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Repaso: Os Guinness interview; car pooling in Mexico; development blogger who’s who; better short-term mission trips; theology of place

June 29, 2012 — Leave a comment

1. Carpooling in Mexico
Alejandro Cartagena is a Dominican-born photographer who lives in Monterrey, Mexico. His recent project features overhead photos from an overpass of workers riding in flatbed pickup trucks in Mexico. I first heard about it via the New York Times Lens blog, which provides some background info, but I actually prefer viewing the project on his site, where the photos lie side by side.

2. Os Guinness interview
Skye Jethani (senior editor of Leadership Journal, author of With) and Phil Vischer (creator of VeggieTales) have started a new podcast. The fact that their most recent episode features a nearly hour-long conversation with Os Guinness caught my attention. They discuss topics like evangelicalism, the Religious Right, and pluralism in society. I’d love to see Os’s face when Phil sings his impromptu opening and closing songs.

3. Who’s who among development bloggers
Aaron Ausland, a great international development blogger in his own right, has a new “who’s who” list of bloggers in the genre. If you’re really interested in digging in and becoming conversant with some great thinkers and practitioners in the field of development, follow Aaron’s blog and the others on his list.

4. Toward better short-term mission trips
In last week’s Repaso, I included the first two parts of Darren Carlson’s series on the benefits and drawbacks of short-term mission trips. Here’s part three, suggesting a better way to approach the phenomenon.

5. Richard Twiss on a theology of place
Richard Twiss, a Native leader really worth listening to, was a recent guest speaker at Antioch Church in Bend, Oregon. The full video of that message is here. If you have a shorter attention span, at least check out this four-minute clip about the importance of developing a theology of place:

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: alejandrocartagena.com]

Repaso: Sigur Ros and “worship music”; faithfulness hurts; politics in the Bible; gardens and democracy; Native Americans in the US; babies and religion

May 25, 2012 — Leave a comment

1. Sigur Rós and “worship music”
Sigur Rós’s new record comes out next week. I’ve long been moved by the band’s music, even though I don’t understand a word they sing. That’s one of the reasons I was especially interested to see Joshua Busman’s piece this week in The Other Journal’s Mediation blog on the ways music itself — including “worship music” — can communicate even apart from its lyrics.

2. Faithfulness sometimes hurts
I’m glad to see Jake Belder is blogging again. Here’s a recent post on recent discussions about the “culture war” and what faithfulness costs us:

I’ll be the first to agree that the ‘culture war’ mentality is problematic and unhelpful (I think James Davison Hunter makes an excellent critique of that paradigm in his book, To Change the World), but deciding that we should be the ones to set the terms for our faith is not the answer. This is simply idolatry, replacing the rule of Christ with our own authority… Trying to live faithfully under the lordship of Jesus Christ isn’t about making Christianity palatable to the culture around us. As it is, sometimes the total allegiance that Jesus demands will make it feel like we’re sitting all alone in a crowded room. Sometimes it is even going to hurt. But for Christians, it is the only option.

3. The Bible’s chief political concern
Last year I reviewed Tim Suttle’s book An Evangelical Social Gospel? for the Englewood Review of Books. Suttle blogs for the Huffington Post and recently he asked leading theologians, scholars and ethicists from different Christian streams — people like N.T. Wright, James K.A. Smith, Miroslav Volf, and Walter Brueggemann — what they considered the chief political concern in the Bible. They give some very interesting answers.

4. Gardens and democracy
Brian Dijkema writes for the Cardus blog about cultivating civic virtue, drawing on what he’s observed in a community garden in his own Canadian city:

Gardens might not save the world. They might not even save Canadian democracy. But the green shoots of civic virtue needed for healthy politics are cultivated there, and that’s a start.

5. Native American rights in the US
The UN’s James Anaya, who represents indigenous peoples around the world, was recently interviewed on NPR about concerns right here in the US:

The estimated 2.7 million Native Americans living in federally recognized tribal areas have to contend with problems like unemployment, alcoholism, sexual abuse, and suicide. Now a UN report is investigating the conditions of Native Americans in the U.S. Host Michel Martin speaks with S. James Anaya, the UN special rapporteur on indigenous peoples.

6. Hans Rosling on religions and babies
When Hans Rosling gives a TED Talk, I pay attention. Here’s a fascinating new one on birth rates and population growth among people of different religions.

[Photo credit: The Other Journal]

In Repaso birth rate, Brian Dijkema, Hans Rosling, indigenous, Jake Belder, James Anaya, Joshua Busman, Native American, politics, religion, Repaso, Sigur Ros, TED Talk, Tim Suttle

How does it feel to be Native American?

May 8, 2012 — Leave a comment

A couple weeks ago I had the privilege of grabbing coffee with Mark Charles while he was passing through Phoenix on his way to a conference in Tucson.

Mark lives on a Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona, and is doing some wonderful work related to reconciliation, development, and contextualized worship. Among his many undertakings, he serves on the CCDA Board of Directors, the Christian Reformed Church Board of Trustees, and is a resource development strategist for indigenous worship with Calvin College’s Institute of Christian Worship.

Here’s part of his presentation at that conference in Tucson, addressed to James Anaya, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:

Being Native American and living in the United States feels like our indigenous peoples are an old grandmother who lives in a very large house. It is a beautiful house with plenty of rooms and comfortable furniture. But, years ago, some people came into our house and locked us upstairs in the bedroom. Today our house is full of people. They are sitting on our furniture. They are eating our food. They are having a party in our house. They have since unlocked the door to our bedroom but now it is much later and we are tired, old, weak and sick; so we can’t or don’t come out. But the part that is the most hurtful and that causes us the most pain, is that virtually no one from this party ever comes upstairs to find us in the bedroom, sits down next to us on the bed, looks us in the eye, and simply says, “Thank you. Thank you for letting us be in your house.”

