What is the Gospel?

Posted on

Last week at her blog Rachel Held Evans proposed the question “What is the Gospel?” She received some interesting responses, demonstrating that this really isn’t a straightforward question. She asked a few of us to write down how we would answer that question so she could share our responses at her site as well. As soon as she addressed that question to me, I immediately started singing to myself that old CEF 5-Day Club standard “G-O-S-P-E-L Spells Gospel.” The lyrics in the song define the gospel as – “Jesus died for sinful men, but he arose and lives again. One day he’s coming for those who’ve trusted in him, coming to take us to heaven.” That answer to “what is the gospel?” is so ingrained in me that it is difficult to not just give it as my default answer – “What is the good news? That Jesus died on the cross for my sins.”

When I was 3 that answer was sufficient for me and so I said a prayer to invite Jesus into my heart. The good news as it were was all about me – making sure I got to go to heaven when I died. I didn’t stop to ask what Jesus meant about preaching the gospel of the kingdom, or what it meant when he said he had come to preach the gospel to the poor, or even what it meant to be a disciple and follow the disciplines Jesus demands of his own. I didn’t wonder why I was only taught the gospel about Jesus, and not the gospel of Jesus. I knew my response to “what is the gospel?” and so I didn’t even think to ask those questions for a long time.

Honestly, what really pushed me to start to see the gospel as being about more than just me was how the etymology of the word captured my attention. Wikipedia gives a brief history of the term as follows –

Good News is the English translation of the Koine Greek ευαγγέλιον (euangelion) (eu “good” + angelion “message”). The Greek term was Latinized as evangelium, and translated into Latin as bona annuntiatio. In Old English, it was translated as gĹŤdspel (gĹŤd “good” + spel “news”). The Old English term was retained as gospel in Middle English Bible translations and hence remains in use also in Modern English. 

I loved the dual meaning the term gōdspel – or good spell – evokes in modern English. As a major sci-fi/fantasy/mythology geek, I conjured up images of deep magic working to heal a broken world. The darkness that has crept into our world being fought by the good spells of the power of light.

But this play on words was more than just an interesting literary image for me; it pushed me to start thinking through what it really meant for all things to be reconciled to God. Like a good spell intended to transform the world and push back the darkness, the good news of Christ reaches further than I had ever imagined. The scriptures speak of God so loving the whole world that he sent his son Jesus. We also read of Jesus proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom where the oppressed are set free, the blind given sight, and the brokenhearted healed. The gospel of Jesus challenges believers to pray that God’s Kingdom will be manifest on earth as in heaven, that every person has their daily bread, and that all debts are forgiven. In these inclusive passages I began to see that the gospel as preached in scripture was far bigger than a formula that ensured I went to heaven when I died. Jesus was serious about bringing actual good news to all, and boldly proclaimed that in him this reconciliation of all things had begun. Broken relationships could be healed – shattered relationships within families, amongst nations, amidst creation, and between us and God could be finally be made right. This isn’t just good news for someday in heaven, for, as Jesus proclaimed, in him the prophesies of the poor finding hope, the oppressed being set free, and the blind finding sight are already fulfilled. Those who suffer from oppression and poverty have tangible hope here and now. The good spell has been cast, the deep magic is as work, and the light is pushing back the darkness as Christ reconciles all things to himself.

The gospel, the good news, is about so much more than an economic transaction where I get a ticket to heaven in exchange for intellectually assenting to an idea about Jesus. The gospel is good news for the world. It is about God loving the world enough to send his son and establish his Kingdom. It is the gospel of Jesus, the new way of being that he preached. This good news isn’t just something we believe in or talk about, but something we are called to celebrate and embrace. If it is truly good news we will joyfully accept the challenge to follow in the disciplines of Christ – being his hands and feet working to heal all shattered relationships through his reconciling power. We live out the good news to the world.

Read more

Money, Power, and The Price of Sugar

Posted on

At church on Sunday we read this quote by Martin Luther King Jr., said five months before his assassination –

“I say to you this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live. You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand of some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand. Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
You died when you refused to stand up for right.
You died when you refused to stand up for truth.
You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”

It struck me because just the night before I had witnessed fear and bullying used to silence the voice of justice. I had bought a ticket to attend Austin’s first ever Fair Trade Film Festival sponsored by Austin’s Ten Thousand Villages. They had gathered local fair trade groups and stores for a very festive market and had rented out a local theater to show three films dealing with trade issues followed by panel discussions. One of those films to be shown was the award winning documentary The Price of Sugar which exposes the abuses committed against Haitians working on the sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic. But that film ended up not being shown after Ten Thousand Villages received a letter from the lawyers representing Dominican plantation owners Philipe and Juan Vicini. The Vicini family has filed a defamation lawsuit against the film after several attempts to stop distribution of the film. The letter implied that if the lawsuit is won then any group that had chosen to show the film would face possible legal action as well. The powers that be at the non-profit Mennonite ministry decided they could not afford that risk and so chose not to show the film.

