The monologue of the Religious Right is over and a new conversation has begun! Join the God's Politics dialogue with Jim Wallis and friends Brian McLaren, Diana Butler Bass, Becky Garrison, Gareth Higgins, Shane Claiborne, Mary Nelson, Gabriel Salguero, Tony Campolo, and others.
Recently, both President Bush and an oil company spokesperson, speaking to the rising gas prices, pushed for building more refineries and upping the production of oil here in the States. No mention of exorbitant oil company profits. No mention of our need to drastically reduce use of cars and gasoline, to change lifestyles. No mention of the working poor who are stuck without public transportation to jobs remote from their inner-city or inner-ring suburban homes.
Reducing dependence on the automobile will mean a lot more than raising fuel efficiency standards for cars and buying more efficient automobiles. It will need a change of lifestyle, removing frivolous car trips, using public transportation, and changing the priorities of government transportation funding. Only about 25% of the transportation dollars in most places now support public transportation, and it is hard to find public transportation to many jobs in the suburbs. The highway and automobile lobby have been effective on the national and state level. We've got to change that with loud and strong voices for public transportation.
One has to allow more time to get places using public transportation--perhaps a good thing to slow down our rushing lifestyles and get more exercise getting to and from. My elevated train route is a microcosm of society: suited suburban riders with neighborhood service workers, elderly and young, white and black, Hispanic and Asian. The trains are refreshing "bumping into" places where different people mix and find common ground in talking about the most recent delay, laughing at the antics of a child, and rolling our eyes at some loud cell phone talker.
Would that more sermons, writings, and our voices push elected officials for more and more available public transportation, for the sake of equity, for community, for our health. We would all be the better for it.
A lot has happened this past week, starting with the international day of prayer for Zimbabwe on Sunday, April 27. Churches all over the world stood in solidarity with the plight of Zimbabweans and condemned the widespread violence and intimidation of citizens by the government.
Not surprisingly, there were counterclaims by government and some politicians in the region that the violence is exaggerated and not "serious." This got me thinking about what constitutes "serious violence." Is it mass massacres where thousands upon thousands of lives are lost? By defining crisis in relation to statistics, politicians continue to devalue the lives of Africans.
This "life-devaluing" rhetoric presents a challenge to faith communities to enter the political discourse with a different language that links the struggle for justice with the dignity and value of life. While it is important to point out and expose the acts of terror being perpetuated, we need to be weary of being dragged down into the same frame of reference. It would be a sad day indeed if we found ourselves sharing the same vocabulary and vilifying the other.
For me, the day of prayer for Zimbabwe was an important reminder that as people of faith we enter into the struggle for justice with a different language, ethos, and an intentional commitment to the welfare of all -- particularly the poor. Therefore, we pray for a different army for Zimbabwe, an army of visionary leaders who are competent experts in every area of governance, such as education, health, politics, justice, economics, trade, agriculture, housing, and business (for example, mining, manufacturing, trade, and commerce). This is the real liberation army!
We pray also for the present, for wisdom to be given (at the Solomon and Daniel level!) to strategic persons who have the power to change the situation so that the political crisis will be resolved expediently and justly. More importantly, that prophetic wisdom be given to church leaders so that they may continue to play an important role in this process. The role of the church has been remarkable!
Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.
I met John Marks, author of Reasons to Believe during a screening of Purple State of Mind. Given that we're both transplanted Southerners, I was interested in exploring why he chose to leave the faith of his childhood. Following is a short interview of what I hope will be an ongoing conversation.
Briefly describe your childhood.
I grew up in a nominally Christian home. My folks were Presbyterians, and we went to church on Sundays and said prayer before meals. Religion wasn't a big deal in our home, except as a mostly unspoken tradition.
Why do you say that had you been pastored by Bob Russell, you might not have left the faith?
Pastors are surrogate fathers and mean a great deal to a lot of young Christians I've met. In my experience as a teenager, I never had a strong adult mentor who represented the faith in any mature way. Most of my "pastors" were Young Life leaders or youth group leaders who were decent people but didn't have much intellectual or theological wattage. The pastor of my parents' church was a distant figure who seemed to have little or no relation to my life.
How did your encounter with Craig Detweiler, your college roommate at Davidson College, inform your faith?
At first it gave my faith a new sense of community, because I could share it with a close friend who also loved movies and music, but the experience turned out to be off-putting when Craig's evolution in the faith couldn't make room for my development as an artist.
What happened when you were covering the Balkans for U.S. News & World Report that made you stop believing in God?
I met a Muslim refugee whose village had been destroyed. He told me that his last hope resided in his sons, who had been taken prisoner by Serbs and would be released at war's end. My interpreter whispered in my ear that his sons were dead. I knew this, and he didn't, but I couldn't be the one to tell him. The perversity of that moment shattered for good my capacity to believe in some sovereign order in the universe.
As a former reporter, what reflections do you have on the role of religion in the public square -- especially as we head into the 2008 election?
Faith is now a diffused force across the full political spectrum. Four years ago, it was a much more targeted and quantifiable factor, mostly on the side of the Republican Party. No one will have an easy time this year trying to decide which political choice is biblical.
What do you want for Christians to take away from this book? That there is a conversation to be had with non-Christians that doesn't involve rancor and mockery?
The conversation is necessary, but it doesn't have to be anodyne. No one has to compromise, but everyone has to listen and show a modicum of respect. It's simple and hugely difficult at the same time.
How was this book the genesis for the documentary Purple State of Mind?
When I sold it to HarperCollins, I immediately called Craig Detweiler, my sophomore college roommate, because he had known me best when I believed. I wanted to go back in time and rehash the past. He wanted to turn on the cameras.
Any thoughts on how we can continue the dialogue that Craig and you have begun?
The best bet is to be determined in spirit, modest in ambition, at least at first. Find the one or two people whose company you enjoy and yet with whom you disagree and start to listen. If they listen, too, then there is hope. Alcohol and caffeine can be immensely helpful in the right doses.
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Because the church is not an elite body separated from a doomed world, but a community placed in the midst of the cosmic community of creation, its task is not merely to win souls but to bear the burdens of creation to which it not only belongs, but to which it must also bear witness.
God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
Catholic and Protestant church groups in Zimbabwe have voiced deep alarm about the Mugabe government's organized violence against those perceived to have voted against it, and its refusal to release the results of the March 29 elections. Despite the economic and social disaster Mugabe's government has brought on Zimbabwe in recent years, the government has, as one news article put it recently, maintained "support among neighboring countries where many still hold him in awe as an African liberation hero" of Zimbabwe's 1980 overturning of white-minority rule.
As Zimbabwean theologian Dr. David Kaulemu described at last month's Ecumenical Advocacy Days, many African countries are struggling not just with the ghosts of colonialism, but also with the ghosts of the liberation movement-- the fact that the concepts and leadership style that helped win independence can hinder the development of democracy. We spoke with Kaulemu after his presentation.
Sojourners: It seems, especially in the situation in Zimbabwe, that the ghost of the liberation movement is a very real and very current issue.
Kaulemu: That's a real challenge—appreciating the values, the vision of the liberation struggle, but also appreciating the limitations. Our liberation movements, the way in which they developed their skills, their personnel, their visions, and also their institutions, failed to turn them into institutions for governance and for real freedom for everyone in the country.
And so the challenge here is in reconstructing, both in terms of our vision and also in terms of our institutions, and also our personnel, our skills—reconstructing in such a way that we speak a different language where we are really concerned about the poverty in the country, we're really concerned about the dignity of human beings—each and every human being—it doesn't matter which tribe, which ethnic group, which race. And so to really begin to talk about new citizenship in a free Zimbabwe.
Do you see ways in which the faith community is helping to take the next step toward that reconstruction you're describing?
The faith communities are making a contribution. They have begun to raise certain issues, certain questions, which will help to move us forward.
These same institutions have challenges .… For a lot of church leaders, they in a sense forgot about their gospel and took the gospel of the liberation struggle. And for those whose imagination continues to be determined by the liberation struggle, you can see them using the church for the purposes of those political goals.
But we are beginning to see leaders who are now saying, we have our own values as Christians or as faith communities, which made us support the liberation struggle. Not that the liberation struggle molded our values, but that we agreed with some of the basic tenets of the liberation struggle—but from the point of view of faith communities. And that disjunction, that distinction, is beginning to be clarified more and more.
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Ask the loveliness of the earth, ask the loveliness of the sea, ask the loveliness of the wide airy spaces, ask the loveliness of the sky, ask the order of the stars, ask the sun, making daylight with its beams, ask the moon tempering the darkness of the night that follows, ask the living things which move in the waters, which tarry on the land, which fly in the air; ask the souls that are hidden, the bodies that are perceptive; the visible things which most be governed, the invisible things that govern—ask these things, and they will all answer you, Yes, see we are lovely. Their loveliness is their confession. And all these lovely but mutable things, who has made them, but Beauty immutable?
When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.
Over the last several days, I watched Rev. Jeremiah Wright in discussions of faith, theology, history, and culture on television. The three-plus hours I devoted to PBS and CNN amounted to some of the most sophisticated and thoughtful programming on American culture and racial issues that any news station has offered in recent years. And, for those who really listened to Rev. Wright, he moved from being a political liability in the current presidential campaign to demonstrating why he is one of the nation's most compelling spokespersons of the African-American community and of progressive Christianity.
On Friday, Bill Moyers interviewed Wright in an hour-long conversation. (Watch it here.) On Sunday, Wright preached at an NAACP fundraiser in Detroit that attracted 10,000 people. (Watch parts 1 [intro], 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.) Finally, on Monday morning, Wright addressed a packed National Press Club in Washington, D.C. However different the venues, a surprisingly common thread wound through all three speeches -- that a realistic understanding of history forms the spiritual basis of hope and healing.
In the Moyers interview, Wright admitted that one of the major influences on his ministry was the august historian Martin E. Marty of the University of Chicago (a white Lutheran and a true gentleman scholar), who challenged his students to relate the "faith preached in our churches" to the "world in which our church members leave at the benediction." He then quoted African-American historian Carter G. Woodson, saying that black Americans had been—and one can argue, by inference, Anglo-Americans as well—"miseducated."
I suspect that both Woodson and Marty share the perception that Americans suffer from "miseducation" regarding history. This "miseducation" means looking to the glorious parts of history and not to its despair, of having an incomplete picture—only a "piece of the story"—regarding the past. Bad history leaves out the bits that make us cringe, doubt ourselves, or question our morality. Leaving out the uncomfortable parts may reinforce cherished views, but it lacks the power of internal critique or self-correction.
Realistic history includes the good and the amoral, the profound and the profane. It gives us the ability to understand the fullness of human experience and learn from mistakes and sin. A robust vision of the past, Wright stated, enables Christians "not to leave that world and pretend that we are now in some sort of fantasy land, as Martin Marty called it, but to serve a God who comes into history on the side of the oppressed."
The God of history is also, as Wright reminded his audience on Sunday, "a God of diversity." In his NAACP address, he recited a history of "difference," and how we denigrated those who are different. But God, he insisted, wants us to change—indeed, God is changing us—to live in such a way that "different does not mean deficient." Wright exhorted us to celebrate God-given diversity of race, color, language, music, and culture that makes humanity beautiful.
In his final address, Wright essentially delivered a church history lecture in which he traced the prophetic tradition of African-American history as a tradition of "liberation, transformation, and reconciliation." Several times, he clearly stated that a realistic view of history opens the possibility of healing the social order.
In recent events, some Americans dismissed Wright as deficient because he is not white and did not adhere to the norms of polite discourse. They used fear of difference as a political tool to divide people. This weekend, Wright rejected divisiveness as he explained his African-American heritage while recognizing the good in Anglo-European religion. He invited everyone—with all of our differences—into a shared mission of Jesus' liberating love. With humor and wit, along with courage and authenticity, Wright stood up for good history and the God of history.
At my house, the home of a white family who worships in a decorous Episcopal church, we found ourselves moved by Wright's trinity of talks on Christian history. We might not agree with everything he has said. But we do not have to. We are different. We will not see things in the same way. We do not have the same experience or the same history. We have things in our past that make us proud. Our ancestors have done things of which we are ashamed. We can learn from history. We can be friends with people who are different than us.
Most important, however, we who are different are loved by the same God. History reminds us that we can make a better world together. Change is going to come.
Diana Butler Bass (www.dianabutlerbass.com) holds a Ph.D. in church history from Duke University and the author of six books, including Christianity for the Rest of Us (HarperOne, 2006).
It is so important not to let ourselves off the hook or to become apathetic or cynical by telling ourselves that nothing works or makes a difference. Every day, light your small candle.... The inaction and actions of many human beings over a long time contributed to the crises our children face, and it is the action and struggle of many human beings over time that will solve them—with God's help. So every day, light your small candle.
Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
The Lord has heard my supplication;
the Lord accepts my prayer.
Last evening, I spoke at the Belmont Heights Baptist Church, just off the campus of Belmont University in Nashville. It was a good event, with the always-inspiring music of Ashley Cleveland, Kenny Greenberg, and Marcus Hammond. As is usually the case, there were a large number of young people in attendance. This morning I saw a blog post by someone who was there that I thought I'd share. He wrote:
I was skeptical, but after hearing Jim Wallis speak tonight … I'm very much on board with what he and Sojourners (his social justice organization) are doing.
They are trying to expand the focus of faith-based politics beyond the religious right's hot-button issues of abortion and gay marriage. And they are placing social justice issues, like poverty and war, at the intersection of their moral and political decision making.
Just some more signs of how the religious and political winds are changing.
This morning's newspaper headlines are about the comment on Zimbabwe made by Jendayi Frazer, U.S. assistant secretary for African Affairs. Her statements reflect the reality of the situation in Zimbabwe that is evident to most people, including African leaders -- namely, that the current post-election crisis is happening because Mugabe lost the elections and his current presidency and government is constitutionally illegal. The silence from African leaders reminds me of the story of the emperor who was naked but none of his peers or officials had the courage to point this out to him -- except the little boy who pointed out the obvious. Only two African leaders have been vocal about their opposition to the crisis in Zimbabwe - these leaders are from Zambia and Botswana. However, I must add that, to their credit, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, and South Africa refused to allow a ship carrying weapons destined for Zimbabwe to dock in their ports. In the case of South Africa, it was the actions of dockworkers and drivers who refused to unload the cargo from the ship, and the court action co-sponsored by the Anglican church that prevented the arms from being transported to Zimbabwe. This is an amazing example of the power of citizens who follow their conscience and refuse to participate in actions that will harm fellow human beings -- even in defiance of their government. These actions inspire hope and courage.
It is expected that the statements by Frazer will be resisted by some African leaders in an effort to keep the Zimbabwean issue an "African issue." Unfortunately, their silence and inaction mutes their voices. The lives of Zimbabweans are not expendible and must not be sacrificed in the name of political expediency.
Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.
Why do the nations conspire,
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and his anointed, saying,
Let us burst their bonds asunder,
and cast their cords from us."
So many people feel so overwhelmed and disempowered by the stresses of modern life that they convince themselves they can't make a difference. So they don't even try. They bury their talents in the ground and let their spirits wither on the vine of life. I hope they will bestir themselves at least to say every day as an anonymous old man did: "I don't have the answers, life is not easy, but my heart is in the right place."
Imagine something called Justice Revivals, in the powerful tradition of revivals past but focusing on the great moral issues of our time.
Imagine linking the tradition of Billy Graham with the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr.
Imagine a new generation of young people catching fire and offering their gifts, talents, and lives in a new spiritual movement for social justice.
Imagine disillusioned believers coming back to faith after many years of alienation, while other seekers discover the power of faith for the first time.
Imagine politics being unable to co-opt such a spiritual revival but being held accountable to its moral imperatives.
Imagine social movements rising out of spiritual revival and actually changing the wind of both our culture and our politics.
