Heroes of the Church

PRISM on earth as it is in heaven: radical love made visible

MICHELLE ALEXANDER TAKES ON CASTE IN AMERICA

The prosperity gospel's false prophets Also:

Interviews with Phil Madeira, Krista Tippett, and other culture-shapers Fat-shaming in the church

Finding a third way in the abortion wars A "comic" approach to street harrassment Is your Jesus revolutionary enough?

WINTER 2014

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Despite Jesus’ prayer that all Christians “be one,” divisions have been epidemic in the body of Christ. Social psychologist Christena Cleveland draws on research to explain unseen dynamics at work that create conflicts and separate us from others.

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CONTENTS Winter 2014

2 REFLECTIONS “Re-storying” America 3 TALK BACK

16 Fighting the U.S. Caste Culture

WHOLE

Lawyer and civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander strives to shift the whole culture of our nation’s criminal justice system.

4 Sure, You’re Born Again, but Are

22 Americans Who Tell the Truth

5 6 7 8

25 “A Good Question Is a Gift”

You Growing Up? Disunity Whiplash Life Together Which Way Does Your Faith Point?

Life-Saving Suds, 60-Second Stories of Transformation, Hidden Treasure

COUNTERCULTURE

Phil Madeira’s witness in the world consists of excellent musicianship, a collaborative spirit, and a vulnerability that embraces brokenness.

32 Building the Pro-Grace Movement

Meet the leader of a pregnancy counseling agency that is fundamentally changing the sanctity-of-life debate.

CONSUME

Egbuna 47 Life After Technology, TV = Terror Vaccine?

48 Book reviews 50 New books and films to check out

PROTESTIMONY 51 Immigration Reform & Beyond 52 On Christ the Solid Rock We Stand?

52 Celebrate!

53 Depression Quest, Roy Choi’s Flavorful Journey

54 esXaton The Che Guevara Jesus 56 THE LAST WORD “From This Valley”

Cover: Portrait of Michelle Alexander by Robert Shetterly, as part of his Americans Who Tell the Truth series (AmericansWhoTelltheTruth.org).

Krista Tippett traces the spiritual landscape of today’s greatest hearts and minds.

28 Traveling Down to Mercyland

10 Listening to the “Disreputables” 11 Who Are Today’s Lepers?

12 Catcalls? Comics to the Rescue!

14 Write After Breakfast 15 Unplugging to Connect

46 The Beautiful, Tortured Soul of Nneka

Robert Shetterly paints heroes past and present in an effort to inspire America toward a more engaged, free, and community-focused citizenship.

36 Wonderfully Made

Driven by popular culture and good intentions, the church too often participates in a damaging and idolatrous conflation of thinness and godliness.

40 “That You May Prosper in All Things”

Exposing the idolatry of false prophets of prosperity.

ALSO: 44 Buscando la Liberación para Latino/as en una Iglesia que Predica el Evangelio de la Prosperidad: Un caso práctico

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.

Instead, fix your attention on God. Romans 12:2 (The Message)

REFLECTIONS “Re-Storying” America

T

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bring heaven to earth? Aren’t we incapable of loving radically?

The answer to both these questions is “yes”—if we do it on our own. But if we do it in Christ, through whom all things are possible, it is not only conceivable but also essential. Let’s grow up—as Eugene Peterson invites us to do on page 4—and get about the business of living extraordinary lives in Christ, in whom we are blessed to “live and move and have our being.” Let’s change the culture from within by maturing into the people God created us to be—a peculiar people of light (1 Peter 2:9), people of “the Way” (Acts 9:2), people called to change the world, starting with the change in our own hearts (Acts 26:19-20). As Catherine Booth, “the Mother of the Salvation Army,” once said to her children, “We are made for ends larger than the earth can compass. O let us be true to our exalted destiny!”

Kristyn Komarnicki anticipates that the “bricks” she’ll be laying for a better world this year will come in the form of learning from those who see things differently from her, releasing her middle son to adulthood, and embracing a one-month sabbatical—all of which terrify her.

Shai Linne Nicole Morgan

Arlene Sanchez-Walsh

Harold Dean Trulear

Al Tizon Shayna Lear

THIS ISSUE'S CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:

his issue is a celebration of salt. Of yeast.

Of every subtle but persistent voice that works its way into the dough of our world, adding to its taste, texture, and ability to nourish us. This issue is a celebration of the culturechangers among us.

We interview folks who seek to change culture in small ways—through music, conversations, or comic books. We talk to folks working for big changes, too—to Michelle Alexander, who wants to turn the criminal justice system inside out, and to Angie Weszely, who is helping to reframe the dialogue about sanctity of life.

We talk to the painter Robert Shetterly, who has spent the last 12 years seeking out and documenting the bravest culture-changers among us, those folks who are not afraid to stand up and say what they see, even if no one else can see it. His Americans Who Tell the Truth project gives us hundreds of worthy role models to inform and inspire our own efforts to be salt and yeast.

Chinese American Grace Lee Boggs is one of the culture-changers Shetterly has painted (see page 22). She turns 99 this year and lives in Detroit, a city whose population has more than halved in the last 50 years. At the beginning of the documentary American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, Boggs is shown inching her walker past derelict factories and saying, “I feel sorry for people who don’t live in Detroit.”

That’s because Boggs sees something most others don’t. She sees possibility in the ruins—a chance for a more humane scale of communal life in the failure of an industrial corporate culture, opportunity in disaster. She wants to restore America by “re-storying” America—telling new stories about who we are, what we want, and how we can live in ways that facilitate peace, true prosperity, and both indi-

vidual and communal potential.

My hope is that the stories in this issue will motivate you to re-story your own life.

It’s a new year. How can you and I make even the subtlest of shifts—in our lifestyle, thought processes, prayer life, work schedule—in order to change the angle of our trajectory or the quality of our journey? It might be as simple as sitting down to finally write that letter to an estranged sister. It might be unplugging one day a week so that our eyes and hearts are available to watch the light shift on the window sill, to observe the almost invisible but still significant ways our children are maturing, to build a fire simply to listen to it snap and exhale.

It might mean attending that school district meeting or inviting a neighbor over for a meal or mentoring a fatherless kid or offering one of our vegetable beds to the single mom down the street. It might mean looking for opportunity in failure: hiring a man coming out of prison, turning that pay cut into fuel for a living-wage campaign for those struggling even more than you, or even—if you’re one of those fiercely proud, self-sufficient types—taking the risk of asking for help for yourself. Whatever it is, let’s all agree to lay a brick in the foundation for a better world.

ESA’s new vision statement is “On Earth as It Is in Heaven: Radical Love Made Visible.” Isn’t it pompous utopianism to think that we can

TALK BACK

Re: “Bono on Capitalism with a Conscience” by Rudy Carrasco in the Fall Issue—excellent article! Having worked for a small NGO for 30 years, I echo Carrasco’s sentiments with a loud amen! I worked in the former USSR and in Eastern Europe before the Berlin Wall came down; I have also worked in current-day Russia, as well as with Kurdish refugees in the Middle East. I've been involved in implementing numerous relief projects of various kinds over a period of decades. Projects that created a sustainable economy in concert with moral and spiritual development are the projects that have had the most effect on community health, welfare, education, and family structures. The statement “poor governance is the biggest obstacle” couldn't be more true! This must be recognized in order for benevolence to become sustainably beneficial.

Karen Hatfield Monument, Col.

Re: “Racial Diversity in Higher Education” in the Fall Issue—[Can a university] “consider race a factor in admissions decisions” without doing so at the expense of fairly evaluating academic qualifications? Do you see any inherent dangers in public institutions practicing such social engineering, no matter how well intentioned?

American, Latina, or anything else. Using “race cards” at all is illegitimate, whether by black or white, Native or Asian, or any other grouping you’d care to name. I am Native American through my father, Irish through my mother. Both my ancestral groups suffered terribly from racism and ethnocentrism in the past century, yet Irish is considered white. Irish were considered of less value than blacks in the construction of the railroads out West. They were the victims of other whites in the cities back East, leading to the protective formation of the Tammany Halls and unions.

Jews are considered whites—have they anything to confess? You paint with far too broad a brush, and its bristles drip with self-loathing and guilt. I will not accept your victimization of my color, as you advised Ham and Canaan to do.

Wayne A. Minyard San Diego, Calif.

Re: “The Dangers of Voluntourism” in the Fall Issue—I really appreciate the article, thank you, and I totally agree with the premise. I am a Brit working in child protection in East Africa, and it is not uncommon for well-meaning Westerners to pitch up “on a call from the Lord” and build an orphanage which bears little resemblance to the kind of home any normal child would live in. I am very concerned about the lack of screening involved, too, and am aware that NGOs targeting vulnerable children can be soft targets for offenders. It also amazes me that donors happily give to the “exotic poor” thousands of miles away but at the same time despise the poor in their own neighborhoods and resent any government social protection.

Cath Swanson Morogoro, Tanzania

Mike Nacrelli Portland, Ore.

Raced-As-White Photo: “mirror” ©2012-2013 ~shahsepram

Exposing our Paul Alexander's "Raced-as-White" in the efforts Summer 2013 issue isto a misguided ridiculous claptrap homogenization of newspeak, trying to guilt whites race ourselves and into feeling bad about simply having less pigment in their skin than otheach other ers. In the history of the world, people have enslaved other races, other ethnic groups, other tribes, other countries, since human history started.

Paul Alexander Yes, some whites are still racist, as are many blacks, by Native Americans, Asians, etc. But as a person of “less color” I will not own the racism of Lincoln or anyone else. I had nothing to do with their ethics and can only11 be responsible for my own.

It is not a sin to be white any more than to be Asian, black, Native

Re: “The Priesthood of All Believers” in the Fall Issue—thanks for this article and your inclusion of “the common good” as an essential in your theology and outreach.

It is thrilling to think entrepreneurs are being trained to take care of others and aim for a better bottom line than mere profit.

John Deacon Toronto, Ontario

@ Email the editor: Kkomarni@eastern.edu f @Facebook.com/evansocaction t @twitter.com/PRISMMagazine1 e EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org/ePistle

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WHOLE

Healing a fractured world.

G

rowing up involves the work of the Holy Spirit forming our bornagain spirits into the likeness of Christ. Luke tells us that after John the Baptist was born, “the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly” (Luke 1:80).

A page or so later he tells us that Jesus, after his birth, “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in divine and human favor” (Luke 2:52). St. Paul uses a similar vocabulary in describing the agenda he sets out for Christians—that we “come … to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ … grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph. 4:13, 15).

John grew up. Jesus grew up. Paul tells us, “Grow up.”

Evangelism is essential. But is it not obvious that growth in Christ is equally essential? Yet the American church has not treated it with an equivalent urgency. Instead it runs on the euphoria and adrenaline of new birth— getting people into the church, into the kingdom, into causes, into crusades, into programs. We turn matters of growing up over to Sunday school teachers, specialists in Christian education, committees to revise curricula, retreat centers, and deeper life conferences, farming it out to parachurch groups for remedial assistance.

Americans, including pastors and professors, have little tolerance for a centering way of life that is submissive to the conditions in which growth takes place: quiet, obscure, patient, not subject to human control and management.

The American church is uneasy in these conditions. Typically, in the name of

4

Eugene H. Peterson is the author of dozens of acclaimed books. This essay was adapted from the introduction of his book Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ (Eerdmans, 2013) and appears here by kind permission of the publisher.

http://echoessi.deviantart.com

Sure, You’re Born Again, but Are You Growing Up?

“relevance,” it adapts itself to the prevailing American culture and is soon indistinguishable from that culture: talkative, noisy, busy, controlling, image-conscious.

Meanwhile, what has in previous centuries and other cultures been a major preoccupation of the Christian community, becoming men and women who live to “the praise of God’s glory,” has become a mere footnote within a church that has taken on the agenda of the secular society. By delegating character formation, the life of prayer, the beauty of holiness to specialized ministries or groups, we disconnect growth from birth and, in effect, place it on a bench at the margins of the church’s life. Wendell Berry, one of our most perceptive prophets of contemporary culture and spirituality, wrote, “We think it ordinary to spend 12 or 16 or 20 years of a person’s life and many thousands of public dollars on ‘education’—and not one dime or a thought on character.”

Plato formulated what he named the “universals” as the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. He held that if we are to live a whole and mature life, the three had to work together harmoniously in us. The American church has deleted Beauty from that triad. We are vigorous in contending for the True and energetic in insisting on the Good, but Beauty, the forms by which the True and the Good take shape in human life, we pretty much ignore.

Plato, and many of our wisest teachers who have followed him, insisted that all three—Truth, Goodness, Beauty—are organically connected. Without Beauty, there is no container for Truth and Goodness, no form, no way of coming to expression in human life. Truth divorced from Beauty becomes abstract and bloodless. Goodness divorced from Beauty becomes loveless and graceless.

If we need a formal term for this, “theological aesthetics” will do as well as any. I have long protested this marginalization of matters of spiritual formation, of theological aesthetics, of growing up to the full stature of Christ.

But pastors tell me that they cannot make it with an agenda like this—theological aesthetics? People won’t put up with it. I suggested to them that the persevering, patient, unhurried work of growing up in Christ has occupied the center of the church’s life for centuries, and that this American marginalization is, well, American.

For far too long now, with full backing from our culture, we have let the vagaries of our emotional needs call the shots, let ecclesiastical market analysts set the church’s agenda, let self-appointed experts on the Christian life replace the “full stature of Christ” with desiccated stick figures. The resurrection of Jesus establishes the conditions in which we live and mature in the Christian life and carry on this conversation: Jesus alive and present.

“Practice resurrection,” a phrase I got from Wendell Berry, strikes just the right note. We live our lives in the practice of what we do not originate and cannot anticipate. When we practice resurrection, we continuously enter into what is more than we are. When we practice resurrection, we keep company with Jesus, alive and present, who knows where we are going better than we do, which is always “from glory unto glory.”

Disunity Whiplash Last year I spoke at a racial reconciliation event organized by a very progressive Christian church. The event was inspiring, challenging, well led, and constructive, and I was honored to participate. The following day, I spoke at another reconciliation event, in the same metro area, this one put on by a very conservative Christian organization. It was also inspiring, challenging, well led, constructive, and an honor to participate in.

Despite the fact that both groups consisted of sincere followers of Jesus and possessed unique perspectives, insights, and resources that could significantly contribute to the work of racial reconciliation, their tribal locations on opposite poles of the Christian spectrum meant that they were unlikely to attend the same reconciliation event, much less collaborate on this important issue.

Interacting with such polarized groups in less than 24 hours gave me whiplash and shocked me into action! I contacted the Left to my leaders of both groups and own inclisuggested that they considnations, I’m er collaborating with each other—or at least listening unlikely to to each other’s perspectives seek help and insights. Not surprisfrom people ingly, none of the leaders with whom were interested in working with a group that seemed so I disagree different from their own. In or who even fact, both leaders took verseem slightly bal jabs at the other group, suggesting that the other different from group couldn’t possibly have me. anything to teach them.

Left to my own inclinations, I’m a lot like these leaders—unlikely to seek help from people with whom I disagree or who even seem slightly different from me. I think we all have a tendency to do this— even when it’s completely ridiculous and counterproductive to do so! Social psychologist Dominic Abrams conducted a study in which he split strangers into different groups based on arbitrary characteristics (e.g., groups based on numbers that were randomly assigned). Then he asked each person to complete a difficult cognitive task. He told half of the people that they could receive help from someone in their group (same number assigned to them) and half that they could receive help from someone who wasn’t in their group (different number assigned to them).

Abrams found that the people who were told they could receive help from a fellow group member to complete the difficult task asked for help early and often. However, those who were told they could receive help from a non-group member refused to receive help even when they desperately needed it. This discovery led Abrams to conclude that his subjects “resisted information purely on the basis that it was derived from a category of person to which they did not belong.”

How stubborn!

The stubbornness that the people in Abrams’ study showed is so much like the stubbornness that Christians display when we stick to our tribes and refuse to engage with and learn from different tribes. And as you

can see, this type of stubbornness begins innocently and unfolds naturally.

We start by dividing into groups (whether meaningful or not). Once we do so, we begin to think of ourselves in terms of us and them.

Charles Perdue’s research gives insight into how the divisive language of us and them can affect unity. In one study, he showed people nonsense syllables (e.g., xeh, yof and giw) that were paired with pronouns that referred to their group (us, we, or ours) or pronouns that referred to another group (them, they, or theirs). In other words, people were shown pairings such as “our xeh” and “their giw.” Afterward, they listed each of the nonsense syllables alone and asked participants to rate how “pleasant” each nonsense syllable was.

They found that participants rated nonsense syllables that had been paired with pronouns referring to the ingroup as more pleasant than those that had been paired with pronouns referring to the outgroup. Even though the people in the study had no idea what xeh was, they were sure that it was more pleasant than giw simply because it was associated with their own

group. The people in the study automatically liked the nonsense syllables that were paired with us more than the nonsense syllables paired with them.

When something is part of us, we like it more. And as Abrams’ study shows, when we think of people as part of us, we’re more likely to receive much needed help from them.

This is just one small way in which divisions in the family of God begin.

Labels that start out as helpfully descriptive—conservative, progressive, black, white, young, old, charismatic, Reformed, Presbyterian, Lutheran— quickly devolve into inflexible categories that box us in, keep others at bay, and prevent us from connecting with people who can probably help us solve the difficult problems (e.g., racial inequities) that plague our world.

What if there were no them? What if all Christians were simply us?

Divisions would start to weaken.

Christena Cleveland is a social psychologist who teaches at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minn., an award-winning researcher, and a consultant for pastors and organizational leaders on multicultural issues. Her book, Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the Hidden Forces that Keep Us Apart, is just out from InterVarsity Press.

5

Life Together When the words “small group” are uttered in the context of the church, they usually bring to mind a handful of people coming together for a weekly Bible study, usually in someone’s living room or other intimate space. This model of small groups can be very effective, and many people do have committed and supportive relationships with others in their small group. However, it can also be intimidating—especially for those who are new to the Christian faith—or ill suited to those who are more comfortable bonding through shared action than through round-table discussion.

So National Community Church (NCC) in Washington, DC, takes a different approach to small groups. While recognizing the value of corporate

history, or abolition.

Zempel describes one group that was started by some Capitol Hill staffers. They wanted a group whose members could support and pray for one another during election season. The group was split right down the middle politically—even the leadership was split down the middle, but they watched all

“At the end of the day," says Heather Zempel, "the community we experience is going to be the final proof of God’s existence.”

Bible study, the NCC staff began to ask themselves if it was the only way to make disciples—or even the best way.

Heather Zempel, NCC’s discipleship pastor, reminds us that Jesus never separated discipleship from regular life and that he gave people experiences that both formed community and showed them the love of God. Therefore, their vision for small groups is to provide a forum for people to share life together.

“We want our leaders to get a vision from life and to run with it,” she said. “We have traditional groups, but we also have groups that are doing other things together, like training for the Marine Corps Marathon.”

Among the dozens of small groups to choose from at NCC are the foodies group (for folks over 40 who gather weekly at local restaurants), a museum visiting group for the culture vultures, and any number of fun-and-fitness groups (such as dance, rock climbing, and Ultimate Frisbee). Other groups come together around service—reaching out to people who are homeless, empowering teen girls, tutoring or mentoring at-risk kids—or around a shared interest in a particular topic such as Islam, church

6

three presidential debates together and prayed for one another through the election, in spite of their opposing politics. After the election they started another small group just for the interns on Capitol Hill so that young people in politics could also witness that the love of Jesus transcends party lines.

Instead of separating faith from life, NCC members are creating domain-specific groups that help people walk in the ways of God in that unique sphere of influence, such as politics, education, or medicine.

“We are looking at specific mile markers and events,” explains Zempel, “and asking how we can leverage those for disciple-making opportunities.

We’re asking what significant moments God has already put in our lives and how we can leverage those moments to show people God’s love.”

Because community can take three or more months to really begin to gel, says Zempel, many in NCC’s particularly transient demographic found it difficult to build connection in the traditional way.

But she believes that the church’s alternative small groups give space for people to continue to grow in a variety of ways without the commitment of joining a traditional study-focused group. Without offering this option, Zempel says, “we run the risk of people

never finding real, meaningful community. Now people are trying groups that they may not have tried before because the short-term commitment is less intimidating.”

“The church at its core is community,” she explains. “Small groups are a way we can plug into both community and ministry.” In order for evangelism to be effective, we have to use our communities to express the message of Jesus. “At the end of the day,” she says, “the community we experience is going to be the final proof of God’s existence.”

This is what doing life together is all about— both in spite of and because of how messy it can get. Zempel (literally) wrote the book on it—Community Is Messy: The Perils and Promise of Small Group Ministry (InterVarsity Press, 2012)—and says that true community means fumbling with others through a broken world.

“When people hit a mess in their lives, that can be a catalyst for people to grow closer to God,” she says. When people try to minimize the mess, they are simply trying to hide their own sin instead of focusing on trying to be more like Christ.

Living in community means being the answer to Jesus’ prayer that we would be one. “Life mess,” Zempel said, “is the crap that happens because we live in a fallen world. I used to think that the mess was a hindrance, but now I think the mess can be used for the glory of God.

Kara Lofton is a senior communications major at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va. She spent her fall semester studying in Morocco and Spain.

WHICH WAY DOES YOUR FAITH POINT?

One Sunday, I wore a halter-top dress to church. Afterwards, the girl who sat behind me came up and said, “Please don’t wear that dress anymore; it might make men stumble.”

I was stunned. This girl had never once initiated a friendship with me, never asked how I was or even knew if I was a Christian. Instead, the solitary time she communicated with me was when my standard of modesty didn’t mesh with hers. It is one thing for a friend to gently and lovingly speak truth into a situation but quite another for a stranger to tell you how to live your life.

I wish this were the only time a fellow Christian failed to treat me with genuine concern, but unfortunately it is not. And I’ve been guilty of it, too—giving love only to those I think deserve it, refusing to offer grace to people until they clean up their act, accepting only those I deem to be “like me.”

Raised in a conservative Midwestern town, I thought the more conservative I was and the more “don’ts” I observed the more I loved Jesus. For years, I treated certain Christians with skepticism, as though they couldn’t possibly be as sincere in their faith as I was simply because of a differing political or theological view. J.P. Moreland said, “We should be more committed

to truth than to Christianity.”

But that is hard to do when your version of Christianity is so ingrained in your mind as the ultimate source of truth.

Christians love to burn those we disagree with at the intellectual stake.

We boycott their books, question their sincerity, condemn their words, and proclaim that they don’t love Jesus as much as we do. We doubt the authenticity of Christians whose lifestyles look different from ours.

Over the last few years, however, I have realized that having an honest and educated faith means engaging with ideas that are different from mine. It means recognizing that someone can speak truth into my life even if we don’t see eye-to-eye on all issues. It means not holding so tightly to my preconceived ideas that I refuse to allow God’s truth to transform my understanding.

I believe that there are absolute truths in Christianity, and I am not afraid to hold fast to them. But I have recognized an equally absolute problem in my own life—trying to prove the sincerity of my faith by the things I rejected or the books I didn’t read or the agendas I disassociated from. I was more concerned with what people from my church back home thought of my political and moral views than with truly loving those around me.

When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus didn’t say anything about pointing out the sins of those around us so that they’ll repent. He said something far more challenging: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

And love your neighbor as yourself.”