TPOS GENERIC 9_25_07 SMALLAnother film was shown and we were treated to hearing from a lawyer from the powerful law firm Patton Boggs as she read a prepared statement on behalf of the Vicini family. The family claims the film shows abuses and deplorable conditions and erroneously alleges that they occurred at plantations and sugar operations owned by the Vicinis. Their main argument is that a main subject in the film, the Rev. Christopher Hartley, who claimed to have discovered the atrocities, was “dismissed” from the Dominican Republic by the Catholic Church and therefore is an untrustworthy source. The lawyer actually told us that we should stop defending “sexy” films like this and focus on real issues in the world instead. When questioned she said that her purpose that night was to ensure that the Vicini’s side of the story was represented, but had no comment when confronted with the fact that their legal actions ensured that only the Vicini’s side got told at this film fest. Also when asked why her firm was defaming the Priest Christopher Hartley, she replied that since his bishop dismissed him there was cause to question his word.

I’ll be honest. Her words so enraged me, I was literally shaking. That money and power can bully those trying to bring justice into this world into silence infuriates me. I fully understand why Ten Thousand Villages backed down; they had to decide if they would risk their entire ministry to share this one particular story. But when the people who commit injustice are getting filthy rich off of abusing laborers and then can use that money to silence anyone who exposes their sin, there is something seriously wrong. And when the church takes their side as well, it is heartbreaking.

Father Christopher Hartley spent his early years working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. In 1997 he was sent to serve the poor in the Dominican Republic, but the more he witnessed the abuses the poor Haitian workers were subject to there, he realized he could not remain silent. Charity wasn’t enough; he had to fight against the systems that were causing the injustices in the first place. He started documenting what he saw and speaking up for improving worker conditions. This of course brought him into confrontation with the Vicini family – the wealthiest and most influential family in the DR. He was rocking the boat; the Vicini’s didn’t like it, so therefore the government didn’t like it, and so therefore the Catholic Church didn’t like it. His bishop removed him from the DR in 2006. Hartley commented, “The family, the government, and I think even the church was tired of me, I don’t think the church wanted to endure this constant bashing in every newspaper, day after day after day.” So like many priests that actually put into action a theology of liberation based on a deep appreciation of scripture, his voice became too controversial and had to be silenced. He is now working with the Sisters of Charity again.

It is one thing to give charity, but when people start addressing why charity is needed things get uncomfortable. Haitians are suffering from extreme abuses in the sugar fields in the DR, but when such a lucrative money-making enterprise gets questioned, those questioning voices are silenced in whatever way they can. Voices for justice, especially religious leaders who start acting like Jesus instead of just talking about him, face that silencing. Some end up murdered, others are shuffled to “safer” postings, and others are attacked by national media sources. Challenging injustice is dangerous, especially when it questions how people make their money.

It disgusts me that our world plays by the “he with the most money wins” rule. But when the legal system fails us, it is up to the people to work from below to make change. If money is all some people care about, then let’s make this about money. It took a grassroots boycott of sugar from the Caribbean slave plantations for the British government to finally start listening to William Wilberforce and ban slavery back in the 19th century. Almost all the sugar sold in the US comes from the DR, buying it funds the Vicinis and this system of modern day quasi-slavery and abuse. Buying fair trade sugar speaks with the only language these people hear – money – a language that is difficult to silence.

But it is also encouraging to hear Martin Luther King Jr. words. He had to pay the ultimate price for standing up for what is right. In the face of litigation and controversies like this, it is good to be reminded that if we fail to stand up for justice we are already dead.

Read more

Oil Spill Podcast

Posted on

So the latest Nick & Josh Podcast is up and it’s a roundtable discussion about the oil spill with Joshua Case, Ben Lowe, Tom Sine, and myself. The four of us discussed the (lack of a) Christian response to the oil spill in the gulf of Mexico as well as other issues facing American Christianity’s move towards more active caring for creation.

As I say in the podcast, I truly hope this oil spill serves as a wake-up call for America. While I fear it may be a news blip that captures our attention for a moment and then the real clean-up gets left to the handful of people who really care, I still have a bit of hope that it will force us to open our eyes to the need to rely less on oil. We all use oil, we all are to blame for demanding cheap oil in this country. We have a responsibility in this incident that we should own up to. I hope as responsible human beings we will be willing to make the sacrifices and changes necessary to turn away from environmentally hazardous sources of energy.