I encourage you to read the full text of the presentation.

If you’re interested in learning more about the “conversation for reconciliation” Mark mentions later in the presentation, the best way to do so is to like the Facebook page he created for the reading of the government’s apology in Washington, DC on December 19.

I’m grateful for thoughtful, articulate Native leaders like Mark. We non-Natives have much to learn from our hosts, if only we’ll listen.

In Justice apology, indigenous, James Anaya, Mark Charles, Native American, Navajo, reconciliation

Repaso: Sierra Leone in photos; Jake Belder on forgotten places; Living Room Songs; Q&A from The Justice Conference; UMC repents; Twitter does it again

May 4, 2012 — Leave a comment

1. Sierra Leone ten years after the war
Earlier this week I submitted a writing project focused on Fambul Tok, a home-grown peace and reconciliation initiative taking place around bonfires across Sierra Leone. It’s worth knowing about. As I finished my writing, former Liberian president Charles Taylor was convicted of war crimes in Sierra Leone, a full decade after the war ended. And The Big Picture posted this photo essay with a look at what the country looks like in 2012.

2. Jake Belder on forgotten places
Jake Belder, an assistant minister in Hull, England (and by Twitter appearances, an all-around good guy) has a great feature essay in Comment:

One of the delights of living in England is venturing off the main roads into the little villages that dot the countryside. At the heart of many of these picturesque villages is a small church that has stood for hundreds of years, a reminder the role churches used to play in holding these communities together. Whenever I get the chance, I wander into these churches. I love the musty smell of the old stonework, the silence, and the sense of being in a place altogether different from the world outside. And when I sit in one of the old pews, I think about those who have sat in them over the last five hundred years. Who shepherded them as they lived their lives in this place? How were they equipped to live faithfully in this context?

3. Living Room Songs by Ólafur Arnalds
Joy Williams of The Civil Wars tweeted this last weekend: “Having my heart broken & mended again by Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds’ Living Room Songs EP.” I think you’ll agree, as I do, that these songs are hauntingly beautiful, not unlike the music of fellow Icelandic band Sigur Rós.

4. Q&A videos from The Justice Conference
For those who weren’t able to attend The Justice Conference in Portland in February (and for those who were there too, I suppose), videos from a bunch of Q&A sessions have been posted at askquestions.tv. Lots of great stuff.

5. UMC apologizes to Native Americans
Thanks to Brittany Bennett for sharing the link to this video from the United Methodist Church’s General Conference, where the denomination initiated an act of repentance to begin the process of healing relationships with Native Americans. It’s encouraging to see a group of Christians taking this so seriously.

6. Yet another reason to love Twitter
Katie and I have a really good reason to love Twitter; ask us about it sometime. Another reason to love Twitter is when you’re a cancer survivor who loves baseball and you get to play catch with a pitcher from your team just because you replied to this within two minutes.

[Photo credit: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters via The Big Picture]

In Repaso Charles Taylor, church, England, Fambul Tok, indigenous, Jake Belder, Methodist, Native American, Olafur Arnalds, Q&A, Repaso, Sierra Leone, The Big Picture, The Justice Conference, Twitter, UMC

Richard Twiss on following Jesus and being Native

February 14, 2012 — 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago I read One Church, Many Tribes (Regal) by Richard Twiss, a member of the Rosebud Lakota/Sioux tribe and the head of Wiconi International. Through Wiconi, Twiss serves Native groups through education and practical help to improve their quality of life and build relationships that point the way to a hope-filled future for those who have not previously been given much reason to hope. Twiss and his wife started Wiconi with one seemingly simple concept in mind: “You can be Native and a follower of Jesus.”

That may not seem very groundbreaking, but for many it is, since the relationship between Christianity and Native peoples here in North America has never been a particularly good one. Pastor and author Mark Buchanan writes about the arrival of the “people of the Black Book” in what is now Vancouver, British Columbia:

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.

Given this history, and compared with the justified indignation that saturates the pages of classic accounts like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Twiss’s book is surprisingly hopeful and gracious. He doesn’t skirt around history’s ugliness, but he doesn’t stop there either. He wants to show Native Americans and the rest of us that Native culture isn’t antithetical to following Jesus; rather, the Gospel can be incarnated in Native forms just as easily — and perhaps even more so — than it has been in Western culture. Native Christians don’t need to follow our cultural customs when it comes to church and worship, in other words; instead, they may be better off without them.

But he isn’t out to sow resentment. Instead, he shows how the Gospel is what will bring true reconciliation between us and God, and between Native and non-Native groups. He even suggests that the testimony of Native Christians can be used in powerful ways around the world among others who have also been victims of terrible injustices. In his conclusion he writes:

If we, as Native followers of Jesus, are to emerge from our pain and absence to find our place in the Body of Christ, we need the love and help of all our brethren. Can we be seen as equal partners by the rest of the Body of Christ? Will we be allowed to develop new ways of doing church that honor God’s purposes for the creative expression of our cultures? Will new ministry partnerships and coalitions form? Will you help be a part of this wonderful process of reconciliation, restoration and release?

Twiss is among those I’m most excited to hear speak at The Justice Conference later this month. Here’s a video introducing his topic.

[Photo credit: Rachel Fortney]

In Gospel, Justice Bible, church, ethics, First Nations, history, incarnation, indigenous, justice, Mark Buchanan, mission, missionary, Native, Native American, One Church Many Tribes, Richard Twiss, The Justice Conference, tribe