The Individual or the Crowd?

A well put piece from Stanley Fish in today's NYT.

Click Here.

How Not to Make an Argument

For a few semesters I taught college freshman composition. I was not entirely well suited to the job, but I did take a certain pride in promoting something important to me--the necessity of critical thinking, discerning intellectual distinctions, and of making a credible argument.

Conservative commentator Cal Thomas offers us an example of how not to do this. Thomas writes on Foxnews.com that the civil rights movement was "hijacked" by sources other than Glenn Beck. Yet after making the unsupported claim that "liberal Democrats keep African-American children locked up in underperforming schools", Thomas provides a vague list of social ills afflicting African Americans. He then follows with a sweeping generalization concerning what "Conservatives" support and what "Liberals" support. Finally, without any reference to the above, Thomas blames Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Eleanor Holmes Norton for hijacking the civil rights movement.

Keep hope alive! Thomas cries, ending his piece.

It is hard to keep hope alive when this sort of thing passes for
a. Thoughtful
b. Informed
c. Critical (in the best use of the term)

It is an interesting question, however, as to who gets to define things. The power to define has long been associated with the ruling class. Martin Luther King and his followers claimed the right to define Black experience in America. This definition was at odds, obviously, with the position of the privleged white majority. Today my question surrounding the Glenn Beck controversy is--who is allowed to define "civil rights movement"? Does the definition change over time? Critics of Beck claim that he is taking a movement which was defined by Black experience and twisting it into a label white, tea party conservatives. How fluent are the definitions and to what degree does history matter in this debate?

In any event, we need to do better than Cal Thomas.

Arson and Civil Rights

I am sorry to bring this up again. The irony cannot be ignored.

USA Today reports that Federal officials are investigating as arson a fire at a mosque in Tennessee. This is reminiscent of the arson targeting Black churches in the south in the time of Martin Luther King, Jr.

And one of the loudest voices against Islam.... one of the loudest voices fanning the flames (pun intended) of discrimination against Muslims.....one of the loudest voices on a network of loud voices heaping daily innuendo on mosques as being nothing more than terrorist cells.....

That voice.... Glenn Beck.... Sarah Palin.... stood where Martin Luther King, Jr. stood (down slightly) talking about reclaiming America for God.

And in the afterglow of such warm, religious sentiment.... someone who no doubt loves Fox News and Glenn Beck... tried to burn down a Mosque.

Overheard At Rev. Beck's Religious Revival

Becky Benson, 56, traveled from Orlando, Fla., because, she said, “we believe in Jesus Christ, and he is our savior.” Jesus, she said, would not have agreed with what she called the redistribution of wealth in the form of the economic stimulus package, bank bailouts and welfare. “You cannot sit and expect someone to hand out to you,” she said. “You don’t spend your way out of debt.” (NYT)

"When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just" Jesus- Luke 14

On the Dangers of Giving Bibles to Children

Luke 14: 1, 7-14

It is the sacred calling of the preacher to crack the hard shell of Scripture so that the people may feast upon its meat.

Well, maybe that is not quite the way to put it. But it is true that the preacher’s primary job is to open up texts from scripture for the congregation. The preacher is to make the Bible “relevant” or “applicable” to the flock. But in so doing the preacher seldom talks about the Bible itself. The Bible as an object of study seems more appropriate to—well, Bible study. Rather, we hear short snippets from one or more of the Bible’s sixty-six books each Sunday. The end result is much like attempting to understand a quilt but looking each week at one of the squares. If we have a good memory we can get an idea of what the whole might look like. Otherwise we simply admire a given square.

Today we shall depart from this model, somewhat, and spend some time thinking about the Bible as a whole. More specifically, we will reflect on how the Scripture plays an important role in Scripture itself, and how we might understand the role of Scripture in our faith lives. And the occasion for this scrutiny is the presentation of Bibles to our third-graders. Now these are real Bibles we are handing out. These are not Children’s Bibles or abridged New Testaments. This is the whole Word, the whole nut, if you like. And if you are going to hand the whole nut to third-graders, you had better be ready with a nut-cracker. Or, to be less metaphoric, if we are going to give Bibles to children we had best be prepared to help them understand it.

