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Justice

Be A Better White Male

Last week I was a part of conversation about privilege and racism/sexism/oppression. I was asked about some simple starting points and this is the list that I came up with.  I know that it is flawed and limited but it might be a good start.RoadPortraitSunsetD&B

I would love hear your additions.

I will venture to get this started – the suggestions are going to be provisional at best and will need to be supplemented (heavily) by others.

  1. Assume that you are definitely part of the problem and only possibly part of the solution.
  2. Put yourself under the leadership/care of someone or a group that is not like you in race-gender-sexuality. So … if you go to George Fox Evangelical Seminary in Portland and it is time for you write your Master’s thesis, ask Randy Woodley, Roger Nam or Mary Kate Morse to be your adviser.
  3. Listen to them. Just listen.
  4. Resist the temptation to ask questions that have numbers in them. Like don’t ask “how hot does a sweat-lodge get and how many rocks are used?” or “what percentage of people would be X ?”  White guys love numbers – it’s a european enlightenment thing I think.
  5. Listen some more and do not discredit any of it – don’t allow yourself to think ‘that seems over the top’ or ‘it couldn’t have been that bad / blatant’. Don’t do it. You will want to. Don’t.
  6. Buy books by people that are not like you in a greater percentage than ones by white males. Start with Randy Woodley’s Shalom and the Community of Creation and Mary Kate Morse’s Making Room for Leadership.  You will not be sorry.
  7. and most importantly! – do what they tell you. No… Do what they DO … if you can. If they say ‘Don’t go to that conference’ cancel your plans. Even if you like the topic and you will lose money. If they say ‘This group could use some volunteers’, ask them if that is something you could do. If they tell you that they are doing something next Saturday, ask if that is something you could come to. Cancel the other thing you were going to do. Someone else will probably do that other thing.
  8. Assume that you are definitely part of the problem and only possibly part of the solution. You will make mistakes. It’s ok – we all do. The problem is so large and so seemingly insurmountable that we can not afford to get dis-couraged or to entertain allusions of grandeur.
  9. This is gunna take a while. Pace yourself. Embrace your spirituality in a new way – you will need it for the long haul. Don’t chuck it like so many do when they figure out how shitty the world is.
  10. Listen to the Smiley & West podcast every week.
  11. Whenever you are in a group do not use your whole percentage of air-time. If you are in a discussion with 3 other people – don’t talk 25% of the time (let alone 50). Use less than your percentage. I’m not saying ‘don’t talk or ask questions’. We don’t need to be silent … just use less than your 25% allotment.

Please let me know any additions or adjustments that you would like to see.   -Bo

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The Pornography of Fundamentalism

Normally I try to be as generous, welcoming and irenic as possible. One of my favorite slogans actually comes from my venerable partner Tripp Fuller at Big Tent 1 when he said that the ‘tent’ should be big enough for every former incarnation of our self … but I was never a fundamentalist. I flirted with being one in Bible College but never converted.

This past week I was flying back across the country after visiting my family and I was rummaging through my Ipod to see if anything caught my attention. I stumbled on an old Slavo Zizek lecture. As with all Zizek lectures he wandered through almost every topic under the sun – but two caught my attention: pornography and fundamentalism. I want to try and connect them here.

In a pornographic movie, the dialogue is secondary. It is merely window dressing. Think back to your younger years – before you were a christian. The dialogue is a thinly veiled, contrived scenario to get the actors into the same space. It is little more.

 A handyman comes over to a lonely women’s apartment to fix a hole in the wall. She says something about another hole that needs attention.

You get the idea. The dialogue is superfluous to the real intention. It is poorly written and even more poorly delivered. The dialogue is a facade, it is merely intended to set up the main activity. It allows for the suspension of suspicion so that one can enter into the fantasy. 

 Dialogue performs the same function for Christian Fundamentalists.

Don’t misunderstand me – I am not saying that the verbiage of fundamentalists is insincere or disingenuous. It is not. Fundamentalist believe it with all their heart. What I am saying is that the words in church perform the same function as dialogue in porn. The words that are spoken are secondary to the main activities: nationalism, militarism and capitalism (some would add patriarchy).

When I was in Bible College I used to set my VCR to record TV preachers while I was at school. I loved listening to preachers. I wanted to be one and I modeled myself on the famous ones. I even sent money to folks like Chuck Swindoll so I could get their tapes and listen to them over and over.

The more I read the Bible, however, the more I realized that something was wrong. At my evangelical college we studied the historical context of the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East. We even touched on some Roman legal stuff for the New Testament –  while avoiding things like Empire for the most part. [Jesus’ message was spiritual after all, not political.]

I started getting a pit in my stomach when pastors would shoe-horn modern issues between the lines of scripture. It made me nervous when they would draw a direct line from ancient Israel to modern America. My fallout actually came in two parts:

  • Step one was simply (but quietly) objecting to the lack of translation or conversion between Old Testament Israel  which was a theocracy and America which was democracy … and a pluralistic one at that.
  • Step two was the vehement (nearly venomous) push-back I got when broached the subject.

It was in the vicious rebuffs that something grotesque was exposed. The words that were spoken – while important and delivered with conviction – were secondary to the real driving influence and aim. The real engine is nationalism, militarism and capitalism. Those are the real gods of American fundamentalists. The christian verbiage is the fiberglass body. It is important, visible and gets most of the attention but it is not what is driving the machine.

Like dialogue in porn, it is only utilized to get the players into proximity with each other. It is only used to set up the main (real) activity.

