My Confirmation Faith Statement Explored

Today I was digging through a file looking for something else when I stumbled upon my Confirmation Faith Statement. Maybe I'm the only one interested in what young me was thinking and believing then, but I found it a fascinating combination of agonizing over-church talk, proof-texting, and yet somehow having a meaningful message and belief tied up in there. Fun. So I thought I would post the statement for all to scrutinize. But to take it a step further, I will offer my own running commentary on my own faith statement. Because if we gonna judge anybody, let it be ourselves.

First, here is the statement in its entirety:

Believing in Jesus and his glory seems like a hard thing to do. But as I learned through the years of praising and studying the Lord, I learned what faith can do for me. In John 20:29 Jesus appeared before his disciples for the second time after he rose from the grave in which he said to Thomas and the others, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe."

We all know that by keeping faith in the Lord, Daniel survived the pit of hungry lions in Daniel 6. The Lord will even show us the way to redemption as I learned from Acts 26 where Paul speaks of how Jesus bought him from sin.

So what do I believe? I believe that in my baptism I was born before the Lord and for years since I have had beliefs and doubts. Until I had witnessed his glory, I could never explain this witness except by saying that my belief and prayer has delivered me from things maybe not as big as a den of lions, but the fact that Jesus did it for me anyways, that is why it's special. So as a follower of Jesus I believe that faith in the Lord God will save you.

Okay, now lets break this down a bit. Before I go further I should say I actually really like my faith statement, and there is a theme in here that has really stuck with me, and it surprises me it was there so early. It is mixed however with a language and line of thinking that runs somewhere between naive and untrue, with a hint of boastfulness. Let's take a look:

Believing in Jesus and his glory seems like a hard thing to do. But

Stop right there. The first line is an interesting one to start a faith statement with. I wish the "But" was not there. It simply is true, it is a hard thing to do. The "but" part sounds a bit like "but I did it, so there, tehehe." There is a bit of history that lies behind these words too though. The history was that about two years before this, I walked away from God and wanted nothing to do with the church. As a blanket statement it wreaks of boastfulness, the history behind it is actually about (and I just wish I expressed it better) the fact that believing was hard for me, and the but is not about my triumph where others fail, but about my gratitude that I was back in church. That's why it turns to this "But I learned...what faith can do for me."

But as I learned through the years of praising and studying the Lord, I learned what faith can do for me.

So I just expressed the good and personal element of what it was for me to feel that challenge of believing in an unseen God as behind me, but let me now call a bit of BS on myself. What was I talking about when I said I learned through years of praising AND STUDYING the Lord? What studying am I talking about? At that point I had never really read through the Bible, or done serious study of it or the God we meet in it. I'd read parts, true. I knew some stories (as we will see), but I hardly spent time studying. Those are misleading words. Maybe I am referring to my three years of confirmation, or the little research I did to write that faith statement, but I'm basically exaggerating at best, lying at worst to sound more "ready". Perhaps I meant that I understood things differently then, I could see that. But it was not from studying. Fail!

In John 20:29 Jesus appeared before his disciples for the second time after he rose from the grave in which he said to Thomas and the others, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe."

Now this is a really awesome insight for me to look back on. If you are having trouble connecting the dots (since there is a dot left unspoken here) this is what I was getting at: I found blessing in belief. For how difficult it is to believe, and the tumult I identified in my own relatively recent faith journey at that time, it was worth it. But what is so cool about this for me was that I was actually applying a text to myself. As a pastor now, I like what I see here, because what I want for everyone who reads the bible is to hear the message as speaking to them. This story somehow was doing that for me. It is interesting because I have no real memory of this verse being so meaningful, but it must have been. That's what I like about looking back at this, it gives insight into a part of the bible that made sense to me. That Jesus really meant for disciples after him to share in the blessings he offers and I was confessing myself as part of that great inheritance.Considering how little I really knew the bible at that point, to think that something of it made a cognitive impact on my teenage faith and understanding is special.


We all know that by keeping faith in the Lord, Daniel survived the pit of hungry lions in Daniel 6. The Lord will even show us the way to redemption as I learned from Acts 26 where Paul speaks of how Jesus bought him from sin.