I am reminded of the story in Acts where Phillip comes across an Ethiopian reading the prophet Isaiah. He is reading this passage—“As a sheep led to the slaughter of a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he opens is mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him.” Phillip wants to know if the Ethiopian understands what he is reading. “How can I," he replies, "without someone to help me?”

And this is the position our children are in. How can they understand what they are reading without someone to help them? And guess who that someone is? It is you—parents, grandparents, LOGOS teachers, adult guardians of our children’s spiritual life. And yes, the pastors. But the statement, “ask the pastors that question” is not a good long-term solution, and it sends the message that only “religious professionals” interpret the Bible. This is an idea the reformers fought against.

Because that used to be the way it was. In the days before the Protestant Reformation the Church controlled the Scriptures. The language of scripture was Latin which the average Christian could not read. Because the average Christian good not read the Bible, the Church told them what the Bible said---selectively, of course. Before the Reformation there were those who wanted the Bible released from captivity—translated to common languages and read by many. But the Church resisted this demand. The parallel occurrence of the Protestant Reformation and the invention of the printing press eventually put the Bible in the hands of people. But still there was a problem. The people could read it, but what did it mean?

So here is our conundrum. The Bible should be read by everyone, but the Bible is not easy to understand. So we need religious professionals—theologians, Bible Scholars, educated pastors—to help us understand. But these people, helpful though they are, should not decide for us. So in the end the reading and understanding of Scripture is a collaborative effort, a communal effort. It is enhanced by those educated in the ways of interpretation. It is enhanced by the freshness and honesty brought to the text by the practicing Christian.

So today we welcome these third-graders to the community of Bible readers. It is a new adventure for them. But it is a serious matter, giving Bibles to children. Because they might actually read it. And as they grow in the faith, as they gain more and more life experience, as they thoughtfully apply the Scripture to their lives, amazing things might start to happen. This is what happened to Jesus, according to Luke’s story.

Luke tells us that Jesus started his bible study as a young man. Not as a third-grader, more of a middle-schooler. But there he was, in the temple, at age 12, engaged in a give and take with the teachers who were very impressed by him.

The next thing Luke tells us is that the 12 year old Jesus has grown into a 30 year old Jesus and he is back in the Synagogue, only this time in his home town of Nazareth. Jesus reads the prophet Isaiah to the gathering and they are pleased with him. But then Jesus goes on to talk of another part of Scripture—the story from the book of Kings when the prophets of Israel bring their curative power to people outside of Israel. This so enrages the people that they attempt to throw Jesus off the cliff. I hope, when our third graders come back in twenty years with their biblical insights we give them a warmer reception. But the point is this: when we become immersed in the Bible we discover that a lot of people who say they are Bible people really don’t have any idea what is in it—or simply have chosen to ignore a vast amount of what is in it. This tends to lead to uncomfortable situations.

Like in today’s text. Jesus is invited to eat at the home of the leader of the Pharisees. Now the Pharisees were experts in the law. They knew their Scripture. And how much more so should a leader of the Pharisees know the Scripture. So Jesus is startled, perhaps (then again, probably not as this is not his first Pharisee dinner) to see everyone jockeying for the places of honor at the dinner. The advice that Jesus gives is not simply practical, it is Scripture. Proverbs 25. “Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place that is great; for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of the prince.”

So Jesus is not simply suggesting a way to avoid embarrassment. Jesus is confronting the religious leaders with their own Scripture, the command to be humble and not seek honor for oneself. And then Jesus tells them another parable, this one about inviting the poor and the lame, the blind and the crippled. This, too, is a summary of Scripture. It is, in fact, similar to the scripture that Jesus read to the home folks that nearly go him killed. For Isaiah says that the good news is to be preached to the poor, the blind, those who are oppressed. Jesus is reminding the Pharisees, again, of what their Scriptures teach. You see, Jesus was not irritating because he had all these radical new ideas, he was irritating because he confronting the privileged with their own Scripture, with the Bible they claimed to know, follow and protect.