Last week in Columbus, Ohio, that vision came to life. The first night, as I stood on the stage looking out over a church filled with 3,500 people inspired by Matt Redman's opening worship music, I felt a sense of amazing grace. Over the next three evenings, more than 10,000 people attended. There would have been more if they could have gotten into the Vineyard Church -- this largest church in Columbus seats 3,500 people, but it turned out to be too small for the crowd. Pastor Rich Nathan of Vineyard and Bishop Timothy Clarke of the First Church of God, the co-chairs of the revival, led the services. My three sermons focused on the call to conversion, the call to community, and the call to justice.
Hundreds of people came forward to commit their lives to Christ for the first time, and thousands came down the aisle to commit themselves to the social justice that is core to the kingdom of God, to the "least of these" whom Jesus calls us to care for. The Columbus Dispatch headlined a story, "The Justice Revival: Faithful aim to aid poor, as Jesus did", and wrote:
The revival … is a call to walk the walk and dig into issues about which Jesus preached, such as helping the poor.
Our call to the churches was to make the city of Columbus their "parish" – that the churches of the city together take responsibility for what happens in their city. The whole spectrum of the churches, from the most conservative to the most liberal, supported the revival. On Thursday evening, 50 pastors from those churches joined on the stage for an altar call to make Columbus the parish of the churches in the city.
Friday evening, an inspiring challenge by Dr. Gene Harris, superintendent of Columbus Public Schools, for mentors who would develop relationships with the city's children led to hundreds of responses. On Saturday following the revival, the Dispatch wrote that the "Revival's faithful take good will onto streets":
About 2,000 people -- many of them teenagers, college students, and young adults -- took to the streets of Columbus yesterday for community-service projects that put their Christian faith into action.
Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio came to our "City Leaders Lunch," as did Mayor Michael Coleman of Columbus, city council members, many nonprofit organizations, and many more pastors. They spoke together about communication and collaboration, and the partnerships among them that could change the city.
Billboards announcing the Justice Revival were all over town and simply said, "Love God? End Poverty." By the end of the week, the stories of how people wanted to follow Jesus into relationship with the poor of Columbus were changing the image of Christianity in the city. And that change will continue, as one local pastor said in the press:
Bethany Christian Church's co-pastor, Elaine Fennell, reminded the volunteers that their mission didn't end yesterday. "We cannot sleep, not until poverty is no more and no child is hungry and they all have shelter and clothing," Fennell said. "You are the beginning of a revived movement. We are going back up the mountain, and we cannot rest."
It was an extraordinary week, even more than I had hoped. As we discern how to move forward, many other cities now want Justice Revivals in their communities. Just imagine!
Several weeks ago, a pair of doves built a nest on a front windowsill at my house. My family watched as the mother bird laid two eggs, as they hatched, and as the young chicks feathered. We grew attached to the winged family who made their home with ours.
Two mornings ago, I was checking on the baby birds when a grackle (a large blackbird that a friend calls the "Darth Vader" of the bird world) swooped down and attacked the terrified mother. She flew off. Then, to my horror, the grackle plucked one of the babies out of the nest. Still in my pajamas, I ran outside with a broom yelling at the blackbird, hoping to frighten it and rescue the chick. But the grackle escaped with his prey. For a couple of hours, it circled around trying to collect the other chick. I stayed by the nest, however, waving the broom to save the remaining baby bird until its parents returned. Eventually, the much-calmer mother dove came back to one tiny offspring. When I called wildlife rescue, the volunteer told me that, "the days before a bird learns to fly are the most dangerous in their lives." Standing guard with the broom saved the other young bird's life.
This episode reminded me how fragile new life is—and that it needs to be protected by someone willing to wave around a broom to scare off predators who wish to destroy it before it can even fly.
New movements have the same need. Right now, as my friend Jim Wallis points out, a new religious movement for justice has emerged among evangelicals. Not only is this true, but parallel movements have birthed in other religious communities, too—among mainline and liberal Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims. Some are not even faith voices, as new political, social, and broadly spiritual movements coalesce across racial, class, and religious divisions as many people are speaking out on behalf of God, the human future, and transformation. The movements for change are varied—and include politicians, artists, philosophers, scientists, activists, pastors, teachers, business leaders, students, and writers—and people are forming new communities, networks, and organizations to create paths toward global flourishing.
Because my work as a speaker takes me around North America, I am well aware of the voices for change, their longings and passions, and their increasing self-awareness of being part of something larger that is coming into being, of a cultural yearning for a new day. Like Jim, I am also convinced a new awakening has birthed in our time—a movement for justice and change that probably surpasses any that history has known, and whose inclusive scope can only be surmised.
But all this is new, very young, and still fragile—it does not yet know how to fly. For many people, the idea of a new movement will be exciting. For others, however, it will be threatening, and they will resist change with all their power.
During such days, leadership calls for many capacities: inspiration, imagination, risk, marshalling new resources, and reorganizing communities. But leaders must also be willing to wave the broom—to ward off dangers while the chicks are learning to fly.
There is a popular saying that the most dangerous animal is one that has been fatally wounded. This idiom provides a framework for understanding the post-election crisis and escalating violence in Zimbabwe. Prior to the elections the government was confident of winning the elections and had no plan B - the idea of losing simply did not cross their minds; it was inconceivable! They lost and their behavior attests to this. No winner would behave the way they are doing. Their target is defenseless and unarmed Zimbabweans whom they are attacking with impunity. They are unleashing a low-intensity war against their own people in order to hold on to power.
A report by the churches in Zimbabwe documents the wave of repression, violence, and intimidation that is being systematically carried out across the country.
Organized violence perpetrated against individuals, families, and communities who are accused of campaigning or voting for the "wrong" political party in the March 29 elections has been unleashed throughout the country, particularly in the countryside and in some high-density urban areas. People are being abducted, tortured, and humiliated by being asked to repeat slogans of the political party they are alleged not to support, ordered to attend mass meetings where they are told they voted for the "wrong" candidate and should never repeat it in the run-off election for president, and, in some cases, people are murdered.
The deterioration in the humanitarian situation is plummeting at a frightful pace. The cost of living has gone beyond the reach of the majority of our people. There is widespread famine in most parts of the countryside on account of poor harvests and delays in the process of importing maize from neighboring countries. The shops are empty and basic foodstuffs are unavailable. Victims of organized torture who are ferried to hospital find little solace as the hospitals have no drugs or medicines to treat them.
As the shepherds of the people, we appeal:
To the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU), and the United Nations (U.N.) to work toward arresting the deteriorating political and security situation in Zimbabwe. We warn the world that if nothing is done to help the people of Zimbabwe from their predicament, we shall soon be witnessing genocide similar to that experienced in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and other hot spots in Africa and elsewhere.
For the immediate end to political intimidation and retribution arising from how people are perceived to have voted in the March 29, 2008, elections and arising from the desire to influence how people will vote in the anticipated run-off in the presidential poll. Youth militia and war veteran/military base camps that have been set up in different parts of the country should be closed as a step toward restoring the peace and freedom of people's movement that was witnessed before and during the elections.
To ZEC to release the true results of the presidential poll of March 29 without further delay. The unprecedented delay in the publication of these results has caused anxiety, frustration, depression, suspicion, and, in some cases, illness among people of Zimbabwe both at home and abroad. A pall of despondency hangs over the nation, which finds itself in a crisis of expectations and governance. The nation is in a crisis, in limbo, and no real business is taking place anywhere as the nation waits.
To, finally, the people of Zimbabwe themselves. You played your part when you turned out to vote. We, again, commend you for exercising your democratic right peacefully. At this difficult time in our nation, we urge you to maintain and protect your dignity and your vote. We urge you to refuse to be used for a political party or other people's selfish ends, especially where it concerns violence against other people, including those who hold different views from your own. It was the Lord Jesus who said, "Whatever you do to one of these little ones, you do it unto me (Matthew 25:45).
We call on all Zimbabweans and on all friends of Zimbabwe to continue to pray for our beautiful nation. As the shepherds of God's flock, we shall continue to speak on behalf of Zimbabwe's suffering masses and we pray that God's will be done.
This is a crime against humanity that needs to be confronted by the international community. The call for an international day of prayer on April 27 by Zimbabwean churches indicates the commitment to justice and peace by Zimbabweans that is rooted and informed by spiritual values and faith. We ask all persons of faith and goodwill to join us in prayer as we actively struggle for justice in Zimbabwe. Thank you and God bless.
Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.
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We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. For Christ did not please himself; but, as it is written, "The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me."
In every child who is born under no matter what circumstances and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again, and in him [or her], too, once more, and each of us, our terrific responsibility toward human life.
When approaching a conflict, any world statesperson would consider trying to break up the logjam. A Christian leader who has always stood for justice and human rights and who takes the issue of the sancity of life seriously has no choice but to try and see what he or she can do to stop the bloodshed. In a protracted conflict, adding new ideas from a high-profile figure can help shake up the status quo. While it is unlikely for an ex-president to be able to extract major concessions, what President Carter has done in his meetings with Hamas is to show the world that the issues are much more gray than Israeli and U.S. government spin portray them to be. The visit and seven-hour talks that Carter conducted with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal put to rest the attempts to paint them as merely an al Qaeda-like terrorist organistion that one should never consider talking to. In spite of its indiscriminate violence against civilians, this movement was elected in free and fair elections two years ago that Carter and other international monitors observed.
Carter's visit also showed that while Hamas, like most Palestinians, are bitter about the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, they are pragmatic enough to accept a two-state solution negotiated by the moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, so long as the Palestinian public gets a chance to approve it in a popular referendum. It is important that the sitting president take this into consideration when deciding U.S. policy. Keeping 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza under permanent siege is illegal and immoral. Israel, and indirectly the U.S.'s, refusal to accept the offer by Hamas of a ceasefire is illogical.
While Carter has certainly not won over enough concessions from the Palestinian movement, he has shown that they are open for talks. Naturally they would be more willing to make concessions in return for recognition by the U.S. and other world powers.
President Carter should be applauded for his efforts. With the words of our Lord Jesus, "Blessed are the peacemakers."
Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist, professor at Princeton University, and founder of the Arab world's first Internet radio station, Ammannet. His e-mail is info@daoudkuttab.com.
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For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters.
Israel is to make no image of Yahweh, but Israel is to be such an image of God in the world.... We should note, however, that human beings represent God's cause in the world not primarily in spiritual ways but in very concrete and practical ones. They represent God's concern for a clean and beautiful earth, a productive earth, one filled with the full variety of the creatures called into being at the Creation. They represent God's concern for the sharing of the goods of earth in a tolerably fair way, for the maintenance of life and its possibilities, for the furthering of the institutional arrangements that preserve life and make it flower.
- Walter Harrelson The Ten Commandments and Human Rights
Thank God for The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Now that's a phrase I never imagined uttering. Then again, who would have thought they'd be the institution to jump so eloquently to the defense of the pope from the likes of Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo?
During his visit last week, Pope Benedict XVI gave a consistent and prophetic call to U.S. Catholics:
I want to encourage you and your communities to continue to welcome the immigrants who join your ranks today, to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrow and trials, and to help them flourish in their new home. This, indeed, is what your fellow countrymen have done for generations. From the beginning, they have opened their doors to the tired, the poor, the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free." These are the people whom America has made her own.
Somehow this beautiful pastoral call prompted Lou Dobbs to claim the pope was "insulting our country," and Tom Tancredo to accuse him of "faith-based marketing." As if a global spiritual leader shouldn't have the right to offer guidance on how we view and treat our fellow human beings? It's not as if he was laying out policy prescriptions. If anything, the pope's words were a simple and powerful reminder of precisely the pastoral role Jesus calls us to. Not to mention our past as a nation of immigrants.
Today's WSJ said it better than I ever could have:
The pope welcomes immigrants because he's Catholic, not because they are. He isn't "marketing" his faith. He's practicing it.
Patty Kupfer is the Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform campaign coordinator at Sojourners.
On a recent edition of American Public Media's Speaking of Faith, host Krista Tippett presents a conversation among three generations of evangelical leaders -- Chuck Colson, Greg Boyd, and Shane Claiborne -- about how (or if) Christians should be involved in politics. The event was part of a larger pastor's conference in San Diego sponsored by Zondervan that several Sojourners staff attended; they gave rave reviews of this panel discussion. See for yourself.
In my ongoing quest for music that can enact positive social change, I came across the Black Gospel Restoration Project, a project spearheaded by Robert Darden, associate professor of journalism at Baylor University. Following is a short interview with Darden that elaborates on this dynamic preservation project.
How do you define gospel music?
"Gospel music" has traditionally come to mean all popular religious music. My particular passion is called black gospel music. There is also Southern gospel, which is primarily white quartet singing and has much more to do with barbershop music and country-and-western music.
How did gospel music become such an inspirational part of your life?
I grew up with it. I was an Air Force brat and the Air Force was integrated long before the country at large. One of the first LPs I can remember my parents buying was a Mahalia Jackson Christmas album. Eventually, it led me to become gospel music editor for Billboard magazine.
What was the genesis for the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project?
I wrote a book a couple of years ago titled People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music. While I was writing, I became increasingly frustrated trying to find the music I was writing about. After the book was released, I wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times on black gospel's fast-vanishing musical legacy. After talking to some experts, I became convinced that 75 percent of all black gospel vinyl was simply unavailable. A gentleman named Charles Royce in New York read the column and offered to fund any effort to identify, digitize, and catalogue that music. And that's what we've done at Baylor University.
How does this project operate?
So far, we've been able to get the word out primarily through the media. We've been featured on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, The Texas Observer, The Dallas Morning News (whose story was picked up by the Associated Press), and many other outlets. Whenever this happens, people who have gospel music from 1945-1985 contact me through Baylor. We pay for all shipping and handling both ways. And whether they're giving us the vinyl or loaning it to us, we'll make them a digital copy of their music.
Why is this project necessary?
As I mentioned, two-thirds of this precious resource -- the music that ALL American music comes from -- is currently unavailable for love or money. These are the songs that black churches sing and have sung for generations. Some of the best responses we've received are from African-American churches who realize the value of having the original disks and have encouraged their members to search their attics for old 78s, 45s, and LPs. Every day, irreplaceable 78s get thrown away or destroyed. We may have lost a significant portion of this music forever.
Elaborate on some of the gems you've recovered.
I'm pretty close to an expert on this topic and nearly every day a box arrives with a song I've never heard of. About once a week or so, a disk arrives with an artist I've never heard. And periodically a disk will arrive with a label I've never heard of! I'm particularly pleased with the "custom" disks we've been receiving ... where unknown artists go into a local studio, pay a few bucks to record a 45, and buy 100 copies to distribute to friends. We've found one by The Mighty Wonders of Acquasco, Maryland, titled "Old Ship of Zion" that is simply stunning. It makes people cry it's so beautiful.
How can people contribute to this project?
If you've got black gospel vinyl, you can contact me at Robert_Darden@baylor.edu and I'll send you the instructions on how to send it to us, including our FedEx account. Or you can call 254-710-7414. Or you can write me at One Bear Place #97353, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, 76798-7353. We'll also happily accept donations and 100 percent of the money will go to the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project. It's a tax-deductible donation, by the way.
What do you see as this project's future?
I pray that it'll be going long after I'm gone. We don't know how much music is out there. We may never know. Each new article brings new treasures. I'd love to have agreements with other major library systems so that people in other cities can enjoy this extraordinary music. Some day I'd like to get an 18-wheeler, build a miniature museum and listening booth AND portable recording studio, and take this show on the road to the "mother" neighborhoods of black gospel music -- the south side of Chicago, Paradise Valley in Detroit, Harlem -- and set up in the parking lots of old churches and let people hear the music, see the artists ... and if they've got any old black gospel vinyl lying around, let us digitize it for them.
Publishers Weekly cited Becky Garrison as one of "four evangelicals with fresh views" alongside Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, and Ron Sider.
