Repaso: MLK’s “kitchen encounter”, multi-ethnic transformation, U2 paradox, evangelical powerbrokering, nuns at the Super Bowl
1. MLK’s God-with-us world
Skye Jethani, author of With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God (which I reviewed here), on King’s “kitchen encounter” as a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement.
2. Mission on our Doorsteps
If you’re in the Chicago area, you may want to check out this event on March 16 & 17, put together by World Relief. Here’s the mission statement:
Through a movement of prayer & collaborative mission, the body of Jesus Christ in and beyond Chicagoland will emerge multi-ethnic, united and Christ-centered and become an instrument for transforming our churches and neighborhoods.
3. The U2 paradox
Eric Hynes makes an interesting argument that “never has a band been more mockable, never has a band been more successful” than U2. After analyzing every album in the U2 catalog, Hynes concludes:
The problem is how ultimately these records lack everything that makes rock roll, that makes pop crackle, that makes soul. It’s not about coolness—it’s about desire. I can’t get no, you can’t always get, I can’t quit you, I put a spell on you, I still haven’t found, please, please me, why don’t we do it, wouldn’t it be nice, I saw her standing, how could you just leave me standing, burning, desire. At its best, U2 doesn’t merely satisfy our desires, but takes us somewhere, marching into the shadows, exploring spaces within and without, risking failure and greatness, and giving us something worth confessing in the end.
4. The danger of being evangelical powerbrokers
Christianity Today’s editor-in-chief David Neff has a critical take on the meeting that took place last weekend in Texas with 150 evangelical leaders to pick a presidential candidate to support:
I believe that Christians have an urgent duty to engage the social, economic, and moral threats to a healthy society. That requires a wide variety of political action. However, one thing it doesn't call for is playing kingmaker and powerbroker. By conspiring to throw their weight behind a single evangelical-friendly candidate, they fed the widespread perception that evangelicalism's main identifying feature is right-wing political activism focused on abortion and homosexuality. In truth, it is hard to imagine the Religious Left in 2008 doing something similar: holding a conclave to decide whether they would throw their collective weight behind either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, unwilling to leave the Democratic primary results to the voters.
5. Nuns fighting trafficking at the Super Bowl
With the Super Bowl coming up in Indianapolis on February 5, a group of nuns is working hard to fight human trafficking and prostitution, which generally happens during large sporting events like this.
"The hotels are going to be busy and we want them to be able to do what they have to do," Sister Ann Oestreich told the Catholic News Service. "The Super Bowl is a celebration, but we don't want exploitation to be part of it."
Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary from the past week related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!
Until Justice & Peace Embrace (Part 1/3)
Two weeks ago I posted a video of Nicholas Wolterstorff speaking on the topic of justice in Scripture. At that time I mentioned being in the middle of his book Until Justice and Peace Embrace, and that I expected to finish reading it in about three years. Well, I’m happy to say I finished ahead of schedule. I had every intention of keeping this brief, but the book is simply so full of such rich material that I had to turn it into a three-part series. For anyone concerned with the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace -- as I am -- Wolterstorff gives us a lot to chew on. Here is some of what I found most helpful, broken down in bite-size pieces.
Appropriating the Reformed tradition
The book began as the Kuyper Lectures at the Free University of Amsterdam thirty years ago, and as Wolterstorff explains in the preface, the ideas he presented were an attempt to appropriate the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition to which he and many in his audience belonged. “Appropriation of one’s tradition implies neither uncritical acceptance nor total rejection,” he writes. “It entails a discriminating adaptation of its features to one’s own situation.”
World-formative vs. avertive traditions
The Reformed/neo-Calvinist tradition at its best, he says, is a world-formative tradition, as opposed to an avertive one, such as the predominant Medieval expression of Christianity. He spends a chapter articulating the difference between the two kinds of traditions, but in a nutshell, world-formative traditions (Reformed and otherwise) believe that faithfulness to God requires active involvement in society.
Lima, Amsterdam and beyond
Liberation theology emerged within the Catholic Church in revolutionary Latin America during the second half of the twentieth century. It too is a world-formative tradition, focused on theologizing through the eyes of the poor, and working for political liberation from rampant injustice -- even, if necessary, through violent means. Liberation theology and neo-Calvinism have some similarities beyond the fact that they’re both world-formative, Wolterstorff says, but they also have a key difference, and it’s a fascinating one to me: one (liberation) views societal problems through the category of sin; the other (neo-Calvinism) through the category of idolatry. Which is right? Can you pick one?
