The Struggle for Initimacy

HBO is rerunning its series “Tell Me You Love Me.”

The premise of the show is simple. It follows four couples as they struggle with intimacy.

“Struggling with intimacy” is redundant because intimacy is always a struggle. It’s not necessarily hard to get close to another human being, but to stay close requires constantly being faced with things we don’t like that we see in the other person. Whether and how we can honestly come to terms with these things is the basis for intimacy.

The process of establishing or deepening intimacy is often not pretty. But it is the realest thing we go through in our lives. This is why the 20th century theologian Paul Tillich used intimacy as one of two ways of understanding God. (The other was ultimacy.)

In movies and TV shows, sex is used as an easy surrogate for intimacy. But it is unusual to find a story that focuses on the reality of long-term intimacy.

“Tell Me You Love Me” attempts to put the struggle for intimacy on the screen. In includes sex--some of it is graphic, even for HBO. It's not for the squeamish. But its depiction is part of the story. We begin to see into each relationship, and how each person tries to deeply trust another.

Because the subject matter is so difficult, watching can sometimes be an uncomfortable experience. It has been for me.

After a couple of episodes, though, I find it very rewarding indeed. And I find that I care about the characters, as unbelievably aggravating as some of them are.

The Vitality of Confession

A faithful reader passed along to me a story from the August 31, 2007 “Los Angeles Times” about Christian confession. As it has declined in the Catholic church, it has grown online via sites sponsored by Protestant mega-churches.

For a long time, confession has had a terrible reputation. Why would anyone want to admit something bad they had done? And who in their right mind would do it among other people?

While it has always been a central part of liturgy in mainline churches, many congregations had drifted away from it. The thought was that it made people feel bad, and people wouldn’t come to church if it made them feel bad.

At first look, it seems good that confession has come back in the mostly non-denominational mega-churches. But there is a rub. Actually, there are two rubs.

Nothing is wrong with inviting people to confess anonymously online. It can help them unburden themselves. For some, it may even begin the process of getting needed help. But it is an individual act, done outside of any community the confessor may be part of.

The second rub is that worship in mega-churches is almost always about feeling good and does not include a time for community confession. It’s too much of a downer and it scares people away.

The result of all this is that confession, online or otherwise, becomes just a marketing gimmick that church leaders hope will draw certain people into the community.

One doesn’t confess in a vacuum, just as one doesn’t worship in a vacuum. All of us live our lives not just in a relationship with ourselves, and the same is true for our spiritual lives. We are in this world with other people, and our lives are connected to them.

Nothing is wrong with private, personal prayer, meditation and reflection. In fact, it is a good thing. But it is not the beginning and end of our spiritual lives.

Sometimes I hear people talk as if their relationship with a vague, supernatural god means more than their relationship with the people around them. But I don’t think we can have any kind of real relationship with God outside of our relationship to our loved ones and our community.

That’s why, for confession to be meaningful, it must be done in the context of a community. And it really should always be part of weekly worship. Not as in telling the person next to you a bad thing you have done, but as in saying together that, individually and as a community, we have messed up.

And that we need each other’s help to do better.

Is "Multitasking" Spiritually Healthy?

I regularly see the current generation referred to as “different.” One way it is “different,” so it goes, it that it is a “multi-tasking” generation.

I have one word for this timorously trenchant cultural analysis. Bunk.

It is true that younger people are doing many things at once. This is obvious if you’ve watched anyone under 30 use a computer or a cell phone, or play a video game. Many of their brains have been trained from an early age to almost-instinctively use technology to search or explore.

But are they better able to handle multi-tasking than their parents or grandparents? Have they made a significant evolutionary step and become so advanced that they can talk on the phone, listen to music, check their e-mail, and drink Red Bull while driving a 7000-pound Excursion?

Have their brains become so multi-taskingly wired that they can process, absorb and analyze simultaneous streams of data from five or six different sources? No.

From an evolutionary standpoint, human beings have changed not one whit from the days before cars and TV. It is true that we are healthier and living longer. But our essential physiological and neurological makeup is unchanged.

