Jim Elliott, the War for Oil, and the North Dakota Access Pipeline.

As protestors rally at Standing Rock, it is important to know what this fight is about, and why it is important. We know about the gold in the Black Hills that led to the Battle of Little Bighorn, we know about the gold that led to the mistreatment of Mexican Americans in the Southwest following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

But oil has taken the injustices against the indigenous population into the twenty first century. I cannot possibly address all of it in a blog article. But I can tell you the role it played in the creating of a Christian evangelical myth.

Every Christian Sunday School child knows the story of Jim Elliot and his fellow missionaries, who travelled to Ecuador to reach a tribe known as the Auca with the gospel. The "Auca" tribal name was a slander given by the enemies of the tribe, more properly known as the Waorani, or Huarani tribe.

The land that the Waorani occupied was land sought after by the oil companies. And the Waorani, who did not suffer fools lightly within their own tribe, was not going to go gently into that good night. They attacked the oilfield workers and looted their camps in retaliation for the encroachment.

Enter Jim Elliot and company. While Elliot's motives may have been pure, what happened as a result of his ministry was not. Family members Rachel Saint and Elisabeth Elliot stayed behind to reach the Waorani. What has long been sold of a story of redemption and forgiveness was really a story of pawns in a game of pacification that saw the Waorani removed by the Ecuadorian government to a "protectorate" on the far western edge of their lands. As they had in the continent to the north, the missionaries "tamed" the savages with pie in the sky promises as they stole and raped their lands

You can find the story here.

The tribes at Standing Rock are fighting against the latest in a long history of injustices against indigenous people, who have watched as the resources were drained from their lands while the people go hungry. In the case of the Waorani, while the oil companies made billions off of the land the tribe once occupied, the tribe continued in poverty to the point where Steve Saint, son of pilot Nate Saint, returned and established a ministry to help steer the tribes towards self sufficiency (and, presumably to complacency in the light of the next injustice).

It is hard for me, as a Christian, to see the Gospel abused for the subjugation of one culture and the enrichment of another. That is not consistent with the message in any context. And it is time for Christian leaders to call for it to end.

Privilege and the Quiverfull Movement

Many years ago, our family unwittingly became tools of the quiverfull movement. I didn't know it at the time, and believed we were in the middle of a good church family, but we were young, and we homeschooled, and as we had children, we were encouraged to have more. In conversations, we heard terminology about "having a full quiver" and about God directing the size of our family that I would come to realize much later was part of a well organized propaganda campaign of the movement.

Now, don't get me wrong; we are and ever will be fully responsible for our own actions and decisions, and do not regret them. But ion the climate where I was a low paid factory with nothing more than a high school education, it was probably not best to encourage us to have more children. The ensuing years gave us challenges that I embraced, but they also saw us thin of resources that had to be spread carefully across the large family. And we find ourselves, mid career, holding our own, but without retirement savings with shorter years left to catch up.

As I watch people admire and emulate families like the Duggars and look back on our own lives, I have to recount that we weren't admired, we weren't emulated. As a matter of fact, in some of the same circles where families would turn on the Duggars faithfully, they held us at a distance. And while we struggled, we faced a general attitude that we had made our own bed, and we were welcome to lie in it. And in some cases, we even faced quite nasty retribution from church members who felt it their Christian duty to try to relieve us of the burden of so many children.

It is one of many reasons I do not trust the church any more. I have not abandoned my Christian faith, but experience is teaching me that a church body of Christians seeking to serve the Lord in sincerity is extremely rare; in my experience, in fact, it doesn't exist. I trust that it does merely out of hope.

But I am thinking of this and how it speaks to privilege. We worship large families who are wealthy, we hold them up as heroes. But large families that struggle through from paycheck to paycheck are chastised as entitlement seeking leeches, while the irony of church members that consider themselves "prolife" escapes them.

The Church will not escape the criticism of those who stand outside it as long as they remain inconsistent on their views of life. It is either sacred or it is not. And if it is sacred, it is always so, and working families deserve as much encouragement and support as wealthy ones.

No Way Out

In my quest to break out of my hellish workplace, I dumbed down my resume. Because presenting myself as I am doesn't work.

Well, anyway, somehow I must have left clicked the box that submits the resume for a resume critique, and basically they said as much.

What I am discovering is I think too much. The solution, of course, would be "professional" help that would select the right pills to numb that part of my mind and help me accept that simply sitting, never questioning, is the best way to spend the remainder of my existence. I can't do that.