A couple of days before Christmas 1993, I was sitting in my parent's living room watching a football game when I got a call from my uncle in Baghdad. After a very quick hello, he jumped right into asking if my father was home. I told him no, so he quickly gave me a flight number for a plane that was coming into Dallas the next day. After twice telling me that it was very important to be at the airport tomorrow, he told me to give his love to my mom and hung up. The next day we went to the airport and met my cousin and his wife, who had just spent the last several weeks sneaking out of a war-decimated Iraq. When Saddam Hussein ruled Baghdad, his government kept very close tabs on the people. In order to make an overseas phone call, one had to go to what used to be a post office and wait in line. Why? Because the government had agents who listened to all outgoing phone calls. Whenever my family would call, all hell could be going on around them, but they said nothing: "Oh, everything is just fine! Nothing to report here. How are you?" So intimidated by this reality, my father would never say a thing about Iraq or family during phone calls that took place entirely in the United States.
When I created my blog I attached a site meter, which basically tells me how many people visit the site. One of the features of the site meter is that it will tell you from which city, state, and country a visit originated. It does not tell you the IP address of the computer, just the location and company of the server the visit was routed from.
For example, whenever my mom checks out the site, it registers: Verizon.com: Dallas, Texas.
Since we moved, whenever my wife or I log in, the site meter registers: Cox.net: Fayetteville, Arkansas.
This past fall, at the start of the Muslim fast of Ramadan, I sent a very small e-mail to my father's side of the family all over the world. In three sentences I told them that the move had gone well, gave them our new address, and signed the message with "Happy Ramadan."
The next day I noticed a change in the site meter. Whenever I logged into the blog, it no longer came up as being routed through Fayetteville, Arkansas. Instead, our Internet traffic was being routed through: Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana.
Huh?
So I ran a little experiment. I took my laptop up to the chapel office where I work and logged in using the router there. It registered Fayetteville, Arkansas. I went back home and logged in using our neighbor's router. Again, it registered Fayetteville, Arkansas. But sure enough, when I logged back in using our router, it let us know that we were being routed through Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. I tried the same experiment with my wife's laptop. Same result.
I called our provider. The first guy I talked to laughed uncomfortably and said, "I don't know why it is routing through an Air Force base, but I have a pretty good idea." He sent me up the chain of command, but they could not tell me why everyone in my apartment complex was being routed through their local server, but I was being routed through an Air Force base.
A week later my wife and I got tickets to the Kentucky-Arkansas football game. The singing of the National Anthem was punctuated with a flyover by an Air Force B-2 Stealth Bomber. As the black sliver approached from the north, the crowd began to whip itself into a frenzy. But over the cheers I heard the public address announcer state that this very bomber was part of the initial invasion of Baghdad during Operation "Iraqi Freedom."
The flyover was impressive. I have never seen a stealth bomber in person. Those suckers are big, loud, and very intimidating. And as the plane passed right above us, with its roaring engines completely drowning out the roaring crowd, I couldn't help but think of the irony:
This very Air Force plane dropped bombs over Baghdad to "liberate" the Iraqis from an oppressive government that monitored their own citizens' communications. And now that very same Air Force seems to be monitoring mine.
Rev. Omar Hamid Al-Rikabi is a campus minister at the University of Arkansas Wesley Foundation. He is the son of a Muslim father from Iraq and a Christian mother from Texas. He shares his stories on his blog at www.firstbornstories.com
Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, "We know that God's judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth." Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
Idolatry is the practice of ascribing absolute value to things of relative worth. Under certain circumstances money, patriotism, sexual freedom, moral principles, family loyalty, physical health, social or intellectual preeminence, and so on are fine things to have around, but to make them the standard by which all other values are measured, to make them your masters, to look to them to justify your life and save your soul is sheerest folly.
The latest news on Pensylvania primary, US military, Veterans, Education, Death penalty, Poverty in Africa, Paraguay, Iraqi Christians, Israel-Hamas, Aramaic in Syria, North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Op-Ed.
Sometimes I wish I could channel Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan. Then I'd be able to tell you why the pope was wearing bright red leather shoes.
I stood in the press corps balcony watching the popemobile flanked by black Escalades approach the John Paul II Cultural Center for Benedict XVI's interreligious meeting with faith leaders. He entered the brightly lit atrium to the subdued applause of the 200-member audience. As he stepped onto the riser to sit in the Papal Chair, there was a flash of red—like a cardinal darting from tree to tree over fresh snow.
I'm a cradle Catholic, but somehow I missed the fact that some popes wear flashy red traveling shoes. Perhaps I missed it because John Paul II—who was pope for 27 years—opted to break tradition and wore brown loafers as his "outside" shoes. But Benedict is a bit of a fashion plate and has returned to a papal tradition that some say dates back to the time of Roman emperors. Traditionally, they are made of Moroccan leather. They've been out of fashion for a while, but Benedict is bringing them back in. I mean, really, the man has so few ways he can accessorize!
In the case of the meeting with interreligious leaders, he also had to do something to compete with the compelling presence of Jordan's Queen Noor in her white silk caftan and diamond drop pendant. (It's good to know you can be one of the world's leading voices for banning landmines and still dress to kill.) The shoes the pope sported at the JPII Cultural Center were apparently made by his personal cobbler and are the "traveling shoes" that he will be buried in. I wouldn't recommend them for walking on water or fishing in, but they do draw a crowd.
Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners associate editor, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.
Knowing one's self, finding one's self, and expending one's self for another are intertwined activities. Love of self, love of God, and love of neighbor are interdependent.
You yourselves recently repented and did what was right in my sight by proclaiming liberty to one another, and you made a covenant before me in the house that is called by my name; but then you turned around and profaned my name when each of you took back your male and female slaves, whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them again into subjection to be your slaves. Therefore, thus says the Lord: You have not obeyed me by granting a release to your neighbors and friends; I am going to grant a release to you, says the Lord--a release to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine.
350 leaders under the age of 30 met at Sojourners' Justice Revival in Columbus, Ohio, to discuss social justice and activism. Shane Claiborne of The Simple Way spoke to the young leaders. Watch it:
The "Haters" know how to use the Internet effectively, or at least that's what recent research by the Opportunity Agenda has shown in relation to immigration reform.
As an immigrant rights advocate, I was bothered by the recent results of a scan the New-York-based organization did of the immigration debate on the "Social Web" (i.e. social networks, YouTube, and the blogosphere). While I believe that many Americans "welcome strangers in their midst," the researchers at the Opportunity Agenda found that on the Web, anti-immigrant supporters and rhetoric outnumbered pro-immigrant activity by a ratio of two-to-one. This also found that most keyword searches produced more results for anti-immigrant than pro-immigrant activism.
You may have seen this in action: those making the most noise in the current national discussion about immigration often sound angry, indignant and outraged. Check out CNN or Fox News almost any day of the week and you'll see what I mean. So when the Opportunity Agenda and then the National Council of La Raza confirmed what I've seen in action on a daily basis, I knew I had to do my part.
One of the wonders of today's Social Web (or "Web 2.0 technology") is the infinite opportunity for collaboration. Through social networking online and off, I was able to gather talented folks with script-writing, filmmaking and acting skills and voila we pulled together a video. (Living in Los Angeles, where creative endeavor is in the air, didn't hurt either.) The result, "Thru the Plexiglass," is a humorous video short that follows a fictional documentary filmmaker/reporter on a visit to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office where he encounters a world lost in time. We chose the 1980s since that was the last time that the bulk of pro-immigrant reforms took place. By making it funny, I hoped that viewers would like it enough to share it with their friends and give it wings (or make it "viral" as they say). Now, more than 11,000 views later, it looks like we may be on to something:
We submitted the video to the Movement Vision Lab for their video contest on immigration and community values. They selected "Thru the Plexiglass" as their "breakthrough video." The overall winner of the contest "Arivaca: Life on the Border" shows a community that appreciates and values their immigrant neighbors. Perhaps the most touching part of the video is how one interviewee challenges us to ask, "What would Jesus do?" when meeting people crossing the desert from Mexico:
We encourage you to check out the videos, share them, and then make your own. As people of faith who respect the rights our immigrant neighbors, it's time to make our voices heard!
Will Coley is the founder of Aquifer Media, and has been an advocate and organizer with immigrants and refugees.
I love the "construction phase" of liturgy and great ceremony. Waiting at the John Paul II Cultural Center for Pope Benedict to arrive for a meeting with interreligious leaders, I took a quick tour through some of the artwork. I was especially impressed by the wacky Warhol print of John Paul II. Also, through the atrium windows I could see a 25-yard-long brightly colored creation laid out on the floor by Guatemalan artists to welcome the pope and wish him peace. It appears to be made of brightly colored sawdust and colored rice—like a Tibetan sand painting.
Up in the press balcony I had a bird's-eye view of staff giving the golden guest chairs a final dusting and arranging the signage labeled "Papal Entourage." The sacred music ensemble (called, and I'm not kidding, The Suspicious Cheese Lords) ran through their harmonies both for the sung version of the Prayer of St. Francis and the Muslim evening prayer.
A watchful secret service agent kept guard next to the Papal Chair. Empty. Simple. Waiting. Cardinals and bishops adjusted their various colored birettas. Up the sidewalk came representatives from the rich tapestry of religions that call America home. Saffron robes, silk saris, yarmulkes and keffiyehs, turbans and khimar -- I'm reminded how unusual this sight is in too many places around the world.
Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners associate editor, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.
Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
Then I said, "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy." But the Lord said to me,
"Do not say, 'I am only a boy';
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
says the Lord."
"Leaders of the Justice Revival hope this enthusiasm will spill past the revival and into the streets, where they want people to work to end poverty and other social problems."
No two events in this political season stand in starker contrast than last night's ABC Democratic debate and last Sunday's CNN Compassion Forum.
Rather unbelievably, ABC anchors used 50 minutes of airtime attacking Democratic candidates on tabloid issues, including a line of questioning from George Stephanopoulos lifted from right-wing pundit Sean Hannity. Almost as an afterthought, the final questions turned toward actual issues including the economy and war. The ABC Web site was flooded with complaints from viewers—both Clinton and Obama supporters—calling the debate "awful" and "asinine," and the live audience heckled and booed the moderators. In Philadelphia's Constitution Center, ABC devolved into sensationalist TV, making for an embarrassing irony between inane content and an impressive setting.
Just four days ago, hundreds of religious leaders gathered at Messiah College in Pennsylvania for the Compassion Forum aired by CNN and sponsored by Faith and Public Life. At that event (I was in the audience), both the moderators and audience members addressed the Democratic candidates with serious questions ranging from personal beliefs to theological concerns - such as the problem of evil and moral issues of poverty, torture, AIDS in Africa, abortion, and global warming. The Forum was intelligent, offering each of the candidates 40 minutes to discuss genuine issues that have an impact on people's lives and the human future. Those in attendance appreciated the thoughtfulness and depth of both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, as demonstrated by warm applause and enthusiasm for the opinions and policies outlined by the candidates.
At the end of the forum, I was talking with a friend, Professor Shaun Casey of Wesley Theological Seminary. I asked him what, in his professional opinion, was the most striking aspect of the discussion. Without hesitating, he replied, "The political maturation of the evangelical community. They asked sophisticated, serious questions and demonstrated a genuine political coming-of-age."
The evangelical leaders were, of course, not alone in political maturity. The Forum audience comprised evangelical and mainline Protestants, Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists. This diverse group—representing a broad range of faithful Americans in congregations and communities across the nation—really cared about compassion issues and how the candidates would provide leadership around these concerns. Their questions were not the only mark of spiritual maturity—their ability to gather together around shared concerns for the common good signaled a religious "coming-of-age" in a pluralistic nation as well.
If American religious leaders—evangelical, mainline, Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, and Muslim—could gather respectfully and ask probing, important questions, why can't ABC News? It may well be time for some soul-searching over at their network. I suggest they ask themselves a question: “What Would Peter Jennings Do?”
Diana Butler Bass holds a doctorate in American religion from Duke University. She is the author of six books, including Christianity for the Rest of Us (HarperOne, 2006).
Motive Entertainment, the maverick marketers behind The Passion of the Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia bills Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed as" a controversial new satirical documentary [in which] author, former presidential speechwriter, economist, lawyer and actor Ben Stein travels the world, looking to some of the best scientific minds of our generation for the answer to the biggest question facing all Americans today."
My interest in this flick was piqued when I learned that PZ Myers, a scientist interviewed for this flick, was denied entrance following a confrontation of sorts when he tried to attend an advance screening. The irony of naming a movie "Expelled" only to eject one of your own interviewees struck me as a rather novel albeit bizarre marketing move. The onslaught of negative publicity from outraged scientists represents a publicist's dream. You can't buy this kind of buzz prior to the movie's release on April 18.
As an unexpected PR bonus of sorts, Richard Dawkins was at the above mentioned screening. Even though he was also interviewed for this documentary, for some unexplained reason, he was not given the boot. Anyway, after viewing Expelled,Dawkins blasted the filmmakers for how he felt he was misrepresented by the filmmakers. Oh, come on. Gimme a break. As reported by John Bloom on The Wittenburg Door's web site, "How could you grant an interview to Ben Stein, longtime friend of James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and others on the far religious right, and not know what you were getting into?" (Yes, I know Dawkins claims not to know who Ben Stein is but a man of his stature should have the means to hire an assistant to properly screen his interview requests.)
This film's tagline promotes Stein as the Ferris Bueller of the Intelligent Design community: "Big science has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom. ... What they forgot is that every generation has its Rebel." Hmmm, methinks Stein looks more like Jimmy Dean than James Dean, but perhaps the rebel tag represents a satirical twist of sorts.
This satirical slant continued with clips of a very Jewish looking Stein walking on to the campus of Biola University, as "Personal Jesus" blares in the background. Sounds like the perfect setting for a Ferris Bueller sequel with Stein reprising the role of the droning high school teacher that made him famous. For those who aren't steeped in the history of American fundamentalism, Craig Detweiler, director of the comedic documentary, Purple State of Mind, explains the humor behind this footage. "Biola University was founded upon the same oil money that commissioned, 'The Fundamentals of the Faith,' the turn of the 20th century pamphlets that sparked a Christian religious movement. Ben Stein's appearance at Biola may put the 'fun' back in, take the 'duh' out, and restore the 'mental' in 'Fundamentalism.'"
While Expelled set its sights on disarming their enemy - the "neo-Darwinists" who have ostracized scientists who dare give credence to intelligent design - more often than not they ended up shooting biblical blanks. Unfortunately, the nuances of the evolution versus intelligent design debate were left on the cutting floor in favor of more provocative soundbites that one might expect from say an NBC Dateline "Catch an Evolutionist!"-type special.
For example, juxtaposing Reagan's famous quote - "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" - against Stein's clarion call for academia to tear down its resistance to intelligent design" served only to insult my intelligence. Having been to Yale Divinity School during the height of the political correctness movement in the 1990s, I can attest that there are consequences to raising one's voice against certain tenured titans. Fortunately, in my case, over-exposure to those with differing and at times extreme ideologies forced me hone my beliefs and gave me the tools that eventually led to my becoming a religious satirist. However, I am aware that others had their careers cut short because they chose not to kow-tow to the party line promulgated by a particular academic institution. Still, unlike those who were trapped literally behind the Berlin Wall, students and faculty remain free to exercise their full rights as citizens of the U.S.
The cheesy black and white clips interspersed to simulate persecution - such as a guillotine to illustrate why a professor got fired for mentioning ID in the classroom, or playing the John Lennon classic "Imagine" over footage of Stalin overseeing his troops - struck me as crude attempts at humor that lacked the biting quality of political satires like Dr. Strangelove or Wag the Dog.
Towards the end of the movie, when Stein takes the audience on a tour of Dachau that implied Darwin would have approved of Hitler's tactics, my stomach churned. This admittedly gruesome display of Holocaust stock footage cries out for the voice of reason that could lend a much needed historical analysis into the socio-political milieu of Victorian England that informed Darwin's discoveries. At the very least, I would expect a timeline of Darwin's discoveries, noting when a few players chose to misused his theories in the name of Social Darwinism. (In the same token, the Bible has been used far too often as a proof to justify some horrendous actions that bear no resemblance whatsoever to Jesus' teachings.)
