The Don Imus - Duke Lacrosse Connection

(Note: I had orginally planned to post this entry early last week, but delayed due to the Virginia Tech tragedy.- DB)

During the week following Easter two distinct but (in my mind) related announcements were made: CBS announced that Don Imus would no longer be aired on their radio stations and the Attorney General of North Carolina announced that rape charges against three Duke lacrosse players had been dropped. A great deal was made of the Imus case and its relationship to other “shock jock” radio hosts, as well as rappers and liberal commentators who have made equally offensive statements and yet are still on the air. At the same time, the CBS show “60 Minutes” aired extensive interviews with three Duke lacrosse players. However, to my knowledge no commentators noted the serendipitous connection between these two events.

A cynic might say, “Well the white guys came out even. They won one and they lost one.” I think it goes deeper than that. Like many people, I was glad to see Don Imus taken off the air, and I could not help but notice the irony that Don Imus is only one among many commentators who engage in various forms of destructive and degrading speech. One can only wonder how quick MSNBC and CBS would have been to fire Imus if the sponsors had continued to back him. But here is the connection I see to the Duke case: Imus was fired for his sexist and racist remarks and the Duke players got in trouble with the law because they were engaging in sexist and racist behavior.

As a Duke University alum, I closely followed the Duke lacrosse case. Throughout the last year, to my knowledge neither the players nor their parents have publicly commented on the fact that the alleged rape occurred at a party where a bunch of well-to-do white college guys hired a African-American stripper to “perform” at their drunken party. The fact that there was a party and that the young woman was hired to come there has never been disputed. The players and their parents, so intent on proving their innocence, failed to note that there never would have been a rape case if there hadn’t been a party in the first place. These guys may have been victims of politically motivated district attorney, but they were also eager participants in behavior that clearly demeaned and degraded others. As much as they talked about the difficulty of “rebuilding their lives,” they have come out relatively unscathed. One of them is already working on Wall Street, [and the other two are playing lacrosse at other colleges]*. Please forgive me, if the tears aren’t flowing.

*[NOTE: I was in error when I stated the other two players were currently playing lacrosse at other colleges. As the one comment-er said, they have not done so yet. Duke has offered to allow them to return, but they will probably go elsewhere. In all likelihood next year they will be playing for other schools. I stand corrected. D.B.]

After Don Imus was fired, the president of CBS said that the media giant had to “change the culture” that would allow such statements to occur. The culture issue goes much deeper than a few degrading words. The culture issue goes to the fact that the media will use and abuse others when it suits their purpose or makes them money. The culture issue looks at the way the rich can exploit the poor and come away unscathed (What if a black lacrosse team had hired a white stripper; would anyone have cared if players had been unfairly charged?). The culture issue reveals that there are different sets of rules for those who have access to money, power and high priced lawyers, and those who do not.

I for one, am sick of the hypocrisy, and will do what I can (as a well-to-do white guy from Duke) to highlight the fact that racism, sexism and just general human meanness is immoral, unethical and intolerable in any form.

Prayer for the folks at Virginia Tech

Words can not express the sadness I feel for the victims of the shooting rampage that occurred at Virginia Tech on April 16. As a parent of three daughters, I can only think that it could just as easily been one of them. I imagine it will be years before some of the survivors and the victims' families can put this in perspective.I don't know the shooter's name, but his family must be in deep pain as well.

What irks me is the attempt of the media to find someone to blame. Was the school "secure enough?" Did the the shooter's teachers pick up on some trouble in the his life? Did the student's peers notice something was a bit off with the shooter? And why didn't they go to authorities? It is as if in our search for answers, we have to find someone to blame.

Random violence this can not be predicted nor controlled. At the risk of appearing to be fatalistic or overly spiritual, this is the essence of sin. Sin in its most vile expression twists and distorts a personality to perform inhuman acts. Now by bringing up sin, it may appear that I am blaming the shooter, and perhaps I am. But he too may have been a victim of sin's perverted force. He obviously was very troubled young man, and perhaps the victim of some destructive words or actions. When I speak of sin, I speak of that force within human beings and at large in the world, that pulls us in directions away from the way God created us. We were created to reflect God's goodness and love, not destroy other human beings.

Violence of all kinds is and expression of sin, but random violence makes us aware of just how pervasive and pernicious sin can be. One thing we saw and learned from the Nickel Mines tragedy last fall, was the power of a spiritual community to find comfort in God's presence through each other. Moreover, we saw the power of a God-based community to find the resources to forgive, rebuild and move ahead. Now one can rightly assume that in the families of the Nickel Mines victims, there is deep sense of grief and loss that will take years to heal. But they claimed the comfort of God to be real in their lives through their faith in God.

In the face of the VT crisis, we must be called to prayer. While I am not a deeply prayerful person, I do believe that when we pray, we tap into a reservoir of love, peace, and comfort that in the words of the apostle Paul, "surpasses all understanding." In the face of such spiritual forces, I am drawn to prayer, not as a sign of helplessness, but as a call to draw from the wells of God's spirit to face the challenges ahead. I pray for the folks of Virginia Tech. God draw near to them in their time of need, and help them to find solace and strength in the days ahead. And may this tragedy remind us that our work with God in ending violence has only begun.

The Hidden Trauma of War

Dear Friends,

I recently was sent this article from the Quaker Economist. It is a personal letter outlining the effects of Post Tramautic Stress Disroder on a society at war. What is particularly poignant is the author's analysis of coded PTSD talk which continues the cycle of war.

I share it with you as yet another reason this war needs to end.

Go to http://tqe.quaker.org/2007/TQE156-EN-Trauma.html

Drick Boyd

Breaking Ranks

Have you noticed the mantra that being uttered by all parties in the debate about U.S. military involvement in the Middle East? George W. Bush uses it. Nancy Pelosi uses it. So do all the presidential hopefuls from John McCain and Rudy Guiliani to Hillary, Barack, and John Edwards. And when Rosie O’Donnell spoke in favor a rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq on her show, “The View,” one of her critics commented that if she wanted to have any credibility with the American people she better use this mantra. What is this sacred cow, this holy utterance, this inviolable commitment to which all true blue Americans must submit (especially if they are politicians or celebrities)? It is those magic words “support the troops.” You can be for or against withdrawal, you can be Democrat, Republican or Independent, you can be politician or celebrity; none of those things matter --- the one thing you must do is “support the troops.”

So it is with trepidation that I write the words: I don’t support the troops. I have not supported the reasons the troops are over in Iraq from the beginning. From the beginning the cloak of democracy and freedom were placed over the real motivation, which was control of the oil fields and the possibility of huge profits for Halliburton, Exxon and other mega-corporations (who by the way were doing quite well as a result of this effort). I don’t support the strategy that says that we can impose democracy on a people whose culture and religious sensibilities are largely undemocratic. I don’t buy the line that somehow by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, these soldiers are “protecting my freedom.” I don’t support the notion that by seeking to get the terrorist there, that we somehow will stop the possibility of their bombing us here. I don’t support the practices of the military recruiters who lure unwitting young people with the myths of a GI bill- supported education, and vocational training while “serving your country.” Nor do I support the decision that those young people make to join the military no matter how misguided or deprived they are in their present situations.

Now that is not to say I wish the soldiers ill. Nor does it mean that I don’t care if they come back alive; I would much rather they come back whole rather than physically or psychologically maimed or in a body bag. Of course I care. Every time I see the young face of another soldier killed in the line of combat, I grieve. However, I can’t say I “support” why they died, nor do I support the decision of their comrades to keep up the fight. Nor, can I buy the line that they “died to preserve our freedom.” They didn’t die for me; I didn’t support their going in the first place. To me their deaths are a waste in a misguided effort led by duplicitous leaders.

The more we talk about “supporting the troops” but not the war, the more we contribute to the doublespeak that confuses and confounds efforts to find a way to peace in that area. Military solutions are not in the cards, and especially military solutions involving the United States. Our presence in the region is a lightening rod for violence and an embarrassment to other countries who might step up and have a hand in bringing some order to Iraq. We went in without global or regional support and that has not changed. George W. thought we could bully our way to democracy and peace, and it has become a quagmire and a disaster. The sooner we get our troops out of there, the better the chances will be for some sort of order to be restored. There are no guarantees, but there is no way as long as the U.S. is there that peace will ever be attained. Supporting the troops’ efforts to do whatever they are doing is a failed policy.

So, I am breaking ranks: I don’t support the troops. I am saying the emperor has no clothes. I am saying supporting this war at any level by “supporting the troops” only contributes to the travesties that have already occurred. Call me crazy, unpatriotic, ungrateful, uninformed, uncaring or whatever negative appellation you can find. I am not contributing the madness any more – I don’t support the troops.

The Challenges Facing Whites in a Multicultural World

Recently, I was leading a class discussion on White Privilege. We had been discussing the history of racism and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and I raised the question, “After all that has happened and all that is changed in regard to race relations, where are we today?” To prompt the discussion I assigned the students readings from Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father, and Tim Wise’s White Like Me. The excerpt from Obama described the evidences of institutional racism present in a low- income neighborhood of Chicago where he worked as a community organizer. The excerpt from Wise discussed his perception as to how his whiteness afforded him opportunities he otherwise would not have had. As you can imagine these readings prompted a lively discussion.

