I am utterly compelled that the thought and praxis of the Radical Reformation uniquely confronts the weaknesses of North American Evangelicalism, a tradition credited (through the almost universal marriage with the GOP) with the 8-years of unjust Bush policies (two wars, the Patriot Act, trickle-down economics, etc), as well as a virtual obsession with “biblical” issues like abortion & gay marriage (and, yes, Obama has not fared much better in his quest to set records with drones and deportations). 

In addition, Anabaptism is well-equipped to confront narcissism, instant gratification, consumerism and celebrity worship saturating us everyday.  As Nancey Murphy wrote a few years back, referring to the “distinctive” characteristics of Anabaptism (nonviolence, revolutionary subordination, the separation of church and state and learning to live with less),

“All four of these radical-reformation distinctives can be seen as strategies for living in such a way as to curb the will-to-power.”

With this intense contest to define what Christianity looks like in North America,   consider a recent notable incident. At a conference entitled Anabaptism and Contemporary Baptists, before 500 seminary students and scholars, the uber-power-and-popular invited guest, Evangelical megachurch pastor and author Rick Warren, triumphantly proclaimed,

“For 32 years, we have been building Saddleback Church on the lessons I’ve learned from the Anabaptists.”

Many Christians from Mennonite, Brethren and other Anabaptist traditions were giddy, even felt vindicated, that their beloved Radical Reformation tradition might, in fact, be responsible for birthing the 20,000 member Saddleback Church, with its menu of 6 services per weekend and Warren’s magnum opus Purpose Driven Life (2002), with it’s purported distribution of 40 million. Could it be that the Radical Reformation can take credit for (or even had a small part in) birthing one of the most popular church movements in North American Christian history?  I think not. 

To be fair, to my knowledge, Warren has never actually called himself an “Anabaptist.”  At Southewestern Baptist Conference, he was simply contending that the Radical Reformation has had a strong influence on the “success” of his church, starting in 1981 when he committed a year to studying the early Anabaptist movement.  However, the simple fact that Warren would be invited by Southwestern Baptist and gleefully endorsed by contemporary Anabaptist leaders raises serious questions.  As a former attendee and volunteer at Warren’s Saddleback Church, I would like to highlight 5 areas of concern that “The Rick Warren Incident” raises for all of us prophetically ministering (one way or another) from a North American Anabaptist homebase.

Just so you know where I’m coming from, I believe a few details are warranted detailing my own experience with Warren and Saddleback Church.  I attended Saddleback and volunteered in the High School Ministry for a few years after I graduated from college.  Warren and his congregation of thousands have a warm, non-confrontational & fun approach to church.  By and large, the purpose-driven tribe is tremendously sincere and quite pleasant to be around.  I’ve actually only met Warren once in passing, but my wife’s family is quite close to the Warren family and both Rick and his wife Kay have been tremendously supportive during this very difficult 2011-12 (my father-in-law died at 57 in September after a short battle with pancreatic cancer).  I share this because I (1) have no intention for this to be a personal attack on Warren’s character or credibility and (2) I have no reason to be personally angry or disappointed with Warren. My goal is for this post to be part of a wider intramural Anabaptist dialogue about how we respond to Christian celebrities who claim the Anabaptist label. After all, in this cultural milieu, celebrities give identity to the products they endorse. 

Since our days serving at Saddleback, my wife and I have attended Fuller Theological Seminary and, through much reading and dialogue, have become compelled by the Radical Reformers of the 16th century, particularly how contemporary progressive Anabaptists like Jim McClendon, Nancey Murphy, John Howard Yoder, Elaine Enns & Ched Myers have interpreted, practiced and advocated for the Tradition.  Of course, because our early decades of Christian discipleship were significantly influenced by the conservative Evangelicalism of Warren, we continue to define our current Christian philosophy and praxis over against Warren’s Evangelical Purpose Driven model.  This gives you a small glimpse of why I was so shocked to read online that Warren (of all people) was invited to be a featured speaker, rubbing shoulders with Anabaptist scholars at a seemingly distinguished conference on Anabaptist thought and praxis.

With this full autobiographical disclosure, I present to you my 5 reasons why Warren cannot possibly be an Anabaptist and, more importantly, why we Anabaptists (especially more progressive participants within the Radical Reformation) ought to clarify that Warren’s brand of Christian faith is not remotely representative of what it means to be “Anabaptist.”

1.  His Pseudo-Separation of Church and State

“It nonetheless tends to be the case, in the experience of the Christian community, that the only way in which faith can become the official ideology of a power elite in a given society is if Jesus Christ ceases to be concretely Lord. Some other value: power, mammon, fame, efficacy, tends to become the new functional equivalent of deity.”–John Howard Yoder

On the surface, with his language, Warren comes across as quite Anabaptist in regards to the legendary separation of church/state stance of 16th century Schleitheim and beyond.  In a recent interview he said,

“I believe in a separation of church and state, not a separation of faith and politics.” 

Sounds good, but over the past few years, Warren has been known to call an audible on more than one occasion. In a video blog to his congregation just days before the 2008 election, Warren said “We support Proposition 8 [the CA law banning same-sex marriage] and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage then you need to support Proposition 8.  Now I will never endorse a candidate, but on moral issues I come out very clear…”

His stance on “moral issues” is simply code for following the conservative Evangelical-GOP political marriage of the past 30 years.  For instance, with less than a week before the 2004 General Election, Warren sent out an email to his congregation.  Here’s an excerpt:

But for those of us who accept the Bible as God’s Word and know that God has a unique, sovereign purpose for every life, I believe there are 5 issues that are non-negotiable. To me, they’re not even debatable because God’s Word is clear on these issues. In order to live a purpose-driven life - to affirm what God has clearly stated about his purpose for every person he creates - we must take a stand by finding out what the candidates believe about these five issues, and then vote accordingly.

5. What does each candidate believe about euthanasia - the killing of elderly and invalids?

This was an obvious endorsement of Bush without actually spelling out his name for his congregation.  Warren’s legendary quote is “I’m not right-wing or left-wing: I’m for the whole bird.” (I’ve heard him say this on 3 separate occasions) However, the evidence shows over and over that he only flaps his right-wing.  Check his twitter feed (sometimes a dozen or more tweets per day) and you’ll find one thinly veiled reference to the culture war (always conservative talking points) after another.

In addition to walking this fine line, Warren waded through theocratic waters in the 90s when he successfully sued the federal government for an unlimited parsonage exemption.  Back in ‘93, he deducted every penny of his $77,000+ salary as a “housing allowance” and paid zero taxes to the federal government.  He lives in the plush Dove Canyon gated community of South Orange County. Remember: only those employed at houses of worship are allowed the personage exemption. Not those working for non-profits in the innercity or Appalachia or anywhere else.  For many, this would seem like a bit of an entanglement of church-state affairs. It would be a stretch to think that those who signed the Schleithem Confession back in 1527 would be for an unlimited parsonage exemption today. 

2.  His Obsession with Connecting to Power & Numerical Success

“Down the long perspective of the future [the Anabaptist] saw little chance that the mass of humankind would enter such a brotherhood with its high ideals. Hence he anticipated a long and grievous conflict between the church and the world.”–Harold Bender, The Anabaptist Vision (1944)

Saddleback Church’s enormous success in recruiting thousands of members in southern Orange County over the past three decades is not, in itself, proof that he is not an Anabaptist.  What goes against the ethos of historic Anabaptism, however, is how Warren himself points to Saddleback’s size as an indication of God’s blessing.   

This ethos is illuminated well in mass email sent to every member of his congregation on July 22, 2008, when Warren announced the Civil Forum dialogue with Obama and McCain as a “historic event coming up at Saddleback,” positing that “[S]ince the founding of our nation, no church has ever been given this kind of opportunity.”  Warren, interestingly writing from Sao Paulo, Brazil on a multi-country tour of Latin American P.E.A.C.E churches (churches under the Saddleback Church brand), noted that “[B]oth men have been friends of mine since before either decided to run for president,” adding that both Barack Obama and John McCain had participated in Saddleback’s Global AIDS Summit in November ’07, and, in addition, both officially support the P.E.A.C.E. Plan and have given written endorsements for the P.E.A.C.E. Coalition.  The upcoming Civil Forum would give Saddleback members an “opportunity to [unselfishly] serve the entire nation we love,” but also “millions of Americans will be introduced to Saddleback Church through the live media coverage.” 

Warren awkwardly ends his email with a plea for help to resolve two challenging obstacles.  First, they needed to decide how to divvy up the tickets. Warren simply asks, “What would Jesus do?”  Second, they needed to make a decision about how to provide high definition cameras for the event.  Warren explains, “For some time we’ve been planning to upgrade our 15 year old video cameras, lights, and mixing boards to high definition digital - but we haven’t had the $2 million to purchase it. It is now about to die and we must install new equipment before this national broadcast.  We need a miracle.  Here, Warren commends, for the second time in the email, the community’s unselfishness as “the very reason… that God has singled out our church for this national privilege and has positioned Saddleback Church for national and world influence.”