Now before you go, "wow he really knew his Bible", realize that's how I wanted it to sound. Again, it comes off a bit more posturing. That is, I did not simply know where these stories were, I just knew about the stories and I spent time (and probably the internet) trying to find them. The proof is in the pudd'n when I reference Acts 26. You see, I was referring to Paul's conversion. But if you know your Bible you will know that Paul's conversion does not actually take place in Acts 26 but in Acts 9. What you find in Acts 26 is Paul telling King Agrippa about his conversion. But I didn't know the difference. I was looking for the story of his conversion, came across him retelling it, and thought that was where it was in the Bible. Silly rabbit.

That said, I'm also setting up the faith statement with a really interesting dot between paragraph 1 and paragraph 3. If paragraph 1 is, I overcame the hurdle of faith and found blessing. Paragraph 2 gives examples of some of the great blessings people found in scripture. The Paul one I know was very meaningful to me when I was at that point since like I said, I understood to some degree the idea of feeling like an enemy to God only to be rescued on the way and drawn into this Christian faith. The Daniel one, it was one of those Sunday school stories I don't remember from Sunday school as well but I think I came upon later in my confirmation days and apparently liked or thought enough of to mention. Probably because it expressed the blessing of holding to the faith. If I connected with Paul's story through feeling like my faith had a radical redirecting (although that concept was probably a bit more sensational than actual in some ways), I connected with Daniel in that I felt there was genuine rescue to be found in this faith and I felt like I would hold it forever (or at the very least desired to hold it forever). This connection sets us up for paragraph 3 because I'm bout to express how I felt rescued and blessed. Think of the flow of my faith statement almost as a formula or argument:

1. Faith is difficult but a blessed thing to find.
2. Just look at Paul who found it and Daniel who was spared by it.
3. I have found it and been spared by it, thus my faith is a a blessing worth its difficulty.

Let's go on

So what do I believe?

What a cunning little critter I was. I've set up my argument, even if I would still struggle to make it. After all, what do you believe is a tough question to sometimes articulate. It's a lot to ask of a teenager. And I'm surprised that I had such a train of thought, even if it had gaps in its presentation. The difficulty here, and the vagueness however also gets at something about me, I'm not always a very personal person. I'm actually often more emotionally detached, and I tend to only want to grant vulnerability to a certain extent. It is hard for me to do. That is probably why this is laid out in an argument/formula form. It allowed me to focus more on the point than the story. I'm just not as much of a story person, I'm an argument style person. And to those who hear me preach this will likely be of little surprise. I do try to be honest and vulnerable at times, I do try to change my preaching style to not always be so married to that way of thinking, but it is no doubt a default that can be seen going all the way back to my confirmation (which I made in 9th grade for those wondering).

 I believe that in my baptism I was born before the Lord and for years since I have had beliefs and doubts. 

Wow. Where did I pick this up? I don't remember baptism being a big emphasis of my confirmation or anything, but Pastor Ron or someone must have impressed it upon me. We come here to as honest and open as I get in this faith statement, which is I admit that for all my beliefs, I've carried doubts. Again, I have to impress how big a thing it was for me to have spent a period having not wanted to worship or follow God not out of boredom but anger. It was a guilt I carried for years, and part of the language and over-exaggeration is I think now, looking back, an attempt at self-redemption and seeking to assure myself that I would not make such a mistake again. It is in part why the abandonment of so many of my generation of the church is so painful. I see both a bit of myself, and a bit of what I could have been within it. And I know for every ounce of breath I have that it was for the better for me that God like the woman of the parable found her lost coin. In these words I'm saying how I don't feel like I belong, because that juxtaposition of internal guilt and yet externally finding myself belonging among people I did not feel worthy of being counted among was what grace was to me.

Until I had witnessed his glory,

Let me just say I wish I could strike this line from the statement. Along with the phrasing which just doesn't sound like me, I also think again we get to that self-posturing. I had beliefs and doubts UNTIL...like saying now no doubts. Nice try mini me. Here is that naive boasting that just makes me cringe now. I have had plenty of doubts along the way. What I have experienced does not change that, and it takes away from some of the profound honesty that precedes it. But who on their confirmation wants to sound like a still searching, unsure person? And truth be told, I don't think I felt like one. I felt very firmly rooted at that point. But more reflection, more years, more turmoil all show that it is quite sensational talk, and is tied to this self-redemption quest I carry.

I could never explain this witness 

So don't ask me to! Ha! Spoken like a true Lutheran. This was probably the phrase that guaranteed my confirmation, lol. Maybe it's because it is this coming Sunday, but the whole inexplicable, witnessing of glory kinda reminds me of the disciples witnessing Jesus' transfiguration.

except by saying that my belief and prayer has delivered me from things maybe not as big as a den of lions, but the fact that Jesus did it for me anyways, that is why it's special. 