A common statement made by whites in such conversations is “I haven’t oppressed anyone, so why must I be held accountable?” Almost inevitably in such conversations people tell stories of “reverse discrimination” where white persons were somehow held back or denied an opportunity because persons of color was chosen ahead of them. Additionally, we whites tend to react defensively, because we feel that concepts are simply designed to make us feel guilty and no more. Actually, I don’t think guilt has anything to do with it.

When Peggy McIntosh first wrote her classic piece on white privilege in the 1980’s, for many of us it was an eye opener as to how often we who are white are not aware of how our whiteness opens doors that are closed to others. However, as time goes on, I am increasingly convinced that coming to grips with the implications of White Privilege is not only the right thing to do, but also a necessary thing to do. As the U.S. population becomes increasingly diverse, and as the world becomes increasingly connected through commerce and technology, white people are going to have adjust to a new reality: we folks who are white can’t call the shots any more. The war on terror, the shift of manufacturing to less developed countries, the immigration debate, the challenge in race relations and so many other issues share a common thread: the world is no longer willing to play by the rules set by people of European descent. And while today’s Europeans and Euro-Americans did not create the current situation, they have inherited it, and must move through a changing paradigm of how to relate to the rest of the world.

Miroslav Volf, a Croatian victim of Serbian violence, has written a powerful book on justice and reconciliation entitled Exclusion and Embrace. In that book he proposes that the way to a more equitable justice for all people is for both victims and oppressors to embrace what he calls “double vision.” He describes the concept this way:

“...we [must] enlarge our thinking by letting the voices and perspectives of others, especially those with whom we may be in conflict, resonate within ourselves, by allowing them to help us see them, as well as ourselves, from their perspective, and if needed, readjust our perspectives as we take into account their perspectives. Nothing can guarantee in advance that the perspectives will ultimately merge and agreement be reached. We may find that we must reject the perspective of the other. Yet we should seek to see things from their perspective in the hope that competing justices may become converging justices and eventually issue in agreement.” (p. 213)

While Volf undergirds this concept from a theological perspective, one need not be a theologian or a religious person to grasp the essence of his proposal. Our perspective is only one perspective, and until we begin to grasp the perspective of the other, and get a glimpse of how the other sees us, understanding and reconciliation are not possible.

In terms of White Privilege, what this means is that we who are white need to accept that how we see ourselves and our position in the world, is not how others see us. We must try to understand the privileges we consider to be “normal,” are the not the norm for others. Furthermore, these privileges are not our rights, but rather luxuries. Given the relative inequity, we then must ask ourselves, "how do we respond?" We need to ask how will we choose to live in a world where we don’t enjoy such privileges? For many white people, this is the frightening, unnerving and uncomfortable challenge facing us as the world becomes more interconnected and our society become increasingly multi-cultural.

White Privilege and Amazing Grace

I grew up a child of privilege: upper middle class, educated the finest schools, belonging to a healthy loving family, white in a society that discriminated on the basis of skin color. Yet, as I matured and became aware of the advantages afforded me on the basis of my privilege, I came to loathe aspects of that privilege and see it as a burden. For instance, when I was in college and began awakening to the horrors of institutional racism, I remember wishing I had been born black, so that I didn’t have to bear the burden of guilt for the terrible atrocities committed by whites against African-Americans throughout European and U.S. history. In a way that many not born to privilege would find odd, I tried to shed the clothing of that privilege, only to find that it was not removable, that in fact it was literally part of my skin, my bones, and my genes.

I have long admired people such as Frederick Douglass, W.E.B Dubois, Martin Luther King, Sojourner Truth, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu. They are included in my personal “hall of heroes” and inform my social vision and inspire me to act and speak out against in injustice wherever possible. However, there has always been a point of disconnect for me with these folks. Unlike me, these “heroes” have not been people of privilege. I recognize that their courage and sacrifice was infinitely greater than mine could ever be. As people of color they were and have been easy targets for the maintainers of racial status quo to single out, to defame, and in many cases to kill. I have never had to, nor probably ever will have to, live under the threat of such unjust treatment. I have come to realize that as large as these folks are in my personal and social vision, they are not sufficient guides.

Recently, I viewed the film “Amazing Grace,” the story of British politician William Wilberforce and his struggle to abolish slavery in England. At a cost to his friendships, his political capital, and his health, Wilberforce led a small band that was able to overturn the laws of slavery after 20 years of effort. As I watched the movie, I consciously realized something I had tacitly embraced long ago: that Wilberforce (another one of my heroes) represented a different kind of guide for me. Like me, Wilberforce was a person of privilege, and yet in a paraphrase of the apostle Paul “did not count [that privilege] something to be grasped, but emptied himself and became a servant.”(Philippians 2.6)

Thinking of Wilberforce reminded me of so many other folks who were/are people of privilege who in their limited way have sought to undo the very systems that gave them their privilege. People such as the following:
- John Woolman, a Quaker in the 18the century who traveled up and down the Eastern seaboard, personally convincing Quakers to free their slaves.
- The unnamed whites living near the Mason-Dixon line who served as stops along the Underground Railroad
- Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist journalist in Alton, IL beaten to death by an angry mob for outspoken stance on slavery.
- Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, Catholic intellectuals who founded the Catholic Worker movement serving the urban poor.
- Clarence Jordan, a man with two PhD’s (in agricultural and Biblical Greek), who in the 1950’s and 60’s built Koinonia Farms, an interracial community in segregationist Georgia.

All of these, like Wilberforce were people who used the benefits of their wealth, position and education to work for justice. My guess is that none of them would equate their sacrifice or courage to those people of color whom they allied themselves. Yet, they are examples for those who are from the privileged set of how to respond.

While the movie makes it appear that Wilberforce’s social vision was always clear, I tend to believe that his clarity was more Hollywood than truth. One of the things I continually reach to attain is a clarity of social vision. I am often reminded by people of color that while my heart may be in the right place, that I don’t fully “get it.” That’s why concerned people of privilege and courageous folks of color must be in constant dialogue and partnership. Folks of privilege can never consider the work of justice to be completed as long as the victims of injustice claim that racism and oppression still exist. As a result my vision is continually being refined, seemingly unfolding more clearly as I work more faithfully toward it. I “see through a glass darkly” (I Corinthians 13), and need others to bring clarity to what needs to be done.

Another one of my heroes is my mother, who in her own way sought to use her privilege to bring about change. Through her involvement with an organization called A Better Chance (ABC) she brought students of poverty and color into our upper middle class home and community. She thought justice and equity could be achieved by giving aspiring students from poor urban school districts a chance at a decent education could bring about change in society. While I never said this to her directly, I was inwardly critical of her shortsightedness in not seeing that simply helping individuals did not change a system that benefited a few to the disadvantage of the many. Even so, I admired her persistence, commitment and courage to use her upper middle class status to benefit others. At the same time I have come to accept that I am similarly shortsighted, and that as a person of privilege, I must continually unpack the ways my background has blinded me to the injustice built into our system. I have come to see my mother as yet another hero, like Wilberforce and the others, who seek to use their privilege to dismantle the system that creates that privilege. Their examples are truly a form of “Amazing Grace” that keeps me going, and provides me guidance.

Experiencing White Privilege

In her classic paper “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack”, Peggy McIntosh points out that “whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege.” She says, as a result, whites grow up unaware of with the basic privileges in North American society that come to them with their skin color. This privilege is invisible to whites, but glaringly evident to people of color. McIntosh goes on to offer 50 examples of privileges granted to whites, not granted to people of color. Furthermore, as she points out, with this privilege comes the power to set the intellectual, emotional and social agenda in any given setting.

In the last few years, I have sought to be more consciously aware of the privilege granted to me by society as a white, educated, middle class male. This awareness has caused me to experience myself in some discomforting ways. Recently, there was one situation, where my tendency toward privilege snuck up on me and I did not see it coming.

Recently, I have been participating in an interracial group exploring the topic, “Bridging the Gaps of Race and Class.” At our initial meeting, the organizers of the group indicated that they assumed that all the participants “had passed Racism 101” and understood concepts such as internalized oppression, institutional racism and white privilege. As we introduced ourselves to the group, we were invited to share a challenge we had faced in bridging the race and class gap. When my turn came, I shared that when I am new in a gathering where I am a racial minority among a group of people of color, I often get vibes of distrust from others in the group. My sense is that people are suspicious of my presence and my motives for being there as a white male.

Because I assumed in our group that everyone understood that I had “passed Racism 101,” I didn’t feel a need to explain that I understood that the distrust was part of a historical reaction to a pattern of white domination. I did not state that when I am in such settings, I accept that I must earn the respect of others. In making that statement, I was not being critical, but rather making what I considered to be an honest description of my experience. I also assumed that everyone would accept my statement at face value.