It would have been easier if Jesus had affirmed that the number-one commandment is to keep track of others’ wrongs. It’s easier to deal with a God who keeps score, accepts us only if we deserve it, and abandons us if we don’t— because this is what we have known time and again in our human experience, people who hit

We doubt the authenticity of Christians whose lifestyles look different from ours. the highway, who love us only until they get to know us. This is familiar. But a God who loves relentlessly, based not on who we are but on who God is? This is a God we don’t know how to get used to. This is a love we don’t quite know what to do with.

Sometimes it’s easier to hide behind dogma and doctrine than to accept this grace.

Sometimes it’s easier to try to guilt-trip people into the kingdom than to love them. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that God has a penchant for using messy, motley people to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes we are masters of “speaking the truth” but forget about the “love” part.

But I want to remember—to focus not on someone’s dress code or political views but on the real person behind the issues instead.

I want to remember that God’s grace trumps any dividing line of class, race, orientation, or ethnicity and demands to be shared with all.

What a powerful and freeing truth it is to realize that “God so loved the world”—not just a specific political or theological group but rather every single person in the world, based not on their worthiness but on who God is. I’m slowly learning the freeing power of living by love and grace, and if I err, to err on the side of grace.

Rebekah Bell is a graduate of Biola University in La Mirada, Calif., and has written for the Wall Street Journal and RELEVANT magazine.

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60-second stories of transformation

If you live in the industrialized world, you probably don’t think much about soap. It’s readily available and comes in thousands of varieties. Meanwhile, hygiene-related illnesses kill more than 2.4 million children annually across the world. It turns out that most of these deaths could be prevented by hand-washing with soap.

That is exactly what the Global Soap Project seeks to do.

They take the partially used bars of soap that are left behind at hotels across North America and recycle them into fresh soap that is then distributed to people in need across the developing world.

The Global Soap Project works with global health organizations and operates largely thanks to donors and volunteers. Learn more at GlobalSoap.org.

Another organization using soap in a redemptive way is TraffickFree, an abolitionist group that works to expose and reduce human trafficking in the United States through their S.O.A.P. (Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution) Project. Founded by a former teenage human trafficking victim from suburban Detroit, Mich., S.O.A.P. seeks to extend a hand to victims of human trafficking in one of the places they are most likely to be victimized: hotel rooms. To assist them in a discrete way that doesn’t risk directly alerting their oppressors, which could worsen their situation, S.O.A.P. labels bars of soap with the National Human Trafficking hotline number and gets them into hotel rooms across the country.

Provided for free, these bars make it possible for victims to apprise law enforcement of their situation. The S.O.A.P. Project also educates hotel owners and staff on how to recognize trafficking victims and what they can do to help. This is especially important in hotels around airports and during large sporting events like the Super Bowl. Go to TraffickFree.com to learn how you can help get soap into these hotels.

-Joshua Carson

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Howard Pinder Photo by Kathryn Poole

LIFE-SAVING SUDS

Every week or so ESA friend and former Sider Scholar Howard Pinder brings his “Tell Me Your Story” sign out into the streets of Philadelphia and invites people to talk into his video camera.

His request? “Tell a story about a time in your life when something happened that changed you in a small way or transformed you in a big way. Can you do it in 60 seconds? OK, go!”

Tell Me Your Story was born out of a desire to connect with people and a belief that all stories have value, as do the people telling them. Tell Me Your Story is a project of Circle of Hope. Check out some of the videos at TellMeYourStoryPhilly.com.

Hidden treasure In September the Kenyan government and UNESCO announced the discovery of a huge supply of underground water in Turkana, a drought-stricken region in the north of Kenya. Two aquifers were located thanks to satellite exploration technology and later confirmed by UNESCO drilling, promising to dramatically transform the lives of the region’s half-million residents.

Judi Wakhungu, cabinet secretary of Kenya’s Ministry of Environment, Water, and Natural Resources, told reporters, “This newly found wealth of water opens a door to a more prosperous future for the people of Turkana and the nation as a whole. We must now work to further explore these resources responsibly and safeguard them for future generations.”

NEW FROM

BAKER ACADEMIC

THE SUFFERING AND VICTORIOUS CHRIST

CHRISTIANS AT THE BORDER, 2ND EDITION

JOURNEY TOWARD JUSTICE PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Nicholas P. Wolterstorff 978-0-8010-4845-6 • 272 pp. • $21.99p

TOWARD A MORE COMPASSIONATE CHRISTOLOGY

IMMIGRATION, THE CHURCH, AND THE BIBLE

Richard J. Mouw and Douglas A. Sweeney

M. Daniel Carroll R.

978-0-8010-4844-9 • 128 pp. • $19.99p

978-1-58743-351-1 • 208 pp. • $17.99p

“[Mouw and Sweeney’s] depiction of Christ’s suffering as both absolutely unique to himself and necessary to join him completely to suffering humanity will challenge, humble, and inspire all who stop to consider the ‘wond’rous cross on which the Prince of Glory died.’”—Mark Noll

“Carroll combines thorough analysis of the biblical texts related to immigrants and immigration with a deep, personal understanding of the many ways that immigration affects people made in God’s image. Every Christian seeking an informed, biblical understanding of this complex topic should read this book.”—Matthew Soerens

“Drawing on his experience of being confronted by those who have suffered injustice, Wolterstorff helps us understand why and how such experiences should make a difference for how justice is understood.

His reflections on the relations of beauty, hope, and justice are profound and moving.”

—Stanley Hauerwas

COMING SOON IN THE TURNING SOUTH SERIES: READING A DIFFERENT STORY A CHRISTIAN SCHOLAR’S JOURNEY FROM AMERICA TO AFRICA

Susan VanZanten 978-0-8010-3994-2 • 144 pp. • $19.99p

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Available in bookstores or by calling 800.877.2665.

Subscribe to E-Notes, Baker Academic’s electronic newsletter, at www.bakeracademic.com. Visit Baker Academic’s blog at blog.bakeracademic.com.

11

COUNTERCULTURE

Swimming upstream.

http://my-disrespect.deviantart.com

Listening to the “Disreputables”

O

ur first night in Johannesburg, South Africa, did not go well. It was long past suppertime, and we weren’t sure where to stop for food. I had forgotten how to drive a stick shift and crashed our rental car into the gate at the bed-and-breakfast where we were to stay.

At long last we settled into our room and then adjourned to the patio, gazing at the garden while the white proprietor got us oriented. I asked him about securing a guide to take us to Soweto, the sprawling black township that served as a prime setting for the end of apartheid.

He set his jaw and said, “You don’t want to go there. They live there.”

I was in no mood for the quandary that faced me.

Yes, I know, God wants us to oppose racism—vigorously—in all its forms. Justice demanded a response to set this fellow right. But I am conflict-averse to the extreme.

More than that, I was all too aware of my status as an American on his very first night in a country with a wildly complex racial dynamic.

So I took the easy route and kept my mouth shut. I did not do what Jesus called me to do.

Or did I? WHEN THE OFFENSIVE OFFEND US We all cherish the picture of Jesus eating with the “disreputables”—the tax collectors and prostitutes and other sinners. It illustrates his boundless love for “the least, the last, and the lost.” The scene in my mind is lit like a Rembrandt, all rich, dark, and glowing. The sinners may look bedraggled, but they are decent people.

Or so we might think. In fact, the gospel passages do not tell us much about the individuals at these dinners beyond their status in society. We don’t know what they said or what they believed. Maybe the tax collectors were virulently anti-Jewish. Perhaps the prostitutes told cruel jokes about lepers.

What would happen if they did? Would that make us recoil in horror? Should it? Are there people whose opinions and beliefs are so vile that we should close our ears and hearts to them? If not, how do we guard our hearts from the influence of those beliefs while reaching out in love?

In discussions of this kind, the catchphrase “hate the sin, love the sinner” inevitably comes up.

Whatever value it might have in other contexts, it is unhelpful here. If our love is to be concrete—loving not “the sinner” but this sinner sitting with us on the patio or at a meal—we have to listen. Often, when we listen with full attention and a loving heart, the other person responds by trusting us, and we will hear more of what’s in his heart, quite possibly including racism and vengefulness and all manner of dross.

Besides hearing things that we know are wrong, we will also hear things that we think we know are wrong—or they are wrong, but there is more to the story. We Americans are quite sure that all terrorist organizations are evil. Yet the picture gets muddy when we consider that some of these organizations, like Hamas in Gaza, provide social services to the poor even while calling for the extinc-

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tion of Israel.

As it turned out, there was more to the story of our racist innkeeper. The day after our first conversation, his wife invited us in for tea, and she shared the story of how they came to South Africa. For years they had operated a lodge in neighboring Rhodesia, but when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe—ushering in the black-majority government of Robert Mugabe— they received threats of land confiscation and physical harm. Eventually, she said, they escaped to South Africa with their lives.

Suddenly a light went on in my mind. I did not stop believing that racism was wrong. But for the first time in my life, I could see how someone with this

kind of experience could adopt racist views. I could have compassion for their suffering without losing my joy in a post-apartheid South Africa.

In short, I could love a racist. If I had spoken up the night before, taking the innkeeper to task for his racism, what are the chances I would have heard their story?

THE WORK OF THE SOUL AS OUR SUREST DEFENSE So in one limited instance, I could see racism as understandable. Is that a slippery slope, at the bottom of which I might learn to tolerate racism?

Here, I believe, lies our biggest advantage as Christians. Over time our relationship with God conforms us more and more to God’s image. In other words, the closer we draw to God—the more we cultivate our love relationship with prayer and silent listening and the study of Scripture and all the other life-giving “tools” of our faith—the more room we give God to align our deepest

selves with divine wisdom and virtue. Rather than simply defend truth and compassion and good, we become truth and compassion and good.

In the process, God’s reorientation of us becomes the unshakable core that keeps our hearts safe, allowing us the freedom to explore all points of view without fear. Because of this, we can throw open our hearts to welcome even the most disreputable, listen to their stories, and enable them to feel valued.

I do not know whether our innkeepers valued our time together. For me, however, the experience added even more depth to Jesus’ command to love everyone wastefully, extravagantly, no exceptions, knowing I am safe in the arms of God. If I had not kept my mouth shut, I might have missed one of the most important lessons I have ever learned.

John Backman, the author of Why Can’t We Talk? Christian Wisdom on Dialogue as a Habit of the Heart (SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2012), writes extensively on contemplative spirituality and its ability to help us dialogue across divides. A regular contributor to Huffington Post Religion and an associate of an Episcopal monastery, he has written for publications across the spectrum of Christian faith.

Who are today's Lepers?

We asked our Facebook followers to identify those people that the contemporary church considers “disreputable.” Who are today’s “lepers”?

Below are the answers we got. Who would you add? ✘ LGBT folks or those struggling with sexual identity ✘ People with physical/mental illnesses ✘ The homeless ✘ Sex offenders ✘ The poor ✘ Ex-cons/people with a criminal record ✘ The elderly ✘ Abuse survivors ✘ People with HIV/AIDS ✘ Orphaned and vulnerable children ✘ Anyone who pushes against the norm ✘ The obese ✘ Immigrants (undocumented or otherwise) ✘ The racially/ethnically different ✘ Religious minorities ✘ True disciples of Jesus ✘ People in the sex trade ✘ Divorced women ✘ Single moms ✘ Domestic violence victims ✘ Democrats ✘ The disabled ✘ Black people ✘ Black men

✘ Hispanics ✘ Asians ✘ Muslims ✘ Native Americans ✘ Atheists ✘ President Obama ✘ Aboriginals ✘ “Bad neighborhoods” ✘ Kids who get picked on ✘ Bullies ✘ People who aren’t aggressive and greedy ✘ Bikers ✘ Goths ✘ People who don’t give

✘ People who don’t excel “like Christians should” ✘ Anyone who cannot come across as “perfect” by the world’s standards ✘ Anyone who isn’t White Bread America from a Norman Rockwell painting ✘ Former drug users ✘ The spiritual but not religious ✘ Roller derby chicks ✘ Ex-gays ✘ Welfare recipients

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What can you tell me about your new comic book, Hollaback: Red, Yellow, Blue?

Filson: This comic was a collaboration between myself and Hollaback’s Rochelle Keyhan and Anna Kegler to educate and inform people in an accessible way about street harassment. We’ve had a lot of fun going to different comic conventions to show the book and also to do research into the way harassment happens. We cannot ignore or absorb harassment as something that is “just a part of our experience.”

Cat Calls? Comics to the Rescue!

INTERVIEW BY JENNIFER CARPENTER

“H

ey, baby, come over here and let me look at you a minute.”

“Smile, beautiful.” “What’s your name, little mama?”

I never know what to say when I hear this kind of stuff while walking down the street. My first thoughts are “Who is this guy? What is he saying?” and then “Does he think I feel flattered by it? Does he think it’s going to make me feel like stopping and talking to him?”

It makes me feel like a product being auctioned at a street market. But what can you do? Like most women, I walk on, accepting both the experience and my discomfort as “just the way it is.”

But that phrase has never sat well with me—and it has not sat well with Erin Filson either.

Erin Filson, author of the quirky online comic “The Adventures of Ranger Elf” (RangerElf.com), has joined the ranks of many talented artist-activists on the subject of street harassment. Filson is the creative director for the nonprofit Hollaback Philly (philly.ihollaback.org), part of the international Hollaback movement (65 cities in 22 countries) to end street harassment.

I had the privilege of sharing gelato and coffee with Filson in Philadelphia recently and learned all about Hollaback’s work and the new comic book she created to address street harassment.

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Tell us about the mission of Hollaback.

Filson: One of the main missions of Hollaback Philly is to start a conversation. It’s not to require you to turn around and yell at someone who harasses you. A lot of people aren’t comfortable saying anything, or it happens so fast that you don’t know what to say. It’s such a weird situation.

Most of the time you’re on your way somewhere, and you’re not expecting it, and it happens, and what are you really supposed to say? I mean, do I turn around and say, “You! I’m going to write a comic about you!”? It’s so accepted and normalized. So Hollaback starts these conversations to show that street harassment is a real thing, and it makes people uncomfortable, and it’s not okay to objectify people.

This helps educate ourselves and educate others.

Harassers tend to justify what they do as simply “flirting.” How would you explain the difference between street harassment and flirting?

Filson: My personal stance is that harassment is whatever makes you uncomfortable—it shouldn’t be tolerated even if it is posed as “flirting.”

But I think street harassment is a little bit more aggressive. The usual scenario is something that’s shouted out from across the street; it’s anonymous and dehumanizing. You can usually feel the difference. Of course, it’s up to you how you respond. Hollaback

doesn’t want to encourage you to put yourself in a dangerous situation or to respond in a way that makes you uncomfor table.

But that’s why you can use Hollaback as a resource to sort some of this ambiguity out. If you’re uncomfortable, it’s okay to not accept it. Women are often taught to be friendly and just accept attention like that—or taught that it’s safer not to reject it and risk a negative reaction from the man— but it’s okay to draw a line for what you will and will not accept.

What started this journey for you with Hollaback?

Filson: Well, I always liked to draw, make up characters, and play imagination games. As I child I would go through my coloring books and draw bows and eyelashes on all the people and animals because I thought, “There

with things like this comic, there is obviously a message behind it. I am going to be in a show in January that deals with modern-day slavery. It’s such a dark, crushing issue that it’s hard to sit down and do it justice and show how much it matters. I’m really stuck on that. So, if you have any ideas…

aren’t enough girls in here.” So even at a young age I could recognize when women weren’t represented. I grew up really loving comics and continuing to work on creating art. Then, I went to the Jubilee Conference during my senior year at University of the Arts, and I heard about human trafficking for the first time. That’s when the idea of combining art and social justice kicked in.

After school I was searching for employment and was already thinking about creating a comic that talked about the experiences my friends and I had with street harassment. I ended up getting connected with Rochelle at Hollaback, and it was really amazing because we all had needs that met in the middle. They needed someone to come in and help them conceptualize some SEPTA [public transportation] ads at the time, and they gave me such great freedom—which is so rare in the creative world—to collaborate and make not only the ads but also this comic. So I had the freedom to see these ideas come to life the way I envisioned them, and now I’m their creative director!

I don’t want to say that street harassment is as bad as human trafficking, but both are seeing people as property and dealing with gender issues. (Hollaback has actually done a few events about trafficking and raising awareness about it in the states, showing that it’s also a problem here.)

But I enjoy making art for this defined reason.

What kind of feedback has the comic book gotten so far?

Filson: We’ve gotten some really great feedback from people, especially guys. A lot of people want to support it, and when we explain what we’re about most people are onboard with it. By the time we explain who we are and share about the comic, so many people are like, “I’m buying one.

Thank you.”

What’s your creative process like? Do you start with a message?

Filson: It depends on what I am doing. Doodling is my favorite art form. When I’m doing that, there’s generally not any sort of thought behind it. But

How do you process all these “dark, crushing” issues?

Filson: I think the problem we share as people is that we generally don’t want to deal with those issues. We tend to numb ourselves with shopping, working, complaining about our jobs and everyday lives. It becomes, “Oh no! This person broke up with me, and Starbucks ran out of halfand-half, and I wish I could find a job with more autonomy…” But these are the things that are right in front of us. They’re safer and easier and much more socially acceptable to deal with because we don’t know how to honestly deal with bigger issues.

Art in general is supposed to jumpstart people out of everyday thinking and show other possibilities and avenues of thought. It helps us find avenues to deal with things we may not normally deal with. Art exercises parts of your mind that you don’t normally play with and stretches and grows you. God is a creative artist who makes some weird stuff that’s all really cool, even stuff that doesn’t seem to make sense—like water bears. Water bears are these little micro-animals that live on moss and are basically indestructible.

They can go to space, live through nuclear warfare and super-hot and freezing temperatures— but they quickly die if you put them under a microscope under a glass slide (they get crushed). I think the same is true for art.

Art for me is also a really great way to work hand-in-hand with organizations and groups that are trying to radically change the world. This is not to say that I don’t get flustered or feel like “Oh, God. What am I supposed to do?” I get emotional and angry and then go cook dinner and have to go to bed and to work the next day. I wake up thinking, “Oh, I’ll do this better” or “I’ll go talk to this person.” I wish I knew exactly what to do and could say, “I’m going to go out and end slavery!”

But I can feel so small and powerless and revert to struggling again with those everyday things.

But that’s what I like about superheroes, because often their normal lives are kind of crappy, but they have to rise above that and do more because they have a greater calling. You could argue that we have a greater calling, too.

Who’s your favorite superhero?

Filson: Well, I love Rogue from X-Men. I have always loved her because she was the first woman superhero I encountered who didn’t take any sass from anyone and could just throw things. I mean, I never liked the Invisible Woman, because that was a dumb power for a woman. And lots of female characters had only the defensive powers or were the girlfriend. They were never quite the powerhouse brawler that I finally met in Rogue.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Filson: Super-strength. I think it would help my anxiety about doing certain things, and talking to people.

And dealing with street harassment?

Filson: Exactly! But I would use my powers responsibly, of course!

What do you believe needs to happen in order for street harassment to end?

Filson: I think only some people know about it or know that it’s actually a problem. So just making the term “street harassment” more common and educating more people about it is a start. We’re raising awareness, starting conversations, and showing the emotional and societal effects of it.

I think it needs to be treated more seriously than it has been because it’s linked to so many issues with the way women are portrayed—on TV, in video games and comics, etc.—and the ways we’re taught to interact as men and women.

Sometimes humans don’t know how to interact with each other appropriately; we don’t know what others are expecting or thinking. So that has to be healed continually, on a daily basis, in small and big ways through being willing to sit down in a real conversation and talk about what we really go through. But I think it begins with awareness— not falling into the “that’s the way it is” trap— presenting a healthy alternative way of interacting with each other.

Jennifer Carpenter is a construction site of grace, Palmer Theological seminary student, Sider Scholar, musician, baker, solutionseeker, and investigator of good stories. She sporadically tweets @jcsongwriter.

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I feel no danger. If someone is able to write and can make it to breakfast, they are usually homeless not because of a drug addiction but because of a mental issue, like schizophrenia or depression, or because they are in a sudden uprooted moment in their lives that is an anomaly, often because of a backlog of medical bills. Privileged as I am, I too have been a paycheck away from the streets, but I have a family who would take me in, and I would let them take me in. Otherwise, I am no different from these people.

Many of them are not technically homeless at the moment—Social Security has paid for a place for them, or they are living on someone’s couch, or they have scraped together enough money for an apartment, at least for now, by raking leaves or shoveling snow. Some do live on the streets and under bridges or in tent communities. Some live for a time at the local homeless shelter, especially during the cold Michigan winters. Most who live in the homeless shelter are not granted a bed because there aren’t enough beds, so instead they sleep upright on a hard chair—they have told me this—with the television blasting aggressively through the night.

My job as their writing teacher is not to critique writing but to help build a community, to help the students recognize that they have a voice, and to help them see their own intrinsic value. We talk for too long before we write because they seem to need to be heard. Their days seem timeless, but I have two babies waiting at home: I often interrupt their conversations so that we can get to work. I read a prompt, usually a poem but sometimes prose and sometimes just a question. Some prompts: a poem about illness; a quote about remembering; a poem about happiness. We instructors are all MFA-bred; these prompts are usually rigorous and contemporary and don’t shy away from the complications of language

Write After st Breakfa

E

very Tuesday morning, I enter the basement auditorium of Saint Andrews Church in Ann Arbor, Mich., where up to 200 people gather daily for the free breakfast served each morning to any and all.

At first the smell of unwashed bodies is all I notice. Under fluorescent lights, piles of coats and duffel bags grow as more and more trays of food appear, served in real china bowls. There is oatmeal, sometimes eggs, and always a lot of coffee.

I can’t hide my Starbucks cup. I wander around the auditorium with a nervous smile on my face, saying hello to people I know and also to the people beside them I don’t know. Everyone helps clean up breakfast, wiping down tables and sweeping the floor, carefully washing the china bowls. Most walk out the door for a cigarette before meeting the long day. The rest head upstairs with me to write.

The people who come to the writing workshop are a select crowd simply because they know how to write at all, though it isn’t necessarily a requirement (I sometimes transcribe words for people as they speak their stories to me). Usually the same crowd comes up the elevator to our designated writing room, where I pass out pens and paper, a typed copy of what they wrote the week before, and a prompt for this week’s writing.

Our workshop is inspired by Ian Frazier’s writing workshop at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in New York City, and it follows a similar format with a similar cast of characters. Sometimes people attend the writing workshop for months at a time and then vanish, itinerant or suddenly imprisoned or hospitalized, and they sometimes return. I have copies of their poems in my folder, printed out and ready for them, always, just in case they come back.

I usually have an assistant with me because people occasionally come drugged up, but mostly

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and thought. Then we write for just 20 minutes – not long enough to feel scared.

People don’t have to share their writing. I always reassure them of this, but almost everyone wants to share. They want to be heard. The homeless population is voiceless in nearly every way in society. When do they get to be known as a human being, someone with a heart and a thoughtful perspective? This is their chance.

Their writing is good. The students rise to the challenge, responding to the acceptance in the room and to the beauty of the prompt. Sometimes we write to forget about our pain and sometimes to address it.

Here is the ever-crass and humorous Matt, writing from a prompt about being broken. He lets the reader into his heart, and then he makes you laugh, because joking is his brilliant defense mechanism:

“What’s Broken?”

by Matt I’m broken.

Whatever about the stars in heaven, I am none of the above.

Dead to the world.

And taking a crap on the holidays.

What you didn’t want, you wished for.

What you didn’t know, was given to you.

Sveiks!!! I’m a mouse.

Or, sveiks, I don’t know what I am.

What you don’t know is what’s best for you.

What you want is what you need.

I’m the morning star, I’m the Lord of the heavens.