I hope too that Americans will use our outrage and voice to ensure BP is held accountable to clean up the mess they created as well. When incidents like this have occurred in other areas of the world, the major oil companies have often evaded any responsibility for their destruction of local environments and economies. I mention in Everyday Justice how ChevronTexaco has destroyed the Niger River Delta through similar oil spills and toxic fallout from their refineries. When local women there could no longer make a living fishing (as they had for generations) because of the pollution they protested and asked Chevron to clean up the mess they had made. Chevron hired local mercenaries to deal with the protest who ended up killing some of the women and burning their boats. Courts later decided that Chevron was not responsible for the actions of the mercenaries they hired. While these multinational companies have so far gotten away with pollution and atrocities in third world nations, perhaps the tide will shift now that America is affected. Granted, poor fishermen and Louisiana natives are not high on our country’s priority list (as seen by the response to Katrina), but at least there might be slightly stricter legal pressure to hold BP accountable in this situation. Or, at least, one can always hope.

So if you’re interested in exploring these topics further, download the podcast and join in on the conversation.

Read more

World Fair Trade Day

Posted on

May 8 is World Fair Trade Day. I thought I’d post the declaration for the day here. It’s a good reminder of why fair trade is important for helping bring about a better world. Check out the World Fair Trade Day site to see all the activities going on around the world. People whose lives have been changed simply because others are willing to trade fairly have great reason to celebrate on this day. So I encourage everyone to support them – in spirit, but also in choosing to tangibly help by purchasing fairly traded items whenever possible. As Trade As One told churches last Christmas, if every churchgoing American bought just one Fairly Traded item it would lift one million families out of abusive poverty for a year. That’s huge – but think of the impact if we choose to make ethical consumption part of our daily lifestyle.

So let’s celebrate the opportunity to love and care for the world by being fair with our dollars.

World Fair Trade Day 2010
8 May 2010, A Big Day for the Planet

World Fair Trade Day is a worldwide celebration of Fair Trade, initiative of the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO).

Fair Trade is a tangible and efficient response to poverty, economic and global food crises and climate change. The economic crisis confirms the need for trade to deliver sustainable livelihoods and development opportunities to small producers in the poorest countries of the world. This is evidenced by the fact that a third of the world population survives on less than US$2 per day.

“Fair Trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers – especially in the South. Fair Trade Organizations, backed by consumers, are engaged actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and in campaigning for changes in the rules and practice of conventional international trade.” FINE definition

The Fair Trade movement shares a vision of a world in which justice and sustainable development are at the heart of trade structures and practices which allow for a decent work and dignified livelihood and a fully developed human potential of small producers. Trade can be a fundamental driver of poverty reduction and greater sustainable development. Through Fair Trade small producers have the capacity to take more control over their work and their lives. Citizens, from small producers to informed consumers, and institutions worldwide are supportive of responsible production, trading and consumption practices and of Fair Trade.

World Fair Trade Day (WFTDay) is an initiative of the WFTO, and is supported by thousands of citizens, from producers to consumers, Fair Trade Organizations, social and environmental movements, local authorities, national governments and multilateral institutions all around the planet. During WFTDay hundreds of events will celebrate Fair Trade and trade justice.

The World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) is the global network of Fair Trade Organizations around the planet, from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and North America Pacific Rim. It represents more than 350 Fair Trade Organizations from more than 70 countries.

Read more

Power and the Emerging Church

Posted on

In this ongoing conversation around the question of the emerging church and race, I’ve encountered some frustration in regards to how leadership and power are defined by the various contributors.  On one hand you have groups of people pointing at the emerging church saying that the leaders need to take the initiative in working for racial reconciliation by abdicating power in favor of voices from the margins.  On the other hand, voices within the emerging conversation express a reluctance to claim power advocating instead for an open-sourced village green communal structure.  These divergent ideals of leadership have in recent discussions caused much confusion and in some cases anger and resentment.

I understand that in many ways this is just one more example of those who follow postmodern philosophy being misunderstood and opposed by others.  In deconstructing the idea of power most postmoderns value flattened structures over hierarchical ones.  In their mind to create a system where one person is empowered implies that other people will be disempowered.  To avoid such cultural stratification, they choose to employ symbiotic instead of hierarchical leadership structures.  In symbiotic systems all voices are valued because we all need each other to survive.

Naturally, this conception of power meets resistance, some of it well deserved.  Postmodern philosophy and conceptions of identity and power have been harshly criticized by some proponents of feminist and liberation theology.  As they argue, it isn’t fair that right when previously marginalized groups like women, minorities, and queers were beginning to gain a distinct voice and power within the theological world this new philosophy comes up and challenges the very idea of identity and power.  It is hard for an identity based group to essentialize themselves and say that the power held by white men needs to be given instead to ____ (women, the poor, immigrants, queers, Asians, Latinas…) when the very idea of reducing oneself to such a category is being questioned alongside the very conception of power itself.

