Seeing Gray

I just finished speaking to our Spring confirmation class - 136 excited and energized 7th graders (and a few older youth as well) who are preparing to publicly profess their faith in Christ on Sunday.  As a part of my talk with the group each semester I invite them commit their lives to Christ and then offer an “altar call” in which I lead them in a prayer of commitment.  It is a very moving time and one in which most of our youth make a decision to follow Christ.

Following this I speak to the youth about listening for God’s call to ordained ministry.  All of us are called to ministry, both as laity and clergy.  But the future of the church is largely dependent upon gifted young people listening for, and answering the call to full time Christian service as pastors.  I began by asking which of our youth already felt that God may be calling them.  There were perhaps ten who stood.  Then I told the kids how my call to ministry came from other people telling me that they saw gifts for ministry in me.  And I asked the youth to point to those people in their small groups that they could envision being pastors someday, and we had these kids stand.  Another 33 youth stood.  43 of the 136 kids in our Spring confirmation class either felt that they might be called, or someone else thought they might be called to full time Christian service.  Our fall class had 42 youth indicate the same thing - 85 seventh graders this year who are considering a call to ordained ministry!

I am not suggestion that the call to be a pastor is more important than the call to be in ministry in the church and in the world as a lay person, but right now mainline churches are desperately searching for ways to help young people hear a call to ministry.  We need young clergy who will help reach a new generation of people for Christ.  Currently only 850 of the 16,000 active United Methodist clergy are under 35.  But what I find is that many young people are not hearing  a call to the pastorate because no one is asking.  Tonight I saw 43 seventh graders stand up because we asked.

We have a goal that at least 200 young people answer the call to ordained ministry here at Church of the Resurrection and are ordained within the next 20 years.  After watching the youth tonight, I think our vision is too small.

This last week Lisa Miller of Newsweek called to talk with me about my chapter on abortion in my new book, Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White. The article is a short one that you can read here entitled, “ How Would Jesus Choose?” Already I’ve been forwarded links where folks, without actually reading the chapter, have noted that “Hamilton is not a Christian.” Lisa did a nice job with the article but I want to elaborate and clarify a bit of what she notes in the story.

Lisa writes, “he believes abortion should be available and legal, that there are instances in which it might be necessary and that those instances should be very rare.” I believe abortion is ethically justifiable when carrying a child to viability could pose a significant danger to the life of the mother. These situations are relatively rare, but they do exist. I also believe that abortion could be morally justifiable in cases of rape and incest when the psychological affects upon the woman of carrying the child to term could be devastating. Finally, I believe it could be argued that, in cases of the most severe kind of fetal abnormalities, where it is known with certainty that the fetus cannot survive apart from the mother, abortion might be justifiable (again, these are rare instances).

In these situations I believe there must be safe and legal means of abortion. These situations are rare - interpreted most liberally, perhaps 25%. According to others, less than 5%. But in those situations, I concur with the official position of the United Methodist Church that abortion should be safe and legal.

Lisa noted that I said it was my job to try to “support people no matter what decision they make.” The context of that quote was my describing persons who I have counseled who discovered that there was severe fetal deformity or that the child was unlikely to live long outside the womb. In these cases I counsel to carry the child to term and describe the children in our own congregation who doctors said would not live, or who were born with deformities. But I also told Lisa that I knew I was not the one who would live with the consequences of this decision, and that if the couple still chose to abort, I would continue to support and care for them, regardless of the decision they made.

Finally, what does it mean to be “pro-life with a heavy heart”? It means that I believe that conception and the development of life in the womb is something sacred and that abortion should be very rare. I favor tighter restrictions on abortion than are now seen in our society. At the same time, I feel compassion and concern for women and men who are faced with the kind of challenging situations that lead them to consider abortion: A 13 year old girl (she’s in seventh grade) becomes pregnant and her otherwise “pro-life” parents seek a prescription for the “morning after pill” from their doctor; a couple receives news early in the pregnancy that the fetus is not likely to survive to delivery, and if it does, will not live outside the womb and they wrestle with carrying the child in the womb for another six months; a 45 year old woman has been raped and discovers she’s pregnant (I’ve masked the details slightly but these are all examples from our own congregation).

The main premise of the chapter in the book is that if pro-life advocates could find a way to approach this issue in a different tone, I believe there are pro-choice advocates who would work with them to reduce the number of abortions. After 30 years of heated rhetoric there are still over 1,000,000 abortions occurring each year. Our nation is still divided on this issue and sixteen years of strongly pro-life presidencies have not significantly affected this number. But I believe that number could be halved if people might be willing to see enough gray to work together with those who view this issue differently than they do.

I’d like to invite you to actually read the chapter from the book - Abingdon Press has graciously agreed to post this chapter on line ( click here to read the chapter). Before commenting on this post, please read the full chapter from the book. This is an issue we all feel strongly about. I’m advocating greater understanding on the part of both pro-life and the pro-choice advocates, and working together towards a goal of reducing the number of abortions that occur.

My heart is still beating fast from watching the Jayhawks come back from a nine point deficit with two minutes left to tie the game at two seconds and send the National Championship into overtime, and then winning in overtime.  Unbelieveable!  Congratulations all you KU fans!  There are a undoubtedly a host of life lessons in this victory - I’m hoping you’ll take a minute and tell us how the Jayhawks championship illustrates some great life principles or might serve as a great sermon illustration!  : )  One that comes to mind for me:  There are people who give up when things look impossible, and there are people who never stop believing that things can turn around.