No wait, I’m Lord, God, and King!!!

I am everything to everyone, and nothing to myself.

I’m a chirping bird that turns into a lion, when you want me to be.

Pay your taxes, eat a bowl of dirt.

Kill yourself to live forever.

Know yourself, but not today.

Placemats are reserved for only those going to heaven.

Death is the stuff we’re wanting for.

Beat the cabbage, and don’t complain.

Life is tough, and you’re going to be part of it.

Waste away, and dream of nothing.

Life is only for the dead rabbits, and infected bats.

Satisfy yourself with nothing.

Call me now, but don’t call me late for dinner.

Reservations are for only when it snows.

Find yourself beyond the river.

Take yourself out for a job. Inertia is what you’re looking for.

The same prompt inspired this poem by Lit, who writes about losing her home.

“Lost”

by Lit all my money in an unnamed parking lot where I was not thinking when I left my wallet in an unlocked car my motivation to sing although singing helps me stay alive

where each member of the workshop wrote one line and then folded the paper over and handed it to the next person—that I got to read one spring. Blindly we read one another’s minds, homeless and housed, bathed and unbathed, and we created this:

Whatever you want to do. Today is the day when I do what I want to do, as opposed to somebody else.

To be like a bird, unworried and in flight.

I wondered if I’d ever reach that illusive place.

But I went anyway, knowing the way was true.

Seeking the path that the facts led me to.

I wanted the truth.

I was given the truth. But only when I gave the truth to others.

There is a balance here. A Midwestern field laid bare.

Find more poems and learn more at WriteAfterBreakfast.tumblr.com.

my home with its peculiar flower pots and long hot soaks in the tub the familiar rhythm of life to unpredictable patterns that come and go at will

Though the group meets in a church space, we aren’t a religious group. But the homeless population I’ve met seems to bring up God a lot.

Maybe because they’ve been stripped down to nothing they’ve become vulnerable enough to consciously need God. Nearly all of the students, if they aren’t homeless now, have said that they were, in a way, happiest when they were homeless. Free of material things, not struggling to keep the little patch of apartment they worked for, they were most raw and open. Those who are currently homeless wouldn’t say they are happy about it. But there is an open wildness to all of them. I am humbled when I talk to them. We talk for a long time as we share our writing. One person’s story mirrors another until we have made a web of connections. Often we are challenged by a story that is not like one we have heard before; here we have the space and warmth to contemplate a new point of view.

One morning each spring we give a reading, performing our work for the breakfast crowd, family, friends, and the church clergy. For weeks we prepare, shuffling through pages of printouts, reading work aloud to see how it sounds, helping one another choose our best three pieces. We try to track down people who have disappeared from our group. We bathe; we dress up.

Here is an “exquisite corpse” poem—

Linette Kielinski

the dependable job that I thought would sustain me forever

Courtney Mandryk earned a master's in poetry from the University of Michigan. She led the Write After Breakfast workshop in Ann Arbor for five years until moving to Philadelphia, Pa., where she now lives with her husband and two young sons.

Unplugging to connect Camp Grounded is a new camp where grown-ups can go to disconnect from their overly wired lives and just be kids again. Sabbath, anyone?

Celebrating “what it means to be alive,” campers trade in their computers, cell phones, and schedules for a “digital detox” that includes such activity choices as star-gazing, baking, solar carving, sneaking out at night, hammocking, and marshmallow-toasting! Check it out at CampGrounded.org.

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16

Fighting the U.S. Caste Culture

Is our criminal justice system about crime prevention, rehabilitation, or social control? Michelle Alexander speaks the hard truth.

INTERVIEW BY HAROLD DEAN TRULEAR

T

he dreadful legacy of the slave trade still haunts us in this country—and still requires brave souls to point the way to a world that recognizes the equality and dignity of all men and women. In the second half of the 19th century Harriet Tubman mapped out an escape route for runaway slaves, and in the 1950s and '60s Martin Luther King, Jr., charted a course for civil rights. Today Michelle Alexander is pointing the way and gathering momentum toward a major shift in the nation’s criminal justice system.

Denouncing our present system as “a caste-like system that locks millions of Americans into permanent second-class status,” Alexander marshals both hard data and human stories to advocate for laws that would reverse our country’s escalating prison population. She exposes a system that boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world (almost one in 100 Americans is behind bars, and one in three African American males is currently in jail or prison, on probation or parole) and imprisons four times as many nonviolent offenders than violent offenders.

In her book, The New Jim Crow, Alexander traces a contemporary trail of tears, from the introduction of “the War on Drugs” of the Nixon era, the “get tough on crime” laws under Reagan, and the mandatory minimums/“three strikes you’re out” rule under the Clinton administration, to the subsequent building and mushrooming of private prisons and today’s massive rates of incarceration—rates that are intimately linked not to rising crime rates but to private enterprise and a powerful prison lobby. In other words, she describes a draconian system that actually manufactures criminals in order to fill profitable prison beds. The winners? Big business. The losers? Disadvantaged communities that have neither the financial nor the social resources to fight back.

A civil rights lawyer who holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and Moritz College of Law, both at Ohio State University, Alexander also has extensive media advocacy, grassroots-organizing, coalition-building, and litigation experience. She advocates for an end to the war on drugs, which she says would bring US rates of incarceration back down to those of the 1970s and would mean the release of 80 percent of the people behind bars in our nation today. She has shared her passionate vision in TIME magazine, the New York Times—even on the Colbert Report.

PRISM interviewed Alexander recently about what she has learned about the criminal justice system in our country and what her hopes are for changing it to one of justice and rehabilitation rather retribution and dehumanization.

“part of redeeming our criminal justice system is acknowledging at every stage of the process the dignity and basic humanity of all those involved”

When you wrote The New Jim Crow, what were you hoping to accomplish?

Michelle Alexander: I was hoping to help other people have the same kind of awakening that I finally did. There was a time when I cared deeply about racial and social justice but really had so little understanding of the magnitude of the harm caused by mass incarceration to communities of color. I was in deep denial about the fact that we as a nation had managed to re-create a caste-like system, a system of legal discrimination that was locking millions of people into a permanent second-class status—yet again. As I began to wake up—through a series of experiences that I had working as a civil rights lawyer and advocate—I became filled with this passion and determination to help others around me wake up as well.

As I talked to my colleagues and fellow advocates about what I was learning—about how our criminal justice system truly operates as opposed to how it’s advertised, and what was really going on in so many communities hard-hit by the drug war—I found that people were often dismissive of the notion that things could really be that bad. People would often fall back on arguments such as “it’s all traceable to bad schools or poverty, that’s why millions of black and brown men are cycling in and out of our prisons today.” So I wrote the book in the hopes of helping people see that there’s much, much more going on here than immediately meets the eye. Our criminal justice system does in fact function now much more like a system of racial and social control than a system of crime prevention.

And now you’re speaking to people and groups

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around the country, building a movement to change the system. What keeps you motivated on a daily basis in this work?

Alexander: I am motivated by the people I meet in communities all over this country who are defying the odds and engaging in truly heroic acts of advocacy and courage and survival. This system is geared to keep poor people of color in a perpetual cycle of desperation and marginalization, and yet everywhere I go I meet people who not only have somehow found a way to escape the clutches of the system but who are dedicating their lives to ensure that others break free as well, people who are committed to consciousness-raising and movement-building with levels of dedication that are awe-inspiring. Meeting them fills me with hope that we are going to end this system and build something much more compassionate and just than this nation has seen to date.

I saw you in the documentary Our Turn to Dream, which juxtaposed what you are attempting to do with the work of Martin Luther King. One characteristic of King’s approach to changing social policy was that he wanted to change both law and culture, both institutions and hearts.

How does your approach compare to his?

Alexander: Well, I really hope eventually to be able to live up to the model that King created for advocacy. I, too, believe that it’s not just a matter of changing laws or tinkering with the machine, that the ultimate goal is building a new moral consensus, shifting consciousness. But I don’t think that we build a new moral consensus by simply talking. It also takes courageous forms of advocacy, and it takes changing rules and laws so that people are required to behave differently. I agree 100 percent with Dr. King that we must change laws, but the way we go about changing the laws is as important as the laws themselves. If the way we go about seeking change does not create a fundamentally new way of viewing and interpreting our world, and if the way we go about change does not lead us to view one another with more compassion, then we may have won a short-term battle but we will have lost in the long run.

So I’m very hopeful that the movement that we build to end mass incarceration will understand itself as being about much more than simply changing the rules and laws. We must be thoroughly committed to building a new public consensus that views each and every one of us—no matter who we are or what we may have done—as fundamentally worthy.

For me, at its core, the movement to end mass incarceration must be a spiritual movement, much like the civil rights movement was. If it’s going to prove truly transformational, this movement has to be about a growing awareness that we’re all God’s children, we are all worthy, and we all are deserving of basic humanity and respect.

This country is so accustomed to viewing itself as a land of freedom and opportunity that your talk of a caste system must sound outrageous to many people. What are the blind spots that prevent us from seeing our country as it really is?

Alexander: That’s an excellent question, and it’s exactly the right question—where are our blind spots? When I look at myself 15 or 20 years ago, I can see that I had these huge blind spots. I prided myself as someone who cared deeply about social justice, and yet I was blind to a significant dimension of our social reality. I think these blind spots form because of

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certain cultural narratives that are embraced over time. One of the main cultural narratives that exists in black communities today is this idea that the fact that millions are cycling in and out of jails is somehow the fault of young black men who won’t pull up their pants, stay in school, act right, and just get their lives together. There’s a belief that the whole system of mass incarceration could have been avoided if our young black men hadn’t discarded the opportunities that have been provided to them. It’s a really powerful narrative, and it’s reinforced in popular culture by celebrities like Bill Cosby who are often very well-intentioned but who perhaps, like I did, have a blind spot as to how our criminal justice system and other systems— like our educational system and our mental health system—operate in ways that often keep people perpetually trapped. (Editor's note: See infographic on page 21.)

That’s not to deny in any way individual responsibility or the capacity of the human spirit to transcend and overcome even the most extraordinary challenges and obstacles. But it is to say that these stories that we tell ourselves—that all of this could be avoided if people just made different choices or acted right—keep us in deep denial about the ways in which systems have developed and even in this so-called era of colorblindness operate with the purpose and effect of keeping people perpetually locked up or locked out. It’s not about saying this is about racism and not individual responsibility. It’s about acknowledging the capacity of human beings and the importance of human agency and the ability of us as human beings to overcome tremendous obstacles while at the same time being willing to fully open our eyes and see how horribly unjust so many of our institutions in society are, especially our criminal justice system. If you take a look at it, the system seems better designed to create a perpetual class of people labeled “criminal” than to create safe, caring, and thriving communities. I think we have to take a good hard look at our blind spots and the kinds of narratives that keep us believing that those who are trapped at the bottom are stuck there for reasons that can be described simply as “their own fault.”

Do these blind spots constitute the strongest resistance to your work, or are there other pockets of resistance that you come up against? Or is the response more apathetic?

Alexander: Well, I have to say that those people who have actually taken the time to read the book come away saying, “Oh, my gosh, I had no idea that the system actually worked that way.” They are typically blown away by the statistics that I share. They are stunned to learn that police departments get rewarded in cash for the sheer numbers of people swept into the system for minor drug offenses and that decisions of the Supreme Court have eviscerated fourth amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizures. They’re stunned to learn that it’s now nearly impossible to challenge racial bias in our criminal justice system because the Supreme Court has closed the courthouse doors to claims of racial bias at every step of the process, from stops and searches to plea-bargaining and sentencing. I find that the people who are new to this come away shocked and appalled.

“at its core, the movement to end mass incarceration must be a spiritual movement, much like the civil rights movement was”

But people who don’t take the time to actually expose themselves to the history of the system, the politics, the data, how the system has been designed, and how the Supreme Court has operated in the last 40 years in a way that has turned our criminal justice system more into a processing center than anything like a justice system—people who just hear the title The New Jim Crow or hear excerpts of me speaking typically react with shocked disbelief. “How can you say that something like a caste system exists when all you have to do is look at Barack Obama or Oprah Winfrey or Colin Powell?” I think these examples of black success lead people to believe that nothing like a caste system could exist in the United States today.

Educating people about the phenomenon of mass incarceration—its history and how it actually works—can’t be done in sound bites. The education process can be slow and difficult, but I’m encouraged by the numbers of people who have actually been willing to take on the challenge of raising consciousness within their faith communities, holding study circles or showing films, inviting people who are knowledgeable about the system to come in and to talk and share dialogue so that many of the system-sustaining myths can be evaporated. But it’s not going to happen overnight.

Often people in the communities that have a lot of experience with mass incarceration, communities that have been hit hard by the drug war, or communities that feel like a police state—many of these people already know at an intuitive level that something is horribly amiss, but they often lack the data or the research to back up those claims. So I think it’s critically important for people who have access to the information to share it, publicize it, and help make visible what has been hidden in plain sight for too long.

When my theology students at Howard University read your book, they are so overwhelmed by the compelling documentation of the clear connection between slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration that they often miss the call to action in your last chapters. I actually have had to assign the end of the book first.

I really want my students to understand what you mean by human dignity. Can you elaborate on what you mean by “humanizing the system” as part of this call to action?

Alexander: Well, I think what has been lost over the past 40 years—and arguably has always been absent from our criminal justice system when it comes to people of color—is this basic recognition of the dignity and humanity of those who are accused of crimes. It’s easy to hate a person once you’ve put the label “criminal” on them or to be suspicious and unbelieving of the defendant. It is easy to have no forgiveness or compassion for the murderer, to believe that a person labeled a “felon” is no good, probably up to no good, and never bound to do any good. Once we attach labels to people—calling them a murderer, a felon, or a criminal—we

What Works?

Promising practices in the “decarceration” movement Prostitution courts recognize that prostituted women are usually trafficking victims with a myriad of issues such as past abuse, addiction, and mental health concerns. As part of the movement of “problem-solving” courts, prostitution courts have been launched in Cook County (Chicago), Illinois, and the state of New York, among other venues.

Operation Ceasefire is a name given to two initiatives, one begun in Boston and led by criminologist David Kennedy, and the other started in Chicago by epidemiologist Gary Slutkin. Kennedy’s book Don’t Shoot: One Man, A Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America (Bloomsbury USA, 2012) details the collaborations between law enforcement, courts, and the community (including religious organizations) that have reduced violence. The approach is to treat gang members as rational beings who, when presented with a clear choice between real community-based opportunities and intensified policing, will choose well. Slutkin’s organization, now known as CureViolence, treats violence as an epidemic and dispatches community workers (featured in the Frontline documentary The Interrupters) to provide conflict resolution and support to de-escalate retaliation and provide alternative responses to violence.

Drug Courts: all 50 states have some version of drug courts, which combine treatment with intense supervision as an alternative to nonviolent drugaddicted offenders. Yet not all counties have adopted this measure. Studies such as the one done by the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated the effectiveness of drug courts in reducing recidivism and addiction.

- H.D.Trulear

reduce them to something less than human; we reduce them to the worst behavior they have ever committed.

But as one of my personal heroes, Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative, always reminds us, no one should be reduced to the worst thing they have ever done. All of us are better than the worst thing we’ve ever done, and there’s more to us as human beings, as children of God, than the worst act we’ve ever committed. So I think part of redeeming our criminal justice system is acknowledging at every stage of the process the dignity and basic humanity of all those involved, including the person who allegedly committed the crime, including the victim of the crime, including the community members

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What Works?

European-American Prison Project: sponsored by the California-based Prison Law Office and managed by the Vera Institute, this initiative took officials from several states in the US to visit four prisons in the Netherlands and Germany, where the focus is on what they call “normalization.” This involves creating a secure environment that mirrors the outside world and helps train offenders to function properly in it. It also recognizes that corrections officers require more than militaristic security training. In the European model, they must qualify for their positions through a testing process (passed by far fewer than half of all applicants) followed by a two-year educational program. The Vera Institute is helping US officials to discern what they can learn from these practices.

Newark Community Solutions (NJ): developed by the nonprofit Center for Court Innovations, this community justice initiative offers judges of the Newark Municipal Court a variety of sentencing options including community service, community-based treatment, short-term group counseling, and educational assessment. The community court, led by Judge Victoria Platt, is a team consisting of the public defender, district attorney, social worker, probation officer, and community solutions staff, who work together to take a case-management approach.

I know many people would shudder if a dog were held under those conditions for weeks, but there are tens of thousands of human beings who are suffering indefinite solitary confinement in the United States right now. It is a recognized form of torture in other Western democracies, but here in the United States it is routine for people labeled as criminals. It is because we have allowed these labels—often rooted in racial bias and un/conscious stereotypes and bias—because we reduce these people to labels that make them less than human, it becomes easy to dispose of them, and we wind up creating a so-called justice system that has little to do with justice for all those concerned and much more to do with the management and control of those we’ve labeled unworthy.

For me, reimagining what our justice system ought to look like has to begin with a commitment to acknowledging the basic dignity and humanity of all those concerned. One of the problems we face today is that so many people go to prison for things that probably shouldn’t even be defined as crime. My own views on drug policy have evolved over the years, and I now believe that no one should be treated as a criminal because they’re struggling with a drug addiction or because they’re caught in possession of some substance for personal use that we think might be harmful to them. We create criminals by defining whole classes of people as criminals because they are ingesting substances that might harm them. I no longer believe that criminalizing people who may have substance abuse problems is moral or rational.

We ought to extend the same concern and treatment to people who are suffering from crack addiction as we do to those who are alcoholics or are trying to wean themselves from tobacco.

- H.D.Trulear How have people of faith responded to your work? How would you like them to respond?

who may be affected by what has taken place. All of these people who are impacted and involved are worthy of our care, compassion, and concern.

Of course, people who do wrong and cause harm must be held accountable. Punishment is warranted when people harm others, but not the reduction of any human being to something that denies their humanity. And that is what we do—we put them in cages and treat them worse than animals!

Take, for example, Herman Wallace, who was held in solitary confinement for 40 years for a crime he did not commit. He was kept in a 6- by 9-foot windowless cell, a form of isolation that has been shown to cause severe and often irreparable mental harm if it lasts for weeks, but Herman’s severe isolation lasted 40 years. He was released this past October just days before he died, when a judge acknowledged that he had never received a fair trial.

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Alexander: I think that as people of faith, we must search our own hearts and acknowledge our own judgment and bias against those we view as criminals. That’s certainly something that I’ve had to do myself—recognize that in my own growing up and in coming into adulthood I absorbed, through osmosis, as part of the social culture, a lot of ideas about people who are labeled criminals. In my own heart I’ve had places of unforgiveness for people who have committed certain types of crime.

I think it’s important for us to begin—before pointing fingers at the police, or judges, or prosecutors, or politicians—by acknowledging all the ways that we may be quick to judge or condemn. I do not imagine that we will ever fully cure or rid ourselves of some of these tendencies, but it's an ongoing process of checking in and acknowledging our own biases and temptations to judge and then engaging in conversation and dialogue with people who are part of our faith communities.

I am deeply saddened that so many faith communities have been silent for so long as this unbelievably inhumane penal system—of a scale and size unprecedented in world history—has emerged in the United States. There’s just been so little resistance from people of faith. Certainly there have been many wonderful people who have worked within prisons over the last 40 years, tutoring and ministering to people behind bars, people who have performed wonderful acts of charity for those released from prison, helping to feed and clothe them, and that is all absolutely essential. But I find shockingly few examples of faith communities really coming together to organize and speak out collectively against a criminal justice system that flies in the face of so many of the values Christians claim to hold dear.

mass incarceration as a spiritual movement, just as they do the civil rights movement.

To learn more about the issue, download the book study guide, and access action resources, go to NewJimCrow.com.

Harold Dean Trulear is director of the Healing Communities Prison Ministry and a fellow at the Center for Public Justice. He has written extensively on issues related to incarceration and is the coeditor of Ministry with Prisoners & Families: The Way Forward (Judson Press, 2011). A member of the Executive Session on Community Corrections at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Dr. Trulear is also an associate professor of applied theology at Howard Divinity School in DC and on the pastoral staff of Praise and Glory Tabernacle in Philadelphia, Pa.

Community Coalition, Los Angeles (CoCoSouthla.org)

This is a system predicated on the idea that no one can ever be fully redeemed. It’s a system that allows people to be branded felons and punished for the rest of their lives without any pathway back to inclusion in our society. It’s a system that is explicitly based on a model of pure retribution, with no hope of forgiveness. It’s a system where it is difficult to find any trace of compassion. Yet so many of us have remained quiet, imagining that perhaps our role is to try to save individual friends behind bars rather than recognizing that as people of faith we have an obligation to speak out and to stand up for those who are being discriminated against, abused, and oppressed.

We have an obligation to do that if we are going to claim to really be about all the virtues and values we say we embrace. I hope and pray that faith communities will come to speak loudly and organize with great force.

My hope is that one day people will look back on the movement to end

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Lily Yeh, artist, social pioneer (b. 1941)

Oren Lyons, Native American faith-keeper, human rights advocate, environmental activist (b. 1930)

Americans Who Tell the Truth Lateefah Simon, activist for at-risk youth and young women (b. 1977)

Sister Lucy Poulin, social service entrepreneur, humanitarian (b. 1939)

Painter and narrative activist Robert Shetterly helps us find our heroes INTERVIEW BY KRISTYN KOMARNICKI

Paul K. Chappell, army captain, peace activist, writer (b. 1980)

Educator, John Hunter musician, Educator, inventor of the musician, invent World Peace (b. 1954) ofGame the World Pea Game (b. 1954)

e tor ace

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John Hunter, educator, musician, inventor of the World Peace Game (b. 1954)

hey are whistleblowers and lawyers, journalists and healers, peacemakers and pastors, teachers and muckrakers, artists and activists. Some are familiar luminaries— James Baldwin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Woody Guthrie, Sojourner Truth. Others are more obscure—abolitionist/freewoman Elizabeth Mumbet Freeman; advocate for the homeless and anti-death penalty activist Murphy Davis; musician and storyteller Reggie Harris; war correspondent Chris Hedges. Discovering these new faces and stories is as delightful as spotting a previously undetected star in the night sky.

Robert Shetterly is dedicated to helping this country tell new stories about itself, true stories about real people that give us something to aspire to and that demonstrate the good we are capable of as a people.

Inspired by a statement by Frederick Douglass—“Find out what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong that will be imposed on them”—Shetterly began to seek out the folks who have refused to submit quietly to injustice.

“The truth-tellers can help us,” he says, “but we have to know their stories.” So in 2002 he started to paint their portraits, aiming for 50 initially but becoming so swept up in the project that the tally now stands at 199 and counting.

When the collection is complete, Shetterly plans to donate it in its entirety to an institution that will continue to use the portraits for education and assist in creating traveling exhibits to schools, colleges, museums, and the like in order to inspire people to act for the common good.

We spoke with Shetterly about what motivates this ongoing celebration of America’s true heroes and about the education he’s gotten along the way.

love rather than hatred.

For my own emotional health, I decided to begin surrounding myself with people I admired rather than be oppressed by those I disliked. I did not dislike our values; I disliked the people who were mouthing them while doing the opposite. I despised the hypocrisy. I thought I needed to use the thing I do best—paint—to express how I feel. I often advise young people—well, all people—to find the intersection of the thing they do best with their deepest emotions and then do that. So, I did.

How did you come to this project?