Ask yourself these 3 questions:

  1. Why are voices raised, fists shaken, and teeth gritted when fundamentalists talk about God pouring out love for us in Christ and salvation being found in ‘the way, the truth, and the life’? Why doesn’t the medium match the message?
  2. Why is there unquestioned support for modern Israel regardless of their atrocities and unjust behaviors?
  3. Why is it permissible to be so aggressive with people who disagree with you on issues like who is allowed to be married (a civil union) by the state?

The reason that the medium doesn’t match the message is because the real message is not found in the words. Like dialogue in porn, it is only meant to set up the scenario for the real activity. Spend all the time you want on analyzing it or the logic behind it, but it is like capturing fog. It is a temporary holder for the main event. In fundamentalism’s case, that is nationalism, militarism and capitalism. Don’t get distracted by the christian verbiage or the message of Jesus – you will only be frustrated and baffled. No, there is something else driving this machine.  Just ask questions, even quietly, and you will hear where the real priorities are.

I know that normally I am not this critical,
but as you will see in the following posts,
we have a real problem on our hands.

Why this matters so much is covered in part 3: It’s a Sign.  

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Place, Direction and Perspective: changes since I was a pastor

Last week I had chance to return to the place where I had been a pastor for 11 years. I have been away for 4 years pursuing higher education. It was great to reconnect with folks that I love very much. The trip also included a chance to head out into the woods with a group of guys for a week-long canoe trip in the Adirondack Mountains.

One night around the fire, someone asked

“so you have learned a lot and changed a lot since you were our pastor, bring us up to speed. What has changed in your thinking in 4 years?”

It was a question that I hoped would come up and had given it a lot of thought as I flew across the country from LA to NY.

 I said that there were 3 big changes – that I had added 2 things and gotten rid of 1 thing. 

Directions: 

We had a saying that oriented us over those 11 years I was pastor: Upward – Inward – Outward: it must be all 3 – they must be in that order. I have learned that there is a 4th direction: downward. 

When we look downward, two things happen:

  1. We see the earth. This awakens us to things like where our food comes from, ecology, and location – the importance of place. Christianity is an incarnational religion and it is a spirituality that is em-bodied. Location is central to the practices of christian community.
  2. We see those less fortunate or less powerful. This awakens us to issues of justice. Cornel West is the one who has helped me see the importance of not just looking around (which is vital for awareness) and looking up (where our strength come from) but looking down for those who might need some help.

Adding this 4th direction brings in issues of environment, locatedness, and justice. It illustrates the importance of embodying the gospel in a place – none of us are from everywhere.

 Critique and Create:

One of the things that I have learned in my travels (from folks like Zizkek, Cornel West, Marc Ellis and Diana Butler Bass) is that there are 3 broad kinds of churches in North America:

  • Prophetic – that critique the system
  • Therapeutic – that help you adjust to the system
  • Messianic – that look to escape the system

We were great at two of them. We had a natural Messianic element because our denomination is staunchly and passionately pre-millennial (the soon coming King! is one of our big 4 things). We also had a good dose of the Therapeutic and helped a lot of people be the best version of themselves within the existing structures.

If I got to do it again, I would add a Prophetic element and address the systems and structures that hold so much sway in our communities and in the lives of our congregations.

The example that I used was routinely praying for a guy with a limited skill set to get a job. “Jesus – please help ‘J’ to get a job”.  By not addressing the relationship of local government with factories and manufactures in our area … we were relegating the answer to our prayers to the ‘powers that be’ and J was perpetually disappointed with God and discouraged in his faith. We nearly set him up to fail.

 Those are the 2 things I have added: a 4th direction and 3rd element. But I have also gotten rid of something – I no longer believe in the supernatural. 

Why the Natural is super:

I am convinced that the church has made a major mistake in adopting the language of the super-natural. Since the epic flub with Galileo and Copernicus the church has allowed science to have the natural (things that make sense) and has been relegated to watching over things that increasingly don’t make sense and retreating into words like ‘mystery’ and ‘faith’ as cover for that which is just not reasonable.

I do not believe in a realm (the natural) that is without God. As a Christian, I believe that God’s work is the most natural thing in the world. I am unwilling to concede the natural-spiritual split and then leave less and less room for God as science is able to explain more and more. The church is foolish to accept the dualism (natural-supernatural) and then superintend only the spiritual part.

No wonder 85% of our kids walk away in their 20’s. This stuff is unbelievable. 

I would prefer to reclaim the language of the ‘miraculous’ (surprising to us or unexpected) and ‘signs’ from the Gospel of John (that point to a greater reality).

So that is what has changed since I was Senior Pastor four years ago. I look down now (at the earth, for location, and for issues of justice). I hear the Prophetic critiquing the system. And I have gotten rid of the super-natural while embracing the miraculous.

 It was so great to share these thoughts and hear the feedback from my friends as we shared the week together. I would love to get your feedback or to hear how you have changed in the past few years.  -Bo 

3

The difference between Mercy and Justice

for Columbus Day
Last week this quote was tweeted by Greg_Boyd:
“You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the…distance of miles, there is complicity.” R.W.Emerson
I also found this quote from Desmond Tutu:
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
I had a friend explain it to me this way – If you lived in a village by a river and saw a wounded person floating down the river, you would jump in go get them. You would bring them to shore to do what it took to restore them to health.That is Mercy.
If more and more bodies kept floating down stream and so the people in your village set up a hospital to tend to all the injured people who kept floating down stream – that is Mercy Work. 

While you were tending to all these injured people, one of you asks “what is injuring all these people and how are they ending up in the river?” – now you have entered the area of Justice.
If someone decides to disengage from the situation at hand and puts together a team to go hike upstream and find out the source of all this damage – that is Justice Work. 

[for more on this – here is a link to last week’s article]
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