Day 56- On Creation

Total Mileage: 6,544

Song of the Day:
"I Called Out Your Name" (The Thermals)


So, driving around Yosemite, I decided that I'd post something I've had in the vault for a while now: my last sermon from my preaching course this past Spring.  We had to pick from a list of possible Old Testament/Hebrew Bible texts, and I chose the Genesis 1:1-2:4a creation story.  Since I spent all day enjoying creation while taking in the sights at Yosemite, it seems only appropriate to share the sermon here:




"The Creation Song"
(April 25th, 2011)
 

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was welter and waste, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a breath from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.  And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.  And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."  So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so.  God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.  And God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so.  God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.  Then God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it." And it was so.  The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

And God said, "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth." And it was so.  God made the two great lights-- the greater light for dominion of day and the lesser light for dominion of the night-- and the stars.  God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to have dominion over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.  And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky."  So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good.  God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."  And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.  And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so.  God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.  Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them hold sway over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and hold sway over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."  God said, "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.  And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.  God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God completed the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.  These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

(Genesis 1:1-2:4a, NRSV with modifications based on Robert Alter’s Genesis)

            Situated just south of the Cincinnati interstate loop in northern Kentucky is one of the most interesting and controversial American religious landmarks ever designed: an expansive museum dedicated exclusively to the teaching of creation science.  The brainchild of Ken Ham and the organization Answers in Genesis, the Creation Museum features exhibits of animatronic dinosaurs and biblical characters spread throughout a series of expansive displays dedicated to the teaching of the Bible as historical fact-- particularly the creation of the world over six literal 24-hour days approximately 6,000 years ago.  Exhibits in the museum include a partial reconstruction of Noah’s Ark, a Garden of Eden in which dinosaurs are present, and even a talking Methuselah.  Frankly, whether you’re in favor of young earth creationism or opposed to it, the museum is still kind of a surreal experience.  It represents a genuine attempt by good people to reconcile the book of Genesis with modern scientific findings, but there is one area in which the museum falls very much short.  It incorrectly answers a very important question:

 What is the proper relationship of humanity and creation and God?

             Throughout the Creation Museum are signs that read “God Says/Man Says” and display the words of the Bible set against more modern scientists and philosophers (particularly Rene Descartes, whose philosophies were actually intended to defend the faith rather than assail it).  An early villain that we encounter in the first room of the museum is a nonreligious archaeologist intent on disproving the biblical account of creation, and the display sets this archaeologist against Ken Ham himself, who argues that the Bible and fossil evidence correspond.  Though its goal is to teach the words of the Bible and the importance of the book of Genesis to the Christian faith, the museum establishes God and the world as forces in absolute opposition, constantly looking to dominate and disprove one another.  The museum suggests that God is an absolute monarch over a disobedient world, and that is not how Genesis 1 tells it.

              No, Genesis 1 shows a very different Creator from this.  Genesis 1 shows a Creator who is willing to trust the newly-made creatures enough to involve them in the process of forming and governing the world.

In the beginning, we see a world of primordial waste and wild, a deep dark void, but a breath from God flutters over the abyss and speaks the world into existence, creating light and sky and sea and land.  The holy breath then speaks into being the entities that will populate these realms: plants, sun, moon, stars, fish, birds, and animals of every kind-- including the funny little bipeds that God calls ’adam or “humans,” which it turns out is a nice little pun on ’adamah, the Hebrew word for “dirt.”  How flattering.  As the Spirit speaks these things, the creation itself becomes involved in the act.  The holy breath demands of the infant world, “Waters!  You will swell and teem and bring forth the fish and the leviathans!  Sky!  You will give birth to the birds of the air and cradle them in your firmament!  Earth!  You will rise up and, from your own dust, bring forth the animals!  The feral beasts!  The tame cattle!  The creeping, crawling things!  All will find a home across your expanse!”  All creation participates and rejoices with God as its conductor, responding joyfully to every perfect command.  When C.S. Lewis retells this creation story in his Narnia series, he shows Aslan the Lion actually singing the nascent world of Narnia into existence.  The voice is not so much a set of words or declarations, but a sweet and powerful melody swelling and building as the stars appear in the sky and the animals appear on the new earth, all of them joining in the chorus as the song continues in its cadence until all of creation is singing the glory of Aslan and of his Father, the Emperor beyond the Seas!  So it is in the Genesis account!  By the sixth day, the world is at its highest pitch!  All things cry out in celebration of the Lord, God, the Creator of Hosts, the Ruler of Heaven and Sea and Earth, Alpha and Omega, Orderer of the Spheres, Sovereign over Light and Darkness, Inventor and Sustainer of All Things!  All of creation sings in one accord, “Praise be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, for all creation is God’s to command!  Lead us as You will!  Show us Your way, oh Lord!  Give us Your next great commandment, that we may be obedient to Your will!”

And so God rests, and the creation song takes a grand and reverent pause.

