Mennonite Central Committee

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Repaso: Vocabularies of virtue; civic engagement & the church; peace in Medellin; Latin America’s drug war; Indelible Grace’s new project

June 1, 2012 — 1 Comment

1. Vocabularies of virtue
David Brooks does it again with another insightful and timely column:

Many people today have not been given vocabularies to talk about what virtue is, what character consists of, and in which way excellence lies, so they just talk about community service, figuring that if you are doing the sort of work that Bono celebrates then you must be a good person. Let’s put it differently. Many people today find it easy to use the vocabulary of entrepreneurialism, whether they are in business or social entrepreneurs. This is a utilitarian vocabulary. How can I serve the greatest number? How can I most productively apply my talents to the problems of the world? It’s about resource allocation. People are less good at using the vocabulary of moral evaluation, which is less about what sort of career path you choose than what sort of person you are.

2. Civic engagement and the mission of the church
Biola’s Joseph Gorra interviewed California pastor Michael Decker about churches and civic engagement:

[E]ffectual civic engagement activity is ultimately rooted in a theology of mission and a recognition that the presence of the kingdom of God is real and consequential for all areas of life, not just for when the church is gathered. Moreover, fruitful engagement has intentional longevity associated with it; it is generational. It involves decades of practicing faithful stewardship and blessing of a city, her inhabitants, and her leaders. Finally, it’s not about merely “doing ministry in the city” as much as being a minister—a call to care for a people and their place. I love Costa Mesa not only because I live here but also because I am called to love my neighbor here. I care for where they dwell; I care for them and their leaders.

3. Peace in Medellín
I enjoy reading MCC’s Latin America Advocacy Blog to follow along on the great work the organization is doing, and this week there was a post by Jessica Sarriot, who’s working in Medellín, Colombia, which to many of us is known for drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and the city’s eponymous cartel. It’s an encouraging update from an otherwise difficult place:

The Medellín I have gotten to know most intimately is a peace-focused minority in an increasingly wealth and miracle-focused Protestant demographic. This sub-group is speaking a different language. It is preaching restoration to the victimizers, life to the youth set on a path of death, hope to the widows who were left without any, and a faith in peace that flies in the face of the continued promise of war. More than anything I have been moved and impressed by who my partners in Medellín are: these are pastors being threatened, victims unsure the authorities will help or persecute them further, understaffed and over-worked followers of Jesus oftentimes donating their time to the pursuit of healing and hope.

4. Debate about Latin America’s drug war
The New York Times is hosting a discussion in its “Room for Debate” opinion section about the merits of the drug war. Contributors include current Guatemalan president Otto Pérez Molina, who calls the drug war a failed policy and has begun campaigning for legalization. Greg Weeks, one of my go-to Latin American politics bloggers, questions the usefulness of the NYT’s approach, saying it reduces a complex issue to soundbytes.

5. Indelible Grace’s new project
I was excited about the chance to pledge a few bucks on Kickstarter for the new project from Indelible Grace. I hope you’ll consider it too.

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: Downtown Medellín, Colombia via discovercolombia.com]

Assisting farmers and empowering communities in Guatemala

April 28, 2012 — Leave a comment

On Monday I shared links to stories from A Common Place magazine about Mennonite Central Committee’s work in Guatemala. An audio slideshow has now been added, with narration from my friend Nate Howard. It’s so good I want to share it separately here.

In Justice development, Guatemala, MCC, Mennonite Central Committee, Nate Howard

MCC’s work in Guatemala

April 23, 2012 — 3 Comments

During my time in Lancaster I became friends with a number of great people working with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), an organization focused on “relief, development and peace in the name of Christ.” I’ve been so impressed with so much of the work they do around the world, and I’d encourage you to check them out.

While doing research in grad school I traveled back to Sipacapa, the town in the highlands of western Guatemala where our family had lived when I was a kid, to research the impact of a Canadian gold mining company and to interview community residents who were opposed to the mine. That research eventually turned into a PRISM cover story.

I couldn’t have pulled it off without the help of fellow Eastern University alumnus Nate Howard, who has been working in that part of Guatemala with MCC for several years.