Not that the Pharisees gave in easily—or at all. They had a pretty good idea themselves what Scripture was about. Much like the people back in Jesus’ home church who presumed to know more about the Bible then Jesus did. And today we find the same debates, the same competing claims. Whether or not the Pharisees were correct in their interpretations, they possessed the power to enforce them. Which is why Jesus was crucified. But Jesus was also raised from the dead by the glory and power of God. So if we are deadlocked between Jesus’ understanding of the Bible and the Pharisees' understanding of the Bible, I would say the resurrection is a tie-breaker.

What is more, if we help our children with their Bible discoveries we may find we are discovering things for ourselves. And that can be very helpful when the conversation turns to what is "Christian" and not "Christian" in our media. If we have a Bible, but do not read our Bible, then we are likely to be convinced by whomever speaks the firmest, or whose other viewpoints we like. Without our own immersion in Scripture, how can we tell the phonies from the real thing?

Yes, it can be dangerous to give Bibles to children. They might read it. What is more, as they come to understand it, in its marvelous mosaic, they will be shaped by it. They might be inspired to ask a lot of questions about it, make it the center piece of their lives. Then they might grow up in the Spirit of the Lord and become preachers. And what if those third graders, now all grown up, came back with the Good News of the Gospel—good news for the poor, the lame, the crippled, the socially disadvantaged. What if those young kids grew up to become leaders in communities fighting for social justice, and equality, and love and fairness and all those things which today compete with the powers that be who defend the status quo? Would we, who gave them this Bible in the first place, listen to them?

Yes, giving Bibles to children is a dangerous thing. But it is also a hopeful thing, an exciting thing, a faithful thing. But do not leave them to go it alone. Go with them. Read it to them and with them. Read it on your own. Don't settle for Bible-Believing. Be Bible knowledgeable.

Ground Zero Beck

As I sit here contemplating our world, it occurs to me that Glenn Beck's decision to host his rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's I have a dream speech is eerily similar to the debate around the "ground zero" muslim community center. The difference, though, is that this serves Beck's purpose, the other does not.

The primary objection, as I understand it, to the community center is that it is disrespectful of what ground zero means to those who were impacted by those events. Yet Beck shows no reluctance to claim not merely proximate space, but the exact space, and date, of an event crucial to the hearts of civil rights activists and those who have suffered at the hands of white racism.

All of this does nothing more than to reinforce my despair that there is no honesty, no integrity, no surrender to truth, left in our culture.

The cross is left to confront the will to power.

More stream of consciousness. The issue for me is not whether Beck has a right to do what he is doing. Bit such a right has to be universally applied.

But Beck and his kind are not real people. They are characters acting in the theater of the real. They are reality television and so many are cast against their will as props for the political and monetary gain of this theater of the real (absurd).

An Opinion Worth Reading

Related to my post about the community center in New York....

One of my real peeves about this and other issues is the absolute disregard for the truth. It is one thing to disagree about how we relate to the truth, but it is something else just to make stuff up to serve one's purpose.

So here is a good piece along those lines. Click here.

On the Mosque and Rising Suns

Given that this blog's purpose concerns the relationship between religion and culture, it would seem I should have something to say about the controversy in New York. But I do not know what to say. Suppose a segment of the population decided to protest the notion that the sun rises in the east. What shall we say? Look east in the morning? Look west in the evening? And if they persisted, claiming that the "claim" that the sun rises in the east is nothing more than mere "appearance", a clever trick or manipulation of those with sinister intent, what then shall we say?

That the protest in New York is irrational, that the sentiments expressed against the community center, against Islam, against the "Other" are ill-conceived, seems to me so self-evident there is no need to express it here. Besides, from the Daily Show to Frank Rich in the NYT, the flaws of the protests logic and approach seem to have been laid sufficiently bare.

And those who prefer their news a little, shall we say, foxier, how can we communicate? For what is at issue here is not a question of foreign policy or economic theory. There are certanly issues around which conservatives and liberals can disagree with integrity and intelligence. This issue is not one of them. What is at issue here is the demonization of a people through loose guilt by association and ludicrous cause and effect. This is power playing emotion to the worst effect. I just wish I could think of something new to say about it.