Warren believes that Saddleback can be a witness to the wider world through the various mediums of our culture, in this case connecting the church with the exuberance of electoral presidential politics.  This kind of Evangelical-Capitalist logic posits that, through privileged participation in the political process and through free access to all the major networks, a huge audience will know about Saddleback Church (at least, its pastor and its facilities) and then become “Christians.”  Only this sort of theology of mission could warrant spending $2 million on high-end video equipment.

I could cite several examples of Warren connecting himself or his church with political, corporate or celebrity power to use for the glory of God or the spread of the gospel.  Consider when Warren held Saddleback’s 30th Anniversary bash on Easter Sunday at Angel Stadium with special guests: The Jonas Brothers. 

Or coming up this week: a special seminar with Man Versus Wild’s Bear Grylls.

I’ll never forget the Christmas service I attended at Saddleback just a few years ago when Warren had a special announcement: his good friend Sean Hannity of Fox News would be televising his show from Saddleback’s campus.  The oooo’s and ahhh’s coming from the thousands in the congregation that night still sends chills up and down my spine.

Warren uses celebrity to give legitimacy to Saddleback in celebrity-obsessed culture.  This is an often-used strategy within the “seeker-sensitive” approach which attempts to non-believers to church with a “hook” (a major political debate, the Jonas Brothers, Bear Grylls, etc).  They come to see the show and then, bam, get “the gospel message.”

3.  His Endorsement of Violence

“They are the children of peace who have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and know of no war.”–Menno Simons

Speaking of Hannity, Warren appeared on his show a few years ago and advocated lethal violence against Iran and justified the use of force against robbers and rapists.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never heard Warren glorify war, but a central tenet of Anabaptism has always been a commitment to enemy love and non-resistance.  A peace church does not make allowances or justifications for lethal use of force.

4.  Saddleback’s Ecclesiology

“The medium and the message are inseparable.”–John Howard Yoder

In short, Warren’s church has grown according to his Propose Driven church model which builds on his enormously charismatic stature and upbeat seeker-sensitive weekend services. Warren caters to “felt-needs” of congregants (even dieting) and masterfully quotes Bible passages to meet those needs.

Warren should be credited with carrying the church on his back for the past 3 decades.  He started the church after being compelled by Robert Schuller’s positive, non-traditional Evangelical church strategies.  Warren went door-to-door in South Orange County in 1980 for 12 weeks surveying residents to understand what their church “needs” were. Indeed, this was masterful marketing. This, not Anabaptism, was at the heart of Saddleback’s massive growth over the past 32 years.

Saddleback is hierarchically organized around 12 male elders/pastors with Warren himself at the apex. This massively contrasts with an Anabaptist ecclesiology committed to the well-distributed participation of every disciple and the multiplicity of gifts (from the seminary trained to the single mom) while valuing all voices within the community.  This is vital for both biblical interpretation and decision-making within the Anabaptist community.  The Radical reformers believed that the Spirit works “from below,” through all members of the community, not through one powerfully charismatic male at the top. 

5.  His Reformed Gospel of Faith

“…the gospel has been emptied of its ethical content, while ethics are severed from the foundational message of the gospel.”–Wilbert Shenk

At the core of my critique of Warren’s (non)Anabaptism, however, is this 5th and final point: his construal of the gospel, the original message of Jesus, closely follows the path of Luther and Calvin’s Protestantism, leaving the narrow road of the Radical Reformation in its wake. Warren’s primary emphasis is on faith, not following.

This “gospel” for Warren, is summarized in his Purpose Driven Covenant which he delivered at Angel Stadium during Saddleback’s 25th Anniversary service: “my past has been forgiven, and I have a purpose for living, and a home awaiting in heaven.”   This understanding is firmly rooted in a penal-substitutionary understanding of Jesus’ death which is individual, spiritual and future-oriented.  Saddleback Church quotes II Corinthians 5:17 in regards to the meaning of baptism in illustrating “my new life as a Christian”: 

“When someone becomes a Christian he becomes a brand new person inside. The old life has passed away and a new life has begun!”  

Warren’s seeker-sensitive focus is on getting souls saved for heaven.  His messages are often concluded with prayers like this one at the end of his Christmas service in 2008:

Dear Jesus, I realize now that you’ve been getting my attention…my plans not yours…I’m sorry, I want to change…I accept your gift of salvation…please replace my confusion, guilt, uncertainty about death.

For Warren, this once and for all prayer is a guarantee to go to heaven when a person dies.  No doubt, for Warren, discipleship follows this one-time decision.  But the overwhelming emphasis is on where one goes after death.  And this one-time decision is what the witness of the community is all about.

For an Anabaptist, evangelism (what Shenk calls “missiology”) organically flows out of the ethical performance of the church body (what Shenk calls the “messianic community”).  At its very core, an Anabaptist believes that salvation is about becoming a citizenship of the kingdom of God as a primary allegiance.  In short, salvation is discipleship. 

The anabaptist community places a prioritization on the missio dei–the mission of God!–which is what compels non-believing people to come join up.  Anabaptists seek to radically live out the way of Jesus as communicated to us in the Gospels, especially the Sermon on Mount.  No doubt, this is important to Warren, but it is not primary and he exhibits the same Constantinian tendencies that have plagued Christendom since the 4th century (ie, the justification of violence and/or economic hoarding for “Christians” in positions of power–both awkwardly and obviously condemned by the Sermon on the Mount).

In conclusion, getting back to Warren’s strong claim at the Anabaptist Conference at Southwestern Baptist in February (”For 32 years, we have been building Saddleback Church on the lessons I’ve learned from the Anabaptists.”), it would be far more appropriate to say that Warren built Saddleback sociologically on the business lessons of Peter Drucker and Steve Jobs sprinkled with the theological insights of Protestant Billy Graham and Robert Schuller.  Like much of the church growth movement over the past three decades, Saddleback Church has grown numerically in South Orange County and other wealthy suburban pockets of the globe by way of Warren’s undeniable charisma and the “successful” branding and marketing of a gospel message that combines a one-time-decision for Jesus with personal piety and “family values.”  This should not, in any way, be confused with Anabaptism.

On May 23, Charletta and I will be leaving Chicago for a year’s sojourn in California. As I sit down to share this with you, I realize that most of my writing on this blog is opinion or analytical. And I usually only post photos on my blog for The Mennonite. It’s rare that I write about developments in my life. But this one is too big not to mention.

Some of you may remember my post, “In the garden after the rain in California,” from more than a year ago. That trip began a discernment process for Charletta and me on whether to move to live and work with Ched Myers and Elaine Enns. They live in Oak View, Calif., a small town on the edge of Los Padres National Forest and 70 miles west (and a bit north) of Los Angeles. To the right is the view of the mountains in the National Forest from their house.

During our year in California, I will continue in my work with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), web design and photography. Charletta will work with Ched and Elaine as part of Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries, part time in their office and part time as a counselor with the Peace and Justice Academy in Pasadena. The year will also be a space of discernment about what’s next for the two of us.

Photos from California

I’ve paired photos from last year’s trips with my thoughts about what I’m looking forward to in this new place.

Water, mountains and trees

Here Ched describes how water has carved smooth channels in the rock over millenia and how close these features have come to being destroyed.

One of the things I realized on last year’s trip was that Ched and Elaine are really serious about loving their watershed. I’ve written here before about the idea that, “You can’t save what you don’t love, and you can’t love what you don’t know.” But I have a long way to go in figuring out what it means to actually live this out. Ched and Elaine are further along that journey. We’re looking forward to learning from them.

They also took us to see two massive oak trees that have been there for hundreds of years. We shared a time of prayer and reflection with other visitors beneath the vast branches of this tree.

This is the view out Ched and Elaine’s window of snow capped mountains in the distance. Living near mountains like this will be a completely new experience for me. I grew up in the rolling hills of Lancaster County, Pa., and moved from there to the flat Midwest in Goshen, Ind., and then Chicago. London, England had a few hills, but no mountains. I’m looking forward to spending time with a different topography.

This image for me is about wide open spaces. Since I left Goshen in 2003, I’ve lived in cities of millions and millions of people. Living in a small town of 4,000 people will be a very different experience.

Hospitality

From the minute we walked in the door, Ched and Elaine welcomed us with avocado omelet, potatoes and fresh orange juice from their orange tree. Hospitality is a central part of their ministry and who they are. During the two weeks we were there, they hosted 14 different people (including us). We have warm memories of the role of hospitality from our time at the London Mennonite Centre and understand how it can foster cross-pollination between communities and movements. We hope to support them as this part of their work grows.