Shetterly: I have learned so much from this project—I’m sure far more than I realize. But I would like to mention one thing I’ve learned that is important for all of us as citizens—citizens not just of this country but of the world. The institutions that we trumpet to the rest of the world that supposedly make us the “greatest democracy on earth” are largely corrupt. They have been controlled by a powerful status quo for its own benefit. They have failed the notion of democracy, or, more accurately, they have subverted the idea of democracy. But this is not new. It was not the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence that gave women the right to vote, or ended child labor, or won an eight-hour work day, or ended Jim Crow, or changed environmental laws—on and on. It was people with the courage to insist that the values of those documents be made real for them. Democracy and freedom are never written into law successfully. They always depend on the spirit of people with the

Robert Shetterly: I came reluctantly to this project. I had a successful career as an artist when, right after 9/11, the Bush administration began the rhetoric to enable the attack on Iraq. I was so angry at the blatant lying, fear, and propaganda, so full of grief for the potential victims of this war—on all sides—that I knew I had to either become a better citizen or leave the country.

I also knew I could not use my anger and grief to continually obsess about the people whom I thought were causing so much damage to this country and its integrity. I had to use the energy of my anger in a positive way, in the service of

Besides telling the truth, what are some other commonalities or shared character traits in your subjects?

Shetterly: The great religious leader and political activist William Sloane Coffin once said, “Without courage there are no other virtues.” It takes courage to tell the truth. It takes courage to act out your compassion. It takes courage to demand justice. And it takes perseverance to actually make change. So courage and perseverance are necessary traits of my subjects. Equally important is to be able to recognize the truth before one tries to articulate it. We are fed a constant diet of misinformation and half-truths. Most people allow themselves the comfort and conformity of accepting what they are fed because it asks nothing of them. It reinforces myth and prejudice. One of the great abilities of my subjects is to see what is really happening and call it by its true name.

Your subjects include Americans from across the centuries.

How do you go about researching them?

Shetterly: I try to meet all the living subjects. I want to see their faces, see how they talk, see the expression in their eyes. I also want to get to know them as people, because I’m going to be their advocate, an extension of their voice.

I spend more time researching than I do painting—reading books, interviews, histories, biographies. One of the most amazing parts of this project for me has been the virtually vertical learning curve. I have to be able to talk about each person I’ve painted.

What have you learned from this project?

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From the artist’s statement, 2012

Students in our schools are failing math and reading. That’s important. The more serious problem is that if they are not taught to be engaged citizens, using true history and models of courageous citizenship, we will lose our democracy. Some would say it is already lost and the challenge is to educate our youth to win it back.

And as educators and students we must ask ourselves a tough question, “Whose interests are served by keeping young people ignorant of their own history, unaware of the importance of citizenship and unaware of the inspiring role models from the past and present who could help solve our most pressing problems?” Ignorance is certainly not in the interest of democracy.

When I tell people the name of this project, Americans Who Tell the Truth, I am frequently met with a sardonic look and asked, “Are there any?” Such is the common attitude about the integrity of our political and economic discourse.

People are cynical, rightly so, and depressed at the depth of dishonesty all around them.…

Our cynicism and depression will only increase if we

courage to demand them.

How do you select your subjects?

Shetterly: Selecting is hard. There are so many people I could have/ should have painted—all equally deserving. But I have to make choices, often based on what I feel is a good story to tell others to inspire them. The hardest part of choosing is choosing whom not to paint.

That hurts.

Which of your subjects have most moved, challenged, influenced you?

Shetterly: That’s tough. They all have. They all challenge me to do

Grace Lee Boggs, community leader, author (b. 1915)

expect government to solve these problems for us. We have to demand change, … and we have to be willing to do it ourselves. The models of courageous citizenship that make up Americans Who Tell the Truth can help.

One more thing. Through this painting and traveling and talking I have never been so engaged as a citizen as I am now.

Nor have I felt as burdened with the weight of serious problems. But before I started this project, I had never experienced the joy that comes from being a member of a community working for a just and sustainable future. Our deepest happiness is found not in monetary wealth and competition but in the shared spirit of working together for a good cause, for the ideals of this country and for peace.

Americans Who Tell the Truth offers a link between the community of people who struggled for justice in our past and the community of people who are doing it now. To participate in that struggle can be very hard, but it is also a place to find deep friendship, shared courage, respect, and dignity. And only by participating in that struggle will we find hope—or deserve to.

more, to not give up, to withstand criticism. Many of them have become good friends and have asked me to work with them. With the extraordinary activist artist Lily Yeh I went to work in a village of survivors of the Rwandan genocide. We continue to work together. I often team-teach with some of them—like Terry Tempest Williams or Zoe Weil.

But my subjects from the past challenge me just as much. When I need strength to stand up to power, I turn to Frederick Douglass and read his great speeches.

What do you hope the project will achieve?

Shetterly: I hope that people will be inspired by the example of the people I’ve painted, that they will take them as role models. Our popular culture offers us celebrity role models, sports heroes, the super-rich—people who demand nothing from us but admiration and passivity. If we desire to live peacefully and equitably on a sustainable planet, we will have to fulfill our obligations as citizens, not our obligations as entitled consumers. We all know, I think, that we are at a very crucial point in our history. Our leaders are not solving the problems, whether they be about peace, energy, climate change, or economy. It’s up to us.

I want to help with some examples of how to do it.

Grace Lee Boggs, the great community organizer from Detroit, says, “In order to restore America we need to re-story America.” The Americans Who tell the Truth project means to be a part of that re-storying. We call what we do “narrative activism.” If we don’t tell ourselves the right stories, the stories that empower us, if we don’t tell ourselves the stories that tell the truth of who we really are as a people, we don’t know who we are. If we don’t know who we are, we can commit any atrocity in the present or against the future and have it fit into a dangerous and self-congratulatory myth.

What motivates you to tell the truth? To do your art? To share these portraits?

Shetterly: I see the glory of living in harmony with nature, of living in community, of living with courage, of living in peace, of living without hypocrisy, of living with respect for all people, of living with freedom, of sharing, of living for spiritual values and not the accumulation of wealth, of acting out of love and not suspicion and hatred. I want those things for all people.

I have a grandchild. I imagine that everyone else's grandchild is mine, and mine theirs.

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See the whole collection and read the stories of the truth-tellers featured here at AmericansWhoTelltheTruth.org. The site also offers lesson plans and other useful resources for educators.

“A Good Question Is a Gift” Krista Tippett brings faith to public radio INTERVIEW BY KRISTYN KOMARNICKI

K

rista Tippett has been hosting the public radio show “On Being” (formerly “Speaking of Faith”) since 2003. Every week she gently but passionately probes the heart and mind of a new subject—pastor, scientist, poet, philosopher, practitioner—and identifies and gathers treasures along the way. She asks the big questions as well as the intimate ones, searching for the ways in which each person’s very particular journey illuminates the human story.

The granddaughter of a Southern Baptist preacher, Tippett grew up in the Bible Belt but studied history at the liberal Brown University in Rhode Island before going to West Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship to study politics in Cold War Europe.

As a journalist she wrote for the New York Times, Newsweek, the International Herald Tribune, the BBC, and Die Zeit.

After earning an MDiv from Yale Divinity School, Tippett recognized a distinct lack of intelligent reporting on religious faith in the media. It was in the process of conducting a vast oral history project for the Benedictines of St. John's Abbey that Tippett hatched the idea of conducting “conversations about the spiritual and intellectual content of faith that could open minds and enrich public life.”

The result was the show she launched on public radio in 2003 and that today is broadcast on over 200 US public radio stations and globally by NPR. She has also authored two books to date, Speaking

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of Faith: Why Religion Matters—and How to Talk about It (2008) and Einstein's God: Conversations About Science and the Human Spirit (2010), both from Penguin.

We caught up with Tippett to turn the tables and ask her about the challenges of bringing faith to public radio, the joy of eavesdropping on others’ spiritual journeys, and the mystery that keeps her coming back for more.

You talk to people from every type of spiritual background, influence, and practice. How does what you hear from your subjects inform your own theology and practices? Has it ever caused you to jettison beliefs or practices that you once held dear and thought inviolable?

The origins of this project were with an ecumenical institute, St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn. Not a famous place but a really influential place in the 1960s and ’70s in ecumenism. One of the things I started to learn there that applies to the experience of how the radio show affects my own spiritual life is that a profound encounter with religious difference actually has a paradoxical effect: Yes, your heart and mind are opened to another tradition in a way, but you also understand your own identity better.

I would also say that I have a much more expansive sense of mystery. Through all these conversations over all these years I have less of a need to tie everything up. I experience mystery as something rich and beautiful in and of itself. I wouldn’t say that I do these conversations and then go away and question or jettison anything. It’s more that these traditions—and more than that, these people, the integrity of these lives—are in conversation with my own life. It’s more of an interplay than something that’s challenging. Does that make sense?

it’s fascinating how much spiritually and theologically provocative work is being done by scientists.

I’m also surprised by what a very robust vocabulary of mystery and beauty scientists have. I think there’s something there for religious people to learn from.

How do you feel about being interviewed?

I really like both ends of a conversation. When I’m the interviewer, if a conversation is successful I lose control in a way, and it yields surprises.

But I’m still managing it, right? Still directing and guiding it. So I like this as well; at this end of the conversation I’m more vulnerable in a sense because I don’t know what’s going to come at me, but I can also just relax into that.

So your faith must be very enriched from all these years of interviewing such fascinating people…

Oh yes, my faith is enriched from all these conversations—and then I just have a really normal life, with all the same kinds of challenges of parenting and relationships and life and finding meaning that everyone else has.

Is there a question you've never been asked that you wish someone would ask you?

By being asked good questions you can put words around something that you didn’t even know you thought. It’s helpful to me when people ask me to connect the different chapters of my life. I learn things that I hadn’t really seen before. So I think it would be fun for somebody to really push me on what’s the trajectory from growing up southern Baptist in Oklahoma to living in divided Berlin to starting this radio show. In a funny way I feel like the show takes me back to the kind of diplomacy and worrying about the state of the world that I was doing in my 20s but from a completely different direction, so I think it would be fun to be really pushed to figure out what that circle is.

A good question is a gift. I start all my interviews by asking people— whoever they are, whether they’re religious or not—about the religious background of their childhood. And that question is a gift to people. Even if they haven’t reflected on it that much or they’ve lived very far away from it, that’s a piece of us that’s formed us and it’s often a place where the experience was positive or negative. It’s often a place where we started asking these really searching questions that we then followed for the rest of our lives. And to send somebody back there, in a safe space, to look at that is a really wonderful thing.

I had to defend that question a lot in public radio, especially in the beginning, and it doesn’t always make its way into the show; sometimes it gets edited out. But the reason I ask people that is because almost everyone has a really interesting story. And every atheist has an interesting story, too—it’s not just the most deeply religious people. There’s a story there. But the more important reason I ask that question is because of where it plants people in themselves—a place that’s softer and more searching and questioning than what we’re more skilled in presenting to the world, especially when we’re talking about what we know.

What is one surprising thing you've learned about faith or people since launching your show?

I’m surprised all the time. But one thing I did not anticipate when I started doing the show was that I’d be interviewing a lot of scientists. Even in the last 10-year period, neuroscience and physics in particular have continued this rapid evolution. I see people working in the fields of neuroscience and biology and physics as some of the richest sources of theological questions. This has nothing to do with whether the scientists themselves are religious or not. But the work they are studying is throwing out all of the basic theological questions of the 21st century to consider anew. I think

What pages of your Bible are the most worn?

I go through different phases. I really love the Philippians 4:8 passage about whatever is good and true and right, ponder these things. That is also what I try to do as a journalist, and I think it’s important for mental health! We’re in this world where we’re surrounded by devastating images of darkness, so it’s important to have eyes to see and ears to hear as a spiritual discipline—not just focusing on what is most immediate and what is handed to you to focus on, but looking for what matters, looking for goodness, looking for where you want to put your energy as opposed to what is thrust at you.

Yes. Do you get more of an appreciation for the God who created all that diversity?

Yes! I was raised Southern Baptist, with the belief that nobody else was going to heaven, not even Methodists. But I don’t believe that. There is something in me that just resists that assertion, and I also don’t think that’s something I have to know or figure out. Especially, I think, from an orthodox Christian perspective, there is some element of mystery in the existence of the religious other, in the deep integrity of the religious other.

And not only does it not contradict the core of my faith, it actually enriches it. Which in and of itself is kind of a mystery—so there you go!

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A profound encounter with religious difference has a paradoxical effect: Your heart and mind are opened to another tradition, but you also understand your own identity better. I have less of a need to tie everything up. I experience mystery as something rich and beautiful in and of itself.

There are places in Proverbs that I really love. And I love Genesis.

I love its layers and layers of truth about us as human creatures—most of it I never had any inkling of in Sunday school. I’ve been talking to Ellen Davis—she’s at Duke now, but she was my professor of Old Testament at Yale. In the last 10 or 20 years she’s become very focused on environmental stewardship. I talked to her about Genesis, and she made me see for the first time that eating is everywhere, food is everywhere, and this idea that we are creatures among other creatures.

My daughter was born while I was at seminary, which was not in the five-year plan, and I got really fascinated with Jesus’ idea about the humility of a little child. It was one of the biblical ideas that I never got and hadn’t taken very seriously, but when I had a little child and I was trying to understand it I became aware that the humility of a little child is not the stereotype of humility that we have in our culture—it’s not about debasing yourself or making yourself small; it’s about moving through the world with an attitude of curiosity and wonder about everything. It’s taking everything else as potentially amazing and being willing to be surprised and blown away, and it’s closely linked with delight. When I started thinking about that and looking through the Bible for that, I discovered that delight is tucked away everywhere. Sometimes it’s hidden and you only find it in the secondary translation—for example, Eden means delight.

At times the Psalms have been very important to me, too.

I always hesitate before I say something like that, because it’s a privileged thing to be on the other end of pain where you see it as a gift. I think it’s really important to qualify it, because in the middle of a lot of pain, there’s nothing gift-like about it. The gift is something that shows itself over time.

I hear versions of this in all my interviews. We all carry something or some things, and those are our connection to the world and to the pain of the world. They make us open to it and make us capable of compassion in a way that we just can’t be until we’ve been there. Depression is such a big, dark place, and you become vulnerable. Well, we’re always vulnerable, and that’s the thing. We’re all so vulnerable, but we’re not always confronted with that. We’re able to pretend it’s not true. But vulnerability is the human condition, and when you have these conscious experiences of it, it puts you in touch with the rest of humanity in a different way.

In her book An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.” Where have you cracked your shins on God's presence lately?

I was just at a gathering convened by a wonderful peacemaker/conflict-resolution expert named John Paul Lederach. He’s Mennonite and probably the greatest living exemplar of that Mennonite Christian tradition of really taking the calling to be a peacemaker seriously. He pulled together neuroscientists and artists and contemplatives and conflict-resolution people for the kind of conversation across disciplines that’s happening now that’s so new—it shouldn’t be, but we just did so much compartmentalizing in the 20th century—and it was just miraculous.

There was a poet there from Sierra Leone and a poet from Northern Uganda, and these are two of the places in the world that yield the most horrific stories right now—the kind of stories that make me despair. The Lord’s Resistance Army, the civil war in Sierra Leone, people’s hands being chopped off—I don’t know what to do with that, I despair at the state of the world, and those kinds of stories do occasionally just make me question everything. Right?

It was amazing to meet these people whose world that is and who are not just courageous but joyful and who were making poetry, being a healing presence in the midst of that as poets, and helping people give voice to the kinds of things that other kinds of language can’t. What happens in those darkest places in the world defies what our usual language can talk about or touch.

You might say it’s so simple, how can it even make sense or be valid to make poetry in such circumstances? But there is something about how as human beings we are able to find beauty and be beauty in the worst circumstances. It was very, very humbling. And it also reminded me—this is one of the things I try to remember all the time, and it gets back to having eyes to see and ears to hear—that even when you hear the worst story about Sierra Leone or Northern Uganda, there is so much human possibility in those places that doesn’t come through in those stories where we freeze people in the worst moments of their lives. We have to stay attentive to that human possibility—and hopeful about it.

Learn more and listen to Krista Tippett’s interviews at OnBeing.org.

You've journeyed with depression, and in your book you write that pain has gifts to offer us. What has been the gift of your depression?

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Traveling Down to Mercyland Jimmy Abegg

A conversation with musician, artist, & author Phil Madeira INTERVIEW BY AL TIZON | PAINTINGS BY PHIL MADEIRA 28

Lyrics from “Mercyland,” by Merrill Farnsworth & Phil Madeira, M Town Music (ASCAP)/Nashville Minute (BMI), administrated by The Loving Company

So much trouble, so much pain.

I want to heal the blind and cure the lame.

I want every man and woman to claim some dignity, so let's you and me take each other's hands. let's travel on down, down to Mercyland.

Tell us about your new book, God on the Rocks.

I love to write. I love to create. I started writing without really knowing that it would be a book. Just as an exercise in intimacy, I decided to write a story from my past for my partner, Merrill. But I found it was turning into a spiritual memoir. I started putting chapters online and heard from a number of people who said, “Hey, man, this is a book.” And then I got an agent, and the next thing I knew I was finishing a book.

Life is mean. Life is hard.

Can't we just change the way things are?

I want all God's children to live in harmony, so let's take each other's hands.

Let's travel on down, down to Mercyland.

How did the title come about?

Well, it’s kind of a double entendre. “On the rocks” has at least two meanings. One is how you might order a drink, which to my mind is a positive thing. And then, of course, there’s the other way—your marriage can be on the rocks, your life can be on the rocks—so it’s a purposeful double entendre. And then when we came up with our subtitle—“distilling religion, savoring faith”—we really pushed the pun more towards God being something to be savored.

Phil

Madeira sings those lyrics, written by Merrill Farnsworth, at every show he performs. The title track of his 2012 project, a collaboration of contemporary “hymns” for the bruised but hopeful among us, “Mercyland” conjures a picture of both earth and heaven and calls us to live today in a way that brings heaven a little closer.

“I think the great irony of life is that when your message is mercy, it slaps you in the face fairly often,” Madeira says. “I sense God’s mercy in my constant need of it. Thankfully the arts are a way to bring a cup of mercy to the world.”

Madeira has been serving up cups of mercy through his music for four decades. A trained visual artist as well, he recently added book-writing to his list of creative endeavors. I recently caught up with him to ask him about his faith, music, and his new book, God on the Rocks.

A member of the Phil Keaggy Band in the 1970s, Madeira never fit comfortably into the “Christian music” scene—and the wider world of music is the richer for that. Currently a member of Emmylou Harris’ Red Dirt Boys, Madeira has partnered over the years with renowned musicians such as Daniel Amos, Pierce Pettis, Mavis Staples, Julie Miller, the Neville Brothers, Keb’ Mo’, and many more. He has also shared the stage with the likes of Elvis Costello, Dave Matthews, and Patty Griffin. Though he has occasionally released solo projects, such as his 2013 album, PM, Madeira’s main contribution to the music world has been his multi-instrumental and songwriting collaboration with other artists. His humility has him seeking community rather than celebrity, and his consistent ability to point in that direction is perhaps his greatest spiritual gift.

Excellent musicianship, creative artistry, candid writing, a collaborative spirit, and a faith that embraces brokenness—all these characterize Phil Madeira’s body of work. If navigating the intersection of faith, arts, and culture is important to you, Madeira’s work can be a valuable guide. Especially if you’re looking for Mercyland.

By the very nature of a memoir, the book is soul-baring. You talk about your tentative relationship with your mom, your break-up with your wife, your break with evangelicalism, etc. What was it like laying yourself out like that for all of us to see and read?

My personality type doesn’t really have a problem divulging information! But writing about my ex-wife—I was very careful with that. I’ve got as good a relationship with her as one could hope for. We have a great deal of affection for each other. So when I wrote about our marriage breaking up I really did so with the hope in mind that she wouldn’t be hurt by it. I know it’s emotional territory, but acrimony was not the goal, and certainly we do not have an acrimonious relationship.

My mother is one of the most interesting characters of the book. She’s a fantastic person. We’re both very passionate people, but when my passions don’t align with her passions, it’s a difficult thing for her. So writing about that stuff, which really resonates with a lot of people who have grown up in the church with parents who want them to toe the exact line that they toed, I think is helpful, and hopefully my mother comes across as being honored.

You also talked about your dad in a very positive way.

My father was the most exemplary person I ever met, and I’m sure that my faith has remained intact and been something to continue to pursue in part because he was so real, so lovely and humble.

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Your 2012 compilation album, Mercyland: Hymns for the Rest of Us, got terrific accolades when it came out. What was the inspiration behind that album?

The inspiration was actually a negative one. During the 2008 election I was so disturbed by the behavior of religious people. I felt there was so much racist and hateful stuff coming from people who call themselves Christians. I was playing with Emmylou Harris at the time, so I went to her and said, “I want to do a record that says ‘What if God is love? What if we just start there and add nothing else, like God loves you unless you’re gay,’ or ‘God loves you unless you don’t love God,’ or however you want to finish the sentence.” She loved that idea, and once Emmylou said “yes,” almost everybody else I asked wanted to be in on it—the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Buddy Miller, Mat Kearney, John Scofield, the Civil Wars. There is something for everyone on the project.

Mercyland is definitely the work of my life. The whole record is a labor of love. It got a lot of accolades, even from the editor of Maverick, an independent country music magazine in the UK. He’s an atheist, but he said, “Everyone needs this CD.” My hope is that it will find its way into as many people’s hands as possible. It’s not just about something I created, but it represents such a cross section of people trying to express something beyond ourselves. What better message can we bring to the world than love?

In playing with a wide span of musicians through the years—from Phil Keaggy to Elvis Costello to Keb’ Mo’ to Emmylou Harris—you seem to have ignored the line between so-called “Christian music” and so-called “secular music.” How has the integration of music and Christian faith worked out in your career?

Well, I certainly have tried to ignore Christian music, to be honest with you. If you go to my website you’ll see that I make very little mention, if any, of Christian music. I’m grateful that my career had its start with a guy named Phil Keaggy, who’s an acclaimed musician, but there was very little room for me in Christian music. I did a record in 1986 called Citizen of Heaven. That

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whole record was really about social justice and Christianity.

And man, it just did not matter. So I’m not into creating “Christian music,” just great music for anyone who cares to listen.

And yet, I recently accepted the offer to produce a record for a Christian label—I’ve got friends in that world—with my friend Lynn Nichols, who was also part of that Phil Keaggy era.

We produced The Pawn Shop Kings project, which I think is going to be a mainstream release, though it’s on a Christian label, but I’m very careful about being involved in that world. I don’t want to sound ungrateful here, but basically there’s so little room in that industry for people who want to sing about brokenness. I just don’t see it as a friendly place for me to dwell in.

I’m blessed that that part of my past did lead me to playing with Buddy and Judy Miller, who were also frustrated by the relig biz. I have to credit my years of playing with Buddy as the thing that opened a door for me to eventually play with Emmylou in her band. Then I got to perform with Elvis Costello and so many others. I just played Willy Nelson’s 80th birthday party. Pinch me!

My mantra is “yes.” Saying “yes” has seen me through the last decade in a way that blows my mind. I’m 61 years old and having the time of my life, working with many incredible artists. “Yes” has led me to work with some of my heroes— John Scofield and Emmylou are at the top of the list. “Yes” has brought people into my life who are not necessarily of the same faith but who continually teach me about love. I’m blessed and humbled to know and work with so many beautiful friends. I should remark that I continue to work with many folks who are Christians as well, and who exemplify the love of Jesus well— Wayne Kirkpatrick, Gordon Kennedy, Matraca Berg, and Amy Grant to name a few.

I think it’s extremely difficult to mix God and commerce.