 

And in that time between verses of the song, between its majestic creative cadenzas, God and sea and sky and plant and animal and fish and bird and sun, moon, and stars breathe in one another, and they are of one spirit, new and renewed.  And we call this time Sabbath, and we commemorate it every Sunday as we rest and rejoice, cradled in the bosom of our Lord.

And so our world came into being.  God spoke all things into existence and then commanded the freshly-formed creation to participate in the bringing forth of all life, from the smallest single-celled organisms up through the largest and most complicated mammals.  The sky and sea and earth did not rebel against God or stray from the will of their Creator from the start, but joined together in the song, responding to every command and bringing forth the plants and the animals.  From the beginning, Creation is in harmony with God and God’s will.  God entrusts the Creation to the creatures that inhabit it, granting rule and dominion and sway to the sun, moon, and stars (and also to the humans, who are the stewards of the whole of Creation).  God gives to the humans plants for food and other animals for companionship and sets all of Creation to coexist in peace, renewed every seven days when we remember the time that God rested.  Sadly, this perfect order would eventually give way to corruption.

The Bible teaches us that, through a combination of hubris and a constant desire to test God’s commandments, humanity gives way to sin, and the order of creation loses sight of the perfect intention with which it was created, and it is here that the Creation Museum departs from the Bible which it seeks to defend.  The museum stresses how, even in the very beginning, God engineered the animals to be carnivorous and set creation so that it could be at odds with itself after the fall of humanity.  The museum teaches that humanity was destined to fall before the song of creation even began and that God allowed these events to unfold so that humankind might be further corrected and disciplined.  The museum claims all of this in spite of the refrain running throughout the lyrics of Genesis 1:

And God saw that it was good.

After the light appears in the darkness, God sees that it is good.  After the seas recede and gather together and the dry land emerges, God sees that it is good.  When the plants grow on the land for the first time, God sees that it is good.  Sun, moon, and stars-- God sees that they are good.  The birds and the fish and the sea monsters are good!  Wild animals, cattle, crawling things-- they are all good!  The very image of God is imprinted upon humanity, establishing for them sway over the entire world, and the Lord sees that it is very, very good!  The world did not begin as some disaster waiting to happen.  It did not start out predisposed to sin and selfishness.  Genesis 1 gives us a picture of a perfect creation, one in which the whole of the universe sings together, and humanity governs the world in peace and love and charity as God has commanded.  God gave us a good and beautiful and bountiful earth to be treasured, not trampled!  This planet is not out to get us!  We are not at odds with Creation!  There were not velociraptors waiting in the bushes of the Garden of Eden, eager for humanity to fall so that they could finally put their sharp talons and teeth to tearing and desecration!  No, God gifted us a good earth, for if the Lord God Almighty says that this creation is good, then it is good!

As humans, yes, we are imperfect, and yet God entrusts to us the reins of this good earth.  Male and female, we were created and assigned to be caretakers over all creation-- to tend to it and preserve its goodness.  We sing together with God and the world, protecting this place and continuing the first creative song of praise.  The very rocks and shrubs cry out to the Lord and seek to fulfill God’s will for Creation, and we join in their song!  This world is not evil!  God made it, and God made it good, and God wishes us to take part in the celebration!

What role have you played in the creation song of late?  Have you lost touch with the sacred music that moves the spheres?  Have you dismissed this world as evil and corrupt?  Have you let yourself believe that God holds this creation in disdain?  Have you yielded to discord?  Whatever is on your heart this morning, whatever your attitude toward this world, I would call on you to rejoice this day in creation anew!  There is a world all around you that is singing God’s glory!  Can you not hear the song?

“Holy, holy, holy Lord!  God of power and might!  Heaven and earth are full of Your glory!  Hosanna in the highest!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!”

[in prayer]

Creator God, we know that You have given us a good world, and though we fall short constantly and create for ourselves chaos and discord, in Your mercy, You bring us back into harmony with Your perfect hymn of creation.  Help us not to forsake Your creation, Lord.  Help us to bear Your image proudly to a world that yearns day and night for You.  Make us good and responsible stewards who look not to condemn the world, but to fill it with Your redemptive mercy.  We know that You looked upon Creation in the first days and saw that it was good, and we ask that You would fill our hearts with love and mercy so that we might say the same.  It is good, Lord.  It is good!  For the many blessings that you have spoken into our lives, thank you, and please continue to bless us as we tend Your creation.

Amen.

Day 56- The Great Outdoors

I'm heading off into Yosemite and Sierra for a bit.  More pictures like this coming soon.

Day 55- Working For, Being With, Working With

Total Mileage: 6,382

Song of the Day: “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” (Radiohead)

I’m struggling with a question right now:

As Christians, how should we balance the drive to meet needs with the call to meet people where they are?