However, I was sorely mistaken. Later when the group broke into separate caucuses of white and black, I learned that some of the African-American participants as well as some of the whites, were quite upset by my comment. I in turn felt hurt and later angry about their reaction. I stewed on the incident for days. In subsequent meetings, my discomfort was magnified by one particular African-American woman who seemed very reluctant to speak with me, and at least one white person who seemed bent on setting me straight. In the subsequent weeks, as I participated by offering what I thought were valuable contributions, I have felt like I was digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole. My internal l response has been to say, “You asked a question, I gave an answer; why can’t you accept that?”

And then it hit me: this is what people of color experience on a daily basis. They think they are “playing by the rules” and then all of a sudden the rules change. As a white male I have been accustomed to making the rules of discourse and then making sure they are followed. I have been raised to assume that when I make a statement in apparent good faith, that statement is accepted at face value. I don’t assume that I will have to that there was not some hidden message or implication in what I said. Furthermore, I don’t assume that I will be regarded with suspicion once I have made my case. Finally, I don’t assume that by “being myself” I will sink into deeper and deeper sense of alienation. What I have come to realize is that in this small incident, I have experienced my white privilege in a way that doesn’t give me an easy out. More than that I have come to realize that because the rules of discourse are often skewed in my favor, I have not developed any resources to react to a persistent questioning of my integrity.

Yet this is what most, if not all, people of color face in our society. I have come to a new appreciation for the pernicious effect racism has on our identity, our assumptions, and our ability to communicate effectively. I am thankful for this group as uncomfortable as it has been, and I am thankful for colleagues and friends who are willing to be honest and set me straight. I have no illusions; I will stumble and stick my foot in my mouth again. I probably won’t even know at first that I have done so. White male privilege for all its benefits, has not prepared me to live in an increasingly multicultural society.

As I look at my children and white friends and colleagues, I think one of the major challenges we face in the next ten years is how to live in a society where we don’t have privilege. To people of color that seems like justice (and it is), but for many whites, including me, it is an uphill climb. We who are white have not been given the cognitive or emotional tools to live in a world that is not white-oriented. In some ways are friends of color can help us, but that is not their job. In most cases we need to make our own way. I am committed to keep on learning about how my white male privilege has crippled me for the world that is here and coming, and I am dedicated to sharing any insights I have had.

More on Violence in the Bible

Since writing my entry on “Biblical Language and Life as a Battle” over a month ago, I have taken time to read and study more about the place of violence in the Bible. In this study I have come across some good sources such as Does the Bible Justify Violence by John J.Collins, Is Religion Killing Us by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, and Terror in the Mind of God by Mark Juergensmeyer. I also went back and reread portions of John H. Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus and articles by Richard Horsley on the political milieu of the New Testament era. These are only a small sampling of books on this important topic.

What all these authors affirm conclusively is that the "violence of God" theme is part and parcel to the Old and New Testaments. In his classic work The Nature and Destiny of Man, Reinhold Neibuhr drove home that human beings are a paradox in that we are inherently self-centered and sinful, while still having the capacity to transcend that self-interest in works of peace, justice and love. However, when Niebuhr looked at institutions and nation-states, he said that by design all organized groups are be self-oriented and tend toward polarization and violence. The need for group self-preservation moves the group or nation-state seek its own survival at the expense of others.

This insight helps us understand why even in the Scriptures we find an inherent tendency to divide people into “us” and “them.” Whether talking about the Jews in the Old Testament or the followers of Jesus in the New Testament, inevitably the stories are written from the standpoint that “God is with us and those other folks are against us.” By extension anyone who is against “us” is therefore against God. This dichotomy of “us” and “them” leads to justifiable violence on the part of “us.” So the Jews see God working on their behalf in escaping the Egyptians, conquering the Canaanites and dealing with the various nations that threatened their existence. Likewise, in the New Testament, the followers of Jesus who felt persecuted by the Jewish and Roman authorities believed that in the end God punish would punish “them” as a form of vindication.

Violence is woven throughout human history, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer identifies a five stage spiral of violence that can not only be found in the Bible, but also in all of history.
Violence 1 – An oppressed group experience the economic and political violence in the form of domination, hunger and injustice
Violence 2- The oppressed group rebels countering violence with violence.
Violence 3 – The state responds with repressive violence to quell the disturbance. Or, the oppressed groups gain power and uses repressive measures against their former oppressors.
Violence 4 – There is a dysfunctional deflective violence in which oppressed person do violence against one another – poor on poor violence.
Violence 5 – Violence of all sorts is justified and rationalized by attributing the violence and its result to God. Violence is not only physical, it is now deeply spiritual.

This natural human tendency to return violence with violence and attribute at least some of it to God is found not only in Christianity and Judaism, but as Juergensmeyer points out, in all major religions of the world.

Having said this, what do we do? Some would say that religion itself is the problem and so we just need to get rid of religion. This is Sam Harris’ solution in The End of Faith. While it is true that religion is at the root of much of the world’s violence, religion is also responsible for much of the world’s good, such as schools, hospitals, development projects and community. Getting rid of religion won’t change the human tendency toward self-interest and domination. Such a solution is naïve, and betrays a skewed view of religion.

Some like Nelson-Pallmeyer believe that we need to give up the notion that the Bible is some sort of “sacred text,” and recognize it for what it is – a human document with human prejudices and biases written into it. His rationale goes something like this: Since the authority of the Bible (as well as other so-called “sacred texts” like the Quran) are used to justify violence, we need to respond by rejecting the authority of these "sacred texts." This then makes it possible for us to excise those parts of the "sacred text" that run against our modern sensibilities and then religiously-inspired violence can be eliminated. He goes so far as to say that Violence is the true god of the Bible. By removing the authority of God in Scripture, we dethrone the sacred god, Violence.

I think Nelson-Pallmeyer goes too far to say that Violence is the God of the Bible. Moreover, I think he goes too far in saying that we should reject the Bible’s authority outright. What people like Nelson-Pallmeyer want is a god who fits their sensibilities, that feels comfortable, and accommodates their politics. While attractive, such an approach seems to miss the point that God is the ultimate Guide in life, and perhaps some humilityon our part is in order.

However, I am caused to ask several probing questions: Is there not a way one can doubt portions of the Bible without a full rejection of Scripture as reflecting the word of God? Is there not a kind of doubt and challenge to the Bible that respects rather than rejects its authority? Is it not true that the Bible itself has questioned the justification of violence in the first place?

I know that last question is true for me, I challenge the “violence-of-God tradition” because of people like Clarence Jordan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, and Gandhi, who saw in Jesus a model of nonviolence and a model of the nonviolent life. I can accept that human biases and tendencies have found their way into the Bible stories without rejecting the overall authority of the Bible. It is a respect for the Biblical story of Jesus that moves me to question the “violence-of-God” images found elsewhere. In that sense the Bible questions itself and corrects itself.

Furthermore, running alongside the violence-of-God tradition is the tradition of the Suffering Servant found in many passages, such as Isaiah 53, Mark 10.45 and Philippians 2.5-11. In those passages Jesus offers a model of life that counters violence with a willingness to suffer. I think of Martin Luther King who said to his adversaries, “Our capacity to endure suffering will match your ability to inflict it.” In his words and example of Jesus showed that not only are Christians called to reject violence, but they also are called to embrace a way of sacrifice and suffering. Suffering overcomes the violence – in essence this is the message of the Cross and the Resurrection.

The message that needs to go out in this time of war is not that God will vindicate us with divine violence, but rather that God calls us to serve through redemptive suffering. What that means is both vague and frightening, and worthy of more thought and a lot more action. When I think of groups like Witness for Peace, Doctors Without Borders, and Christian Peacemakers, I see examples of people extending themselves to the point of suffering to say “no” to violence.

I cannot reconcile myself to the violence I find in Scripture. I am still troubled by battle language and divinely sanctioned violence that I find there. But in Jesus I see another theme emerging that unmasks and disarms violence through the power of redemptive love and suffering. Concretely, what does that mean for me, for us? I am still exploring.

Joining the School for Social Change

A long awaited dream has finally come true. This summer I will be transferring from Eastern University’s School of Management Studies to the School for Social Change (SSC). Every since SSC opened nearly nine years ago, I have wanted to be part of their mission. This past fall I was invited to join the faculty there and gladly accepted. After several months of negotiation, the logistical details have been worked out. This summer my office will move from Valley Forge, where I have been for several years to Eastern’s Philadelphia campus.

I will be splitting my time between three programs in SSC. First, I will be joining the Masters in Urban Studies program. Currently, I am teaching a Leadership Development course in that program, and having a great time. I hope to also will teach courses in urban theology and Race and Ethnic Relations.

Second, I will be teaching in the newest program “Eastern in the City”, an undergraduate program specifically targeting urban students who might otherwise not have the opportunity to attend a Christian college. Students earn a two year Associates of Arts degree, which they can then transfer to Eastern or any other four year college. This past fall I taught the introductory first year course, “Introduction to Faith, Reason and Justice,” and next fall will also teach a course on social justice.

The third program involves an outreach to urban pastors and community leaders who are seeking to develop skills in the areas of organizational management, community outreach and economic development. Faculty from Palmer Theological Seminary, the School of Leadership Development, and SSC are combining efforts and expertise. Here I hope to contribute my insights from community based education and adult learning. This effort is still in the process of being formulated, but holds great promise.