Obviously, I am conflicted and uncomfortable speaking of Christian music. I have to accept that I was never right for that world, but I’m grateful to my many friends who were or are in that world.

How would you advise musicians who are Christian to navigate the waters of “secular” music?

I love playing clubs, I love playing for people who want to hear great music and the thing they’re going to judge me on is did I play and sing well, did I lay out a good song, not do I agree with them about—whatever…

So my advice is, “Be yourself, hone your craft, be good enough to play anywhere.” A lot of Christians go in with an

...artists are here to be the soul and conscience of society and to ask, “What are we doing?”

agenda of what they think they can teach these people they’re working with who don’t claim their faith. But I think you’re supposed to be thinking, “Okay, what are they going to teach me?” I don’t know if Emmylou’s learned anything working with me, but I’ve learned so much working with her—her commitment to good, her way of moving through the world. She’s a saint who doesn’t put a name to her beliefs, yet she moves in grace. I suppose my advice would also be, “Walk humbly, be gracious, and let your actions do the preaching.”

In 1986, you received the humanitarian award from the ASCAP Foundation for raising awareness of and money for the famine in Ethiopia. What role do you see the arts playing in “transforming the world?”

That was an opportunity to write a song and to donate all the proceeds to charity. It was related to Compassion International. I think it raised about $150,000, which hopefully fed some kids. It highlights my belief that the arts exist to represent conscience in the world. I think the reason you have so many artists who are left-wingers is because there’s an ethos that’s more apparent on that side of the political fence than there is on the right-wing side, and often an artist is going to feel things deeply. They may not be solution-oriented or numbersoriented, but artists are here to be the soul and conscience of society and to ask, “What are we doing?” That’s why a person like Bob Dylan resonated in the 1960s and of course continues to do so. Our great artists are going to be the ones who disturb us—or reveal such brokenness that we can’t help but see our own brokenness.

That humanitarian project in 1986 was a beautiful thing to be able to do as a young man, and yet it was so organized and publicized. Ironically, I have learned that the charity you do in private is what really counts.

From left to right: Buddy Miller, Phil Madeira, Emmylou Harris, Rickie Simpkins, and Chris Donohue.

Photo by Tanya Braganti (TanyaBraganti.com).

that doesn’t carry the weight of what a parent wants from me or a church leader wants from me.

The time of my life when I was with the Phil Keaggy Band, that was a devastating time that I wrote about in the book, in the chapter called “Love Inn.” There’s no good ending to that chapter, because the dance of forgiveness was never completed. It was the hardest chapter to write. That story is more typical than not of people who are really trying to give their lives to the Lord and in doing so put themselves under some crazy authority. I know so many exiles from Christian communities in the 1970s, who gave their lives to young men with hubris and bravado and genuine zeal but who lacked the true faith to allow their disciples to experience grace. I’m so thankful for my father, whose years as a pastor were highlighted by his humility, his love, and his kindness, not to mention a great sense of humor.

What if God is love? What if we just start there and add nothing else, like God loves you unless you’re gay,’ or ‘God loves you unless you don’t love God’?

How does your new album, PM, relate to your new book?

I hadn’t done a solo record in 16 years, and I was getting a lot of encouragement to put a new CD out. With PM I didn’t want to make as overt a spiritual statement as in Mercyland or as in God on the Rocks. But the first song—“God on the Rocks”—and the last song—“Lonesome Owl”—are very tied to my spiritual journey.

What do you want people to take away from your book?

There are those of us who have grown up in the church who don’t want to jettison faith, but so much of what we’ve grown up with is negative, based on fear and control. So I feel like my book is a worthy read for someone who wants to see that the Spirit is still moving but not pushing them towards turn-or-burn.

Let’s start with “God loves you.”

I am certainly a Christian; I am a person who believes in Jesus, but I have had to search for a way to express that—and have it expressed to me—

What does following Jesus look like for you these days?

I’m listening for God’s voice and realizing that it’s in some unlikely places. Being a Christian for me ties into trying to be a great father and a great partner. I blow my horn a little less intensely than I might have 30 years ago. I’m not worried about the way God is moving in the world. My pursuit of God is worked out in very quiet ways, like going to a prayer service at 7 a.m. that is just liturgical, just a few people in a big sanctuary going through the prayer book together.

I am drawn to the little ways of centering myself on God. And then there’s the journey of writing, of creativity, of jamming with my compadres—whether one is writing or singing about God or not, God is in it.

Al Tizon is co-director of the Sider Center of Eastern University, associate professor of holistic ministry at Palmer Theological Seminary, author, preacher, and avid bonafide music freak. While attending a book signing and musical event featuring Madeira, at Hearts & Minds Bookstore in central Pennsylvania, Tizon, a longtime fan, remembered an obscure benefit concert that Madeira had done in the early 1990s. When Madeira himself could not remember doing the concert, he called Tizon a "freak." He cherishes both the memory and the moniker!

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T

oday in Chicago, every five minutes a woman will discover that she’s pregnant and didn’t plan to be.

Everything she thought she knew about her future—her dreams, even her identity—will be shaken. She will need understanding and support, but what she will often find is shame, judgment, and abandonment, which may lead her to believe that her only choice is between abortion and overwhelming struggle as a mom. But what if, instead of despair, she found hope; instead of isolation, community; instead of judgment, support; instead of shame, grace—the same grace that we all so desperately need? God is building a movement of churches and individuals who respect God’s design for pregnancy and reflect God’s heart for both the woman and the child.

That is the narrative that Caris, a faith-based nonprofit pregnancy counseling agency, uses to invite Christians to a new conversation about unplanned pregnancies, one that transcends the typical gut-tightening mutual vilification that so often defines the pro-life/pro-choice contest.

At three sites around Chicago, Caris provides pregnancy testing, professional counseling, small group support, and access to community resources—all free of charge. They also offer generous doses of grace, a grace fueled by wisdom born of hard work, fervent prayer, and serious research. Over the last five years, Caris’ leadership has been digging deep

Building the ProGrace Movement Caris helps the church navigate a “third way” approach to unplanned pregnancies

BY KRISTYN KOMARNICKI

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beneath the surface of the abortion debate to get at the very real—and often overlooked—needs of both women and children. Their research led them to a “pro-grace” position that appeals to—and feels like safe ground to—both camps in the debate and all people who have become dissatisfied with the limitations of debate. They now offer training to congregations that want to learn how to follow the same path.

We sat down with Caris President Angie Weszely to find out more about the Pro-Grace™ Movement they’ve just launched, what inspired this journey, and where she sees it leading from here.

What prompted you to look for a different approach to the women you were seeing?

Angie Weszely: In 2008, we hired a research firm called Brandtrust, which uses the social sciences to understand how people really feel, think, and behave. We wanted to better understand the felt needs, hopes, and fears of the women facing unplanned pregnancy. Based on what we found out, we changed what we were doing with women. We started focusing on emotional support and professional counseling. One of our passions at that time was to see women connected with a church, because that’s really where transformation’s going to happen. The church people wanted to reach out and help the women, but church was one of the last places these young women wanted to go! So we were praying what to do about that.

During that time, one of our clients was from Willow Creek Community Church in the northwest suburbs. We run groups for women until their baby is 6 months old. When she was done with her group here she went back to Willow but found there was nothing for her there. “Can I start a group like this at Willow?” she asked us. Well, we came alongside her to start a group there, and it grew really quickly and looked like God’s hand was in it.

At the same time, a church in Uganda contacted us about running the same kind of program. We sent them the draft of what we were using at Willow. Currently there are a thousand women dealing with unplanned pregnancies at this church in Uganda who are being transformed in amazing ways. So we knew God was in the church reaching out to women.

In trying to start groups at other churches, we experienced some road-

So what’s the elevator speech? How do you articulate why it’s so important for the church to have a pro-grace response?

Weszely: We start with two theological pillars. First, God could have created life any way he wanted, but he chose pregnancy. He decided to have a child grow inside a woman for nine months in such a way that they are intertwined for that time.

You can’t try to help one while bypassing the other. God has made that impossible.

So we are always going to work for the dignity and welfare of both the woman and the child because that reflects God’s design of pregnancy. Now, we’d talked about helping both the woman and the child for six years, but it wasn’t until we started using this design-of-pregnancy theology that Christians started having the “ah ha!” moment. It suddenly allowed them to say, “Of course. We want to help both the mother and the child.”

Second, when a single woman is faced with an unplanned pregnancy she experiences intense feelings of panic, isolation, and shame.

It’s crippling. This is what causes her to think that she either needs to Advocate Creative

At current rates, more than one in four women in the United States will have an abortion by age 40, and the rates aren’t that different between those who call themselves Christians and those who don’t.

That means there are thousands of women in our churches who have faced, or will face, an unplanned pregnancy. This may sound unbelievable, because you’ve rarely heard from these women at your church. But isn’t this proof that there’s a problem? Because for women with faith or without, the church is one of the last places they would turn to for help.

blocks. So we thought, maybe before Christians start doing outreach, we need to do some in-reach, do some transformational work ourselves, because there’s a reason these women aren’t coming to us, right? How can we make churches a safe place for women?

We ourselves were transformed through the journey of the research, of talking to pro-choice activists, talking to pro-life activists, talking to women. In the process we developed a new way of thinking about this issue. We wrote down our whole experience and piloted our two-hour workshops with church groups.

Moody and Willow Creek were among the first. And we found great resonance from Christians who said, “I want another way to think about this. I want another way to talk about it that is biblically sound but different from what I’ve seen happen in the typical pro-life or pro-choice side of things.”

Finding the right language for this conversation is so hard. I would say one thing, and people would get triggered. I’d see their eyes glaze over. I’d see them thinking, “Oh, she’s pro-choice” or “Oh, she’s pro-life.” They wanted to put me in one of those categories.

Being forced to articulate our new thinking for the workshop helped us come up with ways of framing the issue that would navigate the theological and political landmines sanely.

Now we have a really concise way of saying who and what we are: We say that we are pro-grace and we can help other Christians understand what it means to be pro-grace. Finally what is in our hearts, what has been bubbling up for four years, is getting out. That feels good.

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have an abortion to get her identity back or has to resign herself to struggle as a mom. Because so much of this is driven by isolation and shame, we are calling people to respond as Jesus would, with grace.

We use John 8, the story of the woman caught in adultery. Look how Jesus interacted with her—he protected her from the public shaming, he extended no condemnation, and then he could offer her help for a transformed life. We have so often gone in with “Let me tell you what you did wrong! You shouldn’t have slept with your boyfriend” that we miss his order. Christ’s order is grace first and then transformation. That underlies everything we do.

So our official elevator speech is this: “The Pro-Grace™ Movement is a movement of Christian individuals and churches who extend the same grace we've received in order to create a positive future for both the woman and the child.”

Weszely: We refuse to go there, but in fact—it’s interesting—we don’t get asked about that very much. When we first started piloting our presentation, people would ask, “Are you pro-choice? Are you condoning sin?” Those were the two big questions we got from Christians. That’s why we always lead with our theological pillars first. We believe God creates all life, and pregnancy is how he chose to create all life.

Nobody questions where we stand after they hear that. I think that’s enough to let Christians and non-Christians know that we take a traditional theological view on this and they don’t try to pin us down on our policy. Even those who consider themselves pro-choice, all they want to know is “Do you tell women what to do?

Do you tell them not to have an abortion? Do you proselytize?” If we can answer all three of those questions with a “no,” they don’t seem to care where we stand politically.

Why do you think this appeals equally to both sides?

How do women view the choices they have, which boil down to parenting the child, ending the pregnancy, or placing the child for adoption?

Weszely: Each woman is unique, but from our research1 we’ve learned that the emotional upheaval women experience when facing an unplanned pregnancy is intense. When a woman under distress thinks about continuing her pregnancy, she often feels that her life is over, that she will no longer be herself if she chooses to parent. As a result, she may believe that her only options are to have an abortion as a way to survive or to resign herself to struggling as her “new self” as a parent. When it comes to adoption, many women perceive this as an even more difficult path because it results in grieving both the loss of their identity and the chance to raise their child.2 Our professional counselors help women sort through these emotions in a safe environment while helping them identify their support system and access resources in order to give them hope for a positive future for themselves and their child.

Weszely: People are tired of the political arguments, because they don’t get us anywhere and don’t fully express God’s heart. Pro-life and pro-choice are not resonating with people as much anymore because they’re so alienating. When you say “pro-life” they think all you care about is the child, and when you say “prochoice” they think all you care about is the woman. This is why the grace approach is so powerful. We’re not identifying with either of those camps, because we believe that God cares equally about and values both the woman and the child. So let’s throw those labels aside and see what Jesus is about with a pro-grace stance.

Another thing we see getting resonance is the idea that God is way bigger than a political platform, so we as God’s people should have a response to any social issue that transcends politics. Everyone should vote how God is leading them, but there is so much beyond the political that we can do to help. What’s going to bring his kingdom is following his heart. We are calling Christians to follow his heart.

It’s hard for some people because “pro-life” or “pro-choice” defines their moral place, but we’re trying to give them a new theological/moral stance so they can say, “I’m for both,” and realize that there is so much more that has to be done on this than just “Here’s how I vote.” There’s so much more we can do for the woman and the child if we come together and do that work.

Advocate Creative

What do you say when people ask what kind of policy you recommend?

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Angie Weszely

How have you seen this new approach affect the women and your rapport with them?

and church folks are connected, the transformation is exponential. And it is twofold—both in the lives of the women and the lives of the church folks.

Weszely: That’s what’s so stunning. The women who come into Caris and do the professional counseling in groups—God is definitely doing transformation in how they view Christians. And that is wonderful work. At the same time, that pales in comparison to what happens when the groups are held in the church.

God is sending us the message that when you put these groups in the church the transformation is exponential.

The women at Willow will say things like, “I didn’t come to Willow to go to church. I was just joining one of the pregnancy groups. But I kept walking past the worship service, and I wondered what that was all about. And the people from the church were so kind. They threw us a baby shower, and I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll check out the worship service,’ and now my fiancé and I have accepted God, and we got baptized, and we go to church every week.” I mean they are transformed.

A lot of women in that group have become Christians and gotten baptized. They have known each other longer, and they are spurring each other on to deeper transformation.

The situation in Uganda is miraculous. I’m not sure what God is trying to show us there, but those 1,000 women? Suicides have been prevented, they’re running a co-op business now. I mean, it’s stunning.

The other thing about having it in a church is that the people in the church are transformed. At our Caris sites, we see transformation with women through the services we provide, and through our Pro-Grace™ training, we see transformation with people in churches. But we’re starting to see that when Caris women

So where do you go from here?

Weszely: Our goal is to have churches everywhere get training and start up a group for women with unplanned pregnancies. We have three stages of working with a church. First we go in with our workshop to present to their leadership what we’re about and see if they want to come on board and become a pro-grace church. If they say yes, we go to phase two, where we work with the congregation, educating them, and they do a bit of volunteer service with Caris, meeting needs of pregnant women. Stage three is opening their doors and running a program themselves, with a team of trained volunteers.

In the fall we partnered with a church in a more high-risk neighborhood.

We’re going to work with them to find the pregnant women in their community, and they’re going to get the invitation out. The women at Willow Creek, only half of them came from Caris, the other half heard about it via word of mouth, from their friends. Ultimately our desire is that the church will be known as the place to go with an unplanned pregnancy.

Join the movement at ProGrace.org. Learn more at Facebook.com/IAmProGrace.

Follow on Twitter @iamProGrace and @angieweszely.

(Editor’s note: You will find the endnotes for this article at PRISMmagazine.org/ endnotes.)

“Thankful for Unanswered Prayers”: Brianna’s Story Brianna was only 16 when she found out she was pregnant. She was nearing the end of her sophomore year in high school, living with her grandmother in California while her parents got ready for a move to Chicago.

With her mom getting the new house ready and her dad packing up the old one, Brianna was mostly on her own. She loved the freedom.

“I was able to get away with just about anything I ever wanted—going out, having what I thought was the time of my life,” Brianna recalls.

“It caught up to me when two weeks after we moved I found out I was pregnant. My entire world turned upside down. I knew that each day meant another day of hiding, another day fretting over how I was going to do this. It was the most desperate place I’d ever been."

In a new city, with her mom’s alcohol addiction spiraling out of control and her baby’s father in another state, Brianna was scared and alone.

She felt pressure to make a decision about her pregnancy, but she didn’t know what to do. Then she found Caris.

“I knew I was pregnant, so I didn’t need any tests. What I needed was someone to talk to and help make sense of this life-changing decision that I needed to hurry up and make. I walked into Caris feeling confused and scared but walked out with my mind made up and peace in my heart. I didn’t know how, but I knew I would be able to survive this.”

A few weeks later, Brianna received a phone call from her Caris counselor inviting her to a Connection Group, and she accepted. Met with acceptance and support, Brianna felt embraced by the group. Guided by a

counselor and surrounded by peers who understood what she was going through, she started to see hope for her future. She made deep and lasting friendships; she experienced God’s love and transforming grace.

“Caris gave me hope during the most challenging time of my life.

They showed me God’s love without judgment. They accepted me for who I was and supported me when I needed it most. Caris was the home that nurtured me and gave me love and stability. The other women, like me, chose to make something beautiful out of their circumstances. I looked forward to each week and honestly believe that because of these little glimmers of hope, I was able to persevere through what was without a doubt the hardest and most trying time of my life.”

Today, Brianna is back in California, living with her aunt and uncle while she rebuilds her life. She celebrated her 18th birthday, got her driver’s license, and just finished her first term of nursing school. Her mom is sober, and her rambunctious 15-month-old son, Jesse, is surrounded by a loving family.

“It’s the craziest thing for me to look back on who I was prior to getting pregnant. I don’t recognize that girl anymore. I think about all of the prayers I offered up to God when I found out I was pregnant. I pleaded for him to give me just ‘one more chance’ and that if he got me out of ‘this situation,’ I would get it together. It almost makes me laugh… I am so thankful for all of those unanswered prayers because, instead, God knew better.”

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Theology and fat Christians in the contemporary American church

BY NICOLE MORGAN "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Psalm 139: 14-16 A number of years ago, at a time when I was dealing with a variety of difficult challenges, I found myself one morning kneeling before the altar at my church during prayer time. I was crying quietly and praying when I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard someone kneel next to me.

A woman’s voice began to pray for me, “Dear God,” she said, “please help Nicole to fight the battle she faces with her weight. Help her to trust you to have a healthy body. Help her to rely on you for strength.”

As far as I could recall I had never talked to this woman about my size. At that moment before the altar, I was struggling with the weight of many things in my life, but the size of my body was not one of them.

In November 2000 a tabloid headline screamed from the newsstands and confirmed the fears and judgments of countless American Christians. The headline read: “FAT PEOPLE DON’T GO TO HEAVEN.”1 The image showed the tall, slender Gwen Shamblin, author of the devotional-diet book Weigh Down Diet. Shamblin is not the first Christian to use the Bible as a basis for weight loss: Countless writers, speakers, clergy, and parishioners have cited the Bible as a basis for advocating the conformation of bodies to an ideal.

Driven by popular culture and good inten-

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Wonderfully Made

tions, many in recent Christian church history have given spiritual and theological weight to the idea of a thin body being a godly body, participating in a damaging and idolatrous conflation of beauty, size, and worth. The way these influential voices have spoken of fatness in the past 60 years has had a profound effect on the emotional, spiritual, and physical health of congregants. Since the discourse is predominantly anti-fat, the church has conformed to a world that marginalizes fat bodies and perpetuates the belief that fat people are lazy, unintelligent, and lacking willpower.

Gluttony While Charlie W. Shedd’s 1957 Pray Your Weight Away was arguably the beginning of the modern Christian diet industry, the church has a long history of talking about the body. Gluttony appears as number two on the list of the seven deadly sins. The early church did not limit the sin of gluttony to those who appear visibly larger than the cultural standard, instead believing that gluttony covered a broad range of disordered eating, including “eating too soon, too expensively, too much, too eagerly, too daintily, or too wildly.”2 Today, eating “too eagerly” would be an easy label to give to many Americans, regardless of size, and eating “too expensively” is damning to Americans, whose food choices have profound impacts on the environment and global hunger. Gluttony plagues America for sure, but its eradication will not come from church-supported anti-fat messages or from eliminating fat bodies. Gluttony is not equal to fatness.

Gluttony and the warnings against it are a minor theme in Scripture. In Deuteronomy 21:1821 a son is brought to the city gates by his parents and described as “stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.” Gluttony is only a part of this son’s problems, and nowhere does it mention his size.

In an allusion to the stubborn son of Deuteronomy 21, Jesus is also accused of being a glutton.3 Jesus’ first recorded miracle is that of turning water into wine at a wedding feast. Drunkenness and gluttony may seem to be reasonable accusations at that point, but the feasting and drinks were never the problem. Feasting and celebration are ordained by God. In the story of the Prodigal Son,4 the wayward son squanders his life on excessive living; he is a glutton. When he returns he is not met with strict rules of deprivation and a focus on what not to do; instead he is met with a feast. The father reminds him of the reasons to celebrate and rejoices with extravagant and abundant food.

A feast does not a glutton make. One becomes a glutton when one loses sight of the reason for feasting. Can sin exist in the consumption of food? Yes. Does joyful or abundant consumption of food automatically equal sin? No. Two people can each participate in the same type of gluttonous and disordered eating and arrive at different sizes. A fat person can be free from the sin of “making a God of the belly”5 just as a thin person can be enslaved to it. But to direct the fault of that sin in the sole direction of fat people is to make a mockery of the imago dei present in each human.

Gluttony is about motivations, desire, and allegiance; it is not about body size.

Health The strongest argument for a theology that advocates for thinness is the same argument used by most secular sources against fatness—the perceived health of thinness. The theological rationale for health is that if our bodies are temples of God,6 then we must care for them in the best way we know how, namely by being healthy and “fit.” Claims equating fatness with poor health are fraught with problematic, industry-funded science and enough surprising statistics to safely question the assumed health superiority of a thin body. Despite common misconceptions, some studies show overweight or obese patients having a lower risk of cardiac death than normal weight patients.7 A study published in a 2010 issue of a Mayo Clinic publication demonstrated that fatness is correlated with survival in dialysis patients; in addition, it remarked that this “obesity paradox” can also be found in patients with heart failure and coronary artery disease.8 Since the common pattern of upand-down dieting decreases the body’s immunity, frequent dieters have increased health risks, and those who simply maintain a consistent weight (even a high one) have stronger immune systems.9 Calling people fat is profitable, especially for those who make money by treating fatness, such as the drug companies that put out weight-loss medication for this “disease.”10 In reality, it is healthy habits, not size, that most impact mortality.11 Just as a thin person can be unhealthy, a fat person can be healthy. Health cannot be measured on a scale or by a mirror. Health and size are not the same.

Creating a sinful body Unfortunately, the large number of “devotional diet” books on the market indicates that the church participates in the idolatry of size. The website Christianbook. com has numerous pages of books listed under the topic of “Christian Fitness.”12 A quick glance at the titles alone illustrates the emphasis on the size and appearance of our bodies. The title Fat Chance: Losing the Weight, Gaining My Worth by Julie Hadden communicates the idea that in order to gain worth, the author first had to lose weight, suggesting that one who is fat has not yet gained or earned his or her worth. Chantel Hobbs’ Love Food & Live Well: Lose Weight, Get Fit & Taste Life at Its Very Best also reinforces the idea that life in a fat body is somehow

Connecting body size with spiritual health doesn’t “just” hurt individual bodies; it also hurts the entire body of Christ. When we are conditioned to view a body type as good or bad and then assign moral and spiritual judgments upon a person because of how he or she interacts with that “bad” body, then we create divisions, judgment, and value systems within a congregation that are not based on biblical norms.

