you. I appointed you and planted you like a vine, that you would be fruitful—bearing fruit that will last. The Father will give you whatever you ask for the task of loving fully.

I command that you love one another completely, so you may love one another.”

Weekly Simul, Week 5

Sermon, Easter 5: How wide the resurrection?

How wide the resurrection?

Christ is risen

he is risen indeed, alleluia.

         When I read in Acts about how the Greek gentile Philip told the good news about Jesus to the Ethiopian Eunuch, and when I read about the Ethiopian Eunuch’s response to those words,

questions of who is in and who is out/

Questions about how far the church is willing to stretch itself for the sake of finding itself/

Questions about how Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is for all people,

come to mind.

         This last week the ELCA’s Full Communion partner, the United Methodist Church, met for their General Conference and struggled together with the question of who can be a minister and who cannot—specifically, can gay-folk be Christian ministers.

         These are the type questions the church has been grappling with since there was a church—and questions the church will continue to grapple with, until such time as we turn and find ourselves face to face, at the last, with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Slain Lamb of God.

         And ultimately the question becomes: “How wide is the resurrection?” How wide is the resurrection?

Prayer

         How wide is the resurrection?

         You might expect me to begin with the Eunuch, after all, at first glance, it would seem the resurrection would have to be pretty darn wide, to include him.

         But, I think it would be instructive for us to pan out from this moment in time. That is, expand out our vision to encompass the entire scope of Philip’s ministry as recorded in the book of Acts.

         Because when we do that, we see that this question “How wide is the resurrection?” follows Philip wherever he goes.

         Back in the 6^th chapter of Acts a crisis arises. While the Widows of Jewish decent were being fed by the earliest church, the Greek-speaking widows—the gentiles, were not being fed.

         As you may remember the gentiles, the non-Jews, were allowed to join the Christian church after Peter proclaimed the gospel to three thousand of them on Pentecost.

         And that was one thing, but feeding their widows was another thing altogether.

         I’m sure some of the Apostles asked themselves, “How wide is the resurrection?” Is it wide enough to take from our meager treasury and time to feed these latecomers?

         Their solution was that this church’s namesake, Stephen—St. Stephen, along with six other gentile men, among them Philip—would take care of distributing food to the gentile widows. To “wait on tables,” as the disciples somewhat dismissively described the task.

         Now, I’m friends with a conservative man who left his church because it allowed women to be communion assistants… he said if that was allowed, the next thing you know they’ll be allowed to preach God’s Word. And if the book of Acts is any indication, he’s right.

         You see, these gentiles didn’t stop at waiting on tables. Before too long they were preaching. Not long after that Stephen became the first Christian martyr—dying while proclaiming Christ crucified and raised.

         Again, I can imagine the early church seeing these gentiles preaching, and these gentiles laying down their lives for the gospel, and asking, “How wide is the resurrection?” Wide enough to let unclean lips proclaim perfect peace? Wide enough for Stephen to share in Jesus’ resurrection?

         But it doesn’t stop there. Later Philip preaches so powerfully in the district of Samaria that a Sorcerer by the name of Simon is so stirred by his words that he is baptized.

         Yet again, I can imagine the church looking at this convert of Philip’s and asking, “How wide is the resurrection?” Is it wide enough that a man that the Book of Exodus says ought to be put to death, a sorcerer, might partake in it? Did we make a mistake, was letting gentiles become Christians the beginning of a slippery slope?

         And finally, in the 22^nd chapter of the book of Acts, we find Philip living with his family, which included four daughters… four daughters that scripture describe as “prophetic.”

         Now I don’t want to overplay how male dominated the ancient world was, but, you can imagine someone asking, “How wide is the resurrection?” Is it wide enough to include women prophets? Did the Prophet Joel really mean it when we said both, “your sons and your daughters shall prophecy”?

         From first to last, Philip’s ministry involved expanding the types of people who were brought close to God through Christ. Expanding the church’s understanding of whom Christ died for. Widening the meaning of the statement that the resurrection changes everything.

         And today’s reading is no different.