Okay, so maybe I could explain it. Well, sort of. It's especially hard when you're trying not to go into details. But let me say, for how much I jest, even now I'm a little impressed by this statement. It is easy to be proud of oneself I suppose, but this here is what we in the business call "preachable". That is, the idea that God being with us even if our problems don't seem as big as the ones in the bible and even if our story of rescue lacks that dramatic flare, that's true to the experience of so many. It's my proudest moment of the faith statement, if I may gloat a little.

So as a follower of Jesus I believe that faith in the Lord God will save you.

Here's the funny part, this very Lutheran phrase was something I penned long before I ever intellectually came across its theology. I mean, I was in a Missouri Synod Church, I'm sure it was taught, but I don't remember it that way. No, the article of justification by faith was not something I really learned about until college, when I started reading Luther. Yet somehow, it already was a part of me in some way, thanks to the work of others. Take that lesson for when a person does not seem to be "taking in" what you are saying about grace, because more may be seeping in than we realize.

Another really great thing, was that my pastor chose my confirmation verse, not me. It's something I am very thankful for now. I don't know if it was because of this line, but the verse Pastor Ron chose for me was this:

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. -Acts 16:31

I couldn't have said it better myself. I still can't.

Annual HoF Rant: Why John McGrath is Wrong

BWAA voters for Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame are now subject to the scrutiny of having to defend their ballots. Beginning this year, ballots are being released by the Hall of Fame to show just who voted for who. No more of this anonymous sanctimonious voting without being subject to defend or explain your reasoning. It probably had something to do with guys like Maddox and Griffey not getting unanimous selections. It is indefensible beyond some unspoken, unjustifiable claim that consensus players still should not get unanimous elections (or dumber yet, the notion that you should always have to wait at least one year before getting inducted).

My hate of the Hall of Fame voting process has been well documented on this blog for years. Little on that needs to be said. Today, let me focus my rant with one particular writer: John McGrath. McGrath at least filled out a full ballot (how some only thought there were 5 or so hall worthy players in ridiculous), but he was among those who for another year denied Bonds and Clemens, clearly the two best players on the ballot, and players so good they are in the conversations for best in the history of the game.

McGrath's reasoning is laid out here. To sum it up: some players never cheated to extend their careers while these guys did and that is a clear violation of the "character clause" of the ballot.

The clause he's referring to is the language of the ballot that reads "Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and the contributions to the team(s) on which the player played."

Integrity, sportsmanship, character. These are the words upon which McGrath, and enough other BWAA voters hang their hat in order to deny Bonds, Clemens, and other players of a similar painting (such as Sosa). Now let me say why he's wrong.

There really is no historical proof that the clause has ever been used to not vote for a player. Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe can't count because they were never even included on a ballot for someone to use the clause to not vote for them. I mean, we have players who doctored the ball, mound chargers, racists, adulterers, etc. We have players who did things during careers, after careers, directly related to the game or not and yet never once did that clause stop any of them from being inducted but now it is going to be used against two players who literally have a better case career-wise in being in the hall?

Really I think history has shown us the opposite. Not only has history shown us that players were not excluded from the hall on the grounds of character flaws whether they affected the game or not, but I think it shows us that the clause is more there for the opposite reason: namely, to give reason to vote for a player who might otherwise not have a career case but belongs in the hall because of other impacts on the game. That is, it gave the voters grounds to vote for players who would be excluded otherwise. Instead of trying to make it some great list of objectives to be checked off (when ever has anyone shown any effort to only vote for players that were elite on every category, meeting some great formulaic bar by averaging their character with their career?), it was to give another medium by which to declare a player a hall of famer. This clause you might say nullifies the argument that say Jackie Robinson did not have a hall of fame career, which if he were judged only on numbers, in a vacuum, like if you had not his name but only awards and counting stats in front of you a person could reasonably say "great career, but not long enough" (Robinson only played 10 MLB seasons). In fact, McGrath's whole argument is accompanied by the narrative of Dale Murphy who had great numbers, but a steep falloff. He had, too short a career of success. I think there is a fair case to be made then that Robinson is proof this clause is intended for positive use. There was a reason beyond even his numbers that he is essential to the game. Although, as Buster Olney pointed out, voters have even been historically bad at using it to vote players in noting that Robinson barely got the votes needed and Larry Dobby, first black AL player never even got 4% of the BWAA votes. That is, the clause probably helped get Robinson over the threshold, and yet still many writers didn't seem to care enough about it then to use it the way it should be used. To quote Olney, "Somewhere along the way, long after Robinson's induction and death, some writers [in our time today] determined that the scant phrasing in the character clause could be used to eliminate candidates, but apparently not used to elevate them - practice which seems to violate the wording and to underscore its absurdly subjective nature."