I guess what troubles me the most about this issue, and why my brain tends to lock up when I think about it, is that I am trained as both a theologian and a journalist. So I see offense on every front. The coverage of the "story" is irresponsible by the right and the attitude toward Islam and the raging ignorance displayed concerning religion, culture, and history is staggering.

How do you argue with someone who says the sun rises in the west?

Or as Schiller has one of his characters exclaim, "Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain."

Those Possessed by Devils Try To Keep Them Under Control

So said Reg, follower and presumed head disciple of the followers of Brian, Messiah. Or so it seems in one scene from Monty Python's "Life of Brian". Completely against his will, Brian has attracted both followers and a reputation and he is now being touted as "The Savior". As Brian makes his way through a crowd, seemingly oblivious to those around him, many cry out for healing and for him to touch them. But Reg is there for crowd control. "Don't push that baby in the Savior's face," he scolds, "he'll touch him later." "Women taken in sin line up against that wall." And, of course, the above mentioned.

I am thinking of this as I look at the Gospel reading assigned for tomorrow in the Lectionary. It is the story of Jesus healing a woman who was bent and crippled for 18 years. She appeared at the synagogue on the Sabbath as Jesus was teaching. When Jesus sees her, he interrupts his teaching to proclaim that she is set free from her ailment. Predictably this upsets the Pharisees who object to Jesus healing on the Sabbath. But this story has a twist, one that brought to mind the above scene from the movie. The Pharisees, a la Reg, say to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured."

Now this is an interesting idea. What are we to assume? Shall we assume that this woman simply did not know that cures were available six days a week? Or shall we assume that had she come on another day, she would not have been cured, as there would be no one there to cure her? One could argue that only Jesus could cure and this was the day he was in town. But what seems more likely is that the Pharisees, in a well practiced art still practiced today, used the letter of the law to weasel out of responsibility. If we grant that it is wrong to cure on the Sabbath, and if we also grant that healing is permissible six days out of the week, then why are not more people cured?

The answer is, it seems from the text, the Pharisees had no interest in that activity. But rather than owning that small detail, they preferred instead to take their moral high road and defend the sanctity of the Sabbath.

Jesus has none of it. He never has any of it from the Pharisees. Jesus points out that the Sabbath was made for human beings. The Pharisees themselves feed their beasts of burden on the Sabbath. Shall not a child of Abraham also be set free on any day, including the Sabbath?

And, of course, this whole scene would have been unnecessary if the Pharisees had been interested in a curing ministry. Had they been so interested, then the Pharisees, this woman, and Jesus could have enjoyed a nice quiet Sabbath.

Drawing a Crowd

The Huffington Post reports a Gainesville, Florida "church"'s intention to burn Qurans. Obviously such bigotry is nothing new. But I am thinking about this in terms of crowds. Who will show up?

Mainline churches like mine have chronic and understandable anxiety concerning the available seating space left on Sunday mornings. Sports, sleep, camping, vacations, whatever.... there are a dozen or more reasons why the flock flees on the weekend leaving ample room for visitors.

This anxiety concerning attendance manifests itself in a variety of ways.... envy of the churches with larger crowds, the need to change the worship to accommodate the perceived desires of those not in attendance, different music, screens and visuals, practically anything....

Even burning Qurans? Or how about the church in Kentucky which held a worship service where all of those in attendance were asked to bring their firearms to celebrate the second amendment? Over 200 people showed up for that one. There are many ways to generate a crowd, if a crowd is what you want. But is a crowd want we want?

Sure... but the "crowd" cannot be the point--big or little. It is the proclamation of the Gospel that should be paramount--a Gospel inclusive of Jesus' witness to the Kingdom of God and its righteousness. Jesus' embodiment of the Old Testament prophetic tradition. The crowd I want includes anyone who yearns to understand and participate in the kingdom of God. Anyone who brings a heart of love to a community of inspired inquiry. So the next time you feel anxious about "why people aren't in church?", shift the question to this--"Is this church witnessing to the inclusive love of Jesus Christ?" If you believe that it is, relax. God asks for faithfulness, not market share.