We do in fact live in a world-system in which the core dominates the periphery, characteristically out of greed and a lust for power. What is that but sin? We do in fact live in a world-system shaped by the practice of treating economic growth as an autonomous and ultimate good. What is that but idolatry?
Both frameworks have validity, Wolterstorff argues, and both correct deficiencies in the other. And this is where I am so impressed with him for appropriating his own tradition, just as he said. He doesn’t uncritically accept it or totally reject it. But he called his audience in Amsterdam, and he calls you and me today, to a vision beyond either of these two world-formative traditions. What is that vision?
Shalom
Shalom, he writes, "is both God's cause in the world and our human calling." It's "intertwined" with justice but distinct from it:
In shalom, each person enjoys justice, enjoys his or her rights. There is no shalom without justice. But shalom goes beyond justice. Shalom is the human being dwelling at peace in all his or her relationships... But the peace which is shalom is not merely the absence of hostility, not merely being in right relationship. Shalom at its highest is enjoyment in one's relationships... To dwell in shalom is to enjoy living before God, toenjoy living in one's physical surroundings, to enjoy living with one's fellows, to enjoy life with oneself.
Because shalom is about right relationships, it's about ethics and responsibility. But if enjoyment and delight are missing, it's not shalom. That's a pretty compelling vision, if you ask me. We'll explore some of its ramifications tomorrow.
Catholicism vs. Communism in Cuba
I’m always on the look-out for interesting reporting on the intersections of faith and social/economic/cultural/political trends in Latin America, so a headline like this really grabs my attention: God and Profits: How the Catholic Church Is Making A Comeback in Cuba. It’s from Tim Padgett in TIME and it takes a look at the resurgence of the Catholic Church and the looming questions about what role it will play in Cuba’s very uncertain future:
The church is discovering that being the first — and only — alternative institution to the Cuban revolution is both a blessing and a curse. As President Raúl Castro, who took over for his ailing older brother Fidel in 2008, tries to engineer politically perilous economic reforms in his severely cash-strapped nation, he seems to have decided the church is the only noncommunist entity he can trust to aid those transitions without seriously challenging his rule. Speaking to the National Assembly in August, Raúl even offered a mea culpa for decades of blacklisting "Cubans with religious beliefs."
Some accuse the Church leadership of turning a blind eye to the Castros’ human rights abuses, while others just say it's moving too slowly. Padgett makes a good point about tempering perhaps impossibly lofty expectations: the Catholic Church in Cuba wasn’t particularly strong even before the revolution in 1959, at which point Fidel Castro declared Cuba atheist, so any change in the country led by the Church will take some time. The fact that it exists as the "only alternative institution to the Cuban revolution" is itself an accomplishment.
But Cuba is changing. Raúl Castro has begun easing economic restrictions and entrepreneurs are finally enjoying some breathing room. Most recently, the sales of cars are finally allowed. Additionally, Padgett reports that a large international Catholic charity stands by, ready to do its part if the decades-long feud between Cuba and the US doesn’t stop it:
Caritas hopes to launch a micro-loan project to help Cubans grow beyond timbiriches — tiny informal businesses, like vendors of homemade sweets, that the Castros have allowed since the 1990s — to enterprises that can absorb the almost 20% of the state workforce facing layoffs. If Havana and Washington permit it, nonprofit groups in the U.S. and Europe tell TIME they're set to channel tens of millions of dollars to Caritas for a micro-loan fund. "My last hope is the church," says Roque, a thin, middle-aged former Cuban soldier who was among the throng welcoming Our Lady of Charity to Havana in September. "They help with extra food and are sending me to computer lessons."
I hope Caritas will be allowed to do its work and that the Cuban government continues to ease restrictions in general. For its part, I hope the US does away with the embargo. And I hope and pray that the rising evangelical church in Cuba becomes a full participant in the making of a more just, more joyful future for all Cubans.
Featured Writing
Recent Posts
- Thoughts on Teju Cole’s “Open City”
- Not one square inch!
- Weekend Video: The Voice of Justice
- Repaso: Guatemala’s war years; The MBA Oath; Dakota prison letters; working poor in Latin America; religion vs. science
- Sustainability in the Valley of the Sun