And he's right. While all votes are to a degree subjective, this opens up subjectivity to a whole new level. While I think Schilling should be in the hall of fame, I think he is an idiot for assuming that democrats get elected in right away but he didn't because he was a Trump-supporting republican. However, the more the BWAA uses the character clause to decide who gets in the more they are fueling his argument. After all, if you don't vote for players because they did/said something you did not like rather than because you did not think they were hall of fame caliber players, then what is to stop someone who thinks Trump is so terrible and those who voted for him must be racist too (I've seen the argument out there) from deciding that is a deal-breaking character flaw? Once you open the door to character subjectivity, it is easy to see it abused and you give reason for people to start suspecting abuse. The subjective use of the character clause invites then subject judgment of the voters' character, and by extension the hall itself. This is why it has been so scantally used even to include players. There is a reason there used to be the baseline stats that guaranteed election such as 300 wins or 500 home runs or 3000 hits. It was not simply because they over-valued those stats (funny enough those are probably the most devalued stats in the modern advanced statistic era), it was because they needed some point of objectivity. Some way of saying "beyond a shadow of a doubt these guys are hall of famers". They understood that even judging statistics was a subjective art that could be a slippery slope, so there were feats considered good enough to immortalize a player because that level of career production was considered elite. Well then you had Rafael Palmeiro who crossed both the 3000 hit and 500 home run threshold and somehow was not even good enough to stay on the ballot a few years. Bonds not only crossed the threshold, he is the all-time leader in home runs!

The point is that using the clause to hold someone back is a slippery slope of subjectivity that for years the BWAA literally took steps to avoid in even the most objective part of the game: a player's actual counting stats. 

But subjectivity and the purpose of the clause aside. Let's examine the case that steroid use is good enough grounds to not vote for Bonds and Clemens. Let's ask if that was a legit case for using the clause. After all, that's what his whole case is based on. Guys like Dale Murphy faded fast and will miss the hall for (presumably) never shooting up while guys like Clemens and Bonds had amazing careers that were outlandishly lasting.

Let me provide a counter-argument.

1) Correlation does not equal causation. This classic reminder in science should be heeded here as well. The argument is, they had a longer and better career than Murphy because of steroids. How on earth can you prove that, especially if you cannot even establish when exactly or how long or how much someone was using or would have been in decline? At best, you can make the assertion that MAYBE their career would have gone the way of Dale Murphy. In fact, before the allegations came out about Clemens, it was his work ethic and workout routine, it was his addition and mastery of the splitter that was said to prolong his career. And long before there was any speculation or worry of steroids tainting the game, there were players who had great careers and hit a wall/fell off early and there were players who were able to maintain their careers into their old age. Some players get hurt more, some recover faster and it's not always PEDs. Look at one of my favorite players in history: Satchel Paige. The guy debuted in MLB at age 42! He was 59 when he made his last MLB appearance! Are we suggesting he must have been a user to have such a long Negro Leagues career and then be able to play so late in MLB. He probably put more pitches on his arm than any player in the last 75 years.

2) But let's say you don't care, this is a grievous violation. Well, the problem is of course the clause is still being used for someone who was never empirically found guilty of PED use. Yes we have the BALCO trials (and subsequent perjury conviction, although much of those records have never been available to the public to make an informed decision on its details) and the trainer who claimed Clemens used (who Clemens pursued legal action against, although that was dismissed if memory serves), I'm not saying they were never seriously implicated. But we have no failed drug tests. So to follow the line of thought, the character clause is being used for things these players have been accused of doing, what they might have done (probably). I'm sorry, but how does that argument in any way compare to what they actually have done in their careers? Whatever doubt those allegations may have cast for someone regarding the nature of those stats, the stats are still there, and far more concrete than the case that steroids tainted them when it isn't even an open and shut case that they took steroids, public opinion of the matter aside.

