Peaceful Transition of Power for 224 Years

“The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January… and the terms of their successors shall then begin.”
– 20th Amendment to the US Constitution

President Reagan takes the Oath of Office as President Carter observes

Praise be to the name of God
forever and ever,
to whom belong wisdom and might.
You change the times and seasons;
you remove kings and set up kings;
You gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding. – Daniel 2:20-21

The 1961 Inauguration—Images, Words, Thoughts

“Long, long ago, far, far away” – it seems like a world away, and in some ways it is. The nation was in a time of tranquility, though living with the fears and strains of the Cold War. Republicans and Democrats didn’t seem that far apart, often differing in means more than in ends. The transition between outgoing President Eisenhower and incoming President Kennedy was smooth.

Eisenhower and Kennedy were both World War II men, and understood the world in much the same way. The world’s issues were basically black and white. There was Communism and there was the Free World. Kennedy threw down the gauntlet against Communism.

While Cardinal Cushing was giving the invocation the podium began to smoke. My grandmother was living with us at the time, and her choice words were, “Holy smoke!” The good cardinal’s prayer was so long that California Gov. Pat Brown leaned over to another and said, “If he doesn’t quit now, I’m leaving the church!”

The day featured 22-degree temperature, 8 inches of snow, and bright sunlight. Poet Robert Frost couldn’t read his poem in the bright sun, so his text was shaded by Lyndon Johnson’s hat. Speaking of hats, JFK and others wore high hats to the distinguished occasion.

Things seemed more amicable and civil than today. President Eisenhower is comfortable between the President-elect and his wife. Defeated presidential candidate and Vice President Richard Nixon observes at the far right.

President Kennedy’s brief inaugural speech was a classic, to be long remembered. You may know “Ask not what your country can do for you…” and “We shall pay any price, bear any burden…” Also very important:

“The same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

But there is one line with little relevance for us today:

“The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans…”

Charles Lane wrote poignantly in The Washington Post (November 8 on-line):

President-elect Joe Biden would be the oldest American ever sworn in as president. At 78, he will be older than the previous oldest-ever president was when he left office: Ronald Reagan, at 77.

The probable Democratic House leadership team, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and her lieutenants Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) and James E. Clyburn (S.C.), will be 80, 81 and 80, respectively. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will be 78, though if Democrats get lucky in two Georgia Senate runoffs, New York’s Charles E. Schumer (turning 70 on Nov. 23) may replace him.

Schumer will be one of 23 Senate septuagenarians — six Republicans and 17 Democrats. Republicans Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), James M. Inhofe (Okla.) and Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), along with Democrat Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) are over 85.

A pessimist could view this Washington gerontocracy as yet another symptom of national decline, uncomfortably reminiscent of the ailing Soviet general secretaries who died off seriatim [“one after the other”] in the Cold War’s final years. The contrast between the power of these veterans and the prominence of youthful firebrands on the left (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York) and right (Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri) is stark.

But it is both more optimistic and — just possibly — more realistic to suppose a cohort of politicians born in the early 1940s is exactly what the United States needs at this perilous moment.

Bible Insight – Resolution: “Get Back to Church!”

These things I remember, as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival. (Psalm 42:4)

The psalmist is lamenting a setback in life when he is cut off from many blessings previously enjoyed. Chief among them, clearly, is worship of God and fellowship with the people of God in the House of God.

2020 was a proper year to pray this lamentation. Attending church has been a key feature of my entire life. When I was three or four, I’d come home from the Lutheran church and repeat the service with its liturgy, leading it at a windowsill that served as my pulpit. I have to say, for several years up to almost my 16th birthday (when I made a distinct dedication of my life to Jesus) I rather hated going to church. After that dedication 60 years ago, church fellowship has been in my spiritual DNA.

But I’ve only been to church twice since March of 2020.
I can understand the psalmist’s lament.

