Seattle pseudo punksters aim for world domination...

Tim forwarded this ever-so moving article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to me today: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/238406_marshill29.html

The topic is the church I used to go to, Mars Hill (of Mark Driscoll, woman-hating fame), and contains quotes from my conservative yet not falling for it alma mater. What do you all think? Reactions? From such an offensive pastor and church, in a movement that we all seem to be abhorrently against, do you see anything that is truly good or attacked for reasons that it shouldn't be?

I personally know that I can defend some of his sermons...at least to some degree, because when taken out of context they look worse than they are. The sermon cited in the article makes it sound like he thinks rich people are good and we don't need to help the poor. Now, maybe that is his official position, but when I attended it was rarely a one-sided thing on most issues. He always presented both sides fairly well (which I found appealing) and would have usually countered such a sermon with another on the importance of seeing the sins and pitfalls of money or something. Also, is it wrong to integrate culture of an area into the church service or church community? I really liked the art in the church, different music, and that it did indeed feel more Seattle-like rather (especially as opposed to the traditional "suburban" church that I was used to). Anyhow, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Ash Wednesday

In a move to transplant some of our thought streams about the "radically new kingdom" and human trafficking to a new post, I wonder if any 'terns have thoughts about the Ash Wednesday service and related remembrances today, especially as regards the language of humility, repentance, and sin. I wonder if this adds to our discussion about evil, brokenness, sin, etc.

I especially wonder how folks feel about Rose's words about original sin and the Psalmist's statement that we are sinful since birth, even in the womb. I guess I am just seeking to understand this distinction between brokenness and sin and the perceived avoidance of what seems like pretty orthodox and biblical language about the human condition.

And in response to Betsy's last post under "human trafficking," I don't think our 2 options are brokenness , which leads to nonviolence and empathy, and sin, which = us vs. them and entails inevitable violence. Maybe we are just talking about the same thing with different words, but as was evidenced today, an orthodox and biblical understanding of sin should take us to our knees, not cause us to pick up a sword. I am not sure the aversion to simply saying that we - individually and as a human race - are sinful and need some serious redemption and reconciliation. I appreciate that "brokenness" feels softer and nicer, but I worry that in our effort to erase "sin" from our lexicons we are losing the very real idea that people - willingly and knowingly and spitefully - do bad things that they are culpable for, whether that is the Janjaweed killing civilians in Darfur or me hating or envying or coveting or lusting in my heart. If we take Jesus at his word, they are one in the same, and at the end of the day, I am RESPONSIBLE and I know better. And again, I think the Bible, my observations of the world, and my knowledge of my own heart all confirm to me that default for us (and me) - esp. separate God's grace - is selfishness, pride, violence, etc. The miracle is not when someone does something wrong, but when someone does something good, right, just, and other-focused. It is entirely possible, yes, but it is not the human default, and we need grace to even make the slightest move to the Other. I think that if anything should breed humility, it is that (aka, robust understanding of sin), not a watered-down notion that makes us all kinda okay and doesn't really want to acknowledge our own culpability and the depraved condition we're all in.

Also, I think that a proper Christian understanding of sin doesn't mean there are then good guys and bad guys (like in a B movie), but rather, it means that the line of good and evil runs through the heart of every person.

Catholics on the Ball

Catholic Charities USA have published what I think is a really solid policy paper on poverty. It provides some good (although brief) biblical background [Protestants can skip the part about the encyclicals :)] , some great statistical framing about poverty in America, and then some policy suggestions. Especially strong parts of the paper are justifications for the role of government (a response to all the conservatives who insist on primarily private solutions) and some good analysis about what the US is currently doing for poverty (good and bad) and how we stack up against other industrialized nations.

