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Repaso: Voting questions; Latinos & the environment; conservatives & immigration; evangelicals overseas; Lancaster, PA

March 2, 2012 — Leave a comment

1. Four important voting questions
Gideon Strauss suggests four questions that gospel-motivated citizens should consider when voting, but that his 11-year-old self wouldn’t have considered: Will this candidate help rehumanize American political life? Will this candidate help Americans of differing convictions to coexist more peaceably? Will this candidate help American communities and institutions toward a more symphonic justice? How does this candidate talk? These are important considerations in an election year.

2. Latinos and environmental stewardship
A Fox News Latino article takes a look at Latino support for legislation related to climate change, indicating that in addition to immigration, education and jobs, Latinos are also very concerned about environmental issues:

A 2010 study by Yale and George Mason universities found 66 percent of Latinos considered climate change a “high” or “very high” priority for the president and Congress to address, compared to 48 percent of non-Latino whites… Latinos viewed several forms of environmental damage, including air pollution and toxic waste, as a more pressing issue than whites did… Quintero said Latinos are less likely to question climate change because they have more contact with countries in Latin America that lie closer to the equator, where the repercussions are more evident. “The reason that Latinos believe and see the reality of climate change is because they live it,” Quintero said. “These impacts are very real and they’re costing lives and they’re costing jobs.”

3. Conservative evangelicals and immigration
Ali Noorani writes for CNN about a recent conference in Alabama focused on immigration from a biblical perspective and changes taking place among ordinary conservatives and evangelicals:

If you think all conservatives support a deportation-only approach to immigration, think again. Last week, hundreds of conservative evangelicals gathered in Alabama to engage in a reasonable, respectful discourse on immigration. You read that right. Less than a year after Alabama enacted the strictest immigration law in the land, evangelical students, pastors and national faith leaders gathered at Samford University in Birmingham for “a Christ-centered conversation on immigration” called the G92 South Immigration Conference… A fundamental shift is occurring among conservatives toward a new consensus on immigrants and America. These are the early steps in a march by Americans of all political stripes fed up with partisan attacks on immigrants and immigration — a groundswell ready and willing to skewer political extremism from either side of the aisle.

4. U.S. evangelicals’ overseas focus
Karl Zinsmeister writes in Philanthropy Magazine about how evangelicals in the U.S. are becoming more and more actively involved in overseas ministry, looking at different denominations and faith-based NGOs. The piece covers a lot of interesting ground, but here’s an interesting blurb:

While smart government agencies and secular NGOs often hire local workers to help them navigate crucial cultural nuances, Christian aid generally takes place in close partnership with indigenous church members. Those partners, who are both local and motivated by religious conviction, are especially good at opening doors, establishing trust, and mobilizing communities. That’s why AIDS care, health clinics, schooling, and similar assistance provided by Christian philanthropists and volunteers is frequently more transformational than aid delivered by other organizations. (Recognizing this advantage, some governments and NGOs seek out partnerships with religious philanthropies—as happened with AIDS assistance during the Bush administration.)

5. Lancaster, PA does it again
Yep, a new study shows that well-being is higher in the Lancaster metro area than in any other metro area in the country. Though I no longer live there, that finding makes me happy. It really is a great little city. Daniel Klotz has good analysis at his Lancaster, PA Blog.

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!

[Photo credit: storiesofusa.com]

Repaso: Columbus Day, the Bible, toxic charity, topography of faith, and social media diplomacy

October 14, 2011

1. The people and the Black Book
This week we North Americans commemorated Columbus Day. I remember when this day came around in 1992, the quincentennial of Columbus’s landing in the “New World.” We were living among indigenous Mayan neighbors, and I remember learning, however vaguely, that not everyone considers Columbus a hero. Here’s a hauntingly beautiful and gripping piece written by Mark Buchanan, a Canadian pastor and wonderful writer. In it he tells of his First Nations neighbors and of the soul-searching required of Christians in light of the history we share:

The Tswassens have a prophecy 500 years old. One of their ancient holy men foretold that a people pale as birch would one day come from across the great water in large canoes. They would bring with them a Black Book. The Black Book was Truth, end to end, a gift of inestimable good. The people lived for many years awaiting the prophecy’s fulfillment. And then one day it happened. The big canoes— bigger than the Tswassens ever imagined—arrived. They teemed with people pale as birch. And, yes, they brought with them a Black Book. Then the killings started. The Tswassens became an obstacle to the pale men, and the pale men slaughtered them, and those they didn’t slaughter they enslaved. This is part of my history.