Whether the limitations imposed by governors on church gatherings are necessary is an open and hot debate. They certainly haven’t been fair. I have trouble seeing how a room of gamblers up to 50% capacity is safe while a gathering for prayer and song and hearing the Bible taught is unsafe if over 25% (with a maximum of 50, and in some places a max as low as 10). If there’s any science behind this, I’ve not seen it and I can’t imagine it. And classifying religious ministries and gatherings as “non-essential” says more about politicians’ priorities and philosophy than anything scientific.

So what is this “thing” we call “Church”? It is where God’s Spirit is uniquely present, where people of all walks of life accept and minister to one another, where corporate prayer ascends to God, where hearts repent of sin, where songs of praise uplift discouraged souls, where God’s timeless Truth is taught so we can all understand it and live by it, where the sacrament of Communion nourishes us spiritually, where we are energized to go forth to serve our world and bear witness about Jesus.

Is “Being a Witness” the Church’s Only Task?
Or is it One Task among Many?

NOTE: “GraceConnect” is a publication of my denomination. The Fall, 2020 issue contained my article, “WWJD? Jesus and Today’s Political Climate.”
It also contained the article “Being a Witness”, which I respond to here.
My church in Long Beach, California began a pre-school ministry in 1972. Shortly thereafter, there was a traffic accident in front of the school. I wrote our city councilman (on church letterhead!) and observed that the yellow line separating east-bound and west-bound traffic was not in the middle of the road but instead was closer to our curb, making the traffic lane narrower and putting moving cars closer to our parked cars. Nothing was done.

Sometime later another accident occurred in the same spot. I wrote a second letter, more agitated than the first one and again on church letterhead. “Are we going to wait until a little child is hit?”

That brought action, and soon thereafter the yellow line was moved to the center of the street where it belonged. Our children were safer now.

That’s called “Christian Social Action” or “The Church involved in Society.” Call it whatever you want, it’s more than just “being a witness.”

I thought of that experience as I pondered my response to the article “Being a Witness.” It’s written by two ministerial colleagues of mine—fine students of the Bible who know their culture well. There is no need to give names. I’m glad they are thinkers on a topic that needs more light and less heat.

But I disagree with their basic arguments. If I followed them, I would have never gotten involved with changing the line on the road in front of church.

I will quote from the article (in green) and give my responses.

“The church is to be a witness of Jesus Christ, in word and in deed. It should testify to the transformation Jesus brings about in the life of those who believe in him, as well as in the local church. The church exists to be a witness and that is the essence of its influence. It does not exist to bring change to moral, cultural, or political structures here on earth.”

I agree completely with the first sentences. I take exception to ““[The church] does not exist to bring change to moral, cultural, or political structures here on earth.” It’s not either/or, but both/and. Read “The Song of Mary,” known as “The Magnificat” (Luke 1:51-53). Study the influence of the church and individual Christians that contributed to the abolition of slavery.

Being Jesus’ disciples means endorsing the Word of the Old Testament as he did (Matthew 5:17-19). The Old Testament says much about God’s will for cultures. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because they were ”overfed and unconcerned” and “did not help the poor and needy” (Ezekiel 16:49). The Prophet Daniel counseled the Babylonian King to renounce his sins “by doing what is right” and “being kind to the oppressed” (Daniel 4:27). Before he denounced God’s covenant people (Judah and Israel) for breaking the revealed Law of God, the Prophet Amos denounced the surrounding non-covenant nations for brutal crimes against humanity (Amos 1-2).

The Voice of God called Israel to do what any civilized people should do: “Seek justice, encourage the oppressed” (Isaiah 1:17).The Jewish captives were to strive for the wellbeing of Babylon while living there (Jeremiah 29:7). The Doctrine of Common Grace calls everyone to work for positive values, and Christians can cooperate with non-Christians to see a society become better when these values thrive.