The main reason that this is on my mind is the continual process of post-San Francisco decompression.  While I was there, I feel like I encountered two radically different approaches to ministry --both convinced that the other was missing the mark--, and I’m determined to find some sort of middle ground between the two.  A philanthropic powerhouse, Glide provides an almost absurd number of services and support structures to the homeless and low income population of San Francisco, while Fr. River Sims and the Temenos Catholic Worker provide a real presence in the community as a reminder to sex workers and homeless young adults that God loves them and meets them where they are.  I feel like we need both of these things, and I’m not entirely convinced that one is the right way of doing things or that one could even function without the other.  Still, where is the balance?

I was talking to Erin about this dilemma, and she told me about a system that Dean Sam Wells of Duke Chapel uses.  I don’t know whether he’s the originator of the system, but he divides service into three categories:

Working For-

This would be the Glide approach, where you provide goods and services for the maximum number of people by using a very streamlined and efficient system, but perhaps at the expense of some of the personal interaction with the people you are helping.  Quite possibly the epicenter of homeless outreach in San Francisco, Glide provides:

Case management

Counseling

Crisis intervention

Shelter reservations

Housing search and placement

Transitional housing programs

Information and referrals

Voicemail services

Basic needs assistance

Hygiene kits

Financial assistance (for back rent and move-in costs)

Reduced rate vouchers for California IDs

Vouchers for clothing, food boxes, and household items

Food stamp/EBT and social security applications

English/Spanish translation assistance

Basic healthcare

Mental health services

HIV testing

Yoga

Meditation

Bible studies

Domestic abuse recovery programs

Substance abuse recovery programs

Youth/childcare programs

Community/rooftop gardens

Three hot meals every weekday and two hot meals plus a bagged dinner on weekends

An affirming environment for people of all races, genders, religions, and sexual orientations

Now, this is more than any one person could ever do.  Far more than one person could do.  Glide requires a huge number of financial donors and as many as sixty volunteers at every meal shift, not to mention the tremendous number of specially trained volunteers and staff required to run Glide’s other ministries.  Glide is one of the most massive collaborative inner city relief efforts I have ever seen, and as a result, it felt a bit like an assembly line to me.  When I volunteered there, it seemed like we were all cogs and gears, moving meals from place to place with limited social interaction.  Sure, we accomplished a lot (serving somewhere around 900 meals in the span of two hours), but unlike my experience at LaSalle Street back in Chicago, I didn’t get to have any extended conversations with the folks we were assisting.  The dichotomy between provider and receiver seemed absolute and insurmountable.  There was still a certain satisfaction that came from being part of such a well-oiled charity machine, but I don’t feel like I really got to know the people we were serving, and, in my opinion, that’s a little dangerous.  Of course, my Glide experience probably shouldn’t be taken as universal.  After all, I was a one-time volunteer who had only just arrived in town the day before.

Glide has helped countless people overcome addictions and get off the streets, and a key component of that process is building relationships with people and teaching them that they are loved in spite of --or maybe even because of-- their differences.  With their many programs to help people learn to take care of themselves, Glide can point to quite a few success stories of people who have overcome addiction or gotten off the streets.  The place is an urban missions Mecca that has drawn the attention of celebrities and philanthropists the world over.  When I attended Glide’s Sunday morning celebration (a less churchy euphemism for “worship service”), one of the other attendees commented that the celebrations tend to be about 40% tourists, and, to use his words, “One time I was here, and Bono just dropped in out of nowhere.  Bono!  Ever since then, I’ve watched for receding hairlines and sunglasses every time I’m in here!”  After a testimony from a woman named Terry about how the church helped her quit meth and be proud of her identity as a transgender woman, an associate minister told us, “There is no other church that looks like this in America, but it costs a lot to keep this place going!”  In my Mars Hill entry, I think I made it clear how I feel about requests for money during worship: ambivalent on my best day and flat-out perturbed on my worst.  That being said, Glide has actually set up a system where you can now donate via text right there during the celebration.  I really support the work done by their many nonprofit arms, and I’m glad that the organization does so much to reach out to the LGBT population, but that text-donation system left me kind of speechless.

If my experience is truly indicative, Glide is capable of massive change, reaching out to huge numbers of people to meet their basic needs and encourage them to love themselves as God loves them.  It’s an impressive and efficient organization with huge potential.  Again, in terms of the variety of services offered and the number of people reached, I’ve never seen its equal, but could Glide have become so streamlined that it no longer meets the basic need for relationships?

Being With-

This is Fr. River Sims/Temenos’s approach, being a Christian presence in a community that seems unaware of just how much God loves it.  While Temenos builds relationships and shows love and attention to the disenfranchised, there isn’t quite the same relationship of goods and services, and the goal is not so much to lift people up out of their situations as to show them that God is there with them.  While Temenos provides blankets, socks, food, and other resources, the goal is not so much to get people off of the street, but to be with them in solidarity while they are there.

Here are Temenos’s mission statement and founding ideals:

Christianity has at its center the conviction that God entered human history and took on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ thereby redeeming humanity in the very midst of its own fragility and limitations by co-mingling the human with the divine.  Throughout the Gospels we are repeatedly presented with the One who actually sought out the most disenfranchised and rejected.  He went to those who were considered the most loathsome and unclean, physically and spiritually.  The very source of the compassion of Jesus is his identification with the humanity, the suffering, the rejection and the abandonment that anyone, anywhere, has ever suffered (John 1:10-11; Hebrews 2:14-18).