In fairness to Stein, this film wasn't as biased as The God Who Wasn't There, a pseudo-documentary that pitted Ph.D. level scientists against the webmaster for raptureletters.com. Still, the editing left me with the clear impression that practicing scientists who are people of faith subscribe wholeheartedly to intelligent design. Where were the voices of leading evolutionary biologists who are also practicing Christians, such as Francis Collins, Joan Roughgarden, and Kenneth Miller? Furthermore, leading Christian thinkers such as Alister McGrath, John Lennox, and John Polkinghome were presented in a manner that one could think they are in full agreement with Intelligent Design, when in fact, they have written material critical of this movement. (See Intelligent Design: William A. Dembski & Michael Ruse in Dialogue for a more nuanced discussion of this debate including essays penned by McGrath, Lennox and Polkinghome.)
At last year's Tribeca Film Festival , I attended a panel titled "Prodigies, Nobelists and Penguins: Science and Stereotypes in the Movies." Here, I found a group of filmmakers and scientists who were able to engage in a healthy and sane debate with those of differing beliefs. Here's hoping for the day when a documentary can be made with the degree of humor and intellect that was present both in that conversation, as well as my subsequent discussions with people like Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, and other like-minded souls. One can hope.
I've been traveling lately, and in various hotels and friend's guest rooms, have seen more TV than usual. This sojourn away from my usual ignorance of broadcast television has provided the following dubious delights:
• Fox's "Moment of Truth" game show, which really does turn real life into a game, and has apparently bribed at least one marriage into oblivion through paying for public confessions of adultery. (I expect the show's producers might try to tell us that the show teaches something else about personal responsibility, or that's all in good fun, or that the contestants are there by their own informed volition; or we may even discover that the show has been lying to us and faking it. But here's the real moment of truth: when the host says, "some of these questions are way over my line," and yet still asks them, has he himself not become the definition of insanity?)
• CNN rampantly advertising Larry King's exclusive interview with Jesse Ventura as if his non-campaign for the presidency was almost as important as Jessica Simpson's non-engagement and non-pregnancy.
• Various entertainment clip shows dedicated to matters such as Robin Williams' divorce, and the Tom Cruise birthday party video.
• And in the past week, major news networks hysterically talking as if the sad events surrounding a Texas polygamous sect are just waiting to happen to your children; and the ridiculous and over-the-top response to Senator Obama's attempt at explaining an utterly uncontroversial reality: that being economically disenfranchised can make you feel entrenched. This is amusingly accompanied by the absurd suggestion that there has ever been a U.S. President who did not somehow arrive in the White House linked to the economic 'elite'.
Most of us would like to believe that we have come a long way since the Roman circus – where human beings killed people for our entertainment - or even the Victorian circus - where we only abused the disabled and disadvantaged. Today's circus may look like it only mocks the powerful – with the fabulously wealthy being humiliated as they emerge drunk and bloodied from a nightclub, or photographed while getting an embarrassing haircut. But I think we're kidding ourselves if we think people are not harmed by the pornography of social humiliation offered up 24/7. Amy Winehouse's visible bruises and alleged substance abuse problem, and Britney Spears' obvious mental illness are not legitimate fodder for our entertainment, no matter how economically powerful these two women may be.
In Billy Wilder's amazing old film about the potential corruption of making the flow of information subject to commercial dictates, Ace in the Hole, the venal journalist played by Kirk Douglas says, "Bad news sells because good news is no news." But this is only believed to be true because the public appears to like it that way. Inasmuch as all violent political conflict has something to do with economics or economic power, so does all commercial broadcasting. The economics reside in the willingness of an audience – us – to consistently consume crap for every meal.
Tim Robbins' at times remarkable speech to the National Association of Broadcasters earlier this week invited the broadcast media to take their responsibility seriously – to recognize that they have immense power which could be used to inspire compassion and mutual respect. This stands in obvious contrast to the current addiction to seeing rare acts of violence as something just waiting to pounce on every one of us, or sex only as something tawdry and available for the laughter or prurience of others, or the transformation of absolutely vital conversation about the future of the nation and the world into something that is itself socially violent – and intellectually dishonest. The fact that Robbins uses brash humor to make his point, and that his other well-known political views are considered divisive by some, is irrelevant to whether or not his speech resonates: what he says is vital to anyone who cares about truth-telling in public life.
Science fiction author Philip K. Dick once predicted that the future would consist of each human being selling the same hamburger back and forth to each other. E-bay may have proven him more correct than even he would have feared, but the nutritional quality of what is served up by much of our entertainment and news media is not unworthy of the comparison to fast food. I could go on a rant here, and engage in the kind of generalised denunciations that would only make me look like a cynic, or boring, or both.
Instead, I'll say this: I love art and creative media. Television, the movies, the written and spoken journalistic word are capable of producing great beauty. And the best response to corruption is so often to make something beautiful in its place. However, when people's adulterous affairs are being played out, not only for our entertainment, but in a context where the moral failure is being rewarded with a cash prize, I have to wonder if we should not be organizing a campaign to switch off until the networks treat us – and themselves – with some respect.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com. He is also one of the judges of this year's Beliefnet Film Awards, which seek to recognise the best films with spiritual themes. Find out more at http://www.beliefnet.com/bfa/
Whenever someone feels anger, there is a potential for powerful dignity, a sense of responsibility, and the expression of some deep personal value that has a universal rightness. This value needs acknowledgement.
Imagine something called Justice Revivals in the powerful tradition of revivals past, but focusing on the great moral issues of our time. Imagine linking the tradition of Billy Graham with the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. Imagine a new generation of young people catching fire and offering their gifts, talents, and lives in a new spiritual movement for social justice. Imagine such revivals taking place in cities’ great convention centers, but resulting in thousands of small groups for ongoing discipleship, training, and action in every neighborhood of those cities. Imagine disillusioned believers coming back to faith after many years of alienation, while other seekers discover the power of faith for the first time. Imagine social movements rising out of spiritual revival and actually changing the wind of both our culture and our politics. Imagine a fulfillment in our time of the words of the prophet Amos: ‘Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’ Just imagine.
We plan on three nights of preaching and worship. Tonight, Wednesday, April 16, we will call people to make a commitment to Christ. Matt Redman, the writer of many of our worship songs, and his band will join us for worship. On Thursday night, we will call people to work for justice in the Central Ohio community and we will host the Raymond Wise Gospel Choir as our worship leaders. And on Friday night, we will focus on issues of global justice. Worship we will be led by Vineyard Columbus’ new worship pastor, Clarence Church, together with some worship leaders from other churches in Central Ohio.
Then on Saturday, thousands of members of Central Ohio churches will fan out into our community and to dozens of servant evangelism projects such as fixing up local schools, visiting nursing homes, and working on homes for Habitat for Humanity.
We have several goals that we hope to accomplish through the Justice Revival. First of all, we want to transform the public face of Christianity here in Central Ohio. I want our city to know that we followers of Jesus are not at war with our city. I want Christians to be Jeremiah 29:7 people, who “seek the peace and prosperity of the city [where we live] and pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, [we] too will prosper.”
I want hundreds of people to be saved through this Justice Revival and to come into fellowship with local churches throughout our community. I want to see churches across Central Ohio united in the practical service of our city and in reaching our city for Christ. Many of Columbus’ largest churches are already involved in helping to host this Justice Revival including First Church of God, Grove City Nazarene, Faith Ministries, Reynoldsburg United Methodist Church, First Community Church, Rhema Christian Center, and New Salem Baptist. We also have several other Vineyards involved.
We particularly want to call attention to the condition of children in our city by having local churches adopt local public schools for the purpose of mentoring kids. And we want to call attention to global issues of justice especially the Darfur, the tragedy of global sex trafficking, the 30,000 children a day who die of malnutrition and preventable diseases, and the billion people on our planet who live on less than $1 a day.
Through the Justice Revival we want to help redefine what it means to be a Christian disciple so that thousands of Christians will understand that they can’t be good followers of Jesus without also committing to Jesus’ agenda, which includes feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, giving care to the sick, and visiting the prisoner (Matthew 25:35-36).
Rich Nathan is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, which is the co-sponsor with Sojourners of next week's Justice Revival. Click here for more details.
Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.
Why do you call Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris softcore atheists?
Because they fail to probe deeply into the logical, ethical, and cultural implications of a consistent atheism. They think of belief in God more as a nuisance to be removed than as a stimulus to radical personal, cultural, and ethical upheaval. I contrast them with "hardcore" atheists—writers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus. The latter all realized that atheism is not easy to pull off without seismic implications. As Sartre said, the road to atheism is "a cruel and long-range affair." The true atheist must be willing to risk madness (Nietzsche) and embrace the absurd (Camus). In my view, the hardcore atheists were not consistently atheistic either, but at least they attempted to think out what atheism would really mean if it were true.
How do you respond to the new atheists' claims that all faith is irrational?
They define faith very narrowly as "belief without evidence." To be rational, they claim, we must empty our minds of any ideas for which scientifically accessible "evidence" is in principle unavailable. Since religions can claim no such evidence, they must be irrational. However, the claim that science is the most authoritative way to truth is itself a belief without evidence. If all faith is irrational, then so is the new atheism, by definition.
How is intolerance of tolerance a truly novel feature to the new atheists' solution to the problems of human misery?
According to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, as soon as people embrace even the most innocent beliefs they are opening up a space in their minds for the eventual invasion of the most monstrous forms of religious lunacy (such as the ideas behind suicide bombings). So, to eliminate much human misery, let's get rid of faith altogether! Such intolerance of faith is by no means new. What is new is the new atheists' intolerance of the modern liberal principle that the faith of others should be respected. By respecting faith, they claim, we are all accomplices in evil. The irony here is that the new atheists seem to forget that the freedom to advance their own uncritical belief in scientism and scientific naturalism is also due to the modern liberal tolerance of "faith."
Why do you diagnose the new atheists as suffering from a bad case of explanatory monism?
Explanatory monism is the reductionist postulate that there is only one valid explanatory slot available to make sense of things. For example, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins assume that since we can now understand morality and religion in terms of evolutionary biology, theological explanation is superfluous. I argue instead that both theology and evolutionary science can contribute to our understanding.
Elaborate what you mean by this statement: "deepening of theology that has occurred in previous conceptions between serious atheists and Christians has little chance of happening in the works of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris?"
In God and the New Atheism I show that that the new atheists are as literalist in their understanding of scriptures and theology as are the anti-Darwinian religious fundamentalists they oppose. The level of challenge they pose to contemporary theology is glaringly low in comparison with serious atheists such as Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche who at least knew enough about religious thought to engage theologians of the stature of Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, or Karl Rahner.
What are some ways we can create spaces for this serious dialogue to begin?
The new atheist phenomenon emerges from and appeals to a culture shaped in great measure by a noxious blend of poor science education with and equally undeveloped religious and theological education. There is greater need than ever today to improve both. Current interest in the science and religion dialogue is a hopeful development, but it needs to take place at every level of education, not least in seminaries and schools of theology.
Publishers Weekly cited Becky Garrison as one of "four evangelicals with fresh views" alongside Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, and Ron Sider.
My dear friend, Ken Wilson, who pastors the Ann Arbor Vineyard, showed me a chart that I found very helpful:
Evangelical
Charismatic
Social Justice
Liturgical
What has happened in the last generation is that there has been border-blending among the four great movements in the church. So we find many evangelicals who feel very comfortable praying for the sick and casting out demons; and there are many evangelicals who engage in liturgical practices such as using the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in their devotional lives, etc.
But while there has been a huge move of border-blending, there are still many corner-dwellers, people who believe that it is entirely wrong for someone in their camp to engage in practices associated with one of the other three camps. Corner-dwellers get really mean and mad when we step out of our traditional boxes.
So, for example, some conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists get mean and mad when we claim to be evangelical, but we engage in border-blending with one of the other wings of the church. Like the Pharisees of Jesus'’ day, some angry corner-dwellers may set themselves up as the judge of what is biblical - like the Pharisees, they get really mad when we associate with “the wrong sort of people,” and, like the Pharisees, they are constantly looking for reasons to accuse border-blenders for our supposed theological errors.
I look forward to a day when an evangelical church that does a Justice Revival not only doesn’t create any controversy, but hardly raises an eyebrow. I look forward to a day when Christians who hear about a Justice Revival say: “So, what else is new? Of course, evangelical churches are involved in social justice. That is what Christian churches are supposed to do. We are supposed to follow Jesus, who is both the God of justification and the God of justice!”
Rich Nathan is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, which is the co-sponsor with Sojourners of next week's Justice Revival. Click here for more details.
It was only a short year ago that "shock jock" Don Imus chose to refer to the accomplished women playing in the NCAA Basketball Finals as "nappy-headed hoes," later billing the match-up for his listeners as the "jiggaboos" versus the "wannabes." Imus' disrespect came as little surprise. He had a long history of slur and slander against Blacks, Africans, Asians, Latinos, Jews, Arabs, women, homosexuals, the poor, and just about anyone he considered unlike himself. And he had been paid handsomely to be so. The absurd brevity of his time spent off the air is perhaps only surpassed by the financial profitability of his return.
But the story that a middle-aged white man of means in the U.S. showed himself to be (or made his living as a) racist and sexist is not news to me. He is not the first, nor will he be the last. Not that what he did was not news-worthy, but his misogynistic or otherwise bigoted views seemed almost beside the point to me.
The thing that captured my attention regarding the Imus coverage the first half of April 2007 was the power dynamic. You see, power matters, and Imus had plenty of it, which he used unrepentantly to pummel with impunity the dispossessed, disenfranchised, or otherwise already marginalized. Don Imus, who is now with ABC, at the time had a nationally syndicated CBS radio show that was simulcast on MSNBC (how much money was he making?), which NPR reporter David Folkenflik further characterized as attracting "an educated, affluent audience." Most interesting to me, again, was not that this was the case; however, I was floored by the sheer number of "educated, affluent" folks who unreservedly championed Imus' "right" to do what he had been doing. It was as if the unapologetically privileged got together and declared, "How dare you have a problem with us continuing to exercise our privilege at your expense? This is the way it's supposed to be. Haven't you gotten the repeated memos?"
They said it was a First Amendment issue, to which my only response can be: Neither hate, discrimination, nor any other form of exclusionary practice or language is a First Amendment issue. Freedom of speech does not guarantee one the right to be heard.Hate does not deserve a publicly facilitated audience (e.g. radio and television air waves), and those who resource it privately deserve whatever nonviolent (particularly financial) backlash they get.
Then came the story of Seung Hui Cho. The Western world cried out in horror at the massacre Cho perpetrated on VA Tech's campus—"the single largest act of recorded handgun violence on U.S. soil in American history" (the qualifiers "recorded handgun violence" and "on U.S. soil" are important because they help to conceal our selective recollection and shocking history of violence, particularly that which has involved what we would call "state-sponsored terrorism" if it were directed at us from the outside).
And we wept. And so should we weep again in the upcoming weeks, but not just for Cho's victims. We should weep for Cho and others like him, who are victims as well ... of the Imuses of the world.
Seung Hui Cho's multimedia manifesto read like the diary of an oppressed who had finally been transformed to embody the rationale and methodologies of his oppressors. Having bought their propaganda, psychological abuse and mental illness demanded that, rather than joining them, he beat them with a ferocity commensurate to his own pain. What Cho and others like him fail to realize is that neither the methodology nor rationale of the oppressor is just, thus it is doomed to fail - immediately for the less powerful and inevitably for the more powerful. Though I confess to loving the whole V for Vendetta fantasy of striking a crippling blow to the imperial system on behalf of the oppressed while somehow avoiding harm to any innocents, that's all it is: fantasy.
Don't misunderstand: I am in no way defending, justifying, or excusing what Seung Hui Cho did April16, 2007. I just believe we need a good dose of "whole truth and nothing but the truth" as we try him again this year in the court of public opinion. In so doing, I hope we see the need to indict ourselves as well.
If you're struggling to connect the dots, consider this quote from one of Cho's high school and college classmates, Chris Davids, as reported on npr.org:
In an English class during high school, a teacher threatened Cho with a failing grade for participation unless he read aloud as the other students had. Cho [a Korean immigrant] started to read in a strange voice that sounded 'like he had something in his mouth,' Davids said.