         Philip is in the wilderness. He approaches a man in a government issued vehicle—there was probably a secret service agent driving that chariot, touching his ear every now and again, wishing someone would hurry up and invent the ear piece and sunglasses.

         Philip approaches a man of a different race and a different ethnicity than his own. Philip was named after the Macadonian father of Alexander the Great, that man was likely named after his Ethiopian Queen—probably named something like Abdi-Malkah.

         Philip approaches a man, also, who was a Eunuch—meaning someone neutered him so that he could be trusted with the entire treasury of his queen—

after all the point of taking over a queendom would be to pass it on to your daughter or son. If it was impossible to have children, the thinking went, it was also impossible to control a country.

         And Philip rides along the Wilderness Road with this Eunuch reading scripture together and proclaiming Christ as risen Lord.

         Then they stop, and the Eunuch asks, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

         And that persistent question could have popped up in Philip’s mind, “How wide is the resurrection?” Wide enough for a Eunuch—who Leviticus says may not come near God, and Deuteronomy says can not be amongst God’s people?

         Philip could have barred this man from baptism on account of him being a Eunuch.

         For that matter, he could have said, “I can’t baptize you because there were no Ethiopians present when the three thousand converted on Pentecost.”

         He could have made up excuses based on the man’s position as Treasurer.

         But that’s not what happened.  He did baptize the Eunuch. And if the tradition of the Ethiopian church is to be believed that Eunuch in turn brought The Faith to his country, and that faith continues on in the lives of 38 million Ethiopians today.

        

         How wide is the resurrection? So wide that table service becomes proclamation.

         So wide that Sorcerers are baptized and daughters prophecy.

         So wide that race, ethnicity, treasures, and Eunuch-hood are not a barrier to the Kingdom.

         How wide is the resurrection?

So wide that Christ is raised and dies no more.

         So wide that he broke death’s fearful hold and turned our despair into blazing joy.

         So wide that by water we share in his saving death.

         So wide that we share his Easter life and live as members of our Savior.

         So wide that the Spirit shakes the church of God.

         So wide that a new creation comes to life and grows.

         So wide that the universe, restored and whole, will sing Hallelujah. 

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What I learned in Seminary 3: Gospel and Culture

            Gospel and Culture was a week long intensive course that looked at how the gospel message is read in a pluralistic and global world. We read Paul Knitter’s book about inter-religious dialogue as well as books about how Christianity manifests itself in non-western cultures.

            In that class I interviewed Bishop Cosmo Moenga of Botswana and his wife Jennifer. During that interview one of them said, “Understand that Christianity is not new to Africa, after all Jesus spent his Childhood in Africa.” Which seems an obvious statement now, but in the moment I was blown away, especially regarding the wider implications of this, that some social paradigms native to Africa fit Near Eastern culture much more closely than those of Europe.

            Additionally I interrogated the assumptions of famed Christian Historian Jaroslav Pelikan about the origins of Gandhi and Martin Luther King’s commitments to non-violence. Jaroslav claims King read Howard Thurman, who read Gandhi, who read Tolstoy. A non-gracious interpretation would be that two non-European civil rights leaders got their most coveted ideas about non-violence from a European, instead of from their own cultural/religious contexts and/or directly from Jesus’ messages about non-violence.

            Finally, I ended up writing a parable about loving God and neighbor while in this class—take from it what you will:

“There was once a naïve man and a huckster, they were driving across a bridge to a seminary, when an earthquake occurred. The bridge cracked underneath the car and the car was caught in such a way that there was only time for one man to climb out of the sunroof before the car fell into a watery chasm.

The huckster told the naïve man, “I know the will of God, and he wants me to survive.”

The naïve man responded, “Well, my family always talked about pre-destination, so if I’m a Bible believing man I have to trust you.”

And with that the huckster wriggled out of the sunroof, and the naïve man plunged to his death. There was a Seminarian sitting in a grassy spot next to the bridge, she did not notice any of this, because she was reading about loving God and neighbor.”

Weekly Simul--Week 4

Weekly Simul--Week 3

Your Weekly Simul--Week 2

Got student debt?