“…the church should not be a direct supporter of any particular political party, ideology, or economical system. It cannot be limited to any earthly regime. Outside of the kingdom of God, there is no corresponding system which fulfills the requirements given by God. The church walks in obedience to a totally different value system, which it first imposes on itself. It must not, through its teaching or by the public opinions of its pastors, back a specific political candidate…”

As my own article conveyed, I strongly differentiate between any earthly regime and God’s ultimate rule. But a Christian has duties to both, and a church has a home in both. While a church should be “a-political” in that it never identifies a political movement with the Kingdom of God, it rightly and properly needs to commend social trends in accord with the rule of God and condemn social trends in opposition to the rule of God. Pastors have a right and often a duty to express public opinions on value-laden social issues and (off-pulpit) on candidates. Example: if legalizing euthanasia is on the ballot.

California has prominent politicians who openly oppose religious liberty on some key issues. Our Attorney General supported requiring pro-life counseling ministries to provide information on abortion services—that is until the U.S. Supreme Court said this violated freedom of speech. Covid-19 restrictions have hammered religious gatherings very unfairly, but now the Supreme Court is pushing back. Legal scholar Ilya Somin recently said, “The courts are actually doing a good job of protecting religious liberty, which today enjoys stronger judicial protection than at virtually any other time in US history.” I’m convinced this would not be true if Christians and their churches had banned themselves from social action.

Speaking of the writings of Jesus’ apostles,“We don’t find any exhortation to believers in these letters telling them to take action to change society.”

Mostly true*, but (as the article notes) the Book of Acts covers only the first 30 years of Christian history. The apostolic writings fall within or shortly after these years. The church’s world was governed at that time by a flawed Roman system that nonetheless did what governments should do—encourage what’s right and oppose what’s wrong, by force if necessary. Jesus’ word “Render to Caesar” in New Testament times (under authoritarian government, when voting was unheard of) would be viewed differently than “Render to Caesar” within a participatory democracy where citizens and organizations can really make a difference and support rights important to the church. My point is, the church needs to be all it can be in its own contemporary circumstances. (*But read Titus 3:1 – “Be subject to rulers…be ready to do whatever is good.”)

“We distinguish the role of the church as a body (a legal entity represented by its leaders) from that of Christians who take public social responsibility through their professional, artistic, or familial involvement. This distinction between the disciple of Christ and the church is not always easy to identify in the New Testament, but it exists.” [BOLD mine]

Agreed, the distinction between the individual disciple of Christ and the church“is not always easy to identify.” When I wrote the City of Long Beach about street safety, was I writing as an individual Christian or as a representative of the church? BOTH, I’m sure. When the Apostle Paul asserted his Roman citizenship so he would be treated justly, was he protecting himself as an individual or claiming a right that would benefit the mission of the church? Again, BOTH.

In the above quote, the church as“a legal entity” is a KEY CONCEPT. This would not have been a reality in the New Testament (early) church. But virtually all churches and Christian ministries today ARE legal entities, incorporated in their states with all the rights and duties that come therewith.

Churches and all Christian ministries must actively exercise their rights under their legal charters. That’s part of “doing ministry.”If they do not, these rights may vanish.Operating a school—anything from a preschool through a graduate seminary—requires keeping a watchful eye on city, state, and federal governments in order to support what enables these programs and vigorously fight all that opposes them. If this means fighting an abortion insurance mandate or church members filling up city council chambers on the night a bad ordinance is under consideration, so be it!

Churches must vigorously oppose (through social action and legal recourse) attempts to limit the free exercise of religion, and free speech and assembly. They must keep a watchful eye on challenges to tax exemptions and the fair use of property. We can’t just say, “Let’s pray and witness!” We need to revive the ministry of Nehemiah who, when faced with opposition to his building program, both prayed to the Lord AND posted a guard (Neh. 4:9).

In 2019, presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke was asked by CNN if he thought “religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities, should…lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage.” “Yes,” he said to great applause. Do we want secular governments to set the rules on church policies and punish us when we don’t uphold their rules? If not, churches must “pray to the Lord and post a guard” by defending their freedoms to the fullest.