The Pacific

My trip in March was my first real interactions with the Pacific Ocean. I look forward to getting to know the people, animals, plants and fish of the world’s biggest ocean. I love exploration. That was always my favorite part of the adventure games I played as a kid. I remember how much fun it was in England to see the world from a new angle and bringing my camera with me.

I’m also looking forward to watching sunsets over the ocean. During my time in Chicago, I’ve only made it up early enough for sunrise a handful of times. Sunsets should be a little easier to fit in to my sleeping patterns.

New communities of Christians working for peace and justice

As part of my work with CPT, I’m looking forward to connecting with communities up and down the West coast, in a similar vein to the work I did with the Anabaptist Network in the UK. I know that there are Anabaptist communities and others committed to radical peacemaking and challenging the politics of empire. I look forward to learning from them and growing in my vocation.

Ched and Elaine host three Bartimaeus Institutes each year studying a variety of themes. Three days after we arrive, their week-long summer institute will focus on the theme “Rooting Faith: Theology and Practices of Bioregional Discipleship.” What a wonderful way to start out in a new place!

Finally, I look forward to meeting readers of this blog who live in the Southwest and on the West Coast. Please drop me an email up if you are in the Los Angeles area and would like to meet up or if you are in the Southwest or West Coast and would like to host me to talk about Christian Peacemaker Teams in your community. I can be reached at timn@cpt.org

The next year will bring with it a lot of new moments and discoveries. I look forward to sharing them with you here.

you’re all much too young to remember this, so let me - as an ancient of days - tell you about something that is much older than you. …

No actually, I don’t want to talk about the past, but rather about how a past event is being overcome by the present and future! This October it will have been (note the future perfect tense!), yes this October the 28th of 2012 it will have been 1700 years since Constantine won the battle of the Milvian Bridge bearing on his standard the sign of the cross. He raised the severed head of his enemy on a spit as a sign that the “Christian god” had shown him favour.

This occasion is a sad day for many followers of Jesus who regret that our church leadership decided to accept the offer of the Emperor to endorse his military victory and accept the generous sinecures of the state. They laid down the cross and took up the sword. The unholy alliance between Constantine and the bishops of the Roman empire is the most significant (human) event of church history. As a consequence, the Church aided in the violent aggression against Jews and Muslims, against Africans and other peoples, against so-called witches and heretics. The medieval church believed that pope and emperor were entrusted with the two swords of Christ (Luke 22:38). Unfortunately, the repercussions persist to this day.

One of the core convictions of Anabaptists is that all of this was a great evil. We shouldn’t forget this day. We should commemorate this day and turn it into an opportunity for action!

One of the most remarkable things I’ve noticed over the last few decades is that even representatives of mainline churches (which used to be state churches) are acknowledging the Constantinian error. Here in Germany there are plans underway among them to have some sort of memorial in October. The plan: first, there is to be protest against church support of militarism, including protests of financial institutions supporting war, of armament companies and dealers and nuclear weapons, as well as open opposition to the institutions of military pastors and calls for Christians to abandon the military. Second, there will be calls to follow the way of Jesus, confessing the sins of the last 1700 years, public prayers of forgiveness of the sins of violence by the Church and calls to engage in new ways to resolve conflicts nonviolently.

My question: What do you think? Are there ways that you, in your region, could use this Sunday in October to mark the event and turn it into a significant day of peace in the name of Jesus?

(A postscript: I like the future perfect tense a lot. It has theological relevance. I think it has something to do with the fact that the world we live for is both present and future. The kingdom is coming, but it is here and now in our actions and lives.)

I didn’t post the little piece because I wanted it to be Just Right. Then I got busy.

And now Adrienne Rich has died, and I am reminded again of how much she has to teach us.

Obituaries for Rich abound, and most of the ones I’ve read so far emphasize her radical feminism, which at a point in the 1970s extended even to lesbian separatism. But what these obituaries often occlude is the fact that Rich quickly moved beyond her analysis of gender as a primary source of suffering and extended her vision to a much broader web of oppressions. Learning from her Black sisters, especially, but also increasingly concerned with global markets, the complexities of Middle Eastern politics, and the tangled web of injustices, Rich expanded her ethical vision so that the often overlooked writings of her last 30 years–both essays and poetry–are as powerful for the feminism she so importantly helped write into being. As we struggle to think through healthcare reform, the hinging of a presidential race on women’s bodies, the uncomfortable reality of embedded violence and racism in the Trayvon Martin case, and our responsibility to attend and reflect and resist cynicism as we imagine and work together for some better future, I believe Adrienne Rich to be an important resource for anyone claiming to be young, or anabaptist, or radical. Let us not forget the wisdom of our elders.

Here is the piece I ought to have posted months ago.

Race, Gender, Occupy: Some Quotes from a Wise Source

I’ve been reading Adrienne Rich (again) as I’ve been thinking about race, gender, and other forms of difference in relation to Occupy Wall Street. Her essay “Notes Towards a Politics of Location” (1984) challenges the tendencies of the white, heterosexist makers of theory and policy who assume their experiences are universal, shared across the globe. I believe that in our analyses of injustices, of economies, we must take responsibility for our own situations–Rich calls this a “politics of location”–and the differences that characterize human experiences.

I’ve been thinking about this both in terms of the Occupy movement and in terms of anti-Occupy rhetoric, like the “Letter from a College Student” that has been circulating on political blogs and social networking sites. The paradoxical need for us to speak from our own experiences but also to resist generalizing from them, assuming that everyone else should be judged by the same standards is especially striking. So is the danger of one form of injustice taking precedence in a heirarchy of oppressions that de-emphasizes inextricably linked issues. Theologian Elizabeth SchüsslerFiorenza helpfully offers the term kyriarchy, meaning a structure of connected and mutually-sustaining forms of power based on gender, race, sexuality, class, capitalism, religion, etc. In the face of kyraiarchy, we need multiple stories–we need to practice attentive listening across differences. Only with such sensitive, hospitable openness to others will we see our collective energy renewed in the long-haul struggle for justice and beauty.

I would strongly suggest getting your hands on Rich’s essay (printed in her book Blood, Bread, and Poetry and widely anthologized). Too often we forget our earlier sources and inspirations. Here is Rich:

“A movement for change lives in feelings, actions, and words. Whatever circumscribes or mutilates our feelings makes it more difficult to act, keeps our actions reactive, repetitive: abstract thinking, narrow tribal loyalties, every kind of self-righteousness, the arrogance of believing ourselves at the center. [….] A politicized life ought to sharpen both the senses and the memory.”

“The difficulty of saying I–a phrase from the East German novelist Christa Wolf. But once having said it, as we realize the necessity to go further, isn’t there a difficulty of saying ‘we’? You cannot speak for me. I cannot speak for you. Two thoughts: there is no liberation that only knows how to say ‘I’; there is no collective movement that speaks for each of us all the way through.”

“The movement for change is a changing movement, changing itself, demasculinizing itself, de-Westernizing itself, becoming a critical mass that is saying in so many different voices, languages, gestures, actions: It must change; we ourselves can change it.
We who are not the same. Who who are many and do not want to be the same.”

The christian church teaches the doctrine of original sin, that everyone is born with a sinful nature.

… We, on the other hand, believe in original goodness, that the spark of the divine resides in each and every human being. (Psalms 82:6, John 1:9)

The christian church portrays God as the heavenly father.

… We believe in God as mother, as well as father. (Isaiah 49:15)

The church says God’s justice will require him to damn most of his creatures to eternal punishment.

… We believe hell is a myth, and that every person who’s ever lived gets a seat at the celestial banquet table. (Isaiah 25:6)

The church claims Jesus was rejected by the Jews, and that his message superseded the “Old Testament.”

… We believe Jesus was a Jew in good standing until his dying day, and that everything he taught was firmly grounded in Torah.

The church asserts that every word of Jesus is true.

… We believe most sayings attributed to Jesus were put on his lips by the authors of the gospels, decades after his death. Of the 100 or so sayings that originate with Jesus, the densest collection is found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). We particularly like the ones emphasizing: Mercy (Matt. 5:48/Luke 6:36); Forgiveness (Matt. 6:14-15/Luke 6:37); Nonviolence (Matt. 5:39-40/Luke 6:29); Compassion (Matt. 7:9-11/Luke 11:11-13); Freedom from anxiety (Matt. 6:25-30/Luke 12:22-28); and Non-attachment to material things (Matt. 6:19-21/Luke 12:33-34).

The church insists Jesus was sent to earth by his father to die as atonement for humanity’s sins.

… We believe Jesus did NOT die in some cosmic “child sacrifice” scenario. Rather, he was swept up in a Roman dragnet and, in short order, found himself looking down from a rebel’s cross, probably regretting he’d stayed so long in Jerusalem.

Christians think the kingdom of God is coming down the road, and that it will be the exclusive domain of church members in good standing.