Inspired by these reflections on the life of Jesus and by the ministry of Dorothy Day, Temenos Catholic Worker seeks to identify with those who find themselves abandoned and isolated in their suffering, in particular male and female sex workers and homeless gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender youth.

Temenos is a Greek word for an area that is cut off or separated.  Harry Hay referred to it as “the edge of the village”-- a dwelling place designated by some ancient societies for gays, lesbians, bisexual and other outcasts.

Temenos Catholic Worker seeks to reach out in the name of the Risen Christ to those who are alienated and cut off from society and to follow the model of Jesus who, as Monika Hellwig writes, was “one who entered into immediate, shockingly unconventional relationships with people, not evading the human encounter by the choreography of the socio-cultural role definitions.”

Tremenos Catholic Worker is committed to the ideals of:

Personalism- A philosophy of life based upon respect for the freedom and dignity of each person as an image of God, paersonalism understands that our fundamental purpose as human beings is to incarnate self-emptying love through practical action for the common good.

Non-Violence- Jesus taught us to take suffering upon ourselves rather than unflict it upon others.  Thus we oppose the deliberate taking of life for any reason and see every oppression or degrading of human life as blasphemy.

The Works of Mercy- As recorded in Matthew 25:31-46, these works include feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and visiting the prisoner.  We understand the works of mercy to be at the heart of the Gospel; they are clear mandates as to how we are to respond to “the least of our brothers and sisters.”  Anything beyond what we immediately need belongs by right to those who are going without.

Voluntary Poverty- Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, wrote that “the mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love.”  By embracing voluntary poverty, that is, by casting our lot freely with those whose impoverishment is not a choice, we ask for the grace to abandon ourselves to the love of God.  This puts us on the path to incarnating the Church’s “preferential option for the poor.”

Born of the experience of rejection and uncertainty, Temenos Catholic Worker seeks to embrace in the name of Jesus Christ others who have felt abandoned in their most difficult moments.

Seeking to meet people where they are, Temenos also engages in “harm reduction,” acknowledging that you cannot force people to change, but you can still provide education and resources to curtail the destructive nature of their habits as much as possible.  Though you can’t make someone quit using drugs, you can still provide clean needles to prevent them from contracting diseases.  Though you can’t make someone leave a life of prostitution, you can provide them with condoms to shield them from the worst aspects of the profession.  Though you can’t make someone want to have a roof over their head, you can provide blankets to keep them warm at night.  The goal is not to change people or even so much to help people change; Temenos is about being present with people.

Working With-

After seeing the tremendous heart of Temenos and the amazing muscle of Glide, I think we need more interplay between their two divergent schools of thought, and we certainly shouldn’t glorify one over the other.  I realize that I’m oversimplifying things a bit for the sake of argument, but we shouldn’t just be present or just seek to meet needs.  We need both, and I got pretty frustrated with both Glide and Temenos for sort of behaving like they had the only right approach to ministry.  Look, we’re all working toward the same thing: sharing the love of Christ with people in need.  It’s just that some organizations are better at meeting basic needs and getting people into better situations, while others are more skilled at developing relationships and being a positive Christian presence.  A truly effective ministry really needs both of these elements, a being with and a working for, and when the two collide, you get “working with”-- a mentality of building relationships with the long-term intent of helping people learn to care for themselves.  That is the mentality I want to promote wherever I wind up serving.  It’s a balance that considers all the good elements of both Temenos and Glide.  You can’t just have a ministry of presence, and you can’t just be the well-oiled need-satisfying machine.  We need both of these forces, and we need them badly.

We are called to build relationships with one another.

We are called to share the love of Christ.

We are called to provide food and water and shelter for those in need.

We must reach out to the poor, the widow, the orphan, the prisoner, and the disenfranchised.

We must be present providers.

We must seek to love our neighbors on a very personal level, knowing them and treasuring them.

We can’t get swept up in the philanthropic machine.

We can’t turn ourselves into lone warriors against injustice.

It’s a collaborative effort.

If we want to make this world a better place, a safer place, a more loving place that reflects the love of God, then we must learn to work with one another.  We need both Glide and Temenos.  We need the being with and the working for.  It is not enough to choose one and declare it the only right way.

Christ sought to do both, and so should we.

We must work with.

I'm still not sure of how this mission to work with is best embodied in a ministry.  Perhaps it is in a mingling of non-profits and Christian worship like at New Song or Lawndale or LaSalle Street.  Maybe it could be embodied in overseas mission efforts like those of Willow Creek or Mars Hill.  Perhaps there is some happy medium that still remains to be discovered.  Perhaps working with looks different in every city and every congregation, and it's something that I won't really have pinned down until I'm working in one specific church context.  Perhaps every church has its own balance, its own mission, its own way of responding to God's call.  Only time will tell, but as I move ever closer to the ordination at the end of the summer, this is good food for thought.