I've looked for answers in the church, but no pastor wants to help these days. They want to solve societal problems, but they don't want to connect one on one and deal with the very real problems quite literally looking them in the eye. They provide rhetoric, not answers, and they're quite good at discussing the finer points of theology, quite poor at healing the wounds that infect the body.

The reason I have compassion for the homeless is because I know them. I understand them. They've learned to numb themselves from the very pain that I feel, not to run from it, but to surrender to it. And I look at them and simply wonder, how long.

This is not a "pity piece"; I don't do pity pieces. This is my journal, my thoughts. I had a meltdown at work the other day, and I'm afraid it's just the beginning. And I'm afraid it will happen at the next job. And the next. And that eventually I will run out of answers.

But the only answers people want to give these days come at the bottom of a bottle. Either prescription pills or illicit drugs and alcohol, pick your poison.

Life should not be a miserable existence.

This is My Hell, And I Must Live In It, Alone

As I grow older, I am becoming less and less convinced of the reality of Hell. For the mere reason that the miserable nature of my existence must surely be punishment enough for any of the bad things I have done.

For the past several years, I have genuinely tried to stretch my boundaries, to reach out professionally, to grow, only to discover that a drone will always be a drone and it is ours to accept that lot, and not upset the system. I had a taste, however briefly, of a middle class existence, and it's clear I do not belong there.

So here I sit, in the middle, awake enough to know just how terrible conditions are around me, but powerless to do anything to change it. My job is not to think, only to do, and to be guided solely by the orders of others whom society has dictated my betters.

It is a disgusting condition, and I loathe it. But it is my job to do, not to think.

I only regret that I have brought children into this existence, because my duty is to them, however wretched the world around me might become.

I have dumbed down my resume, removed my degrees, deflated my job titles, in the hopes of getting anything better than the $10 an hour that is barely survival level. I am done.

When the Church ENABLES the Exploitation of the Poor

I spent a lot of years in fundamentalist, evangelical churches. I don't regret that time, although I do regret my silence in the face of some social issues.

As the topic turns to payday lenders, and another predatory lender is exposed, though, I think it behooves us to have the conversation about how the church enables these predatory lenders, rather than speaking out against them. And why it must change.

I spent a year in Bible college, and in the churches I attended, tithing was not optional. It was mandatory. Before you eat, before you pay rent, before you pay utilities, you pay that money to God. And yes, you tithe on the gross, not the net, because that's what it means to give of the "firstfruits".

I took it in, hook, line and sinker. I was so afraid of God that I didn't take time to truly disseminate the meaning. Because, after all, a perch in a very very hot place awaited me even as I didn't. Even as these same churches, ironically, declared that we were saved by grace through faith, and not works.

I tried it. And it ruined me financially. In fact, I must admit with some chagrin that when I didn't tithe and the car died, I honestly believed that to be God's punishment. And so I tithed with greater fervor.

My family suffered for that in many ways. But if I went to the church to ask for help, I was chided for not being faithful and supporting my family. The same family they insisted it was my duty to create. I literally could not win as I went from depressing dead end job to dead end job, including 9 months working 750 below the fiery surface of Death Valley California in the mines.

So who do you turn to when the inevitable things happen? Not your savings, you put that in the offering plate. Not your pastor, he has bigger things to worry about like a broken projector or how to bring in a big name Christian star for an outreach event. Nope, in fact the only ones waiting with money were the predators. And so, yes, in desperation, we turned to them. Our credit was terrible, but things had to be done. And in one instance in Nevada, I literally drove a car with no brakes for six months. Not bad brakes, mind you, NONE. I learned to be very skillful about using neutral and park.

We rarely went anywhere because I could not risk literally endangering my family's lives every time we took that car out.

But that tithing, that tithing had to be paid.

Earlier on, I left a truck by the wayside in Washington, an issue that caused a lifelong rift between myself and a man I once considered a mentor and my dearest friend. Because I did not even call to have someone help me out.

But what he didn't understand, and what I in my pride failed to convey, is that I DID call. And I heard the background conversation as the phone lay on the counter, the repeated sighs as here I was again asking for another favor.

Lesson learned. I learned then and there NOT to call upon people.

The church should be in the job of building up the people, not exploiting them. And laws can only do so much. A church that does not STRENGTHEN the hand of the poor and the needy is not serving God, they are serving themselves. And a church that does not properly convey that you have a responsibility to your own physical care before you give to the offering plate is sending an improper message.

The illustration of the widow's mite is often given to show that we are to give sacrificially. Yet nowhere in that verse does it say that widow was living homeless on the streets before she gave that mite. Nowhere does it say she did not have food in her pantry. We cannot read into the passage things that are not there to suit our greed.