… We believe God’s kingdom is a state of being. Inside us. Here and now. In our hands. Within our power. Available to EVERYBODY. (Luke 17:21)

*A publication of the Marginal Mennonite Tract & Propaganda Dept.*

*Visit the “Marginal Mennonite Society” Facebook page & “like” us.*

*Revised: March 2012*

Disclaimer: Marginal Mennonites are a diverse and contrary bunch. This publication does not purport to speak for all. The ideas expressed above belong solely to those Marginal Mennonites who subscribe to them.

The last speaker to be announced was Paulette Moore, one of the leaders of Occupy Harrisonburg. Moore is a documentary film maker, a professor at EMU and one of the writers at the Occupy Harrisonburg blog. She’s been involved with the group since the beginning.

"We definitely started out with the use of the word [Occupy] as an appropriation and a creative theological reinterpretation," said Brian Gumm, one of the two organizers of the conference. "Before Paulette was on the schedule, we didn’t have explicit references to the movement itself. So by adding Paulette’s voice and the experience of the local movement here, we can make that connection explicity and have a more robust, multi-voiced conversation about Occupy."

Gumm described some of the ways in which he and co-organizer, Aaron Kauffman, played with appropriating and re-interpreting the word: "How do we Occupy the world faithfully as Christians?" and "There’s a way in which the Kingdom of God is increasingly Occupying us."

It’s clear that presenters will be working with the concept of Occupy in a variety of ways. Isaac S. Villegas is interested in the political and economic dimensions of the movement. "The Occupy movement has become viral, jumping from city to city, country to country. This conference in Harrisonburg shows how Occupy can’t be restricted to a place, a territory." said Villegas, who is pastor at Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship, "People on the streets have set in motion a movement that is now occupying our Christian discourse, occupying our minds, and hopefully shifting our attention to the injustice of economic systems that redistribute the wealth in our communities for the benefit of a few."

Villegas quotes from Augustine of Hippo, as quoted by 16th century Anabaptist: "A Christian is a distributor… not a lord; and by divine right all things should be in common."

"The Occupy movement is all about what counts as common, as belonging to the all of us, which resonates with some parts of our story as Anabaptists," said Villegas. Villegas teaches classes in prisons with Project TURN, a New Monasticism-related initiative.

The conference will also reflect on the distinctive Anabaptist responses to violence and empire.

"I’m looking forward to a sharing with other Christians with an Anabaptist imagination committed to a lived faith," said Janna Bowmans, PHD student at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. "In particular I’m interested in exploring how armed groups and the international community might be ‘converted’ by the outward shape of faith community witness in situations of armed conflict."

Bowman spent eight years working in Colombia with JUSTAPAZ, a ministry of the Mennonite Church of Colombia.

Nekeisha Alexis-Baker is is the co-founder of Jesus Radicals and is an anti-racist organizer within the Mennonite church. In a recent article on the site, Alexis-Baker wrote, "I believe in being discerning and critical, dissecting and challenging. I believe in holding our sacred cows, including all our movements, ideas, practices and even Web sites, up to a critical and illuminating light that pushes us and others to go deeper into the work of resisting interpersonal, social, ecological, economic, systemic and other evil."

Chris Haw is one of the founders of Camden House, one of the seminal communities of the New Monasticism movement (see this 2005 Christianity Today article for more) and co-author of Jesus for President

Gumm explaiend that they have structured the conference around emerging leaders in the Mennonite church and the broader Anabaptist movement. He described it as"a big tent Anabaptist conversation" include Haw, a Catholic who has been inspired by John Howard Yoder. The formal respondents to the plenary session are Mennonite elders and mentors. For the three keynotes the formal respondents are EMU professors: Peter Dula, chair of Bible and religion department; Mark Thiessen Nation, professor of theology at EMS; and Carl Stauffer, assistant professor at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at EMU. Two local pastors will form a listening committee for the conference and will reflect back a synthesis of what they heard in the final worship.

For those who can’t attend, Gumm said there would be blogs and possibly podcasts sharing content from the conference.

Occupy Movement’s American Spring

The weekend leading up to the first day of spring saw the beginning of the Occupy movement’s "American Spring." On March 17, the six month anniversary of the start of Occupy Wall Street, hundreds gathered in Zucotti park for a celebration in the afternoon and evening and then were met by an aggressive police response. Occupy activist Max Berger describes the scene for the Huffington Post. A video from the Associated Press is a brief window in the police attacks on protesters and their response:

I can’t help seeing a shift in tone in the woman yelling at the end of the video (while being held back by other protesters). She expresses an anger and frustration that has grown over the past six months as the Occupy movement has watched police move in with clubs and pepper spray time after time, in city after city.

I remember the friendliness towards police in Occupy Chicago in the first few weeks in October. They saw the police as part of the 99 percent. But the tune has gradually shifted as they’ve seen their friends and fellow activists abused by police. This weekend’s attacks by police in New York, St. Louis and Los Angeles will likely set the tone for a series of Occupy rallies over the coming weeks, including the Chicago Spring on April 7.

So, you have read about intentional community in Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution years ago and new monasticism has now become a part of your everyday vocabulary. Maybe you are nearing the end of your college career, or maybe you are facing another life transition and wondering how to integrate your values in to those exciting next steps. In other words, what now?

Or, perhaps you are someone who has been living “in community” for some time now, but the experience has increased your skepticism and cynicism rather than given you new life-giving perspective. Your expectations were not met, probably because you carried too many expectations with you. Your impression of “community” has officially been sobered. As Bonheoffer says in Life Together, the earlier a community can let go of its wish dream, the better for the community.

This post is for the excited college graduate, eager to combine faith and practice. It is also to the sobered young adult who has already faced some of the world’s harshest realities, and to anyone in between who is still somehow interested in this word community.

I have been reading Resistance and Contemplation by Jim Douglass; professor, author and activist. In this text Douglass weaves together a tapestry that just might illustrate how to blend faith and activism in an earnest and sincere way. In one section of the book Douglass is quoting some of Thomas Merton’s final sayings at the end of his life before his devastating death in 1968.

“Merton is describing one of the traditional representations of the Buddha, where in one hand he holds a begging bowl, and with the other he points to the earth. The Buddha’s pointing to the earth is said to be in response to an accusation by Mara (the tempter who represents illusion) that the Buddha cannot sit on the square of earth that belongs to Mara. Buddha responds by calling to witness that he had just attained enlightenment on it, so in fact it no longer belongs to Mara. Merton comments:

‘This is a very excellent statement, I think, about the relation of the monk to the world. The monk belongs to the world, but the world belongs to him insofar as he has dedicated himself totally to liberation from it, in order to liberate it. You can’t just immerse yourself in the world and get carried away with it. That is no salvation. If you want to pull a drowning man out of the water, you have to have some support yourself. (p.56)’”

Douglass uses Merton to assert that in a world of broken political and global systems, the contemplative is learning to stand with support. Because the contemplative has ‘a rock to stand on’, there is possibility for him or her to help pull others out of the water. In Resistance and Contemplation, Douglass tells the important story of the essential quiet life of faith that must undergird any outward action. If one is to enter a prophetic life of action, rather than just show up at the latest vigil or protest, one is necessarily entering a life of liberation from the self as well. In a palatable and very reasonable way, Douglass explains that our faith is essential.

PART 2. MY JOURNEY

Seeking authentic ways to come into a “prophetic life” has lead me a lot of different directions so far in my young adult life. I have lived in a rural farming community, trained with Christian Peacemaker Teams, pursued academia through graduate school, and currently am serving a stint at Shalom House in West Philadelphia as their Recruitment Coordinator.

I have learned that none of these experiences or settings can alone undergird the work of resistance. I have learned through hard and painful trials that Douglass and Merton are right. The true work of faith is the liberation of the self, often carried on alone, with great discipline, and often in the dark. This is the essential counter-part of resistance work; “the Yin and Yang of the Nonviolent Life”, as Douglass puts it. I cannot always have the sunshine of communal banner waving; I must also endure long solitary walks in the rain of contemplation.

I have found that while a particular community cannot meet all of my needs; it can be helpful to come alongside others also seeking their own liberation, and in so doing, together seek liberation for the larger world. One such place is a little home called Shalom House, a peacemaking ministry of Circle of Hope Church in West Philadelphia.

PART 3. SHALOM HOUSE

As stated in the house rule, “Shalom House is a tool for proactive peacemakers to use to grow in their faith, to express the gospel of peace, to provide the option of reconciliation for people in Philadelphia, and to secure a place for Circle of Hope among God’s worldwide peace movement.”

Shalom House is overseen by a Guidance Team of the larger church that carries its mission in times of transition and gives support to members living in the house. I have seen Shalom House thoughtfully and strategically work on issues of gun violence in Philadelphia, join national efforts to be welcoming to the immigrant and refugee, and be a powerful voice for peace in the city.