3) But even if you still want to say the evidence was good and damning enough, it still comes to the fact that these were not isolated incidences to these two players. Even if Bonds and Clemens did use, which certainly seems likely, it was not like they stood out as some kind of unique case of cheaters. They only stand out because they were the best of everybody, not because of the steroids. I mean, drug testing was implemented precisely because they found there was a wide-spread problem of use across baseball. The point being that steroid use was not a problem tied simply to their character alone, it was tied to a bigger issue in the character of the game. It seems hard to use something so prevalent as a case to dismiss a few, especially those who were irregardless always counted among the elite. Even if we concede the high probability of guilt, it seems hard then to isolate the guilt to their own records alone. When we have a period now being dubbed "the steroid era" it seems hard to argue that the guilt or at least character shortage rests only on a few of the elite. Even if some benefited by favoring that corruption in the game while others did not desire its place in the game or seek to benefit from it, Although, in a game where so many stats are also a team effort, how many RBIs and runs did the Dale Murphys get because of perhaps others on their team using steroids even if they stayed clean? How many homers did Clemens still surrender to the Bonds, Sosas, and McGwires then? How many roided pitchers struck out Bonds? How many of those BWAA writers wrote about their greatness and sold them to the fans? How can the effects, benefits, and question of integrity only be put upon them then?

4) As such, how do you separate the pure from impure? I've reiterated this argument before in previous years, but if this is an era defined by steroid use, and we year in year out find new people were using, then what seems more likely is we are either penalizing people who likely never used (something people argued had been happening unfairly to Jeff Bagwell prior to this year) or we are rewarding players who were better at getting away with it. Mike Piazza is a Hall of Famer (and rightly so), yet his name certainly was under suspicion and scrutiny. Let's suppose for a minute that the suspicion about him or Bagwell was correct, yet because no one ever waved a finger or their name was never leaked they are ok? I mentioned how Clemens was never suspected until his name came up from the Mitchell report. Or take Ryan Braun, whose physique in no way suggests steroid use (in fact before his scandal Bud Selig named him as an example of the cleaned up game that has purer hitters). Maybe my argument here suffers a bit of a logical fallacy, that is it may be unfair to suggest that what we don't know about some players makes it wrong to judge on what we do know about others, since that argument could technically be applied to any player on any crime always and ever. But the specifics of this argument is still quite valid, since it is particularly in reference to steroid use in the steroid era and the difficulty in really identifying how far it went and who benefited most from it. If we have already admitted now into the hall several players from the steroid era, we have by and large removed that asterisk already and moved past the case that the integrity of the hall of fame will be brought down by the admission of players on the basis of stats from that era.

5) But let's say you could separate them. Let's assume for a minute that no one inducted from that era ever used. Let's say Bonds and Clemens benefited from steroids more than any other player who suited up for a major league team. Let's decide that ultimately they are responsible for what they did, not the wider game culture. It's on them and them alone and they need to answer for these crimes. Let's make all those assertions absent any thought of the counter arguments above. Even then, does that outweigh the numbers that say they were the best in the game? Or is that they only consideration in regards to their sportsmanship and integrity? How about Curt Schilling, another hall-worthy pitcher crediting Clemens with getting his career on track after Clemens sought him out and talked to him on how he needed to change his approach to the game? Isn't that very sportsman conduct that had a huge impact on the game? How about how Bonds has a street named after him in Harvey, IL because of his work there for underprivileged children or the Giants' fan who was brutally attacked by Dodgers fans and Bonds offered to pay for his children's college tuition? I'm sure you could find a lot of good from just about any athlete. That's not the point, but rather the point is for these athletes the good elements of their character are not even put into consideration. Seems to me, if you are ultimately going to stake your argument on the character clause, more scrutinous efforts should be put into examining these players' character.

The truth is of course, it's not their character, sportsmanship, or integrity that gets them into the hall of fame. Bonds was one of my least favorite players (a view in part because I experienced him through the tenuous relationship he and the media had), and Clemens was an intense player (though one of my favorites). I'll always remember the infamous bat throwing incident between him and Piazza (although he swore he did not mean to throw it at him). But they should be in because they were never meant to make their case on character, sportsmanship, and integrity. And as fans we never really asked them to during their hall of fame careers. Sure we like to have likeable players of good integrity to look up to, but really that wasn't the contributions that made them essential to the game and in my view essential to the hall of fame. And it seems to me more diminishing to the hall's integrity that two of its most obvious entrants are not in there.

And that, John McGrath, is why you are wrong in using integrity as a reason to keep them out.