In my limited involvement with SSC to date, I have found the students to be engaging and the faculty and staff very supportive. There is a strong commitment to the city, and to providing innovative education that reflects the urban environment we seek to serve. While connected to Eastern’s main campus in terms of the overall mission, SSC brings a fresh approach to education that seeks to transform the lives of students, as well as the city.

Joining the folks of SSC in many ways brings together many of my long time passions. Ever since my days as a pastor, I have had a special concern for the people of the city and the challenges they face. Part of my own journey has been coming to grips with the great advantages I have enjoyed in life and desire to give back to others. Inmy studies of adult education I have focused in the area of popular education, or what I have come to called community based adult education, which focuses on ways of bringing folks together to identify and address the problems they are facing in their community.

While I bring expertise in the areas of leadership, social justice, interracial issues and faculty development, I expect I will grow in ways I have yet to imagine. The faculty and staff of SSC are seasoned urban practitioners, and I expect to learn a lot from them. Upon graduation from college, my first job was as an urban youthworker in Boston, MA. Thereafter, I pastured in two urban churches, after moving to churches outside the city, and teaching in adult higher education. In coming to SSC, I have come full circle, and it feels like coming home.

Stop The Idiocy

Early on the morning of Saturday, January 27th, four of us (Cynthia, Phoebe & Drick Boyd, and Laura Rosenberger) loaded into our car for Washington, DC to join nearly 100,000 like-minded folks on the National Mall in front of the Capitol Building. Our purpose was to urge our government, particularly our Congresspersons, to use their power to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq, and to oppose President’s Bush’s plan to send a “surge” of 21,000 more soldiers to that embattled country.

One could not have asked for a nicer January day for such an event. The sun was shining and the temperature was pleasant. But more than the weather, the spirit of the rally was positive and upbeat. There were drummers, and jugglers and people with all kinds of costumes and signs. Speakers representing all sorts of organizations from anti-war groups like Code Pink and United for Peace and Justice, to military vets and families of current and past soldiers, to well known celebrities and politicians praised us for our presence and exhorted us to chants, cheers and songs. I was particularly struck by the diversity of age and race in the crowd. This was not just a young person’s or an older person's or a white person's or a black person’s march; it was a march that represented the diverse demographic that is the United States.

What brought me there was a strong sense that our policies toward Iraq would only deepen the crisis that already exists there. Someone once wrote that idiocy is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. By that definition President Bush’s Iraq policy is idiocy. I am neither pro-war nor pro-military, but when patriotic types and military personnel question the wisdom of the Bush policy, and. when a group of seasoned diplomats like the Baker-Hamilton Commission counsel a different approach, one can be assured that the current approach is idiocy.

I am no expert on Mideast policy or of the Arab-Muslim mindset. Yet, it is apparent that our presence in Iraq only enflames an already explosive situation. The leaders of Iraq must be forced to end the hostilities between their competing factions. While U.S. personnel are being injured and killed, even more so the Iraqi people are suffering in the current violence. Iraq’s neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Syria and Turkey, as well Muslim states like Egypt and Algeria, must use their influence to end the hostilities. U.S. diplomatic efforts should center on engaging these nations in working with the Iraq government to find a path for peace.

U.S. policy has led to massive death and violence. Adding soldiers and firepower to the current situation will only add to the death toll and increase the violence. The idiocy of the Bush policy is that it seeks to do more of the same, vainly hoping for a different result. What is needed is not more troops, but a different approach.

As one who thinks of himself as a Christian peacemaker, my prayer and hope is that a Muslim peace movement might arise not only in the U.S. but more importantly across the Mideast. Missing from Saturday’s demonstration was a strong Muslim presence. While most people see the “war on terror” as a battle of Arabs against the United States, in a very real sense it is an intra-Muslim conflict. By this I don’t mean to suggest that U.S. actions haven’t contributed greatly to the problem, because indeed they have. What I mean is that if groups such as al-Quaeda don’t represent mainstream Muslim thinking, then Muslims must silence them. If the Sunni-Shiite conflict in Iraq is out of control, them cooler, wiser Muslim heads must prevail. Muslims who yearn for peace must take center stage.

For too long the powers of the world, starting with the U.S., have resorted to war and violence and criticized efforts of diplomacy and peacemaking as “unrealistic.” From where I sit, war in Iraq has done a pretty lousy job of saving lives and increasing security. Furthermore, the weapons of war are too dangerous to be used judiciously. War has been tried and been found wanting; its time for peacemakers to stand between the warring factions and say “enough is enough.” I would hope that as peacemakers across the globe and across the religious spectrum, we could raise up an army of reconciliation. Now that would be a rally that could stop the idiocy!

Biblical Language and Life as a Battle: Some Thoughts

I have been a committed pacifist for much of my adult life. Recently, I have come to realize that peacemaking is not only about opposing war; it also involves conceiving of life in a different way. In this quest for peacemaking at a deeper level, I have looked to the Bible for guidance. However, I am troubled by the violence and battle language I find there.

My pacifism has largely arisen out of my study of the Bible and church history. As a Baptist pastor in the early 1990’s, I spoke out publicly against the first Gulf War. I received a great deal of criticism from people both inside and outside the church for that stand. This criticism prompted me to engage in an extensive study of peace theology in the Bible and early church history. I came out of that study convinced that when one used the life and ministry of Jesus as the starting point, the Bible supported a pacifist position. Furthermore, it was clear from a study of early church history that for the first 300 years of their existence, Christians were largely non-violent and opposed to participation in military service.

However, when we look at the Bible as a whole, and not just at Jesus, we see that God is often portrayed in militaristic and violent terms. Exodus 15.3 proclaims “God is a warrior.” The Old Testament is full of stories where God leads people into battle to defeat the enemies of the Jews. Furthermore, God is often depicted as commanding people to completely destroy their enemies, their houses and their livestock in accordance with the Hebrew concept of “the ban” (see Numbers 21.1-3; Deuteronomy 20, Joshua 7-8). To my mind “the ban” is not much different than the Islamic idea of “jihad” or “holy war.” Now granted, God often won those battles in unconventional ways like having Gideon only take soldiers who drank water a certain way (Judges 7) or Moses holding up his arms (Exodus 17), or Joshua walking around the city of Jericho seven times (Joshua 6). At other times angels appeared and scared off the enemies of the Jews. Even so, Yahweh is portrayed as a warrior God who vanquishes the enemies of his people.

Furthermore, when Jesus was recognized as the Messiah, one of the disconcerting things about him to the Jews of his time is that he was not a conquering king. Jewish tradition had prepared them to expect a warrior Messiah and Jesus did not fit that role. Even so, it appears that Jesus did not erase the image of a warrior king, he only postponed it. For in his vision of the Second Coming, John depicts the apocalyptic Christ as a mighty warrior who comes to slay the enemies of God (see Revelation 19.11-21). “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord” (Deuteronomy 32. 35; Romans 12.19). Believers get their retribution, just a little later

Moreover, the spiritual life itself is often described using military and battle imagery. In Psalm 80.1 God is invoked to do battle with the enemy:

Hear, O Shepherd of Israel…
Awaken your might and come and save us

Psalm 137.9 calls on God to seize the infants of the Babylonians and “dash them against the rocks.”

Paul explicitly calls on this battle imagery in Ephesians 6 when he says

Finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the devil’s schemes (vss. 10-11).

Furthermore, Paul refers to the spiritual life as a battle “not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the spiritual forces of evil” (vs. 12).
Now certainly there are other images of God found in Scripture (Redeemer, Savior, Midwife, Shelter), but one can not deny how often God is associated with violence and battle.

Philosophers of language have pointed out that the words people use reflect their thought forms, and in turn those thought forms profoundly influence the paradigms or cognitive lens through which they interpret events in the world. The Biblical writers lived in a violent time and were under constant physical threat from foreign armies. Furthermore, some of their own leaders were ruthless military leaders. They drew on imagery and language that was familiar to them: the imagery of battle. By extension the Bible profoundly influences the words most Christians use and the ways they think about their lives in the world. The preponderance of biblical violence and battle imagery can not help but cause Christians to see their lives in terms of a battle against temptation, against evil, and against those who oppose or obstruct the things of God.

In the introduction to Terror in the Mind of God (a study of religiously-based terrorism), sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer asks “Why does religion seem to need violence and violence religion, and why is a divine mandate for destruction accepted with such certainty by some believers?” (p. 7). While it is a large leap from reading the Bible to someone like Timothy McVeigh bombing the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, in part the answer to that question lies in the battle mindset embedded in the Scriptural narrative. We are set up for violence by the underlying polarities in the Scripture. Increasingly, I struggle with the tension between my convictions for peace-making (which is Jesus –centered and Biblically based) and the violence and battle mentality so prevalent in the Bible.

