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
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:
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: UK Study Tour blog; "Stairs in Canterbury Cathedral, Worn from Pilgrims crawling to pay homage to the murdered Thomas Becket"]
Fighting poverty, planting trees
When I started writing for magazines, I set out to tell stories about the poor, especially in places I had been in Latin America and elsewhere. As an advocacy journalist, I wanted to use the platform I had to amplify the voices of those on the margins, in hopes of making poverty a bit more personal for those who'd read my words, and of showing the real possibilities for transformational development, justice and peace.
But something unexpected happened. In story after story -- a community in Guatemala grappling with an unwanted foreign gold mine; a community in Costa Rica recovering from an earthquake; poor rural farmers in Mexico and Haiti and Tanzania trying to feed their families; those living in low-income parts of Phoenix -- I discovered an unavoidable environmental theme. Whether the threat was cyanide in the water, bulldozing for an unneeded road, deforestation at the hands of locals and foreigners, or officials turning a blind eye to the careless practices of toxic industries in an urban neighborhood, I couldn't escape the realization that the well-being of the poor is directly tied to creation care.
Of course, all of us benefit from creation care, but whereas you and I can insulate ourselves from the worst effects of pollution and contaminated water and deforestation, in many cases the poor -- and particularly the rural poor -- don't have that luxury.
This Sunday is Earth Day, and you don't have to be a raging environmentalist (or even a liberal!) to give some thought to what it might mean to honor our Creator by caring for what he himself has declared good. Consider the psalmist, who joyfully declared, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it." We are God's handiwork, made in his image, but we're also entrusted to cultivate and steward the rest of his good creation. I suspect Abraham Kuyper had this psalm in mind when he said his most famous words, "There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, 'This is mine! This belongs to me!'"
The good folks at Plant With Purpose (whose work I covered last summer for Prism) are curating a page over at the snazzy new World Vision ACT:S site for their Earth Day Challenge, providing resources and creative challenges for being more involved. It's one of a number of campaigns PWP is part of this month, actually. I'd encourage you to check out the Earth Day Challenge and consider what it might look like to honor the Creator and to love our neighbors this Earth Day.
(Not to sway you or anything, but I really like the Trees Please! campaign.)
[Photo credit: Plant With Purpose]
Repaso: Easterly on institutions; Springsteen’s latest; Christianity in the Americas; Undocumented.tv interview; famous last words; FLW’s unbuilt projects; Half the Sky film
1. Easterly on the roots of hardship
Bill Easterly, economics professor at NYU, has a review of a new book on development economics in the Wall Street Journal, emphasizing the critical role healthy and inclusive institutions play in overcoming poverty. In what he says here (and particularly the part where I’ve added italics), I see this as a huge challenge for Latin America:
The arrival of "Why Nations Fail" is thus a hugely welcome event, since economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson take on the big questions and in doing so present a substantial alternative to the dominant thinking about global poverty. For Messrs. Acemoglu and Robinson, it is institutions that determine the fate of nations. Success comes, the authors say, when political and economic institutions are "inclusive" and pluralistic, creating incentives for everyone to invest in the future. Nations fail when institutions are "extractive," protecting the political and economic power of only a small elite that takes income from everyone else.
2. Springsteen’s “Wrecking Ball”
Last weekend my buddy Matty (who’s also a remarkable singer-songwriter and music guru in general) let me know I ought to check out The Boss’s new record, Wrecking Ball. “I got a sneaky feeling you’d really like it,” he texted. I got it and he’s right: it’s great. Here’s what Roger Nelson at ThinkChristian.net had to say about it:
Originally written as acoustic folk tunes, Springsteen took this collection of songs to producer Ron Aniello, who pushed them into new sonic territory. Using samples, drum loops, trumpets, choirs and the guitar solos of Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine, Wrecking Ball has a glossy and varied musical texture. Lyrically, it stands in a direct line with Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad, but this collection is an eclectic-electric mash-up of gospel, blues, Irish stomps, protest songs, big-stadium rock anthems and even a little rap. What was conceived in the tradition of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger is transformed into a post-modern pastiche.
3. Christianity in the Americas
In December, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life published the latest data on the size and distribution of the Christian population in the Americas. There’s a cool interactive map and a couple of charts, in case you’re a nerd like me when it comes to these kinds of things.
4. Mexico’s evangelical shift
Speaking of Christianity in the Americas, PRI’s The World took a look at the changing religious demographics of Mexico, with a visit to the town of Zongozotla in the central highlands:
It was once unheard of in Mexico to consider not being Catholic. But here in Zongozotla, where different faiths are gaining ground, spiritual shifts are possible—and underway. And while some members of the Catholic Church stress that change is needed to compete with the evangelical presence, it’s unclear whether Catholicism’s centuries-old traditions and hierarchies will be flexible to reverse its losses here.
5. Evangelicals on the rise in Latin America
How about one more while we’re at it? This is from Al Jazeera English, ahead of the Pope’s visit to Mexico and Cuba. This piece by Chris Arsenault provides some helpful background on the history of religion in the region, including Pope John Paul II’s visit, the liberation theology movement during the Cold War years, and recently, the rise of evangelical churches throughout Latin America.
6. Interview with undocumented student
In case you missed it last week, here is part one and part two of my interview for Undocumented.tv with Ricardo, an undocumented college student here in Phoenix.
7. Last words in Texas
Texas, as well all know, sends a lot of people to death row. Of the 1289 people who have been executed in the United States since 1976, over a third of them -- 481 -- have been in Texas. Another 317 are on death row in that state. Whatever you think of the merits of capital punishment, GOOD has an infographic with the most common last words said by death row inmates.
8. Frank Lloyd Wright’s unbuilt projects
Katie and I recently got to see the FLW exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum. It was really interesting, and while it’s cool that he lived in this area and some of his projects were built here, I really don’t know why I never visited Fallingwater when I lived in Pennsylvania. At any rate, we were both curious about the fact that so many of the renderings on display were for unbuilt projects. Lo and behold, the polis blog (a Repaso favorite, as you may have noticed) has a post taking a look at three of Wright’s unbuilt projects.
9. Half the Sky: The Movie
I’m looking forward to watching the Half the Sky documentary when it airs on PBS this October. I read the book a couple of years ago, and had this to say about it. Here’s the trailer for the film, laden with celebrities.
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: thepolisblog.org]
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