Links for the Turn of the Church Year

Over the recent Thanksgiving weekend, when I had plenty of time to myself due to my family being away, I did a fair bit of online reading. Here's some of what kept me interested this weekend, from the political and controversial to the heartbreaking and beyond. I am reminded that the ELCA has Social Statements on many of the pressing social and political issues of our time. I'll finish with some hopefulness.

• Before diving into the heavy news of the world, I'll start with the song my wife and I have recently added to our son's bedtime singalong playlist. By which I mean the songs we sing to him at night before he goes to sleep. We're still experimenting with harmonies on this one, but it sounds promising already. 
• I probably don't agree with half of this article, but it's an interesting reminder that abortion is never as simple as a political slogan might suggest. PS - the ELCA Social Statement on abortion is dated but remains challenging, excellent work. 
• Another day, another story about capital punishment in the United States. This article reads to me like a recap of the basic arguments against capital punishment. The ELCA also has a clear Social Statement on the Death Penalty, as long as I'm linking to such things. 
• The title of this Andrew Sullivan post, "Listening," sums up my participation in the national conversation about the Ferguson situation. I believe this to be a vital yet completely inadequate response on my part. Also, I wonder if some kind of fatigue due to talking about Ferguson will keep us from talking about Tamir Rice. The national conversation on criminal justice is far from over, and the ELCA once again has a Social Statement, more recent this time, on the topic. 
• My friend Pastor Jason Chesnut has a hard-hitting theological response to the same, from a Lutheran biblical perspective. 
• Given the nature of this list so far, it feels like time for Pastor Julia's Advent Confession.
•  This sounds like an interesting book on paradox as Christian sense-making in our complex world. 
• Paradox is central to a historically Lutheran worldview, as explained by my friend Rev. Dr. Herbert Anderson here. This lecture is based on his 2005 lecture "Blessed Ambiguity," which I heard numerous times as one of his students that year. Herbert's thoughts on paradox have been very influential in developing my own articulation of how the world works. An extended quotation: 

• "I would like to return to the idea of PARADOX because it is, I believe, at the center of Lutheran theology and it is THE contribution we have to make to the shape of pastoral theology and pastoral care in the future. It is also, I believe, essential for the future of humanity. The inability to live with ambiguity is source of much that ails our world and terrifies the human soul. Because religious and ethnic diversity in my neighborhood means that ambiguity and contradiction are daily possibilities, what is fundamental Christian truth is now also human necessity. The reverse is also true. What is human, that is, living with contradiction, is also Christian. When, however, our world is expanded, clarity is diminished. That is a fundamental paradox of life and faith. The more clarity we have, the less inclusive our vision and the more we have divided between US and THEM. The greater the inclusivity, the more ambiguous life becomes.

• " It was my uncle with a sense of humor - and I only had one uncle with a sense of humor because I am Swedish - it was my uncle who would say "when you come to a fork in the road, take it." It may have been that he heard it from Yogi Berra but I doubt it. He often said that when someone insisted on only one way to plant oats. Taking the fork in the road is like living with contradictions. I think my uncle knew in ways I am still learning that it is only by living the paradox that we discover and sustain life in its fullest. I believe my uncle had it right. When you come to a fork in the road, take it. We have to go woth ways at the same time to get there. That is the paradox. As in the case of my uncle's maxim, a paradox is more than seeing a contradiction. It is the juxtaposition of two things that cannot both be true but nonetheless  are true in a deeper sense. The three words from Eric Wahlstrom, my New Testament professor, have remained for me an unattainable motto for living. BOTH ARE TRUE. The widespread growth of fundamentalism is a self-defeating scheme to eliminate paradox by absolutizing one thing or another."

• My friend Benjamin Dueholm brings this powerful reflection on the Eucharist. 
• Speaking of powerful, this story from Alice Su about reading the Gospel in Iraq is... well, words fail me. 
• The ELCA Council of Bishops recently offered a statement on immigration. 
• All this having been pretty rough - how does this relate to my long-time predilection for sad country songs? And all those dystopian movies I watched this weekend? - I'll finish with a deeply hopeful picture of what my son was up to this weekend. His mother took him to spend time with his great-grandmother in Kansas. Advent is a time of deep darkness, and hope.