'As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, "Go back to China!"
Imuses behave as if their privilege (power and prerogative) entitles them to further marginalize and/or humiliate anyone they so desire. Well, you might say, "Crowding someone out—pushing him to the margins—doesn't give him the right to lash out." Sure. Yet I ask along with Langston Hughes, "What happens to a dream deferred"—dreams of belonging and significance, security and prosperity, dreams of equity? How do we critique his or her means of survival (those with less power and prerogative) without also critiquing our own (those with more)?
I'm reminded of the closing scenes of Malcolm X, the movie, in which a series of persons from all over the globe (ending with Nelson Mandela) stand up and declare, "I'm Malcolm X!" It seemed to spawn a whole genre of "I wanna be like ______" commercials. We are so quick to associate ourselves with the best and the brightest. Perhaps it would be cathartic to own our demons as well, by declaring, "I too am Don Imus!"
What I'm afraid will happen instead is that we will disassociate ourselves from both Imus and Cho, choosing to see ourselves as the unwitting victims of both, much like one VA Tech affiliate quoted by NPR:
In a lot of ways it makes it better to know he's just a crazy person. That is just completely not our university's fault. This has nothing to do with anyone else. This is just his issue.
Such self-congratulations will only lead us blindly back into the thoughtless patterns of behavior that inspire this kind of violence. The only hope I see in overcoming this vicious cycle of violence and counter-violence is to abandon and subvert the rationale and methodology of anyone, any institution, or any system that seeks to justify or legitimize gain at the expense of others as a valid means to an end.
But wait a minute ... wasn't abandoning and subverting the dominant power structures the way of Jesus? Well, at least we don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Melvin Bray is a devoted husband, committed father, learner, teacher, writer, storyteller, lover of people, connoisseur of creativity, seeker of justice, and believer in possibilities. As founder of Kid Cultivators, he lives, loves, and dreams with friends in Atlanta, Georgia.
Forgiveness is giving up the right to retaliate. Forgiveness is the willingness to have something happen the way it happened. It's not true that you can't forgive something; it's a matter of the will, and you always have the choice. Forgiveness is never dependent on what the other person does or does not do; it is always under our control. Forgiveness is giving up the insistence on being understood.... Jesus forgave those who crucified him. This is a radically new way of thinking. For those who accept and practice this discipline, there is a release of energy and a sense of freedom.
- Pixie Koestline Hammond For Everything There Is a Season
For from the least to the greatest of them,
everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
and from prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.
They have treated the wound of my people carelessly,
saying, "Peace, peace,"
when there is no peace.
Last evening, I was privileged to be one of the religious leaders asked to participate in the Compassion Forum, sponsored by Faith in Public Life and broadcast by CNN from Messiah College. Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama participated; Sen. John McCain declined.
The religious leaders asked questions of real substance, focusing on difficult and important policy choices. We are not so much interested in the personal testimonies of candidates - important as those are - but rather how their faith beliefs would shape their leadership and decisions. It is also worth noting that the majority of the questions of substance and depth about critical policy issues came from the religious leaders last night, and the more personal questions about the religion came from the stage moderators for CNN—just as was the case at the Sojourners/CNN Forum on "Faith, Values, and Poverty" last June.
Here are a few examples:
Lisa Sharon Harper of New York Faith and Justice asked Sen. Clinton:
Senator Clinton, underdeveloped nations and regions lack widespread access to education and basic resources like water, and they tend to be some of the most unstable and dangerous regions of the world. Places like Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan. Our national security is at stake, but our military is stretched. As president, would you consider committing U.S. troops to a purely humanitarian mission under the leadership of a foreign flag?
Clinton responded:
I believe we should demonstrate our commitment to people who are poor, disenfranchised, disempowered before we talk about putting troops anywhere. The United States has to be seen again as a peacekeeper, and we have lost that standing in these last seven years. Therefore, I want us to have a partnership, government to government, government with the private sector, government with our NGOS and our faith community to show the best of what America has to offer. … Before we get to what we might do hypothetically, let's see what we will do realistically to rebuild America's moral authority and demonstrate our commitment to compassionate humanitarianism.
The moderator called on me to ask a question of Sen. Obama:
As you reminded us a week or two ago, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed 40 years ago, he wasn't just speaking about civil rights. He was fighting for economic justice, was about to launch a poor people's campaign. Yet, four decades after the anniversary of his death, the poverty rate in America is virtually unchanged, and one in six of our children are poor in the richest nation in the world. So in the faith community, we are wanting a new commitment around a measurable goal, something like cutting poverty in half in 10 years. Would you commit - would you at this historic compassion forum, commit to such a goal tonight, and, if elected, tell us how you'd mobilize the nation, mobilize us, to achieve that goal?
Obama's response:
I absolutely will make that commitment. Understand that when I make that commitment, I do so with great humility because it is a very ambitious goal. And we're going to have to mobilize our society, not just to cut poverty, but to prevent more people from slipping into poverty. … [After a series of specific policy proposals] And many of these, by the way, can be part of a faith community. And so, you know, just to go back to our theme here tonight, people sometimes ask me, what do I think about faith-based initiatives? I want to keep the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives open, but I want to make sure that its mission is clear … the faith-based initiatives should be targeted specifically at the issue of poverty and how to lift people up.
Getting such a commitment on the public record is important - both for changing the political conversation and helping to put an issue like poverty on the agenda, and also to hold whoever wins an election accountable. So I was pleased with Barack Obama's response and also that Hillary Clinton has made a similar commitment to lead to cut domestic poverty in half in the next ten years. Those commitments should further encourage the emerging faith-inspired movement to overcome poverty and give us some concrete benchmarks to work for.
Read the transcript for the rest of the excellent questions posed by the religious leaders last night, and the candidates' responses.
Kudos go to Katie Barge, the primary organizer of the Compassion Forum for Faith and Public Life, for helping to continue the national conversation on the critical relationship between faith and politics.
In church one day, my pastor asked us to raise our hands if we believed in what the Bible said. The right answer seemed pretty obvious, and the whole congregation and I raised our hands. Then he asked us to raise our hand if we had read the Bible in its entirety. Touché, Pastor Sean. Touché.
In his latest book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, A.J. Jacobs lives as a biblical fundamentalist so you don't have to. Jacobs describes himself as "Jewish in the way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant" and seeks advice from rabbis, pastors, church members, historians, and textbooks on his quest to live the "ultimate Biblical life." The book chronicles his attempt to conform to the myriad rules found in the Bible (Don't wear mixed fibers! Be fruitful and multiply! Stone adulterers! Forgive!), and the results are often pretty funny. Yes, Jacobs sets out to lampoon Biblical fundamentalists, but by the end of his experiment he finds himself changed - he reveres life more, he is a better father, and he has more respect for people of faith. I picked up this book for laughs, but was surprised when I ended up quite touched by it. A.J. Jacobs writes with the tone of a friend, and when I finished the book I felt I had found a fellow believer (he now calls himself a "reverent agnostic") walking by my side.
By day 264, you warm up to Christian literalists as embodied by Dr. Tony Campolo and the Red Letter Christians. How did your year-long experiment affect your perception of Christian "fundamentalists", especially in contrast to how they are portrayed in mainstream media?
It changed it drastically. Like many Americans, I used to have an embarrassingly simplistic view of evangelical Christianity. I thought it was this monolithic movement where everyone walked in lock step with Pat Robertson. I figured almost all evangelical Christians were focused on the issues of homosexuality and abortion. I hadn't heard of the Red Letter Christians and their focus on poverty and the environment. I missed the complexity of evangelical Christianity, as does much of the media. It's sort of the equivalent of saying, 'Oh, James Taylor and Kid Rock are both rock musicians, so they're pretty much the same.'
You call your book a "(gentle) attack" on fundamentalism, as you set out to show how absurd and impossible it is to live a literally Biblical lifestyle without dropping out of general society. Is there anything that especially surprised or delighted you about following the rules? How about anything that really scared you?
So much surprised and delighted me. I fell in love with the Sabbath. I enjoyed the ban on gossiping (not that I was totally successful; I live in New York and I work in the media, so gossip is about as omnipresent as air). And here's an odd one: I liked following the second commandment literally: No making images. I took this to the limit. No turning on the TV, no watching DVDs, no photos, no doodles. And it turned out to be really helpful. I think our culture is too much in love with images. Everything is image-driven, and we're forgetting how to read. And there's something sacred about reading.
What scared me? I guess how easy it is to become self-righteous. I had to fight it every day.
On day 14, you crib a line from "Chariots of Fire" about feeling God's pleasure as you tithe to charities. Have you managed to maintain any of the Biblical practices from your experiment so that you can continue feeling "the warm ember that starts at the back of [your] neck?"
I do still try to do good works. I don't do as much as I should. And I don't tithe as strictly as I should - I'm down from 10 percent to maybe seven or eight percent. But I try. Because my Bible year taught me something that I wish I had known for the first 38 years of my life.
If you want to be happy, you should pursue OTHER people's happiness. You should do good things for others. It's a paradox, but it works. Being unselfish leads to selfish fulfillment.
Who would OT God vote for? Who would NT Jesus endorse?
Wasn't it a wise man named Jim Wallis who said that God was not a Republican or Democrat?
I do remember that part of the Old Testament where God is choosing whom to anoint as the next king of Israel. And a man named Jesse parades all his sons before the prophet Samuel. And Samuel sees the tallest son, Eliab and figured he will be the new leader.
"But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
Which is good news for Dennis Kucinich. Too bad he dropped out.
But it does remind us: Look beyond the superficial.
You've given a lot of interviews for this book, most of which are on the web somewhere. Tell me something about you that I can't google.
I'll tell you all the answers to my four-year-old son's favorite questions. My favorite color is green. My favorite animal is a zebra. My favorite candy is caramel. And my favorite Dora character is probably Boots the Monkey. You won't find that on the Internet!
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners. For more information on the book, click here.
Who says that Americans don’t have a sense of humor? This video ad put out by the Washington, D.C., transit authority prompting the faithful to ride Metro when the Pope visits this week proves the point.
The U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference was less than pleased and asked Metro to pull the ad. My guess is the Pope would have laughed—but the Bishops apparently need additional practice in exercising their authority.
Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners associate editor, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.
The latest news on Compassion Forum, McCain & faith, Young evangelicals, Papal visit to US, Superrich keep spending, Death penalty, Food crisis, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Darfur, Kenya, Colombia, and Opinion.
Let me give you an illustration of the difference between the narrow focus of contemporary American evangelicalism and the big focus of the Bible.
D.L. Moody, the great 19th-century evangelist, described his calling and said that he essentially understood the world as being like an ocean liner that hit an iceberg. God had said to him, "Moody, it is your job to pull as many drowning people out of the water into lifeboats as you can."
Now, that may have been Moody's calling. I don't fault him at all for his understanding of his particular calling. But his "lifeboat theology," which claims that really the only thing that matters is evangelism -- pulling as many folks into lifeboats as you can -- has been both a blessing and a great curse for contemporary evangelicalism. On the one hand, it has created an evangelistic urgency. And it is evangelical churches that are growing because of this passion. On the other hand, by narrowing the focus simply upon getting people to say the Sinner's Prayer, we have had almost nothing to say about whole slices of life.
Let me suggest an alterative theology: "Ark Theology." Noah's Ark not only saved people, it preserved God's other creatures as well. The covenant that God made with Noah and his descendents was not only with humanity, but we read in Genesis 9:10 these words:
and with every living creature that was with you -- the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you -- every living creature on earth.
The rainbow was not just a sign between God and people, but we read in Genesis 9:12, 15 and 17 these words:
And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come. (v. 12)
I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. (v. 15)
So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth." (v. 17)
The Ark Theology -- that God intends to restore all of creation, every realm, every creature, every part. Or as Abraham Kuypur, the great Dutch theologian and politician said nearly 100 years ago, "There is not a square inch of the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ who is sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"
Lifeboat Theology: Jesus wants to be Lord of your life.
Ark Theology: Jesus is Lord over the universe.
Rich Nathan is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, which is the co-sponsor with Sojourners of next week's Justice Revival. Click here for more details.
For as long as I can remember, I've ended my letters and e-mails with the encouragement "Keep the faith." I must have picked that up from my father, since he's the only person I know who signs off the same way. It might have been more lucrative for me to have picked up "It's Friday, but Sunday's coming!" instead, but I've always preferred the flexibility of the simpler phrase. Not everyone who hopes for God's grace is a Christian, after all, and we who are surely hope for more than that. We hope to be happy and successful, for example, however we measure those things. We hope that our parents love us and that our marriages work out and, more than anything, that our kids will always be safe and sound. We hope for such things, at least, unless we have learned to know better.
On the Monday morning after my last letter, a mother and daughter from our fellowship showed up at our side door. Terry is mentally handicapped and deeply damaged. Her daughter has her own set of issues. For months we'd been planning a summer move from their dangerous, filthy, heatless apartment building into a cute little duplex we've been fixing up around the corner, but all of a sudden we were too late. "Tanya got raped in the hall last night," her mother said, and from then until now we've been walking on the dark side of love.
The sequence of what followed doesn't matter, and I couldn't remember it even if it did. The hospital, the detectives, the rape crisis center. Getting that evil building condemned, relocating them in our duplex, finding bedbug-free furniture for Terry and Tanya, finding helpers for the move itself. The girl's bad behavior as our houseguest, her mother's worse behavior as a parent. The questions, the doubts -- the guilt for questioning and doubting. And then, as if piling on, the quick meltdown of a promising young man we've lavished with attention and opportunity for the past seven months, and the crude suicide attempt of a troubled young woman whose phone call for help I failed to return the day before.
What does matter, I think, is the way all those things have been eating away at expectations of goodness and order I didn't even know I had. It's been awhile since I believed everything happens for a reason, according to some grand plan, but evidently I've hung onto the notion that love always makes some kind of difference, even in the midst of chaos. Even that somewhat less-ambitious worldview, however, seems to be no match for just this one little neighborhood, let alone the world itself.
It isn't the suffering here that's getting to me, but rather my neighbors' dull, matter-of-fact attitude about it. Tanya hasn't been fazed much by her rape, her counselor tells me, because she always expected to be hurt that way sooner or later. After all, her mom was raped three times as a girl, receiving no follow-up care or counsel, which may explain why she can offer so little now in terms of emotional support. The meltdown guy? He walked away because we called him on a lie and it never occurred to him that we might just forgive him. The girl who tried to kill herself? She lives in Terry's condemned building and has nowhere to go with five children under the age of 10. One missed call was all it took to convince her nobody cares enough to help.
It seems to me that these are the poorest of the poor in spirit, the ones who hope for next to nothing. To survive in a place like this, some people learn to live almost completely in the moment. They know better than to expect any ongoing goodness or order. They keep no faith. We have come to love them, but the longer we're at it the more I am haunted by the fear that nothing – not even love – may be strong enough. I can celebrate the ways our intentional generosity touches some of our neighbors, but I can't ignore the fact that both their natural hopelessness and the dysfunctions that inspire it are quite capable of breaking us. Or at least of breaking me.
If that happens, however, it won't mean I was wrong about Grace, but only that I overreached my limits. And if it doesn't happen, it won't mean that love always makes a difference, even in the midst of chaos, but only that I managed to keep the faith.
That's all I'm hoping for now, for starters at least.
Bart Campolo is a veteran urban minister and activist who speaks, writes, and blogs (www.bartcampolo.com) about grace, faith, loving relationships, and social justice. Bart is the leader of The Walnut Hills Fellowship (www.thewalnuthillsfellowship.org) in inner-city Cincinnati. He is also founder of Mission Year (www.missionyear.org), which recruits committed young adults to live and work among the poor in inner-city neighborhoods across the USA, and executive director of EAPE, which develops and supports innovative, cost-effective mission projects around the world.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "The one who is righteous will live by faith."
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature, and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.