Parker Palmer suggests that we reconceptualize the spiritual life as a journey rather than a battle. His comment underscores the important point that all language about God is at best metaphorical and symbolic. People use images and words familiar to them to describe a Presence and a Spirit they can not literally see or touch. The language we use does not describe the reality of God as much as it helps us talk intelligently about transcendent realities beyond our full comprehension. Perhaps as Palmer suggests we need to embrace other biblical imagery for the spiritual life other than life as a battle, weaning at the breast of a nursing mother (Psalm 131)or as a process of growth from seed to plant (Mark 4.1-20).

At this point I have more questions than answers, because I find myself confused and troubled by the fact that I worship and serve a God who seems to be so violent. Collins concludes his study of Biblical violence by suggesting that the Biblical depictions of violence give “an unvarnished picture of human nature of the dynamics of history” (p. 31). I seek to live a life of peacemaking that does not ignore that unvarnished picture of human nature. We live in a violent world. I believe that realistic pacifism must engage that world in part by helping people see themselves and others in new ways. That’s why the issue of language and mindset concerns me so deeply.

A Christmas Meditation on Hope

This past year the word “hope” has taken on a more significant meaning for me, largely due to my ongoing study of the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. Freire dedicated his life to serving the illiterate poor of the world. His methods not only taught illiterate campesinos how to read, but also how to “read the world” politically and socially. He had an approach to education that caused people oppressed and squeezed by the socioeconomic system to see the nature of their situation and then act into change that system. In his native Brazil his methods were so successful and so revolutionary he was imprisoned and later exiled by the government. However, he remained undaunted and took his message and methods to the entire world, replicating his work in Chile, Guinea-Bissau and the United States. Despite the suffering and resistance he endured, throughout his life Freire remained a positive and hopeful because he had a vision of what could be, a vision in part given to him by his faith in a just God. His example has inspired and helped me appreciate the power of hope to transform the world.

Faith is “the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11.1). Trust is “what is in front of you (my own definition with help from Heidegger). Courage is the willingness to act in spite of fear (Hauerwaus). So what is hope?

Hope for me begins with the awareness that God is at work in the world in spite of the evidence. Hope is believing that I am part of something that is bigger than I am, as well as bigger than governments, militaries or terrorists; Hope is seeing the reign of God breaking into the stuff of life in the midst of these atrocities. Hope is a vision of God’s future where the poor have dignity, where people divided by racial/ethnic fear and hatred can reconcile, and where battles between enemies cease. Hope is being part of a people who are working with God to make these things happen. Hope is believing that racism, oppression, injustice and violence are aberrations from God’s created order and not the norm. Hope is knowing that in working for justice and peace, we are working for the right cause. Hope is the conviction that the yearning for peace, justice and reconciliation is planted deep with the human spirit because God has placed it there. Hope is believing that the Eternal has broken into the temporal and God in us (Immanuel) compels us to act, live and believe.

Preachers and theologians often speak of hope in transcendent and heavenly terms: the hope of life with God after death. However, for me hope is woven into the stuff of life here and now. Hope is seeing a place like the Village of Arts and Humanities (a transformed neighborhood in North Philadelphia), or the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, or the impact of churches like Monumental Baptist in Jersey City or Greater Exodus in Philadelphia (churches that have transformed their neighborhoods)or emergent Christian communities like the Simple Way (Philadelphia) and Rutba House (Durham, NC) who have woven their spirituality into living with the poor and dispossessed or groups like Christian Peacemaker Teams and Mennonite Disaster Service serving those devastated by war or natural disaster.

In the end Hope is not about me or what will happen to me when I die. Hope is how I live now. Hope is realizing that my destiny is tied to the destiny of the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized, and that when I share life and struggle with “the least of these” (Matthew 25), I am close to God. Hope is getting the opportunity to rub shoulders with those whom God has touched and knowing that the essence of life is far deeper than my vocational or material success.

So this Christmas I have hope and want to be a source of hope for others. I want to rededicate my life to service and working for justice. For me this happens through teaching students whom the educational system has largely deemed unworthy of its time and energy and seeing them succeed. It happens as I challenge adult students working in the business world to be “tempered radicals” helping to make their workplaces more compassionate, just and environmentally conscious. It happens once a week as I teach a young woman to read. It happens as I interact with people in my church and on my campus whoare captured by a passion for challenging the status quo. It happens as I try to point out places where I believe God is at work. It happens in my attempts to share my passions and visions with those I love and those closest to me. It happens as I continually look for the places and people in whom God is working and join forces with them.

Hope is not a pipe dream. Hope is Incarnate. Jesus, God in our midst, is Hope and enables us to be Hope for the world.

A Veteran's Day for Peacemakers

This coming weekend, is Veteran’s Day weekend, a time when the country honors the veterans who have served in the military and fought in our country’s wars. When I was a Baptist pastor, I could never get past this weekend without having someone in the congregation (not me) ask all the vets to stand up and be honored for “defending our freedom.” Now I realize that this kind of rhetoric is about as central to the American psyche as hot dogs and apple pie. I don’t doubt the vets’ sincerity or their courage, but I think they were and are often misled and misguided, as evidenced by the immoral wars we have fought over the last several decades, including the one we are in now.

As a pacifist, I want to ask for equal time for all those folks (many who were vilified) for their tireless efforts to work for peace in a war-mongering world. So I declare (for myself and anyone else who would like to join me!) this weekend as a Peace Veteran’s Day and put forth a few of my favorites to be honored for their work for peace through the years.

John Woolman- a Quaker in the 18th century who spent 20 years convincing his fellow Quakers to free their slaves

Elijah Lovejoy – a Presbyterian journalist who was killed by a mob in St. Louis for his opposition to slavery prior to the Civil War.

AJ Muste – a labor organizer and pacifist in the early 20th century

Mahatma Gandhi – a natural choice – the one who gave us satygraha (soul-force)

Martin Luther King Jr. – another natural choice, the one who tied satygraha to the ethic of Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount and gave us the “dream”

Dorothy Day – the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement

Jimmy Carter – a tireless worker for peace in the public sphere and a man who was consistent in his search for peace even when he was considered “weak”

Dan Buttry – a friend and mediator throughout the world who has worked to bring reconciliation in Burma, Northeast India, and many other places in the world

Arthur Rouner – my pastor growing up who retired to start a reconciliation ministry has worked inmany places including India and Rwanda

Daniel Berrigan – a leader in the anti-Vietnam War movement

Clarence Jordan –founder of Koinonia Farms in Americus, Georgia (which influenced Jimmy Carter) and a leader in racial reconciliation

Elias Chacour - Palestinian priest seeking to bring Jews, Christians and Muslims together in dialogue

Desmond Tutu – a leader in the South African reconciliation movement

Paulo Freire- Brazilian educator who taught campesinos to read the word and the world simultaneously.

Myles Horton –founder of Highlander Research and Education Center, a place that has trained social activists in labor, civil rights, environmental causes and immigrant rights for 50 years.

The list goes on. This list is neither exhaustive nor complete; there are many more tha could be added. Feel free to add your own. These are a few of my peace heroes, veterans of the peace cause. Let us honor them in our thoughts, but more so by following their example.

Maybe Jesus Had It Right

Over the last couple of weeks the media has highlighted the response of the Amish community to a crazed gunman who brutally murdered six innocent school girls. Admittedly, there is something unbalanced about the amount of coverage of this murder has received when in the same period of time 4-5 times as many murders have occurred in Philadelphia alone. On the other hand, the response of the Amish to this crisis has been instructive, as they have embraced both the family of the victims and the murderer, offering forgiveness, compassion and support in the name of Jesus. Numerous observers have raised questions suggesting that perhaps the Amish have something to teach us about how we as human beings can and should live together. Diana Butler Bass raises one such interesting question. She asks, "What if the Amish were in charge of the war on terror?" As she points out the Christ-like actions of the Amish were not only witnessing to the gospel of peace, they were “actively making peace” in a situation where most people would be talking of revenge.

Bass’ comment took me back several months to a time when I was in New Orleans helping with post-Katrina relief. An article in the local paper reported a debate among several politicians running in the Democratic primary for mayor. They were discussing how slow various government agencies were moving in rebuilding the sections of the city devastated by the hurricane and subsequent floods. One of the candidates sarcastically said: “Maybe we ought to hire the Amish to come and rebuild our houses.” I thought to myself, ‘Truer words could not have been spoken. They would get it done a whole lot faster than FEMA! And the houses would be sturdier too.’

So often people, even Christians, look at groups like the Amish, and say, “The teachings of Jesus are nice in an ideal world, but this is the ‘real world.’” Too often we pay lip service to the gospel when it suits our purposes and backs our plans, but we don't seriously consider that Jesus may have had it right all along. Maybe we ought to take another look. Maybe forgiveness, non-retaliation, serving others, loving the enemy and offering grace is more “realistic” than the violent, power-grabbing, self-righteousness that characterizes the realpolitick of our age.

Thinking of the U.S. response to the war on terror, Diana Butler Bass puts it this way:

“What if we had invited the families of the hijackers to the funerals of the victims of 9/11? What if a portion of the September 11 Fund had been dedicated to relieving poverty in a Muslim country? What if we dignified the burial of their dead by our respectful grief?"

In other words, what if we took Jesus seriously and lived as he called us to live?