In truth, I am conflicted on this.  I agree with the need to not essentialize.  Who I am cannot simply be reduced to my gender, or sexuality, or economic status.  And I fully support the idea of flattened leadership where all voices are valued equally.  I promote the biblical idea that in Christ there is neither slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female.  At the same time I know how easy it is for a new philosophy that questions power roles to simply become an excuse to preserve the status quo without ever actually hearing the voice of the other.  If one isn’t aware of how one’s philosophy preserves the exclusion of others, laziness can become another means of oppression.  As a woman I’ve fought this.  I’ve repeatedly been annoyed when in discussions asking men to stand up against misogyny in the church by supporting women’s ordination I am told, “well, we shouldn’t waste time on that issue since we really just need to rethink how we do church altogether.”  That response obviously doesn’t grasp what it means to live symbiotically with each other.

I’ve also encountered those that approach power openly who tell me, “step-up, we’d love to hear your voice.”  It took me a long time to actually trust those voices and to take them up on it, mostly because I didn’t fully understand that there were people who truly did hold power in an open hand.  I expected there to be hoops to jump through, votes to be taken, and popularity contest to be won, but when it came right down to it, none of that stuff actually existed.  I think this is where the emerging conversation is most often misunderstood.  People just don’t believe that an open power structure really can exist and so they demand we force our supposed leaders to take responsibility and start acting like leaders by setting the boundaries for this conversation.  They want us to play by their rules, and when we don’t they feel like we are deliberately excluding them even as we repeatedly ask them to construct the conversation with us.  I think a lot of work truly needs to be done to communicate this open shared power system more fully, but I also implore the critics to take the time to understand the real philosophical beliefs about power that many emergents hold.

At the same time, I understand that traditional assumptions of power will always be projected upon even those who try to subvert it.  Yes, there are people in the emerging movement who do develop followings and that gives them a certain sort of power under traditional notions of leadership.  It doesn’t help that some elements loosely associated with emerging do things like charge extra at conferences for passes to the speakers lounge where the lowly attendee can hobnob with the powerful speakers.  But for those that actually do value shared power, they constantly face accusations of greed or selling-out if they try to act like a leader.  They have to choose to remain true to their own belief system and get crucified by outsiders wanting them to hold power more tightly, or compromise their beliefs and get mocked from within.  Navigating amidst diverse philosophies and demanding factions while seeking to love and respect all is a difficult task.

I personally believe that the emerging church needs to be more transparent about our open power structures.  We can’t get sidetracked in discussions about how to dismantle other people’s power structures, instead we need to be proactive in working on how we build and grow and rely on each other.  If we truly need each other, we need to admit that openly and seek out the other to learn from her.  Waiting for others to come to us and telling them to “please, step up already” is too unsettling for those still clinging to traditional conceptions of power.  For symbiosis to really work, we must always be in flux, being challenged and fed in mutually beneficial ways.  The point isn’t to essentialize or include the token other, but to admit we cannot survive apart from the whole body of Christ.  This goes beyond, while still embracing, the need to give up privilege for the sake of the other.  The point isn’t to simply shift power and privilege from one group to another and then deal with the vicissitudes of that structure, but to move towards this symbiotic ideal.

I appreciated Eliacin Rosario-Cruz’s comment to me on this topic recently on his blog – “I think we need to confront the myth of lack/giving away power. What I mean by that is, our power does not disappear just by thinking we do not have or we are giving away. Kenosis is performative.”  All sides in this discussion need to take a step back and consider how they view power.  Some need to acknowledge and respect the postmodern mindset, others need to understand that that mindset can never be passive.  Sharing power must be active and never become an excuse to exclude by inaction.  We all have a lot to learn about how to make this work, but I would hope the conversation can develop in a way that that doesn’t mock or silence any contributing voice.

Read more

Packaging the Voice of the Other

Posted on

After the synchroblog last week and all the discussions surrounding the question of if the emerging church is too white, I’ve had a number of interesting discussions regarding the ways in which the voice of the subjugated other (subaltern) finds a space to be heard. For better or worse, I want to think out loud here and blog through a couple of those discussions that have really been running through my head these past few days.