Shalom House is not your run-of-the-mill community of young idealists. Its structure has been thoughtfully discerned for over a decade. Everyone living at the house has built-in spiritual retreats and a spiritual director. The house shares rhythms of meals and prayer, and individuals come knowing that their income is limited by the mission of the house. Projects are spurred on by the creativity and interests of house members, and are supported by the larger church community. There is structure midst flexibility, vision midst groundedness.

Currently Shalom House is seeking new members to join the work and adventure of combining contemplation and action in West Philadelphia. Will it be you? Check out Shalom House’s website, join the list serv there, and/or email us at peace@shalomhouse.us.

I just found your blog and a lot of what is there really resonates with me. I really relate to a lot of Anabaptist concepts such as putting faith into action, actively promoting peace, creation care, and anti nationalism.

I’m currently looking for an organic church/fellowship in my area near Olympia Washington to connect with. Haven’t ever considered a Mennonite church because my impression was that they are really conservative including politically and very institutional. Is that assumption an incorrect one? Do you have any suggestions for connecting with similar minded people in this area who are/want to connect through an organic church model?

…

I’m happy to fellowship with people of various persuasions, but I don’t want to be a cause of dissension in a group where most everyone has the same specific ideas. Not sure how minority opinions are received in smaller conservative Mennonite churches.

Blessings,
Robin

Anyone have any leads for Robin?

Found somewhere near Father Abrahams birthplace (unexploded), 2004. Photo by Dennis Maust

Tim: In the article in Studio Potter you talk about the period where you were building “protest-oriented pieces.” Can you say more about this?

Dennis: During the lead up to the latest Iraq war and during the early stages of the war, I was looking a lot at historic Iraqi pots and thinking about the tremendous loss of the antiquities when the U.S. troops first went in and didn’t protect the museums. So I was thinking about both the loss of antiquities and the human loss. And I was doing this series of pieces that were based loosely on historical Middle Easter forms and that particular piece seemed to be a bomb canister form, so I thought about where Abraham was born and the thought that something of this sort may have been found unexploded as a bomb canister. It’s about the loss and the danger and the cost of this war. I wanted to have people look at it as something that could have been found.

T: It’s interesting for me to think about that piece alongside the work that my Christian Peacemaker Team colleagues did in that same time period documenting these large piles of unexploded ordinance that were just abandoned and not really disposed of. I remember hearing about a show that you did where at the opening, you began breaking the pieces one by one.

D: The Father Abraham piece was actually in that show.

T: But it remained unexploded?

D: Yes (laughs). At that show, in March 2004, I talked about my Mennonite tradition and non-resistant pacifism and that I feel that its important that when you see something happen you don’t agree with that you don’t just sit back, but that you speak out. So I was talking about the need to speak out and make it known how you feel.

Rather than simply observe how people understood what I was saying, I wanted to illustrate with an action so I reached down behind the sculpture stand and pulled out garbage bag and covered my piece with it I then took my hammer and smashed it in front of everyone. I then said, “Was that okay?” It was my piece, it didn’t belong to anyone else. I didn’t get a whole lot of reaction. So I got another bag and I walked over to another room (the show was in two rooms in the Lancaster Museum of Art). So people followed me into the other room and I put the bag on another piece. I was getting ready to raise my hammer against the second piece when my pastor, Barry Kreider, intervened and stood in between me and the piece.

I didn’t know what to do, because I didn’t expect that. I expected someone to say something. But Barry just stood there. And there was no way I was going to reach around the piece and smash it.

I just hugged Barry and said “You really understood. You saved my piece.” I didn’t go farther and say, “You placed yourself in danger by putting yourself between the agressor” or anything like that. That would have made the message a little clearer to the audience. My plan was to break at least three until I saw whether I got a reaction until someone would say, “Don’t do this.” The third piece I was going to break was “House of Prayer” which was a mosque looking form. I think most people understood. I hope they did.

T : This moves into performance art in some ways.

D: Yes, it’s probably the only time I’ve tried something like that. I’ve thought numerous times before this of doing something physical at an opening that would give a little more drama to the event. I’ve thought that just having the work covered and unveiled one by one may be a way of focusing the opening audience’s attention to each piece at a time.

Dennis Maust working in his studio. Photo by Tim Nafziger.

D: Can you tell me more about the story behind the museum being concerned about you using a black garbage bag to cover the piece.

D: I talked to the musem director before hand and told her this is what I’m thinking of doing. And she said, I’m going to have to talk to the board about this. Because they had a performance piece a few years ago where something went wrong where a guy nearly accidentally hung himself. So they wanted to know everything ahead of time. So they were the ones who asked me to cover things with plastic and said I would use a clear garbage bag. They were concerned about the connection with Abu Graib.

T: And Why do you think they were so concerned about that connection?

D: I think they knew how conservative Lancaster is. I assumed they were more concerned with it being misunderstood and that using a normal garbage bag would have lent some unintended meaning to the thing. Maybe I was more timid than I should have been by just accepting that as their prerogative.

Second Wave Mennonite artist-hood

Tim: There’s Chaim Potek’s image of the artist always in tension with the religious community. And certainly there’s plenty of stories of Mennonite artists and writers struggling in the Mennonite church to be taken seriously or to have their work seen as valid. But when I hear you talking about your work, it sounds like you’ve largely felt comfortable with your identity as a Mennonite. Is that accurate?

D: While it took a while to think of myself as an artist, my home congregation, Park View Mennonite, Harrisonburg, Va., always gave me encouragement and seemed to validate most of what I did as an artist.

T: So in some ways you were a second generation artist, with the first generation doing the work of carving out space for it.

D: Yeah, my Dad, Earl Maust, was involved in issues of whether the piano or other instruments could be used in the music department at Eastern Mennonite Univeristy. The art department wasn’t developed until much later and I was one of the first art department majors. We really didn’t have issues like those from five or 10 years before.

Crazy Quilt and Patchwork

Three legged mugs by Dennis Maust

T: In your article, you use the image of patchwork and crazy quilt to describe your artistic vision. It strikes me that one of the artistic streams that has alwasy been accepted among Mennonites is quilting.

D: The piece I did that’s in the EMU campus center was certainly using the quilt as an acceptable art form and was a basis for that piece. It’s called Metamorphosis. But in the “Living the Patchwork” article, I’m really referring to the life I’ve lived here, which is a combination of various parts, not necessarily all related to my art. So yes, the quilt as an acceptable art form, was part of my understanding of something that was OK to do.

T: You also talk about this idea of different motifs from your travels and I got the sense of those coming together as a patchwork as well.

D: I do combine those in individual works. I use the motifs not in any kind of political commentary about the way they are put together, but I like that they are a part of my experiencec, varied though it may be. The fact that I’m putting motifs together from various parts of the world [see example in Untitled pot below] is simply an indication of the way our world is interconnected and because of contemporary communication our experience of multiple cultures is so much greater than it was.

Untitled Pot

T: It’s interesting that you define that you define that not as political commentery.

D: You’re saying its actually political commentary of another sort. Yeah, you’re probably right. But the way I use the various cultural motifs together is not intended to be a political statement. But maybe the fact that I do it that way is.

[We were joined by Rachel Hess, Dennis’s wife]

Rachel: So putting Africa with South America isn’t a political statement.

D: Yeah, so on that platter in there. It’s combining motifs from four corners of the world. Well, that could be a statement in itself. But its not a conscious statement in my mind. It’s not an overt thing. I haven’t named it in a way that would refer to it. I think it becomes political when I name it.

Rachel: I don’t think naming it is the only way it becomes political.

T: So the Father Abraham piece would be made very overtly political by its naming.

D: Yes, the name in that case confirmed the image I had.

T: I think this brings up some interesting questions about the act of creating art and both the unconscious and conscious acts of creating art. You talk about the importance of serendipity to you: enjoying the way an unexpected crack or break can enhance the art. How does your interaction with your audience impact your intentionality or consciousness about the layers of meaning? What’s it like when you have an audience who sees things that you didn’t intend?

D: It’s not very often that you find that out. I think at that opening where I did the dramatic action, I was concerned that my message might not be appreciated. The title of the Exhibit was “Messages” and I had some pieces that had Arabic calligraphy on them that were phrases from Hafiz’s poetry. He was from the Middle East and he wrote poetry that spoke to me. And so I had a friend write it out in Arabic script for me and I simply copied it unto the pieces. I wanted someone who read Arabic to understand some of my intent.

T: And so that would be another language that wouldn’t be for an English only speaker?

D: There were titles that alluded to the sentiment of the poetry. I think I had on the card a translation of the poetry. So for example, the piece “Friends Forever” and the line of poetry said in the womb we played footsy together. Before we were born we became friends. But it was to indicate how strong a tie we have regardless of circumstances.