All that to say that when the latest issue of MCC’s excellent magazine A Common Place arrived in the mail last week, I was thrilled to see them profiling the great work being done in western Guatemala with inspiring stories and, as always, fantastic photos from the very talented Melissa Engle. In case it takes a little while for your subscription to kick in (did I mention it’s available free?), the content is available online as well. Here are some highlights:

New opportunities without leaving home - as an alternative to the virtual necessity of migration to find work, MCC is helping those who stay find the opportunity to provide for their families through fish farms and other initiatives.
First person: Juan Pablo Morales - I had lunch with Juan Pablo, a dedicated community leader who happens to be remarkably nice and smart. “With so many resources in Guatemala, it’s a shame there are so many people living in poverty,” he says.
The popular banquet – listen to Juan Pablo sing a popular song from that region of Guatemala called “El Banquete Popular” or “The Popular Banquet” (lyrics available in both languages).
Learning about mining justice – a profile of a student who spent time in the Guatemalan highlands and through that experience learned about the gold mine, owned and operated by a Canadian company. “I’m from Canada,” she says. “Why didn’t I know this was happening? Why didn’t I hear about this before?”
A slideshow with audio commentary from Nate Howard is also coming soon, according to the site. [Update: here's the link to that slideshow]

I’d encourage you to check out the entire issue, to subscribe to the magazine while you’re at it, and consider supporting this great work in what is, all biases aside, a very special corner of the world.

[Photo credit: due to resolution issues online, this is an Instagram I took of one of the photos printed in the magazine by Melissa Engle/MCC]

In Justice A Common Place, development, Eastern University, Guatemala, immigration, Juan Pablo Morales, Marlin Mine, MCC, Melissa Engle, Mennonite Central Committee, migration, Nate Howard, peace, relief, Sipacapa

Repaso: Byron Borger on Cockburn’s legacy; Ross Douthat on heresy; social entrepreneurship & faith; peacebuilding & the “war on drugs”; poverty & charity in the early church

April 20, 2012 — Leave a comment

1. Byron Borger talks Bruce Cockburn
You may recall that two months ago I posted a review of Brian Walsh’s Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination (Brazos). Bookseller Byron Borger has been praising the book for some time (and wrote a blurb on the back cover), but he has just now posted some extended reflections on the importance of Cockburn as an artist who grapples honestly with matters of faith:

One does not have to like every Cockburn song or album, let alone agree with every view he seems to express, to appreciate his exceptional gift as songwriter and musician and to be aided by his observations, rendered in song. And one need not agree with every line in every Brian Walsh book to appreciate his preacherly gospel call to be faithful to the Biblical narrative, and to reject worldly accommodation to the idols of modernity.

2. CT’s interview with Ross Douthat
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has a new book out called Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (Free Press). In it he argues that Christianity in the U.S. has a heresy problem and that we need to return to more traditional beliefs and expressions of faith. I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s generating a lot of buzz. Here’s a snippet from Christianity Today’s interview:

[T]he nature of heresy is not that it takes a Christian teaching and gets it completely wrong. Instead, it takes a Christian teaching and emphasizes it to the exclusion of anything that might counterbalance it. It isn’t wrong to suggest that there are biblical passages that state that God blesses his servants in this life as well as the next. There are biblical passages that suggest a link between a nation’s morality, a nation’s religious beliefs, and its historical fate. But Christian orthodoxy always counterbalances those emphases with other truths.

3. Social entrepreneurship and Christian faith
Though I wasn’t able to attend in person, I enjoyed watching a bit of the livestream of the Q DC event last week. I was especially inspired to see presentations from three Praxis Fellows — social entrepreneurs building high-impact organizations as embodiments of the gospel in all spheres of life. Dave Blanchard and Josh Kwan of Praxis have a piece in the Washington Post about their work:

We are inspired by Jesus’s example, and we started Praxis to help other Christians who are trying to restore society and culture so that a hurting world may be whole again. Praxis is an accelerator program for social entrepreneurs and innovators compelled by their faith to create new ventures that advance the common good. Each year, we provide Praxis Fellows with the knowledge and networks needed to build world-class organizations that address key social issues.

4. Ten Stories from mewithoutYou
I’m really looking forward to the new album from mewithoutYou, due to release on May 15. I never cared for them as a band until last time with It’s All Crazy! It’s All False! It’s All A Dream! It’s Alright. We’ll see how this one feels, though, listening to it now on the other side of the country, far from the band’s native Pennsylvania.

5. Rhetoric and reality at the border
The Washington Office on Latin America has released a new report focused on security and migration at the border between the U.S. and Mexico, looking at the data rather than the partisan talking points. Here’s the executive summary and here’s the full report (both are PDFs).

6. Peacebuilding and the “war on drugs”
The MCC Latin America Advocacy Blog has a post on the connection between peacebuilding and the “war on drugs” and puts forward some good questions:

Addressing root causes; the need for a just peace, not just controlled peace; looking at the problem through a public health lens rather than a public security lens; doesn’t this sound like a discussion of conflict transformation and peacebuilding? Are there other contributions that a peacebuilding model can offer in this debate? An emphasis on human relationships and an analysis of power dynamics? Working simultaneously at multiple levels from the community to the nation state? Striving for justpeace, “an adaptive process-structure of human relationships characterized by high justice and low violence” (Lederach)?