The children were under the bed. The girl was very nice, about 5 or 6, and the boy was interesting …. We asked the commanders to leave them in a neighboring house, but they said they were a threat—that they would grow up to be guerrillas .… 'Cobra' took the girl by the hair and cut her throat. —excerpt from the confession of paramilitary fighter Jorge Luis Salgado.
A united cry for justice echoed throughout the world following the tragic Feb. 21, 2005, massacre of eight civilians in a Colombian peace community. People and communities in solidarity with the San Jose de Apartadó Peace Community demanded truth and justice, not only for the brutal murder of 6-year-old Natalia and 18-month-old Santiago, but also the killing of community leader Luis Eduardo Guerra and his son, 11-year-old Deiner, and partner Beyanira, along with three others. When the peace community claimed that the U.S.-backed Colombian Army, together with paramilitary fighters, had massacred their friends and neighbors, the Colombian government responded with slanderous comments.
The Colombian Army and government officials claimed their investigations indicated a guerrilla massacre. Yet at the same time, President Alvaro Uribe and others suggested some peace community members were guerrillas themselves. "There are some leaders, backers and defenders … belonging to the FARC and who want to use the community to protect this terrorist organization," said Uribe. Thanks in part to such statements, continued violence and threats descend on the community and its leaders—more than 200 have been assassinated since the community's founding in 1997, the vast majority at the hands of paramilitaries and the Colombian Armed Forces.
Finally the truth has slowly begun to show its face. Last November an army captain was arrested for his role in the massacre. At the end of March, more than three years after the massacre, arrest warrants were issued for 15 other members of the infamous 17th Brigade, thanks to the testimony of a former paramilitary fighter who participated in the massacre. Jorge Luis Salgado admitted that paramilitaries were patrolling with the U.S.-backed Colombian Army in the region and participated in the massacre.
Despite the ongoing violence, the families of the peace community persevere. During the third commemoration of the massacre, internally displaced families returned home to the massacre site to restart their lives while another 12 families joined the peace community. Regardless of the fear and still-recent memories of the massacre of eight of their friends and neighbors, these brave families have returned to reclaim their lands and live in peace on the margins of a conflict that has devastated the region for more than 15 years.
Blessed are those that, challenging barbarity, continue along the path of peace with justice, humbly constructing a community in solidarity that does not bend under the imposition of the domination and oppression.—words of Father Javier Giraldo at the massacre commemoration.
Kathleen Nygard accompanied the San Jose de Apartadó Peace Community for over a year with Peace Brigades International and is now a Colombia international team member with Witness for Peace. Pray and Act for Peace in Colombia on April 27-28. Also join Witness for Peace in June to commemorate 25 years of work for justice and peace.
Social justice is not a distraction from our commitment; it is part and parcel of the gospel of the kingdom. We read in Mark 1:15:
"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!"
What is the message of the kingdom? Certainly the center of the message is the proclamation that through one's faith in Jesus Christ (the King), a person can be eternally saved. Thus my church regularly calls people to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be born again and enter God's kingdom.
But that is not the circumference or totality of the message of the kingdom. The ultimate goal of the kingdom goes beyond the salvation of us as individuals (wonderful as that is) and involves the restoration and renovation of the entire universe. The message of the kingdom is a fulfillment of the prophet Isaiah's vision in Isaiah 65:17, 20-25:
"See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. ...
"Never again will there be infants who live but a few days, or older people who do not live out their years; those who die at a hundred will be thought mere youths; those who fail to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain," says the Lord.
This message was echoed by all the prophets. So the prophet Micah says this in 4:1-4:
In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.
The apostle Paul speaks about the cosmic sweep of this message of the kingdom. He tells us that not only we, but the entire creation, will be freed from the curse of the fall (Romans 8:19-21). In Ephesians, the apostle Paul again enlarges the scope of the message beyond our individual salvation when he says in Ephesians 1:9-10:
[H]e made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment; to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
This enormous plan, involving the renovation and restoration of the entire universe, is what we pray for when we pray the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
So when we Christians feed the hungry in the name of Jesus, or heal a sick person in the power of Christ, or work for peace in this war-torn world, or help reconcile a marriage, or extend help to immigrants, or work for the responsible care of the environment, these actions are not a distraction from our commission to preach the gospel of the kingdom. Rather, we are living out our calling as kingdom people to partner with God in bringing about the healing of the entire universe.
Rich Nathan is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, which is the co-sponsor with Sojourners of next week's Justice Revival. Click here for more details.
Those who have created the evil are those who have made possible the hideous social injustice our people live in. Thus, the poor have shown the church the true way to go. A church that does not join the poor in order to speak out from the side of the poor against the injustices committed against them is not the true church of Jesus Christ.
Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,
look around and take note!
Search its squares and see
if you can find one person
who acts justly
and seeks truth--
so that I may pardon Jerusalem.
It is difficult to make sense of the current ominous political drama surrounding the result of the presidential elections in Zimbabwe.
Let me set the context of the elections, which were held March 29, 2008. These elections were unique in that there were four different elections taking place simultaneously. Each voter had to complete four different voting forms for presidential, senate, parliament, and local government nominations. There were about 9,000 voting stations around the country. According to a new election law, results of the votes had to be posted on the door of each voting station. This was done on March 30 by almost all the voting stations around the country. Opposition parties and civil societies were then able to collate the results. Local communities were also able to see the results.
It became apparent from the results that the opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had won in all four categories. The MDC called a press conference and announced their victory based on the results from the voting stations across the country.
The government did not expect that they would lose. Prior to the elections, they used state resources to launch their campaign and were so confident of winning that Robert Mugabe went on TV stating that all parties should respect the outcome of the people as this was the expressed wish of the nation. He even went as far as saying that if he lost he would step down. He never imagined that he would lose to the opposition.
So the government withheld the results and slowly released the results of the parliamentary, senate, and local government elections. They lost in both parliamentary and local government and tied in the senate. There was no word on the presidential elections -- only an ominous silence and then demands for a recount. What is amazing in the delays and demands by the government is that the results have not been released, so how can there be talk of a recount and why should there be a recount!
Clearly the government knows it has been defeated – there is no other reason for them to demand recounts and act in the way they are doing. In the past few days the government has bared its teeth by harassing members of opposition parties, arresting election officers, and invading white-owned farms. The government is relying on its military forces to hold on to power because they have been defeated in the votes. It's frightening to watch the extent to which they are willing to go to hold on to power.
This is the time when Zimbabwe needs the international community to intervene on their behalf. The people have done everything in their power. At great risk they voted, believing that this would bring the change they desperately want, but, to their dismay, this instrument of freedom is turning against them. What else should people do?
Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.
The Philippines Armed Forces have been implicated in most of the recent human rights abuses that have occurred in that country (almost 800 unlawful executions since 2001). Journalists, activists, pastors, and lawyers have been kidnapped, tortured, or even gunned down in public for daring to advocate on behalf of the economic, social, and civil rights of the poor.
But since 9/11, the U.S. government has given the Philippines army $245.6 million for "foreign military financing," "anti-terrorism," and "international military education and training." This is more military funding than any other country in Asia receives. As American taxpayers, we should be outraged that the U.S., through massive military funding, extends carte blanche to a government that cannot control and discipline its own national army –an army that carries out personal vendettas and hit lists en masse. As members of the body of Christ, we should lament when our brothers and sisters are cut down in the mission field – especially when we helped to bankroll it.
In my previous blog post about the disappearance of Jonas Burgos, I mentioned that the Farmers' Alliance he volunteered for had been labeled an "enemy of the state" organization. The military did this to justify the half-hearted investigation conducted on his disappearance. This and other incidents have alarmed the United Nations Human Rights Council, especially since the Philippines has (strangely) just been granted a seat on the committee. In keeping with the strictures of committee membership, the Philippines is set to undergo a kind of human rights audit called the "Universal Periodic Review" on April 11, 2008.
After Ecumenical Advocacy Days, Edita Tronqued Burgos planned to tour the U.S. to speak to Filipino-American communities about the things going on back home. In her increasingly hopeless search for her activist son, she has stumbled upon a new mission: to put American taxpayers and citizens in contact with their U.S. congresspersons about the issue. The work of Edita and others like her have made the extrajudicial killings a more high-profile issue, and there were even hearings in the U.S. Congress about it last year. Still, positive change seems elusive in 2008 as military aid to the Philippines increased by "a few million," with $2 million earmarked for human rights issues. Seems to me like we're trusting foxes to guard the henhouse here.
To read more about American military funding to the Philippines, click here.
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners.
To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.
We have much to be judged on when [Jesus] comes, slums and battlefields and insane asylums, but these are the symptoms of our illness, and the result of our failures in love. In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come.
I've always wanted to be part of a church that seeks to be and to do everything the New Testament calls the church to be and to do. I've described this kind of church in the past as a holistic church, or a church that works on all eight cylinders. In other words, it is not enough if my church is known as a great worship center, or a great preaching church. The New Testament demands more.
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright gets us right to the heart of the matter when he says:
For generations the church has been polarized between those who see the main task being the saving of souls for heaven and the nurturing of those souls through the valley of this dark world, on the one hand, and on the other hand those who see the task of improving the lot of human beings and the world, rescuing the poor from their misery. The longer I've gone on as a New Testament scholar and wrestled with what the early Christians were originally talking about, the more it's borne in on me that distinction is one that we modern Westerners bring to the text rather than finding it in the text. Because the great emphasis in the New Testament is that the gospel is not how to escape the world; the gospel is that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Lord of the world. And that his death and Resurrection transformed the world, and that transformation can happen to you. You, in turn, can be part of the transforming work. That draws together what we traditionally call evangelism, bringing people to the point where they come to know God and Christ for themselves, with working for God's Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. That has always been at the heart of the Lord's Prayer, and how we've managed for years to say the Lord's Prayer without realizing that Jesus really meant it is very curious. Our Western culture since the 18th century has made a virtue of separating our religion from real life, or faith from politics. When I lecture about this, people will pop up and say, "Surely Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world." And the answer is no, what Jesus said in John 18 is, "My kingdom is not from this world." That's ek tou kosmoutoutou. It is quite clear in the text that Jesus' kingdom doesn't start with this world. It isn't a worldly kingdom, but it is for this world. It is from somewhere else, but it is for this world.
Social justice is simply a commitment on the part of Christians to improve the lot of human beings in this world, particularly the lot of the most marginalized to whom God shows particular concern. The God of the Bible is both a God of justification (declaring us right with God) and justice (putting the world to rights).
Social justice was the historic practice of the evangelical church before the 20th century. It would have been unthinkable for leaders like John Wesley or William Wilberforce to consider someone to be a good follower of Jesus Christ who was not actively involved in improving the social conditions of people in this world.
Doing justice is one of the major themes throughout scripture. God hates religion without an accompanying commitment to social justice:
I hate, I despise your religious festivals; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! ( Amos 5:21-24)
I have several hopes for my church regarding social justice. I hope that we become a church that breaks out of the boxes that church tradition tries to impose upon the evangelical church -- namely, that evangelical churches are not supposed to be involved with improving the social conditions of people in this world. My hope is that members of Vineyard Columbus would seek to walk in the shoes of those whose perspectives are shaped by poverty, racial oppression, and personal suffering. My hope is that the tilt of the hearts of Vineyard Columbus members would be toward the poor (and not just the rich), toward the sick (and not just the well), and toward peacemaking. I have a hope that Vineyard Columbus would not exist for itself, but for Christ and for the world.
Rich Nathan is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, which is the co-sponsor with Sojourners of next week's Justice Revival. Click here for more details.
Imagine you're eating at a shopping mall food court when you suddenly hear shouting and see a group of uniformed men (neither police nor army) drag a young man from his lunch a few tables away. "I'm just an activist! I haven't done anything wrong!" he shouts as they cuff him and take him to a waiting van outside. What would Christ-followers do? What would you do?
This is the scene that plays in Edita Tronqued Burgos' mind over and over again as she worries about her missing son. On April 28, 2007, Jonas Burgos was eating lunch in a crowded mall in downtown Manila, Philippines, when four to eight unidentified men abducted him. During her presentation at Ecumenical Advocacy Days a few weeks ago, she mused that if the people in that crowded mall had done "the Christian thing," maybe her son wouldn't have disappeared into the ether that weekend.
After one or two strange, groggy phone conversations with his family, all trace of Jonas Burgos disappeared for good. Now Jonas' family tries to act on every lead that comes in, and investigate every rumor and sighting. Edita once traveled hours after receiving word of a bound, heavily tortured corpse found in the countryside. It wasn't him.
Why was Jonas abducted and disappeared like this? What had Jonas done to merit such brutality? The son of activist-journalists persecuted under the Marcos dictatorship, Jonas had gotten a degree in agriculture, then moved to the provinces to teach organic farming techniques to the peasants. Soon after he arrived, he became distraught at how impoverished the farmers were, in part because of the Philippines' economic policies (aimed at hyper-development through corporate foreign investment). He became a volunteer for a farmers' rights organization called Alyansa ng Magsasaka sa Bulacan (Alliance of Farmers at Bulacan). But in the Philippines, advocacy and activism on behalf of poor farmers can draw the ire of the military, which branded Alyansa an "enemy of the state."
Jonas' disappearance is just one of hundreds of cases in which activists, journalists, and artists in the Philippines are kidnapped, tortured, or murdered by unidentified men in uniform. Their deaths are often unrecorded or unverifiable for lack of a body, and the police seldom investigate. This is called an "extrajudicial killing," an execution committed beyond the boundaries of the legal process.
In Jonas' case, as it became clearer that the military was about to be implicated in his disappearance, the Philippines Armed Forces launched a smear campaign claiming that Jonas was a member of the Communist Army of the People of the Philippines. They asserted that Jonas had been caught embezzling money, and the "communist terrorists" killed him to punish him for stealing. This statement released by the national military was a shocking, hurtful lie, as was obvious to anyone who even remotely knew Burgos.
Edita Tronqued Burgos ended her presentation by emphasizing that no one should be beyond the protection of the law. Even if he had been guilty of a crime (rather than of economic advocacy), that would not justify kidnapping and disappearance. In typically outspoken Filipino style, Edita pleaded, "even a child molester caught in the act gets his day in court to defend himself. Why shouldn't my son deserve the same right?"
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners.
Help me, O Lord my God!
Save me according to your steadfast love.
Let them know that this is your hand;
you, O Lord, have done it.
Let them curse, but you will bless.
Let my assailants be put to shame; may your servant be glad.
What unspeakable comfort and strength is ours to know that in the midst of all our mischief, amid our scheming and bad speculations, regardless of our shaping, misshaping or reshaping of life, with all of our activities and failures, God is among us. God is not a graven image of our own longings and shortcomings. Rather God, through Christ, is among us as friend, advocate, savior, and above all as our living Lord, to correct, to forgive, to comfort, to love, and to heal.
When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, he was trying to move the country to take on the moral issue of economic injustice. And, for the first time in many years, the remembrances of King's death (this one the 40th anniversary) urged the nation to do the same. Usually the nation's anniversary celebrations freeze-frame King as the nation's greatest civil rights leader whose famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 was the extent of his message. Later calls for economic justice and the beginnings of a Poor People's Campaign are often ignored, not to mention the controversial connection King made between poverty and war in his opposition to the Vietnam War and his confrontation of the "triplets" of "poverty, racism, and militarism."
But last Friday was different and much more hopeful to our mission here at Sojourners of putting poverty on the agenda of this election year.
Barack Obama, speaking in Fort Wayne, Indiana, made the direct connection between memorializing King and taking up the mantle of his Poor People's campaign, and fighting for the cause of economic justice for those who have been left behind. The New York Times reported that Obama focused on King's presence in Memphis in support of striking sanitation workers and the continuing need for economic justice:
The reason Dr. King was in Memphis the day he was shot, Mr. Obama told the crowd of about 2,000 people, had to do as much with economics, in the form of wages and income, as with race. "It was a struggle for economic justice, for the opportunity that should be available to people of all races and all walks of life," he said. "Because Dr. King understood that the struggle for economic justice and the struggle for racial justice were really one, that each was part of a larger struggle for freedom, for dignity and for humanity."