Nowadays when the subject of tithe comes up, my response is: "get it from my boss. I am working full time making below the poverty level, so it's his to pay, not mine". Not a completely spiritual answer, mind you, but I am done trying to prove my spirituality. I think it's about time to start being real!

Going Against the Grain

It is 4 AM and my mind is unsettled. Unsettled not because I don't have a clarity of thought or purpose, but unsettled because of the difficulty of what I am trying to do. The difficulty, nay impossibility, of being a person who is wholly devoted to God and rather orthodox in personal theology and worship, but struggling to reconcile with the community around him. The difficulty of one who gravely understands the seriousness of our time spent on earth and how it reflects and honors the God I serve.

It is this same gravity and seriousness that has set me at odds with certain members of the church body. The ones who feel that, although I am straight, I am a sinner for supporting my LGBT brother and sister through their daily struggles against a society that does not, will not even attempt to understand. The ones who feel that I am evil because I demand that workers receive a living wage in a time when our culture believes that wealth should be piled among the few, and that the financial burdens of funding our government should fall upon the lowest paid. The ones who believe that I am hellbound because I would hold the hand of the woman who has made the painful and personal decision to have an abortion rather than cut it off and cast her into outer darkness.

But in the quiet of the night, as there is nothing but the sound of the window rattling from the central air running through the house, I must answer a question almost as old as humanity. It is the same question asked by the world's first murder as the blood of his brother was fresh on his hands: Am I my brother's keeper?
The Lord never answered this question, because Cain knew. We ARE our brother's (and sister's) keeper.

For that reason, I worry about the 41% of transgendered individuals who will attempt suicide at some point in their lives. There is much I don't know, much I do not understand about gender dysphoria, but if I accept the idea that I am indeed my brother's (and sister's) keeper, it is something I MUST learn. And I must learn it free from prejudice, free from fear, free from judgment. For I am not called to be a judge, but a standard bearer for Christ.

For that reason, I worry about the worker who will go home at the end of the day with less than he needs to survive. I worry about his children, struggling with undiagnosed and untreated conditions because we have placed the well being above the wealthy above the right of their parent to earn enough in 8 hours' labor to pay for the things they need to become bright and productive workers. I worry about the fading eyes as that worker struggles against the diabetes wracking his body because there is no money, no time to leave the workplace and make his way to the doctor's office. I worry about the bullets that echo through the night outside the home that was supposed to be their haven because that one place was the only one they could afford.

For that reason, I worry about the mother, who cannot support her child, but who knows her baby will not be adoptable because the skin color is wrong, or there is a genetic condition that will make it unlikely her baby will have a forever home. I worry that she will return home to the man who beats her, perhaps for one very last time before she ends up a nameless body in the county morgue. I worry that she will not receive the education she needs to provide a home for her children, and that the sanctimonious congregations I am rejecting will brand her a whore because the grace that Jesus offers is given in their world only to those who have never sinned greatly.

Yes. In the quiet of this night, my mind is unsettled. It is unsettled because I AM my brother's (and sister's) keeper, and because all of these burdens are as much mine as they are the individuals who suffer around me. And because I was called to heal those wounds, and not to hurt them.

My biggest failing is fear of how I will be received. My biggest failing is the fear that standing for those who cannot means that I will be judged by those who by the people in the church walls who believe their work ends where those walls do. That fear is my biggest sin.

The morning will come, and I will be just as unsettled. But there will be noise to silence these thoughts. There will be action. There will be the birthday of my five year old son, who will one day inherit the legacy that I have created. And I have a choice: to protect him from it, or to teach him that he, too, has a responsibility greater than himself.

I know what path I will choose. But I am finding it is a very lonely one.

Are Pastors Abusing Their Power?

As the political season advances, it kills me to see how many Americans will vote against their own self interest. The saddest part, however, is that many will do so not because its what they want, but because it's what the guy standing at the front of the sanctuary on Sunday demands.

Pastors in America have done a deplorable job in politics. They know that many in their congregation are not thoroughly versed in Scripture. They take advantage of that. Ironically, in this day and age, the Reformation means nothing, as pastors in most churches are nothing more than "little popes", believing that they and they alone, possess the keys to Scriptural understanding and are called to deliver them to the little people. Instead of "equipping the saints for His Service", they have haughtily held back the keys to the kingdom by pretending that only through an anointing by man can Scripture be understood. And nowhere is this more clear than in politics.

Let's be clear: neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party presents a Christian approach to the problems our leaders face. Abortion is wrong, yes, but so is starving the poor and presenting a mother with no options. And so is judging someone without helping them find a way out.