2. Read the Bible, become a… what??
LifeWay Research, an offshoot of the Southern Baptist Convention, has some interesting findings in a new study examining what happens to people who read the Bible:

Frequent Bible reading has some predictable effects on the reader. It increases opposition to abortion as well as homosexual marriage and unions. It boosts a belief that science helps reveal God’s glory. It diminishes hopes that science will eventually solve humanity’s problems. But unlike some other religious practices, reading the Bible more often has some liberalizing effects—or at least makes the reader more prone to agree with liberals on certain issues… Some of the most interesting findings relate to moral attitudes. “How important is it,” the survey asked, “to actively seek social and economic justice in order to be a good person?” Again, as would be expected, those with more liberal political leanings were more likely to say it’s very or somewhat important. And those who read the Bible more often were more likely to agree.

3. Bob Lupton on ‘Toxic Charity’
Grad school was a great time. I learned a lot and enjoyed most of it. But some books were more enjoyable than others. One of the best, most refreshingly different books I read during that year and a half was a slim volume from Robert Lupton called Theirs is the Kingdom: Celebrating the Gospel in Urban America. I was about to tell you it’s out of print, but apparently it was re-released just this week! Anyway, Lupton released a new book this week also, called Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It). Here’s an interview he did with the Religion News Service, published in the Washington Post. Read it for a taste of his perspective on why charity can become toxic.

4. Topography of faith
USA Today published an interesting infographic on the “topography of faith,” based on findings from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. You can see the religious breakdown of each state by passing your cursor over each one. The religious demographics of some states may surprise you.

5. Social media’s role in US foreign policy in Latin America
Liz Harper has an interesting post at the Americas Quarterly blog about the potential for US diplomacy in Latin America using social media:

Because governments that embrace new media technology are shown to be more responsive to their citizens and more transparent, the report argues, the U.S. has an interest in Latin America’s technological development… As Latin America is one of the fastest growing export markets for the United States, it makes sense for the U.S. to help encourage tech companies, like Google, Facebook and Twitter, to become more active in the region. The U.S. strategic interest in playing a “matchmaker” of sorts between the region and private companies is to promote Internet freedom and to ultimately use improved technological connectivity to advance our broader regional objectives, such as strengthening democratic values.

Of course, the proliferation of social media has been instrumental in the pro-democracy movement in the Middle East. But as observers of that case might suggest, giving ordinary citizens in Latin America their own voice through social media doesn’t guarantee that we will like what they have to say. It cuts both ways, I suppose.

Politics, religion and the lost art of persuasion

September 20, 2011 — Leave a comment

I finished reading City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been sitting on it, mulling it over, ever since. It’s an important book, warranting a great deal of careful thought, and it’s also one of those rare books on US politics that actually does more to promote civil discourse in the public square than to erode it.

The book’s authors, Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, are both conservatives — and political insiders at that. Gerson, as you may know, was a top aide and speechwriter for George W. Bush. He’s also a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, and a senior advisor at ONE. Wehner is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a DC think tank. He previously served in the Reagan and Bush (I and II) administrations.

The central question of the book is one both urgent and timeless:

What does it mean to be a Christian citizen in history’s most influential nation; in a world marked by growing interconnection, danger, and need; in a time of bitter domestic polarization and economic stress?

The first part of the answer is that there are more than two political options, odd as that may seem to us in twenty-first century America. As Gerson and Wehner write, Christians throughout history have formulated quite an array of differing — and, in some cases, diametrically opposed — political approaches that can’t be summed up by the overly limiting categories of right and left. Here are some of the main ones:

Constantinian: “wanted the church to govern earthly affairs, so as to bring society better into line with their understanding of God’s will.”
Augustinian: “the purpose of the state is to restrain evil and to advance justice.”
Anabaptist: “Christian allegiance should be to the kingdom of God alone.”
Lutheran: “two kingdoms, one carnal and the other spiritual, each needing to remain separate from the other and each making its own legitimate demands.”
Calvinist: “God [is] not only Lord and Creator but ‘a Governor and Preserver…’ The sovereignty of God, in other words, extends to all spheres, including all human institutions.”
Kuyperian: “three spheres — the Church, the State, and Society — each distinct but interrelated with the others, all part of the created order, all governed by God.”
Barthian: “the state… like the church, served Christ’s divine purposes beyond simply restraining evil.”
Niebuhrian: “believed in the necessity of politics in the struggle for social justice.”
Falwellian: “restoring America’s ‘moral sanity’ as an urgent Christian imperative.”

For that survey alone, the book is more than worthwhile. But that’s just the first chapter. Gerson and Wehner go on to outline, with conviction and grace, broad principles for Christian participation in politics. As conservatives, they take predictable stances on a variety of issues, but as Ron Sider writes in his endorsement on the book jacket, “one need not agree with all the assumptions or arguments to find this book a significant contribution to Christian reflection on where our nation should go.”