King's son, Martin Luther King III, has called for a cabinet-level "poverty czar," and, to her credit, Hillary Clinton supported that goal in her speech in Memphis, according to the New York Times:
Mrs. Clinton gave her support to an idea long advocated by the King family, a cabinet position that she said would be "solely and fully devoted to ending poverty as we know it, that will focus the attention of our nation on this issue and never let it go." Mrs. Clinton added: "No more excuses, no more whining, but instead a concerted effort."
John McCain was also in Memphis, speaking at the National Civil Rights Museum (in what was the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was shot.) McCain linked the anniversary to human rights, reports the Associated Press:
McCain said King "was called an agitator, a troublemaker, a malcontent, and a disturber of the peace. These are often the terms applied to men and women of conscience who will not endure cruelty, nor abide injustice. We hear them to this day -- in Darfur, Zimbabwe, Burma, Tibet, Iran and other lands -- directed at every brave soul who dares to disturb the peace of tyrants."
Human rights does continue to be a major issue, and the nation's poverty rate has not significantly improved in the 40 years since King's death. The national minimum wage has actually lost ground, with the 1968 rate worth $9.71 in 2008 dollars compared to $5.85 today. Many voices seem ready now to make that an urgent moral concern and commitment. Let us hope, pray, and work that it may be so.
"Must we starve our children to pay our debts?" -- Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania
This week Congress will vote on the Jubilee Act, the most important debt legislation since 2000. I was an undergraduate theology student when the Jubilee 2000 movement made headlines, and it transformed the way I saw my faith. In short, I discovered the prophetic power of faith to transform injustice and what it looks like to see the Word made flesh. Now, eight years later, I have the honor of working for the Jubilee USA Network and writing to you about the ways in which people of faith around the world continue to fulfill the call to "proclaim jubilee."
The Jubilee Act will expand access to debt cancellation to all the countries that need it to fight extreme poverty. Without debt cancellation, it will be nearly impossible for many countries to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015.
The faith community has a history of moral leadership on the debt issue. In 2000 and again in 2005, world leaders came together to cancel billions of dollars of debt in dozens of impoverished countries around the world. The money freed by debt cancellation has been directed to fight global AIDS, enroll children in school, provide clean water, and improve rural infrastructure among other poverty-focused initiatives. But there is still much more that needs to be done -- 44 impoverished countries around the world are still waiting for debt justice!
The world's most impoverished countries pay more than $100 million each day in debt payments to wealthy governments and financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In countries where the majority of the population lives on less than $1 per day, this money should be spent on clean water, basic health care, and education rather than repaying some of the world's wealthiest financial institutions.
The U.S. House of Representatives is going to vote on the Jubilee Act this week! Call your representative today through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
Brian Swarts is the national field organizer for Jubilee USA Network. You can find out more about debt justice, how to get involved in Jubilee, and even find a script to use for your call by visiting www.jubileeusa.org.
Civil rights, Vietnam, Dr. King, Memphis — these are historic landmarks. Even so, this year is a watershed. Because Dr. King lived only 39 years, from now on, he will be gone longer than he lived among us. Two generations have come of age since Memphis.
This does not mean that our understanding is accurate or complete. A certain amount of gloss and mythology is inevitable for great figures, whether they be George Washington chopping down a cherry tree, Honest Abe splitting a rail or Dr. King preaching a dream of equal citizenship in 1963. Far beyond that, however, we have encased Dr. King and his era in pervasive myth, false to our heritage and dangerous to our future. We have distorted our entire political culture to avoid the lessons of Martin Luther King's era.
He warned us himself. When he came to the pulpit that Sunday 40 years ago, Dr. King adapted one of his standard sermons, "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution." From the allegory of Rip Van Winkle, he told of a man who fell asleep before 1776 and awoke 20 years later in a world filled with strange customs and clothes, a whole new vocabulary, and a mystifying preoccupation with the commoner George Washington rather than King George III.
Dr. King pleaded for his audience not to sleep through the world's continuing cries for freedom. When the ancient Hebrews achieved miraculous liberation from Egypt, many yearned to go back. Pharaoh's familiar lash seemed better than the covenant delivered by Moses, and so the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness. It took 40 years to recover their bearings. Dr. King has been gone 40 years now, but we still sleep under Pharaoh. It is time to wake up.
Charlton Heston died this weekend at age 84, following Roy Scheider and Richard Widmark as the latest in a series of powerful cinematic actors to pass away -- although Heston was probably best known to a younger generation as the old guy who walked out of a Michael Moore interview in Bowling for Columbine. His was an ambivalent life – living through 14 presidencies (and personally befriending several of the most recent occupants of the office), supporting civil rights when it was unfashionable, switching his political allegiances, and latterly becoming identified with right-wing causes. Not often a subtle actor (although you could do worse than watch his performance in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil as a tribute), he represented a particular kind of vanishing screen presence who, like John Wayne, represented a vision of American greatness that depended far too much on the suggestion of invulnerability.
So, now that he is gone, what do you say about Charlton Heston? Something simple: He shouldn't be judged on the basis of one interview, given after a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease to a door-stopping filmmaker known for his pranks.
He should be judged on his contribution to the movies -- doing gravitas better than anyone else, standing as our image of Moses, Ben-Hur, various military captains, the head of the CIA, and ultimately a particular kind of god figure. I never saw a Heston performance that didn't entertain me on some level.
And, in the interests of full disclosure, he should also be judged on his political activity. The simplistic analysis of the relationship between personal freedom and gun ownership offered by the National Rifle Association, which Heston did so much to bolster, seems outrageous to my Northern Irish ears. In his speeches to and on behalf of the NRA, Heston also sometimes seemed to lack empathy for the victims of gun crime, in his attempts to promote his contentious understanding of the U.S. Constitution.
At the same time, he was an early supporter of the civil rights movement, and even picketed a screening of one of his own films because it was being screened in a racially segregated cinema. He also made several films, such as Soylent Green, The Omega Man, and Planet of the Apes, that endorsed environmental and anti-nuclear causes at a time when it wasn't as easy to engage the public mind in these matters.
When iconic film actors die, something strange happens to our cultural consciousness -- for the movies have captured so many of us like no other medium. The very fact that the projected image on a cinema screen is bigger than life makes people like Heston seem both larger than the rest of us, and somehow less human at the same time.
Heston was a man who appeared to try to live with integrity, and while many of his later political positions are troubling to me, looking back on an ambivalent life like his should not inspire judgmentalism at the expense of the recognition that my own life is subject to the very same competing poles -- between private interest and the common good. And finally, if the stories we tell each other shape our attitudes, values, and beliefs about the world, then perhaps we might respectfully recognise that an era of American cinematic myth-making dominated by the notion of never admitting the possibility of error or flaw seems to be being replaced by something more nuanced, and perhaps more capable of leading us into a real promised land: one where we are honest about our weaknesses as well as our strengths.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com. He is also one of the judges of this year's Beliefnet Film Awards, which seek to recognise the best films with spiritual themes. Find out more at http://www.beliefnet.com/bfa/
There is an awe and reverence du to the stars in the heavens, the sun, and all heavenly bodies; to the seas and the continents; to all living forms of trees and flowers; to the myriad expressions of life in the sea; to the animals of the forests and the birds of the air. To wantonly destroy a living species is to silence forever a divine voice.
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.
The subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. has raised just outrage at the behavior of predatory lenders. It's wrong to push a mortgage which the lender knows the borrower won't be able to pay back, driving homeowners into foreclosure and bankruptcy.
But when poor nations have unpayable debt—often the result of Cold War favors to corrupt dictators—they can't declare bankruptcy. They have to just keep paying, even if all they can pay is the interest, never touching the principal. Even if it means ignoring desperate needs at home for education, antipoverty strategies, or fighting the AIDS pandemic. And even if, as is all too often the case, the creditors—wealthy nations or institutions like the IMF—impose harmful economic policies on debtor countries, as described last year in the Sojourners article "A Sabbath from Suffering."
The global Jubilee movement, which pushes for the cancellation of unpayable debts owed by poor countries and the re-dedication of that money to things like education and health care, has won some significant victories in the past decade, but much remains to be done. That's why it's so important that, this upcoming week, the House of Representatives is likely to vote on the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation (HR 2634). Read about it at www.jubileeusa.org.
One important part of the Jubilee Act is that it mandates an accounting of "odious debt"—loans taken out by dictators, and which the lender knew would go to corruption or would otherwise not help a country's people. Noreena Hertz's book The Debt Threat quotes one internal U.S. memo, written as the Cold War superpower was sending massive loans to its military ally, brutal dictator Mobutu Sese Seko: "the [corruption] in Zaire with all its wicked manifestations is so serious that there is no (repeat no) prospect for Zaire's creditors to get their money back." The Jubilee Act is a chance to start setting the record straight on cases like this. Millions of the world's poorest people are waiting.
Elizabeth Palmberg is an assistant editor of Sojourners.
A blur of romance clings to notions of "publicans," "sinners," "the poor," "the people in the marketplace," "our neighbors," as though of course God should reveal himself, if at all, to these simple people, these Sunday school watercolor figures who are so purely themselves in their tattered robes, who are single in themselves, while we now are various, complex, and full at heart.... Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead—as if innocence had ever been.... But there is no one but us. There never has been.
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I want to personally invite you to Washington, D.C., on June 13 through 16 to participate in Pentecost 2008: Training for Change. For more than a decade, we have held an annual mobilization around the time of Pentecost to lift up a vision of overcoming poverty to the nation. I believe that with your help we can make this a pivotal year of elevating poverty to the top of the national agenda, the goal of our Vote Out Poverty campaign.
We've heard from many of you that rather than a conventional conference, you want to go deeper in learning real skills to take back to your local communities and congregations as advocates for social and economic justice. So, we are offering in-depth, practical training from Sojourners' staff and other experienced organizers (including Jennifer Kottler of Let Justice Roll, Rachel Anderson of the Boston Faith and Justice Network, Peggy Flanagan of Wellstone Action, and Lisa Sharon Harper of New York Faith and Justice, among others) who will facilitate small group workshops that teach practical skills. Following each group learning experience, participants will engage in facilitated small group discussions to take the learning to the next level.
Of course, we'll still have some of our traditional things. We'll have worship services (I will preach on Friday evening) with great music – Derek Webb will join us both Friday and Saturday evenings.
We will also be hearing from our seventh annual Amos and Joseph Award recipients. This year's "Joseph" - a person who faithfully uses a position of influence to benefit those in poverty - is one of our nation's great civil rights and economic justice leaders, Rev. James Lawson. Our "Amos" - a person who comes from a humble background to serve God and community - is Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, from Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice in Los Angeles.
And, for the fifth year, our Emerging Leaders program (for faith-inspired activists younger than 30) will include Brian McLaren, author of Everything Must Change, musician Derek Webb, and myself. A special campus organizing workshop will help you be an effective advocate and faithful leader on your campus, and there will be networking opportunities to build and strengthen the growing numbers of emerging leaders across the country.
Pentecost 2008 is the next step in a movement to really make a difference in overcoming poverty in our nation. It's an occasion to learn new skills and strengthen ones you already have to show that the faith community cares about our neighbors in poverty. The election campaign this year, in combination with our Vote Out Poverty campaign, offers us the opportunity to change the political wind on poverty.
Following is an excerpt from an interview with Bob Abernethy that will appear in a forthcoming issue ofThe Wittenburg Door.
GARRISON: When you reflect over your years of doing Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, how would you assess the role of religion in America?
ABERENETHY: I think one of other things that is going to be more and more interesting and important is figuring out how the three major Abrahamic religions can live together peacefully and respectfully. Efforts to figure out how Christianity and Islam can coexist in respectful ways will be a good long running story. I hope to do some things on that. Also, I would hope that after a generation of declining numbers and aging membership that the Protestant mainline would pick itself up and develop a little confidence in its tradition. I'd like to see them get on with the business of being a church and helping everybody around it.
ABERNETHY: What Bill Boyle and I have done is take the transcripts of those interviews that were done originally for Religion and Ethics & Newsweekly, but were used only in the smallest part in the program or on our website. We edited 60-some interviews into little essays. They run the gamut from the spiritual but not religious over to the most traditional and conservative faith traditions. As with the program, there's no preaching just these wonderful ideas that are there for the taking
GARRISON: How does your own faith influence the overall ethos of the program and the book?
ABERNETHY: First of all, it supported my interest in the subject. Also, it helped make all of us who do these interviews more sensitive to the spiritual experience of others and respectful of that experience. Maybe people sensed that and therefore, they felt free to speak really beautifully about the things that mattered to them.
GARRISON: How can one practice their faith while remaining an objective journalist when covering controversial religious stories?
ABERNETHY: I've been around a while and I grew up in the business thinking there should be a clear separation between news reporting and editorializing. When you're editorializing, you should label it as such. I think that's sometimes not honored as strictly as it should be. My advice would be if you're going to editorialize, don't be shy about identifying it as such.
GARRISON: Any thoughts about the rise of a progressive left that seems poised to do battle with the Religious Right?
ABERNETHY: All religion whether it's left, right or center has to be very, very wary of getting too close to power. People have been burned by that for centuries. It's a big, big danger. I think some people on the Religious Right have discovered this in their own case. And I would hope if any other religious group is trying to have political influence that they would be very careful about that. The spate of books about atheism has probably been encouraged by their authors' feeling that the religious right was too powerful and having too much of an influence in politics.
GARRISON: As we approach the 2008 election, we see both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates playing the faith card.
ABERNETHY: I think it's fair to ask candidates for president of the United States questions about their deepest beliefs. Seems to me that in understanding what a candidate is like, it's important to understand where they're coming from, what they think are bedrock truths, what they care the most about. And if they're religious folks, that's something the voters should know about. If they have deep religious convictions, presumably those convictions have an influence on how they live their lives and the decisions they make.
Publishers Weekly cited Becky Garrison as one of "four evangelicals with fresh views" alongside Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne and Ron Sider.
Friday, April 4, 2008, marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was 39-years-old, yet had already spent 15 years in a grassroots movement that radically reshaped the racial landscape in the U.S. He was not only a great preacher and civil rights leader, a Nobel Peace prize winner, and a courageous voice for peace and justice - King was also a "windchanger."
Rev. Jim Wallis often notes that politicians determine how to vote by placing their fingers in the air to gauge which way the wind is blowing. As part of the civil rights movement, King helped change the wind in the U.S.! Because of the sacrifice and tireless struggle by thousands of civil rights wind changers in the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. became a more just nation.
In his late 20s, King joined grassroots activists in Montgomery to lead a year-long boycott of city buses. He helped launch the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and provided inspirational leadership in Birmingham, Albany, and Selma. He was a windchanger for civil rights.
But King did not stop there. When President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared war on poverty, King was on the front lines of the battle, fighting for fair housing in Chicago in 1966 and mobilizing thousands for the multi-racial Poor People's Campaign (led by Rev. Ralph Abernathy after King's death).
As President Johnson's attention turned to Vietnam, King courageously spoke out against the war. He challenged the war not only because of his commitment to nonviolence, however. As King explained to an audience exactly one year before his death:
There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor—both black and white—through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings.
Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such. –Martin Luther King Jr., April 4, 1967, Riverside Church
King did not stop with criticizing a war he could not support. He continued to invest his time, talents, and energy with and on behalf of the poor. King's famous last speech was delivered in the midst of a sanitation worker's strike in Memphis, as King tried to change the wind for the working class.
Forty years after King's assassination, our challenges are eerily similar. Like King, many have expressed frustration with an unpopular war. But King did not stop with criticism. King kept trying to change the wind, working tirelessly to bring new hope to the poor of the richest nation on the face of the earth.
A few months ago, Sojourners invited me to be part of a groundbreaking local organizing effort in the state of Ohio called Windchangers. We are calling on Christians to evaluate candidates based in part on their plans to combat poverty. We are letting politicians know they must make poverty a priority if they want us to cast votes for their candidacies, and that we will be watching to hold them accountable after they take office next January.