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less satisfying and valuable than life in a thin body. Books such as Lose It for Life: The Total Solution—Spiritual, Emotional, Physical—for Permanent Weight Loss (2011), Fit for My King: His Princess’ Diet Plan and Devotional (2010), and Bod 4 God: The Four Keys to Weight Loss (2009) are just a few of the numerous books whose titles suggest a connection between weight loss and spiritual acceptance and accomplishment.

Just as the diet industry has become rich by fueling the social need for weight loss, the profitable devotional-diet industry within Christian publishing needs Christians to view weight loss as a spiritual necessity. Telling Christians they need to be thin to be godly has become a “very profitable enterprise.”13 The Christian diet industry is not confined to the shelves of bookstores. Devotional diet groups meet at churches and homes where congregants come together and weigh their devotion to God on a scale and confess their sins of fatty foods and lazy days.

In her book Seeking the Straight and Narrow, researcher and author Lynne Gerber points out that “Christian dieting groups … combine eating regimens with Christian spiritual practices with the dual aim of reducing body size and recentering members’ lives on God. . . [This] exploits individuals’ hopes that traits associated with social stigma can be transformed and the accompanying social marginalization thus vanquished.”14 In one group, participants recite the week’s Bible verse while standing on the scale during their weekly weigh-in, creating implicit suggestions about the connection between spiritual discipline and weight loss.15 Weight-loss Bible studies are advertised in the church announcements, promoted from the pulpit, and talked about in the lobby. A fat congregant sitting in the pew is met with the same message he or she receives everywhere else in the world: Your body is wrong. The world tells the fat person that her body is ugly, lazy, a detriment to society, and unlovable by other humans. The church tells the fat person that his body is sinful, undisciplined, lacking the fruit of the Spirit,16 and a hindrance to his service to God. The church’s involvement in this message to fat people works to create a population of congregants who are filled with shame and believe that they are incapable or unqualified to serve or love God. A church that allows a culture of equating fat with sin creates a culture of congregants

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who view themselves and each other through that lens. A fat body is viewed as sinful, or at least weak, and a thin body is viewed as holy and disciplined.

Rather than challenging the cultural norms that judge bodies, the faith-based weight-loss focus encourages the “othering,” the “less than” value, and the objectification of fat bodies.

What’s more, just as diets in the secular culture do not work, there is no evidence that devotional diets hold any greater chance of permanent weight loss. Instead, “success” in a devotional diet can be measured in spiritual practices, such as memorizing scripture or regular prayer time.17 I support the importance and value of spending time in prayer, but when weight-loss programs advertise themselves as successful when what they mean is that people prayed more (not that participants lost weight), they perpetuate the myth that people are achieving the physical and spiritual accomplishments of being “self-controlled” enough to have a marked change in their bodies. One result of linking body size to self-control is that a fat person who is not trying to lose weight is suspected of being cut off from the Holy Spirit. A fat person who explicitly rejects the idea of weight loss as a spiritual or physical need is presumed to have fallen prey to this “weakened moral sensibility.”18 Connecting body size with spiritual health doesn’t “just” hurt individual bodies; it also hurts the entire body of Christ. When we are conditioned to view a body type as good or bad and then assign moral and spiritual judgments upon a person because of how he or she interacts with that “bad” body, then we create divisions, judgment, and value systems within a congregation that are not based on biblical norms. This leads to feeling justified in excluding “bad bodies” from Christian service—especially public or leadership positions. This may be a subconscious thought on the part of boards and committees who choose pastors and other leaders within the church, or it could be explicitly stated in the job descriptions in the name of a healthy body and spirit.

Gluttony is about motivations, desire, and allegiance; it is not about body size.

Beauty and effectiveness In my teenage years I prayed with a genuine heart to be thinner so that I would be more socially acceptable and therefore more people would listen to me when I talked about God. There was a connection in my head between attractiveness and effectiveness, and conversations I have had with others over the years confirm that I am not the only one who felt that my weight hindered my witness because of a belief that Christians should “look good.” When we are trying to be more spiritual about our weight-loss dreams, we may say that it’s not about looking good so much as being careful to avoid the characteristics of laziness, ignorance, or unrestraint and thereby misrepresent God. An example of explicit weight bias is found in the Southern Baptist International Mission Board (IMB), which has specific weight restrictions in place for anyone wishing to be appointed as a missionary though their agency. A page of the information packet on the Master of Divinity in Missions with an emphasis in International Church Planting from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary features the prominent red title “WEIGHT CAUTION MEMO” (yes, it’s

all caps), which states: “Health is an important component of a successful missionary experience. It is our desire to honor God in this area. We want you to take a moment to assess your current health and, in particular, your weight.”19 This is followed by a chart detailing an acceptable weight limit for men and women based on the body-mass index scale. Having spent the first 25 years of my life in an SBC church with a strong international missions focus, I had this knowledge ever-present in my mind. I knew that if I wanted to stay in that denomination there was no way that I could serve overseas. This is an example of where a church organization has fallen prey to faulty science and cultural norms about body size.

Some will point out that the Bible does use “beauty” as a descriptor of women and men.20 But we must be careful not to make physical beauty a character trait or to understand the beauty of the biblical characters to mean that they resembled the images on modern magazine covers. Just as “fat” is a descriptor of a body that carries cultural significance but not divine value, so is “beauty.” Furthermore, numerous verses tell us that “beauty is vanity,”21 that we should not focus on outward beauty,22 and that while humans may judge by appearance God judges based on the heart.23 Beauty is created by God and is something we notice aesthetically, but there are no biblical directives to meet a culturally constructed idea of beauty.

In some Christian environments, it is seen as a mark of godly favor for men to marry a beautiful woman. Rather than combat the cultural norms about physical beauty and its value, the church encourages them. Women in the church are encouraged to share about their body dissatisfaction with each other as long as they are encouraging each other to “work on it” in order to be pleasing to both God and a mate (or potential mate).24 The struggle with weight (and the quest for beauty or health) becomes the “common denominator” among Christians, as almost everyone can relate to feeling “less than” and feeling the need to “work on” some body part in the name of denouncing idols of food or laziness.

Accepting fat bodies In the devotional diet group studied by Gerber, group members grappled with what it might mean that God created a variety of sizes. The women seemed to accept that perhaps it was possible that there was an intentional variety in human bodies, yet for their own selves they concluded that if God created fat it was in order to teach discipline and the benefit of struggle. For the women in the group, fat was neither a blessing nor a part of the body to accept. Given the lack of scriptural support for anti-fatness, it is safe to conclude that these strong formational ideals are largely the result of a culture and society that use bodies for profit.

A costly battle is being fought on the bodies of fat people, and the church must revise the way health and size are viewed and discussed within congregations. O.C. Edwards notes that “fat people are often regarded by others and come to regard themselves as non-people. Their size becomes the most important fact of their existence…they are no longer seen to be created by God the Father in [God’s] own image, redeemed by God the Son, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit for sanctification. They do not receive the reverence that all human beings are entitled to.”25 Changing the way the church interacts with fat people requires a critique of the cultural norms. Churches need to cross diet devotionals off their schedule. Pastors need to erase sermon illustrations that end with something like “or you’ll end up fat and lazy!” Youth groups and women’s ministries especially need to combat the cultural ideals of bodies and beauty. Governing church bodies need to erase explicit size requirements and ask themselves if they are

making subconscious size judgments. Individual Christians of all sizes need to refuse to participate in body hate and shame. Congregants need to see people of every size, appearance, and ability living life, and arm flab should be free to jiggle as hands wave in praise.

Nicole Morgan is an MTS student at Palmer Theological Seminary, studying Christian Faith and Public Policy. She finds great joy in helping others let go of body shame and instead embrace a bodily frame that God so wonderfully made.

(Editor’s note: You will find the endnotes for this article at PRISMmagazine. org/endnotes.)

(Note: Lifestyle choices, nutrition options, socio-economic factors, genetics, and a host of other issues can cause poor health regardless of size. Bodies of a wide range of sizes can be healthy based on these same factors. Studies have shown 26 that anti-fat bias among doctors is common. The author encourages people to make holistic healthcare a part of his or her life, seek second opinions, and advocate wisely for their health and well being.)

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“That You May Prosper in All Things”

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THE BANKRUPT THEOLOGY OF THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL BY SHAYNA L. LEAR “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2). This greeting to John's friend Gaius has been a foundational scripture for preachers of the prosperity gospel. According to prosperity teaching, it justifies the belief that God wants us to prosper both in our health and our personal economy and will reward us with these things according to our faith. To prosperity preachers, poverty is both a curse and a sign of weak faith.

To many of us, equating financial success with faith sounds absurd or, at the very least, simplistic.

Yet millions of believers around the world hear and subscribe to this belief in some way. The prosperity message is disseminated via churches, television, internet, iTunes, and bookstores. Regardless of the language or medium that delivers it, the message is the same: “God wants you to be healthy and rich.

And all you need to do to get there is remain faithful to the commands of the Lord—especially in giving financially.”

Prosperity teachings are, in fact, Christianized versions of the New Thought Movement, which has its roots in the 19th century.1 New Thought teachings encouraged adherents to see their external circumstances as manifestations of their thoughts.

New Thought teachers widely publicized their teachings in print, yielding authors such as Napoleon Hill, who wrote the still-popular Think and Grow Rich in 1937.

In 1954 Kenneth Hagin, known as the father of the modern prosperity movement, began preaching on how the faithful should handle money. “Don’t pray about money,” he said. “Claim it.”2 In 1974, he founded the RHEMA Bible Training College for those interested in learning the biblical path to a life of faith and prosperity. Since its inception, RHEMA has graduated 60,000 students worldwide, and its alumni preach, teach, and serve the message of “faith” and the power of the “spoken word” of God. Hagin and RHEMA represent just one segment of the prosperity gospel movement. Other early influencers include Asa A. Allen, E.W. Kenyon, and Oral Roberts. Each founded training schools that cumulatively send hundreds of thousands of students out to heal, teach, and preach prosperity as they know it.

Today, the number of adherents to the prosperity gospel is hard to calculate with any precision.

Although they may not attend or affiliate with a known prosperity gospel ministry, many Christians in various denominations may believe some of its tenets. While 17 percent of all American Christians openly identify with the movement, “two-thirds of all Christian believers are convinced that God, ultimately, wants them to prosper.”3 DOUBLE STANDARD The most common seeker of the prosperity message in the United States is older, African American, less educated (associates level degree or less), and evangelical (or born-again).4 Yet the prosperity gospel has also become an export of America to the world. According to John Piper, “This distorted gospel is one of the largest and most tragic exports that America takes to the two-thirds world, especially Africa.”5 In communities where the prosperity gospel is accepted, we will find that the communities are often the marginalized of society. These groups seek out churches that proclaim a message of hope for life in this world that manifests in the form of material prosperity.

The pastors who preach these messages present themselves as the embodiment of the success of their “system.” They often own private jets, drive expensive cars, wear expensive clothing, live in palatial mansions, and house their ministries in multi-million-dollar facilities. While their congregations rarely reflect such outward appearances of wealth, it is the contributions of their congregants and “partners” that build these ministers’ lifestyles.

When we examine the incomes of the prosperity gospel preachers, we find income disparities similar to the secular corporate world. Fulton County, Ga., home to the ministry of Creflo Dollar, reported an average income of $62,682 in their 2008 census. Dollar’s salary, benefits, and other compensation from the ministry was $3,120,000, almost 50 times the average income of the people he serves in Fulton County.

Median household income in Los Angeles County, Calif., the home of Frederick K. C. Price’s Ever Increasing Faith Ministry, is $55,452. Price’s salary, benefits and other compensation from the ministry was recently reported as $3,250,000—58 times that of the median income of his immediate community.6 One might argue that these ministries serve people all around the world and not just in their immediate community. However, when we consider that the majority of the world lives on less than $2 per day, or $730 per year, we see an even greater disparity between what these pastors earn and the median income of their overseas adherents.

While earning a great deal of money in and of itself is neither sinful nor unethical, how that money is earned certainly can be. If it is earned through offerings elicited by unfounded promises from a vulnerable population, purveyors of deceit will have to deal with the divine wrath that is promised to “sons of disobedience” (Eph. 5:6). Not being willing to walk away from the money is also a problem. Jesus did not condemn the rich young ruler for having accumulated wealth; he simply said that if the young man wanted to follow him into eternal life, he needed to give it up (Mark 10:17-22). Preachers of the prosperity gospel cannot release their earnings, for to do so would be to call their own theology a lie. After all,

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False Teachers

BY SHAI LINNE Special dedication to my brothers and sisters on the great continent of Africa, to Saints in Malawi, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe. Don’t be deceived by what America is sending y’all, man.

Let me begin, while there is still ink left in my pen.

I’m set to contend for Truth you can bet will offend.

Deception within the church, man, who’s letting them in?

We talked about this years ago, let’s address it again.

And I ain’t really trying to start beef, But some who claim to be part of his sheep got some sharp teeth (they’re wolves).

You cast at me when you criticize them, But Jesus told us (Matthew 7:16) we can recognize them!

And God forbid that for the love of some fans I keep quiet and watch them die with their blood on my hands!

So there’s nothing left for me to do except to speak to you In the spirit of Jude 3 and 2nd Peter 2.

And I know that some would label me a Pharisee Because today the only heresy is saying that there’s heresy: “How dare they be specific and drop some clarity On the popularity of the gospel of prosperity?”

Turn off TBN, that channel is overrated.

The pastors speak bogus statements, financially motivated.

It’s kind of like a pyramid scheme: Visualize heretics Christianizing the American dream.

It’s foul and deceitful, they’re lying to people,

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Teaching that camels squeeze through the eye of a needle!

Ungodly and wicked, ask yourself how can they not be convicted, Treating Jesus like a lottery ticket.

And you’re thinking they’re not the dangerous type Because some of their statements are right.

Peep the Bible, it’s in 1 Timothy 6:9-10.

It talks about how the desire for riches Has left many souls on fire and stitches, mired in ditches.

Tell me, who would teach you to pursue as a goal The very thing that the Bible said will ruin your soul, huh?

Yet they’re encouraging the love of money.

To make it worse, they’ve exported this garbage into other countries!

The Gospel is: He came to redeem us from sin.

And that is the message forever I’ll yell: If you’re living your best life now you’re heading for hell!

Joel Osteen—false teacher!

Creflo Dollar is a false teacher!

Benny Hinn is a false teacher!

I know they’re popular, but don’t let them deceive ya!

TD Jakes is a false teacher!

Joyce Meyer is a false teacher!

Paula White is a false teacher!

Use your discernment: Let the Bible lead ya!

Fred Price is a false teacher!

Kenneth Copeland is a false teacher!

Robert Tilton is a false teacher!

I know they’re popular, but don’t let them deceive ya!

Eddie Long is a false teacher!

Juanita Bynum is a false teacher!

Paul Crouch is a false teacher!

Use your discernment: Let the Bible lead ya!

The song “Fal$e Teacher$” appears on Lyrical Theology, Pt. 1: Theology (Lamp Mode, 2013). Lyrics reproduced here by kind permission of the artist.

That only proves that Satan comes as an angel of light.

This teaching can’t be believed without a cost.

The lie is you can achieve a crown without a cross, And I hear it all the time when they speak on the block.

Even unbelievers are shocked how they’re fleecing the flock.

It should be obvious then, yet I’ll explain why it’s in.

My heart breaks even now as I’m rhyming.

You wanna know what all false teachers have in common?

It’s called selfism, the fastest growing religion.

They just dress it up and call it “Christian.”

Don’t be deceived by this funny biz.

If you come to Jesus for money, then he’s not your God—money is!

Jesus is not a means to an end.

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.” 2 Peter 2:1-3

they are rich because God wants them that way, and who are they to argue with God? FAULTY DOCTRINE Some people of undeniably deep faith live in equally deep poverty. Others contract diseases and die before their time. How can they and those who love them cope if they believe their misfortune is the result of a lack of faith?

The Scriptures paint a very different picture of the life of faith. Far from eliminating suffering, God offers us comfort in our suffering, so that we may then learn to comfort others (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). Prosperity gospel preachers do not teach people how to suffer in Christ but instead use the hope of deliverance from suffering to entice people to support them financially. But Christ taught us that no matter what we go through or how little we have, God will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).

And if we suffer with Christ, we will also reign with him (2 Timothy 2:12).

So in our difficult circumstances, we take comfort in knowing that God is there and gives us grace to endure it all.

The prosperity gospel peddles hope based on the material improvement of our present circumstances. It hawks the “American Dream”— the promise that hard work and faith will get you what you want (and deserve)—across the globe. This dream can be very attractive to anyone weary of making great effort but reaping little reward on this earth.

While hoping for things to improve for yourself and your family is natural, the prosperity gospel heretically makes material success the ultimate hope and end goal of life on earth. This is in direct contradiction to the Scriptures, which tell us not to store up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves steal (Matthew 6:19-21) but in heaven, where treasures have eternal value. They tell us that our hope is rooted in spiritual things (Romans 8; 2 Corinthians 4:18) and that the definition of eternal life has nothing to do with earthly possessions and everything to do with intimacy with God (John 17:3). Our hope is to seek God on earth and to one day see God face to face, to know that the God who created us is faithful to keep us (Philippians 1:6) and give us the grace to go through anything life can throw at us, without fear of death (John 14:27, 1 John 4:18, Psalm 23:4, Psalm 112:7). The goal of human life is not to own a mansion or a jet or a million dollars. As the Westminster Catechism puts it, based on numerous Scripture passages, the chief end of humanity is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever.

But we are flesh and blood. At our most vulnerable places in life, we naturally seek relief. And if we are ever to know the true comfort, peace, and joy of God, we also have to be honest about what we truly desire.

Those used to being on the bottom rung of society want to move up the ladder. Those used to struggling to make ends meet want to live in financial abundance. Those suffering from chronic illness want to be healed.

Those desires are natural. Yet when we wrap our desires in a cloak of Bible verses in order to justify our own efforts to satisfy them, we subject ourselves to deception. God could have invited us up to heaven but instead descended to earth to meet us where we are. Let us seek out this God who promises to be with us in our vulnerability and to protect us from the dangers of seeking relief on our own. In the midst of our struggles, when we fully acknowledge God’s presence in our lives, we discover true faith—the kind of faith that doesn’t need money to prove itself, the kind of faith that doesn’t need to be healed to remain steadfast. Jesus followers who live out that type of faith are the world’s greatest witnesses.

We need churches built on that kind of faith. These churches will likely be small, both in membership and in budget. But look what Jesus did with just 11 motley friends and a few fringe folks. Look at how he praised the tiny mustard seed and urged us to be grains of salt rather than mountains! As the apostle Paul so beautifully expressed it, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty” (1 Cor. 1:27).

SET APART FOR THE GOSPEL The prosperity gospel has distressing implications for justice work. When financial success is equated with good, oppressive systems and corrupt institutions are let off the hook—as long as they keep producing wealth.

Victims are blamed for their poverty, enslavement, or sickness; after all, if they had enough faith they wouldn’t be poor, enslaved, or sick.

Our Savior didn’t let institutions off the hook. He turned over the tables of the temple moneychangers (John 2) and reprimanded the hypocritical religious leaders who took advantage of the people they were supposed to be shepherding (Matthew 23).

While the Jews wanted relief from Roman oppression, Jesus called them to freedom through following him. The authority of Rome would not have had the same impact had the Jews lived distinctively. When the children of Light function much like those in spiritual darkness, we validate their system. Prosperity churches often operate much like oppressive corporations. If we have a desire to overturn the tables of the broader society, we have to start with our own structures first. We may speak prophetically to the powers that be in our country about the injustices they inflict upon our communities, but when our churches look just like them, our witness is pretty flimsy. Like the apostle Paul, we are called to be servants of Christ Jesus, “set apart for the gospel of God” (Rom. 1:1).

The church must stop lying to people in order to promote the success of the few. The American church must stop exporting the prosperity gospel to even more vulnerable populations abroad. Like King Belshazzar of Babylon, the purveyors of the prosperity gospel have not humbled their hearts, they “have praised the gods of silver and gold,” they “have been weighed in the balances and found wanting” (Dan. 5:22-27).

(Editor’s note: You will find the endnotes for this article at PRISMmagazine. org/endnotes.)

Shayna L. Lear is a financial planner and financial literacy educator in Philadelphia, Pa. She assists with the Urban Affairs Coalition and the City of Philadelphia’s Anti-Predatory Lending Initiative, helping low- to moderateincome families find suitable home repair loans. Her book, Money on Purpose (Judson Press, 2012), gives insight into how to live a financially balanced life.

Buscando la Liberación para Latino/as en una Iglesia que Predica el Evangelio de la Prosperidad: Un caso práctico por Arlene M. Sanchez-Walsh

The following text is a case study. Jesus Es Amor is a storefront church in La Puente, Calif., led by prosperity gospel pastor Luis Chacón. You’ll find the English translation of this article at PRISMmagazine.org/looking-for-latinoa-liberation.

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l empezar a estudiar el efecto del evangelio de la prosperidad entre distintos grupos étnicos, quise ver si la promesa de éxito económico fuera suficiente para convencer a adherentes de que Dios quería que fueran ricos, y por eso, que los que se quedaran en pobreza estén así por su propia culpa.

Una de las iglesias que estudié fue Jesus Es Amor, una congregación afiliada con Palabra de Fe, la subcultura pentecostés empezado en Ft. Worth, Tejas por Kenneth C. Copeland. Luis Chacón, inmigrante ecuatoriano y ex-traductor de Copeland, es su pastor. Utiliza su autoridad religiosa para animar a la iglesia (y a sus cien miembros) a adherir a los principios de Palabra de Fe, entre ellos los de “reclamar la victoria,” “creer que los problemas ya se superaron,” y creer que “ya viene la prosperidad” - principios que no siempre son evidentes en la vida cotidiana.

La autoridad religiosa de Chacón consiste en el poder de su testimonio personal, su poderosa predicación, y su empeño en validar a la congregación y sus experiencias como latino/as y inmigrantes. Su testimonio personal de haber superado adicción a las drogas, miembresia en una pandilla, y encarcelación es poderoso, y lo utiliza para comprobar que la fe tiene poder de cambiar las circunstancias. No tiene educación teológica formal, ni lo desea. Ha escogido quedarse en una iglesia hispanohablante, aunque facilmente podría cambiar a una iglesia bilingüe o de habla inglesa. Su misión personal consiste en alcanzar a inmigrantes latino/as por su testimonio, estilo de predicación, y conocimiento a las culturas hispanas.

Iglesia Jesus Es Amor se reune en un centro comercial por una calle bien

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transitada en la ciudad de La Puente, California. Se ubica cerca de una iglesia pastoreada por una latina inmigrante, contra quien, según Chacón, Jesús Es Amor esta en competición. Al parecer, en este “mercado religioso,” Chacón tiene la ventaja, pero no por mucho. El santuario tiene un púlpito y una área pequeña para adoración ; atrás, hay unos cuartos para el cuidado de niños, y un espacio en donde las mujeres preparan el almuerzo. Las mujeres juegan un papel importante para la iglesia. Forman la mayor parte de la congregación, cocinan los almuerzos, y manejan la gran mayoría de los ministerios.