Peace and Blessings,

Tom

Matt Morin weighs in on Mark Driscoll and MMA

Not to keep beating a dead horse, but if you want to read more about Mark Driscoll, masculinity, and mixed martial arts as they all pertain to Christianity, my classmate and friend, Matt Morin (himself a former mixed martial artist who has retired from fighting to attend divinity school), has written a great piece on the subject viewable here.  Give it a look!

Day 54- The X-Men and Civil Rights

Total Mileage: 6,376

Song of the Day: “The Future Soon” (Jonathan Coulton)

Book of the Day: X-Men #1 (September 1963)

Okay, time for another installment in how comicbooks, science fiction, and even video games can offer more honest social commentary than more traditional media.  While I could probably keep this more directly theological by making some off-the-wall reference to Calvinism and the Elect, I think I’m just going to focus on the social implications of the X-Men.  After all, I’ve just spent a long weekend in San Francisco, so the oppression of minority groups is freshly on my mind, and this has been a recurring theme throughout the X-Men’s five-decade history.  I should also mention that I still haven’t seen the new film X-Men: First Class (which I hear has defied everyone’s expectations by being really, really good).  I want to see the movie, but when you’re traveling solo on the road, it’s just not very conducive to going to movie theaters.  (But, on the bright side, at least I’ve been spared sitting through Green Lantern.)  X-Men: First Class is set in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but 1962 is also noteworthy as being the year before the very first X-Men comicbook hit the shelves.

Mutation as Metaphor

Most superheroes acquire their powers through tragic childhood events, laboratory accidents, or traveling to earth from an alternate dimension.  For years, comic writers had to rely on plot devices like radioactive spiders and martial arts training and strange visitors from other worlds, but in 1963, Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby came up with a new concept: superheroes who were simply born with their powers.  Two decades after Watson and Crick first proposed the theory of the DNA double-helix, Lee and Kirby put DNA mutation to work in their fiction and came up with a premise for an entire universe of characters: mutants.

Through a miraculous genetic accident, perhaps the next step in our species’ evolution, the world was introduced to mutants, people who were naturally born with amazing abilities far beyond those of normal humans.  Of course, there’s a catch: some of the mutants also have radically different appearances because of their powers-- fur, fins, fangs, feathers, and all manner of other noticeable mutations to draw the scornful eye of a suspicious public.  In fact, with their vast range of superpowers, many of the mutants are practically living weapons, and since some of them look just like normal humans, hysteria exists surrounding the mutant population in the world that Lee and Kirby created.  Could your neighbor be a mutant?  Could they use those powers for evil?  Would you be able to protect your children from the mutant menace?  Might your children even be mutants themselves?  Or maybe your wife?  Your coworkers?  Your congressman?  Maybe we should have legislation about this sort of thing.  Maybe we should restrict them to specific neighborhoods or limit their civil rights or make them register with the government, but how would they react?  Would they accept our regulations or lash out?  Therein lies the crucial issue constantly at play in the X-Men universe:

How does the empowered minority best respond to the ignorant, prejudiced, paranoid majority?

When the first issues of these comics were coming out in the 1960s, the similarities to the American Civil Rights movement were fairly obvious, with various mutant characters speaking out in different ways about mutants’ relationships with the non-superpowered majority.  Some thought that mutants and other humans should coexist peacefully; others thought that mutants should rule the world; still others thought that mutants should leave and have their own separate society.  Over the years, the concept of mutation has taken on numerous other meanings, always becoming a symbol for the oppressed minority, and in several cases, mutants who also share another minority affiliation are given prominent roles to make the analogy that much more potent.  In fact, the superhero team broke new ground by introducing strong black characters (Storm), Jewish characters (Kitty Pryde, Magneto), LGBT characters (Northstar, Destiny, Mystique, Rictor), and Muslim characters (Dust) years before other comic series would feature these groups.  The X-Men comicbooks have always been about seeing the world from the perspective of an oppressed people, but in this case, those people also have costumes and superpowers and goofy codenames.

The Original Lineup

I’m not the first to make this comparison.  In fact, I’ve even heard of entire classes being taught around this subject, and I’m pretty sure it’s even on the Wikipedia page for the X-Men.  Still, it’s worth pointing out:

Professor Xavier : MLK :: Magneto : Malcolm X

I’ve heard that this is supposed to be really obvious in X-Men: First Class, which is another reason why I’m really aggravated that I still haven’t seen it, but I’m going to talk about it anyway.  From the earliest days of the X-Men, the comics have had two perpetually-dueling factions: the X-Men (who promote peaceful coexistence with humans) and the Brotherhood of Mutants (who promote mutant supremacy).  Initially, the X-Men consisted of five teenage/young adult misfit superheroes and their mentor, all of whom have endured hardships because of their abilities:

Scott Summers (Cyclops)-

A regular boy scout, Scott serves as the team leader and closely follows every order given by the X-Men’s mentor, Professor Charles Xavier (affectionately known as “Professor X”).  An orphan from an early age, Scott was mistreated all his life because of his mutant ability: His eyes emit a powerful blast of heat radiation whenever opened.  For this reason, Scott was functionally blind for much of his childhood and adolescence, having to keep his eyes closed at all times before learning that glasses made of a special ruby quartz could contain the radiation.  When leading the X-Men in combat, he wears a special visor to allow for quick, focused blasts from his eyes at the push of a button.  While his personality can be a little cavalier and domineering, he is fully in support of Professor Xavier’s dream of seeing mutants and humans living in harmony.