Recently, Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove spoke to our church in Philadelphia. Jonathan is one of many (mostly) young Christians across the country who are seeking to live and work faithfully in community together as faithful followers of Jesus. Speaking of his community (Rutba House) in Durham, North Carolina, Jonathan writes :

..[W]e are excited to learn more all the time of ways in which the Spirit is moving to address the social crisis we feel when we talk to our neighbors or read the morning paper. We are encouraged by the Catholic Worker Movement, the Bruderhof communities, Shalom Mission Network, Word and World Alternative Seminary, the Ekklesia Project, and the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA), among many others. Despite an absence from mainstream media, God has not left the world stage. The Holy Spirit is alive and active, moving among God’s people to produce creative new forms of resistance against the powers of evil. At the same time, God is creating new communities that, though imperfect, give us a glimpse of the kingdom that is to come “on earth as it is in heaven.” It is an exciting thing to see.

People like Jonathan and the Amish remind me that Jesus was on to something. Jesus had it right about we are to live in the “real” world. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt if we listened...and then gave it try.

What Did Hurricane Katrina Show Us?

This week I have felt inundated by the TV, radio and newspaper reports commemorating the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Like many people outside of the directly affected areas, I did not realize until several days after the hurricane hit the Louisiana-Mississippi coast just how utterly devastating it was. Like many folks, I was transfixed by ongoing newscasts chronicling the death, suffering and desperation of the people trying to escape the rising floodwaters. In March I had the opportunity to see the destruction first hand on a trip to Louisiana to work with Mennonite Disaster Services. I stood on the beach in Gulfport Mississippi, I walked the streets of New Orleans’ ninth ward, and I talked with residents of the bayou where we worked. That trip profoundly and deeply affected me in ways I cannot articulate. Watching the news reports this week has brought an ache in my gut and tears to my eyes time and time again. While I did not suffer the loss and trauma of the victims of the storm, in a small way I feel connected to their agony.

Much has been made of the government’s flawed and inadequate response to the crisis a year ago. Journalists and politicians have had a field day laying blame on the leaders involved. Much of that blame is well-deserved, but I don’t want to rehearse their diatribes here. Rather, I want to focus my attention elsewhere.

More than anything else, the aftermath of Katrina has shown us just how utterly flawed and callous our economic system is when it comes to poor people. Now I should reveal my bias up front; I believe the success of an economic system can be judged by how well it takes care of its most vulnerable citizens (I got that crazy idea from a carpenter turned itinerant preacher who lived in first century Palestine and who said something about “whatever you did unto the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did unto me”). On that score, the system failed---big time.

How is it that in the year following the worst natural disaster in recent U.S. history, oil companies have earned record profits? Not only did the aftermath reveal the stranglehold oil companies have on our economy, but when asked to justify their good fortune, the oil company spokespersons cited “market forces.” What we have seen in the past year is that the system rewards those with resources regardless of how others are faring. Moreover, PBS recently ran a special report revealing how the oil companies are being allowed to slide on the fees and taxes they are required by law to pay to the government. Furthermore, oil companies have routinely suppressed efforts to research and experiment with alternative energy sources, which could significantly lessen our dependence on oil. Any system that allows such brazen disregard for compassion and justice to go unchallenged is a deeply flawed system.

More recently, the insurance companies have shown their true stripes as well. While residents in New Orleans paid their homeowner’s insurance faithfully, when it came time for them to collect on their investments, they received only a fraction of the real value of the losses incurred. While people wonder if they will be able to rebuild, I don’t see any insurance companies struggling to survive. In fact they probably charged the rest of us more (presumably for less), so they can maintain their bottom line. I guess that’s those “market forces” again. If homeowner’s insurance doesn’t insure, what does it do?

And then how is it that the New Orleans Saints will be able to play their first home game in the Superdome in late September while most the residents of New Orleans can’t even begin to rebuild their homes? Somehow the owners of the Superdome were able to get their $75 million government check, while thousands of homeowners and other residents are caught up in bureaucratic red tape. I am as avid a football fan as the next person, but the priorities are really messed up here. For many people that stadium is a dome of death and despair, and probably should be torn down rather than renovated. How can such a move be justified when whole neighborhoods have not even begun to be rebuilt?

In our individualistically oriented culture, many people get nervous when suggestions are made that restrictions should be placed on people’s ability to make and create wealth. The rationale goes something like this: “Hey, if the oil barons, the insurance companies, and the owners of a football team can get away with it, more power to them. Then, if they want to give back to the community out of their largesse, that is their choice.” We get all excited when the Bill Gates and the Warren Buffets give away their billions to charity, when we need to question the system that allows them to profit so wantonly in the first place.

Ironically, the U.S. Census Report on Income, Poverty & Health Insurance Coverage was released on the same day as the Katrina anniversary. The report revealed that while the overall median income in the United States rose by 1.1 %, the number of poor people remained steady at 12.6%. Moreover the poverty rates for Blacks (24.9%) and Hispanics (21.8%) remained the same, for Asians it went up (9.8 to 11.1%), whereas for whites it decreased (8.7 to 8.3%). In broad terms what these statistics mean is that only some people are benefiting by our “growing” economy. The system is not designed to benefit everyone, just those who already have more than their fair share. Those in the most vulnerable position have the least resources to take care of themselves; that’s the sign of a flawed system.

In the U.S. Census Report one pair of statistics captured the essence of the problem as I see it. The state of New Jersey was ranked as the state with the highest median income ($61672), while Camden, NJ had the lowest median income in the country of any city its size ($18,007). Camden also is reported to have 44% of its residents living below the poverty line. One “expert” said, “[These statistics] are telling us that the general good news about New Jersey isn’t reaching everyone.” No kidding!

In an incontrovertible, in-your-face way Hurricane Katrina showed us is that the great capitalistic system on which so many of us depend is not working and never was working and can not work for the benefit of all the people. Capitalism is designed to create and maintain individual wealth, not spread that wealth around. The statistics are clear, the reality is daunting, and the results are immoral and unjust. What Katrina showed us is that long after the clean-up of New Orleans and the Gulf coast, we have got another massive clean up job ahead of us: righting a system that has gone hopelessly wrong.

Searching for the Reign of God

On July 30, 2006 I preached this sermon at a small Baptist Church in South Philadelphia. I shared with the folks there some of my ideas about how the Reign of God is made present in our midst, and how we discern where God is working. My intention was to encourage them to look for signs of hope and to be such a sign to the people of their neighborhood.

INTRODUCTION
Deborah Good, a personal friend who happens to be an author, writes about a place that gives her hope.

“There is a neighborhood in North Philadelphia that continually inspires me. It’s certainly a tough neighborhood, the kind that never makes it onto the tourist brochures. This is a place where people—mostly young black men—are lost every year to drug violence and the (terribly unjust) prison system. Yet this is also a place where an African-American man named Arthur Hall and a Chinese woman named Lily Yeh had the eyes to see possibility in an abandoned and neglected lot.

“Hall invited Yeh, an outsider to the neighborhood, to build a garden there, which she did. [While she was the designer the community people were invited to help and as they did, they got involved in building the park. School children pick up the trash as part of a class once a day. Then they go through the garbage and learn about the environmental impact of various items. Most of the chairs are handmade and some are even made out of the trash that was collected.] Over the years, the garden was followed by more parks and gardens, mosaics, murals, youth and theater programs. Today it is called the Village of Arts and Humanities. I do not talk about hope as freely as some, but I have walked the streets of the Village, and when I turn the corner from Germantown Avenue onto Alder Street with its many-colored mosaics, hope feels like a blast of cool air in my face.

“In a magazine article, Lily Yeh put it this way: ‘I came to conceive of the neighborhood as a piece of living sculpture, in which people live and work, and the forms are brought to life by living community events’ ("A Luminous Place," The Other Side, Jul./Aug. 2004).

[Deborah Good concludes] “Like Yeh, I want to be a seeker of possibilities—in my own life, in others, in broken people and places.”

Life these days is difficult with the violence and crime throughout the city, the gas prices and the heat, not to mention the wars in Lebanon and Iraq and who knows where else. All this stuff going on around us can make us feel pretty hopeless. Amidst the signs of hopelessness all around us, we need to find people like Lilly Yeh and Arthur Hall, and places like the Village of Arts and Humanities that remind us of possibilities. Moreover, as the people of God, and the community of faith we are called to be those possibilities of hope for others.

Jesus’ Idea of the Reign of God
The people of the first century in Palestine felt pretty hopeless too. Subjected the domination of a vicious Roman empire, and a rigid religious establishment, he life of the common Palestinian peasant was hard and often hopeless. Jesus came along telling stories called parables. These were stories of hope, stories about a Kingdom he said he had come to initiate.

Now let me take a moment to clarify what is meant by the Kingdom of God. First, of all the kingdom of God is not a place. Rather it refers to the influence of God on people’s lives and social events. That’s why I prefer to talk about the Reign of God rather than kingdom; its gets us away from thinking about this idea that there is a particular place. Jews and Muslims have been fighting for centuries over the city of Jerusalem because they see it as a holy place, and even some fundamentalist Christian groups have fixated on Jerusalem and the state of Israel as a sacred place. They have got it wrong, God’s kingdom is not a place, it’s an influence, it’s the Reign of God.