Promise to ½ tithe to your school for 20 years.
Or
Pay alumni instead of banks

Your weekly Simul--week 1

So, I’ve noticed that LOL Cats, Ceiling Cat, funny cat videos and so on, have virtually taken over the internet.
Well, I’m adaptable and I’ve got a cat. So I’m putting little Simul to work for Luthermatrix. Roughly once a week we will post a “Your Weekly Simul” post. This will also encourage me to post more often, so Luthermatrix doesn’t become just another cat website.
Without further ado, Your Weekly Simul:

Romney/Kerry

I saw this picture:

And said... I've seen this guy before:

While We Work portion of W6

This is the first draft of the second half of the While We Wait, While We Work(W6) document.
For the first half of this document click here.

While We Work:

Advice for Bivocational Pastors:
Clarity and communication are key—Be clear about expectations all around (both you and the congregation). Be honest about your limitations. Develop relationships in the congregation to provide a network of people that will support you and have your back so you can get a fuller picture of what is going on and get honest feedback and insight into the congregational situation. Spell out as much as you can in your contract so there are fewer surprises. Have honest conversations with the church’s leadership and make plans for covering situations in which the pastor can not be there, i.e. if the pastor can't get there is there a lay leader who can be first response until the pastor is available? The important thing is to have the conversation first which both helps the leadership understand the potential challenge and plan for it.
Boundary setting—You may want to be at church all the time—but you have a responsibility to both vocations, and to your non-paid vocations as well. So leave when you need to leave. It is your duty as the pastor to set boundaries and say no. Setting these boundaries is best done from the start. Then, when you really need to be flexible, you have that consistency in the past to build from.
Be Flexible—once you have the boundaries of both vocations firmly established you can make exceptions as needed, because both the church and the other employer will trust your judgment about balancing your time for the sake of both callings.
Do not worry about office hours—the working/living situation of Americans has changed. Many more people are working during traditional pastor’s “office hours.” People are unlikely to desire to visit the pastor on a 9am to 5pm basis. Technology, from cell phones and email to blogs and twitter, can fit the purposes of the traditional office hours model. Weeknight meetings and busy Sundays will be your stock and trade.
Focus on tasks not time—You and your congregation will need to decide what your top priorities are and you will get them done. Bivocational ministry is not about the number of hours you put in—its about what you get done.
Help the Laity own the ministry—One of the main things a congregation and bivocational pastor will need to make clear is what jobs must the pastor do? The pastor then is there, to quote Ephesians, to equip, “the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” In other words, the tasks of ministry are divvied up, the pastor does that which she is called to do and makes sure the lay-folk have the skills and support to do their tasks.

Network with fellow clergy—Keep a list of the names of area clergy that the secretary or pastor can contact in case something urgent comes up and you are unable to leave your other vocation. Though bivocationality limits the opportunities for a pastor to meet colleague making these connections is imperative.
Suggestions for Candidates Seeking A Part-time or Bivocational Position:
Create a document for yourself that specifically describes your approach to part-time/bivocational ministry. Use concrete examples.
Ask call committee questions such as:
What are the congregational attitudes about calling a part-time minister?
What are the agreed-upon expectations about office hours?
What would a “worst-case” scenario look like regarding pastoral emergencies and funerals? How would the congregation take dropping the ball on something like that?
Who else is going to help lead the important tasks and programs of the church that the pastor won’t be able to do?

Remember:
Remember this, your type of ministry is a particular gift to the church, especially to your lay folk and to the larger community you serve in. Full-time clergy can more easily get trapped in the “clergy bubble.”
This makes them look at ministry in a particular way. For example, they will likely look at the lay folk who have full time jobs and yet come in and volunteer at the church, with less empathy than you do. You have a higher level of understanding of the strains and demands of, for example, the folk sitting on church council who juggle commitments to both outside work obligations and church.
This also makes non-clergy look at them in a particular way—like it or not their main identity is pastor. This creates a perception of otherness that can make them less approachable. This otherness is less apparent for bivocational pastor, and thus you are more approachable. You get to represent the church in contexts outside of the traditional church setting! You will have more opportunities to pick the brains of unchurched folk than your monovocational sisters and brothers.
Remember also that doing ministry in new ways to fit new situations is what we do as protestants. For that matter, this is what the Holy Spirit does, She stirs things up and creates out of God’s people something new. You are living within a grand tradition!