A topic that I’ve repeatedly returned to this past year or so are the ways we have to contain the voice of the other in a safe and nonthreatening package in order to begin to hear it. In its most negative fashion this involves the essentializing and the trivializing of the other. We reduce other cultures to just the physical artifacts of their culture – their food, their music, their dance, their tourist appeal. Being open to the voice of the other simply becomes being willing to eat a new type of food, watching a film about an African safari, or putting on a cd of “world beat” music. On one hand, I know people who are so closed off to understanding anything outside of themselves that they can’t even accept these essentialized versions of the other. From those who think it is too exotic or weird to try new foods to those who think it is un-American to eat tacos, stepping outside of the known can be difficult for some people. That said it is often far easier to contain different voices in our interpretation of their cultural trappings or in an amusing stereotyped version of themselves than to actually engage.

So I find it interesting that one of the few places in American culture where the non-white male is allowed a central role and non-essentializing voice in the realm of sci-fi and fantasy. I first started think about this awhile back when I read the plea to Pixar to make movies about “non-princess girls and the adventures they go on.” So many of the movies and books targeted to children are about boys and their adventures (with the occasional girl sidekick). If there is a widely popular story of a girl going on an adventure it almost always takes place in a fantasy world. Lucy steps through the wardrobe into Narnia, Alice falls down the rabbit-hole into Wonderland, Dorothy is whisked away in a twister to Oz, Meg travels along the tesseract. Apparently little girls doing strong things like adventures can’t happen in real life, so they must be told in the realm of fantasy. (all those character’s mental stability is questioned when they return to the real world as well). Women having a voice and strength and power is a safe topic if it is contained by fantasy.

This ability to safely present the voice of the other under the guise of fantasy is well known in the world of Star Trek. When the first Enterprise embarked on its five year mission it truly went where no one had gone before by challenging the way race was portrayed in Hollywood. Women and minorities were cast as scientists and officers instead of in stereotypical roles (even as they still made use of stereotypes). The first interracial kiss on television was between Captian Kirk and Lt. Uhura (although to do so they had to pretend Uhura was possessed by a white alien at the moment). Challenging those boundaries through the setting of  futureistic outer-space was the safe way the conversation could be handled by the average viewer.

I recall reading an interview with one of my favorite actors, Alexander Siddig, on why he appreciated his role at Dr. Bashir on Star Trek: DS9. He said that for the first and only time in his life he wasn’t cast as “the Arab” instead Star Trek gave him the chance to play a brilliant doctor who just happened to be Arab. Since the series ended (and especially since 9/11) he has only been offered roles of strictly Arab characters – generally as some sort of terrorist. (since the interview he has played the non-race restricted roles of the Angel Gabriel in The Nativity Story and Hermes in Clash of the Titans – once again both roles set in the realm of fantasy and the supernatural). In the “real world” we are only comfortable seeing the Arab man as a terrorist, it is only in fantasy that he can have a voice as a person and not just a racial stereotype.

I am really torn with this “safe packaging” approach to listening to and respecting the voice of the other. It is demeaning and essentializing to say that women or minorities can only have a voice in the most trivial of ways or in futuristic or fantasy realms. But at the same time, presenting visions of the way we want the world to be through story form is the easiest way to get people’s subconscious to change. There is power in story and certain people who might resist respecting someone different from them in real life can suspend disbelief within the confines of the “impossible.” I guess what I am wondering is, can we even say the subaltern has a voice if it only appears within these sorts of safe packaging? Is that a real voice? Should this habit be undermined, or is it the best we have to work with at the moment?

Read more

Celebrate Earth Day with Everyday Justice

Posted on

Earth Day is turning 40 and what better way to celebrate our commitment to sustainable living than with our everyday actions. Finding doable ways each of can commit to loving God by caring for creation is a significant part of what it means to pursue everyday justice. So in honor Earth Day, Amazon is offering a free download of the Kindle edition of Everyday Justice.

That’s right – a free digital copy of Everyday Justice!

From midnight to midnight on Thursday April 22 (Earth Day) downloading Everyday Justice from Amazon will cost you nada. So there’s no excuse to not find out simple everyday ways that you can care for our world and the people who inhabit it. And I know, not everyone has a Kindle. It doesn’t matter, there are Kindle apps available for Macs, and PCs, and iphones, and BlackBerry’s, and ipads. If you are reading this blog, you most likely own at least one of those. Remember – this is only a 24 hour deal, so seize the opportunity while it’s hot.

So celebrate Earth Day and download your free Kindle copy of Everyday Justice.

Read more

What is Emerging?

Posted on

About a decade ago I recall as a volunteer youth leader at my church sitting in the leader’s training session one evening. This was the time when the youth pastor and pastor would walk us volunteers through the lesson we were to lead the students through each night. The topic for that week was something about basics of the Christian faith and we were to discuss with the kids what exactly theology was. The correct answer we were supposed to give was something about systematic theology using Wayne Grudem’s system as the best example. Somewhat naively I asked, “so why don’t we want the kids to know about all the other ways people do theology?” I was met with blank stares and was told that systematic theology is the only sort of theology there is. I responded, “but what about the Christians in other cultures who don’t think in the same patterns as Westerners who prefer more narrative approaches to theology?” to which I was told, “that stuff isn’t real theology, systematic theology is all that these students will ever need to know about.”

