“They like me! They really like me!” 

I could write for a year on Martin Luther. His theological and musical brilliance still lights up the world. He was not without his faults. He was at times rather coarse with his language and carried about a few of the unenlightened prejudices of his day. True historians attempt to take the measure of a past figure within the context of their times and offer some grace in respect to their inevitable surfeit of blemishes. There are others, however, who attempt to judge all history by current benchmarks and dismiss out of hand these flawed figures of antiquity. They expect perfection from history which I find not only remarkable but exceedingly arrogant. I’ve only known one perfect figure in human history – the one I attempt to follow each day. The judgmental, revisionist historians – who fall short of their own standards – feel the freedom to destroy the man and miss the message. Look soon for a toppling of a Martin Luther statue near you.

Okay, that was my curmudgeonly rant for the day. Back to the larger issue at hand: hate. Jesus promised that the world would hate his followers. We translated hate with the perfectly acceptable paraphrase detestari, (detest) which means, de- ‘down’ + testari ‘witness’.  To “down the witness” means that it’s a twofer. We get to be hated both for who we are and what we have to say!
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That might sound like a bit of an overreach, a martyr’s complex as it were. But, and I rarely say this, trust me. Simmering just beneath the normal good manners of cultural niceties is a fierce sense of loathing for anything so quaint and ancient as the Christian faith. Non-Christians are always wanting to charge in and rework and remodel the church according to their own trendy tastes. Regrettably, they’ve found many needy and complicit clergy willing to do just that – who await them at the narthex handing out the crowbars and hammers. I can almost hear these ministers saying in Sally Field fashion: “They like me! They really like me!”

No, we mustn’t roll over at every bit of cultural meandering. History has proven that culture might accidentally wend its way back to something resembling orthodoxy. What’s left then of the cleric who has panted after popularity over and against the faith? He or she is left looking the fool. We must have a spine. We are advocates of a truth more ancient than even the created universe. Yet, we must share that truth with those who hate without ourselves becoming hateful. That’s the rub. That’s the challenge. And that’s where we’ll land over the next few days.