Burning Qurans does not seem to qualify. Nor celebrating firearms. Nor does preaching that God created the heavens and the earth to provide financial prosperity to Americans on a quid quo pro basis. I don't care how many are there with torches, weapons, and portfolios.

Here is something interesting.....

Rene Descartes skull......

The New York Times Room for Debate (here) concerns philosophy's relationship to other disciplines. Is Philosophy a discipline in isolation? Or is it inseparably related to other disciplines such as psychology?

I think this question applies not only to theology but to the church. Is the church a place containing a closed system of doctrine and truth apprehended by the initiated? Or is it a place of open encounter with the myriad of human disciplines and knowledge for the sake of understanding the human condition? Because it is theological the task becomes more understanding the human condition in light of the prior reality of faith in a creative, incarnate God. The Bible--- the literary witness to these questions-- is the focal point for the conversation.

Clearly I tend to lean toward the second understanding of the church. I think that kind of church serves existential human need and social welfare the best. What do you think? What do you think of the opinions in the NYT article regardless of theological implications? What is your favorite color?

Meditation for Rev. Dr. Bernard Hawley

My father died on July 19, 2010. I have been away from the blog since that time attending to various duties, among which was my father's memorial service at the First Presbyterian Church in Salina, Kansas. My father was the Senior Minister of that congregation from 1965 - 1987. The following is the meditation I offered at that service. I hope to get back to blogging--- maybe after school starts?

Romans 8:31-39; 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; Luke 13:10-17


It is hard to know where to start when talking about my father’s life. It is impossible to know where to end. I should start by acknowledging that he probably does not want me to talk about him at all—at least not much—given that this is a worship service. Ours is a Witness to the Resurrection and our attention is properly directed toward the worship of—and thanksgiving to—God.

And we will do that—we are doing that. But we also acknowledge that we are in a sacred space where, for twenty-two years, my father brought a word of grace to those who gathered. Here the young and old were baptized, the bread broken and the cup shared, the hopeful married, the forgiven mourned and remembered. Here through the succession of years the palms turned to ashes and back to palms again. The greens were hung, the Spirit of Pentecost blew anew and the voices of song and prayer reached up to heaven. And through all of that time my father made a tremendous difference in the lives of those who passed through this sanctuary—those who lived in this community—those who are part of our nation. I admit that I am not a neutral observer. But by any standard of excellence there can be no question that we have a tremendous amount to be grateful for in the life of Bernie Hawley and it is our sadness but also our privilege and joy to express that gratitude this afternoon.

I have had what many do not have on such occasions as this—almost three weeks to reflect upon what I would say in the brief period available this afternoon. Time, in this case, is both curse and blessing. It is a blessing to be able to spend so much time remembering, talking with family and friends, organizing one’s memories. It is a curse as well, for all of this remembering and talking and organizing leads to an overwhelming amount of material, of directions, of vectors, if you will. So choices had to be made, and I have chosen to talk of two things which I believe best illustrate my father in his vocational life and as a family man. These two things are the humanity of the Gospel and the centrality of mystery.

What do I mean by the humanity of the Gospel? Our reading from Luke is meant to be illustrative. Throughout the Gospel narratives Jesus and the Pharisees spar over scriptural interpretation. Jesus champions the cause of the socially despised, the sick and infirmed, the politically and religiously oppressed, in the name of the Kingdom of God. The Scribes and the Pharisees defend the Torah as they interpret it with an emphasis on purity and ritual sacrifice. But Jesus smelled something fishy. And in this encounter—one of many really—Jesus brings the problem to the surface. The law is valuable, but its purpose has been subjugated by the Pharisees to their own specific interests and advantage. As Jesus says elsewhere, the Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath. When confronted with human need, with an evident need for human liberation, there was nothing in the law to forbid it. Only the human heart stands between this woman and liberation. Will that heart be hard or that heart be turned? The hardened hearts of the Pharisees had turned—they had turned “right religion” into a tool of oppression which Jesus fought at every turn. In Jesus we see the humanity of the Gospel. Human beings—their needs, their sorrows, their fears, their hopes, their welfare—are at the heart of Jesus’ message. Jesus’ message concerned the new reality he called the Kingdom of God. This is grace, and grace is what my father was all about.