While I might still have that conversation in various churches these days, I feel that something has begun to shift in the church since that time. Our globalized world has forced a new understanding of how we conceive of our faith to emerge. It is harder to deliberately ignore the diversity of voices speaking into this thing we call Christianity. While some might still proclaim the other to be wrong simply for being other, it is impossible to deny that the other exists. This isn’t about being open minded or being politically correct, it is simply a necessary reaction to the nature of the world we live in. Other theologies, other voices, other ways of reading scripture exist (other always being relative to one’s vantage point). We are too interconnected to ignore them or pretend they don’t matter. They are simply part of the air we breathe as Christians which is becoming increasingly impossible to not acknowledge.

I am reminded of how my exasperated professor dealt with my rather obstinate historical research methods class in college. A few of the students had dismissed his attempts to teach them differing approaches to how people approach historical research as supportive of revisionist history (and therefore evil). They desperately wanted to cling to the notion that the “God Blessed America” version of history they believed was in fact the only true version of history – any attempts to tell the stories from the margins of women or minorities were simply revisionist corruptions. So the professor had us read a study that detailed the various ways the history of Williamsburg has been presented to tourists over time. Depending on what was going on in the world at the time, the historical story as it was told by the reenactors varied tremendously over the years. Each version had an agenda and portrayed American colonialism in a way that shored up that agenda. It was difficult for the students who were insisting that the very hero-centric pro-God version taught under the influence of 1950’s anti-communism was the real history to continue to bang that drum when the evidence of how history is manipulated by the teller was laid out so blatantly before their eyes.

The world has been blatantly thrust in front of our eyes, and even the church can no longer resist this emerging consciousness. What stories get told and whose theology gets privileged can no longer be determined out of ignorance. In our interconnected world, the voices of womanist and feminist theologians, the cries of the liberation and postcolonial theologies, and the narrative understandings of scripture that focus on exile, family, and oppression are accessible to even the average Christian. The church is far bigger than some of us might have once believed, we just had to be forced to open our eyes and see it. While this might seem a tad patronizing to those outside the American church system (I can see them rolling their eyes at our elation of our delayed “discovery” of the other), I for one am grateful for this emerging sensibility in the church (even if it is long overdue). Coming face to face with the diversity in our unity might not imply immediate acceptance or respect or understanding, but it pushes us outside of ourselves. Seeing a slightly clearer picture of the world as it is forces us to acknowledge and often wrestle with what we see.

Call it interconnectedness, or globalization, or simply awareness of our neighbor, the church is emerging or perhaps converging upon itself. What gives me hope when I consider what is emerging in the church is that the conversation pushes us into this converging community. And when we are in community, when we start to actually know our neighbors, is when we can start to live out the call to love our neighbors.

This entry is part of a Synchroblog on “What is Emerging?” in the church today. Here’s a list of other contributions to this conversation. I’ll add more as they are posted – feel free to write your own post and send me the link!

Pam Hogeweide compares the emerging church movement to a game of ping pong.
Sarah-Ji comments that the emerging questions people are asking are far bigger than any defined movement.
Sharon Brown writes about using labels as an excuse.
Peter Walker reflects on how the emerging church conversation helped him recognize his power and privlege as a white male.
Dave Huth posts a on new ways to talk about religion.
Kathy Escobar finds hope in seeing a spirit of love in action emerging in the church.
Nadia Bolz-Weber reflects on the the beautiful things she sees emerging in her church community.
Chad Holtz writes on our Our Emerging Jewishness.
Julie Kennedy describes her organic entry into the emerging church and reflects on moving forward with a new public face.
Dave Brown comments on the emerging church and swarm theory.
Danielle Shroyer reflects on what is emerging in the church.
Brian Merritt offers his pros and cons of the emerging church.
Julie Clawson is grateful for emerging globalized Christianity.
Susan Philips points out that emergence happens as G-d redeems our shattered realities.
Mike Clawson reflects on the non-western voices that brought him to the emerging conversation.
Jake Bouma suggest that what is emerging is a collapse into simplicity.
Liz Dyer believes a chastened epistemology is a valuable characteristic emerging out of the church today.
Rachel Held Evans writes on what is changing in the church.
Tia Lynn Lecorchick describes the emerging movement as a wood between worlds (from The Magician’s Nephew).
Amy Moffitt shares her journey towards a theology of humility.
Travis Mamone comments on the need for the emerging church to rely on the word of God.
Sa Say reflects on the the prick of doubt.
David Henson lists what he sees as what is emerging in the church.
Angela Harms writes in in defense of emergent.
Wendy Gritter asks how we can listening to the voices from the margins.
Bruce Epperly comments on the largeness of spirit of emerging spirituality.
Linda Jamentz reflects on listening to the voices from the margins in church.
Lisa Bain Carlton hopes that our emerging conversation can respond humbly to our moment in time.
Christine Sine asks how far are we willing to be transformed.
Lori Allen Wilson reflects on what is emerging in the younger generations.
Cynthia Norris Clack sees love emerging in the church.
Bob Fisher lists the values emerging in his faith community
Mihee Kim-Kort writes of the conversions and conversations she sees around her.
Ann Catherine Pittman believes that what is emerging in the church is inclusivity.
Matthew Gallion describes how emergence is spread thin across the whole church.
Phil Snider offers guarded praise of emergent.