It was a mere 110 years ago that our grandparents or great-grandparents or great-great grandparents were walking or relying on horses for transportation. To get information they relied on neighbors, bought a newspaper, or went to hear a speech in the evening. For entertainment they chatted, played games, read books, went visiting, or occasionally went out.

Multi-tasking has consequences beyond any real or imagined increase in productivity, and certainly beyond any notion that you are living a “full” life.

Most people will eventually discover that multi-tasking not only does not indicate a “full” life, but rather an empty one. The fullness of life is found in going deep and savoring, not in rapidly skimming everything everywhere.

Church Leadership and Management

The statement about management that sticks with me more than any other came from the titan of all management experts, Peter Drucker. It goes something like this:

“Management consists mostly of finding creative ways to make it more difficult for people to do their jobs.”

This came to mind as I thought about the current focus of the California-Pacific Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Just like many church bodies across the U.S., our conference has fretted for years about loss of membership. And that fretting hit a fever pitch in the last year as the rate of membership loss accelerated.

In all the study and research about what to do to reverse this decline, the one need that came up much more often than any other was a need for leadership training--for ministers, staff and lay people.

It’s terrific that the conference has come to consensus on this. It’s terrific when the conference comes to consensus on anything.

I’m a little concerned that a possible consequence of the leadership focus will be to impose standardized “tactics” or plans for success. While it is possible for such tactics and plans to make a difference, any change will not stick unless there is fundamental, basic change in our openness to, and understanding and expectation of, success.

The standard, repeating pattern in churches and other organizations is for hope to be placed in some new technique (or, worse, some new buzzword). Some church leaders become very excited and, as a result, some other church members get excited.

But the excitement gradually dissipates as it becomes clear that nothing is really changing. And so all the videos and Powerpoints and leader’s guides are filed away and forgotten.

The reason that nothing changes is because nothing has changed. The change needs to be at the beginning of the process, not a result at the end. And the change needs to be at the most-basic and fundamental level.

One suggested change: to fully appreciate and lavish attention and resources on the places where the church is already growing (translated “leading”).

For example, if a church has an exciting and well-attended youth program, provide significant additional resources and support (money and/or people) to encourage the growth to continue. If a church has a successful hands-on mission program, send resources to help it continue to grow and expand.

The only way the church will grow is when we can accept, embrace and support how it is already growing.

The dirty little secret is that many churches simply want to stay small. They don’t put it that way, of course. Every church wants some (not too many) new "younger" people.

It is understandable and not necessarily a bad thing that communities want to retain their essential friendly, intimate character.

But it is unfortunate if also we have become unable to accept, celebrate, nurture and support authentic and real growth, wherever it may be happening in our communities.

Freedom from Stuff

Last year we had to pack lots of boxes and rearrange furniture during a months-long kitchen remodel. Dozens of decisions had to be made about where to put things and what to keep out. And what to throw out.

My pattern when packing and moving is to pack first and throw away at the other end. I know this wastes energy and makes little sense to most people.

But I guess I realized early on that the time to make difficult decisions about what stays and what goes (translated “priorities”) is not during the stress of packing. So usually I have the throw-away and give-away boxes nearby when I unpack at the other end.

I seem to have a clearer, more-relaxed sense of priorities at the end of moves than at the beginning--maybe because I’ve lived without the packed stuff for a while.

That’s the benefit of moving. It’s a discovery of what I can live without, and what I like to have around me.

And it's always a relief.

A Common Spiritual Journey

William Lobdell used to be a religion reporter for the Los Angeles Times. On Saturday, July 21, 2007, he wrote about his spiritual journey on the front page of that paper.

His is a common case of someone finding certainty and “righteousness” in the rules and authority of religion and then being thrown into chaos when that “righteousness” is seriously questioned.

19 years ago a friend took him to a mega-church in Newport Beach, where he came to view the bible as “Life’s Instruction Manual.” He joined the church at the end of an emotional men’s retreat.

He started praying every day and says he had a strong marriage, great kids and a good job.