If someone understands a work differently than I intended, I’m not worried about that. If they recieve something of meaning that relates to their understanding and their experience, I think that’s a good thing. I don’t feel like my work has ever been so misunderstood that its done some kind of harm.

T: You talked about in Tanzania being in the middle of a cultre that was post-colonial. Can you say more about what you observed and how that impacted your work?

D: It seemed a culture of mistrust existed, understandably, around foreign aid etc. Unfortunately that meant the organization we worked for rejected money and programs that would have allowed us to benefit more producer groups.

T: Can you say more about that work?

D: We were working with an organization call Amka (Swahili word for “wake up”) that was aiding small craft cooperatives and craft producing businesses.

T: So you would go around and talk with artisans and talk with them about how their work might be recived?

D: Yes, and how their work would be used and perceived.

T: So what’s next for you in the coming years?

D: I am hoping my work begins to merge my interest in pattern with more of my current Lancaster county visual vocabulary which includes my garden and the landscape of my life here as opposed to past life and travels to other parts of the world.

“Congregation”, 2012. Installation at Mennonite Church USA building in Elkhart. Photo by Dennis Maust

Bonus: My photos from last summer of Dennis’ firing his pots includes one of him working with a three legged mug and what appear to be parts of “Congregation” before firing.

One of the areas where Anabaptists in the past proved more timid was in their use of Bible translation for challenging the powerful. At the beginning that wasn’t true. Luther basically copied Hans Denck’s and Ludwig Haetzer’s translation (1527) of the major prophets for his new translation. Denck was a politically engaged Anabaptist rebel: at that time translating the Hebrew prophets was considered a risky political action. It was a means of obliquely criticizing contemporary politicians and thereby fomenting rebellion. But those were the early years. Later, under pressure to defend their orthodoxy, Anabaptists held on to traditional translations - where they did offer some new emphases, it was usually in internal matters (internal church relations).

I think there’s lots of room for new, creative Bible translating. I want to offer an example from the Beatitudes, in an effort to show that a new reading is necessary to let Jesus’ message of empowerment for the Kingdom (King- and Queendom?) really strike home.

But first a simple question: Ever wondered why Matthew says “Blessed are the poor in spirit”, but Luke says “Blessed are the poor”? The traditional reading over the centuries has been that according to Matthew’s version we (potentially everybody) are poor in spirit, and therefore this passage applies to us all, even if we are rich by any earthly standard. Recently I came across two commentators, who entirely independently of each other, offer a surprising alternative. Ton Verkamp says that it’s wrong to translate “the poor in spirit” as “spiritually poor”. What’s meant is “the deeply impoverished”; they suffer from a physical poverty that hurts their spirit. (So that excludes many of us.) Shortly after reading this, I came across a passage in ‘Adversus Marcionem’ by my favourite Church Father, Tertullian. He writes in Latin that Matthew’s phrase means “the needy … for no less than this is required for interpreting the word in Greek.”

So actually Matthew is saying the same thing as Luke! It’s about the poor, stupid. For me, this understanding is far more consistent with the entire context of the Beatitudes and the message of Jesus than all this phoney, spiritualizing talk about the rich who are poor in spirit. For me, the interpretive tradition needs to be set aside for something new, something Anabaptist.

But that’s just for starters. Now I come to my main point. What is this business about “blessedness”? I’ve struggled with that for years. My pastors have struggled with it in their sermons. Theologians have struggled with it in numberless tomes. Hundreds of years of interpretive tradition struggle with it, and this ongoing struggle is a sign that we still haven’t really figured out why the desperately poor, the hungry and the mourners are “blessed” or “happy”.

Indeed, these passages in Luke and Matthew have been used to console desperate people for millenia. “You may be suffering now, you may only have one bowl of rice a day, but in heaven everything will be alright. You can’t do anything about the here and now, but just believe in the life to come.” - And I ask myself: Is that really what Jesus wanted to teach us in the Beatitudes? Didn’t he say that he’d come to set at liberty those who are oppressed? Didn’t he tell us that we can move mountains, if we trust in him? Didn’t he tell us that if we knock, the door will be opened? Didn’t he even say that we will do greater works than he himself?! (Jn 14:12) The general thrust of an Anabaptist understanding of discipleship is: Follow Jesus and change the world!

So what’s with the “blessedness” then? How can this be brought into an Anabaptist understanding of world transformation through active love and justice and peace? That’s where I’ve learnt something valuable from Elias Chacour, a Palestinian Melkite Greek-Catholic archbishop (who is also an Israeli citizen). He asks: Since we know that Jesus taught his disciples in their common mother tongue, Aramaic, which word would Jesus have been using here, that was later written down in Greek as “makarios” and was then translated into “blessed”?

He answers that there are two alternatives. But neither of these terms is as passive as “blessed”. They have an active element. They encourage action. I don’t know about you, but for me: that sounds more like Jesus. Empowering the poor, the hungry and the outcast! So I tried it out.

“Jesus said: Those who are bitterly poor, you are hereby empowered, for yours is the kingdom of heaven. Those who mourn, I empower you, for you will be comforted. Come on!, those who are meek, for you will inherit the earth. Let’s go, you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for you will be filled. You are now authorized, you who are merciful, for you will be shown mercy. Roll up your sleeves, you who are pure in heart, for you will see God. You have been called, you peacemakers, for you will be called sons and daughters of God. Those of you who are persecuted because of righteousness, I have empowered you, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.”

This reading has its problems. But it has one additional virtue. It makes you want to ask: “Okay, just how and in what way are these suffering and visionary people supposed to act, in order to attain the kingdom of God? How are they to participate in Jesus’ renewal of the world?” And that’s a useful response. It makes you want to continue reading the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus tells us just how that’s supposed to look in practice.

Charletta and I decided to drive home to Iowa to be with her family that night. Not long after we arrived, Mick’s wife Julie died of her injuries. Charletta and her mother attended a tear-filled church service at Kalona Mennonite. Afterwards, we sat down to eat lunch with Gary and Sylvia. Afterwards we sat together in the living room for awhile. It wasn’t dramatic. It was just a space to be with one another. That evening, we drove back to Chicago.

This past Thursday, Feb. 9, I was sitting in my office at Christian Peacemaker Teams when my colleague walked up and told me that Claire Evans had passed away. Five weeks ago Claire was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Two weeks ago those of us in the CPT Chicago office gathered around her bed to say good bye as she moved to Lansing, Mich., to be with her sister and enter Hospice care. Now she is gone.

Claire and I worked on the same floor of our office in CPT Chicago where she coordinated all our delegations. When I came in in the morning, I’d walk past her desk. Claire was a fellow reader. She and I would compare notes on novels we’d read and make recommendations to each other. She also carried with her many stories of CPT’s journey over the last 13 years. She was also part of a small community that deeply shaped my practices around undoing racism through our weekly office meetings over nearly three and a half years. She was never afraid to offer a thoughtful challenge or noticing.

After we heard the news, those of us in the Chicago office gathered together in the CPT training center with a candle and Claire’s photo. We sang and prayed together. Others cried, but I found myself unable to. Somehow, my body resists even when I know I badly need to. This was only the latest of many such moments in the past few weeks as we sat with Claire. My struggle to cry left knotted and uneasy.

That evening I left for the weekend to be with my brother. He didn’t know Claire, so our time together only briefly touched on her death. Nonetheless, we spent nearly all our time together over the three days: walking, talking, running, cooking, eating, taking photos, gaming and playing with the dog. He and his housemates were a presence for me in the way Charletta and I tried to be for her parents. Without knowing it, they walked with me through my disquiet. And the knot has begun to unravel.

So perhaps we can learn something from the ancient tradition of the wake, in which mourners sit with one another long into the night to eat cake and tell stories and play games. More important than cards or flowers or even words, the greatest gift we can offer one another is simply our presence.

These photos are all from my walk last night at sunset with Jonathan, David and Tilde (the dog).