Jean Grey (Marvel Girl)-

Quite possibly the strongest mutant alive, Jean’s mutant abilities are telekinesis and telepathy, enabling her to lift objects with a thought and read the minds of others.  She is Scott’s girlfriend (and later his wife), and she shares his dedication to Professor Xavier’s dream, seeing Xavier as something of a father figure after he helped her learn to control her incredible abilities.  Jean is perhaps best known for the character’s tendency to die and come back to life due to her frequent possession by a fickle alien deity known as The Phoenix, and as ridiculously farfetched as that sounds, it’s actually been a pretty neat little plot device.

Hank McCoy (Beast)-

Hank was an awkward kid in high school, often bullied because of his abnormal proportions.  Called “Magilla Gorilla” by his classmates, Hank’s abnormally long limbs and large hands and feet give him enhanced agility, making him a natural athlete, but he also has a genius-level intellect to match.  In fact, he often serves as an engineer and mechanic to the X-Men, as well as having a thorough knowledge of medicine, genetics, and even philosophy.  Later in the comics, Hank would mutate further, growing blue fur all over his body.  Despite his now ferocious appearance, Hank remains one of the most friendly and intellectual of the X-Men, proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover.  As one of the mutants who has the hardest time blending in, he is also one of the most active in the public campaign for mutant rights.

Bobby Drake (Iceman)-

The team malcontent and a chronic underachiever, Bobby has the ability to generate and control ice.  Initially, he could encase himself in a snow-like armor, but this later evolved into the ability to turn his whole body into highly-durable ice.  He can throw balls of snow and ice, freeze objects, and slide around on homemade glaciers.  Bobby was persecuted for his abilities early on by his peers, but his parents accepted Professor Xavier’s offer to take Bobby to a special school to learn to harness and control his powers.  This scene was humorously mirrored in the film X2: X-Men United, when Bobby comes out to his parents as a mutant, and his mother politely asks, “Have you tried not being a mutant?”

Warren Worthington III (Angel)-

The son of a wealthy industrialist, Warren discovered white-feathered wings growing out of his back one day while away at prep school.  Donning a costume, he fought crime and helped people as “the Avenging Angel” for a brief period of time before joining the X-Men.  Warren’s sense of entitlement often leads to tension with the team, and because of the publicity surrounding his family, he is one of the few X-Men to retain a secret identity for a number of years before publicly revealing his mutation.  Eventually, following the forced amputation of his wings during a hospital stay, Warren would fall from grace and undergo further genetic experimentation to become the supervillain Archangel for a time before again returning to the X-Men.  Over the years, he has switched allegiances almost as many times as Jean Grey has returned from the dead.  (You know, when a comic has been around for almost half a century, it does eventually start to repeat itself.  Sad fact of life.)

Dueling Visionaries

While popular characters like Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Storm would come along later in the series, these five heroes constitute the original X-Men.  Overseeing this team is an MLK-like visionary and humanitarian by the name of Professor Charles Xavier, a bald, wheelchair-bound mutant with the ability to read and even control people’s minds.  Xavier is very much an idealist, teaching young mutants to use their powers responsibly at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters and hoping to use his team of crime-fighting X-Men to bring positive publicity to the campaign for mutant rights.  Much of his intellectual and financial success came to him on a silver platter thanks to his innate brilliance and telepathic abilities, and the only physical sign of his mutant abilities was his premature balding, making him able to pass for human quite easily.  Still, Xavier was the victim of anti-mutant violence at the hands of his stepbrother while growing up, and he spent years traveling on international humanitarian missions, witnessing violence against mutants the world over.  Xavier strives to work with the world’s political and scientific leaders to guarantee equal treatment for mutants, and despite the occasional use of the X-Men in battle against rival mutant factions and anti-mutant hate groups, Xavier wages his campaign primarily through peaceful, nonviolent means.  He dreams of a day when people will be judged not by the superpowers they possess, but by the content of their character, and he instills this view in his students, particularly the X-Men.