After about 10 years, he found that his wife’s Roman Catholicism appealed to him. He liked what he calls “its low-key evangelism and deep ritual, long history and loving embrace of liberals and conservatives, immigrants and the established, the rich and poor.”

So he signed up for the year-long conversion classes to join the Catholic Church.

Then Lobdell was assigned to report on the growing number of criminal sexual-abuse cases involving clergy in the Catholic church. As he investigated and realized the extent of the abuse, he began to be disenchanted. He decided not to join the Catholic church.

Then he reported on people who had left the Mormon church and had been shunned by former friends. He stopped going to church.

He then started reporting on corruption in the church. He began to investigate the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and found ministers living lavishly off donations from people with prayer requests.

And he investigated TV healing ministries and saw suffering, desperate people put their faith in a minister to whom they had given money.

He stopped praying and asked for a new beat at the Times.

William Lobdell thought he found “the answer” 19 years ago. It was clear and certain to him. It was built on the rules and authority of the church.

Then disappointment came, as it always does. His certain answer no longer worked. He saw no choice but to throw out everything and close down.

This is what happens when someone searches “out there” for a certain and definite answer. Then when he thinks he’s found it, he stops searching.

He stops searching, because, after all, he has already found what he needs to find, thank you very much, why should he continue searching?

But finding is in the act of searching. This means that when he stops searching he also stops finding. And the only choice left is disillusionment.

Seeking Is Finding

In reading a well-known passage from Luke, I am again struck by how questionable biblical interpretations become embedded in our culture.

Anyone who has been to third-grade Sunday school will remember these two sentences:

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

The usual interpretation--the one that is embedded so strongly that there is no shaking it loose--is an “if, then” statement.

We say, we assume, we live this: if you search, then you will find.

What is actually being said is something very different, and very hard for us to get our lives around: searching is finding. The act or attitude of searching is also the act or attitude of finding.

Conventionally, we think that the importance lies in finding, which is the result of searching. Searching becomes just something we have to do in order to find. Searching is, in itself, not important. Finding is the important part.

To me, this text says that the importance lies in searching, which is the same as finding.

It is surprising and life-giving to give up the desire for a result and simply step into searching. It is how great things are found.

Beyond Political Posturing

Constructive dialogue doesn’t just happen. We don’t have the patience for it. There needs to be a structured process.

Most of the members of the United Methodist California-Pacific Annual Conference participated in such a process a few years ago. It was called “discernment.”

A bit of background. In deciding policy and direction, the United Methodist Church operates as a pure democracy. Matters are decided by Roberts-Rules debates followed by votes in legislative session at both the regional and national levels.

This system is by design adversarial. On each motion, those on both sides are heard from, and then a vote is taken. The majority vote prevails. Those who are not in the majority have to live with it.

We had attempted through legislation for many years to come to terms about the role of gays and lesbians in church leadership. But our conference remained bitterly divided and stuck.

The aim of the discernment process was not legislative but rather attempting to sense the direction of the church in the midst of people opening their hearts to each other. It may sound a little strange, but it was quite powerful.

The central method used was simple. Groups of eight to ten people would agree to basic ground rules and then each person would answer some specific questions about their experience. This method was repeated in many venues over almost two years.

Listening to the experiences of people in the structured setting of discernment was extraordinarily enlightening to me. I had thought I knew everything that needed to be known about this issue.

Hearing from people actually dealing with it every day showed me how little I knew.

Carrying Easter Forward

The fragrance of the lilies begins to fade, the uplift of triumphal music begins to fade.... What are the manifest results of Easter? Especially in a world in which political discussion seems dominated by diatribe and warring hysterical headlines?

For most of us, political dialogue doesn’t exist. We read or hear statements by political leaders which are usually encapsulated criticism of the opponent’s action or point of view.

We read opinion in magazines, newspapers and online. The goal of these pieces is not dialogue but persuasion.

We listen to radio or TV talk shows where the aim is to entertain by pointing out the impugned idiocy of the other side, thus creating conflict. Short, clever, self-righteous diatribes are the staple, from both hosts and callers.