“God got mad mercy. Mad grace too. She don’t get pissed off much. Her love stretches down through the years. She lets people off the hook pretty easy.” (Exodus 34:6-7)

“God is one merciful dude. He won’t kick you to da curb. Won’t mess you up. Won’t off you neither.” (Deuteronomy 4:31)

“We all gonna die. We be like water spilled on the sidewalk. Can’t scoop that shit up. But God ain’t gonna take you out. He’ll come up with a plan so that even thugs and gangstas won’t be banished from his hood forever.” (2 Samuel 14:14)

“On this here hill, God’s gonna have a major throw-down, with lots of free food, and top-shelf drinks. Everybody gonna be there.” (Isaiah 25:6)

“Can mamas forget their babies? Can mamas stop caring about their own kids? Well, says God, they may forget, but I won’t be forgetting you.” (Isaiah 49:15)

“As I live and breathe, says God, I get no pleasure from the demise of thugs and gangstas. I’d prefer they get straight, and have a life.” (Ezekiel 33:11)

“As a mama has compassion for her babies, so God has compassion for those who respect the Eternal.” (Psalms 103:13)

“God’s good to everybody. Her compassion reaches everyone, and everything she done made.” (Psalms 145:9)

“Poor folk and fat cats have this is common: God gave all of them working eyeballs to see with.” (Proverbs 29:13)

“Is there any limit to the numbers in God’s posse? Where does God’s light not shine?” (Job 25:3)

“God’s love just don’t quit. Her mercy ain’t got no end to it.” (Lamentations 3:22)

“God ain’t gonna be rejecting nobody. God’s into compassion, into love. She don’t wanna lay no trips on no one. She don’t wanna give no one no grief.” (Lamentations 3:31-33)

“God ain’t gonna stay all pissed off. He loves letting folks off the hook. He gonna show compassion. He’ll kick our bad behavior’s ass, and throw our rap sheets into the East River.” (Micah 7:18-19)

As we think about what it means to be an ally and look at the continuing legacy of white supremacist Christianity, the Beattitudes in Matthew and Luke have a lot to offer us.

Too often, when we read differing version of Jesus’ words in different gospels, we try to ignore them. But I think these two passages speak deeply to beautiful, complimentary truths about the movement that Jesus invites us into.

In short, the beatitudes in Matthew focus on spiritual and emotional virtues: poor in spirit, mourning, meekness, thirsting for righteousness, mercy, pureness of heart, peacemaking and the being persecuted for righteousness.

As I grew up learning these, I thought of these as things I do on my own. It was up to me, as an individual, with God’s help to be merciful, pure in heart and meek. It might be hard, but it was fundamentally a personal struggle that God and I worked on.

It’s easy for us to look at the beatitudes and say, as the Bishop of London did, “This is just a spiritual thing. Jesus wasn’t concerned with people’s economic or political well being. All he cared about was their spiritual virtues.”

But let’s take a closer look at the Luke passage:

Looking at his disciples, he said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,

for yours is the kingdom of God.

21 Blessed are you who hunger now,

for you will be satisfied.

Blessed are you who weep now,

for you will laugh.

22 Blessed are you when people hate you,

when they exclude you and insult you

and reject your name as evil,

because of the Son of Man.

23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

24 “But woe to you who are rich,

for you have already received your comfort.

25 Woe to you who are well fed now,

for you will go hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now,

for you will mourn and weep.

26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,

for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

In short, blessed are the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated. Woe to the rich, well fed, those who laugh and those of high status. With the possible exception of mourning and laughing, these are all the material conditions that the Bishop of London was so sure Christianity wasn’t concerned with.

Jesus was very consciously countering the message of shame that the poor, hungry, hated and excluded people experienced in his day. They weren’t that much different from who is shamed and who is honored today. In 2 Enoch, a Jewish book written around the time of Jesus, we get a pretty long list of who society honored:

2 Enoch 42:2

As one year is more honourable than another, so is one man more honourable than another, some for great possessions, some for wisdom of heart, some for particular intellect, some for cunning, one for silence of lip, another for cleanliness, one for strength, another for comeliness, one for youth, another for sharp wit, one for shape of body, another for sensibility, let it be heard everywhere, but there is none better than he who fears God, he shall be more glorious in time to come

It’s the rich, the smart, the strong, the attractive (that’s what comeliness means), the witty and those with nice “shape of body.” Sound familiar? These are still things that our society values.

These are the norms that Jesus is turning upside down. Because we’ve heard the beatitudes so often, they don’t have the surprise impact they did back then.

Jesus isn’t just making a one time declaration here. This isn’t a fix-it-and-forget-it moment. This is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which is a foundational text of his ministry. In both the Matthew and the Luke texts, it’s specifically addressed to his disciples:

Matthew 5:1-2:

1 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.

Luke 6:20:

20 Looking at his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

This is what Jesus is inviting his disciples: the absurd, radical, crazy, foolish work of turning the world upside down. This is what he was talking about in the great commission when he said,

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,” (Matthew 28:19)

And he was clear what the consequences would be. That’s what he was talking about when he said, “Take up your cross.” James Cone points out that the cross then was like the lynching tree. As I pointed out last week, they had a shared goal of controlling the oppressed. So Jesus could just as well have said, “Take up your lynching tree” and follow me.

What does this really mean practically? I come back to to the term “Becoming an Ally” when thinking about practice. I believe that it’s one way we can join Jesus in turning things upside down. I’m just going to focus on one aspect of that:

Listening with Humility

I said that the Matthew and Luke beatitudes are complimentary and this is where that becomes really important. Just as a slave-holding Christianity focuses exclusively on a spiritualized Jesus, we can get too focused on the Luke version and ignore the beatitudes as recorded by Matthew. Let’s look at the first one in particular:

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven

It’s about humility. About submitting ourselves to God and to each other. This is absolutely critical when trying to be an ally. If I decide I’m going to stand with the oppressed and turn the world upside down, I can get into a world of trouble if I’m not submitting myself to those oppressed people. If I don’t know how to listen with humility.

I’ll be really honest. I know this is important, because it’s something I’m bad at. I really want to be the white hero swooping in to save the day like in Dancing with Wolves and Avatar. I like to think I understand racism and I’ve sorted it all out.

I struggle to be honest with myself and other when I fall short, when I screw up, when I let my prejudice show. I don’t like feeling ashamed. I really don’t want to think about these things.

In his Ted Talk “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race” (embedded below) Jay Smooth, an anti-racist activist, puts it this way: “When you believe that you must be perfect in order to be good, it makes you averse to recognizing your own inevitable imperfections and that lets them stagnate and grow.”

Sounds complicated, right? Smooth calls racial issues “a dance partner that’s designed to trip us up.”

Smooth uses the metaphor of tonsils. Getting rid of your racial prejudice is not like having your tonsils taken out. Racial prejudice isn’t like that. If someone suggests that something you did or said was prejudiced or racist, you can’t say, “No, I had my prejudice removed back in 2005 when I did that one training.”

Jay Smooth suggests a different way to talk about racism. When someone comes up to us and says, “You have something stuck in your teeth,” we feel a moment of embarrassment and then we set about the unpleasant task of digging it out.

That’s how I need to work at responding, as a white person, when a person of color challenges me on my racism. A moment of shame and then move on to digging it out.

The goal in listening with humility is for talking about racial prejudice to be more like dental hygiene. We don’t say, “What do you mean, I have something stuck in my teeth? That can’t be! I’m a clean person.”

So “listening in humility” is like this: It means that when someone calls you on something they thought was prejudiced, don’t jump immediately to defensiveness. You almost certainly didn’t intend it, but 400 years of white supremacy don’t go away overnight. I as a white person am soaked and marinated in it.

This act, in and of itself, is a blessing. Being listened to and taken seriously is a way of honoring someone.

This is just one specific part of the concept of becoming an ally. But its something that everyone can do. And it chips away at the legacy of white supremacist Christianity that Dr. King spent his life fighting.

It may seem simple, but I think if we could talk about racism like we can talk about dental hygiene, we can bring together the wisdom of both Matthew’s and Luke’s beatitudes, and we can be stronger as the body of the Christ that God calls us to be.

Here’s the video of Jay Smooth. I highly recommend it:

P.S. If you’re within driving distance of Philadelphia and want to go deeper with these themes, I highly recommend the upcoming Damascus Road Anti-racism Analysis training in Philadelphia on February 24-26.

Here’s another video:

P.S. We didn’t actually getting around to the technical work of taking the site down. Sorry about that.

MLK day is day when we appropiately focus a lot on the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Christianity and the prophetic witness of the movement he led against racism and white supremacy.

We sometimes forget that most of the white people who Dr. King challenged were Christians. I think it is as important for me as a white person to understand the faith of the segregationists as it is to understand Dr. King’s faith. This is one way I can do my work and understand whiteness in the work of anti-racism.

Let’s start by taking one step back and looking at slaveholder Christianity. Specifically, the faith of white Christians who owned African-American slaves here in the United States. I’ll be drawing heavily on the first chapter of The Black Christ by Kelly Brown Douglas. You can read the whole chapter here.

Christian slaveholders were known to be crueler to their slaves then non-Christians. In chapter 10 of Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass he wrote:

Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others. It was my unhappy lot not only to belong to a religious slaveholder, but to live in a community of such religionists. Very near Mr. Freeland lived the Rev. Daniel Weeden, and in the same neighborhood lived the Rev. Rigby Hopkins. These were members and ministers in the Reformed Methodist Church.

What’s going on here? Why in the world are Christians worse slave holders than non-Christians? Now it may be tempting for us today to say, “Oh, they weren’t really Christians,” but I’m afraid that’s too easy an out. Their Christian tradition still shapes our tradition today.