Of course, Xavier’s dream doesn’t have the support of the entire mutant community, and there is one leader in particular who stands against him.  Erik Lehnsherr is a Holocaust survivor whom Xavier befriends while working at a hospital in Israel during his travels, and the two often discuss how the world would respond to the sudden appearance of superpowered humans across the globe.  Erik and Xavier quickly discover that their views are incompatible.  While Xavier hopes for harmony, Erik remains bitter from his experiences in the Holocaust and believes that the mutants would be best off declaring their supremacy and reigning over non-superpowered humans.  Erik simply cannot imagine a world where the mutants are accepted as they are.  Though Xavier and Erik part on good enough terms, the two would eventually find themselves clashing back in Xavier’s home country of America.  Possessing the ability to control magnetic fields, Erik would eventually adopt the name Magneto and would serve as the X-Men’s principle antagonist, often commanding his own team, the Brotherhood of Mutants (sometimes called “The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants” during their first appearances).  While Magneto initially fights for mutant supremacy, he later attempts to create separate sanctuaries for the mutant population, first in an orbital space station called “Asteroid M” and then later on the island nation of Genosha.  It has long been stated that, if Xavier is MLK, then Magneto is his Malcolm X, using tactics of violence, revolution, and terrorism to further his supremacist/separatist agenda.

The Purifiers (an anti-mutant hate group)

While Magneto was originally very much the villain to Xavier’s hero, the strict good/evil dichotomy has become increasingly blurred over the years that the X-Men comics have been in print, and writers have been constantly revisiting the question: How does an oppressed minority best respond to the oppressive majority-- radical peace or radical empowerment?  It is this question that drives almost every major X-Men storyline, and every time new characters are introduced, their reactions to the treatment of mutants define their relationships with the X-Men.  While many new mutant characters sign on to Xavier’s dream, some are in favor of total separation or supremacy, believing that humans will never learn to accept mutants.  Similarly, human characters have a wide range of reactions.  While some side with Xavier, others form hate groups such as the Friends of Humanity (modeled after the KKK) or the religiously-based Purifiers (led by the fanatical televangelist, Rev. William Stryker, who believes mutation to be the work of Satan).  Some humans in the government seek to control the mutants through legislation, eradicate them through the use of experimental technology, or even harness them as weapons (as was the case with Wolverine in the top secret Weapon X program).  With all of this activity surrounding them, the X-Men are in a pretty difficult place, struggling with responding to violence from humans and mutants alike while also seeking to show the world that mutants and humans can still coexist peacefully.  Of course, some of the mutants struggle more than others.

Nightcrawler-- Priest, Prophet, Mutant

Introduced in 1975, one of the most popular characters from the X-Men comics is a German circus acrobat named Kurt Wagner (a.k.a. Nightcrawler).  Blessed with extreme agility and the ability to vanish in a puff of smoke and teleport miles away, Nightcrawler also has one of the most distinctive appearances of any of the X-Men characters, sporting blue skin and fur, yellow eyes, pointed ears, fangs, a prehensile tail, and three-fingered hands and feet.  His appearance is very much demonic, making Nightcrawler’s devout Catholicism all the more fascinating.  Though Nightcrawler’s freakish appearance is very much accepted during his upbringing in the Bavarian circus, he often finds himself at the mercy of angry mobs whenever straying from his circus peers, and it was after being rescued from one such mob that he joined Professor Xavier’s X-Men and came to America.  Called a demon and a monster, Nightcrawler might have the most in-depth understanding of the persecution that mutants face, and yet, he will not allow his will or his faith to be crushed.  Despite opposition from many in the religious community, he serves as an ordained Catholic priest, even though he finds it difficult to attend or preside over mass due to the terror his appearance often insights.  Still, Nightcrawler remains an effective counselor, preaching the love of God for those born different, encouraging humans to love mutants and encouraging mutants like Magneto to be patient with the humans.

Perhaps what makes Nightcrawler so endearing is how utterly complex a character he is.  A fan of classic films, Nightcrawler fancies himself a bit of a swashbuckler, often imitating his hero, Errol Flynn, when he goes into combat with the X-Men.  Of course, while his beliefs make him pacifistic at his core, he must reconcile fighting alongside the X-Men as a service to the greater good, seeking to protect humans and mutants from whatever threats might arise from those seeking to oppress and conquer.  Additionally, while many of the mutants are capable of passing for human, Nightcrawler’s appearance is a constant source of turmoil for him, but he continually finds affirmation in his religion, recognizing that, through his mutation, God has granted him special abilities and unique insights into the ordering of the world.  He has every right to hate the people around him, yet he sees all people as children of God and preaches that same love and tolerance to his fellow X-Men when they grow tired of fighting the good fight.  His religious rhetoric and comments about God’s love are a welcome antidote to the hate that the X-Men sometimes receive from religious groups like the Purifiers and the Church of Humanity.  In fact, his uncrushable faith might be Nightcrawler’s most impressive ability, and it is evidence of just how much comfort people can find in God when the majority tells them that they are misfits or abominations.  While religious people have an unfortunate history of being just as hateful as any other group, God loves the oppressed and the oppressor alike, going so far as to live among us as Jesus Christ and die a humiliating death to reconcile humanity to God.  Nightcrawler might embody that spirit more than any other X-Men character.  In his own words,

Looks like someone's been reading their Peter Abelard.