Politics, they write, presents us with an “unavoidable tension”: while a politicized faith has its dangers, “there is also moral abdication when faith ignores the opportunity for ‘genuine ethical action,’” a term borrowed from John Perkins. They point out the failures of the Religious Right, and urge us not to make the same mistakes — whether on the right or on the left. Rather, they urge discernment, faithful engagement, and above all, an emphasis on persuasion rather than attack. “If you would win a man to your cause,” said Abraham Lincoln, “first convince him that you are his sincere friend.”

In a polarized political climate that is anything but civil, in which demonizing and mudslinging are the norm, where cable news channels teach us that the way to discuss politics is to see who can yell the loudest, a book like this is a breath of fresh air. It’s practical, and true to both theology and history. Borrowing from Augustine, Gerson and Wehner conclude with both determination and hope: “The City of Man is our residence for now, and we care for its order and justice. The City of God is our home.”

Is there such thing as an evangelical social gospel?

September 6, 2011 — 3 Comments

This is a feature review I did of Tim Suttle’s “An Evangelical Social Gospel? Finding God’s Story in the Midst of Extremes” for Englewood Review of Books. It was published there on Friday under the title “In Search of a Third Way”, but here it is again in its entirety (at 1300+ words, you may want to grab a cup of coffee first). I’d love your comments either here or over at ERB.

Over the course of the past decade, as a member of a fairly large, conservative evangelical church in a part of the country fairly saturated with other conservative evangelical churches, I have become increasingly interested in and committed to the sort of faith the prophet Micah describes: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

If we’re honest, though, that’s not what evangelicals have been particularly known for. Rather, we have often been caricatured — with varying degrees of accuracy, to be sure — as just the opposite: unkind, unconcerned, and yes, just a wee bit holier-than-thou. Why is this the case?

One way to answer the question would be to say that we are sinners, just like everybody else, and God knows that justice, kindness and humility don’t come easily for any of us. Another approach would require looking back at the past hundred years, back to a seismic split in North American Christianity, between theological conservatism on the one hand and theological liberalism on the other. Broadly speaking, the conservatives emphasized the need for personal faith in Jesus Christ, to the exclusion of what were considered “worldly” concerns. The liberals, meanwhile, guided by the so-called “Social Gospel” movement, taught that Christ’s mission and ours was to transform society, not individuals.

Like many people my age in recent years, I’ve been grappling with this split, in search of a better way, one that embraces the best of both without falling prey to the traps of either. For these reasons I was fascinated when I heard about Tim Suttle’s new book, An Evangelical Social Gospel?: Finding God’s Story in the Midst of Extremes (Cascade, 2011).

Suttle, a self-described evangelical, is a pastor in Kansas City and the former front man for the Christian rock band Satellite Soul. He tells of experiencing a growing suspicion that although his ministries were deemed “successful” by all prevailing standards, he wasn’t sure they were actually making any real, lasting impact. This book, he says, is an “honest and passionate attempt to help the church be more faithful and effective.” It quickly becomes apparent that for Suttle, this means critiquing (if not rejecting) an individualistic faith and embracing a more communal one. He does so, by and large, by appealing to Walter Rauschenbusch, who he describes as “an incredible pastor and theologian who is generally misunderstood and unduly maligned.”

Serving in New York’s blighted Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Rauschenbusch “began to realize that his message of personal conversion lacked power in his new environment. The poor people of his congregation were already Christians. So were the wealthy barons who treated them like chattel. Personal conversion had little impact upon the miserable social situation of Hell’s Kitchen.”

Rooted in his experiences in the midst of incredible human suffering, Rauschenbusch began to articulate a new sort of gospel, one he felt would have the power to make an immediate impact in the lives of those among whom he ministered. With the publication of books including Christianity and the Social Crisis and A Theology for the Social Gospel, he gained nationwide notoriety and soon came to be known as the father of the Social Gospel movement. And, as Suttle notes, he “paved the way for many subsequent theologians and philosophers who began to deconstruct individualism in favor of personhood.”

Individualism, Suttle rightly says, “is part of the American narrative.” He goes on to write, “Evangelicals have been formed in this narrative of individualism, so it should be no surprise that the gospel we tell in America should have an individualistic bent. But, the story of individualism is not synonymous with the story of Christianity.”

Suttle’s underlying premise, if I read him correctly, is that the gospel, understood and embraced in its entirety, will inherently have both personal and social dimensions. He repeatedly urges Christians not to embrace one without the other. But he wavers between approaching the issue as a matter of “both/and” and “either/or.” While he is quick to point out the flaws in the individualistic version of the gospel, he is not sufficiently forthcoming about the limitations of the proposed alternative. The title and subtitle of the book appear to explicitly support a both/and approach, aiming at nuance rather than polarity. But writing as a self-identified evangelical appealing to other evangelicals, his choice to appeal (uncritically, for the most part) to the person and teachings of a polarizing figure from the other camp is puzzling, to say the least.