Llegué antes del culto para entrevistar a dos mujeres de distintas circunstancias económicas, para ver como las enseñanzas de Palabra de Fe se las han afectado. Una era viuda de un comerciante exitoso, cuyo muerte la dejó en control de un gran negocio. La otra era refugiada salvadoreña quien mismo había visto los efectos horribles de la guerra civil durante los años 70 y 80.

Después de inmigrar a los EEUU, trabajaba lavando trastes en un restaurante, y había experimentado la vida ardua de inmigrante, criando sola a sus hijos, y enfrentando a los efectos de trauma y depresión sin ni los beneficios de seguro medico.

Las dos mujeres creían en la verdad de las enseñanzas de Palabra de Fe. La viuda comentó que su aptitud de manejar el negocio se había aumentado signíficamente después de que las empezó a seguir, y por eso había podido continuar el negocio después de la muerte de su esposo. La salvadoreña dijo que se había sanado de su depresión, y mencionó a su promoción de lavatrastes a encargada de la restaurante como ejemplo de la vida victoriosa de la cual siempre predica el pastor Chacón.

Como la mayoría de la gente que entrevisté, las dos mujeres quieren mucho a su pastor. Le creen un hombre piadoso, quien ama a su familia, y acreditan su predicación sencilla y apasionada con haber ayudado a cambiar sus vidas. Ambas contribuyen su tiempo generosamente para la iglesia, y la

pentecostalismo a su lógica conclusión.

“Si un virus o una infección infecte a mis manos, “ predico, “se morirá en el nombre de Jesucristo.” Chacon burla de los escépticos que le tachan a fanático. “Antes, uds. mismos lo creían,” les reprima, “pero ahora se les haya olvidado.” La fe hay que demonstrarselo. Para Chacón, no bastaba convertirse en pentecostés; para el la revelación especial de la Palabra de Dios, si obtenido por una fe sencilla, contiene los meros tesoros del cielo.

“Hay que creer con el corazón y hablar con la boca del futuro, de lo que quieren para mañana, en vez de concentrar en el pasado,” predico. De hecho, los adherentes de Palabra de Fe admiten francamente que están creando una realidad alternativa que todavía no existe. Sin embargo, se les anima mantener el “espacio imaginado” de esta realidad, para que allí Dios puede derramar todas las abundancias y bendiciones con que sueñan ellos. Para Chacón, el valor y la sabiduría de esas enseñanzas deben de ser especialmente evidentes para los latinos, como proveen una manera de salir de la pobreza. Convencido del poder de Palabra de Fe para aleviar la pobreza de su comunidad, Chacón se invirtió en una estación de television hispanohablante, que transmite a 15 ciudades estadounidenses. “Quiero poder predicar el evangelio completo a los latinos. Que exposicion, aprender juntos como latinos que pueden ser libres, que pueden alcanzar la prosperidad.”

Con su mensaje, Chacón ha creado una comunidad imaginaria, donde las palabras tienen el poder de sanar, crear nuevas realidades, y matar demonios (reales u imaginados). Pero también creó a Jesus Es Amor como un “refugio en el mundo desalmado” que enfrenta a los inmigrantes latino/as, y que les ha tachado a “criminales.” Chacón explícitamente reclama que dentro de la predicación de Palabra de Fe quedan las semillas de liberación para los latinos.

Puede ser que su perspectiva sea tan individualista que le falta una visión más comprensiva y comunal de la liberación. Pero dentro de este contexto, en que trato medico es escaso, y estabilidad económica ausente, el mensaje de Palabra de Fe puede ser muy subversivo. Sovacando la comunalidad de la liberacion, Palabra de Fe funciona dentro de este contexto específico, precisamente porque la gente la cree, y hacen sus propias definiciones teológicas de conceptos como liberación, libertad, y victoria.

Arlene M. Sánchez-Walsh es profesora de la historia eclesiastica y de la iglesia hispana en Azusa Pacific University en California, EEUU. Es autora de Latino Pentecostal Identity: Evangelical Faith, Self, and Society (Columbia University Press, 2003) y actualmente esta escribiendo un libro sobre el pentecostalismo estadounidense, además de una monografia sobre la relación entre la etnicidad y el evangelio de la prosperidad.

Taken from Coffee with Jesus by David Wilke. Copyright © 2013 by Radio Free Babylon.

Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515 (IVPress.com)

negociante además contribuye su diezmo.

Las mujeres son el “motor económico” de la iglesia. Se les sugieren preparar comida, transportarla, y ayudar a venderla en varios eventos comunitarios por el sur de California. Esto se considera su forma de ofrecer el diezmo, dado que la situación económica muchas veces se las previene darlo en forma de dinero. Para salvar la distancia entre esta falta de recursos y el mandamiento espiritual de creer en la prosperidad, el pastor utiliza específicos testimonios de victoria para mantener la credebilidad de su mensaje. Como cualquier problema económico podría disminuir la fe y el ánimo de la congregación, Chacón les recuerda constantemente de que están en medio de una batalla espiritual entre lo bueno y lo malo, una batalla no imaginada, pero, mas bien, real. Así que, según Chacón, es esencial que mantengan la fe.

Después de la entrevista, asistí al culto, el cual fue animadísimo. Duró casi una hora entera, incluyendo oración, alabanza, la imposición de manos, el hablar en lenguas y el caer bajo la influencia del Espiritu Santo. Chacón, un culturista bien vestido, con bigote delgado y pompadour, tiene una presencia física imponente. Es predicador vivaz, aunque tiene el habito de repetir las palabras, y su mensaje, lo cual fue infundido por referencias a la situación política, duró mucho más que una hora.

La autoridad religiosa de Chacón se extiende por todos los aspectos de la vida comunitaria de la iglesia. Es orgulloso de ser un “guerrero cultural,” y reserva sus ataques mas energéticas para el tema de la homosexualidad.

Considera a la iglesia como uno de los últimos espacios donde los niños se quedan protegidos de su influencia. Describa la iglesia como un lugar donde la gente puede encontrar “una fuerza sobrenatural, una vacuna para tus hijos contra la homosexualidad, las drogas, el sexo, etc.” En otro culto, Chacón culpó a “los homosexuales, las lesbianas … Especialmente a los de la ACLU (Union Americana de Libertades Civiles), son unos homosexuales que no quieren que los niños oren en las escuelas.” Aunque a cierto nivel esas ideas ya forman una parte esencial de la ideología de los evangélicos conservadores, no queda claro la razón por la cual Chacón siente la necesidad de predicarlas con tanta frecuencia. Su congregación consiste en señoras viejitas y unos pocos hombres. La gran mayoría son indocumentados; así que no lo predica para influir sus votas.

Al iniciar su ministerio, Chacón primero aceptó las enseñanzas religiosas de la Iglesia del Evangelio Cuadrangular (Foursquare Church), luego cambió a otro grupo pentecostés llamado la Iglesia Alcance Victoria (Victory Outreach), y luego volvió a Foursquare. Ultimamente escogió a Palabra de Fe porque, en sus propias palabras, “a uno le da esperanza. Le hace soñar, y le mantiene vivo y animado.” Para Chacón, Palabra de Fe es una subcultura vibrante, auténtica, y atractiva del pentecostalismo, y un movimiento que lleva las suposiciones del

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CONSUME

It’s not all bad out there.

The Beautiful, Tortured Soul of Nneka Egbuna Have you ever wondered if God messes with our iPods? I do. It’s irrational, of course; God probably has other things to do. On the other hand, music is such a spiritual experience that the idea of encountering God among the playlists is not that far-fetched.

For example, I was recently in one of those funks—you know, that enduring cycle of blah that overtakes you for no apparent reason? For me, music is usually the remedy, but nothing—not even the old reliables—succeeded in resuscitating me. When David’s harp isn’t working to soothe your troubled Saul (sorry about that), you know something is very wrong.

Well, that’s where I was while I was driving home from work one day when a song “randomly” came on—a song that reminded me why God invented music. I didn’t know the particulars until later, but just so you know, the song was “Kangpe,” and the singer was the beautiful, genre-defying starlet Nneka Egbuna from Nigeria.

Here’s the thing: I didn’t know anything about Nneka or the song filling the crevices of my Subaru and my heart, because I swear—I swear—that I wasn’t the one who added it to my playlist. The Manager of the universe—but who is also the Lover of each of our souls—must have, because the song absolutely and thoroughly de-funkafied me. Thanks to the strength of Nneka’s passionate, world-music voice embedded in the combination beats of reggae, hip-hop, and electronica, and a brief sermonic interlude in the middle of the song by “the Canadian godfather of hip-hop,” Wesley Williams, I came storming back from the depths!

Immediately after arriving home, I sat down in front of my computer and researched all I could about this artist. Born to a Nigerian father and a German

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mother, Nneka is the product of two cultures, as well as parental splitup. She grew up in Nigeria but then moved to Germany to study anthropology at Hamburg University. Her musical career began there, as she worked with famed hip-hop beat-maker DJ Farhot, and she could have stayed there for life. But internalizing the suffering of so many of her people in the impoverished and war-torn parts of Nigeria, she eventually succumbed to the ache in her soul and moved back to Nigeria as an act of solidarity.

Raised in a strict Christian home by her father and stepmother, she claims in one interview that to love God and neighbor aptly sums up what she’s about. However, in a later interview, she claims to have gone beyond the rigidity of the Christianity in which she was raised and has found affinity with much of the African traditional religions.

I ordered two of her CDs: her 2010 Concrete Jungle, a compilation of her Nigerian releases intended to test the potential US fan base, and her 2011 Soul is Heavy. Her background and her evolving faith are the stuff of her music, as she sings about Africa, poverty and wealth, war, political corruption, God, faith, and justice. Some of the most moving and powerful songs—the ones I can’t get out of my head—include “God of Mercy”—You carry me and make me strong. Oh God of mercy, I appreciate thee—and “My Home”—When they put me down, oh you know, you are my home, my beginning, my middle, my end. On some songs, such as the aforementioned “Kangpe” and “VIP” (Vagabond in Power), she sings in some kind of tribal English or pidgin Nigerian, if you wish, which makes them lyrically undecipherable. Nonetheless, they seep into your inner being and somehow make guttural sense.

Seamlessly weaving in and out of soul, pop, reggae, and hip-hop, a product of both first and third worlds, as well as of urban and rural environments, Nneka’s songs also swing between postmodern electronica and tribal roots music. Her eclecticism, sincere passion, and powerful message have earned her impressive accolades, such as Best African Act at the Music of Black Origins (MOBO) Awards in 2009 and an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman in 2010.

She has collaborated with the likes of Wesley Williams, Black Thought, Nas, and Damian Marley.

Nneka Egbuna is a beautiful soul. Wearing little or no make-up, often in plain baggy clothes on stage, and sporting a rebelliously large afro atop her petite frame, Seamlessly she eschews the glamour and hypersexualweaving in and ity of Hollywood stardom and demonstrates natural and inner beauty. Don’t get me out of soul, pop, wrong: She is not hard to look at! But her reggae, and hipappeal lies in her anti-sex appeal commithop, a product ments. of both first and She is also a tortured soul—in a third worlds, good way. Though miles apart musically as well as of from Mark Heard, I saw the same pain in her eyes that I did when the late, great Heard urban and rural environments, sang songs like “Worry Too Much” and “Another Good Lie.” Like Heard, Nneka seems Nneka’s songs genuinely disturbed when she sings of the also swing behardships and suffering of people. It is this tween postmodempathy that fuels her music. Not content ern electronica just to sing about it, she co-founded the ROPE Foundation, an arts community in- and tribal roots music. tended to help youth become conscious of

peace and justice issues. That’s surely one way to deal with the pain—start a foundation and do your part in changing the world.

There is much to celebrate in the passionate, righteous music that pulsates from this beautiful, tortured soul. Granted, my urging you to add Nneka’s songs to your playlists isn’t as glorious as God adding it for you. But once you do, you’ll have them forever there to lift you up as well as to spur you on to good works.

Without good music, Al Tizon would be found wandering the streets looking for a reason to live. He would just be going through the motions as co-president of Evangelicals for Social Action and Ronald J. Sider Associate Professor of Holistic Ministry at Eastern University’s Palmer Theological Seminary.

Life After Technology Consider key television series of the past decade. We wanted to know: Could we rebuild society on a deserted island? Lost. Will we pull together as a community or engage in voting each other off the island? Survivor. What happens if electricity fades? Revolution. Will we all be consumed by the rise of zombies? The Walking Dead. Clearly, we have lots of angst about where all this technology is headed. What is the telos of our electronic progress?

These pop-culture touchstones suggest that we may feel the need to turn back the clock, to stop our forward march. These shows are about starting over, getting back to the land, learning how to survive. They take us to the jungle, to deserted islands, far away from the maddening crowds. The resulting series were not about technology saving us but about learning to trust our instincts, to rebuild community from the ground up. They are about life after technology. It is slower, more primitive, scary but satisfying.

Craig Detweiler in iGods: How Technology Shapes our Spiritual and Social Lives (Brazos Press, 2013)

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TV = Terror Vaccine?

BY SARAH WITHROW KING I love television. I love the variety; I love that you can watch for 20 minutes or for two hours. I hate commercials, and I don’t want to order my life around watching a TV show, so I especially love services that let me watch what I want when I’m ready and minimize the commercial breaks. Allowed to watch only an hour a day while growing up, I have tried to make up for lost time by binge-watching The West Wing, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Downton Abbey, and Dr. Who. This fall, however, my love affair with TV has been a little…disappointing.

Some of the shows I’ve been invested in just don’t pack the same punch, but it’s more than that. On one of the rare evenings that I was flipping channels because my Hulu queue was empty, I was finally able to put my finger on it.

Within two or three minutes, I was besieged with multiple scenes of realistic torture. Now, I’m all third-way-of-Jesus-nonviolent and stuff, but I do love a good action movie, and the more over-the-top the better (think Expendables or The Transporter). But when did we start to show the kind of gruesome violence normally reserved for R-rated movies on the small screen during prime time? And why is it normalized to the point where even the most formulaic TV drama now includes stomach-churning scenes every other week?

I know that we’re at the tail end of a long social experiment in desensitization to violence. This isn’t new. What is new is my awareness of its disturbing effects even on a vegan pacifist like me. When the pixels on my TV show a prisoner being tortured by the US military, my brain processes that as entertainment—in spite of my knowing it to be otherwise. I see torture, violence, and death to real people, and while I “know” them to be terrible, my brain has learned to process these images as fantasy. And of course I’m not the only one. How can we understand the depth of someone’s suffering when our brains are being rewired not only to tolerate but also to anticipate and even enjoy—at one level or another (think rubbernecking on the highway)— these depictions? How can we respond with the full measure of love and empathy that God created us to bring to suffering?

I’m not turning off my TV, but I am questioning how the images I see there are shaping my response to world events. And the answers aren’t comfortable.

Sarah Withrow King is the deputy director of ESA.

Recommended iGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives

by Craig Detweiler Brazos Press We’re connected, we’re distracted, we’re addicted. Detweiler brings a theological eye to all of our clicking, scrolling, following, and trolling. Come along for a brisk ride across the peaks and valleys of our digital lives.

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Soil and Sacrament

The Reason for my Hope

by Fred Bahnson Simon & Schuster

by Billy Graham Thomas Nelson

reviewed by Courtney Rowland

reviewed by David Fuller

I feel most at home with a green pepper in one hand and a knife in the other. Give me a bag full of produce and I’ll happily get to work making dinner. But ask me to grow that produce? To plant and nurture it from the soil itself? Well, that’s when things get a little dicey.

I’ve dabbled in gardening, but when it comes to dirt I still feel completely out of my element. And that is exactly how I felt reading Fred Bahnson’s Soil and Sacrament: A Spiritual Memoir of Food and Faith.

The book introduces us to people who are discovering new life and community through the soil. From a meth-addict-turned-coffee-grinder to an orthodox Jew who teaches Bahnson how to pray when he pees, each story is told with humility and humor, pointing us to a new way of living in shalom with God, each other, and the land.

I realized many of the reasons Bahnson is drawn to the soil are the same reasons I am drawn to food. He discovers that gardening and eating with others has a way of “blurring those lines” between rich and poor, Jewish and Christian.

The garden humanizes and equalizes people, putting names and faces to what was once “illegal alien” or “poor folks.” In the gardens of Soil and Sacrament, it is not only plants that are nourished and protected but people as well.

Bahnson’s reflections are marked by a rich appreciation for the land’s connection to the Christian faith. The Israelites were a people of the land, and the Old Testament is filled with the stories of their wandering and returning to the land.

Amos envisions a land where the promises of God are fulfilled and the people of Israel “plant vineyards and gardens; they will eat their crops and drink their wine.”

In this land they will be “firmly planted…and never again be uprooted.”

As I read, I found myself longing for this sense of rootedness, not only to a group of people but to a place as well. Like Bahnson, I am restless for a sense of balance between work and family, community and solitude. I long for my relationship with food and the planet to be healthy and whole, to be a reflection of the good gifts God has given. Is there a way these things can all become sacred? Can our daily lives be so infused with God’s presence that even the act of using the bathroom becomes an opportunity to give thanks?

Bahnson’s book may not answer these questions, but it does offer ideas for exploring them and perhaps a way that we might discover the answer to our longing in the land.

Though the format of the book is at times difficult to follow, Soil and Sacrament’s lack of linear flow doesn’t hinder its stories from making their point. People across all faiths, cultures, countries. and circumstances are finding renewed purpose, fruitful community, and an energized faith through gardening.

Perhaps no one has shared the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as Billy Graham. He has spent his 70-year career traveling the world and speaking to packed churches and stadiums. As a young evangelical seminarian, I opened Graham’s newest book, The Reason for My Hope: Salvation, excited to learn from “America’s evangelist.” I grew up just as the Billy Graham era of mass crusades was coming to an end.

Graham’s was the powerful voice of salvation for the 20th century; I am a product of the 21st. I wanted to see how Graham understood salvation, and more than anything I wanted to get a better idea of what made Graham’s telling of the good news so compelling, so life-changing, for millions.

Unfortunately, to my surprise, and despite my best efforts, I was disappointed. First, Graham is a speaker, not a writer. His writing style is choppy; few chapters seem to develop a clear line of thought, and seemingly every one ends the same way his crusades did—with an invitation to “come just as you are” and invite Christ into your life.

Second, Graham in an evangelist, not a theologian. In seminary, I am steeped in the writings of Augustine, Luther, Barth, and Gutiérrez. These folks spend hundreds of thousands of words developing ideas that Graham merely asserts in one sentence. I found myself asking questions of Graham that he never intended to answer. This is because Graham is writing for a popular audience, not seminary students. I applaud him for writing to such an audience—more scholars and Christian leaders need to do so—but I am concerned that his simple message may lack theological substance.

For example, Graham looks forward to Christ’s return when “Christ will reign in righteousness. Disease will be eliminated. Death will be abolished. War will be eradicated. Nature will be transformed. Men, women, and children will live as life was originally designed, in fellowship with God and each other.” So do I! But Graham doesn’t say a word about salvation beginning in the here and now. His “not yet” kingdom of God completely overshadows any hint of a “now” kingdom.

Graham’s salvation is an otherworldly, future hope. But what about today? Did Jesus’ concern for meeting the physical needs of the poor and fighting against oppressive powers have anything to do with salvation? If Graham believes so, his book does not reveal it.

I wonder if my disappointment with the book centers on the real challenge for those charged with communicating the gospel. Today, too many Christian publishing houses churn out “fluff,” while university presses generate vast numbers of books that take even the most well-trained scholar days to plow through. The middle ground is popularization. At its best, popularization takes really solid theology—well-researched, carefully considered, applicable to real life—and communicates it in a message as clear and simple as Graham’s has been for the past 70 years. The challenge Christian leaders have today is to theologically inflate Graham’s message while “Graham-izing” complicated theological concepts. Unfortunately, I think The Reason for My Hope missed the mark.

Courtney Rowland is a food blogger and community organizer living in the heart of Columbus, Ohio. She loves her hubby, the Ohio State Buckeyes, crowded dinner tables, and Frank Sinatra. She's still trying to figure out how to love her neighbors well, but cookies seem like a good place to start. Check out her blog about food, justice, faith, and the pursuit of the perfect fried egg at Neighborfoodblog.com.

An MDiv/MBA student and pastoral intern at City Line Church in Philadelphia, Pa., David Fuller came to Jesus “just as he was” over 20 years ago. He and his wife, Whitney, and their son, Jaythan, look forward not only to life after death but also to life before death.

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Playing God

Cultivating Reality

by Andy Crouch InterVarsity Press

by Ragan Sutterfield Cascade (Wipf & Stock)

reviewed by Tim Høiland

reviewed by Rusty Pritchard

Lord Acton’s dictum about the link between power and corruption is well known. But the provocative claim made in Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power is that power is also a blessing. It’s a gift easily abused and in need of redemption, certainly, but a gift nonetheless.

Building on his earlier work, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling, Andy Crouch argues that at its best, power is creative—it makes something of the world for the good of all. This concept of creative power is rooted in the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28, in which God instructs Adam and Eve, his image bearers, to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”As we reflect on human history and as we deal honestly with the failures that so often characterize our own lives, it is apparent that we haven’t always “subdued the earth” in God-honoring and others-serving ways. Indeed, this is the dangerous nature of our God-given power. When twisted by sin, power becomes destructive. This is why we instinctually decry power as inevitably evil or why we do what we can to avoid it altogether. But if Crouch’s thesis is right—that power is a gift entrusted to us

by God for the common good—it would be wrong to eschew our power, even if such a thing were possible.

The title of the book comes from Jayakumar Christian, national director of World Vision India and author of God of the Empty-Handed. As Crouch tells the story, during a visit to India, Christian helped him to see that injustice is the direct result of “god-playing” in the lives of the poor. From malevolent slave owners at brick kilns to benevolent Western teenagers going to “save” slum dwellers on a two-week mission trip, god-playing is what happens when power is used to dehumanizing effect in the lives of God’s image bearers.

In a key insight that bears further reflection, Crouch makes the case that idolatry and injustice are inseparably linked because both mar the image of God in the lives of others and ourselves. Made to “play God” as beings imbued with culture-making “creative love,” we dishonor God and others when we use the power entrusted to us for selfish, destructive means. Christians of pietistic and activist persuasions especially—prone as we are, at times, to lopsided emphases—would do well to ponder the interrelatedness of idolatry and injustice.

Crouch also urges us to take the power of institutions seriously. It is not enough to consider power in merely individual terms; after all, power is most insidious and destructive at an institutional level. But it’s also through healthy institutions that injustices can most thoroughly and sustainably be corrected. Activists may not be known as individualists, but many have strong anti-institutional biases—preferring grassroots movements. Though movements are valid in their own right, we would do well to consider how we can contribute to the creative power of well-ordered institutions.

In the end, power is for human flourishing, and it takes the shape of the cross. As Crouch says, “. . . we are meant to pour out our power fearlessly, spend our privilege recklessly, and leave our status in the dust of our headlong pursuit of love,” like Christ, who loved us and gave himself up for us. That is our calling.

That is what it means to play God in the truest sense.

Ragan Sutterfield’s new book, Cultivating Reality: How the Soil Might Save Us, challenges readers to think relentlessly about the activities we implicitly commission when we buy food and dispose of waste. In so doing, the farmer-scholar offers his theological manifesto for Christian agrarianism. At the core of Christian agrarianism is a faith grounded in reality that is both spiritual and material. It invites us to consider the material world in the light of the Scriptures, starting with our own persons and what we consume and extending out to our communities. Sutterfield starts with farming, but like all agrarians he draws out lessons that apply even to our harried urban existence and our socially networked selves.