Finally, “Being a Witness” says “the church has its claims [behavioral standards] upon its members, not upon society.” Totally agree. But what if the state makes a church liable for civil damages if it disciplines a member? What if the state forbids a church from dismissing a teacher in its Christian school for violating its moral teachings?These are not hypotheticals!

Bottom line, the church must live out its witness and make the Gospel its only message. But the Gospel is not just about personal conversions. It is a comprehensive moral vision. And to proclaim it in word and deed requires social action in many forms—defending The Faith against foes, displaying The Faith in action, expanding The Faith’s moral vision.

Another Voice…

I Was Wrong: The False Dawning of a New Age
By John Addison Teevan

John is a colleague of mine in Christian Ministry. He is a careful thinker whose mind often “colors outside the lines.” Here are excellent thoughts from one who (like me) lived in the 1950’s and 60’s and often viewed the world through that lens.

When I was in college, I had lived just long enough to recognize that we lived in a new post-war and post-depression world. This new world was full of prosperity, life changing tech and health advances, and in general we had new levels of human decency and fairness including Civil Rights. We even reached the moon.

At last we would have a nation that was substantially educated and typically reasonable. Civilization had become the pervasive norm, or so I thought.

I was wrong. I thought I saw new world-changing realities dawning. Imagine me growing up in the 1950-60s knowing that the Japanese and the German enemies of WWII were defeated by men like my dad, who served in the Pacific. The evil desire for domination through war and the collateral damage of hatred and torture were not only gone, but, I figured, gone forever.

Imagine me asking my dad what all those rural grain bins were for and him telling me that we grew so much grain that even after selling it abroad we had to store the surplus on every farm. Starvation was not gone, but it would be almost gone soon. And it is.

Imagine me growing up hanging around complex rail sidetracks near my suburban Chicago home to watch the trains shuffle the cement cars and meeting, just once, a hobo. I knew that the Depression was tough, but that kind of depression was gone forever. He was a relic.

Imagine me in the back seat of our ’57 Ford Fairlane going through Birmingham on the way to our Florida vacation just before the interstate was built. As we crossed a rail yard there were endless shanties. I was shocked by the poverty of the African Americans. So, when I watched Little Rock and Selma and saw the victories of President Eisenhower and the Warren Court and ML King and the Voting Rights Act, I knew that the racism and bigotry were finally demolished.

Want more? I watched the African colonies become independent nations knowing that the colonial economic oppression of people was over, and that Africa would soon be prosperous former colonies.

My sister had a life-threatening infection, but excellent new medical care delivered her. Medical advances were here to stay. Polio took my classmate, Jimmy; I saw him at home on Vine St. in his iron lung.

I carried a rabbit’s foot in fifth grade and was careful of ladders and the 13th, but soon realized that superstitions were ignorant and irrational and would soon be gone too.

All my friends attended Mary Seat of Wisdom School in our suburb. In the 1960s the Latin mass was changed dramatically, and the mysterious authority of the church seemed to be democratized. Gone was dogma (and fish on Friday) seemingly forever.

I met Bobby Kennedy with my dad and then watched the Kennedy tax cut fine tune our economy into a full-employment prosperity machine. We licked the economy! What could be bigger but maybe licking the weather? I saw the UN headquarters built in New York City for world peace with Miss America pleading for world peace.

I watched Elvis and the Beach Boys and knew that fun was here and would stay forever.

In short, I believed not only in the goodness of man, but in the fact that we had arrived. No wonder Boomers regard all that happened before our arrival on earth as trivial. Not because it isn’t interesting, but because that old world, that bumped along for millennia, was gone. Gone!

We even had fast cars, TV, and transistor radios. I grew up near O’Hare Airport and saw the dawning of commercial jet air travel. Even distance had been conquered.

Imagine me in my 1967 Mustang. I couldn’t wait to become an adult and live in this wonderland. The old boring days of squeaking by were over. The maniacs and the bad times were gone. Violence and abuse and meanness would soon follow into extinction.

But I was wrong. Superstition, incompetence, arrogance, dogma, hatred, and corruption are all part of human nature, and they are here to stay.

God help us!