We talk with our friends and discover they have become as stirred up as we are by the lunacy of those we disagree with. The ensuing conversation is not dialog but rather an assemblage of cherry-picked facts that support our pent-up point of view.

In real dialogue, listening comes first, and the goal is not persuasion but understanding. An excellent example is described by David Briggs of Religion News Service.

In a story published last year, he talks about a dialogue between John Kerry supporters and those of George Bush in the “battleground” of Ohio in 2004. It wasn’t easy.

It happened at the Forest Hills Church, Presbyterian in Cleveland Heights. Rev. John Lentz had sensed a bitter partisan division in the church and wanted to find out why there was such tension.

Participants were uneasy and uncertain at the beginning. But what happened over time is revealing. This is how Briggs puts it:

“The focus shifted from trying to convince people who held different beliefs that they were wrong to listening to other members talk about how their views were shaped by having a family member in the military or escorting women into abortion clinics.

“Respecting one another also meant being open to change.”

One participant decided to stop listening to constant criticism of liberals by radio and TV entertainers. He says the idea that those who oppose the Iraq war are unpatriotic is “nonsense--that’s just nuts.”

A conclusion reached by the participants:
“When we seek and share the same values, our differences can lead to creative dialogue instead of confrontational disagreement.”

Why 40 Days of Lent?

Seven is considered a lucky number. How did that happen?

There probably are many people who think seven became lucky in Las Vegas. You could say we are “illnumerate,” though I think that term is used to describe widespread math inability.

The specialness of seven goes waaay back to ancient numerology, in which a particular meaning was attached to certain numbers.

Specifically, the number 4 was used to signify the earth (everything that was on the ground or came from the ground). The number 3 was used to signify the heavens (everything that was up that was visible).

This meant that any equal combination of 3 and 4 signified completeness or perfection. Thus seven (3+4) was understood as the perfect number. So was 12 (3x4).

Likewise, 6 (7-1) was considered a permanently imperfect number. So was 13 (12+1).

This was the understanding as the stories in the bible were written down, edited and assembled. That’s why there are seven days of creation, 12 tribes of Israel and 12 apostles. And the instruction to forgive “seventy times seven” originates from this. There are multiples of seven and 12 in stories throughout the bible. And, of course, the ever-present-in-Revelation-and-horror-movies 666.

The number 40, 4 times ten, is an earth-bound number. Thus it is used to describe the number of years the Israelites were in the wilderness with Moses, the number of days of rain that caused the flood and the number of days of Jesus’ temptation (which we commemorate during Lent).

In the early days of Christianity there came to be 3 faces of god, the trinity. Meanwhile, there were the four corners of the earth and the four elements of ancient alchemy--earth, air, fire and water.

Later, as our system of time evolved, there were 7 days in a week, 24 hours in a day and 12 months in a year.

And then, there came craps.

It all came from way back.

Who Is Jesus?

“I have walked through picket lines in San Diego, California to deliver a lecture. I have endured a bomb threat at Catholic University in Brisbane, Queensland. I have been the recipient of sixteen death threats, all of which came from bible-quoting ‘true believers.’

“I am grateful for each of my critics. What they unwittingly did was identify me as a resource for the religious seekers of our world who yearn to believe in God but who are also repelled by the premodern literalizations that so frequently masquerade as Christianity.”

This passage comes from Bishop John Shelby Spong’s book "Why Christianity Must Change or Die." Published in 1998, it has become much more relevant in the ten years since.

Spong, who is a retired Episcopal bishop, is very concerned that the mainline church is shrinking. His thesis is that some of the central doctrines of the church are based on woefully outdated information and are thus incomprehensible to modern spiritual seekers.

Most “experts” on church growth talk about a myriad of tactics to market, invite and welcome people to church. Instead of this “outside-in” approach, Spong advocates that the church move inside-out. And so he examines and critically questions the roots of doctrine.

Then he goes back further in an effort to discern what the life of Jesus and the earliest Jewish and Christian tradition has to say about the relationship between humans and the divine.

An example of Spong's approach is his examination of the common belief in Jesus as “rescuer.” This has become an embedded part of Christianity, and is proclaimed by conservative Christians as ultimate truth.