American history over the past hundred years has revealed the flaws of individualized expressions of faith, and Suttle is right to point them out. But we have also seen the flaws of the Social Gospel and in many cases, its failures to truly transform church or society in positive, lasting ways. While appealing somewhat romantically to Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel movement, Suttle doesn’t say much about the state of Mainline Protestant churches today which reveal, with limited exceptions, neutralizing accommodation to secular culture, a distinct lack of spiritual vibrancy, and a general trend of numerical decline.

It seems to me that if we evangelicals are truly interested in a third way “in the midst of extremes” we ought to be willing to look for examples of spiritual life elsewhere, beyond these two erring poles. We might look for signs of life in Africa, Asia and Latin America, for instance, where churches continue to spring up in new and dynamic forms. Christians in these places are embracing the gospel, are experiencing both individual and community transformation, and are continuing to work out faithful and contextual expressions of the faith in their churches and beyond. In Latin America, the region with which I’m most familiar, Rene Padilla and Samuel Escobar stand out as evangelicals leading the way to discern theologies and ecclesiologies that are faithful to Scripture and relevant to their tumultuous social, political and economic contexts. All of us would do well to learn from brothers and sisters in various parts of the world who can reveal to us our cultural blind spots and provide correctives to any polarities that are more reactionary than biblical.

In the final chapters of his book, Suttle does articulate what I’d consider to be a genuinely evangelical, missional expression of faith, concluding: “If you choose the way of Jesus, you choose the way of life, and you are given a mission. Your mission is the person next to you, wherever you may be. Your job is to bear witness to them by being the hands and feet of Jesus. Your job is not to fight and scrap yourself to the top of the cultural heap. Your job is not to collect, hoard, accumulate, or even survive. Your job is to die empty, having given the last full measure of devotion to the lowly and forgotten people of the world… Having died with Christ you will share in his resurrection. This is how the kingdom comes.”

I found this an inspiring, powerful and unifying way to conclude the book, though it struck me as interesting that in these final chapters, Rauschenbusch’s influence noticeably recedes and Suttle’s appeals to Scripture take more prominence than in earlier parts of the work.

An Evangelical Social Gospel? is a welcome addition to the discussion of what it means to truly live the kind of faith Micah describes in the context of the here and now. And by introducing many of us to Rauschenbusch for the very first time, Suttle is doing us an important service, if for no other reason than to help us better understand the historical roots of contemporary North American Christianity. While I wish Suttle would have been equally willing to critique the pitfalls of the Social Gospel movement along with his critiques of individualistic expressions of faith, I hope that many readers will be challenged to dig deeper into Scripture and together seek a “third way” free from the constraints of warring camps, and driven instead by a shared commitment to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.

Repaso: Tackling poverty with photography, Arcade Fire’s biblical themes, MLK’s influence, and sustainable farming

September 2, 2011 — Leave a comment

1. Tackling poverty with photography
The Guardian has a really cool photo essay from former war photographer Nancy McGirr who has helped kids living in Guatemala City’s slums to photograph their experiences in an effort to break the cycle of poverty.

2. Arcade Fire’s Sermon on the Mount
Michael Gilmour, an English and biblical literature professor from Canada writing for the Huffington Post, has an interesting take on Arcade Fire’s “imaginative blend of social commentary with an informed and creative reading of biblical literature,” focusing on their fantastic latest record:

The most explicit reference to the Bible in The Suburbs is the warning not to “trust a millionaire quoting the Sermon on the Mount” (“City With No Children”). On one level, the phrase simply indicates things are not what they appear, but I suggest there is more going on with this conspicuous naming of a biblical text. It seems to me that ideas in the Sermon on the Mount lurk in the background of many of the album’s songs, not just the one referring to it by name. If we read that ancient homily (Matthew 5-7, with parallels in Luke) while listening to Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, we find it informs their lyrical narratives in subtle ways. This is an example of lyricists using biblical intertexts for artistic, not confessional purposes.

3. MLK’s impact on conservatives
Martin Luther King Jr. has never particularly been a poster boy for conservative Christianity, but Jay Sekulow and Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice try to make the case for it on the Washington Post’s “Religious Right Now” blog:

With Dr. King, and his life back in the news, it’s important to realize that for many Christian conservatives, he has served as a powerful role model in the fight to protect the rights of the individual. And, that challenge is as equally important today as it was 50 years ago during Dr. King’s days.

4. Back to the Start
This is a really original animated short from Chipotle, featuring Willie Nelson covering Coldplay’s “The Scientist”. Here’s the blurb:

Coldplay’s haunting classic ‘The Scientist’ is performed by country music legend Willie Nelson for the soundtrack of the short film entitled, “Back to the Start.” The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system.