I have helped edit the papers of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and have a book about King coming out in the fall. But my participation in Sojourners Windchangers program provides a great opportunity for me to move from ideas and thoughts about King to significant action that honors King's great legacy.
And you can join this movement as well! There is plenty of room on the bus in the effort to change the wind regarding poverty. Sojourners' Pentecost Conference in Washington, D.C., (June 13-15, 2008) will focus on how to organize your local community to confront poverty. On the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's death, let us honor his legacy by changing the wind together!
Troy Jackson is senior pastor of University Christian Church in Cincinnati, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, and earned his Ph.D. in United States history from the University of Kentucky. His book Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Making of a National Leader (The University Press of Kentucky, 2008) will be available in the fall. Troy is a participant in Sojourners' Windchangers grassroots organizing pilot project in Ohio to work on the Vote Out Poverty Campaign.
No abyss of evil can hide from [Jesus] through whom the world is reconciled with God. But the abyss of God's love encompasses even the most abysmal godlessness of the world.
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When all the prisoners of the land
are crushed under foot,
when human rights are perverted
in the presence of the Most High,
when one's case is subverted
--does the Lord not see it?
I have become increasingly convinced that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has become the victim of identity theft. Too often we domesticate King, sanitizing his radical message and selectively choosing his words. Our nation embraces the King of Montgomery and Selma but suffers amnesia about the King of Memphis who called for a living wage, or the King of Riverside who spoke out boldly against the war in Vietnam. Dr. King would be deeply disturbed by the crass materialism and naked narcissism of American society today, and he would resist the prosperity gospel that has infiltrated our churches - a message that pimps the gospel and places the crown before the cross.
Forty years ago Friday, Dr. King's life was cut short while supporting sanitation workers in Memphis. Dr. King said then, "Do you know that most of the poor people in our country are working everyday? They are making wages so low that they cannot begin to function in the mainstream of the economic life of our nation." Forty years later, Dr. King could still be saying the same words to the people of Memphis.
The year 2008 also marks the 40th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination while campaigning to be president with an economic justice platform in the South and Appalachia. It has also been 40 years since the poor people's campaign was derailed by the rage of riots that fanned across the nation, burning down cities and neighborhoods, including the Columbia Heights neighborhood in Washington, D.C., where Sojourners still resides. In the 40 years since, we have been wandering in the wilderness when it comes to economic justice. While there have been some modest gains, 36 million Americans are still living in the quicksand of poverty, only 4 million less than in 1968. In 1968, an unjust and unnecessary war called Vietnam diverted massive resources from social programs to a military machine that King described in speech at Riverside as a demonic suction tube! Today that same machine in Iraq drains $3 billion from our budget every week, crippling our capacity to invest in social levies across this nation.
Many of us had hoped that Hurricane Katrina would remove the scales from our eyes to the persistence and pervasiveness of poverty in the U.S. But the lessons learned seem fleeting and almost forgotten. While we are the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world, 1-in-8 children still grow up in poverty, giving us the shameful distinction of having the highest proportion of children living in poverty out of all industrialized nations. The U.S. also has the highest incarceration rate, with a black child facing a 1-in-3 chance of serving time in behind bars. More people die each year of poverty related causes than from the combined casualties of war, natural disasters, and homicide. But the problem is that, unlike high-visibility crises, these are silent tragedies that almost never make headlines.
Passing a living wage represents ground zero in King’s effort to fight poverty. Tragically, our nation has lost ground since 1968, when the minimum wage was worth $9.70 in 2008 dollars compared to the woeful $5.85 today. While a living wage will not be a silver bullet or a panacea to ending poverty, it represents a critical first step! A poverty wage shatters the conservative myth that if you work full time you will not be poor. Stagnant wages make a mockery out of the Horatio Alger myth that people can simply lift themselves up by their bootstraps. Low wages force too many parents to work two or three jobs, denying them precious time to raise and love their children. Low wages exacerbate the financial stresses that have become the single greatest cause of divorce in this nation. Recent studies show that poverty even harms a child's brain and social development, dooming many children to misfortune.
But there is hope. In the year 2000, 189 heads of state agreed to the Millennium Development Goals, a set of time-bound, measurable goals which include a commitment to cut in half the 1.2 billion people living on less than a dollar a day by the year 2015. The other goals deal with education, gender equality, health, and the environment. What is striking is that our president and Congress have yet to agree to an equivalent set of goals for our own nation. In 1999, the government of the United Kingdom agreed to a goal of cutting child poverty in half over 10 years. In the first five years the country managed to reduce child poverty by 17 percent.
We have ample evidence of what works. What is missing is the political will. Through the Vote out Poverty campaign Sojourners is mobilizing people of faith to put overcoming poverty at the top of the national political and electoral agenda. We are pressuring presidential and congressional candidates to endorse the goal of cutting domestic poverty in half over the next 10 years and eradicating poverty within a generation.
Join us in holding our political leaders accountable to the measurable goal of cutting poverty in half over 10 years, and help us move a step closer to realizing King's vision of the beloved community. Let's work together, sacrifice together, march together, lobby together, and organize together so that we ensure that all people made in God's image have life and have it more abundantly.
Adam Taylor is director of campaigns and organizing for Sojourners.
During the closing days of January, more than 15,000 Baptists from 30 different Baptist denominations gathered together at the Convention Center in Atlanta. Although all Baptist groups were invited to join in what was called The New Baptist Covenant, official representatives from the largest Baptist group in the U.S., the Southern Baptist Convention, were conspicuously absent. Although they were invited, the SBC officials chose not to attend. There were good reasons for that.
First, the plenary speakers at this gathering were not speakers who would have been welcomed at the annual meetings of the SBC. They included Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and John Grisham - all of whom would likely be treated as persona non grata by Southern Baptist leaders.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the unspoken agenda of the New Baptist Covenant was to provide a Baptist alternative to the politics and practices of the Southern Baptist Convention. Those Baptists who did attend, representing denominations with a combined membership of more than 20 million other Baptists, were viewed by the leaders of the SBC as a kind of "in your face" demonstration that they were tired of being painted by the general public with the same broad brush that has wrongly allied them with many positions taken by the SBC.
Most of those in this New Baptist Covenant, unlike their SBC brothers and sisters, have no problem with women in the pastoral ministry, and are not necessarily fans of the Bush administration. Strong anti-war sentiment was easily discernable among those in attendance. Representing what they considered a moderate stance on such issues - in contrast with the overtly Religious Right commitment of the SBC - they went on to reaffirm historic Baptist principles. These included a belief that the local church should decide on what should be its practices (in contrast to the SBC practice that Baptist state conventions can lay down beliefs and practices that determine whether or not a given church is acceptable for membership in their respective fellowships); and the principle of "sole conscience," which abhors doctrinal conformity (in contrast to the SBC requiring the signing on to creedal statements by any who would be its missionaries or serve in its denominational seminaries or offices).
In seeking unity among the many Baptist participants, those who planned this get-together selected Concern for the Poor as their theme for the conference. Recognizing that there are more than 2000 verses in Scripture that call upon the people of God to care for the poor, the organizers of the New Baptist Covenant decided that there would be no argument among those attending this gathering, given this focus of attention.
It seemed to work! There was a sense of joyful oneness pervading each and every session. In this respect, the New Baptist Covenant was in harmony with the defining mission of Sojourners. This movement lent support to the work of Jim Wallis, who has zeroed in on eliminating poverty as the primary concern of Sojourners.
The negatives of this meeting of Baptists included the absence of significant representatives from African-American denominations, even though the gathering was planned to follow the meetings of two of America's largest African-American denominations, and was held in the very same convention hall. It was reported that many of the members of these two large groups of Baptists were unable to finance staying in Atlanta for an extra three days, which attending the meeting of the New Baptist Covenant required.
Another shortcoming of this gathering was that there was no clear-cut vision of what the next steps should be. There were important questions that were not answered. Is the New Baptist Covenant supposed to function as some kind of new informally-organized denomination? Is the call to care for the poor, so eloquently prescribed in the speeches, going to be translated into some specific programs? Will there be a team of leaders to give direction and some kind of organization to this New Baptist Covenant? It should be noted that the executives of the represented Baptist groups have an upcoming meeting planned, at which time these and other questions probably will be answered.
Whatever might have been the shortcomings and critiques of what transpired in Atlanta, however, there emerged clear evidence that this New Baptist Covenant could be the beginning of something very significant for Baptists. It could represent a movement that could transcend the partisan politics, too often evident among Southern Baptists, and could be a major step in moving Baptists into being a visible and viable partner with other mainstream denominations.
A few of us around Sojourners have been reading award-winning Haitian-born writer Edwidge Danticat since she published her first novel Breath, Eyes, Memory in 1994. Ten years later we were thrilled when she sent us a lovely vignette, Indigo Girl, which wepublished in December 2004. It might be the only short story Sojourners has ever published.
When we heard that her newest book, Brother I'm Dying, dealt with the death of Danticat's 81-year-old uncle, the Reverend Joseph Dantica, who died in the custody of U.S. immigration officials while seeking political asylum, we knew we wanted her to tell Sojourners that story—and what it says about the deadly debacle that is our immigration policy today.
In March, Brother I'm Dying won the National Book Critics Circle award for best autobiography. "I only hope my dad and uncle are proud," Edwidge told me. "The book, I feel, was written with them and for them so the award too is for them."
From her home in Miami, Danticat graciously responded to our interview questions:
BERGER: As an artist you are able to witness against injustice through the crafting of story and word as you have done in Brother, I'm Dying. Does the book vindicate the indignity and death your uncle suffered? How has the experience of writing the book changed you spiritually?
DANTICAT: People sometimes think, or say, that you should have closure now, Edwidge. You've written this book. Writing the book was part of a spiritual process which does not end with the book being published though. I was changed a great deal by this process, of course. I lost two very important people to me, my father and my uncle. They both suffered so much at the end, in part so we—my family here—can thrive. The gift I ended up with at the end was my daughter, who was born as these men were dying. I wouldn't say that the book vindicates the death or deaths completely. It's certainly the only vindication we've had, so I am glad I wrote it.
Read the whole interview ("Death By Asylum," Sojourners April 2008) here.
Rose Marie Berger is an associate editor at Sojourners.
Alas for those who go down to Egypt for help
and who rely on horses,
who trust in chariots because they are many
and in horsemen because they are very strong,
but do not look to the Holy One of Israel
or consult the Lord!
Yet he too is wise and brings disaster;
he does not call back his words,
but will rise against the house of the evildoers,
and against the helpers of those who work iniquity.
Yesterday NPR ran a story about the on going Senate investigation of the so-called Grassley Six; Crefflo and Taffi Dollar, Paula and Randy White, Eddie Long, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyer – prosperity gospel preachers whose 501(c)(3) status is being questioned in light of the Bentleys and Leer jets being purchased with "non-profit" funds from their respective churches.
As a Lutheran, I fully reject the gospel of prosperity, primarily on the grounds that I'm pretty sure it makes Jesus throw up in his mouth a little bit every time he thinks of it.
The NRP story opens with an audio clip of a Kenneth Copeland sermon, "This is the word become flesh, the word become health and healing, the word become massive wealth." How one goes form the word become flesh - God entering fully into the muck of our existence in the scandal of an illegitimate child born in the filth of a barn, the Almighty slipping into skin in the most vulnerable and beautiful way possible - to word become massive wealth is beyond me. Unless one ignores the entirety of all four gospels, except a poor reading of John 10:10, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (NRSV) In a Joel Osteen sermon I've recently written about, he actually quotes that verse thusly: "Jesus came so that you can have an abundant life" - he equates life with financial prosperity. None of us truly know the mind of Christ, but my best guess is that he'd have something to say about this. We are left with precious little teachings from Jesus on many, many topics - wealth is not one of them. When Jesus spoke of wealth it was cautionary at best, and at worst, it was nearly condemning.
This is where things get uncomfortable. As I write snarky commentary about prosperity gospel preachers and how their lavish lifestyles are paid for primarily through the Social Security checks of the disempowered, I do so from the comfort of my 1948 brick ranch. My husband and I are a clergy couple, so everything we have is paid for by the tithes of others; our two cars (old but paid for), my expensive jeans, his garage full of back country gear, the $3 a dozen organic eggs in the fridge. All of it. I too live a lavish lifestyle funded by giving of the faithful and this realization is discomforting. It is undoubtedly the plank in my own eye.
Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran vicar living in Denver, Colorado where she is developing a new emerging church, House for all Sinners and Saints. She blogs at www.sarcasticlutheran.com and has a book for Seabury Press coming out this Fall; a theological and cultural commentary based on having watched 24 consecutive hours of Trinity Broadcasting Network and survived.
The patience of the people of Zimbabwe is absolutely incredible. They've been living a nightmare for years (inflation is so high that a second cup of coffee in half an hour can cost twice as much as the first) and they just endured a election campaign with serious instances of vote-rigging - from ghosts on the voters' registry to bribes offered for voting for the ruling party (ZANU-PF) - yet amazing hope was the dominant emotion as people went to the polls on March 29. The voting process was calm, and the day unusually quiet.
The polls closed at 7 p.m. on Saturday night. As I write, more than two full days have passed since then, but no official results in the presidential election have been announced and official Parliamentary and local results are only dribbling in. The entire country is holding its collective breath to see whether Robert Mugabe will relinquish his hold on the presidency or rig the results and stay in power after 28 years. As the time passes, the level of frustration is rising and the atmosphere is increasingly charged.
Within a few hours after the voting ended, results were posted outside every polling place in the country. Saturday night and Sunday during the day the tallies were collected and collated by representatives of the political parties and by independent observers. Preliminary results indicated an overwhelming victory for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition party, and the delay in publication of official election results is fueling suspicions that the president is refusing to step down and is cooking the results so he can stay in power. Pessimists had been predicting all along that Mugabe would steal the elections. Their fears may yet be realized.
Marie Dennis, executive director of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns and co-president of Pax Christi International, is serving as an election observer in Zimbabwe.
Over the weekend, James Dobson backed off his earlier assertion that he would not cast a vote for president this year if John McCain clinched the GOP nomination. Voting is a "God-given responsibility," Dobson told host Sean Hannity Sunday night on Hannity's America, and one that he plans to fulfill despite his disenchantment with all three leading candidates.
But where does that leave Dobson? Will he backpedal and now throw his support behind McCain? Not likely, at least not yet. Before signing off with Hannity, Dobson made it clear that McCain's support of the pro-life and pro-marriage planks in the Republican Party platform was not enough; he wants assurances from the Arizona senator that he will oppose embryonic stem-cell research as well. "That's a major one for me," Dobson said. "You can't really call yourself pro-life if you're going to kill those babies."
The question now is who will blink first. If McCain holds his ground—he supports federal funding for research on unused embryos from fertility clinics—he risks losing the percentage of the evangelical vote that Dobson continues to influence. With the presidency at stake, that's a risk McCain most likely won't take despite all the chatter about Dobson's waning influence among evangelicals.
Still, there is that chance that Dobson has painted himself into a corner on this one. As recently as two months ago, he adamantly stated that he would not vote for McCain. If McCain doesn't change his position on stem-cell research to Dobson's liking, that leaves Dobson with precious few choices—namely, a compromise vote for McCain, an unlikely vote for Ron Paul (assuming he gets on the ballot), or a write-in vote for his assumed candidate of choice all along, Mitt Romney.
This could prove to be a defining moment in the relationship between the GOP and a historically prominent leader of the religious right. The perception of Dobson as an important player in conservative politics just may hinge on McCain's response to what appears to be Dobson's line-in-the-sand challenge.
Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
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Sabbath ceasing [means] to cease not only from work itself, but also from the need to accomplish and be productive, from the worry and tension that accompany our modern criterion of efficiency, from our efforts to be in control of our lives as if we were God, from our possessiveness and our enculturation, and finally, from the humdrum and meaninglessness that result when life is pursued without the Lord at the center of it all.
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