But Spong reminds us that this is but one of several interpretations and understandings of the life of Jesus, and is not the earliest. Just like any doctrine, it is based on reading the bible in a particular way, using some specific assumptions.

Some people react to Spong's questioning as if the Christian faith itself is being attacked. That's why he continues to be vilified and even threatened.

His goal, however, is not to tear down Christianity but rather to challenge everyone who cares about the church to get serious about growing it.

By the way, the earliest understanding of Jesus comes from the beginning of the first-written of Paul's letters (and thus the first-written part of the new testament), 1 Thessalonians, which refers to Jesus as spirit.

The Real Original Sin

Last time I mentioned the two creation stories. I want to touch on the second one again, because one doctrine that originates there has been intensely controversial for quite some time. You guessed it. We’re talking original sin.

The traditional Christian teaching is that human sin (that is, disconnection from the sacred) began with Adam’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden. The doctrine developed that this “sin” was part of each human being at birth.

One of the most vocal opponents of this teaching was Rev. Matthew Fox, who in the 1990s developed an alternate view he called “original blessing.” He based this on the first creation story (in which God calls all of creation including humans “very good”). Because this story precedes the Adam and Eve story, he considered it primary, and the most-basic view of essential human nature.

I have always found the source of the original sin idea a bit opaque. Saying that Adam was disobedient to God may or may not be true, but to me it is singularly unhelpful. What exactly does “disobedience to God” mean? How exactly does a person know if he is disobedient to God? There is a great deal of interpretation needed from various authority figures, some of whom may have their own disobedient-to-God agenda.

I prefer to think in terms of the original, and subsequently universal, human failing. It may be the root of all human suffering. It does not begin with an act of disobedience, but with what happens afterward.

The Adam and Eve story illustrates this perfectly. When God asks Adam if he ate the apple, Adam says yes he did, because Eve told him to do it. When God turns to Eve and asks her the same question she says yes, she did tell Adam to eat the apple, because the snake told her to.

This is called passing the buck. We all carry the impulse to do this. This failure to take responsibility causes pain, sadness, dysfunction and even violence. From this impulse all kinds of evil springs.

If there is original sin, this is it--alive and all around us.

2 Creations, 2 Worldviews

Richard Lederer once said that there are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who can’t.

In terms of how we relate to others, there are just two kinds of people. Those who implicitly trust other people, and those who are implicitly suspicious of other people.

Of course, any individual may be “good” or “bad” at any particular moment in his life. What I’m talking about here is our assumption about the most-essential nature of human beings. Deep down, when everything is stripped away, are we essentially “good,” or essentially “bad”? I’m saying that all of us go through life consciously or unconsciously believing most of the time in one or the other.

This is not necessarily a religious or spiritual belief, but there is a religious framework for it. Among Christians and Jews these two groups are divided into those who have an affinity with the first creation story (people are essentially “good”), and those who have an affinity with the second (people are essentially “bad”).

There are two separate and distinct creation stories in the bible. The first is the seven-day creation, which begins, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...” For each of the first six days, Gods speaks, and something is created. When God is halfway done, God looks out and sees that creation is “good.” When God is completely done, God looks over all of creation, including humans, and sees that is is “very good.” On the seventh day, God rests.

As a religious person, if this story resonates with you, you believe that human nature is essentially good. Indeed, very good.

The second creation story is the one with Adam and Eve, and it comes from a different tradition than the first. We know this right away because the name of God becomes “Lord God.”

In this story God forms Adam from the dust of the ground, and then uses Adam’s rib to create Eve. Then the trouble starts when God tells Adam that he can eat from any tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The snake tells Eve that it’s really ok to eat from the tree. Eve tells Adam, who then has an apple. God gets mad and throws them both out of the garden.

If this story resonates with you, you likely are suspicious of human nature.

Creation Stories and Us

Exactly what is legend and what is history continues to divide us. The creation stories at the beginning of the bible are a great example of this. Some people discard the stories as barbaric, others reverently worship the details and take them literally. Reasonable people find themselves somewhere between these two extremes.

