The power behind the church's mission

This one's for my more religious-type friends.

One of the joys (and frustrations) of worshipping in a church tradition different from your own is that the hymns are hardly ever quite the same. Today at Christ Episcopal Church we sang Rusty Edwards', "We All Are One in Mission." I've sung it dozens of times in Presbyterian settings, but this was the first time I sang this stanza:

We all behold one vision,
A stark reality:
The steward of salvation
Was nailed upon a tree.
Yet resurrected Justice
Gives rise that we may share
Free reconciliation
And hope amid despair.

It is in the original hymn, according to the web, nestled between our usual Presbyterian second and third stanzas. Seems to offer theological justification for being "one in mission." I wonder why we Presbyterians omit it? Not enough room on the page? Theological considerations? Other reasons? I invite your comments.

(BTW, today's homilist quoted Karl Barth, with approval!)

Another Gun Massacre

The Cleveland Plain Dealer rejected the following letter to the editor because it is too long, and they didn't print my shortened version, either. So here it is, all 340 words of it. Maybe in memory of the 20+ worshippers in Texas who lost their lives this morning because someone . . . I don't know what to say. 

Perhaps the most telling sentences in Stephen Halbrook’s October 27 opinion piece (“More Gun Control Laws Won’t Stop Vegas-type Massacres”) are these: “Pseudo protection offered by paper laws guarantees nothing. Every person is ultimately responsible for his or her safety.”

Halbrook disdains the rule of law because laws don’t guarantee anything. He believes in the law of the old West, the law of the gun. He and no one eise is responsible for his own safety, and he is apparently not responsible in any way for the safety of others.

It’s true, I admit: laws do not guarantee anything. But they sure make life a lot safer on a daily basis for all of us. Traffic laws don’t guarantee I will not be killed in a head-on crash, but knowing that almost all drivers will stay on their side of the road and not drive on my side makes me a lot safer than if everyone could drive wherever they felt like. The beauty of laws regarding who drives where is that I do not have to confront and deal with life-threatening chaos every time I get behind the wheel. I am safer, and my life is easier, and I like that.

I assume that Mr. Halbrook would never think of contacting law enforcement if he received a death threat in the mail, or if someone were stalking his house. After all, he is ultimately responsible for his own safety. “Real men” need no one else.

The gun lobby apparently wants a return to the good old days before the sheriff came to town, when everyone had a six gun and was free to use it without fear of the consequences. I do not want that, Mr. Halbrook, either for myself or my children or grandchildren. Frankly, thinking like yours make me fear for their future, and for the future of the rule of law. For your sake and mine, I hope you and yours do not get the kind of world you are trying to create.