It is a great resource, whether one is just starting to think about the issue of poverty or one is a seasoned veteran on the issue. Check it out:

http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/poverty/downloads/policy06.pdf

Those "Gays" Are At It Again

Maybe I am just too far removed from my conservative upbringing, but headlines from groups like Focus on the Family never cease to amaze me with their audacity. This morning, their primary article reads, "Civil Unions Not Enough for New Jersey Gays." I am confounded... flabbergasted... upset. Why wouldn't civil unions not be enough? We aren't talking about people from another planet with an entirely different values system... they are human beings, and it make perfect sense that they'd want to get married. Why would it make any less sense for "gays" to want to get married than anyone else? For such a pro-marriage group, I'd think they should applaud anyone who wants to fight for marriage (even if, at the end of the day, Focus wants to deny them that right). It feels like saying "Blacks Want More Than Separate But Equal," as if they should have been satisfied with the bone that whites in power tossed them. I am glad that Focus offends me with stuff like this, at least in the sense that my sensibilities have gotten to that place. So again, Focus wages war on a minority group who is simply fighting for the same legal rights as everyone else. And expectedly, you'll find it cloaked in propaganda like "redefinition of marriage," "the destruction of marriage," and "gays do not understand what marriage is." Causes can exist without a god, but never without a devil. I am so tired of the vilification of gays as a political and fund raising tool and this casting of them as practically animal for simply wanting the same thing that groups like Focus want everyone to want - a monogamous, committed union. Such a move by New Jersey, if it ever happens, is no threat to Focus or their monogamous marriages (but try convincing them of that). As I've written before on this blog, I think they should concern themselves with other plagues on the family - divorce, poverty, poor sex education, health care, etc. I think Focus could care less that the family unit in America is crumbling, or at least, that's what I gather from their lack of attention to those issues that truly affect MOST American families. All I see from them is anti-gay rhetoric, hardlines on abortion, and stem cell stuff. That isn't my idea of a true pro-family agenda. Leave it to Focus to be silent on those issues while trying to turn people away from the very institution they are trying to promote. I am glad that civil unions are not enough for "gays" - it shouldn't be. They deserve the same rights under the law as straight couples. Then leave the churches to decide which unions "God" will honor.

Infinite wisdom from David Dark...

In the form of a few stories from the Jubilee weekend (no, 2/3 world countries were not forgiven their debt), I wish to pose a question to all of you...or really just state my opinion on it and hope that you all agree.

1. I attended the workshop with David Dark on the everyday apocalypse. If you want to know more about this, ask me. But while there someone asked him what he thought was holy. David responded with "the world and everything in it" (Betsy, I think you might like this guy). Connected to that, he mentioned that he once saw someone talk (I don't remember who) that when asked a question would stare at the asker for at least 6 seconds, say "thank you," and then respond. David was emphasizing the importance of really listening; listening without judging, engaging in dialogue without assumptions, and then responding in the purest fashion we know how. Anyhow, all of this said, some kids in front of me managed to think that David was generalizing, locked in a Western worldview, and excusing such atrocities as female circumcision. Now, mind you, David's workshop was on the media and pulling truth from all forms of media, not just Christian media (hence his more general definition of "apocalypse"). These students claimed that David was not seeing from a wide enough worldview that accounted for other cultures. They asked, "So if I go to, say India, and they are mutilating women I'm just supposed to stop and listen and do nothing? That is ridiculous. Some things are just wrong." (They also used the word "espoused" which really fired me up. Not because I don't know what espoused means - yes, Colin, I actually know that one - but because they were cocky hipsters that must have just taken a 1000 level class in culture). Anyhow, what do you all think? My thought is that we are called to go to India, see the mutilation and stop and listen and think. Only after that are we then to decide if, no, I think this is still wrong, and yes, we should do something about it. Otherwise, we are more Western than the line of thought that David espouses (ooh...word usage).
2. I had a girl come up to me and ask me if I really thought that war was not the answer. I told her that I didn't and gave a few reasons why. At one point I said "I don't think anyone is really fully behind war in that no one is for lots of people dying and suffering from psychological casualties...I don't see war as the only answer or the first answer, but rather may at times be needed, but only after other alternatives have been exhausted." To which she replied "I believe war is the answer." Thoughts on that? How would you respond? She is from a military family. Oh, also, in the middle of the conversation she asked, "Are you Asian?" Yes, racism is still alive. Well, at least that's how I took it.

Laurel passed on "these gems from C.S. Lewis" to some of us in the office in honor of Valentine's Day, and I comment below:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

“Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer for, God; Appreciative love says: "We give thanks to thee for thy great glory." Need-love says of a woman "I cannot live without her"; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection — if possible, wealth; Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.”