Most people never read the actual stories. Just as very few people read the actual text from which the ten commandments are taken. (People seem to like the list better, even though it is a broad interpretation.)

Whatever we feel or believe about the creation stories, what matters is this: all people live based on the premise of either the first or the second. And that’s the truth of the matter.

Premise of first story: human beings are inherently good. As in: on the sixth day “God looked over all that he had created and saw that it was very good.”

Premise of second story (Adam and Eve): human beings are inherently bad. So bad that they were thrown out of the garden.

The King James Version

The King James Bible was published almost 397 years ago.

At the time, words like “doth” and “sayeth” were no longer used. In fact, they hadn’t been common for many years. But the authors wanted to give the book the sound of an ancient document.

The influence of the King James bible on our culture and language is considerable. This is especially obvious in the liturgies and beloved hymns of churches.

Fondness for the King James version sometimes goes too far. This is usually harmless, even amusing. For example, you can sometimes hear people pray using words from the King James--“thee,” “thou,” “leadeth” and “wouldst.”

I think the unconscious assumption is that King James English is God’s language. So God will understand you if you use it when you pray.

Due to the fact that the King James bible was used for hundreds of years to teach English to children, its rhythms, poetry and images have become embedded in our language. It was the bible that accompanied the westward expansion across the U.S., and so is part of our history.

It is beautifully and vividly written, and has been mined extensively for creative inspiration.

But respect and affection for this book are sometimes taken way too far. For example, some congregations and individuals consider the King James bible to be the only “true” bible. This is logically impossible, of course, unless you assume the book dropped out of the sky in 1611, and was therefore not based on any previous bibles.

And unless you assume that God speaks only English. King James English.

Religious and Anti-Religious Fanatics

Virtually all publicized religious debate and news is dominated by fanatics (sometimes called "fundamentalists"). There are fanatics on both sides of every issue, including whether there is a god or not. Two examples of fanatics who have gotten lots of attention are Pat Robertson and Bill Maher.

Robertson seems to enjoy the spotlight so much that he deliberately makes obnoxious assertions about what God wants or is going to do. Either that or he really believes God is sending messages for him to send along to us. Either way, he has a problem.

Bill Maher is another perfect example of a self-righteous fanatic. He is an atheist, though he has labeled himself a "rationalist," which is simply incorrect. A fanatic by definition cannot be rational. And Maher is far from rational when he brings up religion on his HBO show. He talks about it with foul, dripping loathing. You can hear it in the way he says the word “religion”: REEEE-LIH-JOHNNNN, drawn out with equal emphasis on each syllable.

Maher lumps all religious people together and effectively calls them superstitious, deluded and stupid. Using hugely broad stereotypes is a classic characteristic of a fanatic. Maher has occasionally been rebuffed and criticized for this on his show, often by people whom he’d never expect to be religious.

I have to give him credit because, after each of these incidents, he does seem to moderate himself for a while. Until something new sets him off.

My Good, My Bad

As human beings, we prefer to think of things broadly assigned to one side of the fence or the other--”us, them” and lots of varieties of “good, bad.” There are many examples, including big ones like “Christianity good, Islam bad,” “small business good, big business bad,” and “Democrats good, Republicans bad” (or “Republicans good, Democrats bad”).

Putting things on one side of the fence or the other is a way for us to deal with fear and to avoid the work and discomfort of understanding. We sometimes do this quite openly in areas related to entertainment and the arts.

Some statements I’ve heard are: “church good, movies bad” (and its variation “church good, movies after 1945 bad”), “books good, TV bad,” and “classical music good, contemporary music bad” (and many variations).

Because I regularly talked about movies in my church work, the first statement is my favorite, and it provides a perfect framework to counter this way of thinking (more correctly, this way of not thinking).

There are about 400 movies released each year.
Most of them are bad.
Some are good.
Some are very good.

There are about 65,000 sermons preached in American churches each week.
Most of them are bad.
Some are good.
Some are very good.