In every sermon there came a moment when my father’s words reached out to speak to the existential condition of his congregation. He taught us how to worry wisely, how to let go of the second sock, how to forgive and be forgiven, how to grieve and by thankful. He emphasized the gift of freedom that was inherent to the Gospel. He encouraged us to be good stewards of God’s creation as well as good stewards of ourselves. And each at every turn he preached a word of grace, for grace is the beginning and the end of our relationship with God. The real needs of people are first, even when the people are not always "just like us."

In January, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded a little more than one minute into its flight. In the days that followed there was much national mourning. A national memorial service was scheduled and my father was invited to offer prayer. The Challenger’s crew was not only ecumenical—a Baptist, an Episcopalian, a Methodist—it was also inter-faith. So the families in attendance represented various traditions of Christianity as well as Buddhism and Judaism. It is not easy to craft a prayer that was sensitive and inclusive of these traditions and at the same time said something of comfort that could be universally understood. But my father managed it. This is how his prayer began.


O thou Whom we call by various names, approach by several paths, and yet all acknowledge as the Source of Life, Thy greatness is seen in this vast and wondrous universe. We turn now to Thee because we need the assurance of a love that is equally great and wondrous, to feel that underneath are the Everlasting Arms and to know that the hand that holds us is a hand we trust.



When my father returned to Salina he discovered that, among the many responses of appreciation, there were a few Pharisees who grumbled with indignation that, when given such a national stage, my father threw Jesus under the bus. Where was the evangelical moment, they demanded. Where was the Christian emphasis? Why did he shirk in his duties to confront those gathered with the universal particularity of Jesus Christ? But, of course, Jesus was there. He was there in the form of a man who understood that the Sabbath was made for human beings and not human beings for the Sabbath. He was there in the form of a man who understood that healing was needed regardless of the day or the hour or the religion. Dad truly believed that to be Christian was not so much to talk about Jesus so much as to be Jesus as much as it was possible. The message of Christianity was not merely the message that was Jesus but also the message that Jesus brought which was developed and adapted by Paul in the middle of the first century and remembered and recorded by the evangelists by that century’s end. A message powerfully encapsulated with these resounding words from Romans: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

My father spent his ministry in service to the humanity of Jesus Christ. The Gospels make in abundantly clear that love was at the heart of the Kingdom, and that God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, not to condemn the world, but so that the world—the Cosmos in the Greek text—would be saved.

Paul wrote to the Romans that neither death nor life would be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ. This was comforting, no doubt, but perhaps, for some, hard to believe. So Paul also wrote, albeit to a different church, “Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” Although practicing the practical application of ministry with people, my father never lost sight of the mystery which both called him into service and sustained him throughout. Scripture is full of mysteries, both large and small, not the least of which is the mystery embedded in the universe God created that is so rich and vast we will never finally exhaust these mysteries it contains. And there is the greatest Christian mystery of all: that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.

My father did not consider mystery the enemy of Christian faith. It was an element of faith. In 1Timothy we read “great is the mystery of our faith”, and it is true. Appreciation for and wonder of such mysteries are surely one of the things I share in common with my sister and brothers.
I have spent the greater part of my life with the following dialogue. “What do your siblings do?” I respond that they are highly decorated scientists—one a professor of chemistry interested in molecular biology, another a former NASA astronaut who now teaches Astronomy and a brother who has written a college textbook on cosmology which is now in a second printing. “Oh,” comes the reply, “so what happened to you?” This does not bother me—anymore. Clearly in my case the apple did not fall far from the tree. I, like my father, dabbled in radio before entering the ministry. I, like my father, and his father before him, have an interest in history and literature and the arts which are true compliments of a Reformed Theological understanding of the world. But there are those who look to my siblings—these highly decorated scientists—and wonder, "Why would they pursue science if their father was a preacher?"