So, I'm back on the "radically new kingdom" kick - if God is Love, and Love is brokenness, or openness to the possibility of brokenness, then how can we imagine the perfect world-to-come being one without brokenness? Or maybe in that world-to-come, it’s more a matter of healing being more powerful and present than brokenness – but don’t we try to claim that for the present-day, too? That God is ever-present and in a way fills in those dark places, as an agent of healing (a process which may take a really long time, but nonetheless, is happening even before we’re aware of it (i.e. prevenient grace!)? (Which also shouldn’t negate God working through us as agents of healing, too – i.e. working for peace and social justice is not a mute issue.) I guess I can’t imagine a world that is complete, not in process (it all comes back to process theology!).

Oh – but maybe in this so-called “world-to-come,” everyone will be open to the possibility of brokenness, but no one will actually become broken, because the love given and received will be so whole and full? But what if real Love is only developed through that process of brokenness? In that case, maybe living in this broken world is indeed preparation for the moment when that “world-to-come” comes, when all will be made whole again – but that becomes problematic again, as this world becomes reduced to a waiting “game.”

Ok, and one more thing – given the second love quote from Lewis, “need-love” and “gift-love” become kind of obsolete – thus leaving only “appreciative love”. Maybe that’s alright, maybe not. Talk amongst yourselves.

How modern is "modern-day slavery"?

Last night's event with David Batstone et al. was really compelling. I'm anxious to read his book Not For Sale, see the films Trade and Amazing Grace, look into the organizations represented (Polaris Project, Free the Slaves, and Int'l Justice Mission, which I'm still fairly unfamiliar with), etc. A couple things that got me thinking:

-The woman from IJM (whose name now escapes me) brought up the fact that this is not just a poverty-related issue. My initial internal response was "yes, it is - how can you deny that almost all, if not all, people that are victims of human trafficking are impoverished? This is definitely an issue tied up with issues of poverty." However, as I listened to her explanation, it made complete sense. I don't think she was denying that poverty is definitely tied up in this discussion (decisions to take part in such a business is often because it is a solution to putting food on the table, shelter over a family's head, etc.) - but I'd say it's more about a type of spiritual poverty - brokenness, if you will.
She said something to the effect that human trafficking is not caused by poverty; it's caused by evil. And as many problems as I have with using words like evil and sin, I think this is a perfect situation in which to explore how evil and sin (and/ore brokenness/spiritual poverty) are at work in the world. One thing that's been said over and over around the issue of human trafficking/global slave trade is that what's so hopeful about the situation is that it's such a bi-partisan issue - no one could possibly be "for" human trafficking, once made aware of it. The only ones "for" it are those directly profitting from the business.
So, then there's the question - so what do those that are profitting say when confronted with the wrongness of what they're doing? (And that's really kind of what this whole movement is about - putting laws into place and enforcing them, so that people that attempt to do this are kept in check and prevented from doing the wrong thing.) And what compels them to get into human trafficking instead of some other profitable business (whether legal or illegal)? Do they not realize that it's wrong? Do they think, oh, I'm not really responsible, because I'm only the middle man? Or, do they not feel they have a choice (whether from personal coercion, or because of the need for money)? Is there a psychological disconnect? Difference of cultural/family values/morals (i.e. maybe a moral code including that all humans are equal wasn't implicitly or explicitly taught in some homes, and/or maybe some folks aren't born with such an inborn notion)? Evil? Brokenness? Kind of big theological questions to consider.

-My other big question to explore, which is related to the above, and really more about researching what the reality of history has been, and not so much just working out heady/lofty theology/opinions - is why exactly this is being called "modern-day" slavery. It seems that human enslavement (and trafficking, I would suppose) is about as old as humans. Is it that in more ancient history, the enslavement wasn't on the same global scale as say, the slave trade that's more familiar to us between Africa/the Americas and Europe/the States? And then, once that was abolished, new forms of global human trafficking developed under the radar, and we're just now really getting a grasp for what that slave trade looks like? I guess one question I have is, how long before the big movement to end slave trade (a la Wilburforce and his cronies) was global slave trade actually going on? Was their "ending of slave trade" just an ending of one kind of slave trade, and the rest just kept on going until they've taken their current forms? Or was it really abolished then, and it's just re-developed since then? If so, when did it make its "comeback"? Um, yeah - so, I really don't know a lot about the history of human trafficking and slave trade, and I'm just curious, because I think it has implications for how we need to deal with it, since it'd help to know just how deeply imbedded it is in our lives, and what those threads look like.

