faith | Tim Høiland

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Faith and political leadership

May 14, 2013 — 4 Comments

Following the historic ruling in the genocide trial of Guatemala’s former dictator Rios Montt on Friday, it’s been fascinating to watch the varied reactions on social media, especially from Christians with very different interpretations of the character of the man now sentenced to 80 years in prison. They also differ widely in their understandings of who bears responsibility for the events of the war, and how Guatemala could best heal from the (relatively undisputed) wounds of the past.

I respect those with differing viewpoints on this issue, and I affirm the overwhelming complexity of the matter. Everyone interprets these events through the lenses of their experiences, values, and allegiances, and I’m no different. But amidst the tweets ranging from jubilation to disbelief, I was reminded of a story I’d read several years ago that offers us a different vantage point. It’s not a comprehensive account of the war’s atrocities, to be sure, but rather a glimpse of a moment in time – an eerie one at that – which sheds light on Rios Montt’s faith and the extent to which it impacted his political leadership.

It comes from Ruth Padilla DeBorst (the daughter of René Padilla) who gives leadership to the Latin American Theological Fraternity (FTL) in addition to her more recent work with World Vision. This story first appeared in an interview with Andy Crouch in Christianity Today in 2007 as part of its Christian Vision Project:

My husband was part of a group from Calvin College that personally interviewed many of these political leaders. They sat with Ríos Montt, who had been president of Guatemala in the early 1980s, in his office in 1987. He welcomed them effusively and gave an impassioned speech about brotherhood in Christ and about how blessed he was in receiving these guests from North America. He knelt in front of them and led them in prayer for his nation, with great passion. And then they started interviewing him.

They asked about the condition of the people in his country and how he viewed the statistics on malnutrition and poverty. They asked, “How do you see your government bringing light to these situations?” When they began pressing these questions, he worked himself into an absolute fury and threw them out of his office. They were afraid for their lives. They had to get out of Guatemala in a hurry.

He had the jargon. He was the founder of a church. Only God knows what was in his heart. But there did not seem to be any connection between his faith and his political leadership. Some of this is simply symptomatic of a young church—Christians who have had very little exposure to public policy and administration of public affairs.

That’s why the core of our proposal in the FTL is that Christian mission is, or must be, “integral mission.” God is Lord over every last corner of the world. And that has to do with interpersonal relations and with our relationships with him, but it also has implications for the way society is organized—who gets favored and how.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

[Photo: Jorge Dan Lopez/Reuters via guardian.co.uk]

In Justice faith, genocide, Guatemala, human rights, Rios Montt, Ruth Padilla DeBorst

Repaso: May 3, 2013

May 3, 2013 — Leave a comment

1. Ugly humanitarianism
Rachel Marie Stone (@Rachel_M_Stone) wrote an excellent piece on Madonna’s recent humanitarian debacle in Malawi:

If churches and mission agencies can learn anything from the Madonna-Malawi flap, I think it’s this: people in the poorest countries that rely heaviest on aid are human beings—quite often, very thoughtful human beings—with equally valuable and important places at the table of God’s mission in the world as anyone else. To refuse to engage with them as such, while demanding to be treated as more important, to assert that our agenda for them is superior to their own, is to deny their full humanity and equality before God and, often and unwittingly, to engage in a kind of benevolent oppression. Jesus was not known as one who dished out meals to prostitutes and other vulnerable sinners. He sat with them and ate with them. Doing mission, then, probably needs to look more like a shared meal than a soup kitchen, with none of us bound in gratitude except to God alone.

2. The secret faith of Washington
Joshua DuBois (@joshuadubois), the former director of faith-based initiatives at the White House, challenges myths about religion in DC (and lack thereof):

It’s a constant struggle to maintain a personal relationship with God in a place that is so relentlessly public, to wrestle with deep concepts of the eternal in an arena whose daily pulse is the here and now. It can be exhausting, and many of the people I spoke with said they failed at that intellectual and spiritual challenge more often than they succeeded. But still, thousands of believers in Washington keep at it most days—away from the cameras and well out of view.

3. Orthodoxy and secularism
Mary Eberstadt of the Ethics and Public Policy Center writes:

Small wonder, given the harrowing times recently, that news about a long-running property fight over a picturesque church in northern Virginia escaped most people’s notice. But the story of the struggle over the historic Falls Church is nonetheless worth a closer look. It’s one more telling example of a little-acknowledged truth: though religious traditionalism may be losing today’s political and legal battles, it remains poised to win the wider war over what Christianity will look like tomorrow.

4. Tools of the trade
The legendary singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn (who recently agreed to this photo) has announced he’s donating his archives to McMaster University in Canada. Among the items are “notebooks, musical arrangements, gold records, letters, scrapbooks, nearly 1,000 recordings, and even three guitars.” Here’s what Cockburn had to say about the decision:

These are my tools, my rough drafts, my mementoes and my trophies. Together, they form the roadmap of my working life. I’m pleased they will have a safe and permanent home in a place where they may be useful to others.

5. “Spotlight” by LEAGUES
I’ve been enjoying You Belong Here by LEAGUES, which came out this week. Here’s the first music video from the album.