The author isn’t in the business of popularizing science. He’s in the business of taking us behind the scenes of things we would prefer to keep hidden. He lifts the toilet lid and bids us confront the subject of taboos and social proscriptions that keep us from talking about soil formation. He asks why some forms of knowledge are forbidden and why some practices are secret.

He extols localism and sustainable agriculture not just because they have good results but also because they are visible to the public.

Tim Høiland is a writer, editor, and content strategist at changegoat and is codirector of communications for Lemonade International. Follow him on Twitter @ tjhoiland.

A natural resource economist, Rusty Pritchard is the CEO of Flourish (FlourishOnline.org), a ministry that equips Christians to engage the world of environmental science and action.

The ideal of the agrarian economy is a farmers’ market where farmers and customers are in close communication….Questions are encouraged, and openness and transparency are ideal. “How are animals slaughtered?” is answered with “Come see.” “How are crops grown?” is answered with “Come help.”

When we live our lives through proxy, as participants in modern market economies largely do, it is our responsibility to uncover the violence we commission. Like Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma), he writes of the idea of slaughterhouses with glass walls, letting meat eaters in on the secrets of the provision of meat.

Still, knowing may not result in caring, and Sutterfield spends several chapters showing us the virtues of living within limits, the tensions in managing commonwealths, the tragedies of unintended damage to places we love, the recovery of time and season, but the rhythm of his writing is the same—going from land to Scripture to reason to lifestyle and back again.

This could have been a very big book. The slim-but-dense volume reveals wide reading and experience, but more than that it betrays the rigorous integration that is occurring in Sutterfield’s mind. The work has a few errors and oversimplifications that a fact-checker might have caught (he bashes Monsanto for the wrong reasons), and he insists on using a few words in idiosyncratic ways that a good editor might have challenged (praising “idleness” instead of “rest,” interpreting “stewardship” too narrowly). He interprets a few scriptures in ways that will irk Bible scholars. These might be fixed one day when he writes his magnum opus or publishes his collected essays. But we can be glad that he didn’t make us wait. This is a book that will merit multiple re-readings.

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I GET THE OVERSTUFFED ARMCHAIR BY THE FIREPLACE! Grab a latte and curl up with these new books.

For Love of Animals: Christian Ethics, Consistent Action

by Charles Camosy Franciscan Media A highly readable overview of Catholic theology and a challenge to Jesus-followers to take seriously the moral status of animals. Camosy argues that a consistent pro-life ethic must also include our nonhuman animal neighbors.

Offering Hospitality: Questioning Christian Approaches to War

by Caron E. Gentry University of Notre Dame Press Caron argues for an innovative approach to peacemaking—incorporating the practice of hospitality into the “war as a last resort” criteria for just war. Caron brings a lens of feminism and a theology of the marginalized to bear against popular political theologies that rely on a state-centric view of the world. A dense and interesting read.

Trembling Love: Fear, Freedom, & the God Who Is for Us

by Casey Hobbs Wipf & Stock “Only a God who is to be feared above all else could possibly handle our fear of rejection, failure, and abandonment.” This book is tailored to a cynical, post-church generation, inviting people of all ages to experience both the trepidation of the Prodigal Son and the overwhelming love of the rejoicing Father.

Who’s making the popcorn?

Movies we think you should watch, too.

Chosen from Shared Hope International This 20-minute documentary tells the stories of two American teenage girls, an 18-year-old honor student and cheerleader and a 13-year-old church youth group member. Targeted by pimps, they were manipulated and exploited. This film shows how easy it is to be “chosen” by predators. The discussion guide will help educate the community about human trafficking.

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Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

by Nadia Bolz-Webber Jericho Books Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Webber demonstrates humility, humor, and a deep love of Jesus in this brief, highly readable memoir that will challenge the perception of so-called liberal Christians as being wishy-washy on the gospel.

Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of Women

by Sarah Bessey Simon & Schuster Sarah Bessey doesn’t want women to have a seat at “the table,” she wants to toss the table out the window and build an altar out of its splinters. Pointing out that the roots of the dreaded “f” word are in Christian commitments to freedom and healthy communities, Bessey urges the church to seek “grace and kindness, gentleness and love in our hearts, especially for the ones who we believe are profoundly wrong.” If you read this book, please also read Ada Maria Asasi Diaz, Delores Williams, and other women of color who might have a different take on women’s relationship to power.

See more new books at PRISMmagazine.org/books-winter.

It’s a Girl directed by Evan Grae Davis Shadowline Films

Lost Angels directed by Thomas Napper Cinema Libre

The filmmakers call these the “three deadliest words in the world,” since girls are killed, aborted, and abandoned in many parts of the world simply because they are female.

With as many as 200 million girls missing from the world today, “gendercide” is a major justice issue with tremendous repercussions. Beautifully filmed on location in India and China, It’s a Girl asks why so little is being done to save girls and women. Don’t miss this one. Go to ItsaGirlmovie.com.

This unflinching documentary takes viewers on a 75-minute tour of the streets and souls of LA’s Skid Row. Viewed through the eyes of eight remarkable residents who call it home, Skid Row is revealed as a desperate but complex place that is being threatened by gentrification and the criminalization of homeless people. Find it at SkidRowIsMyHome.com

Ragamuffin directed by David Schultz Color Green Films As director David Schultz puts it, “If you have an affinity for outrageous grace, hammered dulcimer, or the scandal of God’s love…If you appreciate indie films, bare feet, white T-shirts, affronts to religious people, or good art…If you have a love for the faith, music, or life of Rich Mullins…” then you’ll want to see this movie about a beloved man, musician, and follower of Jesus. It’s on tour across the country January 9-March 31. Learn more at RagamuffintheMovie.com.

Women Make Movies is a terrific multicultural, nonprofit media arts organization that facilitates the production, promotion, distribution and exhibition of independent films by and about women. They have three recent films out that we recommend: Salma tells the remarkable story of a Muslim girl in an Indian village who was forbidden to study and forced to marry at 13 but finds salvation and freedom through writing. The Mosuo Sisters documents two Chinese sisters and highlights the realities of women’s lives and China’s vast cultural and economic divides. Forbidden Voices follows world-famous female bloggers Yoani Sánchez, Zeng Jinyan, and Farnaz Seifi, unafraid of the dictatorial regimes in Cuba, China, and Iran that try to suppress their voices.

Host a feminist film night at your church or home!

PROTESTIMONY

Immigration Reform & Beyond

(Image: Lance Page / truthout; Adapted:aggrrrh! / Flickr)

M

ore than 1.5 million people have been deported in the last five years alone. More than 200,000 UScitizen children have endured the deportation of their parent. Family members are forced by our inefficient visa system to wait up to 24 years to be reunited. Families and communities have been destroyed, all in the name of stubbornly enforcing an antiquated and unjust immigration system.

So why hasn’t Congress fixed this broken immigration system that destroys lives, hinders our economic growth, and insults the God-given dignity of each person? The reasons are plentiful: politics, racism, fear of the unknown. Not to mention gerrymandering districts, the extreme absence of empathy, and a cowardly conspiracy to keep low-wage workers subject to exploitative employers.

Communities of faith across the country have taken action to address many of these problems. Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Unitarian Universalists—the list goes on—are advocating for immigration reform that will reunite families and create a path to citizenship for our undocumented community members. Pastors and lay leaders have met with members of Congress; hosted prayer vigils; started programs to provide English classes, im-

Following Jesus in the public square.

migration legal services, citizenship classes; and educated their communities about the need for immigration reform.

Thus far it hasn’t been enough. We’ll continue to push, but the more we wait for justice the more it seems we have the wrong people in Congress to make this work.

In the House of Representatives, there are members who object to creating a path to citizenship because immigrants would “leave the farm.” They recognize the poor working conditions but are either in the pockets of those exploiting immigrants for profit or choose to scapegoat immigrants for political gain. Some House members have compared immigrants to animals, insects, and disease. Others are less vitriolic but essentially clueless as to the realities faced by immigrants in this country.

In meeting with members like this, I’m reminded of this powerful verse: “Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right...” (Isa. 10:1-2a).

As Christians, we are called to “speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Prov. 31:8-9). And as members of a democracy, civic engagement is our patriotic duty. Since this country was founded, American citizens have sought to make this country better by electing more responsive politicians who will help us as a nation progress. By design, our political system demands our participation.

However, we as people of faith all too often fall silent during election season. This should be a key time for us to show our political power and advance social justice. We need to run for office, canvass and make phone calls, volunteer as poll workers, and host and participate in town

hall meetings to call attention to the need for immigration reform. We can write letters to local newspapers and help newly naturalized immigrants register to vote and get to their polling locations on Election Day. For immigration reform and for every justice movement, it is essential that faith voices are heard during election seasons. Shoe leather on the campaign trail from people of faith who call for immigration reform translates into candidates who are committed to immigration reform when they win that congressional seat.

Powerful leadership on civic engagement has already been demonstrated by the Mi Familia Vota campaign, the National Council of La Raza, and others that elevate the growing electoral power of the immigrant community. The increasing bipartisan support for reform is due in large part to the powerful civic engagement work that immigrants’ rights organizations and the labor movement facilitated in 2012 and continue to move forward.

Although as 501(c)3s, congregations and nonprofit organizations should never endorse candidates or parties, it is our civic and religious duty to engage in the electoral process to send a clear message that we will hold our policymakers accountable to passing real immigration reform.

Resources can be found at InterfaithImmigration.org/resources/toolkits. When people of faith actively engage in elections, we will build true political power to win immigration reform and create a new kind of politics on all justice issues, lifting up the poor, the widow, the hungry, the imprisoned, the stranger, the outcast.

Members on both sides of the aisle have indicated that there could be a vote on immigration legislation soon. That will be predicated on the electoral pressure they feel from the faith community and beyond. This election season, we have an opportunity and a responsibility, both as Christians and as Americans, to show that people of faith are getting involved in elections this year, and will be paying close attention to how the immigration debate goes and how justice issues are decided in the future. Let’s meet that call.

As associate director for Immigration and Refugee Policy with Church World Service, Jen Smyers advocates for immigration reform that creates a path to citizenship.

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On Christ the Solid Rock We Stand?

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“A world at peace…That dream has not yet come, it will not come true soon, but if it ever does come true, it will be brought into being by American armed might, and defended by American might.

America’s vocation is not an imperial vocation… it is a vocation that has made us, at our best moments, the hope of the world.”

- Richard Perle & David Frum, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror (Ballantine, 2004) The treasured lyrics of 19th-century pastor Edward Mote declare, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus’ name.” Sung to this day with great emotion in American church pews, this great hymn is unequivocal in its message: There is no hope apart from Jesus Christ. Echoed in countless classic hymns and modern praise choruses, the assertion that Jesus is the sole source of hope and salvation is presumably what makes an evangelical an evangelical. Whether Fanny Crosby, Billy Graham, Bill Bright, Amy Grant, or Psalty the Talking Hymnal, we have always been in agreement: Jesus is the answer.

Clear about who our Savior is, we confidently unmask the counterfeits. The drug dealer promises deliverance in the form of crystal meth.

The mass media encourages young people to find fulfillment in sex. Corporate workaholics seek salvation in stress-producing ladder-climbing. We appropriately denounce such false gods, warning their worshipers that they are building their house on sinking sand. Destruction awaits those whose hope is placed in someone, or something, other than Jesus Christ. But what if the folks we care about are being told by neoconservatives that America—specifically the advance of American ideals backed by decisive use of American military force—is the hope of the world?

Belief in America as world savior is not, of course, original to present-day neoconservatives.

Such notions have fueled the political rhetoric of many former administrations, both Democratic and Republican, predating even the Puritan vision

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of America as the New Israel, a “city on a hill”; the grand, sweeping aspirations of Jeffersonian democracy; and the benevolent expansionist ideology of Manifest Destiny. But the most recent soliloquy of America in messianic terms came on the first anniversary of 9/11 when George W. Bush proclaimed in front of the Statue of Liberty that the American ideal is the “hope of all mankind,” adding that “the light shines in the darkness…and the darkness will not overcome it.” Those who know the Bible, which would presumably include us evangelicals, know that this phrase was lifted straight out of the first chapter of the gospel of John—only the Apostle John didn’t have America in mind when he spoke of the world’s illuminating hope.

Our tacit acceptance of such blatant mishandling of the Holy Scriptures raises a number of questions for us. Is it fitting for Christians to remain mum while our world is being told (particularly by one of our own) to put its hope in a nation-state

and the power of its myriad horses and chariots?

Might it be that we’ve come to adopt a sort of “mix-and-match” soteriology (the doctrine of salvation as effected by Jesus), bowing to different saviors for differing contexts? If so, are we content to possess a faith that the world can clearly see as duplicitous or, at best, confused? For if evangelicals are ambivalent about the source of our salvation, then what in the world is our message?

Craig Wong is the executive director of Grace Urban Ministries (GUM), a congregation-based nonprofit located in San Francisco’s Mission District .

(Editor’s note: This was originally published in the September/ October 2005 issue of PRISM and is reproduced here as part of our commitment to share material that is worth repeating.)

Celebrate!

See what raising your voice can do? Here are three causes that folks like you are fighting for and the results of their hard work. What kind of advocacy victories are you celebrating? Let us know and we'll announce it in an upcoming issue.

Yum Brands joins the move toward fair pay for farm workers In a bill to raise the annual wages of farm workers (particularly tomato farm workers), the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has recruited Yum Brands—the parent brand of Taco Bell—to its growing list of those agreeing to pass along an extra penny per pound to workers. This small but significant victory adds fuel to CIW’s Campaign for Fair Foods, which will continue until all wholesale tomato buyers agree to offer a (more) fair wage to agricultural workers. Learn more at CIW-online.org/Campaign-for-Fair-Food.

Judge finds against porn industry in Free Speech Coalition v. Holder The Free Speech Coalition, the lobbying arm of the porn industry, suffered a major blow in July in their challenge to the constitutionality of 18 USC 2257, which requires them to keep ageverification records that porn performers are 18 or above. Judge Michael Baylson, a federal judge serving on senior status for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, found in favor of the government and ruled 2257 to be constitutional under both the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment.

Dr. Gail Dines, an expert witness for the Department of Justice, argued that 2257 was vital for protecting children from being sexually exploited by the porn industry. Because “Teen Porn” is one of the top porn search terms in the world (500k searches daily), one of the largest porn genres on the internet, and the

female performers in this genre look especially youthful, Dines argued that 2257 is one of the key ways to prevent the porn industry from using minors as a way to build a consumer base for young-looking female performers. Anti-porn educators such as those rallied by Stop Porn Culture, the organization Dines cofounded, made sure their voices were heard in this debate, and thankfully common sense won the day.

Depression Quest UNICEF has reduced preventable deaths by almost 50 percent over last 20 years Every year, UNICEF reports on the progress made towards reducing the number of preventable deaths of children. In September, UNICEF announced that some 90 million children's lives have been saved over the past two decades—with the number of daily preventable deaths reduced from 35,000 to 18,000 This progress is remarkable—the under-5 child mortality rate has nearly been cut in half—but let’s not rest until zero children are denied the chance to lead a healthy, productive life!

The interactive fiction game Depression Quest grows empathy by inviting players to climb into the skin of someone living with depression. The goal is to get through a series of everyday life events while attempting to “manage your illness, relationships, job, and possible treatment.” The game “aims to show other sufferers of depression that they are not alone in their feelings and to illustrate to people who may not understand the illness the depths of what it can do to people.”

It's free to play, but you can also offer to pay any amount, a portion of which the developers will donate to iFred.org, a charity that takes on both depression and the stigma against it. Learn more at DepressionQuest.com.

Roy Choi’s flavorful journey Roy Choi was born in South Korea in 1970 but raised in Los Angeles. He tells his tale of being an immigrant misfit (embarrassed by the Korean cuisine in his lunch box) who finds a place in the L.A. biker culture, makes friends with drugs and gambling, and eventually focuses his addictive personality on creatively fusing flavors from all influences in his life and feeding people via his four restaurants and small fleet of food trucks.

The verbally gifted Choi captures the joy, determination, and diversity that immigrants bring to their new home, as well as the inevitable struggles. His irrepressible personality and his wide range of experiences—from poor immigrant to nouveau riche suburbanite, from addict to entrepreneur—remind us of the beauty and uniqueness of each person’s story, when embraced and (luckily for us) expressed.

Choi is also an outspoken advocate for addressing hunger. At the MAD Symposium

chefs’ gathering last fall, he talked about how food trucks, while a wonderful asset, are the result of the poverty, crime, and hunger issues that plague his city. “What language are we speaking as chefs?” he asked MAD attendees, urging them to use their platform and position to address social issues. “Are we just feeding the privileged? There’s nothing wrong with the fact that they can afford it, but are we feeding people just because they can afford it? We’re feeding a small populace, but we think we’re feeding the world.” Learn more at KogiBBQ. com/blog.

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ChurchAds.net

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esXaton The Che Guevara Jesus I love this picture. I’ve been showing it in my classes for more than a decade. But why in the world would I—an activist committed to consistent nonviolence—appreciate a portrayal of Jesus that is blended with Che Guevara? Che was a violent revolutionary who killed people for the causes and liberation he believed in. He fought for what he perceived to be economic justice, and he was willing to fight, kill, and even die at the hands of his enemies. He was not passive in the face of social problems; he was violent.

The Jesus of Matthew’s story taught his followers to “love your enemies.” But this was definitely not an invitation to passivity or nonaction. “Turning the left cheek” is often misunderstood as a passive response to abuse, but it’s not. Passivity is walking away and ignoring the problem. Violence is hitting back or ripping out the attacker’s jugular vein. Jesus taught a third way that was strong and that stayed present to the conflict.

Jesus’ clear message to his followers was to remain engaged in the situation by offering the cheek of dignity, equality, and respect.

When we are violently insulted, our natural reactions are either fight or flight— violence or passivity— but Jesus taught us to stand our ground and offer an alternative future. We have to stay within arm’s length of an enemy to turn the left cheek and challenge his or her exploitive, abusive violence.

We have to stay within arm’s length of an

Jesus taught his followers to “love your enemies.”

But this was definitely not an invitation to passivity or nonaction.

enemy to carry the pack of the occupation soldier who is abusing our people. Machiavelli said, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” Jesus taught how to keep our enemies close with love and power in order to transform all of us as well as the situation, rather than destroying them or ourselves with violence or ignoring them passively. Enemies rarely become friends through passivity or violence, but enemies can become friends—and systemic injustices can be changed—through loving, engaged action.

What’s often missing from Christians’ understanding of Jesus is the revolutionary way he took on unjust systems. Yet he didn’t do it with violence (although he had violent revolutionaries as followers—Simon the Zealot, for instance). What stands out to me in this red and

and it gets exhausting trying to fix huge broken systems where, for example, people starve when there’s an abundance of food) or getting angry and thinking how it makes sense that some might want, for example, to attack the leaders of a chemical company that’s polluting their rivers and land and killing people for profit.

Although I used to have firearms, I don’t anymore, but I understand why suffering people want to kill their enemies in hopes it will make life better. Why shouldn’t farmers in Latin America or Africa whose land is being taken by North American fruit, coffee, tea, or mining companies pick up their weapons and start shooting? Wouldn’t you? Why shouldn’t Liberians whose raw rubber is taken by American companies, turned into valuable products abroad, and then sold back

Do you support fighting and killing others for your people? If so, then you may be more like Che than like Jesus. On the other hand, if you’re passive and not into changing systems and structures but letting the status quo continue to oppress people—that’s not very much like Jesus either. black picture of Jesus are the determined gaze, the strength of love in the midst of conflict, and the crown of thorns. The crown of thorns in this picture is the symbol of commitment to nonviolence—he’s not holding a gun like Che, but he’s wearing the mocking crown of torturous death that is sometimes bestowed on the nonviolent, way-too-loving, and way-too-threatening revolutionary. Che died loving his people and fighting violently. Jesus died loving all people and fighting nonviolently.

I have a question for Christians who don’t like this picture because of the association with Che: Do you support fighting and killing others for your people? If so, then you may be more like Che than like Jesus. On the other hand, if you’re passive and not into changing systems and structures but letting the status quo continue to oppress people—that’s not very much like Jesus either.

I like this picture of Jesus because I’m a lousy peacemaker and justice-seeker. I too often tend toward either passively ignoring real problems (let’s face it, the world is messed up,

to Liberians at ridiculous prices (a tire in Liberia costs around $800)—pick up their weapons and fight? Killing the enemy makes so much sense, and everyone has enemies. Passively ignoring the enemy makes sense as well, if you have a nice enough life to get away with it or the perceived inability to do anything about the problem.

Love is both strong and patient, sometimes aggressive yet also gentle, speaking words of hope and truth even when they certainly will provoke retaliation. This picture of Jesus reminds me that it’s best if I’m not passive and it’s best if I’m not violent. It’s best if I can be determined, vocal, and loving, and in my weakness be made strong enough to continue to work for a transformed world.

Paul Alexander is co-president of ESA, a professor of public policy at Eastern University’s Palmer Theological Seminary, and co-founder of Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice.

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“From This Valley”

by Phil Madeira, John Paul White, & Joy Williams

Oh the desert dreams of a river That will run down to the sea Like my heart longs for an ocean To wash down over me.

Oh, won’t you take me from this valley To that mountain high above?

I will pray, pray, pray ’til I see your smiling face I will pray to the one I love.

Oh the outcast dreams of acceptance Just to find pure love’s embrace.

Like an orphan longs for its mother May you hold me in your grace.

Oh the caged bird dreams of a strong wind That will float beneath her wings.

Like a voice longs for a melody Oh, Jesus, carry me.

As sung by The Civil Wars & Emmylou Harris on the CD Mercyland: Hymns for the Rest of Us.

@2011 Nashville Minute (BMI) / Shiny Happy Music / BMG (BMI) / Sensibility Songs (ASCAP). Reprinted with permission.

58

BE CONSISTENT.

NOoABORTION NOoEUTHANASIA NOoDEATH PENALTY NOoPOVERTY NOoRACISM NOoWAR

MEMBER GROUPS/ENDORSERS (PARTIAL LISTING)

Jim Wallis Randall Balmer, Columbia University Evangelicals for Social Action Feminism and Nonviolence Studies Association Richard Foster David P. Gushee Stanley Hauerwaus Pax Christi USA Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prolife Nonviolent Action Committee SecularProLife.org Rev. Patrick Mahoney Ron Sider Orthodox Peace Fellowship Sojourners Wendell Berry Elizabeth Macalister Friends Witness for a Prolife Peace Testimony Glen Howard Stassen Dorothy Cotton, Civil Rights Activist Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum Feminists for Life of America Jean Vanier, L’Arche International People of African Interest & Descent (PAID) Democrats For Life of America Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ, Dead Man Walking Martin Sheen Koinonia Partners Woodcrest Bruderhof John K. Stoner

Rev. John Dear, SJ Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Abby Johnson Feminists Choosing Life of New York Brian D. McLaren Colman McCarthy, Center for Teaching Peace Respect Life, UK Just Organization for Natural Growth (India) Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians Rev. Dan Berrigan, SJ Shane Claiborne

Consistent Life OUR MISSION We are committed to the protection

of life, which is threatened in today's world by war, abortion, poverty, racism, capital punishment and euthanasia. We believe that these issues are linked under a 'consistent ethic of life'. We challenge those working on all or some of these issues to maintain a cooperative spirit of peace, reconciliation, and respect in protecting the unprotected.

Consistent Life: Voices for Peace and Life PO Box 9295, Silver Spring, MD 20916-9295 Phone 866-444-7245, Fax 413-485-2881

www.consistent-life.org

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We believe in people, power, progress.

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