Second, the Kingdom or Reign of God is not something we have to wait to experience until the second coming of Jesus. There are some Christians who look at Jesus’ words about the Kingdom as something that is way off in the future. That is just plain mistaken. Jesus was talking about the impact God was having right then and there, and by extension the impact that God is having right here and right now. When Jesus is talking about the Kingdom, he is talking about God’s activity in our world right now.

Third, some would say that the Kingdom is something only God can do. In one sense that’s true, because the influence of God on our lives is God’s work. But we have to cooperate, we have to participate. God doesn’t force our hand; God offers us an opportunity. We have to participate with God in seizing that opportunity and bringing about the world that God wants to create.

Finally, the kingdom is represented by very tangible signs. At one point when John the Baptist was in prison, he sent his followers to Jesus to ask him a question: “Are you the one who is to come or should we wait for another?" It was a yes or no question, but Jesus answered it this way: Tell John what you hear and see: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised and the poor have good news preached to them” (Matthew 11. 2-6). Very tangible signs of hope, justice and healing. Leonardo Boff, a Latin American theologian, says that the Reign of God is best measured by social and ethical criteria, such as benefits to the poor, needs being met, and power be gained by the powerless and so on. God’s reign can be felt and seen because it’s tangible.

The Reign of God in Parables
In the beginning of Mark 4 Jesus tells a story that is commonly called the Parable of the Sower or sometimes called the Parable of the Soils. The purpose of this story was to make the point that the news of this kingdom was only available to those who were open and willing to hear about it and change their lives in response to what they heard.

Then in Mark 4.26 he says the kingdom of God is like a person scattering seed. She scatters the seed and then wakes up one morning to see the seed sprouting and growing. Anyone who has ever planted a garden can understand the picture Jesus is painting. You put his little seed in a pot or in a plot of ground, and you wait, and then one day there it is. Gradually, at first, imperceptibly the seed grows, and then it becomes a full-grown plant. If you aren’t watching, or if you don’t know where to look, you might miss it altogether because it sneaks up on you. Just like the seed, the growth of God’s reign is at first imperceptible; you have to watch for it.

Then starting in Mark 4.30 he says the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. Now apparently a mustard seed is a tiny, tiny little seed. Yet it grows into quite a big and bushy plant over 6 feet tall. What is Jesus’ point? God’s reign doesn’t make a big splash; it’s not a huge production. It starts small, almost imperceptibly, tiny like a mustard seed.

The other night I went to see Cirque du Soleil. What a production: lights, and music and pulleys, costumes and amazing performers…an incredible production. Great for a circus, but not for how God makes an impact on our world. God doesn’t put on a production, God plants a mustard seed.

Now Jesus makes an assumption when he tells this story of the mustard seed. He assumes that we will join in the work. He assumes that just like a seed needs watering and cultivating and pruning and tending, that once we know that God works in small ways to make his influence known, we will join in. Because I said earlier, the kingdom is not something we sit on the sidelines to watch; we need to join in.

Conspiracy of the Insignificant
Tom Sine, a Christian futurist, wrote a book called the Mustard Seed Conspiracy. He writes “That has always been God’s strategy --changing the world through the conspiracy of the insignificant…God’s policy [is] to work though the embarrassingly insignificant to change his world and create his future” (p. 11-12). Sine goes on in his book to tell story after story of ordinary folks changing their lives in order to join in the work of God in the world – helping the poor, protecting the environment, stopping the violence, speaking truth to power, bringing hope and justice to the oppressed. The sign of this “mustard seed conspiracy” is the presence of hope that changes lives.

As the 3rd century Christian leader, Origen, wrote: The poor are said to be the rag, tag and bobtail of humanity. But Jesus does not leave them that way. Out of material you would have thrown away as useless, he fashions people of strength, giving them back their self-respect, enabling them to stand on their feet, and look God in the eye. They were cowed, cringing, broken things. But the Son has set them free!”

Basically, what this means for us is that we have to search for signs of the kingdom, search for signs of God’s reign in the world. Like Deborah Goode looking for visible signs of hope and justice like the Village of Arts and Humanities, we need to look for other signs of hope and justice indicating the activity of God’s kingdom. Once we find those signs, we need to join in, to become part of this mustard seed movement, this conspiracy of the insignificant.

Searching for the Reign of God
Several years ago I met a young man recently out of college who was going to work in the mission field in Southeast Asia. I asked him what attracted him to Southeast Asia and he responded with an answer I have never forgotten. He said, “Instead of waiting for God to move where I am, I want to go where God is already moving and be a part of God’s work there.” What struck about this statement was the realization that just because I may be a faithful, conscientious Christian, that does not mean that God is working along side of me. In our American can-do ethic, we think that if we just do all the right things, God will bless us. But that’s not the case. God is the one in control and our task is to find where God is working and join in there.
Sometimes where God is working catches us off guard –

- Like in a former burned out, drug infested neighborhood of North Philadelphia with Lily Yeh and Arthur Hall.

- Or the gutters of Calcutta, India with Mother Teresa;

- Or in a small village in northern Palestine where a priest named Elias Chacour brings Jews, Christian and Muslims together to talk of peace;

- Or among a group of students from Eastern University who founded a community in Kensington called the Simple Way that is reaching out to their neighbors in clear and tangible ways;

- Or maybe right here in a tiny Baptist Church in South Philadelphia.

Where is God’s impact being felt? Where are people being helped and healed and given hope? Where is justice being found for the poor, the dispossessed, and the victims of oppression? Sometimes you have to look long and far and wide. Sometimes it’s hard to find such evidence. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack or trying to find a mustard seed…but that’s where God’s reign is breaking in and where God’s influence being felt.

The Story of Ann
I am a college professor who mostly teaches adults who have decided to come back to get their college degree after dropping our of a college years before. One such person was a woman named Ann. Ann grew up here in Philly, and then went into the Army, and attained the rank of Sergeant. At the height of her career she was a commander of troops in South Korea.

Ann got out of the Army, went to work for a law firm as an accountant, and showed up as a student in one of my classes. She was tough as nails, but she had always struggled as a student. So two weeks into her first class, she was ready to quit. I ran into her in the library and she said, “I was just going to call you. I’m quitting. I can’t do this school stuff. I’m not smart enough.” Well, I was able to convince to stick out the one class and then make her decision. She got through the class with a C, and I encouraged her to continue on, which she did.

Several months later, I had her for another class. She did so well in my class, she earned an A. When she got her grade, she hugged me and said thanked me. I reminded her that I don’t give grades. She earned it, and she could be proud of her accomplishment.

A few months later I had her for the last class in her program, and she told me she was thinking about going on with her education. Through her job she had gotten involved in a program tutoring elementary school kids and she thought she might want to be a teacher. She also mentioned that she had started going back to church, that her faith in God had been renewed. That’s when I knew that this change in Ann was more than just about academics; God had been working on her.

A few more months passed by and Ann called me up and asked if I would write her a recommendation because she was applying to get in a Masters of Education program. I gladly did, and now Ann is on her way to getting her teaching certificate. Very soon she is going to be an elementary school teacher. She will be great at it because she knows what it’s like to be a frightened underachieving student. When she called me, I said “None of this would have happened, if years ago you had quit.” She thanked me for convincing her to stick with it. I was thankful too.

Way back there, God planted a seed, and I had a hand in watering and cultivating that seed, and now it has grown to something magnificent and beautiful.

Where is God planting seeds of hope and justice? Where is God working so we can join in? We need to search those out, lend a hand and do our part. We need to be part of this conspiracy of the insignificant. When we do that we will never feel overwhelmed. We will live in hope and be bringers of hope to others.

Making The Church Real (Rather Than Just Relevant)

My friend Matthew Krabill has gotten me thinking about what it means for the church to be relevant in contemporary culture. He defines the relevant church as “1. a distinctive community of faith that is passionate for Jesus as well as culture 2. a community of believers that has significance in present day culture.” Speaking to young adults he says “We cannot be fully relevant or fully the church if people our age do not help shape who we are called to be, and how we are to live-out our faith. I fear that we have reached a point where the words ‘distinctive community’ or ‘culturally significant’ no longer apply to the church. We (young adults) need to help change this.” Matthew is wise enough to recognize that his generation is not the first to ask such questions of the church. There are some of us baby-boomers (I turned 53 this week) who have struggled with similar questions, but I am thankful for young adults like Matthew raising the questions anew.

His reflections got me thinking, is it relevance I want from the church? Not exactly. My generation took making the church relevant very seriously. Relevance-seeking brought us contemporary worship services, user-friendly full-service churches, mega-churches that looked like mega-malls, and the homogeneous unit principle of evangelism and church growth. Ministry became a form of management. Pastoral leaders like John Maxwell took business guru Peter Drucker as the model for ministry. Evangelism became a form of marketing . Jesus became the key to self-actualization, the one who would meet all your needs and fulfill all your dreams. However, in the end nothing really changed. As Ron Sider has documented in Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, Christians are not distinctive either in their character or behavior. If anything the church has become more wedded to the status quo than before. So in my view relevance didn’t exactly get us where we needed to be.