Read more

Faith Journeys and Testimonies

Posted on

I was filling out an application recently and was asked to write a short statement on my “personal faith pilgrimage.” I grew up in the Christian world, and so have had to write out my testimony dozens of times. But this wasn’t asking for my testimony, but for the story of my faith pilgrimage. On one hand it might be easy to assume that they are one and the same, but the difference in terminology between “faith pilgrimage” and “testimony” intrigued me and got me thinking about how even how the question gets asked influences how our story gets told. I realized that not just my story itself, but how I tell my faith story has changed over the years.

Out of sheer curiosity, I went through the archives on my computer and read through testimonies I had written in the past. These were my faith stories as I had written them to apply to Wheaton College Grad School, to work at a Baptist church, and to serve as a church-planter (and no, I will not be posting them here). Each of these focused on two main events in my life – when at the age of three I prayed to ask Jesus to come into my heart and my decision at age 12 to “make my faith my own.” Other themes – feeling the need to tell others about Jesus and the rollercoaster emotions of feeling close to Jesus – supported these two primary events. That decision of where I was going when I died and my choice to stay in the church were what I knew those reading my story wanted to hear – they were what I believed to be the most important moments in my faith history.

But these days I find it uncomfortable to be asked to tell of the moment I became a Christian. I don’t believe that some magical transaction occurred on Oct. 17, 1981 as I sat on my dad’s lap and repeated a few words after him. Before that moment I had believed like any child in what I had been told about Jesus, saying that prayer was simply part of my formative journey as a believer. Similarly, I no longer talk about my faith in terms of certainty regarding where I will go when I die. I was recently told that a local church in its membership interviews asks the question “if you died tonight how certain are you of where you will go?” The response they are looking for to allow people to continue in the membership process is “100% certain I will go to heaven.” Those that reply otherwise are unknowingly streamed into a Christianity 101 class instead of the membership class. My response to this (even ignoring the whole question of if we go to heaven or if as the Bible says are resurrected to the new earth) is to ask what is the role of faith if certainty is what is required. These terms of “moments of decision” and “certainty” are no longer part of my lexicon as I tell my faith story.

These days my testimony is less an argument written to prove to others that I have jumped through the right hoops it takes to be a Christian, and more of a travel narrative of my faith pilgrimage. My story has changed, my narrative style has changed, and even what I call it has changed. I know I have not arrived at anything, I value faith far more than certainty, and what I believe is no more important than how I live out that belief. My story encompasses those changes and embraces my questions and doubts as simply being an authentic part of my journey as opposed to evidence that could be used against me in determining if I am in or out. I am still on this journey, even as I tell of its twists and turns. What I learn along the way and terrain I am traversing at the moment as I follow Jesus matter just as much as any particular moment along the way. My story has become more of an epic adventure as opposed to a persuasive essay.

Read more

Sojourners Response

Posted on

Here’s is my response to Soong-Chan Rah’s and Jason Mach’s article in the May issue of Sojourner’s Magazine. This response was first posted at the God’s Politics’s blog.

sojo May_10_244x303A truth that I’ve repeatedly been reminded of this past year is the utter inappropriateness of basing one’s identity on the belittling of others. What it means to be a man of integrity cannot be defined through the mocking of Asian culture. What it means to be a Real Man cannot be defined through the debasement of women. And what it means to be a real 21st Century Christian cannot be defined through the dismissal of the entire Western church.