-Ooh, new question/idea - given my above two thoughts, it occurred to me that some of what I'm saying could actually somehow lead toward a cultural relativism which would say that human trafficking is actually kind of ok - because, how can we say from outside of a culture (whether that be in another country, or maybe even the "culture" of human trafficking that exists in the States) in which human trafficking is the norm, that it's something we can claim that needs to be abolished. In answer to this:
1) that is only anywhere near a valid argument if in the context of slave trade in and amongst one or a few foreign countries, and not in the context of what's happening in the States and globally.
2) I think one aspect of globalization and all the inter-cultural interaction at play in the world is a possible social evolution. And maybe even with a certain notion of a telos towards which we're moving, or a sense of "progress" over time - or maybe just the sense that we're always in a process of trying to heal the brokenness that we've inherited over history. I'm thinking of my Conquest of America class my senior year of college, and how my professor talked about how in the era of Incan culture in Peru, tribes in the area would kind of take turns "being in charge," enslaving those of the other tribes - which is part of what led to their downfall when the Europeans came - they thought this would be yet another empire that would rise and fall - it was just their turn. Little did they know, this new people wouldn't be interested in a short reign. Another difference between that culture and, say our modern-day Western culture, is that a game existed then in which the winner was killed by the other players - this makes completely and utterly no sense in any framework in which we work. When we look at certain cultural norms from the past, we can say, you know, maybe they had something we've lost in terms of communitarianism - but I'm really kind of glad that we didn't all take turns enslaving each other and don't get killed when we win a game. For better or for worse, we evolve - we've evolved, we're evolving, things are changing all the time. And not singular cultures evolving over time, but multiples cultures interacting and transforming each other over time. So, human trafficking is then something we can say we genuinely don't approve of - it's not something that we want right now (because that's all we have "control" over), and it's not something that we think should exist anywhere in the world (because we're all interconnected and a part of this Body, whether you tag on "on Christ" or not, and so we should be able to work for the good of our brothers and sisters without it being considered "meddling" as an outsider).

Pick Your Poison: Unpolished Candor or Spin Doctored Political Correctness?

Almost before he has the chance to get started, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Joseph Biden shot himself in the rhetorical foot with the following remarks in an interview with The New York Observer:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

It is clear that this was a colossal blunder and - besides being patently false - reveals some underlying assumptions that - frankly - few of us can claim freedom from. Most of the commentary I've seen focuses on how Biden is off-base and how the rest of us should examine our own hearts for prejudice and stereotypes, even the most "progressive" among us.

I'd like to offer another angle on this issue, and that regards the transparency of our politicians in general. Simply, I think we as the public are hypocrites. We communicate a double standard to our candidates. On one hand, we want transparency, humility, and humanity. For example, we criticize Bush for a lack of humility in not admitting forthrightly that he has ever been wrong in his policies. We also complain that every glimpse of a candidate we see is so heavily spin doctored, edited, and screened that we never know if or when we are catching sight of the real person.

But then, from the other side of our mouth, we crucify politicians when they go on their own and subsequently make a mistake (or are even guilty of inarticulate phrasing). Sen. Kerry has already seen his possible '08 run torpedoed by one poorly executed joke, and now Biden - a credible candidate in many people's eyes - looks to face an even steeper uphill battle for saying something that - although poorly put - probably makes him much more like the average person than less.

We can't have it both ways. Do we want the real people, who will sometimes be messily human in their thinking, their logic, their imprecise wording, their prejudice and stereotypes, and their sinfulness (to use a "churchy" word)? Or do we want sound bytes and scripted appearances that are so heavily mediated by a staff of spin doctors that the public appearances may as well be made by their press secretaries or even robots? Do we demand transparency and perfection at the same time? Do we judge Biden on a career record that shows support of communities of color, or do we cross off his civil service career for one boneheaded comment?

[A parallel in the church is wanting transparency in our leaders, then thinking less of them (or running them off altogether) when they bear their hearts and show us that they are human and don't float 3 feet off the ground at all times.]

In the end, this doesn't mean we can't criticize Biden and even choose to withhold support from someone we feel does not represent the best of our values. But if we want to see the candidates as they really are, then we should be prepared for real, live humans to emerge from behind the veil of our media culture.