Advice for Congegations with Bivocational Pastors:
If you are considering calling a Part-time pastor a few important questions to ask yourself as a congregation are:
What are the five most important activities done by the church?
Which must the pastor lead?
How much time should the pastor spend at the church?

Don’t expect a full-time pastor for half-time pay—One of the big dangers of having a Bivocational pastor is that you might accidently (or purposefully) financially abusing them. “The reality is that the living out of social justice ideals espoused form the pulpit applies directly to the fairness with which a church treats its employees, in this case, its pastors.”

Don’t assume “downsizing” from a full-time pastor to a part-time pastor means the congregation is dying—Bivocational pastors bring with them many gifts that can be refreshing to a congregation. Also, thinking that way can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Understand that the pastor will not always be available when you need her/him—they have a second vocation, and that job is of equal import to their being your pastor—just as your non-pastoral vocation is.
When writing your church profile be specific about your expectations of how your minister will be part-time—the practical details of hours on-site, office hours, appointments, committee meetings, and the “what if” questions about pastoral emergencies and funerals must be addressed Be as honest as you can about how the whole church feels. Duties and work schedule of other personnel must be available to the candidate in as much detail as possible.

Recommendations:
Candidacy Committee:
The possibility of bivocational ministry ought to be brought up to candidates early on. On one hand, candidates have went all the way through seminary and to first call before being told that bivocational ministry is the wave of the future—this can feel like a “bait and switch” situation. On the other hand, there are people who might consider the ministry, but are completely in love with their primary/current vocation—they do not know that bivocational ministry is an option.
We highly discourage requiring bivocational candidates to quit their second vocation as a pre-requisite for candidacy. This is counterproductive.

Seminary:
At some point during seminary try to include information about bivocational ministry both, historically and contemporary, within the Lutheran tradition.
Bring in guest speakers to talk about how they do bivocational ministry.
Spend some time on group dynamics, conflict resolution, and how to delegate. All these skills are important for successful bivocational ministry.
When considering mentors for field ed and supervisors for internship try to pair up people interested in bivocational ministry with bivocational ministers. As it stands internship supervisors are supposed to be full time—in cases of students preparing for bivocational ministry providing them with a supervisor who exemplifies the best-practices of bivocational ministers should be seen as a worthy exception to the full-time rule.
Investigate the educational model of the Roman Catholic Permanent Deaconate (30 credit hours over 4 years, Wednesday evening classes. Supervised Internship. 3 Weekend workshops. Required spiritual direction) as a possible alternative model for educating bivocational ministers.

Synod:
Many synods train lay leaders for larger roles in the church—for example Saint Stephen Ministers. We recommend Synods start, continue, and expand such endeavors to prepare for the possibility of more Bivocational ministries in the church’s future.
Ensure candidates, especially Bivocational ones, know about the ELCA document Guidelines for Shared-Time Ministries.
Bivocational workshops should be available and Directors of Evangelical Mission should keep up on the latest trends in bivocational ministry.

Broader Policy/Churchwide:

The ELCA ought to rethink its rules on what constitutes a call. For example, a pastor who serves a church for 10 hours a week should not be considered “on leave from call.”

Requiring a Lutheran Year of candidates who intend to be Bivocational adds unnecessary strain on a candidate who will not be financially compensated as a full-time minister. Potentially moving five times (to seminary, to internship, back to seminary, to a Lutheran seminary, and finally to a first call congregation) is a lot to ask of someone who will be working 15 hours a week at a Lutheran church.

The Church ought to be talking honestly about how the Church and ministry is changing today. It ought to reevaluate the very idea of what a pastor is, could be, might not be, and is not. It ought to also more fully embrace, and advocate for, positive interpretations of Bivocational ministry (see for example the Remember portion of the Advice section above).