7. Philadelphia’s homeless feeding ban
My friend Paul Burkhart, who lives in Philadelphia, has some interesting (provocative?) thoughts on the city’s new ban on giving food to homeless people in public areas. He shifts our attention from hunger (which he says isn’t the big issue here) to dignity:

All humanity has dignity because it is made in the image of God. We all are well-aware by now (hopefully) that when it comes to our choices, we so often want things that are not good for us. We frequently want to engage in things that in the end rob us of this dignity as the highest of God’s creatures. How does God honor our dignity? I propose that it’s less about letting us do what we want, and more about acting for our good, sometimes even in spite of our choices.

8. Poverty and charity in the early church
The Gospel Coalition has shared this video featuring John Dickson from the Centre for Public Christianity and Macquarie University, produced as part of The Faith Effect from World Vision Australia:

[Photo credit: UK Study Tour blog; "Stairs in Canterbury Cathedral, Worn from Pilgrims crawling to pay homage to the murdered Thomas Becket"]

Repaso: Alternative justice, global evangelicalism, Guatemala’s geothermal jackpot, Mexico vs. Catholic Church, and more

August 5, 2011 — Leave a comment

1. Better Justice in Baltimore: A Community’s Approach to Crime
One of my professors from Eastern, Stan LeQuire, passed along a fascinating piece from the Solutions Journal about “community conferencing” for victims and offenders as an alternative justice system in Baltimore:

So why is community conferencing so successful? If there is a secret to its success, it has to do with our emotions. Community conferences allow—and even encourage—participants to express how they feel, something that our culture seems to discourage. It’s messy stuff, but our emotions motivate us more than our thoughts do. Just think…if someone gives a group a great intellectual solution to their problem, and they still walk out of the room hating each other, that solution will have no chance… In order for people to feel differently about a crime or conflict, they need to be able to address the incident on an emotional level before they can move forward. Community conferences provide a space and structure for people to do just that.

2. Global survey of evangelical leaders
During last fall’s Lausanne congress in Cape Town, the Pew Forum surveyed evangelical leaders from around the world and the report is now available. This is from the report’s introduction:

As the evangelical movement has grown and spread around the globe over the past century, it has become enormously diverse, ranging from Anglicans in Africa, to Baptists in Russia, to independent house churches in China, to Pentecostals in Latin America. And this diversity, in turn, gives rise to numerous questions. How much do evangelicals around the world have in common? What unites them? What divides them? Do leading evangelicals in the Global South see eye-to-eye with those in the Global North on what is essential to their faith, what is important but not essential and what is simply incompatible with evangelical Christianity?

3. Guatemala City’s geothermal jackpot
When I was maybe ten or so I climbed Pacaya, an active volcano in Guatemala, along with my dad, my brother and a group of friends. I remember eating my picnic lunch, watching lava flow down the side and having hot, tiny pellets of volcanic rock dropping around us. Now, according to GlobalPost (article and video) some folks are tapping into Pacaya for geothermal energy — a relatively clean type of alternative energy — to help power up Guatemala City:

The steam rising from the Pacaya volcano and the hills and rivers surrounding it on the outskirts of Guatemala’s captial city hints at a power source that could give the country the energy security it craves… But there are some barriers to entry for other companies hoping to join Guatemala’s geothermal race. The development of the geothermal fields is costly and risky – the plants themselves are also expensive to build and drilling doesn’t always turn up what’s expected. Despite those risks, Ormat plans to expand its operations in Guatemala.

4. Colombia’s best hope (PDF)
Adrienne Wiebe and Bonnie Klassen of Mennonite Central Committee have a good piece in The Ploughshares Monitor about the complexity of the ongoing volatile situation in Colombia and what ordinary Colombians are doing to work for peace. In the clash between government and military forces and rebel groups, they write,

The biggest losers are 45 million ordinary citizens, rural communities, and the environment. But it is with the ordinary citizens, the “losers,” that the best hopes and possibilities for peace in Colombia are emerging.

5. Mexico vs. the Catholic Church
There’s an interesting piece by Tim Padgett on Time Magazine’s Global Spin blog about a legal battle between Mexico’s Catholic Church and the country’s electoral tribunal, after the church hierarchy was sanctioned for making statements against political parties in favor of abortion and same-sex marriage. There are significant implications for both freedom of speech and freedom of religion in Mexico:

In its ruling, the [Federal Electoral Institute] tribunal insisted that it’s “protecting the secularism of the state.” But does a political proclamation by a religious group really threaten the secularism of a state? Does Mexico risk becoming Iran if it lets priests publicly criticize politicos? No. In reality, it’s the IFE judges, the PRD and other backers of Mexico’s outdated Religious Associations Law who may be undermining the country’s fledgling democracy.

6. The best 404 error message ever
Time Magazine’s Techland blog had a post about creative “404 error” messages, including one that’s actually a video. I was going to embed it here, but instead, click this link and see what you get.