African-American theologian Kelly Brown Douglas points out two characteristics of slave-holding Christianity:

First, after a person is converted to belief in Jesus as Christ, his or her salvation is automatic… this freed many slaveholders to do whatever they deemed necessary to keep their slaves under control.

…

Second, because Jesus ministry is ignored, his liberating actions do not become a standard for Christian actions… The Christian feels no obligation to treat others, especially the oppressed, the way Jesus treated them. Again, enslavers are free to be as cruel as they want towards a slave, while being assured salvation.
(Black Christ, p. 18-19)

In other words, in order to integrate their faith with their owning of slaves, slave owners spiritualized Jesus. White supremacist Christianity has nothing to do with your material conditions. Brown-Douglas quotes the Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London in the 18th century, laying it out very clearly:

The Freedom which Christianity gives, is a Freedom from the Bondage of Sin and Satan, and from the Dominion of Men’s Lust and Passions and inordinate Desires; but as to their outward Condition, whatever that was before, whether bond or free, their being baptized and becoming Christians, makes no matter of Change in it.

The Bishop was quoted in this Proslavery Petition, November 10, 1785 to the General Assembly of Virginia from the “Free Inhabitants of Halifax County.”

Unfortunately, these values didn’t go away at the end of the civil war. Between 1919 and 1939, according to Robert Moats Miller, white people in the United States “hung, shot, burned, gouged, flogged, drowned, impaled, dismembered, garroted, and blowtorched” to to death more than 500 black people in lynchings. (from the The Protestant Churches and Lynching, 1919-1939, The Journal of Negro History, pp. 118-131)

This lynching happened In Marion, Indiana in 1930, two hours from where I grew up in Goshen. 2,000 people participated in this lynching. The names of the black men in this photo are Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. A third man, James Cameron escaped at the last minute and lived until 2006.

Because of how disturbing the images of Thomas and Abram are, we often miss the smiling faces of the white people in these images:

What is behind these smiles? A presentation by Dr. Joy DeGruy first drew my attention to these smiling faces and during a presentation she did at the annual White Privilege Conference in 2010. She pointed out the deep sickness of white supremacy and it’s symptom of dehumanization of black and white people that made these smiles possible.

It might be easy for us to say, “Oh, those people weren’t Christians.” But that’s too easy. Yes, these are sinners, but so are we. Walter White was an anti-lynching activist and president of the NAACP during this period. He said: “It is exceedingly doubtful that lynching could possibly exist under any religion than Christianity” - (quoted in Amy Louise Wood, “Lynching and Spectacle” , p. 50)

This lynching happened In Omaha, Nebraska in 1919. And 4,000 people participated in the riot aimed at lynching this man, Will Brown. The riot is chronicled in harrowing hour by hour detail on Wikipedia.

Again we have the smiling faces.

Dr. James Cone in his presentation, “Strange Fruit: The Cross and the Lynching Tree” (video here) points out that these weren’t just random acts of violence. Rather, they worked like Crucifixions. Crucifixions were set up to keep Roman slaves and poor people from political revolt. In the same way, lynchings were meant to keep black people in their place: that is subject to white control and oppression.

30 years later this same bigotry was on display in reaction to the lunch counter sit ins. This photos is from the a 1963 sit in at a Woolworth lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi.

While overt bigotry like this is not acceptable today in the way it was then, but that sickness behind those white smiles at the lynching do not go away so easily. They haven’t disappeared as cleanly as we would like to believe.

For example, In the 5 years I’ve lived here near the corner of Pratt and Ashland, it’s become really clear how disrespected the black and Latino kids who hang out on this corner are. I’ve seen police officers call them animals. When I suggested to the officer that this wasn’t appropriate, he told me I didn’t really know them. While this officer happened to be more honest than most, it becomes pretty clear that this is the view held by most officers.

Four years ago, I wrote here about watching an officer sit in hiscar and watch as two black kids fought each other. When I asked him why, he said he was worried they’d grab his gun. Would he have acted the same way if I as a white person were being attacked? This officer was smart enough not to wear his racism on his leave, but the results are the same.

It would be easy for me to see this problem as one limited to jaded police officers who have been soaked in the racist atmosphere of the Chicago Police department. But unfortunately, the problem goes deeper than that. Indeed it such a critical issue, that Mennonite Church USA had anti-racism as one of its four vision and goals from 2000-2010.

We in the US Church today, need to consider slaveholder and segregationist Christianity as we read the bible. Next week I’ll share about how this lens affects how I read the Beatitudes and some practical things ways it helps me to think about how I can be an ally to oppressed people.

The movie is a slice of day-to-day life for Ceasefire staff, known as Violence Interrupters. From the summer of 2009 through the spring of 2010, we watch Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra as they seek to personally engage with victims and perpetrators and, perhaps most importantly, victims and their friends on the edge of becoming perpetrators.

All three of the interrupters have a personal history of involvement with gangs and violence themselves. They understand what’s going on for the kids and young adults (age 14-25), but they also have credibility. Ameena is the daugher of Jeff Fort, a high profile gang leader, and she made her own name for herself. Cobe and Eddie both served prison time. At one point at a staff meeting, a Ceasefire leaders says there is "500 years of jail represented here, that’s a lot of wisdom."

As someone who has spent my whole life in the Mennonite Church and many years with Christian Peacemaker Teams, The Interrupters is an introduction to peacemaking done in a very different way.

This movie does not explicitly talk much about systemic issues like racism or economic injustice, but all but one of the Ceasefire leaders featured are men and women of color confronting violence in a language and style that is their own, not imposed or borrowed. This is not mediation done Sunday school style. My wife Charletta describes it this way:

"By matching the intensity of words and anger, they validate the experience of pain and trauma, yet urge youth not to respond with violence. In the heat of the moment, they plead with victims not to retaliate or they will end up in jail, maybe dead. Let it rest, walk away, what’s done is done, where does violence get you?"

The principles of restorative justice are on display. There’s a scene where a 17-year -old boy who has spent two years in jail goes back to apologize to the people in the barber shop he robbed. One of the women who was there when he robbed them tells the ex-robber exactly how painful and traumatic that moment was for her and her family over the last three years. The pain and anger are not glossed over. In fact they add credibility to the redemptive moment.

The theory behind Ceasefire is that violence spreads like an epidemic. Just like society used to see tuberculosis or plague victims themselves as the problem, today we usually individualize violence. Instead, Ceasefire treats violence as we would an epidemic: by stopping the spread. They identify the spread of violence as a two step process:

1. The grievance. It might be that someone disrespected you, or looked at your girlfriend. Or maybe they called the cops on you. Or maybe they killed your friend.
2. Violent retaliation. This is addressing the grievance by fighting the person or pulling a gun and shooting. "If you don’t retaliate, people will just walk all over you," one girl in the film says. Violence is defense of your honor.

This means that a lot of the work of Violence Interrupters is relationship building with those most at risk, those who have been most exposed to violence and are on the edge of retaliation. But in some cases, there isn’t time for that. The camera is present for a number of bloodied heads and one attempted stabbing in which Ameena intervenes. We also follow Tio Hardiman, director for Ceasefire in Illinois, as he visits an Interrupter shot when he approached two men fighting.

The Interrupters is an important reminder for Mennonites that we don’t have the corner on peacemaking. We have a lot to learn from Ameena, Cobe, Eddie and all the other Violence Interrupters out there. See when the movie coming to your city or arrange your own screening.

Photo Caption: Violence interrupter Cobe Williams and Lil’ Mikey, Photo by Aaron Wickenden/Courtesy of Kartemquin Films

Just wanted to remind everyone that bigotry is not confined to the continent of Africa. I didn’t include URLs because I would rather not contribute to traffic counts on some sites.

“Isn’t it appalling that the United States of America would try to force the acceptance of homosexuality on other nations but at the same time we would not force them to take care of their religious minorities and they would permit discrimination and persecution of Christians?” - Pat Robertson

or someone named Janet Mefferd, described as a radio talk show host, acknowledges that

“in Nigeria not only is gay marriage a crime punishable by a fourteen year jail term but any person who registers, operates or participates in gay organizations faces a decade in jail.” Then she adds, “Alright [sic], but they’re not killing them, are they?” [Uh — dear Janet, yes they are, in some places.]

Then there’s someone named Paul Stanley writing on Christian Post:

“Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday put the Obama administration clearly on the opposite side of Christians seeking religious freedom in the debate over human sexuality.” The headline, admittedly perhaps not composed by this “reporter,” says “Clinton Says Obama Wants Gay Rights Over Religious Freedom in Key Speech.”

Finally, for now (sadly, I could go on and on), there’s this headline from World Net Daily: “Obama offers plan for U.S. to be global LGBT sex cop/Wants to import homosexuals with special asylum privileges.” That’s atop an article bylined Bob Unruh. Sigh.