I say this on the issue of abortion because it's the one I wrestle with the most. While I am politically prochoice, I am decidedly and unapologetically prolife on a personal and moral level. That means that I seek to make alternatives available, assurances that the fears of the mother considering won't be realized; that her child won't live today only to find death tomorrow through disease, starvation, or the rampant violence that fills our inner cities. In my belief, I take that further to include the guarantee that the child won't have to worry about living today to find death 20 years from now in a battlefield in some foreign country, or at the end of the executioner's needle.

That, to me, is what prolife means.

And at the same time pastors oppose moral evils, they oppose a living wage. I have seen pastors post some rather nasty memes criticizing the fight for $15, when they should be joining the fight. They insist that their congregants should stay underpaid, yet they lament when the coffers of the church aren't filled with the coins that the poor collect as their portion for a week's labor.

If the pastors will insist on allowing the wealthy to steal the wealth that the poor have earned, then I insist that the pastors should collect the tithes from the employer, not the employee, as the employer holds the pilfered wages of their employees. And I refuse to tithe to any church that does not advocate a living wage, as their teaching is heresy.

Pastors are called to lead their flock, not to manipulate and twist their minds. They are to present the WHOLE gospel, including the parts they don't like. Otherwise, they are quite definitely abusing their power.

It's past time to call theem on this.

Dear Pastor: It's Time We Had a Talk

I know that on this page, often my discussions come across as a bit harsh and abrasive. And you know what? Sometimes they are. I'm not really super at this communication thing and often choose less than imperfect means to express myself.

It's a fault, I admit it, and I am working to change that. I thank all of those patient enough to endure it.

So let's have a talk, shall we? A real one. About why it is that I keep hammering points home and going against the grain.

We've become a socially disconnected society, and the church, which once fulfilled a large role in the social structure of adults, has been a part of that. It's not the fault of pastors, even though it's tempting to say so. They're swimming hard against a cultural tide, and they endure massive criticism with scant praise. I get that part of it.

But if you will listen, if you will just TRY what I am about to say, I believe it will fundamentally change your ministry. And if it doesn't, just throw it away as one of those hair brained ideas, just as you would the book you bought off the discount rack at LifeWay and found less than fulfilling.

I'm speaking from a personal place here, so if you disagree with me, please do it respectfully. I will respond in kind.

Your congregants need to be heard. And not just the mental sticky notes, not just with a casserole delivered in time of need or the Christmas drive. Those things are great, yes, and they're essential, but not as essential as sitting down and finding out the things about your congregants that cannot be written down on paper.

Know them. Know their hopes, their dreams, their fears. Know their favorite baseball team, the kind of car they drive. And respect their politics even if you completely disagree. Every pastor I have ever known has learned the virtue of strategic silence. In getting to know your congregants, you may want to use that judiciously.

Realize that every congregant is a work in progress. If I have failed as a Christian, this has been my Achilles heel. I expect too much, expect everyone I encounter as a Christian to know the same things and have the same life experiences I do. That is an impossible expectation and is setting them up to fail.

Know WHY that person didn't put money in the offering plate. Know and understand the realities of people struggling to survive, who may remain silent because they don't want to be seen as complaining or begging. Know the reason why they didn't come to church, why they didn't give money when the missionaries came to town, why they couldn't buy that cake at the bake sale, or why their kids couldn't make it to summer. Know them, and encourage them. This doesn't have to be monetary support, sometimes the best thing you can do is just let them know that you care.

You are in a place to be powerful change agents, a position I wish I could have, but am increasingly understanding why I do not. In pursuing your doctorate, in meetings with deacons, in your outreach to the community, do not forget that young man who came in five minutes after the sermon started and left as the organist struck up the opening notes on the closing hymn because he has difficulty interacting with people and wanted to avoid the awkwardness.

He needs you. I need you. Jesus needs you.

And these things are far more important than the broken projector.

Blessings and peace.

Church Leaders: The Problem is Not the WORLD, The Problem is YOU! The Problem is Me!

I have weighed posting this. I realize that it will sever my relationship with the evangelical church fully and finally, and I realize the horrific cost if I am wrong. But watching the growing elephant in the room, I feel that I must speak, even at the risk of being wrong.

I have listened to numerous pastors lament declining membership, declining contributions within their churches. And always, always the blame has been cast on the congregants. They're not guided by faith, they're putting money before God, they're putting the world before church; I've heard them all. But I am going to tell you from firsthand experience why I believe with every fiber in my being that you are wrong, and that the problems emanate from the front of the church, rather than the back.