Apocalypse Not

“Apocalypse Not” was the name of a conference of religious leaders held a while back at Trinity Church in New York. "Christian Century" magazine ran a brief item about it.

The conference was organized as a response to concerns about the coming end of the world from two different groups--conservative Christians who believe there will be a “rapture” and those concerned that the environment will soon degrade to the point that life on earth will cease.

About the latter concern, theologian Jurgen Moltmann reminded attendees that “life on earth” includes much more than human life. As such, it is virtually impossible for all life to be wiped out any time over the next two or three billion years. Moltmann used the example of life on earth continuing after dinosaurs became extinct.

Belief in “rapture” is widespread these days. The popularity of the best-selling "Left Behind" series of fiction books is evidence of this.

Underlying most religious beliefs are inherent personality and emotional traits, which come before and give power to the beliefs. Generally, people who believe in a coming literal apocalypse are unhappy in their current circumstances and want to look forward to the day they will be freed from them. This is a broad simplification, of course, but when you look across the groups who teach this belief, you will find it to be mostly true.

Theologians, scientists and religious people can debate the reality and timing of the end of the world. Liberal and conservative biblical scholars can argue about whether Revelation is a literal prediction of the end of the world, or an allegory about hope in the presence of corruption and the abuse of power.

But I’m a practical guy. Instead of spending time panicking or praying about the end of the world, or even debating, why don’t we simply do something now to make life around us a little better?

Reason Comes Slowly

The earth is at the center of the universe, with the sun and stars revolving around it. Diseases are caused by demon possession. Or they are caused by an imbalance of bodily humours. The four known elements are earth, air, wind and fire. The earth was created 6,000 years ago.

All of these ancient beliefs, common at the time of the bible, have been superseded by uncontested scientific discovery and research. But, according to a 2006 Gallup poll, almost half of Americans still believe that the earth was created 6,000 years ago, literally according to the account in Genesis.

There is a creation science museum just outside San Diego, and a “Creation Museum” under construction in Petersberg, Kentucky, near Cincinnati. The San Diego museum is a popular stop for groups of schoolchildren who visit from Christian schools. Among the exhibits is a row of photos of “creation scientists” across from a row of photos of those “believing” in evolution.

The row of photos of those “believing” in evolution includes Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler, but does not include other “believers” such as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, Desmond Tutu and Gandhi.

My guess is that the belief in biblical creation will very gradually decline over the next 100 years, but it will hang on beyond all attempts at reason--as it has over the last 150 years. When Copernicus demonstrated that the earth was revolving around the sun, it was considered just a theory. Years later, Galileo, whose thinking now underlies much of modern science, faced persecution and excommunication from the church when he presented data confirming Copernicus.

It took hundreds of years for most people to accept that the earth revolved around the sun. Evidently, it will also take hundreds of years for most Americans to accept that the actual age of the earth is 4.5 billion years.

Greed Causing Grief

Greed causes more trouble and pain than any other human flaw, and it begins with something that many of us do every day.

Call it “just a little more.” We take a 15-minute work break and we stay out for just a little longer, 20 minutes. We get away with that. We take another small step, staying out 25 minutes. We don’t get into trouble for that. We take another small step. Eventually our supervisor will say something, and we may feel a trifle wronged if we’ve managed to get away with longer breaks for a while.

Another way this happens is when we take advantage of a gracious gesture. For example, on a couple of occasions our boss has been nice enough to give us a couple hours off to take care of personal business. We ask a few more times, and two hours off becomes three, then an afternoon. We begin to take it for granted, and if a subsequent request for time off is questioned, we feel persecuted.

Time, money, love, attention. Give me a little, I want a little more. It’s called greed.

Corporate fraud and embezzlement are classic and egregious examples of this. Someone discovers that they can move a bit of company money around and get away with it. Then he moves a bit more money twice as often. He still doesn’t get caught. The stakes gradually get higher and higher. When the crime is finally discovered, we are amazed that someone could steal so much money. But it all began with taking “just a little more.”

Helping to enable this behavior is our operating ethic of “do whatever you can get away with.” If I can get away with it, why don’t I take just a little more?