The increasingly diverse X-Men team

New Applications

Throughout the X-Men’s nearly fifty years, the comics have taken on a number of issues affecting various minority groups beyond the simple MLK/Malcolm X comparison.  Prior to Magneto’s takeover of Genosha, the fictitious island nation actually functioned as an apartheid state where mutants were imprisoned in labor camps, and this storyline coincided with the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa.  The recurring subplot of American government officials attempting to round up and control mutants often carries with it Holocaust connotations, making Magneto’s mutant supremacist views all the more relevant and sympathetic.  Throughout the 70s and 80s, with the rise of globalization, the team became increasingly international with the additions of Storm (Kenyan raised in Egypt), Nightcrawler (German), Wolverine (Canadian), Colossus (Russian), Sunfire (Japanese), and a slew of other characters from around the world.  The comics of the 1990s featured a recurring plot point known as the “Legacy Virus,” a disease that specifically targeted mutants but was later seen to affect non-powered humans as well.  Hundreds of mutants were infected with the disease throughout this storyline, and the similarities to the AIDS epidemic were not difficult to detect.

Hank "Beast" McCoy (now with blue fur)

Most recently, beginning in 2006, television writer Joss Whedon (probably best known as the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) began writing for the X-Men comics.  Whedon came up with a new concept: a cure for mutation, a way for the mutants to shed their abilities and be just like normal humans.  For mutants whose appearances and abilities kept them from fitting in, the idea of a cure would be an enticing offer.  For example, Rogue (who can drain someone’s life force and superpowers whenever she makes physical contact with a person) would finally be able to touch people, and this became a key plot point of the film X-Men: The Last Stand.  Of course, in the comics, Whedon chose to focus on another character’s decision over whether or not to be cured, a character who had long stood as a champion of mutant rights: Beast.  Tired of the constant hatred his appearance evokes, Beast strongly considers the cure, but Wolverine must talk him out of it, saying that for such a prominent mutant leader to accept the cure would send the wrong message about mutation.  It would prove the X-Men’s detractors right, and it would be a potent weapon in the arsenal of anti-mutant activists and hate groups.  Of course, I find it interesting that this storyline coincides neatly with a group of Arizona psychologists announcing that, after just three weeks, Rev. Ted Haggard had been completely cured of his homosexuality.  Yep, these comics are some of the most fascinating cultural commentary out there.

“Have you tried not being a mutant?”

Of course, as relevant as all of the X-Men storylines have been, as much as the characters in these comics speak to the conflicting emotions of people who struggle under oppression because of physical attributes beyond their control, it’s not so much the words of Xavier or Magneto, but of Desmond Tutu that I’ve been thinking about lately.  In a sermon in London in 2004, Tutu outlined that Christians are called to respond to injustice anywhere, to love all neighbors regardless of their skin color or their gender, and he paid special attention to the issue of sexual orientation.  A fuller excerpt is available here, but I’ve pulled some sound bites:

For me this struggle is a seamless robe. Opposing apartheid was a matter of justice. Opposing discrimination against women is a matter of justice. Opposing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a matter of justice. . . . It is also a matter of love. Every human being is precious. We are all -- all of us -- part of God's family. We all must be allowed to love each other with honor. Yet all over the world, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are persecuted. We treat them as pariahs and push them outside our communities. We make them doubt that they too are children of God. This must be nearly the ultimate blasphemy. We blame them for what they are. . . . The Jesus I worship is not likely to collaborate with those who vilify and persecute an already oppressed minority. . . .

Look, I realize that whether or not homosexuality is a sin is a contentious subject, so I’m just not even going to address that here.  On the other hand, I think we can all agree that the treatment of LGBT peoples all over the world is abominable.  I openly admit that I’m kind of on the fence about same-sex marriage --as someone who is neither gay nor married, I just don’t really have a stake in it either way--, but as Christians, we are still called to love those around us, particularly those who have been repeatedly beaten down by the world.  When I was in San Francisco, I met people who had been kicked to the curb by the church and called abominations their whole lives.  I met people who had been physically abused to the verge of lynching because of a predisposition they had from birth.  I met an oppressed minority who need to be reminded that God loves them in spite of what they might have heard growing up.  I will admit that I think pride can be taken too far sometimes, regardless of what movement it’s affiliated with; I see it as kind of a Magneto approach when the world really needs more Professor Xaviers.  Instead, I support cooperation, solidarity, and loving acceptance.  The Bible tells us that, whether male or female, black or white, gay or straight or endowed with superpowers, we are all God’s creations, fallen and messed up though we might all be.  We are called to show God’s love to one another, never giving in to blind hatred and prejudice.  As Paul wrote to the Colossians,

But now you must get rid of all such things-- anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth.  Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.  In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!  As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.  Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:8-15)

Whether we as Christians condone homosexuality or not, the biblical call is unequivocal:

We are to love our neighbors, and that means speaking out when they are persecuted.

That's what the X-Men are all about.

Peace and Blessings,

Tom