So then I wonder maybe its faithfulness we need. That sounds good, but what exactly does it mean? Faithful to what? To our understanding of the Bible? To our faith tradition? To some vision of an idyllic Christian past that never existed?

No, what I think we need are churches that engage the core issues of the culture while remaining distinct. We need churches that understand and are involved with the culture, so they can call the culture to account. We need churches comprised of what Hauerwaus and Willimon call “resident aliens.” We need folk who are truly involved in the struggles of culture and society, while at the same living out the values of the Reign of God here and now.

Nancey Murphy, author of Beyond Liberalism and Fundamentalism, talks about the need for the “social embodiment” of faith. Social embodiment involves understanding both the sociocultural environment of the Scriptures and contemporary culture, and seeing where they correspond. We need to examine how Jesus and his followers acted and spoke to the issues of their day and to ask how can their engagement with their culture inform how we speak and act in relationship to our culture today? Social embodiment involves finding the correspondence and connections between then and now, and incarnating the first century response in 21st century terms.

For example, not long ago I had a conversation with a 19-year-old woman about how the church we attend could be more responsive to the needs of people her age. She talked about her friends, some who had been messed up on drugs, others from dysfunctional family situations, and still others who had identified themselves as gay or lesbian. She said her friends felt alienated and rejected by the church. This young woman wanted the church to be a place where her friends could ask their questions, voice their concerns, and be heard. Later I thought about how Jesus dealt with the outcasts of his day: the lepers and the poor. Is there a correspondence between Jesus’ response to outcasts and our response to these alienated young folks today? I think so.

I am thankful for people like this 19-year-old woman and Matthew Krabill for challenging me to keep making Jesus real in concrete and specific ways. However we won’t make that happen as individuals. I am convinced it can only happen in communities that share a common faith while embracing a diversity in age, gender, race, theology and perspective. It can only happen in communities that in embody their faith in the first century carpenter thorugh 21st century words, deeds, and attitudes.

Diversity, Capitalism and Doing The Right Thing

Recently, I attended a banquet of a local Human Resources organization honoring companies who had outstanding diversity programs. The featured speaker of the night was an African-American woman who ran a consulting firm focusing on team building and executive coaching. Her message to the group was basically that in order to promote diversity-related issues in a company, one has to speak the language of the CEO, which is language of money and profit. She clearly conveyed the message that in order to promote inclusiveness and diversity in a corporation you have to show how diversity positively affects the financial bottom line. What troubled me more than her basic message was her reference to people as “assets” and “resources” toward the goal of making money; this from a woman whose ancestors had merely been “property” of the plantation owners. I left the banquet depressed and angry that American capitalism had reduced people to merely a means to an end and that the business culture had again seduced one who ought to know better.

Capitalism operates on an illusion that if one hasthe right skills to make the right product or service, one can make a lot of money. The reality is that 5% of the population owns 80% of the wealth, that there is a tilted playing field that favors the haves over the have-nots, and that the rich-poor gap is increasing rather than closing. Americans call themselves the “richest country in the world” and yet when it comes to quality of life indicators such as infant mortality, general health, or crime rates, we are way down the list. We may have the greatest health care system in the world but when 40 million people have no health care insurance, the greatest system in the world is meaningless. These realities are not just a glitch in the system; the problem is the system itself.

Capitalism is like playing the lottery. People play the lottery in hopes of winning millions of dollars. Instead of taxing people proportionate to their incomes, governments sell the illusion of getting rich quick and millions fall for the line (and mostly they are working class and poor folks). The likelihood of winning is miniscule. Every lottery ticket is a tax that people place on themselves while all the time holding onto the illusion they are playing a game that will make them rich. Capitalism is the same way; it sells the illusion that someday one can make it, when in fact it primarily benefits the haves on the backs of the have-nots. The truly sad thing is all the middle and working class people play along, contributing to a system that fundamentally has sold them a lie.

As I listened to the speaker at the diversity dinner, I asked myself a number of questions:
- What if, instead of tricking people and appealing to their baser motives, one appealed to people’s higher motives like justice, fairness, and love?
- What if instead of appealing to people’s greed for making money, one could appeal to people’s desire to actually improve people’s lives and make the world safer and healthier?
- What if we used the language of profit as only one of many strategies to get people to do the right thing, and in the process raise the ethical bar of the business community?
- What if we had business leaders with the courage to call people to clean up the environment, create equity and enhance the quality of life?
- What if the development of people, the enhancement of communities and the betterment of the world was the end and not the means of business?
- What if people and groups who reversed that equation and used people rather than served them were severely sanctioned and penalized?
- What if….?

I recently read an article about James Rouse, a real estate developer who designed the Baltimore Inner Harbor, Boston’s Fanueil Hall, the city of Columbia, Maryland and a host of other life-enhancing public spaces. James Rouse was quoted as saying that the purpose of business was not the bottom line, but to provide a meaningful product or service to the community. When companies first became incorporated in the mid-1800’s that was their charter: to provide a meaningful service or product to the community. It was only in the early 1900’s that capitalism was given legal sanction to limit their concern to the bottom line.

As I listened to that speaker talk about how to sell the idea that all workers had inherent value regardless of race, gender, culture, orientation or creed, I thought there have to be ways out of the new slavery of capitalism. Maybe we can do the right thing, just because it is the right thing…and still do good business. What an amazing thought!

For more on the need to reform corporate life see the following books:

The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan

Tyranny of the Bottom Line: Why Corporations Make Good People Do Bad Things by Ralph W. Estes

The Left Hand of God

I recently finished reading Michael Lerner’s intriguing book, The Left Hand of God, (2006, Harper Collins) in which he calls for the formation of a movement of spiritual progressives. The heart of the book is what he calls “The Spiritual Covenant With America,” a series of broad proposals for social reform which seek to wed generally progressive political values to a loosely defined spiritual foundation. His assumption is that the political left has ceded spirituality to the political right thereby losing touch with the broad base of the American public, who he believes share the political values but not the spiritual agnosticism. The purpose of the Covenant is to challenge the Christian Right’s exclusive claim to spiritually motivated political values.

At one point he makes a fascinating point in which he describes how the religious right decries materialism, selfishness, and greed, while allying itself with the forces of big business that aggressively market those values. However, because the liberals work so hard to keep religious values out of the public sphere, the right can blames the left for the secularism that is sweeping our society. It’s a neat little trick that reveals the complete vacuity of vision in the Democratic Party and the duplicity of the religious right.

Lerner seems to pin his hopes and direct his thoughts toward a spiritual openness in the Democratic Party; this is where he loses me. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no Republican. Rather, I am more in sympathy with Jim Wallis (God's Poltitics) when he writes “The Right is wrong and the Left doesn’t get it.” I am enthused overall with Lerner’s Covenant, and I am hopeful that spiritually-minded progressive folks can get together, but I must confess I have no faith in the future of the Democratic Party. Seeking to align ourselves with Democrats or revive that party seems to be a dead end. The Democrats are too busy trying to criticize the Republicans that they have no vision of their own.

Furthermore, labeling the spiritual progressive movement a leftist or liberal movement is not only a dead end, at least for me it is inaccurate. Personally, I think the Right is correct on some issues, such as a concern for the family and an opposition to abortion. Their views on family are too narrow, so as not to include single parents, the poor, and gays/lesbians, but they are right when they say the family is in need of support. They are right on abortion too; but again they see “pro-life” as only one issue rather than a theme running through a number of issues such as opposition to the death penalty, the need for gun control, and the need for a health care system that provides for all. By limiting his appeal to so-called “liberal causes,” Lerner makes the same mistake as the Democrats.

Spiritual progressives must do more than simply harp on the old liberal agenda; they must forge a new vision with a new set of alliances. Jim Wallis is closer to the issue when he calls for the creation of a “radical middle,” a group of spiritually minded people who will call both the Republicans and Democrats to task for their lack of values and life-giving vision.

Personally, I would love to see the formation of a third party. In a recent issue of Tikkun, (May/June 2006), a journal which Lerner edits, historian Howard Zinn, a favorite of many progressives was asked about his opinion about “The Spiritual Covenant with America.” He said,
“My differences with Lerner though, reside in the proportion of attention he pays to spiritual values. These are important, but they are not the critical issue. The issue is living and dying…For those who find a special inspiration in Judaism or Christianity or Buddhism or whatever, fine. If that inspiration leads them to work or justice, that is what matters.” (“An Interview with Howard Zinn”, Tikkun May/June 2006, p.28).

In other words, Zinn could care less about spiritual values, what matters to him is a commitment to progressive causes. Interestingly, his opinion of the Democrats is similar to mine. He says:
“The Democratic Party is pitiful. Not only are they not articulating a spiritual vision, as Lerner says, they don’t even have a political message.” (p. 27)

On this we agree. A new political movement outside the Democratic Party is needed.

The Left Hand of God is a provocative read. Lerner raises our consciousness about the relationship between our spiritual and political values. His proposals are bold. My concern is that he is barking up the wrong tree.