Ten years ago LaVon bought me my first telescope (a 4″dobsonion reflector). This last week, after years of looking and dreaming, I bought a new telescope (an 8″ Meade LX90 Schmidt-Cassegrain I picked up on e-bay). The scope arrived on Friday, but I didn’t have time to set it up and try it out until tonight after worship. It was about 11:00 p.m. when I finally began taking a tour of the night sky.

I started with a visit to Mars. Then there was Saturn, which always makes my heart leap when I see its rings (and this time I was able to see two of its moons - something I had not seen before). From there it was on to a visit to several stars, and then finally to M13, the Hercules Globular Cluster.

To the naked eye M13 is just a faint star. But with a scope you can see what looks like a small pile of salt poured onto a black table. It contains hundreds of thousands of stars and it is about 22,000 light years away from Earth (yet still in our Milky Way Galaxy). Think of this - the light from those stars, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, took 22,000 years to arrive here! And this is one of our neighbors in our own Galaxy - it is estimated that our galaxy is just one of more than 100 billion total galaxies in the universe! Looking at the stars reminds me of the vastness of God’s domain - God is present, and watches over, the farthest reaches of the universe.

Looking at the planets and the stars tonight, I am reminded of the words of the Psalmist, in Psalm 8, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what are mere mortals that you are mindful of them?” Most of us live as though the entire universe revolves around us, individually and as a planet. Yet the things we fret over, divide and debate over, and sometimes kill over, seem very small when looking at the stars through my telescope. I can’t help but wonder if they seem even smaller to God, who watches over and sustains the farthest reaches of the heavens.

I’ll close with a few lines written 3,000 years ago by another stargazer, in Psalm 19,

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they display knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words;

no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,

their words to the ends of the world.

I’m in San Diego today to speak to the students at Point Loma University in their chapel service, then to speak at a luncheon at the City Club of San Diego and finally at an evening lecture at First United Methodist Church of San Diego, before flying back to K.C.  I’m speaking on the topic of Seeing Gray.  As I was preparing my comments for San Diego I ran across this quote from psychologist Mark Sichel that I found interesting,

“Always” and “never,” polar opposite words, tend to characterize the vocabulary of black and white thinkers. Black and white thinking means seeing the world only in terms of extremes. If things aren’t “perfect,” then they must be “horrible.” If your child isn’t “brilliant” then he must be “stupid.” If you’re not “fascinating” then you must be “boring.” Yikes! What a tough way to live! In real-life, situations are almost always shades of gray, not black or white. Falling victim to black and white thinking tends to exacerbate depression, marital conflict, anxiety, and a host of other everyday problems. Give yourself and the ones you love a break and discover the beauty of shades of gray. ( Read Mark’s entire post).

For those reading this who live in San Diego feel free to join me at First United Methodist Church of San Diego tonight (April 2) at 7:00 p.m.   I’ll be signing my book following my talk in Seeing Gray.  For more information check out this link.

Two years ago I sat down with a 24-year-old young man named John who gave me eight reasons he was not a Christian. As we talked it became apparent that he was not rejecting Jesus, but a particular version of Christianity; a version that saw the world in black and white terms that made no sense to him. He was rejecting a God who would bring about the death of John’s friends serving in Iraq, who would send faithful people of other religions to hell, who could only be believed in if one was willing to reject foundational concepts in modern science, and a God whose followers seemed narrow minded and judgmental. Several recent studies of young adults have pointed to the fact that John is not alone in these feelings.

My conversation with John was one of several factors that led me to write, Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White: Thoughts on Religion, Morality and Politics. The book includes 24 essays including, “Where Is God When Bad Things Happen?” “In Praise of Honest Doubt,” “Is Your Jesus Too Small?” “The Messy Truth About Spirituality,” “Will There Be Hindus in Heaven,” “How to be Pentecostal Without Losing Your Mind,” “Homosexuality at the Center,” “Questions of War,” and 16 others.

Seeing Gray is officially being released by Abingdon Press on Tuesday, April 2 (yes, we intentionally postponed releasing it on April Fool’s Day!). I was fortunate to have a number of Christian leaders read the book and give their endorsements including Jim Wallis, who wrote the forward, Len Sweet, Bill Hybels, Brian McLaren, John Ortberg, a number of seminary professors and seven bishops. To read their endorsements.

I am hopeful that this book will be helpful to all who have struggled with the black and white, either/or approach to faith, morality and politics - an approach that tends to polarize our churches and our nation. I also hope each chapter will encourage meaningful discussion (there are discussion questions for each chapter included in the book). Abingdon will be releasing video clips as small group discussion starters based upon some of my sermons by September.

If you read the book and find it helpful, please spread the word. We released the book just weeks before the United Methodist Church’s General Conference in the hope that it might be helpful as we prepare to debate thorny moral issues. We sent a copy to each of the active bishops of the church. We also released the book this year to coincide with the presidential elections. A friend is presenting a copy of the book to Senators Clinton, McCain and Obama.

If you read the book and find it helpful, please help me get the word out. I’d like the guys like John to know that there is another kind of Christianity out there - one that appreciates the gray in a world of black and white.