First, the most fundamental role of leadership is accountability. Satan cannot steal from a properly tended flock. Pastors have listened too much to experts that focus more on MBAs than they do on their relationships with Christ. Experts who make Jesus out to be a CEO and tell you to cut your least profitable elements.

They will tell you that those who walk away will walk away anyway, and that they are merely malcontents. They will tell you to cut the least profitable elements of your ministry. They will tell you that marketing and multimedia make a church.

But as the old rule goes, nobody has to advertise toilet paper. It is a needed product, and people WILL find it. The same goes for the church, if you are properly tending your flock.

People are hurting like no time in recent history. For many Americans the recession never ended, and for many more, wages have lost ground against inflation. You can judge them for their iGadgets and their cars, but the truth is, in an increasingly connected world, many of those gadgets are necessary, and since the only way for many folks to buy a car is through payments, they are buying newer cars in the hopes their cars can outlast their payments. There are too many variables for you to make those judgments, so don't.

Jesus railed AGAINST the status quo; He spoke out AGAINST the exploitation of the poor, yet modern ministers are enabling it. The very best seats in the church go to the biggest donors, and the church has done so much to dismantle social safety nets and shame the poor that it is becoming very clear who too many of these ministers are working for.

Want to find the problem with church leadership? Get up, walk down the hall and look in your bathroom mirror. You will find it. And I am saying this as much about myself as you, for I have known this for many years, but remained silent because I hoped at one point to actually be able to be a leader within the church and make change. I did not know that there was an entire system in place to keep people like me from ever inheriting the mantle of ministry.

We come from a church of simple faith, a church that didn't busy itself with political endorsements. A church that realized the role of the church and the role of the state had conflicting interests, and that taught its members to respect their authority, not to rebel against it, and certainly not to seize government land and force standoffs. A church that despised injustice.

Today's church leaders are as bought and sold as our politicians. Instead of guiding the church by faith, they have guided it by business principles. I understand that; it's hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel sometimes. But as I have discovered in my personal life, sometimes you have to believe.

I am closing this article with a purpose: I have wrestled long and hard against what I have to do. Today, I am officially beginning my personal ministry (appropriate, as I am writing this on the first day of Lent). I know the road ahead of me will come with many bumps, and I know that I will fall at least as often as I walk, but I know with God's guidance I will get there.

The service to the poor in our community has been abandoned to the "liberal" church, and they have been too long despised for doing the work that Jesus commanded. I intend to be about that business, and that alone, for as long as God allows me to remain on this planet. I am renouncing any material comforts beyond what is needed to communicate and to continue to do what I am called to do, and I am building my ministry without walls. I'm no longer complaining about it, I am setting about fixing it.

And you are free to join me. I hope you will. But if not, I will not wait for you to join, or to lead. I am open to instruction, I am open to Godly correction. But I am not open to anything or anyone that will derail me on this course. I will no longer be the problem. And I hope my words will inspire you in that direction as well.

Not Fitting In: It's What I Do Well

And so we prepare to move on yet again. As we've looked for a place to call "home", unfortunately, my tendency to speak my mind has cost me not a few friendships. If only I would shut up, I would get along much better.

I started this blog to blog my thoughts as I faced an increasing disconnect with the church, and with society. With every stop, we hope it will be our last, hope that we can find a place where we can just be who we are and find acceptance.

Sadly, in a world where "tolerance" is a catch phrase, we still haven't found it. Last year at this time, I told friends that if this year was like last year, we would find ourselves on the road, we just didn't know where.

Well, the preliminary numbers are in on 2015. And it's sobering. Our household income was 50% of the year before. My contract work was 25% of the year before. And with the older kids working, we have to count their income towards the household income for benefit purposes. So it's either charge them rent, kick them out, or tighten our belt because we don't qualify for certain programs. And honestly, I want my children to build for THEIR future, not mine.

An opportunity opened near OKC in early November. But it closed. But not before we had made the commitment to move. Having been rejected for the professional jobs in our small community, I began applying to the minimum wage jobs. Three places. One outright ignored me, the other never called me back after I spoke with the manager, the third kept claiming they had hired me, they just needed to get me put on the schedule. Then a trip to the store to the other day when the manager was telling someone else in the store that the previous manager was choosing between me and a current employee and chose the current employee.

Yet they never had the guts to tell me I didn't get the job.

And so, we're down the road a spell. Hoping beyond hope we can find a place where we belong for more than a few years.

I've often wondered what drove people to states of hopelessness and homelessness, and now I understand. The ultimate goal of being a social animal is to find a group in which you are truly, genuinely accepted. And unfortunately, the groups I keep finding accept you only conditionally.

But perhaps that's the reason for the journey: to understand.