So I am having a hard time with Soong-Chan Rah’s and Jason Mach’s article on the emerging church, even as I believe they are addressing a vital issue. Let me say upfront that racial reconciliation needs to happen in the American church, and that to be healthy the church must start listening to all of its diverse members. I have no quarrel with that message in the article, I just don’t understand why Emergent must be the sacrificial lamb in this conversation. After reading Rah’s chapter on the emerging church in his book, The Next Evangelicalism, I, with others, wondered at the caricature he presented of the emerging conversation. In order to support his thesis that the white western captivity of the church must come to an end, he presented a picture of the emerging church as a bunch of trendy looking white guys who deliberately exclude racial minorities. A portrayal that resembles no part of the emerging world I have ever seen. I know he was repeatedly called out on this very issue, so I had hoped that in this article there would be a bit more journalistic integrity. But once again, we have the same skewed stereotype of emergents (even as the article exclusively quotes women and racially diverse emerging leaders who are seemingly counterexamples to its thesis). This inaccurate portrayal thus functions as a straw man that can easily be attacked and dismissed as standing in the way of a more global and diverse emerging Christianity.

The article asserts – “In truth, the term “emerging church” should encompass the broader movement and development of a new face of Christianity, one that is diverse and multi-ethnic in both its global and local expressions. It should not be presented as a movement or conversation that is keyed on white middle- to upper-class suburbanites. … If the label of the emerging church is to have a future, then the term needs to be reclaimed and disassociated from the specific brand of Emergent, and applied much more broadly to the church around the world”

Here’s the thing, every emergent and emerging Christian I know would agree with most of that statement. We know this is about a broader, global movement and have no delusions that white suburbanites are its center or future. And almost all of us agree that we need to intentionally listen to and learn from a wide diversity of voices within the church. We are part of the same team, working towards the same goals. Of course, Emergent is not perfect or above critique. Of course, it isn’t the sum of the emerging conversation. No one ever said it was. Emergent serves to network and resource the emerging conversation, doing its imperfect best to make this shared vision a reality. So why throw us under the bus and say we need to be kicked out of the conversation?

The thing is, I get where the small kernel of truth in their stereotypes came from. Over the past 15-20 years, the church has been attempting to make sense of the shift worldwide to a globalized, post-colonial, post-modern culture. Although this shift manifests differently around the world, we are all too interconnected to not be affected in some way. Early on in the contemporary Evangelical church these shifts were seen as simply a generational phenomenon prompting discussion on how to make church relevant to young people. Many churches jumped on the bandwagon of how to do trendy church, and yes, publishers attempted to capitalize on it as well. Since the money in the evangelical world in America historically supports charismatic white men, they became the poster children of the conversation. But as the conversation matured, others realized that what was emerging in the world was far more significant than generational trends, and so started to ask questions about how the church is held captive to culture and modern philosophies. Dialogues across diverse Christian traditions helped begin to heal wounds caused by racial and denominational divisions. These new relationships blurred boundaries both in and out of the church, making it impossible to quantify the number of churches participating in the conversation.

These emerging conversations and relationships brought renewed faith to some, but frightened or didn’t go far enough for others. Many of those (including publishers) who were simply riding the waves of cultural trends jumped ship and moved on to the “next big thing” (New Calvinism anyone?). This rejection of what was emerging worldwide was often rooted in a rejection of the very outside perspectives and theologies now beginning to be heard from women, racial minorities, and Queer believers. The reality is that the conversation is diverse (imperfectly so, but diverse nonetheless), and to dismiss it as being all about hip white males is hurtful to the rest of us contributing to the conversation who don’t fit that stereotype. Pretending we are invisible simply perpetuates the myth that we don’t exist at all. Sure, it is still a daily struggle be heard in a world that often clings to the vestiges of patriarchy, racism, and bigotry, but our voices are still there (even if marketplace Christianity isn’t throwing money our way).

I am Emergent and I don’t fit their stereotype. I am about the most un-hip person in the world. I might be white and youngish, but I am also physically handicapped and female. I am not one of the pretty people, I have no sense of style, I don’t listen to cool bands, my hair is a disaster, I am awkward, introverted, and a total bookworm. In most emerging communities I have participated in, I am generally one of the youngest people there. My friends are culturally, racially, generationally and theologically diverse and are (mostly) as uncool and imperfect misfits as myself (sorry guys, you know I love you, but it’s true). But we care about what God is doing in the world. We care about justice, we care about racial reconciliation, we care about making sure we listen to previously marginalized voices (and we continue to fight for them when they are not heard). Some of my friends have never heard of the term “emerging church” and some of us volunteer our time to help support this conversation through the network of Emergent Village. We have a lot to learn and a long way to go. I know that none of us desire to cling onto power for the sake of white western culture, but we also feel no need to utterly reject and condemn that entire culture. Healing and emergence in the church will never take place through the silencing of voices we don’t like or the caricaturing of those we don’t understand. There are wounds dealt to persons of color, to queers, and to women that the church universal must work to heal. But if we share the same dream of healing those wounds, why can’t we stop fighting amongst ourselves and figure out this emerging thing together?

Read more