[Photo: ultramadonna.com]

In Repaso Bruce Cockburn, charity, faith, Joshua DuBois, LEAGUES, Madonna, orthodoxy, politics, Repaso

Repaso: April 26, 2013

April 26, 2013 — Leave a comment

1. The poor are not the raw material of your salvation
In a “letter to a young social entrepreneur” Liam Black (@LiamABlack) issues this important word of caution to do-gooders about their motivations (if you read the full thing, pardon his French):

If you’d asked me in my twenties and thirties what my driving motivations were I would have said a strange hybrid of leftie politics and option-for-the-poor Catholicism filtered through the liberation theologians of Latin America and the inner cities… But looking back I can see clearly that a core part of what drove me was the seeking of approval of an absent father (long story) and a huge enjoyment at the attention which came with being in the vanguard of the UK social enterprise movement. It feels very good to be talked and written about and even better if there are awards and baubles. And yes, of course, I am having my cake and tweeting it by writing this blog.

2. Sex, drugs, and Calvin College
During his talk at the recent Festival of Faith and Music at Calvin College, bestselling author Chuck Klosterman – a self-described religious “nothing” – urged those in the audience to become lifelong questioners, rather than either becoming galvanized in their faith tradition or leaving it completely. In response, Tom Becker (@desertbrother) writes:

Can I claim two categories, please, please, Chuck? I am more devoted than ever to the story of Jesus in the Scriptures. I’m neither ashamed nor flamboyant in my testimony: I love Jesus. And yet I still ponder, learn and question the dominant paradigms foisted on me by my culture and especially the evangelical culture in America… I’ve always assumed we humans were capable of good deeds and bad crap. I just needed the Scriptures and the Gospel of Jesus Christ to codify what I saw all around me. And I needed a savior to pluck me from the fire and get me moving toward the good, something I couldn’t arrive on my own.

3. Crouch interviews Keller
Andy Crouch (@ahc) spoke with Tim Keller (@timkellernyc) about being a pastor in a city where people live in order to work, and what we can learn from different Christian traditions about faith and work.

4. Integral mission and excellence
The Accord Network has released a document outlining eight core principles of excellence in integral mission, which one of my Eastern professors, Beth Birmingham (@BethBirmingham), helped to create. Anyone working at or supporting a Christian NGO, or involved in a church’s mission programs, will find these principles really helpful.

5. G-Dog
If you’ve read Tattoos on the Heart (I blogged about it here), the book by Father Gregory Boyle about his work among gang members in LA, you’ll want to see this new documentary film.

[Photo: endeavor.org]

In Repaso faith, integral mission, poor, Repaso, social entrepreneurship, vocation

Complicating religion (Guatemala, Day 1)

April 16, 2013 — 4 Comments

When I first heard about Lemonade International two or three years ago, it caught my attention when I learned it supports Guatemalan-initiated community development work in a marginalized part of Guatemala City, just miles from where I was born and grew up. As I got to know the people behind the organization, it quickly became apparent just how committed the organization is to being highly relational in all they do. On top of that, I was drawn to the organization’s hyper-local geographic focus – a slum community of 60,000 situated in a ravine a mile long and less than half a mile wide.

At that time I was working for a behemoth of an NGO (a good behemoth, generally speaking), and while I certainly recognized the potential impact of a multi-billion dollar budget allocated for relief, development, and advocacy among the world’s poor, I was becoming more and more interested in organizations small enough to be relational and focused enough to have a tangible impact in a specific community over time.

After a day of walking the steep, narrow streets of La Limonada and crowding into tin, wood, and concrete feats of architecture with Tita Evertsz, the unassuming hero of the story, that commitment to deep, ongoing relationships in a particular place has only been reinforced.

On Sunday night, after telling us a bit about her work in the context of an urban slum among gang members – including more untimely funerals than she’d care to count – someone asked Tita what these experiences have taught her about God. She paused, with tears in her eyes, and responded, “True religion is simple, but we have made it complicated.”

As someone who reads a lot, thinks a lot, writes a lot (often on this blog), and talks a lot – all related, one way or another, to my faith – it struck me that complicating religion is too often precisely what I do. Meanwhile, Tita and 40 or 50 others in La Limonada are practicing true religion. They’re visiting actual orphans and widows in their distress, whose names they know, with loved ones’ blood stains still wet on the street outside. And they’re doing this while keeping themselves unstained from the ways of the world – the violent, selfish world crying out for redemption.

That’s not to say they’re keeping their distance. Precisely the opposite is true. They’re in the midst of their world, bearing the burdens of their brothers and sisters, sharing in their impossible, indomitable joy, and bearing witness to the certain hope that one day all things will be made new.

It’s an honor to be here, and it’s an honor to tell their stories. And it’s good to be reminded just how simple true religion really is.

Over the next couple of days I’ll be sharing more stories from La Limonada. In the meantime, I’d encourage you to learn more about Lemonade International and get to know Tita.

[Photos by Scott Bennett. In the photo at the top, the Ministry of Justice's highrise building towers above La Limonada. The second photo is of Tita Evertsz.]

In Justice Bloggers Trip, compassion, faith, Guatemala, Lemonade International, religion

To live a spiritual life does not mean that we must leave our families, give up our jobs, or change our ways of working; it does not mean that we have to withdraw from social or political activities, or lose interest in literature or art; it does not require severe forms of asceticism or long hours of prayer. Changes such as these may in fact grow out of our spiritual life, and for some people radical decisions may be necessary. But the spiritual life can be lived in as many ways as there are people. What is new is that we have moved from the many things to the kingdom of God. What is new is that we are set free from the compulsions of our world and have set our hearts on the only necessary thing. What is new is that we no longer experience the many things, people, and events as endless causes for worry, but begin to experience them as the rich variety of ways in which God makes his presence known to us.”

(Making All Things New, pp. 56-7)

Henri Nouwen on the spiritual life

Posted on March 18, 2013 In Culture, Gospel faith, Henri Nouwen, Kingdom of God, quote, spirituality

2 Comments