To ask this question is to misunderstand many things, but clearly it is to not understand the centrality of mystery. If faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, then the things hoped for and the things not seen are the things of mystery. And the ultimate mystery, the mystery at the heart of my father’s theology, is the Incarnation, which winds its way through his sermons like a meandering river. The American writer Flannery O’Connor said it well. The Incarnation is the concrete expression of mystery—mystery that is lived. My father was concerned with mystery as it is incarnate in human life.

And we all should be so concerned, each in our own way. As to me and my siblings, we are so concerned because our father taught us to be this way. Our home was filled with encouragement to explore, to uncover, to discover. Our parents encouraged us at every turn to try everything, learn everything, and question everything. That my siblings are scientists is, to me, not surprising at all. All of us live with and pursue mystery—not for the purposes of its capture and incarceration—but for the excitement of the discovery, tentative as those discoveries may be. And the motive behind the search is the benefit to humanity, for knowledge is always a benefit, and mystery its own reward.

Krista Tippett hosts “Speaking of Faith” on National Public Radio and has recently published a book based upon interviews conducted with a variety of scientists with the work of Albert Einstein as the common thread. Her book is entitled Einstein’s God, and in the preface, Tippett offers a quotation from Einstein with which my father would have resonated: A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude…enough for me is the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality. Einstein was by no means a Christian. And to be certain my father was. He believed mystery had a name—and that name was Jesus Christ, the Incarnation of the Word of God. But my father would have agreed with Einstein that there is an appropriate attitude to maintain when speaking of such lofty things, an attitude toward this mystery which is so important—however we name the mystery. It is an attitude of humility and hope, a commitment to know what we know and claim no more, to always seek to learn more, and to apply what we learn to the improvement of human life.

One branch of Christian theology is known as apologetics. Apologetics is interested in conversation, in dialogue, in finding the common ground with philosophy, science, and culture, for the purposes of establishing Christianity’s legitimate place. My father considered himself an apologist for the Christian faith, much after the example of Paul as recorded in the Book of Acts. Paul visited Athens and, after examining the cultural evidence of religious practice, including the altar to the unknown god, Paul addressed the Athenians. "People of Athens! I can see you are very religious people. What you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth...In him we live, and move, and have our being." My father proclaimed this God to both the confidently faithful and to those who could only sense the unknown god. He desired to meet people where they were, honor what they knew, and expand their horizons with the possibility of the grace of God and the mystery of redemption.

My time is nearly up and I know there is much I have left unsaid. No life, my father’s or anyone else’s can be reduced to a twenty minute meditation. For this reason receptions were invented so that the conversation could continue. I will make two more observations. Near the end of his life my father was despondent. His Parkinson’s was cruel. His memory was fading like a balloon let loose into a deep blue sky. He was not afraid to die. He had no reason to be afraid to die, although he did confess that he wasn’t quite sure what the arrangement was on the other side. But that was fine. My father believed that death was letting go into the hands of the God who loved him in his life. Why would the God who loved him in his life not love him in his death? But he did have one request. He wanted to be appointed guardian angel to his two grandchildren. That this has happened I have no doubt. No one, and I mean no one, was better qualified for the job.

And, finally, these words. Not mine, his. This is how he concluded his sermon to this congregation from this pulpit on February 2, 1986, with reference to the Challenger’s tragic end. They seem appropriate to this day, appropriate to him, and his text that day was the same Romans passage we heard today.


But we do weep, for mourn we must; but let us also rejoice in the human spirit that chooses the zest of the unknown, to advance human knowledge, to brave the universe. Let us rejoice in the One whose grandeur and whose power we cannot comprehend, but whose love and care we can never escape. Even the sea of space is but the hollow of His hand, and nothing can snatch us from it ever.

Amen. And amen.


Let us pray:
Gracious and ever-loving God. We give you thanks for the life of Bernie Hawley. We thank you for his commitment to human good. We thank you for his embracing of mystery and of handing on to us such awe and wonder. We thank you that pain and loss are no more for him, that every tear is wiped away, and that he has entered into the rest which you have prepared for him and for all whom you name as your own. All of this we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.